The Return of the Black Widowers (18 page)
Gonzalo said, "I don't know, Tom. You've got a terrible temper. You're the most bearish."
"Not while Manny is alive," said Trumbull hotly.
"I've never lost my temper in my life, damn it," shouted Rubin, just as hotly.
"Yes, like now," said Halsted.
Parris said, "Gentlemen, this is getting us nowhere cither. Unless someone can think of something, we'll have to give up."
Henry said, "But we now have our solution, to my way of thinking, Mr. Parris. If we take the challenge to be that of finding the Black Widower most like a bear, may I point out that if we change the position of but one letter in r-u-b-i-n, we get b-r-u-i-n, the common name for the bear in the medieval animal epics, and still used today. I believe there is a hockey team known as the 'Bruins.' "
Parris said energetically, "I'll buy that. It is a clear solution that fits and is unique."
The Black Widowers broke into applause, and Henry turned pink.
Rubin said, "Since the money is mine, then, I will set up the trust fund with directions that the earned interest be turned over to Henry as an honorarium for his services to the club."
There was applause again.
Henry said, "Gentlemen, please don't. I will be overpaid."
"Come, come, Henry," said Rubin, "Are you refusing?"
Henry considered, sighed, and said, "I accept, sir, with thanks."
S |
ince it was Thomas Trumbull who was going to act as host for the Black Widowers that month, he did not, as was his wont, arrive at the last minute, gasping for his pre-prandial drink.
There he was, having arrived in early dignity, conferring with Henry, that peerless waiter, on the details of the menu for the evening, and greeting each of the others as he arrived.
Mario Gonzalo, who arrived last, took off his light overcoat with care, shook it gently, as though to remove the dust of the taxicab, and hung it up in the cloakroom. He came back, rubbing his hands, and said, "There's an autumn chill in the air. I think summer's over."
"Good riddance," called out Emmanuel Rubin, from where he stood conversing with Geoffrey Avalon and James Drake.
"I'm not complaining," called back Gonzalo. Then, to Trumbull, "Hasn't your guest arrived yet?"
Trumbull said distinctly, as though tired of explaining, "I have not brought a guest."
"Oh?" said Gonzalo, blankly. There was nothing absolutely irregular about that. The rules of the Black Widowers did not require a guest, although not to have one was most unusual. "Well, I guess that's all right."
"It's more than all right," said Geoffrey Avalon, who had just drifted in their direction, gazing down from his straight-backed height of seventy-four inches. His thick graying eyebrows hunched over his eyes and he said, "At least that guarantees us one meeting in which we can talk aimlessly and relax."
709
Gonzalo said, "I don't know about that. I'm used to the problems that come up. I don't think any of us will feel comfortable without one. Besides, what about Henry?"
He looked at Henry as he spoke and Henry allowed a discreet smile to cross his unlined, sixtyish face. "Please don't be concerned, Mr. Gonzalo. It will be my pleasure to serve the meal and attend the conversation even if there is nothing of moment to puzzle us."
"Well," said Trumbull, scowling, his crisply waved hair star-tingly white over his tanned face, "you won't have that pleasure, Henry. I'm the one with the problem and I hope someone can solve it:
you
at least, Henry."
Avalon's lips tightened, "Now by Beelzebub's brazen bottom, Tom, you might have given us
one
old-fashioned—"
Trumbull shrugged and turned away, and Roger Halsted said to Avalon in his soft voice, "What's that Beelzebub bit? Where'd you pick that up?"
Avalon looked pleased. "Oh, well, Manny is writing some sort of adventure yarn set in Elizabeth's England—Elizabeth I of course—and it seems—"
Rubin, having heard the magic sound of his name, approached and said, "It's a sea story."
Halsted said, "Are you tired of mysteries?"
"It's a mystery also," said Rubin, his eyes flashing behind the thick lenses of his glasses. "What makes you think you can't have a mystery angle to
any
kind of story?"
"In any case," said Avalon, "Manny has one character forever swearing alliteratively and never the same twice and he needs a few more resounding oaths. Beelzebub's brazen bottom is good, I think."
"Or Mammon's munificent mammaries," said Halsted.
Trumbull said, violently, "There you are! If you don't come up with some problem that will occupy us in worthwhile fashion and engage our Henry's superlative mind, the whole evening would degenerate into stupid triplets—by Tutankhamen's tin trumpet."
"It gets you after a while," grinned Rubin, unabashed. "Well, get off it," said Trumbull. "Is dinner ready, Henry?" "Yes it is, Mr. Trumbull."
"All right, then. If you idiots keep this alliteration up for more than two minutes, I'm walking out, host or no host."
The table seemed empty with only six about it, and conversation seemed a bit subdued with no guest to sparkle before.
Gonzalo, who sat next to Trumbull, said, "I ought to draw a cartoon of you for our collection since you're your own guest, so to speak." He looked up complacently at the long list of guest-caricatures that lined the wall in rank and file. "We're going to run out of space in a couple of years."
"Then don't bother with me," said Trumbull, sourly, "and we can always make space by burning those foolish scrawls."
"Scrawls!" Gonzalo seemed to debate within himself briefly concerning the possibility of taking offense. Then he compromised by saying, "You seem to be in a foul mood, Tom."
"I seem so because I am. I'm in the situation of the Chaldean wise men facing Nebuchadnezzar."
