The Return of the Black Widowers

by Isaac Asimov

  "It was an enormous house, a heterogeneous one, an endless one. It took us days, and poor Anderson grew more befuddled each day.

  "I next tackled it from the other end. It was obvious that Jackson had deliberately taken something unnoticeable, perhaps small; certainly something that Anderson would not easily miss and therefore not something to which he was greatly attached. On the other hand, it made sense to suppose that it was something Jackson would want to take away, and which he would find valuable. Indeed, his deed would give him most satisfaction if Anderson, too, found it valuable—once he realized what it was that was gone. What, then, could it be?"

  "A small painting," said Gonzalo eagerly, "which Jackson knew to be an authentic Cezanne, but which Anderson thought was junk."

  "A stamp from Anderson's collection," said Rubin, "which Jackson noted had a rare mistake in the engraving." He had once written a story which had hinged on this precise point.

  "A book," said Trumbull, "which contained some hidden family secret with which, in due time, Jackson could blackmail Anderson."

  "A photograph," said Avalon dramatically, "that Anderson had forgotten but which contained the likeness of an old sweetheart

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  which, eventually, he would give a fortune to buy back."

  "I don't know what business they were in," said Drake thoughtfully, "but it might have been the kind where some unvalued gimcrack might actually be of great value to a competitor and drive Anderson to bankruptcy. I remember one case where a formula for a hydrazo-intermediate—"

  "Oddly enough," said Bartram, breaking in firmly, "I thought of each of these possibilities, and I went over each with Anderson. It was clear that he had no taste in art and such pieces as he had were really junk, and no mistake. He did not collect stamps, and though he had many books and could not tell for certain whether one was gone, he swore he had no hidden family secrets anywhere that were worth the skipped beat of a blackmailer's heart. Nor had he ever had any old sweethearts, since in his younger days he had confined himself to professional ladies whose photographs he did not prize. As for his business secrets, they were of the sort that would interest the government far more than any competitor, and everything of that sort had been kept far from Jackson's honest eyes in the first place and were still in the safe (or long in the fire) in the second. I thought of other possibilities, but, one by one, they were knocked down.

  "Of course, Jackson might betray himself. He might blossom out into sudden wealth, and in ferreting out the source of the wealth, we might learn the identity of the stolen object.

  "Anderson suggested that himself and paid lavishly to have a twenty-four-hour watch put on Jackson. It was useless. The man kept a dull way of life and behaved precisely as you would expect someone minus his life savings to behave. He lived parsimoniously, and, eventually, took a menial job, where his honesty and his calm demeanor stood him in good stead.

  "Finally, I had but one alternative left—"

  "Wait, wait," said Gonzalo, "let me guess, let me guess." He tossed off what was left of his brandy, signaled Henry for another, and said, "You asked Jackson!"

  "I was strongly tempted to," said Bartram ruefully, "but that would scarcely have been feasible. It doesn't do in my profession to even hint at an accusation without evidence of any sort. Licenses are too fragile. And in any case, he would simply deny theft, if accused, and be put on his guard against any self-incrimination."

  "Well, then ..." said Gonzalo blankly, and petered out.

  The other four furrowed brows one and all, but only silence followed.

  Bartram, having waited politely, said, "You won't guess, gentlemen, for you are not in the profession. You know only what you read in romances and so you think gentlemen like myself have unlimited numbers of alternatives and invariably solve all cases. I, myself, being in the profession, know otherwise. Gentlemen, the one alternative I had left was to confess failure.

  "Anderson paid me, however, I'll give him that much credit. By the time I said my goodbyes to him, he had lost some ten pounds. There was a vacant look in his eyes and, as he shook hands with me, they moved round and round the room he was in, still looking, still looking. He muttered, 'I tell you I couldn't possibly mistake that chuckle. He took something from me. He took something from me.' "I saw him on two or three occasions thereafter. He never stopped looking; he never found the missing object. He went rather downhill. The events I have described took place nearly five years ago, and last month, he died."

  There was a short silence. Avalon said, "Without ever finding the missing object?"

