The Return of the Black Widowers Page 10

  "When everybody was getting ready to go, he came to me hesitantly and asked if he could see the thing once more. There was no reason not to allow it, of course. He took the meteorite out of the package—it was the only thing that seemed to interest him— and walked to the light with it. He studied it for a long time; I remember growing a little impatient; and then he said, 'See here, I collect odd objects. I wonder if you'd let me have this thing. I'd pay you, of course. What would you say it was worth?'

  "I laughed and said I didn't think I'd sell it and he stammered out an offer of five dollars. I found that rather offensive. I mean, if I were going to sell a family heirloom it surely wouldn't be for five dollars. I gave him a decidedly brusque negative and held out my band for the object. I took such a dislike to him that I remember feeling he might steal it.

  "He handed it back reluctantly enough and I remember looking at the object again to see what might make it attractive to him, but it still seemed what it was, an ugly lump of iron. You see, even though I knew its point of interest lay in its possible history and not in its appearance, I was simply unable to attach value to anything but beauty.

  "When I looked up, he was reading the letter again. I held out my hand and he gave me that too. He said, 'Ten dollars?' and I just said, 'No!' "

  Reed took a sip of the coffee that Henry had just served him. He said, "Everyone else had left. This man's friend was waiting for him, the man who was my friend originally, Jansen. He and his wife were killed in an auto accident the next year, driving the very car at whose door he stood then, waiting for the man he had brought to my house. What a frightening thing the future is if you stop to think of it. Luckily, we rarely do.

  "Anyway, the man who wanted the object stopped at the door and said to me hurriedly, 'Listen, I'd really like that little piece of metal. It's no good to you and I'll give you five hundred dollars for it. How's that? Five hundred dollars. Don't be hoggish about this.'

  "I can make allowances for his apparent anxiety, but he was damned offensive. He did say 'hoggish'; I remember the word. After that, I wouldn't have let him have it for a million. Very coldly I told him it wasn't for sale at any price, and I put the meteorite, which was still in my hand, into my pocket with ostentatious finality.

  "His face darkened and he growled that I would regret that and there would be those who wouldn't be so kind as to offer money, and then off he went— The meteorite has stayed in my pocket ever since. It is my ugly luck piece that I have refused five hundred dollars for." He chuckled in a muted way and said, "And that's the whole story."

  Drake said, "And you never found out why he offered you five hundred dollars for that thing?"

  "Unless he believed it was a piece of the Black Stone, I can't see any reason why he should," said Reed.

  "He never renewed his offer?"

  "Never. It was over ten years ago and I have never heard from him at all. And now that Jansen and his wife are dead, I don't even know-where he is or how he could be located if I decided I wanted to sell."

  Gonzalo said, "What did he mean by his threat about others who wouldn't be so kind as to offer money?"

  "I don't know," said Reed. "I suppose he meant mysterious turbaned strangers of the kind I had told him about. I think he was just trying to frighten me into selling."

  Avalon said, "Since a mystery has developed despite everything, I suppose we ought to consider the possibilities here. The obvious motive for his offer is, as you say, that he believed the object to be a piece of the Black Stone."

  "If so," said Reed, "he was the only one there who did. I don't think anyone else took the story seriously for a moment. Besides, even if it were a chip of the Black Stone and the guy were a collector, what good would it be to him without definite proof? He could take any piece of scrap iron and label it piece of the Black Stone' and it would do him no less good than mine."

  Avalon said, "Do you suppose he might have been an Arab who knew that a chip the size of your object had been stolen from the Black Stone a century before and wanted it out of piety?"

  "He didn't seem Arab to me," said Reed. "And if he were, why was the offer not renewed? Or why wasn't there an attempt at taking it from me by violence?"

  Drake said, "He studied the object carefully. Do you suppose he saw something there that convinced him of its value— whatever that value might be?"

  Reed said, "How can I dispute that? Except that, whatever he might have seen, I certainly never have. Have you?"

  "No," admitted Drake.

