Puzzles of the Black Widowers

The Old Purse

 

  "William Teller!" said Thomas Trumbull, host for that month's banquet of the Black Widowers, announcing the guest of the evening. He did so, however, with a certain trepidation. His frowning glance fixed itself particularly on Mario Gonzalo.

  Gonzalo, gorgeously arrayed as usual, this time in his brown velvet jacket, ignored it. "William Teller," he said delightedly. "Are you a descendant of William Tell, perhaps?"

  "Not at all," said Teller agreeably. He had an olive complexion, thick black hair, and a thick black mustache as well. "Actually, William Tell is simply a legend and probably never really existed. However, I'm of Swiss extraction and the first name runs in the family, perhaps in homage to the old fraud. Actually, Teller is an ordinary German word and means 'plate. ' "

  Geoffrey Avalon, looking down from his seventy-four inches, said, "Parents are often insensitive to the plight of a youngster. I was saved from serious scapegoating by the fact that I always used Jeff as my name. At that I was lucky, since the name alternates with Broderick, and it is my eldest son, not I, who must cope with that. Fortunately, he has always been a muscular youth, as I never was. "

  "Names can be an inspiration, too," said Teller. "When I was young I dreamed of being a superlative archer. I wanted people to say, 'William Tell was good, but William Teller is better. ' I was an assiduous archer at summer camp for that reason. "

  "Did you make it?" asked James Drake with interest, lighting up the inevitable cigarette.

  "No. I was remarkably untalented. The only time I ever hit the target, let alone the bull's-eye, was when I deliberately aimed at something else. Too bad. If I could have won the national archery contest with my name, I would have made every newspaper in the United States; also the 'Believe It or Not' columns, if any exist now. "

  "You'd have done even better," said Emmanuel Rubin judiciously, "if your name had been Robin Hood. "

  Roger Halsted said eagerly, "A great many so-called coincidences are manufactured in this way. Someone named Robin Hood would be bound to try his hand at archery and if he were good, saying 'Believe It or Not' misses the point. It would be a natural consequence. In fact, I have a suspicion that the queer things that happen to everybody aren't mystical, but natural. For instance - "

  No one ever found out the instance that Halsted was about to give, for Henry, that waiter supreme, chose that moment to announce in his quietly effective manner that dinner was served.

  All sat down to tripe madeleine, followed by crisp roast duck in cherry brandy sauce with wild rice and truffles, something that effectively muffled conversation. In fact the dinner pursued a kind of satisfied quiet, in which even Rubin's occasional comments were given out with hushed equanimity, until Trumbull, over the coffee, rattled his spoon against the water glass and appointed Avalon as griller-in-chief.

  "Mr. Teller," said Avalon, "how do you justify your existence?"

  Teller did not seem to be perturbed by the question. "By making people think. "

  "And how do you do that?"

  "I have a newspaper column called 'On the Contrary. ' It does not appear in any of the New York newspapers but it does in one hundred and two papers of moderate size elsewhere in the nation. In my column, I present the unpopular side of any controversy, not necessarily because I passionately support that side but because I think it is apt to be inadequately presented to the public. The public may, after all, be misled, even sometimes dangerously misled, by hearing only one side of a question. Many might not even know that another view exists. "

  "Can you give us an example of that?" asked Avalon.

  "Certainly. In a recent column I presented the view that so-called terrorists have of themselves. "

  "So-called?" said Drake, in gentle interrogation.

  "Yes, indeed. So-called," said Teller. "They don't think of themselves as terrorists, any more than we think of terrorists as such when they are on our side. When we approve their aims, we call them freedom fighters and compare them favorably with George Washington. "

  "Then you defend terrorism?" said Avalon.

  "Not necessarily. I merely try to penetrate the reasoning for the defense. For instance, the United States thinks all conflicts should either take place with missiles, planes, tanks, and all the paraphernalia of war; or by votes, resolutions, arguments, debates, and all the paraphernalia of politics. However, what if there are people who feel they have a just cause, but who lack the paraphernalia of war and are denied the paraphernalia of politics? What do they then do? Surely, they must fight with the weapons they have. Our cry, then, is that they are cowards who strike without warning, and kill innocent civilians at random. But then, is it brave of us to 'fight fair' against forces that are infinitely smaller than our own?"

