Chapter 31 "The Twenty Faces of a Phantom Thief" Problem Solving

This article involves the answer to the work, please read the work first, and then read this article. It is the eleventh volume of "Edogawa Ranpo Works Collection".This is Ranpo's first juvenile reasoning novel.From January to December 1936, this article was serialized eleven chapters in the monthly magazine "Youth Club" issued by Kodansha (with a break in July). In December of the same year, Kodansha published a separate booklet. Thirteen thousand words. Before the Meiji Restoration (1868) in Japan, that is, in the Edo period, there were reading materials for boys and girls, but the content was vulgar and did not have any literary value.After the Restoration, literature followed closely behind the political system, art, medicine, science and technology, etc., in an all-round westernization. People of insight at that time actively translated or rewritten European and American literary works.

The earliest juvenile book magazine "Shounenen" was founded in 1888, the fourth year after the establishment of modern Japanese literature.Afterwards, new juvenile magazines were launched almost every year, but their content was nothing more than European and American rewritten works, or old-style juvenile books and inspirational articles. Compared with European and American juvenile novels, there was a huge gap. In 1900, Harunami Oshikawa published a series of juvenile adventure novels starting from "Undersea Warship".In 1910, Mitsuki Haruke also began writing juvenile adventure novels.As a result, juvenile novels, which were deeply influenced by modern European and American literature, finally gained a foothold in the Japanese literary world.

In November 1914, the "Youth Club", known as the base camp of juvenile novels, was launched.At the beginning of the publication, a group of pure literature writers were invited to create juvenile novels. They wanted to improve the literary quality of juvenile novels, but they were unsuccessful. A decade or so later, though, there emerged a group of amphibious writers who could both specialize in juvenile fiction and popular fiction.For example, Yoshikawa Eiji, Daibutsu Jiro, and Takagaki who wrote legends of the times, Nomura Godo, Yamanakamine Dairo, and Nanyo Ichiro who wrote adventure novels, Sato Koroku who wrote inspirational novels, Sasaki Kuni who wrote humorous novels, etc., all of a sudden juvenile literature Come alive.

It is about the battle of wits between the famous detective Akechi Kogoro and the phantom thief "Twenty Faces".The great industrialist Sotaro Hashiba is facing a double situation of sadness and joy. The joy is that the eldest son Souchi who ran away from home ten years ago will return from Borneo to be reunited. The sorrow is that the famous thief with twenty faces sent a letter to announce It's time to come to steal the six big diamonds on the crown of the Romanov dynasty. When the time came for the Phantom Thief's announcement, Diamond disappeared in front of Hashiba and his son. At the same time, Soichi suddenly pointed a pistol at his father.It turns out that Zhuang Yi was disguised by Twenty Faces, but after being found out, the second son Zhuang Er used a strange trick to frustrate the phantom thief.

Frustrated, Twenty Faces disguised himself as the driver of Hashiba's family and kidnapped Soji, and left a letter asking Sotaro to exchange for the statue of Anami, which is comparable to the American treasure.Sotaro asked Kogoro Akechi for help. Akechi was on a business trip abroad, so he sent his assistant Kobayashi who was only fifteen or sixteen years old. The above is just the beginning of the story. How the boy Kobayashi rescued Soji, and how he dealt with the Twenty Faces after Zhizhi returned to China, the plot of the story is complicated and the rhythm is tight.It is a masterpiece that laid the foundation of Japanese juvenile mystery novels.Although this article is written for young readers, it is also suitable for adults to read.

Due to the support of the vast majority of young readers, Ranpo continued to serialize the sequel "Youth Detectives" in "Boys Club" from January to December of the 37th year of the second year.Afterwards, until 1943, the rhythm of one article per year was maintained, and juvenile mystery novels were serialized in the "Youth Club".The main works are as follows: Doctor Goblin: January-December 1938. "The Big Gold Nugget": January 1939-February 1940. "New Treasure Island": April 1940 to March 1941. "Smart Ichitaro": January 1942 to January 1943.

The first two articles are also the full-length novels of the "Youth Detective Team" series. "New Treasure Island" is an adventure novel, and "Smart Ichitaro" is a collection of scientific short stories.It is necessary to explain why Luanbu created these two articles.In 1939, when the Second World War broke out, the Japanese government considered mystery novels to be imported literature and prohibited publication.In order to make ends meet, Ranpo had to make compromises and began to write adventure novels and science fiction novels. Although Ranpo only wrote these six juvenile novels before the Second World War, after the Second World War, he began to mass-produce juvenile mystery novels, and his involvement in mystery novels became less and less.Regarding the part of post-war juvenile mystery novels, it is explained in detail in "Explanation of "Boys Detective Corps"".