The Return of the Black Widowers (33 page)

"I know," said Trumbull. "The best one among us. But what's it all about then?"

"He wants to be grilled after the banquet. He's got a problem."

"He's
got a problem?"Trumbull's voice went up half an octave and several decibels.

Drake put a finger to his lips and looked apprehensively up the stairs to where the four others were having their drinks. "Keep it down. Yes, he does."

"What kind of problem?"

"He didn't say."

"But he's the one who always solves the problems. I don't recall a single time when any of the others of us have managed."

"I know, I know. I told him that," said Drake. "He said he's too close to it, and he wants our help. —Well, listen, I just
couldn't
refuse him."

"No," said Trumbull," of course not. But it could create problems."

"I know. I've arranged to have Manny Rubin talk about the plot of the mystery novel he's working on now. So don't you stop him this time. We need normal conversation during the dinner or we might embarrass Henry."

"Very well. I'll let him talk, but it surely goes against the grain to hear him pontificate on mystery writing."

The turtle soup and the crab salad had gone the way of all flesh and the roast lamb was being brought on. Emmanuel Rubin drew a breath and continued to speak. "But what you have to be most careful of is the motive. Suppose you have a traditional murder mystery with a closed cast of characters. One of the individuals in the book committed the murder and you know for a fact that no outsider could possibly be involved.

"Well, they might all have access to the means by which the
murder was committed; they might all have had the opportunity; you might arrange for no one to have an alibi. That part is easy. But now comes the question of motive.

"If one of the characters has an overwhelming motive for killing the victim and everyone else stands only to lose heavily by his death, then you make it almost certain that the person with the motive committed the crime.

"There are several ways out of it. You can make the victim so saintly a person that no one would seem to have a motive for killing him. Or you can make the victim so evil a person that everyone would have a motive for killing him. Or—"

Mario Gonzalo interrupted, "You can have a character with a
hidden
motive, cant you?"

Rubin stared at him hotly through the thick lenses of his glasses and his sparse beard seemed to bristle, "I said 'Or,' Mario. Do you mind if I finish?"

"Go ahead," said Geoffrey Avalon, in his impressive baritone. "You know no one can stop you when you're in full flight."

Rubin said, "Or—to finish what I was saying—you can indeed give one person an overwhelming motive, but you can give another character, or several others, motives that are not known at the start and are only gradually revealed."

Roger Halsted said, "It's for that reason I always know for sure that the character with the overwhelming motive is innocent."

"Every once in a while, wise guy," said Rubin, "a clever writer can turn the tables and, having forced attention away from the obvious killer, reveal him as the killer after all."

Rubin went into greater detail, but the conversation began to flag when the coffee and dessert showed up. The evil moment could not be long delayed and when Henry served the brandy—having maintained his imperturbable countenance throughout—Drake, with a sinking sensation, clattered his spoon against his water glass.

"Gentlemen," he said, "as you all know, our esteemed Henry, the man who makes these banquets what they are, wishes to
present a problem to us. I have made it quite plain that our record in these matters is an abysmally poor one, but he will have it so, and, of course, we are always at his service figuratively as he is at ours literally. So, Henry, please take a seat at the table."

Henry demurred. "That would not be at all necessary, Dr. Drake."

"Host's decision, Henry. You're a member of the club and from this moment on, you're a partaker of the banquet. Sit down. Mario, drag up a chair."

With a slight nod, Henry seated himself.

Drake said to Halsted, "Roger, you've got the softest voice and are the least opinionated of us. So why don't you do the grilling?"

Halsted took a gentle sip of his Grand Marnier and said, "Henry, I won't ask you to begin by justifying your existence. We know very well how your existence is justified. It is by seeing to it that we have the best banquets in the city, or perhaps in the world. But we want those banquets to continue. Would you object to having us probe into your private life, to have us question what you have to say, to have us try to catch you out in your own statements? In short, will this ruin our relationship?"

Henry said, gently, "I have myself asked for this session, Mr. Halsted. I have heard the manner in which you have grilled dozens of guests, and I am ready to take my turn."

A silence fell over the table and after a full minute, Halsted said, "It's obvious, Henry, that each of us is reluctant to question you, despite your offer to be grilled. May we therefore start with you? Could you tell us, in your own words, what problem is disturbing you, and perhaps, as you speak, questions may occur to us and we may ask them."

"As you wish," said Henry. He paused, as though collecting his thoughts, then said "Gentlemen, we have had a long and happy association—happy on my part, certainly—but it has been, if I may use the expression, a purely professional one. The circumstances of my private life are unknown to you, I believe. You have
never questioned me and I have never forced my confidences on you—till now. Gentlemen, as some of you may have taken for granted, I am not married."

Avalon said, softly, "Have you
ever
been married, Henry?"

"No, Mr. Avalon, never. I am an old bachelor and growing older. As you have no doubt heard, old bachelors become accustomed to their own ways and, as the years pass, their singleness becomes ever more precious to them, though there are times, since even old bachelors are human, when they feel lonely. There is a woman—"

"Aha," said Gonzalo, lifting one finger, then falling silent, as though abashed.

"Yes," said Henry, with a small smile, "I have in my lifetime made friends with those of the opposite sex, and have even engaged in some romantic situations—but not so much in recent years. For the last year and a half, though, I have known a woman only slightly younger than myself, who has been a good friend. Her name is Hester Amberley, and that is her real name. I know, better than anyone else, the conditions of confidentiality that exist at these banquets, and so there is no need to conceal anything.

"Hester is as old-fashioned as her name; in fact, as old-fashioned as I am. We have quiet times; we discuss books and the news of the day; we take strolls in the park; we enjoy the newly refurbished Central Park Zoo; we occasionally take in a show. It is a quiet life, but one that is very satisfying. She was married in the past and is a widow, but she has a modest competence as a result. We each have a comfortable apartment, neither of us has financial problems, we are each accustomed to a single life and it really has the potential for an idyllic existence. What we supply each other with is company and a community of interests. Nothing could be more convenient and delightful, until there came a time when—"

"Aha," said Gonzalo again. "A serpent enters the Garden of Eden. Another man Henry?"
"Oh, no,” said Henry. "Nor another woman, either. We are each of us beyond the point where we are searching out adventures. Besides, our friendship is sufficiently sensible to continue, I believe, even if third parties had made their appearance. No, the interfering phenomenon is something much more disturbing."

Avalon said, "I would suggest, Henry, that you move on to this interfering phenomenon and tell us what it is."

"In two words, Mr. Avalon, it's anonymous letters."

"Blackmail?" Avalon s eyebrows were raised in surprise.

Henry hesitated. "I can't say blackmail. Simply anonymous letters."

"Suppose you tell us about them," said Halsted, gently.

"They started arriving in the mail a bit over two months ago. They are short letters, printed in straggly fashion on cheap paper, in cheap envelopes. They seem almost illiterate, but the words are spelled correctly and I suppose they were printed with the left hand—or the right hand if the writer was left-handed."

"Have you seen them yourself?" put in Gonzalo, abruptly.

"Yes, I have, Mr. Gonzalo—three of them. Hester destroyed the first few, being very upset and not thinking clearly, I suppose, but when she couldn't stand it anymore she turned to me for help and showed me three letters she had not destroyed. The paper and the envelopes are untraceable, I'm sure, and the postmarks indicate no more than that the letters were mailed here in the city. Hester did not think to handle them with gloves, but the writer was being so careful that I imagine he or she was careful to leave no fingerprints."

Halsted said, "Is it possible to tell us what the letters are about? —Why they upset her so?"

Henry's mouth twitched as though he were meditating a smile and thought better of it. "They accuse her of various crimes, but quite minor ones. Hester is not the woman to have had a past that included murder, theft, or any of the more grandiose criminal activities."

"And she's not accused of them?" said Halsted.

"Not at all. Of the three letters I saw, one accused her of having bought lipstick at the age of sixteen, after her mother had strictly forbidden her to. One, that she had had dinner with a male friend once when her husband was out of town—it mentioned the dinner and it suggested nothing more. The third reminded her that she routinely used company postage for her private mail."

Drake said, thoughtfully, "Those were only the three letters she showed you. Might not some of the letters she didn't show you contain meatier matter?"

"It is possible, but Hester insists that these three are entirely typical, and I believe her. I have never found her dishonest or devious, even when honesty was—inconvenient."

Drake shrugged, as though unconvinced, but he said, "In that case, if we accept your friend's statement, why should these things bother her? If I had a dollar for every teenager who buys and uses lipstick against parental instructions, for every employee who raids the petty-cash box, I'd be a rich man."

"They bother her, Dr. Drake, because she doesn't know who's sending them."

Rubin said, "Let's be logical. Just from the three letters you described, it's someone who knew her well enough to describe her high crimes and misdemeanors as an adolescent as well as a mature woman, so it must be someone who's known her all her life. There can't be many of those."

"Worse than that, Mr. Rubin. There aren't
any
of those. Hester was born in Ames, Iowa, and moved to New York when she had turned twenty-two. Except for two brief visits in the 1950s, she has not been back to Ames. No one she knew there is here in New York—"

"How can she know that?" said Rubin.

"Well, if any are here in New York, Mr. Rubin, they haven't made themselves known to her."

Halsted said, "Some thirty years have passed since her last visit. It's possible an old Ames acquaintance might not want to be
known to her. She—or he—may be working at her place of business, and she's never really paid attention to her—or him—and might not recognize the person if she did."

Gonzalo said, "Wait a while. Why does it have to be someone who's known her all her life? These days no one has any privacy. Everything's on computers. If someone tapped into the computers, which hackers seem to be doing all the time, they could find out anything they want."

"No, they can't, Mario," said Avalon, censoriously. "You're just being paranoid about computers. I don't deny that computers are full of details about the financial and medical histories of various people, and I admit this raises the possibility of enormous invasions of privacy, but the computers don't hold
everything.
You don't suppose any time a person takes a stamp from the postage drawer, a relay is tripped and the fact is recorded in a computer under the person's name, address, and Social Security number, do you? Or that every time a teenager explores the boundaries of parental permission, those computers are activated—and some forty years ago, at that, in Mrs. Amberley's case?"

Gonzalo was on the defensive. "They can find out enough. They can find out she was born in Ames, Iowa, and they could go there to gather information about her younger years."