  "I see your point," said Rubin, "but terrorism can be argued against on pragmatic grounds even if you abandon the high moral stand. It simply won't work. Random bombings make headlines and cause private pain and public frustration, but they don't achieve their ends. "

  "Sure they do, on occasion," said Teller. "The Iranian capture of the American Embassy held the United States up to worldwide ridicule, made Khomeini the hero of the Arab radicals throughout Islam, and destroyed the Carter presidency. And they didn't even kill anybody. "

  "Yes," said Rubin, "but that was self-defeating, for it led to the Reagan presidency, which has taken a much harder antiterrorist line, and brought about the bombing of Libya, for instance, as punishment for its support of terrorism. "

  "Yes, but we have yet to see what that will lead to on the other side. To continue my argument, during war, terrorists are called guerrillas or resistance forces or raiders or commandos, or anything but terrorists, and during World War II such irregular forces in every supposedly conquered nation, notably in Yugoslavia, did much to help defeat the Nazis. Similarly, the guerrillas of Spain did much to defeat Napoleon. "

  "Perhaps," said Avalon, "you would not be so cold-blooded about it if you had suffered directly at terrorist hands. "

  "I imagine not, but the argument would exist even if I, out of personal pique, were to refuse to advance it. "

  Drake chuckled. "You know, Tom, I assume that Mr. Teller is a friend of yours since you've brought him as a guest. Isn't he, with his views, a dangerous friend, considering your government employment?"

  "Not at all," said Trumbull. "He's just a professional devil's advocate. He often supports the government strongly, provided it has happened to do something unpopular. "

  Teller said, "True enough. " He stopped and frowned, as though a sudden thought had struck him. Then he said slowly, "You know, this wouldn't have occurred to me if there hadn't been that talk before dinner about odd connections such as that between me and archery, but there's a connection here in the terrorism matter. "

  "May I ask what connection you are thinking of?" said Avalon.

  "Mr. Rubin had pointed out that my views might change if I were a victim. To be sure, I haven't been, but my wife has, and that might be considered close enough. On the very day my column on terrorism appeared - the very day - my wife was the victim of a mild sort of terrorism. She had her purse snatched. Of course, that was the purest of coincidences. However - " He stopped again.

  "Yes, Mr. Teller?" said Avalon.

  "Nothing apropos. I was just thinking of the sequel to the incident that was really humorous and even mystifying. But never mind that; let's go back to our discussion of my justification for existence. At the time of our misadventure in Lebanon - "

  "Wait, wait," said Gonzalo, rattling his spoon on his water glass. "Back up, Mr. Teller. I want to hear about the humorous and mystifying sequel to the purse snatching. "

  Teller looked surprised and he turned automatically to Trumbull. "Tom - "

  Trumbull shrugged. "Go ahead, tell us about the mystifying sequel. If not, Mario will make life hideous for all of us. "

  "Wait," said Gonzalo. "Wait one minute. Henry isn't here
. "

  "Henry?" said Teller.

  "Our waiter. " And Gonzalo raised his voice, "Henry!"

  Henry entered the dining room. "Yes, Mr. Gonzalo. "

  "Don't disappear like that," said Gonzalo peevishly. "Where were you?"

  "Disposing of dishes and cutlery, Mr. Gonzalo, but I am at your service now. "

  "Good. I want you to hear this. Mr. Teller, please start at the beginning. "

  Teller was staring in surprise. He said, "There really isn't much. My wife was in Grand Central Station and on a crowded escalator her purse vanished. She had it slung over her left shoulder, for she was carrying something in each hand, and our guess is that someone behind her carefully cut the strap, held the bag steady till they reached the bottom of the escalator, and then walked rapidly away, with the purse under his arm. She didn't see a thing, she didn't feel a thing. She knows she had the purse in her possession at the top of the escalator, for she shoved it toward her back for greater convenience, and she didn't have it when she was at the bottom. That's all there is to the story. She wasn't hurt, she wasn't shoved, she wasn't threatened. It was a very professional job. "

  "You don't seem annoyed," said Gonzalo.

  "Well, I was, of course, and so was my wife. Such a loss is always inconvenient. She didn't have much money in it - a few dollars - but she had several credit cards, her driver's license, her automobile registration, some personal papers and photographs, and so on. It meant that she had to report the loss of the credit cards and face a few weeks of doing without, or using mine. It meant negotiating with City Hall over her automobile items, and apparently saying good-bye to all the junk she had in the purse.

