One morning, a rich merchant of Agra came running to Emperor Akbar's court, wringing his hands. “Justice, huzoor! Last night a thief broke open my chest and stole my gold and my wife's jewels. It must be one of my own servants — no outsider knows where the chest is kept. But I have ten servants, and every one of them swears innocence!”
Akbar handed the case to Birbal, as everyone knew he would. Birbal visited the merchant's house, looked at the broken chest, and gathered all ten servants in the courtyard. He questioned them one by one. “I am innocent, sarkar!” cried the cook. “I would never!” wept the gardener. “I was asleep!” insisted the gatekeeper. Each face looked as honest as the next.
“Very well,” said Birbal at last. “Since words cannot find the thief, magic will.” He sent for a bundle of sticks and gave one to each servant. The sticks were all exactly the same length. “These are no ordinary sticks,” Birbal announced gravely. “They come from a magical tree. Keep your stick with you tonight and bring it back tomorrow morning. The sticks will tell me everything — for by sunrise, the thief's stick will have grown exactly two fingers longer than all the rest. The innocent have nothing to fear. Now go.”
The servants went off to their quarters, each clutching a stick. Nine of them ate their dinner, rolled out their mats, and slept soundly. But one servant lay wide awake, staring at his stick in the moonlight. It seemed to him that it was already growing. At last, deep in the night, he crept up, took a knife, and carefully cut two fingers' length off the end of his stick. “Now when it grows, it will look just like the others,” he whispered, and finally fell asleep, very pleased with himself.
In the morning, Birbal lined up the servants and collected the sticks. Nine were exactly equal. One was exactly two fingers short. Birbal held it up. “Here is our thief, huzoor — caught not by magic, but by his own guilty heart.”
The servant fell to his knees and confessed everything; the gold and jewels were dug out from under his floor. And Akbar, hearing the tale, laughed: “Fear of truth makes the guilty trick themselves — no magic needed when Birbal is near.”