More Tales of the Black Widowers (6 page)

BOOK: More Tales of the Black Widowers
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Bunsen's eyebrows raised. “A-score for you, Mr. Rubin. It was cream of mushroom soup. If you want the rest of the menu, it consisted of a roast beef sandwich with a side order of French fried potatoes, a piece of apple pie with a slice of .cheese, and coffee.”

“Well,” muttered Drake, “we can't all be gourmets.”

Rubin said, “Next, I would suggest that he finished only about half his soup.”

Bunsen thought for a while, then smiled. It was the first time he had smiled that evening and he revealed white and even teeth that gave a clear indication that there was a handsome man beneath the layers of fat.

“You know,” he said, “I wouldn't have thought you could ask me a single question of fact concerning that episode that I could not instantly have answered, but you've managed. I don't know, offhand, if he finished his soup or not, but I'm sure that detail is on record. But let's pretend you are right and he only finished half his soup. Go on.”

“All right,” said Rubin, “we begin. Smith walks into the restaurant with the object. Where does he have it, by the way?”

“Left pants pocket, when he walked in. We saw no signs whatever of his changing its position.”

“Good,” said Rubin. “He walks in, sits down at the table, orders his meal, reads his newspaper—was he reading a newspaper, Mr. Bunsen?”

“No,” said Bunsen, “he wasn't reading anything; not even the menu. He knows the place and what it has to offer.”

“Then once the first course was placed before him, he sneezed. A sneeze, after all is a diversion. Roger mentioned a diversion, but I guess he thought of someone rushing in with a gun, or a fire starting in the kitchen. But a sneeze is a diversion, too, and is natural enough to go unnoticed.”

“It would not have gone unnoticed,” said Bunsen calmly. “He didn't sneeze.”

“Or coughed, or hiccupped, what's the difference?” said Rubin. “The point is that something happened that made it natural for him to pull out a handkerchief—from the left pants pocket, I'm sure—and put it to his mouth.”

“He did no such thing,” said Bunsen.

“When he took away his hand,” said Rubin, overriding the other's remark, “the object that had been in the left pants pocket was in the mouth.”

Bunsen said, “I don't think it would have been possible for him to place the object in his mouth without our seeing him do so, or keep it there without distorting his face-noticeably, but go ahead— What next?”

“The soup is before him and he eats it. You certainly won't tell me he pushed it away un-tasted.”

“No, I'm quite certain he didn't do that”

“Or that he drank it from the bowl.”

Bunsen smiled. “No, I'm quite sure he didn't do that”

“Then there was only one thing he could do. He placed a tablespoon in the soup, brought it to his mouth, brought it back to the soup, brought it to his mouth, and so on. Correct?”

“I must agree with that.”

“And on one of the occasions during which the tablespoon passed from mouth to bowl, the object was in it. It was placed in the soup and, since cream of mushroom soup is not transparent, it would not be seen there. He then drank no more of the soup and someone in the kitchen picked up the object.” Rubin looked about at the others triumphantly.

There was a short silence. Bunsen said, “That is all you have to say, sir?”

“Don't you agree that's a possible modus operandi?”

“No, I don't.” Bunsen sighed heavily. “Quite impossible. The hand is not quicker than the trained eye— and the object is large enough to be an uncomfortable fit in the tablespoon bowl. —Furthermore, you again underestimate our experience and our thoroughness. We had a man in the kitchen and no item came back from our man's table without being thoroughly examined. If the soup bowl came back with soup in it, you can be sure it was carefully emptied by a most careful man.”

“How about the waiter?” interposed Avalon, forced into interest clearly against his will.

Bunsen said, “The waiter was not one of us. He was an old employee, and besides, he was watched too.”

Rubin snorted and said, “You might have told us you had a man in the kitchen.”

“I might have,” said Bunsen, “but Tom told me it would be best to tell you as little as possible and let you think from scratch.”

