Tales of the Black Widowers

  There was a long silence at the table.

  Finally Eldridge said, "Well, there it is. Mary foresaw the fire three thousand miles away by a full half-hour and got all the facts correct."

  Drake said uneasily, "Do you accept it? Do you think it was precognition?"

  "I'm trying not to," said Eldridge. "But for what reason can I disbelieve it? I don't want to fool myself into believing it, but what choice have I? At what point am I fooling myself? It it wasn't precognition, what was it? I had hoped that perhaps one of you gentlemen could tell me."

  Again a silence.

  Eldridge went on. "I'm left in a position where I must refer to Sherlock Holmes's great precept: 'When the impossible has been eliminated, then whatever remains, however improbable, is the truth.' In this case, if fakery of any kind is impossible, the precognition must be the truth. Don't you all agree?"

  The silence was thicker than before, until Trumbull cried out, "Damn it all, Henry is grinning. No one's asked him yet to explain this. Well, Henry?"

  Henry coughed. "I should not have smiled, gentlemen, but I couldn't help it when Professor Eldridge used that quotation. It seems the final bit of evidence that you gentlemen want to believe."

  "The hell we do," said Rubin, frowning.

  "Surely, then, a quotation from President Thomas Jefferson would have sprung to mind."

  "What quotation?" asked Halsted.

  "I imagine Mr. Rubin knows," said Henry.

  "I probably do, Henry, but at the moment I can't think of an appropriate one. Is it in the Declaration of Independence?"

  "No, sir," began Henry, when Trumbull interrupted with a snarl.

  "Let's not play Twenty Questions, Manny. Go on, Henry, what are you getting at?"

  "Well, sir, to say that when the impossible has been eliminated, whatever remains, however improbable, is the troth, is to make the assumption, usually unjustified, that everything that is to be considered has indeed been considered. Let us suppose we have considered ten factors. Nine are clearly impossible. Is the tenth, however improbable, therefore true? What if there were an eleventh factor, and a twelfth, and a thirteenth .. ."

  Avalon said severely, "You mean there's a factor we haven't considered?"

  "I'm afraid so, sir," said Henry, nodding.

  Avalon shook his head. "I can't think what it can be."

  "And yet it is an obvious factor, sir; the most obvious one."

  "What is it, then?" demanded Halsted, clearly annoyed. "Get to the point!"

  "To begin with," said Henry, "it is clear that to explain the ability of the young lady to foretell, as described, the details of a fire three thousand miles away except by precognition is impossible. But suppose precognition is also to be considered impossible. In that case-"

  Rubin got to his feet, straggly beard bristling, eyes magnified through thick-lensed glasses, staring. "Of course! The fire was set. The woman could have been coached for weeks. The accomplice goes to San Francicso and they coordinate. She predicts something she knows is going to happen. He causes something he knows she will predict."

  Henry said, "Are you suggesting, sir, that a confederate would deliberately plan to kill five victims, including an eight-year-old boy?"

  "Don't start trusting in the virtue of mankind, Henry," said Rubin. "You're the one who is sensitive to wrongdoing."

  "The minor wrongdoings, sir, the kind most people overlook. I find it difficult to believe that anyone, in order to establish a fancied case of precognition, would deliberately arrange a horrible multi-murder. Besides, to arrange a fire in which eighteen of twenty-three people escape and five specific people die requires a bit of precognition in itself."

  Rubin turned stubborn. "I can see ways in which five people can be trapped; like forcing a card in conjuring-"

  "Gentlemen!" said Eldridge peremptorily, and all turned to look at him. "I have not told you the cause of the fire."

  He went on, after looking about the table to make sure he had the attention of all, "It was a stroke of lightning. I don't see how a stroke of lightning could be arranged at a specified time." He spread out his hands helplessly. "I tell you. I've been struggling with this for weeks. I don't want to accept precognition, but ... I suppose this spoils your theory, Henry?"

  "On the contrary, Professor Eldridge, it confirms it and makes it certain. Ever since you began to tell us this tale of Mary and the fire, your every word has made it more and more certain that fakery is impossible and that precognition has taken place. If, however, precognition is impossible, then it follows of necessity, Professor, that you have been lying."

