The Best Mysteries of Isaac Asimov Read online

  THE BEST MYSTERIES OF

  ISAAC ASIMOV

  “I have chosen the stories I consider the best and not necessarily those that critics or readers do.” So says Isaac Asimov of this marvelous new anthology, the first “best of” edition of his extraordinary mysteries. From the classic Black Widower and Union Club series to a wide variety of other intriguing tales, many of the thirty-one selections in this volume have never before been collected in book form. Each is introduced with a short and lively commentary from the Good Doctor himself, and all add up to the perfect Asimov formula for sheer entertainment and pure delight.

  Discover here “The Obvious Factor,” the haunting account of a young woman’s psychic power, and of a mystery more bizarre than the supernatural; “The Sign,” a clever tale that applies knowledge of the zodiac to solve a grisly murder; “A Problem of Numbers,” in which the key to a young man’s happiness lies in the solution to a cryptogram—if he can find it; and twenty-eight other puzzlers that bring a dazzling new luster to an age-old and timeless genre.

  With its potent mix of mayhem and madness, eerie twilight places and startling reality, THE BEST MYSTERIES OF ISAAC ASIMOV offers a feast for fans and a very special treasury for those meeting the Master for the first time.

  JACKET DESIGN BY ROBERT AULICINO

  Printed in the U. S. A. 0886

  Mysteries of Isaac Asimov

  The Caves of Steel

  The Naked Sun

  The Death Dealers (also appeared as A Whiff of Death)

  Asimov’s Mysteries

  Tales of the Black Widowers

  Murder At the ABA

  More Tales of the Black Widowers

  The Key Word and Other Mysteries (Juvenile)

  Casebook of the Black Widowers

  The Union Club Mysteries

  The Robots of Dawn

  Banquets of the Black Widowers

  The Disappearing Man and Other Mysteries (Juvenile)

  The Best Mysteries of Isaac Asimov

  THE BEST

  MYSTERIES OF

  ISAAC ASIMOV

  Isaac Asimov

  DOUBLEDAY & COMPANY, INC.

  GARDEN CITY, NEW YORK

  1986

  All characters in this book are fictional and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Asimov, Isaac, 1920-

  The best mysteries of Isaac Asimov.

  1. Detective and mystery stories, American.

  I. Title.

  PS3551.S5A6 1986b 813.‘54 85-31199

  ISBN: 0-385-19783-7

  Copyright © 1986 by Nightfall, Inc.

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

  PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

  FIRST EDITION

  To Marty and Rosalind,

  for making each other happy.

  Acknowledgments

  PART I The Black Widower Mysteries

  1 “The Obvious Factor,” Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine (EQMM), May 1973, © 1973 by Isaac Asimov, from Tales of the Black Widowers.

  2 “The Pointing Finger,” EQMM, July 1973, © 1973 by Isaac Asimov, from Tales of the Black Widowers.

  3 “Out of Sight,” EQMM, December 1973, under the title of “The Six Suspects,” © 1973 by Isaac Asimov, from Tales of the Black Widowers.

  4 “Yankee Doodle Went to Town,” © 1974 by Isaac Asimov, from Tales of the Black Widowers.

  5 “Quicker Than the Eye,” EQMM, May 1974, © 1974 by Isaac Asimov, from More Tales of the Black Widowers.

  6 “The Three Numbers,” EQMM, September 1974, under the title of “All in the Way You Read It,” © 1974 by Isaac Asimov, from More Tales of the Black Widowers.

  7 “The One and Only East,” EQMM, March 1975, © 1975 by Isaac Asimov, from More Tales of the Black Widowers.

  8 “The Cross of Lorraine,” EQMM, May 1976, © 1976 by Isaac Asimov, from Casebook of the Black Widowers.

  9 “The Next Day,” EQMM, May 1978, © 1978 by Isaac Asimov, from Casebook of the Black Widowers.

  10 “What Time Is It?” © 1980 by Isaac Asimov, from Casebook of the Black Widowers.

  11 “Middle Name,” © 1980 by Isaac Asimov, from Casebook of the Black Widowers.

  12 “Sixty Million Trillion Combinations,” EQMM, May 5, 1980, © 1980 by Isaac Asimov, from Banquets of the Black Widowers.

  13 “The Good Samaritan,” EQMM, September 10, 1980, © 1980 by Isaac Asimov, from Banquets of the Black Widowers.

  14 “Can You Prove It?” EQMM, June 17,1981, © 1981 by Isaac Asimov, from Banquets of the Black Widowers.

  15 “The Redhead,” EQMM, October 1984, © 1984 by Isaac Asimov, from Banquets of the Black Widowers.

  PART II The Union Club Mysteries

  16 “He Wasn’t There,” Gallery, February 1981, under the title of “The Spy Who Was Out of Focus,” copyright © 1980 by Montcalm Publishing Corporation, from The Union Club Mysteries.

  17 “Hide and Seek,” Gallery, May 1981, copyright © 1981 by Montcalm Publishing Corporation, from The Union Club Mysteries.

  18 “Dollars and Cents,” Gallery, January 1982, under the title of “Countdown to Disaster,” copyright © 1982 by Montcalm Publishing Corporation, from The Union Club Mysteries.

  19 “The Sign,” Gallery, April 1982, under the title of “The Telltale Sign,” copyright © 1982 by Montcalm Publishing Corporation, from The Union Club Mysteries.

