Tales of the Black Widowers - Asimov Isaac - Страница 12

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"I think I am Mr Gonzalo. Few people listen to exact words, and many a literal truth tells a lie by implication. Who should know that better than a person who carefully always tells the literal truth?"

Sand's pale cheeks were less pale, or his red tie was reflecting light upward more efficiently. He said, "What the hell are you implying?"

"I would like to ask you a question, Mr. Sand. If the club is willing, of course."

"I don't care if they are or not," said Sand, glowering at Henry. "If you take that tone, I might not choose to answer."

"You may not have to," said Henry. "The point is that each time you deny having committed the crime, you deny it in precisely the same form of words. I couldn't help but notice since I made up my mind to listen to your exact words as soon as I heard that you never lied. Each time, you said, 'I didn't take the cash or the bonds.' "

"And that is perfectly true," said Sand loudly.

"I'm sure it is, or you wouldn't have said so," said Henry. "Now this is the question I would like to ask you. Did you, by any chance, take the cash and the bonds?"

There was a short silence. Then Sand rose and said, "I'll take my coat now. Goodbye. I remind you all that nothing that goes on here can be repeated outside."

When Sand was gone, Trumbull said, "Well, I'll be damned!"

To which Henry replied, "Perhaps not, Mr. Trumbull. Don't despair."

This story first appeared in the October 1972 issue of Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, under the title "The Man Who Never Told a Lie." I think the magazine title is pedestrian, so I changed it back to my original one.

I wrote this story on February 14, 1972. I remember that, not because I have a phenomenal memory, but because it was written in the hospital the day before my one and (so far) only operation. Larry Ashmead, my Dou-bleday editor, visited me that day and I gave him the manuscript and asked him to see that it was delivered to the EQMM offices by messenger.

I also told him to explain that I was in the hospital, as I ordinarily deliver the manuscripts myself so that I can flirt with the beauteous Eleanor (to say nothing of the vivacious Constance DiRienzo, who is the executive editorial secretary).

Larry did as requested, of course, and I got the news. that the story was taken while I was still in the hospital recovering. Since then I have wondered (when I had nothing better to do) if the story was accepted out of sympathy for my poor, suffering self, but I guess not. It was tapped for a best-of-the-year mystery anthology put out by Dutton, so I guess it's okay.

Oh, and that accounts for the fact that this story is the shortest in the book. I had to get it done before the surgeon took his scalpel from between his teeth, whetted it on his thigh, and got to work.

"My wife," said Emmanuel Rubin, with a tremor of indignation shaking his sparse chin beard, "has bought another bull."

Discussion of women and, particularly, of wives, was considered out of bounds at the staunchly masculine monthly meetings of the deliberately named Black Widowers, but habits die hard. Mario Gonzalo, who was sketching the guest of the meeting, said, "In your mini-apartment?"

"It's a perfectly good apartment," said Rubin indignantly. "It just looks small. And it wouldn't look all that small if she didn't have bulls in it made of wood, of porcelain, of tile, of bronze, and of felt. She has them from a foot across to an inch across. She has them on the wall, on the shelves, on the floor, and suspended from the ceiling-"

Avalon, from his austere height, swirled his drink slowly and said, "She requires a symbol of virility, I presume."

"When she has me?" said Rubin.

"Because she has you," said Gonzalo, and took the drink pressed upon him by the Black Widowers' perennial and indispensable waiter, Henry-then hurried to his seat to avoid Rubin's explosive reply.

At the other end of the table, James Drake said to Roger Halsted, "A, B-" and paused, lengthily.

"What?" said Halsted, his high, white forehead flushing and wrinkling as his eyebrows moved upward.

"Long time, no C," said Drake, coughing at his own cigarette smoke, which he frequently did.

Halsted looked disgusted. "I think I'll make it longer next time. 1 was here last month, but you weren't."

"Family!" said Drake briefly. "What's this I hear about you rewriting the Iliad into limericks?"

"One for each book," said Halsted, with obvious self-satisfaction. "The Odyssey, too."

"Jeff Avalon recited the limerick to the first book as soon as he saw me."

"I've written one for the second. Would you lake to

hear it?"

"No," said Drake. "It goes like this:

"Agamemnon's dream strategy slips,

The morale of his troops quickly dips.

First Thersites complains,

But Odysseus restrains,

And we next have the Cat'log of Ships."

Drake received it stolidly. He said, "You have one too many syllables in the last line."

"Can't help it," said Halsted with unusual heat. "It's impossible to do the second book without mentioning the Catalog of Ships and that phrase has three unaccented syllables in a row. I leave one out by elision and say Cat'log with an apostrophe. That makes it all fifteen perfect anapests."

Drake shook his head. "Wouldn't satisfy a purist."

Thomas Trumbull, scowling malevolently, said, "I hope, Henry, that you noticed I came early today, even though I'm not the host."

"I did notice, Mr. Trumbull," said Henry, smiling urbanely.

"The least you can do is give the act public approval after what you said about me last time."

"I approve, sir, but it would be wrong to make an issue of it. That would give the impression that it was hard for you to arrive on time and no one would expect to have you repeat the feat next time. If we all ignore it, it will

seem as though we take it for granted that you can do it, and then you will have no trouble repeating."

"Give me my scotch and soda, Henry, and spare me the dialectic."

As a matter of fact, it was Rubin who was the host and his guest was one of his publishers, a round-faced, smooth-cheeked gentleman with a good-humored smile on his face. His name was Ronald Klein.

Like most guests, he found it difficult to hop onto the merry-go-round of talk, and he finally plunged in the direction of the one man at the table he knew.

"Manny," he said, "did I hear you say Jane had bought another bull?"

"That's right," said Rubin. "A cow, actually, because it's sitting on a crescent moon, but it's hard to tell for sure. The makers of these things rarely go into careful anatomical detail."

Avalon, who had been wielding his knife and fork in workmanlike fashion over the stuffed veal, paused to say, "Collector's mania is something that seizes almost every gentleman of leisure It has many delights; the excitement of the search, the ecstasy of the acquisition, the joy of later contemplation. You can do it with anything. I collect stamps myself."

"Stamps," said Rubin at once, "are the very worst thing you can collect. They are thoroughly artificial. Vest-pocket nations put out issues designed deliberately to fetch high sums. Mistakes, misprints, and so on create false values. The whole thing is in the hands of entrepreneurs and financiers. If you've got to collect, collect things with no value."

Gonzalo said, "A friend of mind collects his own books. So far, he has published a hundred and eighteen and carefully gets copies of every edition, American and foreign, hard-cover and paperback, book-club and condensed. He's got a whole roomful of them and says he is the only person in the world with a complete collection of his works and that it will be worth a tremendous sum someday "

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