  "Mostly, though, it was her pride that was hurt. The purse was an old one, old and decrepit and on its last legs. This was on purpose. She had any number of new and fancy purses that she used on dress occasions, but this was the battered thing she used on her shopping trips, when she expected to be in crowds. She claimed that no self-respecting thief would dream of taking a purse so disreputable. They would know there was nothing worthwhile in it. Well, they did take it, and even though I was careful to make no reference to her earlier statements - she had always been very smug about her cleverness in this respect - she watched me closely and probably knew what I was thinking. "

  "And what was the mystifying sequel?" asked Gonzalo.

  "Well, yesterday, two days after the snatch, I opened the door of my apartment in order to take the rubbish to the compacter - I work at home - and virtually stumbled over a package which had my wife's name on it in straggling letters. I assumed, at first, it was something the mailman had left, even though he perfectly well knew he wasn't supposed to do that without ringing the bell. But when I picked it up I found it had no address and no stamps on it. So it must have been hand-delivered and that rather infuriated me.

  "After all, our apartment house is supposed to have tight security and no one should be able to get into the elevator without passing inspection by the doormen and having us called on the intercom to get our consent to have him, or her, sent up. Naturally, this doesn't always work. Someone comes in when the doormen are busy with something else, or tails someone who belongs in the house so that he seems to be a guest - But it still infuriated me.

  "I was angry enough to inspect the length of the hall and look into the two stairwells and the compacter room, which wasn't exactly intelligent of me, and found no one. I then called my wife, showed her the package, and asked if she knew what it might be.

  "She said at once, and with great conviction, 'It's a bomb. ' Naturally, I laughed at this. We are all getting ridiculously terrorist-conscious. It seemed to me too small to hold a bomb and yet I didn't have the nerve to attempt to open it. After considerable indecision, listening to it for some telltale tick, although I don't know if bombs tick these days, and smelling it, and not having quite enough courage to shake it, I called the police. They told us to put it in the center of our largest room and leave the apartment. Down came a bomb squad in virtually no time, with a portable X-ray unit, and, well . . . it wasn't a bomb.

  "They opened it for us, and when they called us back into the apartment, they showed us the contents. Damned if it wasn't what had been stolen from my wife two days before. Everything! The package contained all the papers, including the credit cards, all the junk. It even contained every last bit of money down to the little cache of quarters she kept for public transportation and even a few smaller coins. She counted it in amazement and it was all there. They had taken nothing. Did you ever hear of such a thing? I consider that mystifying. Presumably, it was a thief with an attack of conscience. "

  Gonzalo, who had listened with close attention, seemed disappointed. "Is that the end of it?"

  "The absolute end," said Teller. "But then I told you there was nothing much to it, so you mustn't feel annoyed with me. "

  Gonzalo shook his head, obviously baffled.

  Henry, however, said quietly, "I beg your pardon, Mr. Teller, but may I have your permission to ask a question?"

  "Well, of course, if you want to, but I don't see what there is to question. "

  "It's just that you mentioned all the contents, sir, but you didn't mention the purse itself. Was that returned as well?"

  Teller looked astonished. "No, it wasn't. I'm glad you asked. It was the only thing that didn't come back. My wife was annoyed about that, actually. She said that the purse was valuable to her and they might have returned that, too. My own feeling was that it was simply too bulky to fit into a neat little package. Of course, I pointed out that since her scheme of carrying an old purse hadn't worked, it was no great loss, and, equally of course, she gave me the exasperated look that wives always give husbands who descend into mere logic. Anyway, that's it. They returned everything but the purse. "

  Halsted said, "That is mystifying. They could easily have made a somewhat bigger package. If the thief were sufficiently conscience-stricken to return every last penny, he would certainly have been sufficiently conscience-stricken to return the purse. "

  Rubin said, "Maybe it fell apart, and he felt it was useless to return the tatters. "

  "No, no, no," interposed Teller. "It was a staunch leather purse. It was old, and weatherbeaten, and looked like hell, but it wasn't going to fall apart. "

  Trumbull said, "Do you suppose there was a purpose in keeping it? I mean maybe the purse was what they wanted, so they returned everything else. "

  "Ridiculous," said Rubin. "If they wanted the purse, they could just dump the contents, at least those parts of it they couldn't use. "

  Drake stubbed out his cigarette and said in his softly hoarse voice, "You can't have it both ways, Manny. Either the thief was not troubled by a conscience and would return nothing, just dumping whatever he didn't want, as you suggest. Or else, he had a conscience and would return everything except what he absolutely needed. The way I see it is that he was reluctantly stealing something he wanted desperately, and he had no intention of stealing anything else. "

