1. 推理小說必須給讀者與偵探同等的機會去推理，解決謎團。因此所有的線索要寫清楚。
The reader must have equal opportunity with the detective for solving the mystery. All clues must be plainly stated and described.
2. 除兇手對偵探佈置的謎團之外，作者不可另外以文字描述向讀者佈置詭計，使讀者發生混亂。
No willful tricks or deceptions may be placed on the reader other than those played legitimately by the criminal on the detective himself.
3. 推理小說不可加入戀愛故事，因為這容易使純粹的鬥智遊戲，滲透不純粹的情緒，以致引起推理的混亂。推理小說的主旨在於尋出真兇，而不在談情說愛。
There must be no love interest. The business in hand is to bring a criminal to the bar of justice, not to bring a lovelorn couple to the hymeneal altar.
4. 不可設定偵探自己，或搜查當局人員為兇手。
The detective himself, or one of the official investigators, should never turn out to be the culprit. This is bald trickery, on a par with offering some one a bright penny for a five-dollar gold piece. It's false pretenses.
5. 兇手必須從邏輯的推理過程中查出。不可依靠偶然或巧合，以及無推理根據的自供。
The culprit must be determined by logical deductions — not by accident or coincidence or unmotivated confession. To solve a criminal problem in this latter fashion is like sending the reader on a deliberate wild-goose chase, and then telling him, after he has failed, that you had the object of his search up your sleeve all the time. Such an author is no better than a practical joker.
6. 推理小說需要設定偵探，由他來收集解謎的線索，從而找出真兇。
The detective novel must have a detective in it; and a detective is not a detective unless he detects. His function is to gather clues that will eventually lead to the person who did the dirty work in the first chapter; and if the detective does not reach his conclusions through an analysis of those clues, he has no more solved his problem than the schoolboy who gets his answer out of the back of the arithmetic.
7. 推理小說絕對要有殺人事件，死者死得越乾脆越好。殺人以外的犯罪不易引起讀者興趣，以此寫出洋洋灑灑的大長篇也未免小題大作。
There simply must be a corpse in a detective novel, and the deader the corpse the better. No lesser crime than murder will suffice. Three hundred pages is far too much pother for a crime other than murder. After all, the reader's trouble and expenditure of energy must be rewarded.
8. 推理小說的謎團必須以嚴格而自然的方式去解決。不可使用占卜、乩童、讀心術、降靈術、水晶透視術等關乎超自然力的方法去解謎，這樣才能使讀者具有和偵探同等的智力競爭。
The problem of the crime must he solved by strictly naturalistic means. Such methods for learning the truth as slate-writing, ouija-boards, mind-reading, spiritualistic se'ances, crystal-gazing, and the like, are taboo. A reader has a chance when matching his wits with a rationalistic detective, but if he must compete with the world of spirits and go chasing about the fourth dimension of metaphysics, he is defeated ab initio.
9. 偵探只要一人。過多偵探往往會分散讀者的注意力，攪亂讀者邏輯思考的脈絡。
There must be but one detective — that is, but one protagonist of deduction — one deus ex machina. To bring the minds of three or four, or sometimes a gang of detectives to bear on a problem, is not only to disperse the interest and break the direct thread of logic, but to take an unfair advantage of the reader. If there is more than one detective the reader doesn't know who his codeductor is. It's like making the reader run a race with a relay team.
10. 兇手在故事中，必須是主要人物之一。作者不可將兇手定為與故事毫無瓜葛的局外人或無足輕重的小角色。
The culprit must turn out to be a person who has played a more or less prominent part in the story — that is, a person with whom the reader is familiar and in whom he takes an interest.
11. 不可設定「下人」為兇手，如秘書、馬伕、園丁、傭人、守門人、廚師等人。兇手在故事中，須具社會地位，最好是以常識判斷不會犯案的人物。
A servant must not be chosen by the author as the culprit. This is begging a noble question. It is a too easy solution. The culprit must be a decidedly worth-while person — one that wouldn't ordinarily come under suspicion.
12. 不管被害者有多少人，兇手只要一個。不過可以設定共犯，只是犯案的全責還是在兇手。
There must be but one culprit, no matter how many murders are committed. The culprit may, of course, have a minor helper or co-plotter; but the entire onus must rest on one pair of shoulders: the entire indignation of the reader must be permitted to concentrate on a single black nature.
13. 不可以用秘密結社、黑社會犯罪組織等作為推理小說的主體。這類小說應屬冒險小說，而設定犯罪集團作為兇手避難之處，對讀者和偵探的鬥智機會，也是不公平的。
Secret societies, camorras, mafias, et al., have no place in a detective story. A fascinating and truly beautiful murder is irremediably spoiled by any such wholesale culpability. To be sure, the murderer in a detective novel should be given a sporting chance; but it is going too far to grant him a secret society to fall back on. No high-class, self-respecting murderer would want such odds.
