Birbal Catches the Thief

In the court of the great Emperor Akbar there was no one quite so clever as his favourite minister, Birbal. Whenever a puzzle came along that nobody else could untangle, it was always Birbal who found the answer.

One day a rich merchant came to the court in great distress. “Your Majesty,” he cried, “a precious jewel has been stolen from my house. It must be one of my own servants, for no one else ever comes inside. But they all swear they are innocent, and I cannot for the life of me tell which one is lying.”

The Emperor turned, as he always did, to Birbal.

Birbal had all of the merchant’s servants brought before him, and he looked them over calmly. Then he gave each of them a thin stick, every stick exactly the same length as the next. “These are no ordinary sticks,” he announced in a grave and solemn voice. “They are magic. Take one home tonight and sleep with it beside you. And here is the wonderful thing. The stick of an honest servant will stay exactly as it is. But the stick belonging to the thief will grow two inches longer by morning.”

The servants took their sticks and went home, most of them puzzled, one of them very, very worried.

The next morning they all returned and laid their sticks before Birbal. He went slowly down the row, measuring each one against the next. And then he stopped. For one stick, and only one, was now two inches shorter than all the rest.

Birbal smiled. “Here,” he said, “is our thief.”

For the guilty servant, terrified that his stick truly would grow in the night and give him away, had crept out in the dark and sliced two inches off the end of it, hoping that would keep it the right length. And in trying so hard not to be caught, he had caught himself.

The jewel was found hidden away in his house, and returned to the grateful merchant. Akbar laughed and shook his head in wonder. “Birbal,” he said, “those sticks were never magic at all, were they?”

“No, Your Majesty,” said Birbal. “But a guilty conscience always is.”