  Not a Black Widower but exclaimed at that, with Avalon's shocked "Henry!" loudest of all.

  But Eldridge was leaning back in his chair, chuckling. "Of course I was lying. From beginning to end. I wanted to see if all you so-called rationalists would be so eager to accept parapsychological phenomena that you would overlook the obvious rather than spoil your own thrill. When did you catch me out, Henry?"

  "It was a possibility from the start, sir, which grew stronger each time you eliminated a solution by inventing more information. I was certain when you mentioned the lightning. That was dramatic enough to have been brought in at the beginning. To be mentioned only at the very end made it clear that you created it on the spot to block the final hope."

  "But why was it a possibility from the start, Henry?" demanded Eldridge. "Do I look like a liar? Can you detect liars the way I had Mary detect shoplifters?"

  "Because this is always a possibility and something to be kept in mind and watched for. That is where the remark by President Jefferson comes in."

  "What was that?"

  "In 1807, Professor Benjamin Silliman of Yale reported seeing the fall of a meteorite at a time when the existence of meteorites was not accepted by scientists. Thomas Jefferson, a rationalist of enormous talent and intelligence, on hearing the report, said, 'I would sooner believe that a Yankee professor would lie than that a stone would fall from heaven.' "

  "Yes," said Avalon at once, "but Jefferson was wrong. Silliman did not lie and stones did fall from heaven."

  "Quite so, Mr. Avalon," said Henry, unruffled. "That is why the quotation is remembered. But considering the great number of times that impossibilities have been reported, and the small number of times they have been proven possible after all, I felt the odds were with me."

  Afterword

  This story first appeared in the May 1973 issue of Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, under the title I gave it.

  I hope that no reader thinks the solution in this tale "isn't fair." In real life, a great many reports of unconventional phenomena are the results of deviations from the truth, either deliberate or unconscious. And I am sick and tired of mysteries that end up with some indication that perhaps, after all, something supernatural really did happen.

  As far as I am concerned, if, when everything impossible has been eliminated and what remains is supernatural, then someone is lying. If that be treason, make the most of it.

  7

  The Pointing Finger

  It was a rather quiet Black Widowers banquet until Rubin and Trumbull had their nose-to-nose confrontation.

  Mario Gonzalo had been first to arrive, subdued and with the shadow of trouble upon him.

  Henry was still setting up the table when Gonzalo arrived. He stopped and asked, "How are you, sir?" in quiet and unobtrusive concern.

  Gonzalo shrugged. "All right, I guess. Sorry I missed the last meeting, but I finally decided to go to the police and I wasn't up to much for a while. I don't know if they can do anything, but it's up to them now. I almost wish you hadn't told me."

  "Perhaps I ought not to have done so."

  Gonzalo shrugged. "Listen, Henry," he said. "I called each of the guys and told him the story."

  "Was that necessary, sir?"

  "I had to. I'd feel constrained if I didn't. Besides, I didn't want them to think you had failed."

  "Not an important considerat
ion, sir."

  The others came one by one, and each greeted Gonzalo with a hearty welcome that ostentatiously ignored a murdered sister, and each then subsided into a kind of uneasy quiet.

  Avalon, who was hosting the occasion, seemed, as always, to add the dignity of that office to his natural solemnity. He sipped at his first drink and introduced his guest, a young man with a pleasant face, thinning black hair, and an amazingly thick mustache which seemed to be waiting only for the necessary change in fashion to be waxed at the end.

  "This is Simon Levy," said Avalon. "A science writer and a splendid fellow."

  Emmanuel Rubin promptly said, "Didn't you write a book on the laser, Light in Step?"

  "Yes," said Levy with the energetic delight of an author greeting unexpected recognition. "Have you read it?"

  Rubin, who was carrying, as he always did, the self-conscious soul of a six-footer in his five-foot-four body, looked solemnly at the other through his thick glasses and said, "I did, and found it quite good."

  Levy's smile weakened, as though he considered a judgment of "quite good" no good at all.