14. 殺人方法需合理且具科學根據。如發現化學新元素，或是發明珍奇毒藥以此作為殺人方法，是不允許的。
The method of murder, and the means of detecting it, must be be rational and scientific. That is to say, pseudo-science and purely imaginative and speculative devices are not to be tolerated in the roman policier. Once an author soars into the realm of fantasy, in the Jules Verne manner, he is outside the bounds of detective fiction, cavorting in the uncharted reaches of adventure.
15. 案件自發生到搜查，需保持一貫性，以便供讀者參與推理。作者本身要有適當的誠實和運動家精神，如有洞燭機先的聰明讀者，即可由其邏輯分析，和偵探同時找出兇手。作者不可以故意隱藏重要的破案線索。
The truth of the problem must at all times be apparent — provided the reader is shrewd enough to see it. By this I mean that if the reader, after learning the explanation for the crime, should reread the book, he would see that the solution had, in a sense, been staring him in the face-that all the clues really pointed to the culprit — and that, if he had been as clever as the detective, he could have solved the mystery himself without going on to the final chapter. That the clever reader does often thus solve the problem goes without saying.
16. 推理小說不需要用很長的篇幅來描述與故事進展無關的事物。比如文學性的粉飾、完美的寫景等。因為讀者只想涵泳作品中的智慧遊戲，其餘皆為繁詞冗句。
A detective novel should contain no long descriptive passages, no literary dallying with side-issues, no subtly worked-out character analyses, no "atmospheric" preoccupations. such matters have no vital place in a record of crime and deduction. They hold up the action and introduce issues irrelevant to the main purpose, which is to state a problem, analyze it, and bring it to a successful conclusion. To be sure, there must be a sufficient descriptiveness and character delineation to give the novel verisimilitude.
17. 不可將兇手設為強盜、山賊、海盜等職業犯罪者。如此的設定毫無鬥智的魅力可言。
A professional criminal must never be shouldered with the guilt of a crime in a detective story. Crimes by housebreakers and bandits are the province of the police departments — not of authors and brilliant amateur detectives. A really fascinating crime is one committed by a pillar of a church, or a spinster noted for her charities.
18. 解決案件時，不可到了最後關頭，以自殺或事故死亡的情節作結束。這樣是虎頭蛇尾的作品。
A crime in a detective story must never turn out to be an accident or a suicide. To end an odyssey of sleuthing with such an anti-climax is to hoodwink the trusting and kind-hearted reader.
19. 推理小說中的犯罪動機必須是個人性的。如國際陰謀政變戰爭，屬於間諜小說的範圍。
The motives for all crimes in detective stories should be personal. International plottings and war politics belong in a different category of fiction — in secret-service tales, for instance. But a murder story must be kept gemütlich, so to speak. It must reflect the reader's everyday experiences, and give him a certain outlet for his own repressed desires and emotions.
20. 最後列舉幾項「凡是具有自尊心的推理作家」，不會使用的方法:
a. 犯罪現場留有煙蒂，則判定吸同樣香煙的人為兇手。
b. 強迫嫌疑犯自白。
c. 留假指紋在犯罪現場。
d. 找替身製造不在場證明。
e. 在犯罪現場的狗沒吠，以此判定兇手和被害者是熟人。
f. 揭開謎底時，才告知讀者兇手是雙胞胎之一。
g. 使用皮下注射器，或即刻死亡的毒藥。
h. 警官到達後才成立的密室。
i. 由訊問的連鎖反應實驗斷定兇手。
j. 到故事快結束時，偵探由暗號找出兇手。
And (to give my Credo an even score of items) I herewith list a few of the devices which no self-respecting detective story writer will now avail himself of. They have been employed too often, and are familiar to all true lovers of literary crime. To use them is a confession of the author's ineptitude and lack of originality.
(a) Determining the identity of the culprit by comparing the butt of a cigarette left at the scene of the crime with the brand smoked by a suspect.
(b) The bogus spiritualistic se'ance to frighten the culprit into giving himself away.
(c) Forged fingerprints.
(d) The dummy-figure alibi.
(e) The dog that does not bark and thereby reveals the fact that the intruder is familiar.
(f)The final pinning of the crime on a twin, or a relative who looks exactly like the suspected, but innocent, person.
(g) The hypodermic syringe and the knockout drops.
(h) The commission of the murder in a locked room after the police have actually broken in.
(i) The word association test for guilt.
