Unless, like Dot Sayers, one tries to push the detective
genre back to
classical and biblical times (makes it respectable, see?).
Accepting
that 'detective fiction' can exist prior to 'the detective'
one might
then allow the biblical Daniel to be the solver of the first
locked room
mystery in Bel and the Dragon [from the apocrypha].
There's a version of it interested parties can check out up
at
<http://www.ejmd.mcmail.com/beldragn.htm>
ED
PS & BTW, there are, I think, echoes of the locked room
in a couple of
Hammett stories: at least _The Dain Curse_ and probably
another Op story
too, the title of which I don't recall at the moment.
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