  Rubin said, "This doesn't sound like anything we can possibly work out. We just don't have enough information.—What do you say, Henry?"

  Henry, who had been listening with his usual quiet attention, said, "I was wondering about a few points."

  "Well then, go on, Henry," said Avalon. "Why not continue the grilling of the guest?"

  Henry said, "Mr. Reed, when you showed the object to your guests on that occasion in 1962 or 1963, you say you passed the package around. You mean the original package in which the letter and the meteorite had come, with its contents as they had always been?"

  "Yes. Oh yes. It was a family treasure."

  "But since 1963, sir, you have carried the meteorite in your pocket?"

  "Yes, always," said Reed.

  "Does that mean, sir, that you no longer have the letter?"

  "Of course it doesn't mean that," said Reed indignantly. "We certainly do have the letter. I’ll admit that after that fellow's threat I was a little concerned so I put it in a safer place. It's a glamorous document from the family standpoint, hoax or not."

  "Where do you keep it now?" asked Henry.

  "In a small wall safe I use for documents and occasional jewels."

  "Have you seen it recently, sir?"

  Reed smiled broadly. "I use the wall safe frequently, and I see it every time. Take my word for it, Henry, the letter is safe; as safe as the luck piece in my pocket."

  Henry said, "Then you don't keep the letter in the original package anymore."

  "No," said Reed. "The package was more useful as a container for the meteorite. Now that I carry that object in my pocket, there was no point in keeping the letter alone in the package."

  Henry nodded. "And what did you do with the package, then, sir?"

  Reed looked puzzled. "Why, nothing."

  "You didn't throw it out?"

  "No, of course not."

  "Do you know where it is?"

  Slowly, Reed frowned. He said at last, "No, I don't think so."

  "When did you last see it?"

  The pause was just as long this time. "I don't know that either."

  Henry seemed lost in thought.

  Avalon said, "Well, Henry, what do you have in mind?"

  Henry said, "I'm just wondering"—quietly he circled the table removing the brandy glasses—"whether that man wanted the meteorite at all."

  "He certainly offered me money for it," said Reed.

  "Yes," said Henry, "but first such small sums as would offer you no temptation to release it, and which he could well afford to pay if you called his bluff. Then a larger sum couched in such offensive language as to make it certain you would refuse. And after that, a mysterious threat which was never implemented."

  "But why should he do all that," said Reed, "unless he wanted my iron gem?"

  Henry said, "To achieve, perhaps, precisely what he did, in fact, achieve—to convince you he wanted the meteorite and to keep your attention firmly fixed on that. He gave you back the meteorite when you held out your hand for it; he gave you back the letter—but did he give you back the original package?"

  Reed said, "I don't remember him taking it."

  Henry said, "It was ten years ago. He kept your attention fixed on the meteorite. You even spent some time examining it yourself and during that time you didn't look at him, I'm sure. —Can you say you've seen the package since that time, sir?"

  Slowly, Reed shook his head. "I can't say I have. You mean he fastened my
attention so tightly on the meteorite that he could walk off with the package and I wouldn't notice?"

  "I'm afraid you didn't. You put the meteorite in your pocket, the letter in your safe, and apparently never gave another thought to the package. This man, whose name you don't know and whom you can no longer identify thanks to your friends' death, has had the package for ten years with no interference. And by now you could not possibly identify what it was he took."

  "I certainly could," said Reed stoutly, "if I could see it. It has my great-grandmother's name and address on it."

  "He might not have saved the package itself," said Henry.

  "I've got it," cried out Gonzalo suddenly. "It was that Chinese writing. He could make it out somehow and he took it to get it deciphered with certainty. The message was important."

  Henry's smile was the barest flicker. "That is a romantic notion that had not occurred to me, Mr. Gonzalo, and I don't know that it is very probable. I was thinking of something else. —Mr. Reed, you had a package from Hong Kong in 1856 and at that time Hong Kong was already a British possession."

  "Taken over in 1848," said Rubin briefly.

