More Tales of the Black Widowers (33 page)

Halsted said, “Frankly, I think that's perfect. It's exactly what Moriarty would do and it explains everything. Wouldn't you say so, Ron?”

“I will say so,” said Mason, “as soon as I get over being speechless. I ask nothing better than to prepare a Sherlockian paper based on Henry's analysis. How can I square it with my conscience, however, to appropriate his ideas?”

Henry said, “It is yours, Mr. Mason, my free gift, for initiating a very gratifying session. You see, I have been a devotee of Sherlock Holmes for many years, myself.”

12
  
Afterword

Let me confess.

I
am a member of Baker Street Irregulars. / got in despite the fact that I had never written a Sherlockian article. / was the one who thought it would be easy to write one if I had to and then found to my horror that every member of the Baker Street Irregulars was infinitely more knowledgeable in the sacred writings than I was and that I couldn't possibly compete. (Nevertheless, Ronald Mason in this story is not I and does not look anything like me.)

It was only under the urgings of fellow BSI-ers Michael Harrison and Banesh Hoffman that I finally stirred out of my paralysis, and then only after Harrison had suggested I take up the matter of The Dynamics of an Asteroid. I wrote a 1,600-word article with great enthusiasm and fell so deeply in love with my own clever analysis of the situation that I could not bear to think that only a few hundred other BSI-ers would ever see it.

I therefore converted it into “The Ultimate Crime” and made a Black Widowers story out of it for a wider audience.

And at last I feel like a real Baker Street Irregular.

And once again, now that I have come to the conclusion of the book, I will have to repeat what I said at the end of the first book. I will write more Black Widowers. For one thing, I have fallen in love with all the characters. For another, I can't help myself. It's gotten to the point where almost everything I see or do gets run through some special pipeline in my mind, quite automatically and involuntarily, to see if a Black Widowers plot might not come out the other end.

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Isaac Asimov

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