Puzzles of the Black Widowers - By Isaac Asimov Page 0,74

luggage, and then I write fiction. This story and the following one were written on the Bermuda trip in July of 1988, together with a third story that was not a Black Widowers, so the vacation was not entirely a waste of time.

Incidentally, it was not till I was putting the stories together for this collection that I noticed that the central point of "The Envelope" was used as a subsidiary point in "Sunset on the Water." That sort of thing is bound to happen once in a while, especially when one writes as much and as assiduously as I do, but it makes me feel bad just the same.

This story first appeared in the April 1989 issue of Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine.
The Alibi
Emmanuel Rubin was in an uncharacteristically mild mood during the cocktail hour preceding the Black Widowers' banquet. And uncharacteristically thoughtful, too. - But characteristically didactic.

He was saying to Geoffrey Avalon (though his voice was loud enough to reach all corners of the room), "I don't know how many mystery stories - or suspense stories, as they tend to call them these days - have been written, but the number is approaching the astronomical and I certainly haven't read them all.

"Of course, the old-fashioned puzzle story is passe, though I like to write one now and then, but even the modern psychological story in which the crime is merely mentioned in passing, but the inner workings of the criminal's tortured soul occupies thousands of tortured words, may have its puzzle aspects.

"What it amounts to is that I'm trying to think up a new kind of alibi that is broken in a new kind of way, and I wonder - what are the odds of my thinking one up that has never been used before? And no matter how ingenious I am, how can I possibly know that someone long ago, in some obscure volume I never read, did not use precisely the same bit of ingenuity? I envy the early practitioners in the field. Almost anything they made up had never been used before."

Avalon said, "What's the odds, Manny? If you haven't read all the suspense stories written, neither has any reader. Just make up something. If it's a repeat of some obscure device that appeared in a novel published fifty-two years ago, who will know?"

Rubin said bitterly, "Somewhere someone will have read that early novel and he'll write to me, very likely sarcastically."

Mario Gonzalo, from the other end of the room, called out, "In your case, it won't matter, Manny. There are so many other things to criticize in your stories that probably no one will bother pointing out that your gimmicks are old hat."

"There speaks a man," said Rubin, "who in a lifetime of portraiture has produced only caricature."

"Caricature is a difficult art," said Gonzalo, "as you would know if you knew anything about art."

Gonzalo was sketching the evening's guest in order that the sketch might be added to those that marched along the wall of the room at the Milano Restaurant in which the banquets took place.

He had what seemed an easy task this time, for the guest, brought in by Avalon, who was host of the evening, had a magnificent mane of white hair, thick and lightly waved, shining like spun silver in the lamplight. His regular features and spontaneous, even-toothed smile made it quite certain that he was one of those men who grew statelier and more handsome with age. His name was Leonard Koenig and Avalon had introduced him merely as "my friend."

Koenig said, "You are making me look something like a superannuated movie star, Mr. Gonzalo."

"You can't fool an artist's eye, Mr. Koenig," said Gonzalo. "Are you one, by any chance?"

"No," said Koenig without further elaboration, and Rubin laughed.

"Mario is right, Mr. Koenig," said Rubin. "You can't fool an artist's eye."

With that the conversation grew more general, breaking off temporarily only when the soft voice of that peerless waiter, Henry, announced, "Please take your seats, gentlemen. Dinner is being served." - And they sat down to their turtle soup, which Roger Halsted, as the club gourmet, sipped carefully before giving it the benediction of a broad smile.

Over the brandy, Thomas Trumbull, whose crisply waved white hair lost caste, somehow, against the brighter, softer hair of the guest, took up the task of grilling.

"Mr. Koenig, how do you justify your existence?" he asked.

Koenig smiled broadly. "In view of Mr. Rubin's problems with the invention of alibis, I suppose I can most easily