  "You mean," said Avalon, "he was an honest man who had no choice but to steal something he had to have, but not another item was going to sully his tender and gentlemanly soul. "

  "That's right," said Drake. "Now if that's the case, think it out a bit. He wants to steal a purse in order to get some specific object it contains. But he only sees the purse and nothing else. He doesn't see what's in it. If he wants something that it contains, he couldn't be sure that this particular purse actually contained it. He might have to steal half a dozen purses, examine each, and then, disappointed of his wish, return everything to its owner; or if he finally found a purse with what he wanted inside, he would remove the wanted object and return everything else.

  "I don't think an honest man, a man so honest that he would be driven to make a package of what he had taken and run the risk of returning it personally, would steal in so wholesale and cavalier a fashion. If we allow that - "

  "Wai
t," said Rubin. "We don't necessarily allow that. He might be after what any purse might be thought to contain - money, credit cards - "

  "Or," said Trumbull, "he might have happened to see Mrs. Teller open her purse and happened to spy something in it that he wanted, and thereafter followed her in order to seize the chance of grasping it. "

  "Or for some reason," said Gonzalo, "all he wanted was her identification. He just wanted to know her name and address. "

  Drake considered matters a moment, humming under his breath, then he said, "I don't think so. If he wanted money or credit cards, he would have kept them, but he returned them. If he had spied something in it that he wanted but that wasn't intrinsically valuable, he wouldn't have returned that, but he did. "

  "Wait," said Gonzalo, "how can we be sure he returned everything? There might be some little item that Mrs. Teller didn't notice was gone. Perhaps there was something in the purse that even Mrs. Teller didn't know was there, or had forgotten was there. "

  "I don't think so," said Teller dubiously. "I can't speak for my wife altogether, but she is a very methodical person with an orderly brain. If she says everything was returned, I'm ready to bet on it. "

  Avalon cleared his throat and said, "You understand, Mr. Teller, this is a game we're playing. We're trying to work out the implications of this odd event. Please do not be offended, then, when I suggest, merely as a remote possibility, that your wife had, let us say, a letter in her purse that she wanted no one to see. If the thief now has it, and if your wife dare not admit it's gone - "

  Teller said grimly, "You are suggesting that the thief now intends to blackmail her. Gentlemen, you'll have to assume I know my wife. She would sooner see the blackmailer - and herself - in hell than pay a penny. Please put blackmail right out of your mind. "

  Halsted said, "He might return the credit cards but keep a record of the number for later forgery. Or of the car registration. "

  Teller said, "Useless. My wife has already canceled all those things and will eventually have new ones. The forgeries would be unusable. "

  "What about the identification?" insisted Gonzalo. "He had her name and address, and he didn't have to keep the physical objects that gave him the information. "

  "Why on Earth," said Trumbull, "would he run the risk of purse snatching for that? He might simply have followed her home. He might have struck up an acquaintanceship with her somehow. And why would he want to know the name and address of a woman unknown to him? You'll excuse me, Bill, if I say that she's not a raving beauty?"

  Teller smiled. "She's beautiful to me, but to anyone else she is merely a rather ordinary-looking middle-aged woman, I dare say. "

  Drake was looking from one to another as each spoke, and he finally said, "If we've eliminated all the various reasons for stealing a purse and returning the contents, may I be allowed to finish my thought?"

  "Go ahead, Jim," said Avalon.

  "Very well, then. You've all played about with complexities and, like Henry, I'm going for simplicity. The thief returned everything but the purse. What's more, all he could see at the time he decided to steal something from Mrs. Teller was the purse, not its contents. Conclusion: He was after the purse itself, nothing more, so he returned all it contained. "

  Rubin said, "But Jim, that just substitutes one problem for another. Why on Earth should the thief want the purse? - Mr. Teller, are you sure the purse had no intrinsic value?"

  "None," said Teller emphatically.

  "It wasn't an antique of some sort, was it?"

  Teller thought a moment. "I'm not an expert on antiques. My wife bought the purse at least twenty years ago, but it's my impression she picked it up in Klein's. Nothing Klein's sells would become an antique, would it?"

