More Tales of the Black Widowers by Isaac Asimov
“But to have not realized this,” said Evans confusedly, “will make me seem more a fool than ever.”
“Not,” said Henry softly, “if your statement leads to a solution of the crime.”
6 Afterword
“No Smoking” appeared in the December 1974 issue of Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine under the title of “Confessions of an American Cigarette Smoker.”
I'm growing ever more fanatical on the subject of smoking. Trumbull in this story is speaking for me. I allow no smoking in either my apartment or my office, but one is limited in one's dictatorial powers elsewhere. The meetings of the Trap Door Spiders are indeed made hideous with smoke— as are almost all other meetings I attend.
There's nothing I can do about it directly, of course, except to complain when the law is with me. (I once plucked the cigarette out of the hand of a woman who was smoking under a “No Smoking” sign in an elevator and who wouldn't put it out when I asked her, politely, to do so.) It helps a bit, though, to write a story expressing my views.
To Table of Contents
7 Season's Greetings
Thomas Trumbull, whose exact position with government intelligence was not known to the other Black Widowers, creased his face into a look of agonized contempt, bent toward Roger Halsted, and whispered, “Greeting Cards?”
“Why not?” asked Halsted, his eyebrows lifting and encroaching on the pink expanse of his forehead. “It's an honorable occupation.”
Trumbull had arrived late to the monthly banquet of the Black Widowers and had been introduced to the guest of the evening even while Henry, the wonder-waiter, had placed the scotch and soda within the curve of his clutching fingers. The guest, Rexford Brown, had a markedly rectangular face, a good-humored mouth, a closely cut fuzz of white hair, a soft voice, and a patient expression.
Trumbull said discontentedly, “It's the season for it, with Christmas next week; I'll grant you that much. Still it means we'll have to sit here and listen to Manny Rubin tell us his opinion of greeting cards.”
“Who knows?” said Halsted. “It may turn out that he's written greeting-card rhymes himself. Anyone who's been a boy evangelist—”
Emmanuel Rubin, writer and polymath, had, as was well known, an incredible sharpness of hearing where mention was made, however tangentially, of himself. He drifted over and said, “Written what?”
“Greeting-card rhymes,” said Halsted. “You know—'There once were three travelers Magian, Who on a most festive occasion—'“
“No limericks, damn you,” shouted Trumbull. Geoffrey Avalon looked up from the other end of the room and said in his most austere baritone, “Gentlemen, I believe Henry wishes to inform us that we may be seated.”
Mario Gonzalo, the club artist, had already completed his sketch of the guest with an admirable economy of strokes and said lazily, “I've been thinking about Roger's limericks. Granted, they're pretty putrid, but they can still be put to use.”
“If you printed them on toilet paper—” began Trumbull.
“I mean money,” said Gonzalo. “Look, these banquets cost, don't they? It would be nice if they could be made self-supporting, and Manny knows about a half dozen publishers who will publish anything if they publish his garbage—”
Drake, stubbing his cigarette out with one hand, put the other over Mario's mouth. “Let's not get Manny into an explosive mood.”
But Rubin, who was inhaling veal at its most Italian with every indication of olfactory pleasure, said, “Let him talk, Jim. I'm sure he has an idea that will add new dimensions to the very concept of garbage.”
“How about a Black Widowers' Limerick Book?”
“A what?” said Trumbull in a stupefied tone.
“Well, we all know limericks. I have one that goes, There was a young lady of Sydney Who could take it—'“
“We've heard it,” said Avalon, frowning.
“And, There was a young fellow of Juilliard With a—”
“We've heard that one too.”
“Yes,” said Gonzalo, “but the great public out there hasn't. If we included all the ones we make up and all the ones we can remember, like Jim's limerick about the young lady of Yap, the one that rhymes 'interstices' and 'worse disease'—”
“I will not,” said Trumbull, “consent to have the more or less respectable name of the Black Widowers contaminated with any project of such infinite lack of worth.”
