‘My theory,’ he began, ‘is the following. The mystery novel represents in the twentieth century what the romance of chivalry represented in the time of Cervantes. I will go even further: I think that something similar to Don Quixote could be done with a mystery: a satire of a detective novel – just as the Quixote was a satire of the chivalric romance. Imagine an individual who has spent his life reading mystery novels and has reached such a point in his madness that he believes the world functions the way it does in a novel by Nicholas Blake or Ellery Queen. Then imagine that this poor fellow sets off finally to solve crimes, and to act in real life the way a detective in a mystery novel does. I think such a book could be entertaining, tragic, symbolic, satirical … beautiful.’

‘Then why don’t you do it,’ Mimí asked mockingly.

‘For two reasons: I am not Cervantes … and I am very lazy.’

‘I think the first reason is sufficient’ was Mimí’s comment.

Then, worse luck, she turned to me:

‘This man,’ she said, jabbing her ridiculous cigarette holder in Hunter’s direction, ‘rails against mystery novels because he is not capable of writing one – even though they are the most boring novels on earth.’

‘Give me a cigarette,’ Hunter said to his cousin, and only then replied:

‘When will you learn not to exaggerate? In the first place, I did not “rail” against mystery novels. I simply said that it should be possible to write a kind of contemporary Don Quixote. In the second place, you are mistaken if you think I am totally without talent in that regard. I once had a brilliant idea for a mystery.’

‘Sans blague,’ Mimí limited herself to saying.

‘Oh, but I did, I tell you. Now: a man has a mother, a wife, and a little boy. One night the mother is mysteriously murdered. The police investigations lead nowhere. A while later the wife is murdered: same story. Finally, the little boy is murdered. The man is out of his mind with grief, because he loves them all, especially the boy. Desperate, he decides to investigate the crimes himself. Using the usual inductive, deductive, analytical, synthetical, and on and on, methods of those geniuses of the detective novel, he arrives at the conclusion that the murderer must kill a fourth time, on a certain day, at a certain hour, and in a certain place. His conclusion is that the murderer must now murder him. On the appointed day and hour, the man goes to the place where the fourth murder is to be committed, and awaits the murderer. But the murderer doesn’t come. The man reviews his deductions: he might have miscalculated the place; no, the place is correct. Perhaps he miscalculated the hour; no, the hour is correct. The conclusion is intolerable: the murderer is already there. In other words: he is the murderer, he had committed the crimes in some psychic state. The detective and the murderer are the same person.’

‘Too original for my taste,’ commented Mimí. ‘And how does it end? Didn’t you say there had to be a fourth murder?’

‘But that is obvious,’ Hunter drawled. ‘The man commits suicide. The doubt remains whether he killed himself out of remorse, or whether the murderer “I” kills the detective “I,” as in an ordinary crime. Do you like it?’

‘It’s amusing enough. But it’s one thing to tell it like that, and another to write the novel.’

‘That’s true,’ Hunter admitted tranquilly. (The Tunnel)