The Return of the Black Widowers

by Isaac Asimov

  "Why?" asked Avalon.

  "Don't know. It seemed important at the time. God, how I remember that night, because I kept thinking, maybe I'll sleep late because I'm not sleeping now and I knew I wouldn't. I must have dropped off at about four a.m., but at eight I was up and crawled out of bed to get myself breakfast.

  "It was another sunny day. Pleasant and cool, but you knew it was going to have all the warmth of spring with none of the heat of summer. Another nice day! You know it hurts me, now and then, that I didn't like Marge better than I did. I mean, we got along all right, but we weren't close. I swear I visited them more to be with Alex than to be with her. And then I got a call."

  Halsted said, "You mean a telephone call?"

  "Yes. Eight o'clock of a Sunday morning. Who would make a call at that time to anyone unless they knew the jerk always got up at eight. If I had been asleep and had been awakened, and growled into the mouthpiece, the whole thing would have been different."

  "Who was it?" asked Drake.

  "Alex. He asked if he woke me. He knew he didn't, but he felt guilty calling that early, I suppose. He asked what time it was. I looked at the clock and said, 'It's eight-oh-nine a.m. Of course I'm awake.' I was sort of proud of it, you see.

  "And then he asked if he could come over, because he had had an argument with Marge and had stamped out of the house and didn't want to go back till she had cooled down. ... I tell you, I'm glad I never married.

  "Anyway, if I'd only said no. If I'd only told him I'd had a bad night and I needed my sleep and I didn't want company, he'd have gone back to his apartment. He had no place else to go. And then it all wouldn't have happened. But no, big-hearted Mario was so proud of being an early riser that he said, 'Come on over and I'll fix you coffee and eggs,' because I knew Marge wasn't one for early Sunday breakfasts, and I knew Alex hadn't eaten. "So he was over in ten minutes and by eight-thirty I had the scrambled eggs and bacon in front of him, and Marge was alone in the apartment, waiting for murderers."

  Trumbull said, "Did your brother-in-law tell his wife where he was going?"

  Gonzalo said, "I don't think so. I assumed he didn't. I figure what happened was he stamped out in a fit of rage without even knowing where he was going himself. Then he thought of me. Even if he knew he was going to visit me, he might not have told her. He would figure: Let her worry."

  "All right," said Trumbull, "and then when the junkies came to the door and maybe tried the lock, she figured it was Alex coming back and she opened the door to them. I'll bet the lock wasn't broken."

  "No, it wasn't," said Gonzalo.

  "Isn't Sunday morning a queer time for junkies to make the rounds?" asked Drake.

  "Listen," said Rubin, "they'll do it any time. The craving for drugs knows no season."

  "What was the fight about?" asked Avalon suddenly. "I mean, between Alex and Marge?"

  "Oh, I don't know. A little thing. Alex had done something at work that must have looked bad and that was one thing that Marge couldn't stand. I don't even know what it was, but whatever it was, it must have been a blow at her pride in him and she was sore.

  'The trouble was that Alex never learned to just let her run down. When we were kids, I always did that. I would say, 'Yes, Marge; yes, Marge,' and then she'd run down. But Alex would always try to defend himself and then things would just get worse. That time, most of the night was filled with argument. . . . Of course, he says now that if he only hadn't made a federal case out of it, he wouldn't have left, and then none of it would have happened."

  " 'The moving finger writes,' " said Avalon. "Brooding on these ifs docs no good."

  "Sure, but how do you stop, Jeff? Anyway, they had a bad night and I had a bad night. It was as though there were some kind of telepathic communication."

  "Oh, bull," said Rubin.

  "We were twins," said Gonzalo defensively.

  "Only fraternal twins," said Rubin, "unless you're a girl underneath all those clothes."

  "So what?"

  "So it's only identical twins that are supposed to have this telepathic sympathy, but that's bull, too."

  "Anyway," said Gonzalo, "Alex was with me and I ate and he didn't eat much, and he cried on my shoulder about how hard Marge was on him sometimes, and I sympathized and said, 'Listen, why do you pay so much attention to her? She's a good kid if you'll only not take her seriously.' You know all the consoling things people say. I figured in a couple of hours he'd be talked out and he'd go home and make it up and I'd go out to the park or maybe back to bed. Only in a couple of hours the telephone rang again, and it was the police."

