Isaac Asimov: Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 77, No. 7. Whole No. 454, June 17, 1981

© 1981 by Isaac Asimov

While you are reading the newest tale of the Black Widowers, put yourself in the shoes of Mr. John Smith, the guest-grillee at this month’s banquet. Could you have resolved Mr. Smith’s predicament? Could you have satisfied Vee, the mysterious interrogator? Or would you have landed in an alien prison in an alien country, virtually buried alive and beyond hope of rescue?

Henry, the smoothly functioning waiter at the monthly Black Widowers banquet, filled the water glass of the evening’s guest as though knowing in advance that the guest was reaching into his shirt pocket for a small vial of pills.

The guest looked up. “Thank you, waiter — though the pills are small enough to go down au jus , so to speak.”

He looked about the table and sighed. “Advancing age! In our modern times we are not allowed to grow old ad lib. Doctors follow the faltering mechanism in detail and insist on applying the grease. My blood pressure is a touch high and I have an occasional extra-systole, so I take a pretty little orange pill four times a day.”

Geoffrey Avalon, who sat immediately across the table, smiled with the self-conscious superiority of a man only moderately stricken in years who kept himself in good shape with a vigorous system of calisthenics and said, “How old are you, Mr. Smith?”

“Fifty-seven. With proper care, my doctor assures me I will live out a normal lifetime.”

Emmanuel Rubin’s eyes flashed in magnified form behind his thick spectacles as he said, “I doubt there’s an American who reaches middle age these days who doesn’t become accustomed to a regimen of pills of one kind or another. I take zinc and vitamin E and a few other things.”

James Drake nodded and said in his soft voice as he peered through his cigarette smoke, “I have a special weekly pill-box arrangement to keep the day’s dosages correct. That way I can check on whether I’ve taken the second pill of a particular kind. If the pill is still in the Friday compartment — assuming the day is Friday — I know I haven’t taken it.”

Smith said, “I take only this one kind of pill, which simplifies things. I bought a week’s supply three years ago — twenty-eight of them — on my doctor’s prescription. I was frankly skeptical, but they did help me, so I persuaded my doctor to prescribe them for me in bottles of a thousand. Every Sunday morning I put twenty-eight pills into my original vial, which I carry with me everywhere and at all times and which I still use. I know at all times how much I should have — right now, I should have four left, having just taken the twenty-fourth of the week, and I do. In three years I’ve missed taking a pill only twice.”

“I,” said Rubin loftily, “have not yet reached that pitch of senility that requires any mnemonic devices at all.”

“No?” asked Mario Gonzalo, spearing his last bit of baba au rhum. “What pitch of senility have you reached?”

Roger Halsted, who was hosting the banquet that night, forestalled Rubin’s rejoinder by saying hastily, “There’s an interesting point to be made here. As increasing numbers of people pump themselves full of chemicals, there must be fewer and fewer people with untampered tissue chemistry.”

“None at all,” growled Thomas Trumbull. “The food we eat is loaded with additives. The water we drink has purifying chemicals. The air we breathe is half pollution of one sort or another. If you could analyze an individual’s blood carefully enough, you could probably tell where he lived, what he eats, and what medicines he takes.”

Smith nodded. His short hair exposed prominent ears, something Gonzalo had taken full advantage of in preparing his caricature of the evening’s guest. Now Smith rubbed one of them thoughtfully and said, “Maybe you could file everyone’s detailed blood pattern in some computer bank. Then if all else fails, your blood would be your identification. The pattern would be entered into the computer which would compare it with all those in its memory files, and within a minute words would flash across a screen saying, ‘The man you have here is John Smith of Fairfield, Connecticut,’ and I would stand up and bow.”

Trumbull said, “If you could stand up and bow, you could stand up and identify yourself. Why bother with a blood pattern?”

“Oh, yes?” said Smith grimly.

Halsted said, “Listen, let’s not get involved in this. Henry is distributing the brandy and it’s past time for the grilling. Jeff, will you assume the task.”

“I will be glad to,” said Avalon in his most solemn tone.

Bending his fierce and graying eyebrows over his eyes, Avalon said, with incongruous mildness, “And just how do you justify your existence, Mr. Smith?”

“Well,” said Smith cheerfully, “I inherited a going business. I did well with it, sold it profitably, invested wisely, and now live in early retirement in a posh place in Fairfield — a widower with two grown children, each on his own. I toil not, neither do I spin, and like the lilies of the field my justification is my beauty and the way it illuminates the landscape.” A grin of self-mockery crossed his pleasantly ugly face.

Avalon said indulgently, “I suppose we can pass that. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Your name is John Smith?”

“And I can prove it,” said Smith quickly. “I have my card, a driver’s license, a variety of credit cards, some personal letters addressed lo me, a library card, and so on.”

“I am perfectly willing to accept your word, sir, but it occurs to me that with a name like John Smith you must frequently encounter some signs of cynical disbelief — from hotel clerks, for instance. Do you have a middle initial?”

“No, sir, I am the real thing. My parents felt that any modification of the grand cliché would spoil the grandeur. I won’t deny that there haven’t been times when I’ve longed to say my name was Eustace Bartholomew Wasservogel, but the feeling passes. Of the Smiths I am, and of that tribe — variety, John — I remain.”

Avalon cleared his throat portentously and said, “And yet, Mr. Smith, I think you have reason to feel annoyance at your name. You reacted to Tom’s suggestion that you could merely announce your name and thus make the blood identification unnecessary with a clear tone of annoyance. Have you had some special occasion of late when you failed to identify yourself?”

Trumbull said, “Let me guess that you did. Your eagerness to demonstrate your ability to prove your identity would show that some past failure to do so rankles.”

Smith stared round the table in astonishment, “Good God, does it show that much?”

Halsted said, “No, John, it doesn’t, but this group has developed a sixth sense about mysteries. I told you when you accepted my invitation that if you were hiding a skeleton in your closet, they’d have it out of you.”

“And I told you,” said Smith, “that I had no mystery about me.”

“And the matter of inability to prove your identity?” said Rubin.

“Was a nightmare rather than a mystery,” said Smith, “and it is something I’ve been asked not to talk about.”

Avalon said, “Anything mentioned within the four walls of a Black Widower banquet represents privileged communication. Feel free to talk.”