The Straw in the Thief’s Beard

One morning there was trouble in the palace. A purse of gold coins belonging to the Emperor’s treasurer had vanished from a locked room. Only a handful of men had keys to that room, and every one of them swore he had never touched the purse.

The Emperor called them all into the hall and had them stand in a line. They were all respectable-looking men with neat clothes and fine, full beards.

“Birbal,” said Akbar, “one of these gentlemen is a thief and a liar. Find him.”

Birbal walked slowly up and down the line, looking at each man in turn. He stroked his own beard thoughtfully. Then he stopped and turned to the Emperor.

“Your Majesty, I already know which one it is. You see, the thief hid the purse in the hayloft above the stables. I went to look this morning, and found it. But when he climbed up there to hide it, he got a piece of straw caught in his beard. It is still there now.”

At once, one of the men raised his hand and patted his beard anxiously, feeling for the straw.

Birbal pointed at him. “There is your thief, Your Majesty.”

The man froze with his hand on his chin. “But there is no straw in my beard!”

“No,” agreed Birbal. “There is not. There was never any straw, and I never went to the hayloft. But an honest man would have no reason to check his beard. Only the thief was afraid that I might be telling the truth.”

The man fell to his knees and confessed. The purse was found, not in the hayloft at all, but under a loose floor tile in his own house.

The Emperor laughed and shook his head. “You catch them with nothing at all, Birbal. With sticks that don’t grow, and straws that aren’t there.”

“A guilty mind is very easy to frighten, Your Majesty,” said Birbal. “It does all the work for me.”