  "Without ever finding it."

  Trumbull said, with disapproval, "Are you coming to us to help you with the problem now?"

  "In a way, yes. The occasion is too good to miss. Anderson is dead and whatever is said within these walls will go no farther, we all agree, so that I may now ask what I could not ask before. . . . Henry, may I have a light?"

  Henry, who had been listening with a kind of absentminded deference, produced a book of matches and lit Bartram's cigarette.

  "Let me introduce you, Henry, to those you so efficiently serve. . . . Gentlemen, may I introduce to you, Henry Jackson."

  There was a moment of clear shock and Drake said, "The Jackson."

  "Exactly," said Bartram. "I knew he was working here and when I heard it was at this club that you met for your monthly meetings, I had to beg, rather shamelessly, for an invitation. It was only here that I could find the gentleman with the acquisitive chuckle, and do so under conditions of both bonhomie and discretion."

  Henry smiled and bent his head.

  Bartram said, "There were times during the course of the investigation when I could not help but wonder, Henry, whether Anderson might not have been wrong and whether there might possibly have been no theft at all. Always, however, I returned to the matter of the acquisitive chuckle, and I trusted Anderson's judgment."

  "You did right to do so," said Jackson softly, "for I did steal something from my one-time partner, the gentleman you have referred to as Anderson. I never regretted the act for one moment."

  "It was something of value, I presume."

  "It was of the greatest value and no day passed without my thinking of the theft and rejoicing in the fact that the wicked man no longer had what I had taken away."

  "And you deliberately roused his suspicions in order that you might experience the greater joy."

  "Yes, sir."

  "And you did not fear being caught?"

  "Not for one moment, sir."

  "By God," roared Avalon suddenly, his voice soaring to breakneck loudness. "I say it again. Beware the wrath of a patient man. I am a patient man, and I am tired of this endless cross-examination. Beware my wrath, Henry. What was it you carried off in your attaché case?"

  "Why, nothing, sir," said Henry. "It was empty."

  "Heaven help me! Where did you put whatever it was you took from him?"

  "I didn't have to put it anywhere, sir."

  "Well, then, what did you take?"

  "Only his peace of mind, sir," said Henry gently.

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  PH AS IN PHONY

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  he meeting of the Black Widowers was marred, but only slightly, by the restlessness of James Drake. It was a shame that this had to be so, for the dinner was unusually good, even allowing for the loving care with which the Milano Restaurant took care of its special group every month. And if the veal cordon bleu needed anything to add the final bit of luster, it was Henry's meticulous service, which had plates on the table where no plate had been before, yet without any person present able to catch it en route.

  It was Thomas Trumbull's turn to host, something he did with a savagery to which no one paid the slightest bit of attention; a savagery made particularly bitter by the fact that, as host, he did not think it fit to come charging in just one second before the pre-dinner drinks had completed their twice-around (three times for Rubin, who never showe
d the effects).

  Trumbull exercised hosts privilege and had brought a guest for the grilling. The guest was tall, almost as tall as Geoffrey Avalon, the Black Widowers' patent-attorney member. He was lean, almost as lean as Geoffrey Avalon. He was clean-shaven, though, and lacked the solemnity of Avalon. Indeed, his face was round and his cheeks plump, in a manner so out of keeping with the rest of his body that one might have thought him the product of a head transplant. He was Arnold Stacey, by name.

  "Arnold Stacey, Ph.D., "Trumbull had introduced him.

  "Ah," said Avalon, with the air of portentousness he automatically brought to his most trivial statement, "Doctor Doctor Stacey."

  "Doctor Doctor?" murmured Stacey, his lips parting as though getting ready for a smile at the pleasantry sure to follow.

  "It is a rule of the Black Widowers,” said Trumbull impatiently, "that all members are doctors by virtue of membership. A doctor for any other reason is—"

  "A doctor doctor," finished Stacey. And he smiled.