(j) The cipher, or code letter, which is eventually unraveled by the sleuth.
The reader must have equal opportunity with the detective for solving the mystery. All clues must be plainly stated and described.
2. 除兇手對偵探佈置的謎團之外，作者不可另外以文字描述向讀者佈置詭計，使讀者發生混亂。
No willful tricks or deceptions may be placed on the reader other than those played legitimately by the criminal on the detective himself.
3. 推理小說不可加入戀愛故事，因為這容易使純粹的鬥智遊戲，滲透不純粹的情緒，以致引起推理的混亂。推理小說的主旨在於尋出真兇，而不在談情說愛。
There must be no love interest. The business in hand is to bring a criminal to the bar of justice, not to bring a lovelorn couple to the hymeneal altar.
4. 不可設定偵探自己，或搜查當局人員為兇手。
The detective himself, or one of the official investigators, should never turn out to be the culprit. This is bald trickery, on a par with offering some one a bright penny for a five-dollar gold piece. It's false pretenses.
5. 兇手必須從邏輯的推理過程中查出。不可依靠偶然或巧合，以及無推理根據的自供。
The culprit must be determined by logical deductions — not by accident or coincidence or unmotivated confession. To solve a criminal problem in this latter fashion is like sending the reader on a deliberate wild-goose chase, and then telling him, after he has failed, that you had the object of his search up your sleeve all the time. Such an author is no better than a practical joker.
6. 推理小說需要設定偵探，由他來收集解謎的線索，從而找出真兇。
The detective novel must have a detective in it; and a detective is not a detective unless he detects. His function is to gather clues that will eventually lead to the person who did the dirty work in the first chapter; and if the detective does not reach his conclusions through an analysis of those clues, he has no more solved his problem than the schoolboy who gets his answer out of the back of the arithmetic.
7. 推理小說絕對要有殺人事件，死者死得越乾脆越好。殺人以外的犯罪不易引起讀者興趣，以此寫出洋洋灑灑的大長篇也未免小題大作。
There simply must be a corpse in a detective novel, and the deader the corpse the better. No lesser crime than murder will suffice. Three hundred pages is far too much pother for a crime other than murder. After all, the reader's trouble and expenditure of energy must be rewarded.
8. 推理小說的謎團必須以嚴格而自然的方式去解決。不可使用占卜、乩童、讀心術、降靈術、水晶透視術等關乎超自然力的方法去解謎，這樣才能使讀者具有和偵探同等的智力競爭。
The problem of the crime must he solved by strictly naturalistic means. Such methods for learning the truth as slate-writing, ouija-boards, mind-reading, spiritualistic se'ances, crystal-gazing, and the like, are taboo. A reader has a chance when matching his wits with a rationalistic detective, but if he must compete with the world of spirits and go chasing about the fourth dimension of metaphysics, he is defeated ab initio.
9. 偵探只要一人。過多偵探往往會分散讀者的注意力，攪亂讀者邏輯思考的脈絡。
There must be but one detective — that is, but one protagonist of deduction — one deus ex machina. To bring the minds of three or four, or sometimes a gang of detectives to bear on a problem, is not only to disperse the interest and break the direct thread of logic, but to take an unfair advantage of the reader. If there is more than one detective the reader doesn't know who his codeductor is. It's like making the reader run a race with a relay team.
10. 兇手在故事中，必須是主要人物之一。作者不可將兇手定為與故事毫無瓜葛的局外人或無足輕重的小角色。
The culprit must turn out to be a person who has played a more or less prominent part in the story — that is, a person with whom the reader is familiar and in whom he takes an interest.
11. 不可設定「下人」為兇手，如秘書、馬伕、園丁、傭人、守門人、廚師等人。兇手在故事中，須具社會地位，最好是以常識判斷不會犯案的人物。
A servant must not be chosen by the author as the culprit. This is begging a noble question. It is a too easy solution. The culprit must be a decidedly worth-while person — one that wouldn't ordinarily come under suspicion.
12. 不管被害者有多少人，兇手只要一個。不過可以設定共犯，只是犯案的全責還是在兇手。
There must be but one culprit, no matter how many murders are committed. The culprit may, of course, have a minor helper or co-plotter; but the entire onus must rest on one pair of shoulders: the entire indignation of the reader must be permitted to concentrate on a single black nature.
13. 不可以用秘密結社、黑社會犯罪組織等作為推理小說的主體。這類小說應屬冒險小說，而設定犯罪集團作為兇手避難之處，對讀者和偵探的鬥智機會，也是不公平的。
Secret societies, camorras, mafias, et al., have no place in a detective story. A fascinating and truly beautiful murder is irremediably spoiled by any such wholesale culpability. To be sure, the murderer in a detective novel should be given a sporting chance; but it is going too far to grant him a secret society to fall back on. No high-class, self-respecting murderer would want such odds.