  Avalon said, "Roger Halsted won't be with us today. He's out of town on something or other. Sends his regrets and says to say hello to Mario if he shows up."

  Trumbull said with his mouth down-curved in a sneer, "We're spared a limerick."

  "I missed last month's," said Gonzalo. "Was it any good?"

  "You wouldn't have understood it, Mario," said Avalon gravely.

  "That good, eh?"

  And then things quieted down to a near whisper until somehow the Act of Union came up. Afterward, neither Rubin nor Trumbull could remember exactly how.

  Trumbull said, in what was considerably more than an ordinary speaking voice, "The Act of Union forming the United Kingdom of England, Wales, and Scotland was made law at the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713."

  "No, it wasn't," said Rubin, his straw-colored and straggly beard wagging indignantly. "The Act was passed in 1707."

  "Are you trying to tell me, you dumb jackass, that the Treaty of Utrecht was signed in 1707?"

  "No, I'm not," shouted Rubin, his surprisingly loud voice reaching a bellow. "The Treaty of Utrecht was signed in 1713. You guessed that part right, though God only knows how."

  "If the Treaty was signed in 1713, then that settles the Act of Union."

  "No, it doesn't, because the Treaty had nothing to do with the Act of Union, which was 1707."

  "Damn you, five dollars says you don't know the Act of Union from a union suit."

  "Here's my five dollars. Where's yours? Or can you spare a week's pay at that two-bit job you've got?"

  They were standing up now, leaning toward each other over James Drake, who philosophically added a fresh dollop of sour cream and chives to the last of his baked potato, and finished it.

  Drake said, "No use shouting back and forth, my fellow jackasses. Look it up."

  "Henry!" roared Trumbull.

  There was the smallest of delays and then Henry was at hand with the third edition of the Columbia Encyclopedia.

  "Host's privilege," said Avalon. "I'll check, as an impartial observer."

  He turned the pages of the fat volume, muttering, "Union, union, union, ah, Act of." He then said, almost at once, "1707. Manny wins. Pay up, Tom."

  "What?" cried Trumbull, outraged. "Let's see that."

  Rubin quietly picked up the two five-dollar bills which had been lying on the table and said in a ruminating voice, "A good reference book, the Columbia Encyclopedia. Best one-volume all-round reference in the world and more useful than the Britannica, even if it does waste an entry on Isaac Asimov."

  "On whom?" asked Gonzalo.

  "Asimov. Friend of mine. Science fiction writer and pathologically conceited. He carries a copy of the Encyclopedia to parties and says, 'Talking of concrete, the Columbia Encyclopedia has an excellent article on it only 249 pages after their article on me. Let me show you.' Then he shows them the article on himself."

  Gonzalo laughed. "Sounds a lot like you, Manny."

  "Tell him that and he'll kill you-if I don't first."

  Simon Levy turned to Avalon and said, "Are there arguments like that all the time here, Jeff?"

  "Many arguments," said Avalon, "but they generally don't get to the wager and reference book stage. When it does happen, Henry's prepared. We have not only the Columbia Encyclopedia, but copies of the Bible, both the King James and the New English; Webster's unabridged -second edition, of course; Webster's Biographical Dictionary; Webster's Geographical Dictionary; The Guinness Book of Records; Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable; and The Complete Works of Shakespeare. It's the Black Widowers' library and Henry is the custodian. It usually settles all arguments."

  "I'm sorry I asked," said Levy.

  "Why?"

  "You mentioned Shakespeare and I react to that, right now, with nausea."

  "To Shakespeare?" Avalon gazed down at his guest with lofty disapproval.

  "You bet. I've been living with him for two months, reading him backward and forward till one more 'Why, marry' or 'fretful porpentine' and I'll throw up."

  "Really? Well, wait. . . . Henry, is dessert coming up?"

  "Directly, sir. Coupe aux marrons."

  "Good! . . . Simon, wait till dessert's finished and we'll carry on."

  Ten minutes later, Avalon placed spoon to water glass and tinkled the assemblage to silence. "Host's privilege," he said. "It is time for the usual inquisition, but our honored guest has let it slip that for two months past he has been studying Shakespeare with great concentration, and I think this ought to be investigated. Tom, will you do the honors?"