  "You can count honorary doctorates, too," said Rubin, his wide-spaced teeth gleaming over a beard as straggly as Avalon's was crisp, "but then I would have to be called Doctor Doctor Doctor—"

  Mario Gonzalo was mounting the stairs just then, bringing with him a faint whiff of turpentine as though he had come straight from his artist's studio. (Trumbull maintained you couldn't draw that conclusion; that Gonzalo placed a drop of turpentine behind each ear before any social engagement.)

  Gonzalo was in time to catch Emmanuel Rubin's statement and said, before he had quite reached the top step, "What honorary doctorates did you ever receive, Manny? Dis-honorary doctorates, I'm ready to believe."

  Rubin's face froze as it usually did when he was attacked without warning, but that was merely the short pause necessary to gather his forces. He said, "I can list them for you. In 1938, when I was only fifteen, it so happens I was a revivalist preacher and I received a D.D. from—"

  "No, for God's sake," said Trumbull, "don't give us the list. We accept it all."

  "You're fighting out of your weight, Mario," said Avalon with wooden amiability. "You know Rubin can never be spotted in an inconsistency when he starts talking about his early life."

  "Sure," said Gonzalo, "that's why his stories are so lousy. They're all autobiographical. No poetry."

  "I have written poetry," began Rubin, and then Drake came in. Usually, he was the first person there; this time, the last.

  "Train was late," he said quietly, shucking his coat. Since he had to come in from New Jersey to attend, the only surprise was that it didn't happen oftener.

  "Introduce me to the guest," Drake added, as he turned to take the drink Henry held out for him. Henry knew which he preferred, of course.

  Avalon said, "Doctor Doctor Arnold Stacey . . . Doctor Doctor James Drake."

  "Greetings," said Drake, holding up his glass in salute. 'What's the nature of the lesser doctorate, Doctor Stacey?"

  "Ph.D. in chemistry. Doctor Doctor, and call me Arnold."

  Drake's small grizzled mustache seemed to bristle. "Ditto," he said. "My Ph.D. is in chemistry, too."

  They looked at each other, warily, for a moment. Then Drake said, "Industry? Government? Academic?"

  "I teach. Assistant professor at Berry University."

  "Where?"

  "Berry University. It's not a large school. It's in—"

  "I know where it is," said Drake. "I did graduate work there. Considerably before your time, though. Did you get your degree at Berry before you joined the faculty?"

  "No, I—"

  "Let's sit down, for God's sake," roared Trumbull. "There's more drinking and less eating going on here all the time." He was standing at the host's seat, with his glass raised, glowering at the others as each took his seat. "Sit down! Sit down!" And then he intoned the ritual toast to Old King Cole in singsong while Gonzalo blandly kept time with a hard roll, which he broke and buttered when the last syllable was done.

  "What's this?" said Rubin suddenly, staring down at his dish in dismay.

  "Pâté de la maison, sir," said Henry softly.

  "That's what I thought. Chopped liver. Damn it, Henry, I ask you, as a pathologically honest man, is this fit to eat?"

  "The matter is quite subjective, sir. It depends on the personal taste of the diner." Avalon pounded the table. "Point of order! I object to Manny's use of the adjectival phrase 'pathologically honest.' Violation of confidence!"

  Rubin colored slightly. "Hold on, Jeff. I don't violate any confidence. That happens to be my opinion of Henry quite independently of what happened last month."

  "Ruling from the chair," said Avalon stubbornly.

  Trumbull said, "Shut up both of you. It is the ruling of the chair that Henry may be recognized by all Black Widowers as that rare phenomenon, a completely honest man. No reason need be given. It can be taken as a matter of common knowledge."

  Henry smiled gently. "Shall I take away the pate, sir?"

  "Would you eat it, Henry?" asked Rubin.

  "With pleasure, sir."

  "Then I'll eat it, too." And he did so, with every sign of barely controlled nausea.

  Trumbull leaned over to Drake and said in a voice that was low for him, "What the hell's bothering you?"

  Drake started slightly and said, "Nothing. What's bothering you?"

  "You are," said Trumbull. "I've never seen a roll taken apart into so many pieces in my life."