Avalon leaned over from across the table. "Are you talking about the Book of Daniel, Tom?"
"That's where it is, isn't it?"
Gonzalo said, "Pardon me, but I didn't have my Bible lesson yesterday. What are these wise men?"
"Tell him, Jeff," said Trumbull. "Pontificating is your job."
Avalon said, "It's not pontificating to tell a simple tale. If you would rather—"
Gonzalo said, "I'd rather you did, Jeff. You do it much more authoritatively."
"Well," said Avalon, "it's Rubin, not I, who was once a boy preacher, but I'll do my poor best.—The second chapter of the Book of Daniel tells that Nebuchadnezzar was once troubled by a bad dream and he sent for his Chaldean wise men for an interpretation. The wise men offered to do so at once as soon as they
heard the dream but Nebuchadnezzar couldn't remember the dream, only that he had been disturbed by it. He reasoned, however, that if wise men could interpret a dream, they could work out the dream, too, so he ordered them to tell him both the dream
and
the interpretation. When they couldn't do this, he very reasonably—by the standards of Oriental potentates—ordered them all killed. Fortunately for them Daniel, a captive Jew in Babylon, could do the job."
Gonzalo said, "And that's your situation, too, Tom?"
"In a way. I have a problem that involves a cryptogram—but I don't have the cryptogram. I have to work out the cryptogram."
"Or you'll be killed?" asked Rubin.
"No. If I fail, I won't be killed, but it won't do me any good, either."
Gonzalo said, "No wonder you didn't feel it necessary to bring a guest. Tell us about it."
"Before the brandy?" said Avalon, scandalized.
"Tom's host," said Gonzalo, defensively. "If he wants to tell us now—"
"I don't," said Trumbull. "We'll wait for the brandy as we always do, and I'll be my own griller, if you don't mind."
When Henry was pouring the brandy, Trumbull rang his spoon against his water glass and said, "Gentlemen, I will dispense with the opening question by admitting openly that I cannot justify my existence. Without pretending to go on by question-and-answer, I will simply state the problem. You are free to ask questions, but for God's sake, don't get me off on any wild-goose chases. This is serious."
Avalon said, "Go ahead, Tom. We will do our best to listen."
Trumbull said, with a certain weariness, "It involves a fellow
named Pochik. I've got to tell you a little about him in order to
let you understand the problem but, as is usual in these cases, I
hope you don't mind if I tell you nothing that isn't relevant.
"In the first place he's from Eastern Europe, from someplace in
Slovenia, I think, and he came here at about fourteen. He taught himself English, went to night school and to University Extension, working every step of the way. He worked as a waiter for ten years, while he was taking his various courses, and you know what that means.—Sorry, Henry."
Henry said, tranquilly, "It is not necessarily a pleasant occupation. Not everyone waits on the Black Widowers, Mr. Trumbull."
"Thank you, Henry. That's very diplomatic of you.—However, he wouldn't have made it, if it weren't plain from the start that he was a mathematical wizard. He was the kind of young man that no mathematics professor in his right mind wouldn't have moved heaven and earth to keep in school. He was their claim to a mark in the history books—that they had taught Pochik. Do you understand?"
Avalon said, "We understand, Tom."
Trumbull said, "At least, that's what they tell me. He's working for the government now, which is where I come in. They tell me he's something else. They tell me he's in a class by himself. They tell me he can do things no one else can. They tell me they've got to have him. I don't even know what he's working on, but they've got to have him."
Rubin said, "Well, they've got him, haven't they? He hasn't been kidnapped and hijacked back across the Iron Curtain, has he?"
"No, no," said Trumbull, "nothing like that. It's a lot more irritating. Look, apparently a great mathematician can be an idiot in every other respect."
"Literally an idiot?" asked Avalon. "Usually idiots savants have remarkable memories and can play remarkable tricks in computation, but that is far from being any kind of mathematician, let alone a great one."
"No, nothing like that, either."Trumbull was perspiring and paused to mop at his forehead. "I mean he's childish. He's not really learned in anything but mathematics and that's all right. Mathematics is what we want out of him. The trouble
is that he feels backward; he feels stupid. Damn it, he feels inferior, and when he feels
too
inferior, he stops working and hides in his room."
Gonzalo said, "So what's the problem? Everyone just has to keep telling him how great he is all the time."
"He's dealing with other mathematicians and they're almost as crazy as he is. One of them, Sandino, hates being second best and every once in a while he gets Pochik into a screaming fit. He's got a sense of humor, this Sandino, and he likes to call out to Pochik, 'Hey, waiter, bring the check.' Pochik can't ever learn to take it."
Drake said, "Read this Sandino the riot act. Tell him you'll dismember him if he tries anything like that again."
"They did," said Trumbull, "or at least as far as they quite dared to. They don't want to lose Sandino either. In any case, the horseplay stopped but something much worse happened.— You see there's something called, if I've got it right, 'Goldbach’s conjecture.' "
Roger Halsted galvanized into a position of sharp interest at once. "Sure," he said. "Very famous."
"You know about it?" said Trumbull.
Halsted stiffened. "I may just teach algebra to junior high school students, but yes, I know about Goldbach's conjecture. Teaching a junior high school student doesn't
make
me a junior—"
"All right. I apologize. It was stupid of me," said Trumbull. "And since you're a mathematician, you can be temperamental too. Anyway, can you explain Goldbach’s conjecture?—Because I'm not sure I can."