  Gonzalo said, "Mickey Mouse watches, which sold for a dollar apiece to begin with, are now valuable antiques. "

  "Yes," said Avalon, "but if the man were a collector and recognized that an object might be worth, say, ten thousand dollars, wouldn't he say, 'Pardon me, madam, but your purse reminds me of one my dear, dead wife once had. Would you be willing to sell it to me for ten dollars so that I can have it for its sentimental value?' Even if he were driven to theft, he would try to get it legally first. "

  Drake said, "It looks as though we're driven to the conclusion that he wanted an old, beat-up purse for its own sake. "

  "Why?" said Avalon.

  "Because he couldn't buy one. All those for sale are new ones. Even if he went to a secondhand store, the purses would be furbished to look as good as possible. He had to find one that was already old and beaten up and looked it. "

  Gonzalo said, "Wouldn't he try to buy it first? 'Hey, lady, you wouldn't sell me that old beat-up, worthless purse for ten dollars, would you, lady?' "

  "Besides," said Trumbull, "why would anybody want an old, beat-up purse?"

  Halsted said, "In the story of Aladdin, the wicked sorcerer went about offering to give new lamps for old, because he wanted Aladdin's old wishing lamp. "

  Avalon favored Halsted with a haughty stare. "I think we can eliminate the possibility that Mrs. Teller owned a wishing purse. "

  "Just joking," said Halsted.

  "Maybe the thief was a theatrical director who needed an old purse for a play he was doing," said Gonzalo.

  "Nuts," said Rubin with contempt. "They would buy a new purse and scuff it up. "

  Trumbull said, "That eliminates the whole need for an old, beat-up purse. Whatever use one might have, couldn't one buy a new purse, or a good-looking second-hand one and scuff it up and stamp on it and scrape it? Why steal one?"

  The conversation came to a dead halt. Finally, Avalon said, "I think we've beaten this to death. There's no logical explanation, and we may simply have to admit that people do illogical things sometimes, and let it go. "

  "Oh, no," said Gonzalo, "not until Henry has his say. - Henry, what do you make of all this?"

  Henry smiled gently and said, "I think, as Mr. Avalon does, that people sometimes do illogical things. However, if we want to continue to play the game, there is one occasion when stealing an old purse is more effective than buying a purse and scuffing it up. "

  "When is that, Henry?" asked Teller.

  "When the thief wants to make sure he is not identified. If the purse is bought, then it is conceivable that something about it can lead investigators to the place where it is purchased, and the seller can then, conceivably, identify the person who bought it. In this case, the thief was not seen and cannot conceivably be identified. Even if it is traced back to Mrs. Teller, she cannot make an identification. He may be so honest a man that he takes the risk of returning everything else, but if he is careful to use a nondescript box and paper for a package, wearing gloves at the time, scrawls a simple name on it, and quietly delivers it without being seen, he is still not likely to be identified. "

  "But in that case," said Teller, "he would want the purse for a criminal purpose. "

  "One would suppose so," said Henry.

  "Like what?"

  "Still playing the game," said Henry, "I can invent a purpose - farfetched, but making a weird kind of sense. The purse was stolen in Grand Central Station and it is well known that there are homeless people who live in the station and who are generally left alone by a society that is too callous to go too far out of its way to help them, but not so callous as to evict them from a warm and secure place.

  "No one pays much attention to these derelicts, in fact. The average person tends to avert his or her eyes from these sad individuals, if only because they look dirty and miserable so that the onlooker feels either uncomfortably repelled or uncomfortably conscience-stricken. It would be easy for someone to assume the dirt, the old clothes, and the wretched appearance of a homeless person and count on not being interfered with, or even noticed. Suppose, then, a woman were made up as what is called a bag lady and needs a purse to carry off the deception - "

  Gonzalo inter
rupted. "Hold on, you call them bag ladies because they carry their personal belongings in brown paper bags. "

  "I'm sure that is the origin of the term, Mr. Gonzalo," said Henry, "but it has become a generic word for such derelicts. I am sure that a homeless woman with a purse would still be considered a bag lady. However, the purse could scarcely be a new one. A bag lady, carrying a new purse, would surely attract attention. It would have to be an old beat-up purse that would fit in with the rest of the costume. "

  Teller laughed. "Very clever tale-spinning, Henry, but I don't think my wife would take to the notion that she carries a purse suitable for a bag lady. Why would this disguised bag lady need a purse anyway? Why not a brown paper bag?"