Avalon said, “If you had incorporated a tiny radio transmitter in the object—”

“Then we would have been characters in a James Bond movie. Unfortunately, we must allow for expertise on the other side as well. If we had tried any such thing, they would have tumbled to it. No, the trap had to be absolutely clean.” Bunsen looked depressed. “I put a hell of a lot of time and effort into it.” He looked about and the depression on his face deepened. “Well, Tom, are we through here?”

Trumbull said unhappily, “Wait a minute, Bob. Damn it, Henry—”

Bunsen said, “What do you want the waiter to do?”

Trumbull said, “Come on, Henry. Doesn't anything occur to you?”

Henry sighed gently. “Something did, quite a while back, but I was hoping it would be eliminated.”

“Something quite plain and simple, Henry?” said Avalon.

“I'm afraid so, sir.”

Avalon said, turning to Bunsen, “Henry is an honest man and lacks all trace of the devious mind. When we are through making fools of ourselves over complexities, he picks up the one straight thread we have overlooked.”

Henry said thoughtfully, “Are you sure you wish me to speak, Mr. Bunsen?”

“Yes. Go on.”

“Well then, when your Mr. Smith left the restaurant, I assume that your men inside did not follow him out.”

“No, of course not. They had their own work inside. They had to make sure he had left nothing behind that was significant.”

“And the man in the kitchen stayed there?”

“Yes.”

“Well then, outside the restaurant, the taxi driver was your man; but it would seem fair to suppose that he had to keep his eye on the traffic so as to be able to be in a position where he could maneuver himself to the curb just in time to pick up Smith; no sooner, no later.”

“And a very good job he did. In fact, when the doorman hailed him, he neatly cut out another cab.” Bunsen chuckled softly.

“Was the doorman one of your men?” asked Henry.

“No, he was a regular employee of the restaurant.”

“Did you have a man on the street at all?”

“If you mean actually standing on the street, no.”

“Then surely there was a moment or two after Smith had left the restaurant, and before he had entered the taxi, when he was not being watched—if I may call it so—professionally.”

Bunsen said with a trace of contempt, “You forget that I was across the street, at a window, with a pair of binoculars. I saw him quite well. I saw the taxi man pick him up. From the door of the restaurant to the door of the taxi took, I should say, not more than fifteen seconds, and I had him in view at every moment.”

Rubin suddenly interrupted. “Even when you were distracted watching the taxi man maneuver to the curb?” He was universally shushed, but Bunsen said, “Even then.” Henry said, “I don’t forget that you were watching, Mr. Bunsen, but you have said you do not have the proper appearance for that kind of work. You do not watch, professionally.”

“I have eyes,” said Bunsen, and there was more than merely a trace of contempt now. “Or will you tell me the hand is quicker than the eye?”

“Sometimes even when the hand is quite slow, I think.—Mr. Bunsen, you arrived late and did not hear Mr. Gonzalo's tale. He had paid a taxi driver exactly the fare recorded on the meter, and so customary is it to pay more than that, that every one of us was shocked. Even I expressed disapproval. It is only when the completely customary is violated that the event is noticed. When it takes place, it is apt to be totally ignored.”

Bunsen said, “Are you trying to tell me that something was wrong with the taxi driver? I tell you there wasn't.”

“I am sure of that,” said Henry earnestly. “Still, didn't you miss something that you took so entirely for granted that, even looking at it, you didn't see it?”

“I don't see what it could have been. I have an excellent memory, I assure you, and in the fifteen seconds that Smith went from restaurant to taxi he did nothing I did not note and nothing I do not remember.”

Henry thought for a moment or two. “You know, Mr. Bunsen, it must have happened, and if you had seen it happen, you would surely have taken action. But you did not take action; you are still mystified.”

'Then whatever it was,” said Bunsen, “it did not happen.” “You mean, sir, that the doorman, a regular employee of the restaurant, hailed a cab for Smith, who was a regular patron for whom he must have performed the same service many times, and that Smith, whom you described as a well-mannered man who always did the correct social thing, did not tip the doorman?”

“Of course lie—” began Bunsen, and then came to a dead halt. And in the silence that followed, Henry said, “And if he tipped him, then surely it was with an object taken from the left pants pocket, an object that, from your description, happened to look something like a coin. —Then he smiled, and that you saw.”

2
  
Afterword

“Quicker Than the Eye” first appeared in the May 1974 issue of Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine.

I have to make a confession here. In writing the Black Widower stories I have always been under the impression that I was doing my best to catch the spirit of Agatha Christie, who is my idol as far as mysteries are concerned. When I presented a copy of Tales of the Black Widowers to Martin Gardner (who writes the “Mathematical Recreations” column in Scientific American and who is a recently elected member of the Trap Door Spiders) I told him this and he read it with that in mind.

When he finished, however, he sent me a note to tell me that in his opinion I had missed the mark. What I had really done, he said, was to catch some of the flavor of G. K. Chesterton's “Father Brown” stories.

You know, he's right. I was an ardent fan of those stories even though I found Chesterton's philosophy a little irritating, and in writing “Quicker Than the Eye,” I was strongly influenced by the great Chestertonian classic, The Invisible Man.

To Table of Contents

3
  
The Iron Gem

Geoffrey Avalon stirred his drink and smiled wolfishly. His hairy, still dark eyebrows slanted upward and his neat graying beard seemed to twitch. He looked like Satan in an amiable mood.

He said to the Black Widowers, assembled at their monthly dinner, “Let me present my guest to you—Latimer Reed, jeweler. And let me say at once that he brings us no crime to solve, no mystery to unravel. Nothing has been stolen from him; he has witnessed no murder; involved himself in no spy ring. He is here, purely and simply, to tell us about jewelry, answer our questions, and help us have a good, sociable time.”

And, indeed, under Avalon's firm eye, the atmosphere at dinner was quiet and relaxed and even Emmanuel Rubin, the ever quarrelsome polymath of the club, managed to avoid raising his voice. Quite satisfied, Avalon said, over the brandy, “Gentlemen, the postprandial grilling is upon us, and with no problem over which to rack our brains. —Henry, you may relax.”

Henry, who was clearing the table with the usual quiet efficiency that would have made him the nonpareil of waiters even if he had not proved himself, over and over again, to be peerlessly aware of the obvious, said, “Thank you, Mr. Avalon. I trust I will not be excluded from the proceedings, however.”

Rubin fixed Henry with an owlish stare through his thick glasses and said loudly, “Henry, this blatantly false modesty does not become you. You know you're a member of our little band, with all the privileges thereto appertaining.”

“If that is so,” said Roger Halsted, the soft-voiced math teacher, sipping at his brandy and openly inviting a quarrel, “why is he waiting on table?”

“Personal choice, sir,” said Henry quickly, and Rubin's opening mouth shut again.

Avalon said, “Let's get on with it. Tom Trumbull isn't with us this time so, as host, I appoint you, Mario, as griller in chief.”

Mario Gonzalo, a not inconsiderable artist, was placing the final touches on the caricature he was making of Reed, one that was intended to be added to the already long line that decorated the private room of the Fifth Avenue restaurant at which the dinners of the Black Widowers were held.

Gonzalo had, perhaps, overdrawn the bald dome of Reed's head and the solemn length of his bare upper lip, and made over-apparent the slight tendency to jowl. There was indeed something more than a trace of the bloodhound about the caricature, but Reed smiled when he saw the result, and did not seem offended.

Gonzalo smoothed the perfect Windsor knot of his pink and white tie and let his blue jacket fall open with careful negligence as he leaned back and said, “How do you justify your existence, Mr. Reed?”

“Sir?” said Reed in a slightly metallic voice.

Gonzalo said, without varying pitch or stress, “How do you justify your existence, Mr. Reed?”

Reed looked about the table at the five grave faces and smiled—a smile that did not, somehow, seriously diminish the essential sadness of his own expression.

BOOK: More Tales of the Black Widowers
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