  "And I think the British had already instituted the modern system of distributing mail."

  "Rowland Hill," said Rubin at once, "in 1840."

  "Well then," said Henry, "could there have been a stamp on the original package?"

  Reed looked startled. "Now that you mention it, there was something that looked like a black stamp, I seem to recall. A woman's profile?"

  "The young Victoria," said Rubin.

  Henry said, "And might it possibly have been a rare stamp?"

  Gonzalo threw up his arms. "Bingo!"

  Reed sat with his mouth distinctly open. Then he said, "Of course, you must be right. —I wonder how much I lost."

  "Nothing but money, sir," murmured Henry. "The early British stamps were not beautiful."

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  TO THE BAREST

  E

  mmanuel Rubin said in a scandalized whisper, "He offered to pay for the dinner." He glanced with owlish ferocity at the guest who was attending that month's Black Widowers' banquet.

  "Yes, he did," said Mario Gonzalo casually.

  "And I suppose you accepted," said Rubin.

  "No, I didn't, though I don't see why he shouldn't if he wants to. If someone is anxious to pay for the privilege of dining with us, why not let him?"

  "Because we would be selling our freedom of choice, you idiot, and that is without price to the rest of us. Do you think I'm willing to eat with anyone who'll pick up my check? I choose my companions. Damn it, Mario, if he offered to buy us that should in itself instantly disqualify him as a guest."

  "Well, it doesn't, so why not calm down, Manny, and listen? I've told the others already and saved you for last because I knew you'd rant away. He got in touch with me. . . ."

  "Do you know him?"

  "No, but he introduced himself. He's Matthew Parris, and he's a lawyer. He knew of the Black Widowers. He knew I was to be the next host and he wanted to see us professionally, all of us. He asked to join us at our banquet and offered to pay if that would help. He seemed like an interesting guy, so why not?"

  Rubin said discontentedly, "Why should professional matters intrude on the banquet? What does he want to do, serve us with summonses?"

  91 "No," said Gonzalo with an affectation of eye-rolling impatience. "He represents Ralph Ottur. We still send Ralph invitations, and that's how this guy, Parris, knew I was the next host. He got in touch with me at Ralph's instructions. I suppose you remember Ralph."

  Rubin's eyes flashed behind his thick-lensed glasses. "Of course I remember him. I'm surprised you do. I didn't know you had become a member before he left."

  "Memory decays with age, Manny."

  Rubin ignored that. "That was twelve, fifteen years ago when he left us, when the Black Widowers were just beginning. That was before we met at the Milano—before Henry's time." He looked in Henry's direction with a smile and said, "It doesn't seem possible we could have had meetings of the Black Widowers without Henry. But then, in those days we wouldn't have believed it possible to have dinners without Ralph. It was in '65 he went to California, wasn't it? We were kids then."

  "I believe," said Geoffrey Avalon, who had drifted toward them, his neatly bearded face solemn, "that you and I, Manny, were fortyish even then. Scarcely kids."

  "Oh well," Rubin said. "What does Ralph want with us, Mario?"

  "I don't know," said Gonzalo. "Parris wouldn't say. Have you heard from him lately?"

  "Not a word in years. He doesn't even send in a refusal card to the invitations. Have you heard from him, Geoff?"

  "No," said Avalon. "Tom Trumbull says Ralph is teaching navigation at CIT but has had no personal communication."

  "Well, then, Geoff, what do we do about this lawyer Mario has dragged in?"

  "Treat him as any other guest. What else can we do?"

  Henry approached, his smooth and unwrinkled face radiating the efficiency that was characteristic of this best of waiters. He said, "Mr. Gonzalo, we are ready to begin dinner if you will be so kind as to call the meeting to order."

  The dinner was quieter than usual as Matthew Parris somehow absorbed the attention of the others. He seemed oblivious to that, however, his smooth-shaven face shining pinkly, his graying hair slicked smoothly back, his smile wide and unaffected, his speech precise and with a flat Midwestern accent.