“What did I tell you about garbage?” said Rubin.
Gonzalo looked hurt. “What's wrong with the idea? We could make an honest buck. We could even include clean ones. Roger's are all clean.”
“That's because he teaches at a junior high school,” said Drake, snickering.
“You should hear some of those kids,” said Halsted. “How many are in favor of a Black Widowers? Limerick Book?
Gonzalo's hand went up in lonely splendor. Halsted looked as though he might join him; his arm quivered—but stayed down.
Rexford Brown asked mildly, “May I vote?”
“It depends,” said Trumbull suspiciously. “Are you in favor or not?”
“Oh, I'm in favor.”
“Then you can't vote.”
“Oh well, it wouldn't change the result, anyway, but I’m for anything that will bring moments of pleasure. There aren't enough of those.”
Gonzalo, speaking with his mouth full, said, “Tom never had one. How would he know?”
Rubin, with a clear effort to keep from sounding sardonic, and marking up a clear failure, said, “Is it those moments of pleasure that justify you in spending your life in the greeting-card business, Mr. Brown?”
“One of the ways,” said Brown.
“Hold it, Manny,” said Avalon. “Wait for the coffee.”
The conversation then grew general, though Gonzalo kept sulkily silent and was observed to be fiddling with his napkin, on which he wrote, in careful Old English lettering, “There once was a group of dull bastards—” but never got to a second line.
Over the coffee, Halsted said, “Okay, Manny, you nearly got to it earlier, so why don't you start the grilling?”
Rubin, who was just holding up his hand to Henry to indicate that he had enough coffee for the moment, looked up at this, his eyes owlish behind the thick lenses of his glasses and his sparse beard quivering.
“Mr. Brown,” he said, “how do you justify your existence?”
Brown smiled and said, “Very good coffee. It gives me a moment of pleasure and so does a greeting card. But wait, that's not all. There's more to it than that. You may take no pleasure from what you consider doggerel or moist sentiment or tired wit That is you, but you are not everyone. The prepared greeting card is of service to those who can't write letters or who lack the time to do so or who wish only to maintain a minimal contact. It supplies the needs of those to whom doggerel is touching verse, to whom sentiment is a real emotion, to whom any wit at all is not tired.”
Rubin said, “What is your function in connection with them? Do you manufacture them, ship them, design them, write the verses?”
“I manufacture them primarily, but I contribute to each of the categories, and more besides.”
“Do you specialize in any particular variety?”
“Not too intensively, although I'm rather weak on the funny ones. Those are for specialized areas. I must say, though, the discussion on limericks interested me. I don't know that limericks have ever been used on greeting cards. How did yours go, Roger?”
“I was just improvising,” said Halsted. “Let's see now— There once were three travelers Magian, Who on a most festive occasion—' “
Trumbull said, “Imperfect rhyme.”
Halsted said, “That's all right. You make a virtue out of necessity and keep it up. Let's see. Let's see—”
He thought a moment and said:
“There once were three travelers Magian, Who on a most festive occasion
Presented their presents
With humble obeisance To the King
“King of the Jews,” muttered Avalon under his breath.
“You just tossed that off?” asked Brown.
Roger flushed a little. “It gets easy when you have the meter firmly fixed in your head.”
Brown said, “I don't know that that one's usable, but I sell one or two that are not too distant from that sort of thing.”
“I wish,” said Avalon, with a trace of discontent on his handsome, dark-browed face, “that you had brought some samples.”
Brown said, “I didn't know it would be the kind of dinner where that would be expected. If you want samples, though, my wife is the one for you. Clara is the real expert.”
“Is she in greeting cards too?” asked Gonzalo, his large, slightly protuberant eyes filled with interest
“No, not really. She grew interested in them through me,” said Brown. “She began to collect interesting ones, and then her friends began to collect them and send them to her. Over the last ten or twelve years, the thing has been getting more and more elaborate. Christmastime especially, of course, since that is greeting-card time par excellence. There isn't a holiday, though, on which she doesn't receive a load of unusual cards. Just to show you, last September she got forty-two Jewish New Year cards, and we're Methodists.”