  "Perhaps," said Henry, "because a paper bag would not be strong enough to contain whatever the bag lady was carrying; only a sturdy, but old purse would do. For instance - and this thought occurs to me only because of the earlier discussion of terrorism - what if the supposed bag lady were carrying an explosive device which she planned to place in the station so as to do a great deal of damage? As Mr. Teller has pointed out, terrorists may look upon themselves as lofty and noble patriots. They would steal a purse that was absolutely essential to their needs, if stealing were the safest way to obtain it, but they would scorn to keep the contents. They are not thieves, but patriots. In their own eyes, at least. "

  Gonzalo said admiringly, "Good Lord, Henry, how nicely you make it all fit. "

  "Simply a game, sir. Dr. Drake did the real work. "

  Trumbull said, frowning darkly as he passed his hand over his tightly waved white hair, "You make it all fit too nicely, Henry. Is there a chance this is what really happened?"

  "I scarcely think so, Mr. Trumbull," said Henry. "There has been no report of an explosion anywhere in the city. "

  "It's only three days since the purse was stolen," said Trumbull. He turned to Teller. "I don't suppose your wife reported the theft, did she?"

  "No, of course not. She couldn't make any identification, not the slightest. She might as well say the purse had disappeared by the wave of an enchanter's wand. "

  "Even if she had," said Avalon, "what could the police do about it, Tom? And why should they think anything like the story Henry has dreamed up? That only arose out of the fact that everything was returned yesterday. "

  "And I don't suppose you reported that, either, did you, Bill?" asked Trumbull.

  "No, of course not," said Teller.

  "Well," said Trumbull, rising heavily to his feet. "This may be crazy, but I'm going to call someone I know. And if" - he looked at his watch - "I catch him watching television or getting ready for bed, that's just too bad. "

  "He might not be home, Tom," said Avalon.

  "I'll get someone," said Trumbull grimly.

  He left for the telephone in the next room, while the remaining Black Widowers and their guest remained in an uneasy silence. Only Henry seemed unperturbed.

  Finally, Gonzalo said, "Do you really think there might be something to what you've thought up, Henry?"

  Henry said, "We had better simply wait for Mr. Trumbull to return. "

  He did, eventually. He sat down and for perhaps fifteen seconds simply stared at Henry.

  "Well, Tom?" said Avalon.

  Tom said, "It amounts to this. If ever this gets out, Henry is going to be indicted for witchcraft. "

  Henry's eyebrows lifted slightly. "If you mean by that, sir, that there was a bomb, I think it would be more appropriate to give the credit to the logical minds of the Black Widowers. "

  "Of you, Henry," said Trumbull. "There was indeed a bomb. It was placed in a spot where it would perhaps not have caused very much in the way of casualties, but it would certainly have disrupted train service for weeks. - What's more, it was contained in an old leather purse. "

  "But," said Henry, "there was no explosion, I take it. "

  "No, because the purse was spotted, quite by accident, and because the person who did the spotting lifted it and was surprised by its weight. Then, because these are troubled times, it occurred to him to do precisely the right thing. He called the bomb squad - as you did, Bill. "

  "That's luck," said Gonzalo. "If it hadn't been found, Henry's analysis would have come too late. "

  "It's not too late for everything. I'm afraid I told them enough of the story so that your wife is going to have to go there and identify her purse. If it is her purse, and I'm ready to bet my last year's salary it is, then they know something important the terrorists don't know they know. They'll start looking at the derelicts in the station and they might well find something. Thank you, Henry. "

  Teller looked perturbed. "I don't think Jenny is going to enjoy getting involved with this. "

  Trumbull said, "She has no choice. Just tell her she's got to. "

  "Yes, that's easy for you to say," said the troubled Teller.

  Henry said, "Take heart, Mr. Teller. I'm sure that your professional ability to uphold unpopular points of view in a convincing manner will make it possible for you to accomplish this task with ease. "

  Afterword

  People ask me where I get my ideas, and the answer is: From any place I can.

  For the most part I have to think and think before something occurs to me, and that's hard work. (Try it, if you don't believe me. ) Therefore, when something comes my way that can be twisted into a story without my having to knock myself out thinking, I grab it at once.

  A woman told me that her purse had once been stolen, and then returned, rather in the fashion I described in this story. I asked why it was returned, and she said, "I don't know. "

  Saying "I don't know" sets my antennae to quivering at once. After all, Henry would know. All I have to do is make up a story around the incident. In this case, that was exactly what I did.

  The story first appeared in the March 1987 issue of Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine.