The Return of the Black Widowers (17 page)

Parris said, with considerably more than a trace of apology, "My instructions are that after you have had time for discussion, I am to open the small envelope marked, 'Three.' "

Drake said softly, "How many envelopes do you have, Mr. Parris? This can go on all night."

"This is the last envelope," said Parris.

"Don't open it," roared Rubin. "There's nothing he can say that will change our minds."

Parris said, "I am compelled to open and read this third message by the ethics of my profession. I can't compel you to listen, of course, so if any of you wish to leave the room, you may."

No one did, however; not even Rubin.

Parris opened the third envelope and this time he looked grim as he scanned the message.

"I think you had better listen," he said. "The message reads, T think it possible that the group may decide to turn down the bequest rather than play the game. If they do so, or if they play but do not solve the riddle, I do will and bequeath the money, unconditionally, to the American Nazi Party."

There was a unanimous wordless rumble from the Black Widowers.

Parris nodded. "That's what it says. See for yourselves."

"You can't do that," said Halsted.

"I am legally compelled to do so," said Parris, "if you refuse to play the game. I am just a sluice through which the money passes. I cannot take independent action. Of course, any or all of you may contest the will, but I don't see what grounds you can possibly have—what legal grounds, that is. A man can do as he wishes with his property within certain clearly defined legal limits, and those limits don't seem to be transgressed here."

"Then let's play the game," said Halsted. "I say I'm the barest because I'm the baldest. I don't say that to win the money, Manny; I say it to keep it out of the hands of the Nazis. Now if you'll agree to that, Mr. Parris, you can hand over the money, and we'll put it into the fund, and that's that."

Parris hesitated. "I'd like to. I would really like to. The trouble is I can t.

"Why not? Do you want the money to go to the Nazis?"

"Of course not," said Parris, with some indignation, "but my only duty here is to respect the will of my client, and he wants one of you to demonstrate that he is the barest in so clever and unmistakable a way that I will be compelled to accept it and to select one of the six of you as the winner. After that, the money is the property of the winner and he is free to do with it as he wishes—keep it, divide it equally among the six of you, set up a trust fund for whatever legal purpose, or anything else."

"Are you sure?" said Trumbull. "No more clever little notes?"

"No more" said Parris. "The reading is complete. I must remind you now that it's a case of 'The Judgment of Parris.' You have to convince me of the validity of the solution or I have to give the money to—to— I have no choice."

Gonzalo said, "According to Manny, Paris—the original Paris—was bribed into giving his judgment. Does that mean . . ."

Parris said seriously, "Please don't finish that remark, Mr. Gonzalo. It will not be funny."

Rubin said, "Then we have no choice. We have to play the game. Who's the barest?"

Halsted says, "We can't answer that until we find out what the old b—Well,
nil nisi bonum
and all that. What does Ralph mean by 'barest,' if he doesn't mean baldest?"

"He may mean 'poorest,' the person who is barest of money," said Gonzalo. "I think I'm in the running for that."
"Or shortest," said Avalon, "the one who most nearly barely exists, so to speak. That's you, Manny."

"You may have eight inches on me, Geoff," said Rubin, "but that could be eight inches of solid bone. How about the one with the smallest wardrobe, which eliminates Mario, or else the lowest IQ, which puts him right back in the running again?"

"Gentlemen, gentlemen," interposed Parris, "none of this sounds in the least convincing. Please be serious."

"You're right," said Rubin, "this is too serious a matter for fooling, but I hate this thing too much to be able to think clearly about it. I say we get Henry into the thing right now."

Henry, who had been standing at the sideboard, listening attentively, now shook his head. "I'm sorry, gentlemen, but that would not be fitting. The deceased did not know of me, did not consider me a member of the club, and I do not qualify to play the game."

"You're a member now," said Trumbull gruffly. "You may not qualify to inherit the money, but you qualify to advise us as to who may. Go on and tell us, Henry."

Henry said, "I don't think I can, Mr. Trumbull. If I am a member of the Black Widowers, I am the only member who has never met Mr. Ottur. I do not know the cast of his thought."

Trumbull said, "There's no mystery there. You've heard us discussing him. He was a word nut. Come on, Henry, if you didn't know Ralph, neither did he know you. He didn't know your faculty for seeing the simple things."

Henry sighed. "I will do my best, sir. May I ask some questions? For instance, am I correct in taking it for granted that the deceased was not a Nazi sympathizer?"

"Hell, no," said Rubin with a snort. "Quite the reverse. During the 1950s he was in trouble because some people thought his views were too leftist."

"Then he doesn't want the money to be left to the Nazis?"

"Of course not."

"So he expects you to win."

Avalon said, "He expects us to do so, but he may overestimate our abilities."

Henry said, "Do you suppose his eagerness to have you win would extend to his giving you a hint?"

Gonzalo said, "What kind of a hint?"

"I'm not sure, Mr. Gonzalo, but let us see. Is Mr. Ottur's name spelled in the usual way?"

"You mean like the animal?" said Trumbull. "O-t-t-e-r? No. It's spelled O-t-t-u-r. With a 'u.' "

Henry said, "I believe that when the preliminary envelopes were handed out, Dr. Drake said something about Mr. Ottur's monogram."

Drake said, "I meant this sketch on the envelope."

"Yes. I had thought that might possibly be so. Has he always used that monogram, Dr. Drake?"

"As long as I've known him, and that goes back a long time."

