Puzzles of the Black Widowers - By Isaac Asimov Page 0,76

mistake of trying to cover his true purposes by an unrealistic profession of patriotism. It's just that he had available to him, in the way of his work and of circumstances, a great many items we did not want the enemy to have. Still, there are many people who know matters that had best be confidential, and the vast majority of them are thoroughly dependable. There was no reason to suppose that Stephen wasn't as dependable as any of them.

However, there were certain data that the enemy would particularly want to have, data to which Stephen had access. He could easily pass it along to the enemy, but if he did, circumstances were such that he would surely be suspected. In fact, there would be what would amount to a moral certainty that he was the culprit. Yet such was the importance of the information that he had to obtain it.

Notice, by the way, that I don't tell you anything at all about the nature of the data in question, about the manner in which he had access, or the manner in which he would make the transfer. All that is irrelevant to the little game we are playing. Now let me try to put myself into Stephen's mind

He knew he had to perform the task, and he knew he would instantly be suspected, strongly suspected. He felt that he had to protect himself somehow. It was not so much that he feared imprisonment, for he might be exchanged. Nor, I imagine, did he fear death, since the circumstances of his life were such that he must have known that he lived with the possibility of death, even unpleasant death, every day.

Nevertheless, as a patriot - I suppose he could be considered that if viewed through his own eyes - he did not want to be caught because he knew he could not easily be replaced. Furthermore, if he could somehow be absolved of suspicion, our department would have to look elsewhere. That would waste our energies and place any number of innocent people under suspicion, all of which would work to our disadvantage.

But how could he avoid being caught when he was, of necessity, the obvious culprit? Clearly, he would have to be in two places - in the city, where he could carry through his task, and, at the same time, in a far away place so that it would seem he could not possibly have had anything to do with the task. The only way he could achieve this was to be two people.

Here is the way he managed it, as we eventually found out. The country Stephen worked for provided a look-alike, whom we might call Stephen Two. I imagine that if Stephen and Stephen Two stood next to each other it would be easy to distinguish between them, but if someone saw Stephen Two and then, a few days later, Stephen himself, it would seem that he had seen the same person.

It also seems logical to suppose that Stephen Two's resemblance to Stephen was reinforced. He would be given Stephen's hairstyling, would cultivate Stephen's thin mustache, would practice Stephen's voice as given on recordings, and his signature as recorded on documents. He would even have learned to make use of some of Stephen's favorite expressions. Naturally, he would have to be someone who spoke English and understood the culture as well as Stephen did.

All this must have taken considerable time and effort, but it is a measure of the importance of what the enemy country was after that the time and effort was spent.

We eventually pieced together what it was Stephen did and are satisfied that the account is essentially correct. As the time approached, Stephen let it be known, in as casual a manner as seemed appropriate, that he would be going to Bermuda for a week's vacation by way of a cruise ship. When the time came, he went into hiding and changed his appearance slightly, so that he would not readily be recognized while he carried out the theft and transmission of the data as quietly and as obscurely as possible. It was Stephen Two, of course, who took the ship to Bermuda.

Stephen himself, as it happened, had never been to Bermuda, and that struck him as a useful fact. Having been there but once would account for the fact that he might not know all there was to know about the island. He had, however, to know what he himself had