  "How'd they know where to find Alex?" asked Halsted.

  "They didn't. They called me. I'm her brother. Alex and I went over and identified her. For a while there, he looked like a dead man. It wasn't just that she was dead. After all, he'd had a fight with her and the neighbors must have heard. Now she was dead, and they always suspect the husband. Of course, they questioned him and he admitted the fight and leaving the apartment and coming to my place—the whole thing."

  "It must have sounded phony as hell," said Rubin.

  "I corroborated the fact that he was at my place. I said he'd arrived at my place at eight-twenty, maybe eight twenty-five, and had been there since. And the murder had taken place at nine."

  "You mean there were witnesses?" asked Drake.

  "Hell, no. But there d been noise. The people underneath heard. The people across the hall heard. Furniture being overturned; a scream. Of course, no one saw anyone; no one saw anything. They sat behind their locked doors. But they heard the noise and it was around nine o'clock. They all agreed to that. "That settled it as far as the police were concerned. In that neighborhood, if it isn't the spouse, it's some petty thief, probably an addict. Alex and I went out and he got drunk and I stayed with him a couple of days because he was in no condition to be left alone and that's all there is to the story."

  Trumbull said, "Do you ever see Alex these days?"

  "Once in a while. I lend him a few bucks now and then. Not that I expect to get paid back. He quit his job the week after Marge was killed. I don't think he ever went back to work. He was just a broken man—because he blamed himself, you know. Why did he have to argue with her? Why did he have to leave the house? Why did he have to come over to my place? Anyway, there it is. It's a murder but no mystery."

  There was silence for a time, and then Halsted said, "Do you mind, Mario, if we speculate about it, just—just—"

  "Just for fun?" said Mario. "Sure, go ahead, have fun. If you have questions, I'll answer as best I can but as far as the murder is concerned, there's nothing to say."

  "You see," said Halsted awkwardly, "no one saw anybody. It's only an assumption that some nameless addicts came in and killed her. Someone might have killed her with a better reason, knowing that it would be blamed on addicts and he'd be safe. Or she, maybe."

  "Who's the someone?" said Mario skeptically.

  "Didn't she have any enemies? Did she have money that somebody wanted?" said Halsted.

  "Money? What there was was in the bank. It all went to Alex, of course. It was his to begin with; everything was joint."

  "How about jealousy?" said Avalon. "Maybe she was having an affair. Or he was. Maybe that's what the argument was about."

  "And he killed her?" said Gonzalo. "The fact is he was in my apartment at the time she was killed."

  "Not necessarily he. Suppose it was her boyfriend, or his girl friend. The boyfriend, because she was threatening to break off the affair. The girlfriend, because she wanted to marry your brother-in-law."

  Mario shook his head. "Marge was no femme fatale. I was always surprised she made it with Alex. For that matter, maybe she didn't."

  "Did Alex complain about that?" asked Trumbull with sudden interest.

  "No, but then he's no great lover, either. Listen, he's been a widower for three years now and I'm willing to swear he has no girl of any kind. No boy, either, before you start talking
about that."

  Rubin said, "Hold it, you still don't know what the argument was really about. You said it was something that happened at work. Did he actually tell you what it was and you've just forgotten; or did he never tell you?"

  "He didn't go into detail, and I didn't ask. It wasn't my business."

  "All right," said Rubin, "how about this? It was an argument about something big at work. Maybe Alex had stolen fifty thousand dollars and Marge was sore about it, and that was the argument. Or Marge had made him steal it and he was getting cold feet about it and that was the argument. And maybe the fifty thousand was in the house and someone knew about it and that someone killed her and took it and Alex doesn't dare mention it."

  "What someone?" demanded Gonzalo. "What theft? Alex wasn't that kind of guy."

  "Famous last words," intoned Drake.

  "Well, he wasn't. And if he had done it, the firm he worked for wouldn't have kept quiet. No chance."