14. 殺人方法需合理且具科學根據。如發現化學新元素，或是發明珍奇毒藥以此作為殺人方法，是不允許的。
The method of murder, and the means of detecting it, must be be rational and scientific. That is to say, pseudo-science and purely imaginative and speculative devices are not to be tolerated in the roman policier. Once an author soars into the realm of fantasy, in the Jules Verne manner, he is outside the bounds of detective fiction, cavorting in the uncharted reaches of adventure.
15. 案件自發生到搜查，需保持一貫性，以便供讀者參與推理。作者本身要有適當的誠實和運動家精神，如有洞燭機先的聰明讀者，即可由其邏輯分析，和偵探同時找出兇手。作者不可以故意隱藏重要的破案線索。
The truth of the problem must at all times be apparent — provided the reader is shrewd enough to see it. By this I mean that if the reader, after learning the explanation for the crime, should reread the book, he would see that the solution had, in a sense, been staring him in the face-that all the clues really pointed to the culprit — and that, if he had been as clever as the detective, he could have solved the mystery himself without going on to the final chapter. That the clever reader does often thus solve the problem goes without saying.
16. 推理小說不需要用很長的篇幅來描述與故事進展無關的事物。比如文學性的粉飾、完美的寫景等。因為讀者只想涵泳作品中的智慧遊戲，其餘皆為繁詞冗句。
A detective novel should contain no long descriptive passages, no literary dallying with side-issues, no subtly worked-out character analyses, no "atmospheric" preoccupations. such matters have no vital place in a record of crime and deduction. They hold up the action and introduce issues irrelevant to the main purpose, which is to state a problem, analyze it, and bring it to a successful conclusion. To be sure, there must be a sufficient descriptiveness and character delineation to give the novel verisimilitude.
17. 不可將兇手設為強盜、山賊、海盜等職業犯罪者。如此的設定毫無鬥智的魅力可言。
A professional criminal must never be shouldered with the guilt of a crime in a detective story. Crimes by housebreakers and bandits are the province of the police departments — not of authors and brilliant amateur detectives. A really fascinating crime is one committed by a pillar of a church, or a spinster noted for her charities.
18. 解決案件時，不可到了最後關頭，以自殺或事故死亡的情節作結束。這樣是虎頭蛇尾的作品。
A crime in a detective story must never turn out to be an accident or a suicide. To end an odyssey of sleuthing with such an anti-climax is to hoodwink the trusting and kind-hearted reader.
19. 推理小說中的犯罪動機必須是個人性的。如國際陰謀政變戰爭，屬於間諜小說的範圍。
The motives for all crimes in detective stories should be personal. International plottings and war politics belong in a different category of fiction — in secret-service tales, for instance. But a murder story must be kept gemütlich, so to speak. It must reflect the reader's everyday experiences, and give him a certain outlet for his own repressed desires and emotions.
20. 最後列舉幾項「凡是具有自尊心的推理作家」，不會使用的方法:
a. 犯罪現場留有煙蒂，則判定吸同樣香煙的人為兇手。
b. 強迫嫌疑犯自白。
c. 留假指紋在犯罪現場。
d. 找替身製造不在場證明。
e. 在犯罪現場的狗沒吠，以此判定兇手和被害者是熟人。
f. 揭開謎底時，才告知讀者兇手是雙胞胎之一。
g. 使用皮下注射器，或即刻死亡的毒藥。
h. 警官到達後才成立的密室。
i. 由訊問的連鎖反應實驗斷定兇手。
j. 到故事快結束時，偵探由暗號找出兇手。
And (to give my Credo an even score of items) I herewith list a few of the devices which no self-respecting detective story writer will now avail himself of. They have been employed too often, and are familiar to all true lovers of literary crime. To use them is a confession of the author's ineptitude and lack of originality.
(a) Determining the identity of the culprit by comparing the butt of a cigarette left at the scene of the crime with the brand smoked by a suspect.
(b) The bogus spiritualistic se'ance to frighten the culprit into giving himself away.
(c) Forged fingerprints.
(d) The dummy-figure alibi.
(e) The dog that does not bark and thereby reveals the fact that the intruder is familiar.
(f)The final pinning of the crime on a twin, or a relative who looks exactly like the suspected, but innocent, person.
(g) The hypodermic syringe and the knockout drops.
(h) The commission of the murder in a locked room after the police have actually broken in.
(i) The word association test for guilt.
(j) The cipher, or code letter, which is eventually unraveled by the sleuth.
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