Henry said, "I can understand the otter, which is a clear reference to Mr. Ottur's name, in a punning sort of way. May I ask if it is known whether the fish in the otter's mouth is a trout?"

There was no reply at first, but finally Avalon said, "I don't know that I gave that any thought. It could be a trout, I suppose. Why do you ask?"

"Only because trout, t-r-o-u-t, is an anagram of Ottur, o-t-t-u-r. The two words consist of the same letters in different arrangements. An otter holding a trout is double reference to his last name by way of a pun and an anagram. Does that fit his character?"

"Absolutely," said Rubin. "The otter was obvious to all of us but I never thought of the trout. He never explained that, as far as I can recall, but then he never explained anything. He wanted everything worked out. But what does all this have to do with the problem facing us, Henry?"

"It seemed to me, gentlemen, that the preliminary message was not really a necessary prelude to the will and might well have been omitted. Furthermore, I saw no point in giving each
one of you an identical message. A single message read out would have done as well, as in the case of the three messages in the three envelopes that were part of the will.

"Looking at it in that fashion," Henry went on, "it occurs to me that he was really handing out his monogram and making sure that each one of you got a good look at it, and will therefore perhaps think of using it as a clue to the nature of the game. The monogram is a pun and anagram on Mr. Ottur's last name. The solution to the problem facing us may rest in just that—puns and anagrams on last names."

The six Black Widowers looked thoughtful at that, each in his own way, and finally Drake stirred.

He said, "You know, that sounds like Ralph, and if so, let me point out that d-r-a-k-e can be rearranged into r-a-k-e-d, and a piece of ground that has been raked is bare, to say nothing of the fact that it is only one letter removed from n-a-k-e-d, which is certainly barest."

Parris said, " 'Raked' doesn't sound compelling to me, and 'naked' is completely impermissible. I don't think we would be allowed to substitute letters."

Rubin said, "Let me offer a pun, then. We don't have to rearrange the letters r-u-b-i-n. Just change it into two words, r-u-b i-n, 'rub in.' Cold cream, which is rubbed into the skin, appears to vanish and leave the skin bare. How about that?"

"Even more farfetched than 'raked,' " said Parris.

Gonzalo said, "g-o-n-z-a-l-o can be rearranged to a-z-o-l-o-n-g, which is 'a so long' in a German accent. A good-bye, in other words, and when everyone says good-bye, you're left bare of company."

"Good God!" said Rubin.

"I can't think of anything else," said Gonzalo defensively.

"If we're going to misspell," said Halsted, "my name can be rearranged into s-t-e-a-1-d-h, which is a misspelling of 'stealth,' and if people steal away, the place is left bare."

"Worse and worse," said Rubin.

"I'm worst of all," said Trumbull, scowling. "The only vowels in my name are two u's, and I can't do anything with that."

Parris said impatiently, "You are still not serious, gentlemen. None of this is worth anything at all. Please! If you want to keep the money from falling into vile hands, you
must
do better."

Avalon, who had had a tight smile on his face for the preceding few minutes, now hunched his magnificent eyebrows down over his eyes and let out a satanic cackle. "But I have it, gentlemen, and I'm delighted to be able to say that Henry, our unexcelled waiter, has overlooked the key clue. No matter, Henry. Even Homer nods."

"Far less often than I do, Mr. Avalon. What clue did I overlook, sir?"

"Why, in the preliminary message, there is not only the monogram, as you correctly pointed out, Henry, but also a reference to the fact that m-o-o-d, spelled backward, is d-o-o-m. That statement is rather a
non sequitur,
and we have a right to wonder why it's brought in at all."

"Because that's the way Ralph thinks—or thought," said Drake.

"Undoubtedly, but if you will take the trouble to spell Avalon backward, you have n-o 1-a-v-a. No puns, no rearrangements, just do as Ralph did in the message."

Parris clenched both hands in excitement. "Now, that's the most interesting thing I've heard yet. But why 'no lava?"

Avalon said, "A piece of ground over which lava has not flowed is bare."

Parris considered this and shook his head. "We might just as easily consider that ground over which lava has not flowed is rich in vegetation and is
not
bare. In that sense, it would be land which lava
has
flowed that would be bare."

Avalon said, "Very well, then, we can rearrange the letters slightly and we have o-n 1-a-v-a. By Councilor Parris's argument there would be no vegetation on lava, and that anagram represents bareness."

"What about the reversed lettering?" said Gonzalo. "Mood to doom and all that."
"Well," said Avalon, "we'll have to eliminate that."

Parris said, "I liked 'no lava,' but it was not convincing. The reason I liked it, though, was that the backward spelling did seem to be a reasonable solution. 'On lava' without the backward spelling has nothing to recommend it."

There was a moment of silence and Rubin said, "You know, this is getting less funny all the time. Are we going to end up giving the money to the Nazis, even with Henry's help?"

Gonzalo said, "Well, let's ask him. What are we doing wrong, Henry?"

Henry said, "I'm not sure, Mr. Gonzalo. It does occur to me, though, that so far we have been punning and anagramming our last names—that is, the potential answers. Ought we to be working the question as well?"

"I don't see what you mean, Henry," said Avalon.

"It strikes me, Mr. Avalon, that the phrase 'to the barest' might just possibly be punned into 'to the bearest'; that is, b-e-a-r-e-s-t, the Black Widower most like a bear."

Trumbull said, "Terrible! It's a terrible pun and it's a terrible suggestion. I don't see how we can get any one of us to be clearly most like a bear anymore than we can get any one of us most bare."