  Trumbull said, "How about the kind of in-fighting that goes on in apartment houses? You know, feuds between tenants. Was there someone who hated her and finally let her have it?"

  "Hell, if there were anything that serious, I'd know about it. Marge never kept things like that quiet."

  Drake said, "Could it be suicide? After all, her husband had just walked out on her. Maybe he said he was never coming back and she was in despair. In a fit of irrational depression, she killed herself." "It was a knife from the kitchen," said Gonzalo. "There's that. But Marge isn't the suicidal type. She might kill someone else, but not herself. Besides, why would there be that struggle and the scream if she had killed herself?"

  Drake said, "In the first place, things might have been knocked about during the argument with her husband. In the second place, she might have faked a murder to get her husband into trouble. Vengeance is mine, saith the aggrieved wife."

  "Oh, come on," said Gonzalo contemptuously. "Marge wouldn't do something like that in a million years."

  "You know," said Drake, "you don't really know all that much about another person—even if she's a twin."

  "Well, you won't get me to believe it."

  Trumbull said, "I don't know why we're wasting our time. Why don't we ask the expert? . . . Henry?"

  Henry, whose face mirrored only polite interest, said, "Yes, Mr. Trumbull?"

  "How about telling us all about it? Who killed Mr. Gonzalo's sister?"

  Henry's eyebrows lifted slightly. "I do not represent myself to be an expert, Mr. Trumbull, but I must say that all the suggestions made by the gentlemen at the table, including yours, are unlikely in the extreme. I myself think that the police are perfectly correct and that if, in this case, the husband did not do it, then housebreakers did. And these days, one must assume that those housebreakers were drug addicts desperate for money or for something they can convert into money."

  "You disappoint me, Henry," said Trumbull.

  Henry smiled gently.

  "Well, then," said Halsted, "I guess we'd better adjourn after we settle who hosts next time, and I suppose we'd better go back to having guests. This scheme of mine didn't work out so well."

  "Sorry I couldn't make it better, folks," said Gonzalo.

  "I didn't mean it that way, Mario," said Halsted hastily.

  "I know. Well, let’s forget it."

  They were leaving, with Mario Gonzalo bringing up the rear. A light tap at his shoulder caused Gonzalo to turn.

  Henry said, "Mr. Gonzalo, could I see you privately, without the others knowing? It's quite important."

  Gonzalo stared a moment and said, "Okay, I'll go out, say my good-byes, take a taxi, and have it bring me back." He was back in ten minutes.

  "Is this something about my sister, Henry?"

  "I'm afraid so, sir. I thought I had better talk to you, privately."

  "All right. Let's go back into the chamber. It's empty now."

  "Better not, sir. Anything said in that room can't be repeated outside and I do not wish to talk in confidence. I don't mind finding myself hushed up about average run-of-the-mill misdeeds, but murder is another thing altogether. There's a corner here that we can use."

  They went together to the indicated place. It was late and the restaurant was virtually empty.

  Henry said, in a low voice, "I listened to the account and I would like your permission to repeat some of it just to make sure I have it right."

  "Sure, go ahead."

  "As I understand it, on a Saturday toward the end of April, you felt uneasy and went to bed before the eleven-o'clock news."

  "Yes, just before eleven o'clock."

  "And you didn't hear the news."

  "Not even the opening headlines."

  "And that night, even though you didn't sleep, you didn't get out of bed. You didn't go to the bathroom or the kitchen."

  "No, I didn't."

  "And then you woke up at exactly the same time you always do."

  "That's right."

  "Well, now, Mr. Gonzalo, that is what disturbs me. A person who wakes up every morning at exactly the same time, thanks to some sort of biological clock inside him, wakes up at the wrong time twice a year." "What?"

  "Twice a year, sir, in this state, ordinary clocks are shifted, once when Daylight Saving Time starts, and once when it ends, but biological time doesn't change suddenly. Mr. Gonzalo, on the last Sunday in April, Daylight Saving Time starts. At one a.m. Sunday morning the clocks are shifted to two a.m. If you had listened to the eleven-o'clock news you would have been reminded to do that. But you wound your clock before eleven p.m. and you said nothing about adjusting it. Then you went to bed and never touched it during the night. When you woke at eight a.m., the clock should have said nine a.m. Am I right?"