  At no time did he refer to the business at hand, but confined himself to discussing the Middle Eastern situation. The trouble, he said, was that both sides were playing for time. The Arabs felt that as oil supplies dwindled, world hunger for energy would bring victory. Israel felt that as oil supplies dwindled, Arab influence would dwindle with it.

  To which James Drake said somberly that as oil supplies dwindled, civilization might break down and the whole matter of victory (quote, unquote, he said) in the Middle East or anywhere else would be irrelevant.

  "Ah," said Parris, "but your fiery ideolog doesn't care about trivial things such as survival. He would rather win in hell than lose in heaven."

  Mario Gonzalo, who had put aside his rather blinding pea-green jacket and was eating veal cordon bleu in his striped shirtsleeves, leaned toward Thomas Trumbull and whispered, "This whole thing may be a practical joke, Tom. I only met Ralph two or three times before he left. He was a peculiar fellow as I recall."

  Trumbull's bronzed forehead furrowed under his white thatch of hair. "So are we all, I hope. Ralph Ottur founded this club. We used to eat at his house during the first two or three years. He was a widower, a gourmet cook, an astronomer, and a word buff."

  "That's what I remember. The word-buff bit."

  "Yes," said Trumbull. "He's written books on acrostics and on novelty verse of all kinds. Conundrums involving word play and puns were a specialty of his. He's the one who got Roger Halsted interested in limericks."

  Gonzalo laughed. "How did you stand it, Tom?"

  Trumbull shrugged. "It wasn't the sole topic of conversation, and I was younger then. However, Ralph remarried, as you probably remember, went to the West Coast, and we never heard from him again. Then Jim Drake and I found the Milano, and the Black Widowers has been here ever since, better than ever."

  Henry refilled the coffee cups, and Gonzalo played a melodious tattoo on his water glass with his spoon.

  "Jim," he said, "as the oldest member and the one who best knew Ralph Ottur in the old days when even Manny claims to have been a kid, would you do the grilling honors?"

  James Drake lit a fresh cigarette and said, "Mr. Parris, how do you justify your existence?"

  "At the moment," said Parris, "by attempting to make you somewhat richer than you have been hitherto. Or if not you, Dr. Drake, then another one of you."

  "Don't you know which?"

  "I'm afraid not, gentlemen. In order to know, I must complete the reading of the will."

  "Will?.Wh
at will?" Drake took the cigarette from his mouth, placed it in an ashtray, and looked uneasy.

  A heavy silence descended on the rest of the table. Henry, who had been serving brandy, desisted.

  Parris said seriously, "I was instructed to say nothing concerning the matter till I was a guest at a Black Widowers' banquet and till I was being grilled. Not till this moment."

  Drake said, "It is this moment. Go on."

  Parris said, "I'm sorry to have to tell you that Mr. Ralph Ottur died last month. He had been pretty much of a recluse since his second wife died three years ago and, at his request, no announcement of his death was made. Though he had made a clean break with his life in New York after he left for California, he did not, apparently, forget his old friends of the Black Widowers. He asked that I hand out one of these to each of you, provided all six were present, and you all are."

  Envelopes were passed out to each of the stunned Black Widowers. Each bore the name of a Black Widower in careful India ink lettering.

  Drake muttered, "There's his monogram." Each envelope bore a stylized sketch of what was unmistakably an otter with a fish in its mouth.

  Trumbull said, "Did we each get the same?"

  Gonzalo said, "Read it and we'll see."

  Trumbull hesitated, then read in a low monotone, " 'Well, don't sit there like idiots. There's no reason to get into a mood. Remember, "mood" spelled backward is "doom." I've been with you in spirit every month since I left, even if you haven't heard from me, and I'm with you again now, ready for our last game.' "

  "That's what mine says," said Gonzalo.

  There was a murmur of agreement from the rest.

  "Well, then," said Parris briskly, "I'll now read the will—not the entire will, you understand, but only that portion that applies to the club. If you're ready . . ."