Formula: Only One Among You

"Busted Blossoms"

In life, the possibility of harm seems limitless.

The fact that at any moment we could be caught up in a robbery, mugged, or injured in a series of

events that have no connection to us is frightening. 

In life, we could simply be in the wrong place at the wrong time. 

In literature though, the possibilities are limited to the characters in the

book. • The connections are displayed in a

sensible manor so that the reader knows the story behind what might seem to be a person in the wrong place at the wrong time. 

• In literature, the randomness of unlimited possibility is then limited to a finite number of understandable possibilities. 

An early example of an Only One Among You formula is King

Solomon and his ruling with the two women claiming the same baby. 

• The women lived together and both had infants of the same age. 

• One mother accidentally rolled over in her sleep and smothered her baby. 

• She then switched her dead child with the others living child. 

• Both women claimed to be the mother of the living child.

In this story there is a finite possibility of who could have

smothered her child. 

There is not the possibility of a third person coming in and doing a

crime. 

• It had to be one of the women.  – So when Solomon said to cut the baby in two,

he knew that the true mother would never want her child to die, so the other woman who was willing to cut the baby in two couldn't be the real mother. 

Only One Among You Definition: 

• A crime has been committed in a sealed off location where none of the suspects could have left and no other suspects could have entered, so one of them must be the criminal. 

This is the mirror image of the Locked Room formula,

• Instead of all culprits being locked out of the crime scene, all possible culprits are locked in.  – Because all suspects had the opportunity to

commit the crime, the detective must focus on the motives and means in order to find the culprit through the process of elimination. 

"Busted Blossoms"

In "Busted Blossoms," Toby Peters is a hard-boiled detective. 

• All the early detectives solved mysteries like machines, almost never touching on the natural human emotions to solve the case,

• but instead, • relying on their

heightened knowledge and what sometimes comes across as a sixth sense.

• The 'Classic' detectives (i.e Holmes and Dupin) always had the knowledge that was necessary for solving the mystery at hand and wanted nothing else but the satisfaction of the solution itself.

• At times, there appears no other reason for these men to exist other than solving 'crimes' with the help of their friend/right hand man (Watson or Poe's 'Narrator').

• The 'hard-boiled' detectives seem to approach their cases haphazardly, with minimal knowledge of the situation.

• They rely on gut instinct and a 'brawn over brains' style of deduction that separates them (Spade, Marlowe, Archer) from the 'classic' sleuths.

Different Setting

• The 'classic' detectives not only possessed knowledge that the average person would not, but it seems that they also had far fewer loose ends to tie up due to the settings in which the authors placed them.

• While the 'hard-boiled' private eyes are following up leads in the big cities, with some of the lowest people on earth, the 'classic' detectives are off in the countryside dealing with, at the worst, an escaped convict.

• These criminal figures make up the majority of players in 'hard-boiled' mysteries.

Different Characters

• Not only is the 'hard-boiled' story told in a new setting, it is told about different types of people.

• The Baskervilles of Homles' 'Hound' and the Verinders of 'The Moonstone' are people of wealth and elegance, people that would have no place in the slums of Hollywood or Los Angeles with the 'peddlers' and 'grifters', like Gutman or Geiger.

• He is a tough private detective who is working to protect some of the lowliest people in the film industry. 

D.W. Griffith hires Peters because of the death threats he received,

due to his racist films.

All the characters are despicable, washed up, low-lifes.

• There's a comedian who isn't funny

• a brainless leading man

• an aged beauty

• a tarnished director

• and a un-successful producer. 

• We even know that the detective isn't so great because he was asleep when the murder was committed. 

"Busted Blossoms" is also a Only One Among You mystery because only one of the guests at the table

could have killed Sikes.  • It  couldn't have been Toby Peters

– (he was sleeping in another room),

• it couldn't have been Mrs. Winters – (she was in the Kitchen),

• and it couldn't have been Sikes himself – (because a man would be hard pinched to kill himself

by stabbing himself in his own back)

so it has to be either:    

• - Denise Giles: Actress- Marty Korites: Producer- James Vann: Actor- Lew Dollard: Comedian

Characters already ruled out:

•         - Toby Peters        - D.W. Griffith        - Mrs. Windless        - Sikes: Financial Baker and victim

Toby Peters and D.W. Griffith figure out the murder with classic hard-

boiled style. • Peters is reluctant and haphazard at his

approach, often taunting the suspects and longing to hand the whole mess over to the police. 

• Griffith is more "brains" based, because it is he who notices that the knife that was in Sikes' neck was removed and put into his back.  Griffith's natural directing instincts lead him to realize that a scene has been played for him.

• Toby is able to man-handle the answers out of them to the point of a plea bargain. 

• He even punches the fleeing James Vann in order to maintain the suspects until the police get there.