Rubin said, “Jewish New Year cards are usually pretty tame.”
“Usually, but people managed to find some dillies. She put them up on the mantelpiece and you never saw such a fancy collection of variations on the theme of the Star of David and the Tablets of the Law. —But it's Christmastime that counts. She practically papers the walls with cards and the apartment becomes a kind of fairyland, if I may use the term without being misunderstood.
“In fact, gentlemen, if you're really interested in seeing samples of unusual greeting cards, you're invited to my apartment. We have open house the week before Christmas. All the people who send cards come around to see where and how theirs contribute. Practically everyone from the apartment house comes too, and it's a large one—to say nothing of the repairman, doorman, postman, delivery boys, and who knows how many others from blocks around. I keep telling her we'll have to get the apartment declared a national landmark.”
“I feel sorry for your postman,” said Drake in his softly hoarse smoker's voice.
Brown said, “Don't be. He takes a proprietary interest and gives us special treatment. He never leaves our mail in the box—even when it would fit there. He always takes it up the elevator after all the rest of the mail has been distributed, and gives it to us personally. If no one's home, he goes back down and leaves it with the doorman.”
Drake said, “That sounds as though you have to give him a healthy tip come Christmastime.”
“A very healthy one,” said Brown. He chuckled. “I had to reassure him yesterday on that very point.”
“That you would give him a tip?”
“Yes. Clara and I were due at a luncheon and we were late, which was annoying because I had taken time off from work to attend and we dashed out of the elevator at the ground floor just as the postman was about to step into it with our mail. Clara recognized it, of course—it's always as thick as an unabridged dictionary in December—and said, 'I'll take it, Paul, thank you,' and off she whirled. The poor old guy just stood there, so caught by surprise and so shocked that I said to him, 'It's all right, Paul, not one cent off the tip.' Poor Clara!” He chuckled again.
“Why poor Clara?” asked Trumbull.
“I know,” said Gonzalo, “it wasn't your mail.”
“Of course it was our mail,” said Brown. “It's the only mail old Paul ever takes up. Listen, the days he's off they hold back the greeting-card items so he can bring them himself the next day. He's practically a family retainer.”
“Yes, but why poor Clara?” asked Trumbull, escalating the decibels.
“Oh, that. We got into our car and, since it was a half-hour drive, she counted on going through the mail rapidly and then leaving it under the seat. —But the first thing she noticed was a small envelope, obviously a greeting card, sticking out from the rest of the mail, almost as though it were going to fall out. I saw it myself when she had snatched the mail from Paul. Well, we never get small greeting cards, so she took it out and said, 'What's this?'
“She flipped the envelope open and it was a Christmas card—the blankest, nothingest, cheapest Christmas card you ever saw—and Clara said, 'Who had the nerve to send me this?' I don't think she'd as much as seen a plain card in years. It irritated her so that she just put the rest of the mail away without looking at it and chafed all the way to the luncheon.”
Halsted said, “It was probably a practical joke by one of her friends. Who sent it?'
Brown shrugged. “That's what we don't know. —It wasn't you, Roger, was it?”
“Me? Think I'm crazy? I sent her one with little jingle bells in it. Real ones. Listen,” and he turned to the others, “you really have to knock yourself out for her. You should see the apartment on Mother's Day. You wouldn't believe how many different cards have tiny little diapers in them.”
“And we don't have any children, either,” said Brown, sighing.
“Wasn't there a name on that card you got?” asked Trumbull, sticking to the subject grimly.
“Unreadable,” said Brown. “Illegible.”
Gonzalo said, “I smell a mystery here. We ought to try to find out who sent it.”
“Why?” said Trumbull, changing attitude at once.