  Trumbull said indignantly, "Shakespeare? Who the hell wants to talk about Shakespeare?" His disposition had not been improved by the loss of five dollars and by the look of unearthly virtue upon Rubin's face.

  "Host's privilege," said Avalon firmly.

  "Humph. All right. Mr. Levy, as a science writer, what is your connection with Shakespeare?"

  "None, as a science writer." He spoke with a distinct Brooklyn accent. "It's just that I'm after three thousand dollars."

  "In Shakespeare?"

  "Somewhere in Shakespeare. Can't say I've had any luck, though."

  "You speak in riddles, Levy. What do you mean three thousand dollars somewhere in Shakespeare that you can't find?"

  "Oh, well, it's a complicated story."

  "Well, tell it. That's what we're here for. It's a longstanding rule that nothing that is said or done in this room is ever repeated outside under any circumstances, so speak freely. If you get boring, we'll stop you. Don't worry about that."

  Levy spread out his arms. "All right, but let me finish my tea."

  "Go ahead, Henry will bring you another pot, since you aren't civilized enough to drink coffee. ... Henry!"

  "Yes, sir," murmured Henry.

  "Don't start till he comes back," said Trumbull. "We don't want him to miss any of this."

  "The waiter?"

  "He's one of us. Best man here."

  Henry arrived with a new pot of tea and Levy said, "It's a question of a legacy, sort of. It's not one of those things where the family homestead is at stake, or millions in jewels, or anything like that. It's just three thousand dollars which I don't really need, but which would be nice to have."

  "A legacy from whom?" asked Drake.

  "From my wife's grandfather. He died two months ago at the age of seventy-six. He'd been living with us for five years. A little troublesome, but he was a nice old guy and, being on my wife's side of the family, she took care of most of it. He was sort of grateful to us for taking him in. There were no other descendants and it was either us or a hotel for old people."

  "Get to the legacy," said Trumbull, showing some signs of impatience.

  "Grandpa wasn't rich but he had a few thousand. When he first came to us, he told us that he had bought

  three thousand dollars' worth of negotiable bonds and would give them
to us when he died."

  "Why when he died?" asked Rubin.

  "I suppose the old guy worried about our getting tired of him. He held out the three thousand to us as a reward for good behavior. If he was still with us when he was dying, he would give the bonds to us, and if we kicked him out, he wouldn't. I guess that was what was in his mind."

  Levy went on, "He hid them in various places. Old guys can be funny. He'd change the hiding place now and then whenever he began to fear we might find them. Of course, we usually did find them before long, but we'd never let on and we'd never touch them. Except once! He put them in the clothes hamper and we had to give them back to him and ask him to put them elsewhere, or sooner or later they would get into the washing machine.

  "That was about the time he had a small stroke-no connection, I'm sure-and after that he was a little harder to handle. He grew morose and didn't talk much. He had difficulties in using his right leg and it gave him a feeling of mortality. After that, he must have hidden the bonds more efficiently, for we lost track of them, though we didn't attach much importance to that. We assumed he would tell us when he was ready.

  "Then two months ago, little Julia, that's my younger daughter, came running to us to tell us that Grandpa was lying on the couch and looking funny. We ran to the living room, and it was obvious that he had had another stroke. We called the doctor, but it was clear that his right side was gone entirely. He couldn't speak. He could move his lips and make sounds, but they came to no words.

  "He kept moving his left arm and trying to speak and I said, 'Grandpa, are you trying to tell me something?' He could just about tremor his head into a small nod. 'About the bonds?' Again a small nod. 'You want us to have them?' Again a nod and his hand began to move as though he were trying to point.

  "I said, 'Where are they?' His left hand trembled and continued to point. I couldn't help but say, 'What are you pointing at, Grandpa?' but he couldn't tell me. His finger just kept pointing in an anxious, quivering way, and his face seemed in agony as he tried to talk and failed. I was sorry for him. He wanted to give the bonds to us, to reward us, and he was dying without being able to.