Why We Read Fiction_ Theory of Mind and the Novel - Lisa Zunshine [83]
Of course, in spite of Lupin's ironic, "I see that we are entirely of one mind," we haven't yet arrived at the actual explanation of the crime. When that comes, the material evidence— specifically, the red scarf—will acquire at least five different meanings, all of them reflecting the workings of scheming human minds attempting to influence other people's thinking.
It turns out that the showily dressed young lady was an aspiring singer who had in her possession a precious stone, a "magnificent sapphire" (187). Foreseeing that one day somebody may try to steal the stone (one instance of mind-reading, that is, of predicting what somebody else will be thinking in the future), she has stitched it into the tassel of the red scarf that she wore. When the murderer, who had pretended to be her admirer (another complex instance of mind-reading and mind-misreading) stabbed her with a knife, he used the scarf to wipe the blood off the knife, so as to leave no traces for the detectives (thus foreseeing and attempting to influence the detectives' thinking). The scarf was torn into two pieces during the scuffle accompanying the murder. The piece with bloody marks was found by Lupin, whereas the piece concealing the sapphire was held as material evidence by police, who did not know, however, what was hidden inside the tassel. When, acting on Lupin's suggestions, Ganimard arrests the murderer, he cannot prove the suspect's guilt to the public because to do so he needs the part of the scarf bearing the bloody marks. Ganimard, thus, cannot make the public share his views about the murder scenario without producing both halves of the scarf {yet another example of attempting to influence other people's state of mind).
Lupin knows all along that Ganimard will at some point find himself in this predicament, and he makes an appointment with him requiring him to bring along the piece of scarf found by the police. During the meeting, Lupin unravels the tassel and takes out the sapphire under the astonished gaze of the inspector who then tries to prevent Lupin from getting away with the precious stone only to find out that Lupin has anticipated the inspector's reaction {massive agglomeration of mind-reading) and has outfitted the doors of their meeting place with special locks that he but not the inspector can open. The actual act of murder, in other words, and the apparently crucial piece of evidence, the red scarf, are there to lead us to the real business of the detective story: the reconstruction of the plotting minds, whose machinations play off each other in unexpected ways to the delight of the reader.
Let us see how the story "works out" the reader's metarepresentational capacity. The story begins when one morning, Inspector Ganimard notices a "shabbily dressed" man in the street, who stoops "at every thirty or forty yards to fasten his bootlace, or pick up his stick, or for some other reason." Each time he stoops, he takes a "little piece of orange peel from his pocket and [lays] it stealthily on the curb of the pavement." This behavior is naturally puzzling, and here is our first bit of mind-reading that can explain this behavior and that we store as a metarepresentation, that is, as an explanation that is good for now but will very likely get modified as more data come in: "It was probably a mere display of eccentricity, a childish amusement" not deserving anybody's "attention" (178).
Inspector Ganimard, however, is never satisfied "until [he knows] the secret cause of things." He begins to follow the man and soon notices something even stranger. The man seems to exchange mysterious signals with a boy walking on the other side of the street. After each such exchange, the boy draws with a piece of chalk a white cross "on the wall of the house next to him." Inspector Ganimard now has good reasons to dismiss the previous interpretation of the situation, for clearly