“Why not?” said Gonzalo. “It might give Mrs. Brown a chance to get back at whoever it is.”
“I assure you,” said Brown, “you'll find no hint to the sender. Even fingerprints wouldn't help. We handled it and so did who knows how many postal employees.”
“Just the same,” said Gonzalo, “it's a pity we can't look at it.”
Brown said rather suddenly, “Oh, you can look at it I've got it.”
“You've got it?”
“Clara was going to tear it up, but I had just stopped for a red light and I said, 'Let me see it,' and I looked it over and then the green light came on and I shoved it in my coat pocket and I suppose it's still there.”
“In that case,” said Halsted, “let's see it.”
“I'll get it,” said Brown. He retired for a moment to the cloakroom and was back at once with a square envelope, pinkish in color, and handed it to Halsted. “You're welcome to pass it around.”
Halsted studied it. It had not been carefully pasted and the flap had come up without tearing. On the back was the address in its simplest possible form:
BROWN
354 cps 21C
NYC 10019
The handwriting was a just-legible scrawl. The stamp was a Jackson 100, the postmark was a black smear, and there was no return address.
The other side of the envelope was blank. Halsted removed the card from within and found it to be a piece of cardboard folded down the middle. The two outside surfaces were the same pink as the envelope and were blank. The inner surfaces were white. The left-hand side was blank and the right-h.ind side said “Season's Greetings” in black letters that were only minimally ornamented. Underneath was a scrawled signature beginning with what looked like a capital D followed by a series of diminishing waves.
Halsted passed it to Drake on his left and it made its way around the table till Avalon received it and looked at it. He passed it on to Henry, who was distributing the brandy glasses. Henry looked at it briefly and handed it back to Brown.
Brown looked up a little surprised, as though finding the angle of return an unexpected one. He said, “Thank you,” and sniffed at his brandy delicately.
“Well,” said Gonzalo, “I think the name is Danny. Do you know any Danny, Mr. Brown?”
“I know a Daniel Lindstrom,” said Brown, “but I don't think his own mother ever dared call him Danny.”
Trumbull said, “Hell, that's no Danny. It could be Donna or maybe a last name like Dormer.”
“I should think,” said Avalon, running his finger about the rim of his brandy glass, “that Mr. Brown has surely gone over every conceivable first and last name beginning with D in his circle of acquaintances. If he has not come up with an answer, I am certain we will not. If this is what Mario calls a mystery, there is certainly nothing to go on. Let's drop the subject and proceed with the grilling.”
“No,” said Gonzalo vehemently. “Not yet. Good Lord, Jeff, just because you don't see something doesn't mean there's nothing there to be seen.” He turned in his seat “Henry, you saw that card, didn't you?”
“Yes, sir,” said Henry.
“All right, then. Wouldn't you agree with me that there is a mystery worth investigating here?”
“I see nothing we can seize upon, Mr. Gonzalo,” said Henry.
Gonzalo looked hurt. “Henry, you're not usually that pessimistic.”
“We cannot manufacture evidence, surely, sir.”
“That's plain enough,” said Avalon. “If Henry says there's nothing to be done, then there's nothing to be done. Manny, continue the grilling, won't you?”
“No, damn it,” said Gonzalo, with quite unaccustomed stubbornness. “If I can't have my book of limericks, then I'm going to have my mystery. If I can show you where this card does tell us something—”
“If pigs can fly,” said Trumbull.
Halsted said, “Host's privilege. Let Mario talk.”
“Thanks, Roger.” Gonzalo rubbed his hands. “We'll do this Henry-style. You listen to me, Henry, and you'll see how it goes. We have a signature on the card and the only thing legible about it is the capital D. We might suppose that the D is enough to tell us who the signer is, but Mr. Brown says it isn't. Suppose we decided then that the D is the only clear part of the signature because it's the only thing that's important.”
“Wonderful,” said Trumbull, scowling. “Where does that leave us?”