Teasing Mysteries

New Zealand Listener, Volume 29, Issue 730, 10 July 1953, Page 10

Teasing Mysteries

\V HEN stories like those in 3ZB’s I Love a Mystery drive you off to verify their authenticity, I suppose it may be said that the mystery writer has achieved his object, even if it is at the expense of history. But for the benefit of anyone who now believes that Moliére died on the first evening when he rose from a sick bed to replace the actor who had died while playing the main role in Malade Imaginaire, Chambers’s Book of Days says: "On the third night of the representation, he was advised not to play; but he resolved to make the effort, and it cost him his life.’ Here is no suggestion that the hypochrondriac role was itself fatal. It is usually simple enough to track down the circumstances surrounding the death of a famous man, but how will I verify the story concerning the missionary who defeated the witch doctor by getting rid. of the stone through which his evil, fever-giving spells worked? I admit that the storm which caused Maatu to be buried in his cave did strain credulity, so in this instance a sense of proportion will have to take the place of that "common sense" which automatically rules out the supernatural.