"The Stolen White Elephant" is a satirical short story by Mark Twain. The tale begins when the King of Siam sends a rare white elephant as a gift to the Queen of England. Upon arrival in New Jersey, the elephant mysteriously disappears. The narrator, the animal's caretaker, hires Inspector Blunt and his team of celebrated detectives to track it down. As the investigation unfolds with absurd clues and false sightings, the detectives' expenses skyrocket, draining the narrator's finances. Twain masterfully parodies detective fiction, exposing the incompetence and greed behind the detectives' polished reputations, culminating in a darkly comic and ironic twist ending.