  "Good Lord," said Gonzalo.

  "You left after the police called and you didn't come back for days. When you came back the clock was stopped, of course. You had no way of knowing that it was an hour slow when it had stopped. You set it to the correct time and never knew the difference."

  "I never thought of that, but you're perfectly right."

  "The police should have thought of that, but it's so easy these days to dismiss run-of-the-mill crimes of violence as the work of addicts. You gave your brother-in-law his alibi and they followed the line of least resistance."

  "You mean he—"

  "It's possible, sir. They fought, and he killed her at nine A.M. as the statements of the neighbors indicated. I doubt that it was premeditated. Then, in desperation, he thought of you—and rather clever of him it was. He called you and asked you what time it was. You said eight-oh-nine and he knew you hadn't altered the clock and rushed over to your place. If you had said nine-oh-nine, he would have tried to get out of town."

  "But, Henry, why should he have done it?"

  "It's hard to tell with married couples, sir. Your sister may have had too high standards. You said she disapproved of your way of life, for instance, and probably made that very plain, plain enough to cause you not to like her very well. Now she must have disapproved of her husband's way of life, as it was before she had married him. He was a drifter, you said. She made of him a respectable, hard-working employee and he may not have liked it. After he finally exploded and killed her, he became a drifter again. You think this is so out of despair; he may have nothing more than the feeling of relief."

  "Well...What do we do?"

  "I don't know, sir. It would be a hard thing to prove. Could you really remember, after three years, that you didn't adjust the clock? A cross-examining attorney would tear you apart. On the other hand, your brother-in-law might break down if faced with it. You'll have to consider whether you wish to go to the police, sir."

  "I?" said Gonzalo hesitantly.

  "It was your sister, sir," said Henry softly.

  Return to Table of Contents

  THE OBVIOUS FACTOR

  T

  homas Trumbull looked about the table and said, with some satisfaction, "Well, at least you won't get yourself
pen-and-inked into oblivion, Voss. Our resident artist isn't here. . . . Henry!"

  Henry was at Trumbull's elbow before the echo of the bellow had died, with no sign of perturbation on his bright-eyed and unlined face. Trumbull took the scotch and soda the waiter had on his tray and said, "Has Mario called, Henry?"

  "No, sir," said Henry calmly.

  Geoffrey Avalon had reduced his second drink to the halfway point and swirled it absently. "After last month's tale about his murdered sister, it could be that he didn't—"

  He did not complete the sentence, but put down his glass carefully at the seat he intended to take. The monthly banquet of the Black Widowers was about to begin.

  Trumbull, who was host, took the armchair at the head of the table and said, "Have you got them all straight, Voss? At my left is James Drake. He's a chemist and knows more about pulp fiction than about chemistry, and that probably isn't much. Then Geoffrey Avalon, a lawyer who never sees the inside of a courtroom; Emmanuel Rubin, who writes in between talking, which is practically never; and Roger Halsted. . . . Roger, you're not inflicting another limerick on us this session, are you?"

  "A limerick?" said Trumbull's guest, speaking for the first time. It was a pleasant voice, light and yet rich, with all consonants carefully pronounced. He had a white beard, evenly cut from

  53 temple to temple, and white hair, too. His youthful face shone pinkly within its fence of white. "A poet, then?"

  "A poet?" snorted Trumbull. "Not even a mathematician, which is what he claims to be. He insists on writing a limerick for every book of the Iliad."

  "And Odyssey," said Halsted, in his soft, hurried voice. "But, yes, I have my limerick."

  "Good! It's out of order," said Trumbull. "You are not to read it. Host's privilege."

  "Oh, for heaven's sake," said Avalon, the flat lines of his well-preserved face set in disappointment. "Let him recite the poor thing. It takes thirty seconds and I find it fun."

  Trumbull pretended not to hear. "You've all got it straight about my guest now? He's Dr. Voss Eldridge. He's a Ph.D. So is Drake, Voss. We're all doctors, though, by virtue of membership in the Black Widowers." He then raised his glass, gave the monthly invocation to Old King Cole, and the meal was officially begun.