Golden Peacock - Maung San Sya's investigation into the disappearance of exam question papers

Missing exam question papers

One day, while I was reading the newspaper near the front window, my friend U San Sya was very busy planning to publish a book on various types of drugs for young detectives to read and study. U San Sya did not listen to me recounting the strange news in the newspaper, but refused to say, “Come on, Mr. Thein Maung.” At that moment, an Englishman, who was about 40 years old and wearing large glasses, came up to me. U San Sya greeted me with “Hello, Professor Smith,” and I knew that he was an old acquaintance.

Professor Smith sat down in his chair with a busy expression and said, "If you have an hour to spare, my friend, I have an important matter to deal with."

" Please, Professor, I'm so busy that I apologize for going to the police if it's something that can be handled by the police."

" If I complain to the police , the entire university will be ruined, my friend. Please help me out a little bit. This is not something that anyone else can do. It won't take long, just a moment."

Seeing that U San Sya would not be able to refuse, he put down the papers and prepared to listen.

" Well... at least that's enough, Professor."

“ U Sanshya, tomorrow is the date for the exam for the Pali language scholarship. Since it is a two-year study at the university for three hundred gold coins a year, a large number of BAs and BScs will come to answer. There is a large paragraph in the question paper that needs to be translated into Burmese. If you know this question in advance, it will be very beneficial for the answerer. Therefore, it is important for us to take special care so that people do not see the question paper.”

" You speak Pali, don't you?"

“ Yes.. Today at around 3 pm, the government printing office sent me three proof sheets of the question paper. “I had to take care not to make any mistakes in this question paper, so I sent it to the printer without letting him see the proof. Even after 3 and a half hours, the proofs were not finished. A professor friend of mine had invited me for tea at this time, so I left the proof sheets on the table and locked the door of the room. After more than half an hour, when I returned after drinking tea, I found the door of the room locked. So I thought I had forgotten to lock it and checked the key in my bag. But who has the key? My servant, Muthu Sami, has it. This old man has been working for me for 10 years. Don’t tell me that I am honest. I can trust this old man as much as I trust myself. That's how honest a guy is. So I called him and asked him, and he said the key to the door was his. He asked me if I wanted to have tea, but when he came out and didn't see me, he forgot the key. It looks like he entered the room shortly after I left. Forgetting the key is not a big deal in this situation. Today, U San Sya, I'm really tired."

" Tell me."

“ As soon as I entered the room, I saw that the papers were all torn. When I left, I had placed all three proof sheets on the large table in the middle of the room. When I returned, I found one on the floor, one on the small table by the window, and only one sheet left on the large table.”

" The first sheet is on the floor, the second sheet is by the window, and the third sheet is on the big table."

" That's right, it's the same. How else can you tell the difference between the first and the second?"

" Just say it, it'll be clear later."

“ At first I thought it was Muthusamy who had taken the papers. But when I checked him, he said it couldn’t have been him. I believe he was right. So who else could it have been? Come to think of it, someone had passed by the door and, seeing me with a key in his pocket, had entered the room and rummaged through the papers. A scholarship is worth four or five thousand rupees, and if you consider it a very valuable job, it is reasonable to assume that an unscrupulous person would have made a great effort to find out the truth.”

" That's right, Professor."

“ My servant, Mutu Sami, was so shocked when he found out that the question papers had been tampered with that he fell over in his chair. So, while Mutu was messing around, I looked around the room carefully and saw signs of tampering again. On the small table behind the window, I saw some pencil sharpeners and a broken pencil. I think the signs are that the pencil was broken and had to be sharpened again after being copied.”

" That's right... that's a good way to think about it. Tell me."

“ Not only that, there’s more… My little table is covered in leather. I bought it recently. Now I see a three-inch tear in the leather. And I also found a small ball of clay about an inch long near the edge of the table. When I carefully picked up the ball of clay, I saw that it was mixed with sawdust.”

" What else can you find out there?"

“ There is no way out of this. I was still struggling with what to do when I found this, and now you remember that you came running. If you can find this person, you will have to find him. If you can’t find him, the exam will have to be postponed. If this continues, I will become a dog. Be a goat. If the principal tells about the incident, at least my reputation will be ruined through negligence. So, please help me quietly, U San Sya.”

U Sanshya stood up from his seat and changed his clothes, asking, "Who else came into the room after the proof papers arrived?"

" A black student named Mohan came and asked about the exam."

" Is he also taking this exam?"

"Come in." "Where were the papers when he came in?"

"It's rolling on the table"

"Can you tell it's just a proof sheet?"

"I can tell"

"Isn't anyone coming from here?"

"Don't come."

" Did anyone know that the papers would be in the room?"

"No... only the printing house knows."

"Do you know Mutusamika?"

“I don’t know.”

"Where does Muthu Sami live?"

“It was so important to come to you that I had to leave him in the room.”

"Where did you put the papers?"

"It was locked in the closet."

" So, I have to think about this: Was the person who shuffled the papers Mohan? If not, it's not like he knew the papers were there, but rather that he accidentally came in and saw them and took them, right?"

" I think so too"

“ Okay... then come on, I’ll just have to follow you. Come on, Ko Thein Maung, come on.”

Professor Sith's house was only about 50 feet away from the school building where the students lived.

The students were studying, and we arrived at dusk. Before Sanshya entered the professor's room, he tiptoed out the window and peeked into the room.

Smith .. “It's not through the window, it's through the door,” U San Shaar said, smiling with a mischievous expression.

Then Smith unlocked the door and everyone entered the room. When U Sanshya asked, “Which chair did you leave Mutu Sami on?” the professor pointed and said, “That chair by the window.”

A bilingual book series that reimagines the era of Amee novels from English to Burmese. The essence of Amee novels is not to translate or translate them exactly, but to create a unique and original composition based on the core of the story and the flow of the story. The books that have been arranged now can be read by those who want to read only in English and learn the language, by those who want to read only in Burmese and gain a unique taste, and by those who want to create literature, they can approach and study the creative skills and writing style of Amee novelists, etc. The aim of this publication is to use them as needed.