  The conversation grew general after that, centering chiefly on Rubin's aggrieved contention that honesty lacked survival value and that all the forces of natural selection combined to eliminate it as a human trait. He did well defending his thesis till Gonzalo asked him if he attributed his own success as a writer ("such as it is," said Gonzalo) to plagiarism. When Rubin met the point head on and tried to prove, by close reasoning, that plagiarism was fundamentally different from other forms of dishonesty and might be treated independently, he was hooted down.

  Then, between main course and dessert, Drake left for the men's room and Trumbull followed him.

  Trumbull said, "Do you know this guy Stacey, Jim?"

  Drake shook his head. "No. Not at all."

  "Well, what's wrong, then? I admit you're not an animated phonograph needle like Rubin but you haven't said a word all dinner, damn it. And you keep looking at Stacey."

  Drake said, "Do me a favor, Tom. Let me question him after dinner."

  Trumbull shrugged. "Sure."

  Over the coffee, Trumbull said, "The time has come for the grilling of the guest. Under ordinary circumstances, I, as the possessor of the only logical mind at the table, would begin. On this occasion, I pass to Doctor Doctor Drake since he is of the same professional persuasion as our honored guest."

  "Doctor Doctor Stacey," began Drake heavily, "how do you justify your existence?"

  "Less and less as time goes on," said Stacey, unperturbed.

  "What the hell does that mean?" broke in Trumbull.

  "I'm asking the questions," said Drake with unaccustomed firmness.

  "I don't mind answering," said Stacey. "Since the universities seem to be in deeper trouble each year, and as I do nothing about it, my own function as a university appendage seems continually less defensible, that's all."

  Drake ignored that. He said, "You teach at the school where I earned my master's degree. Have you ever heard of me?"

  Stacey hesitated. "I'm sorry, Jim. There are a lot of chemists I haven't heard of. No offense intended."

  "I'm not sensitive. I never heard of you, either. What I mean is: Have you ever heard of me at Berry U.? As a student there?"

  "No, I haven't."

  "I'm not surprised. But there was another student at Berry at the same time as myself. He went on for his doctorate at Berry. His name was Faron, F-A-R-O-N; Lance Faron. Did you ever hear of him?"

  "Lance Faron?" Stacey frowned.

  "Lance may have been short for Lancelot; Lancelot Faron. I don't know. We always called him
Lance." Finally Stacey shook his head. "No, the name isn't familiar."

  Drake said, "But you have heard of David St. George?"

  "Professor St. George? Certainly. He died the same year I joined the faculty. I can't say I know him, but I've certainly heard of him."

  Trumbull said, "Hell and damnation, Jim. What kind of questions are these? Is this old-grad week?"

  Drake, who had drifted off into thought, scrambled out of it and said, "Wait, Tom. I'm getting at something, and I don't want to ask questions. I want to tell a story first. My God, this has been bothering me for years and I never thought of putting it up to all of you till now that our guest—"

  "I vote the story," shouted Gonzalo.

  "On condition," said Avalon, "it not be construed as setting a precedent."

  "Chair decides the precedents," said Trumbull at once. "Go ahead, Drake. Only, for God's sake, don't take all night."

  "It's simple enough," said Drake, "and it's about Lance Faron, which is his real name, and I'm going to slander him, so you'll have to understand, Arnold, that everything said within these walls is strictly confidential."

  "That's been explained to me," said Stacey.

  "Go on," shouted Trumbull. "You will take all night. I know it."

  Drake said, "The thing about Lance is that I don't think he ever intended to be a chemist. His family was rich enough—well, I'll tell you. When he was doing graduate work, he had his lab outfitted with a cork floor at his own expense."

  "Why a cork floor?" Gonzalo wanted to know,

  "If you'd ever dropped a beaker on a tile floor, you wouldn't ask," said Drake. "He majored in chemistry as an undergraduate because he had to major in something and then he went on to do graduate work in the same field because World War IT was on in Europe, the draft was beginning—it was 1940—and graduate work in chemistry would look good to the draft board. And it did; he never got into the Army as far as I know. But that was perfectly legitimate; I never got into uniform, either, and I point no fingers."