  20 “Getting the Combination,” Gallery, June 1982, under the title of “Playing It by the Numbers,” copyright © 1982 by Montcalm Publishing Corporation, from The Union Club Mysteries.

  21 “The Library Book,” Gallery, July 1982, under the title of “The Mystery Book,” copyright © 1982 by Montcalm Publishing Corporation, from The Union Club Mysteries.

  22 “Never Out of Sight,” Gallery, March 1983, under the title of “The Amusement Lark,” copyright © 1983 by Montcalm Publishing Corporation.*

  23 “The Magic Umbrella,” Gallery, May 1983, under the title of “Stormy Weather,” copyright © 1983 by Montcalm Publishing Corporation.*

  24 “The Speck,” EQMM, December 1983, © 1983 by Isaac Asimov.*

  PART III Miscellaneous Mysteries

  25 “The Key,” October 1966, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, © 1966 by Mercury Press, Inc., from Asimov’s Mysteries.

  26 “A Problem of Numbers,” May, 1970, EQMM, © 1970 by Isaac Asimov.*

  27 “The Little Things,” May 1975, EQMM, © 1975 by Isaac Asimov.*

  28 “Halloween,” October 1975, American Way, © 1976 by American Way.*

  29 “The Thirteenth Day of Christmas,” July 1977, EQMM, © 1977 by Isaac Asimov, from The Key Word and Other Mysteries.

  30 “The Key Word,” copyright © 1977 by Isaac Asimov, from The Key Word and Other Mysteries.

  31 “Nothing Might Happen,” December 1973, Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, © 1983 by Davis Publications, Inc.*

  *Story has not appeared in any previous collection.

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  Description

  Other Books

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  Introduction

  PART I BLACK WIDOWER MYSTERIES

  The Obvious Factor

  The Pointing Finger

  Out of Sight

  Yankee Doodle Went to Town

  Quicker Than the Eye

  The Three Numbers

  The One and Only East

  The Cross of Lorraine

  The Next Day

  What Time Is It?

  Middle Name

  Sixty Million Trillion Combinations

  The Good Samaritan

  Can You Prove It?

  The Redhead

  PART II UNION CLUB MYSTERIES

  He Wasn’t There

  Hide and Seek

  Dollars and Cents

  The Sign

  Getting the Combination

  The Library Book

  Never Out of Sight

  The Magic Umbrella

  The Speck

  PART III MISCELLANEOUS MYSTERIES

  The Key

  A Problem of Numbers

  The Little Things

  Halloween

  The Thirteenth Day of Christmas

  The Key Word

  Nothing Might Happen

  About the Author

  Back Cover

  Introduction

  When I was younger than I am now, and began reading mystery novels in the 1930s, the field was going through its “classic” phase.

  The most prominent writers of the time were British men and women of the intellectual classes, and this was reflected in the novels themselves. They dealt for the most part with educated men and women of the type that thought of themselves as “gentlemen” and “ladies.” People of the lower and middle classes were rarely allowed entrance, except as comic relief or as semibarbaric threats.

  Generally, a crime (usually a murder) was committed under conditions that permitted a closed circle of suspects. It took place in a locked room, or in any case, in such a way that no one else could have gotten into the place of the murder. (If, in fact, an outsider proved to be the criminal, the author was cheating and would have to face an enraged public.)

  What is more, the detective, either a stolid (or possibly brilliant) member of the police force or a lighthea
rted amateur, was compelled to solve the murder by shrewd observation and closely reasoned logic. It would again be cheating if he stumbled upon the solution by accident, and it was distinctly beneath such a detective’s dignity to have to search for clues on his hands and knees with a magnifying glass, after the fashion of Sherlock Holmes.

  The generally accepted monarch of the classic detective story was, of course, Agatha Christie, and the most indefatigable and best detective (with all apologies to the great Sherlock) was Hercule Poirot. Certainly, I read all the Christies I could find and, as it happens, I have now read every mystery novel or short story she has ever written, without exception, many of them three or four times.

  This is not to say I find Christie perfect, or that I even found her perfect in my green teenage years. She had a peculiar attitude toward foreigners, which she carefully blamed upon her characters whom she presented as naturally xenophobic since any Briton would know that any non-Briton was an inferior and, possibly, immoral person. Furthermore, she included Americans among the foreigners and, especially in her early books, had them speak with a dialect of a type that I had never encountered and that I don’t believe anyone living could speak without bursting his or her vocal cords. Finally, she was as matter-of-factly anti-Semitic as most of the British upper classes were at that time (and, for all I know, still are). At least she was openly anti-Semitic before World War II; afterward she tried to hide the fact.

  Since I was a foreigner by her standards, and a Jewish-American one at that, I didn’t really appreciate Christie’s narrow-minded view of the human race, and yet for the sake of her fascinating mysteries I had to overlook the matter (which didn’t exactly make me feel good then—or now, either).

  Then came a time when the classic mystery came to be outmoded. All things evolve and few contemporary mysteries meet the old Christie criteria. Instead, the mystery novel has now split into two dominant sub-genres. There is the “tough-guy detective,” where the hero is constantly drinking without destroying his liver, constantly having his skull cracked with a pistol butt without destroying his brain, and constantly solving the mystery by shooting down all the characters but one and then pinning the crime on the survivor.

  There is also the “psychological mystery,” where you know who did the crime and why, and find that there is no difficulty in pinning that crime upon him. What you are expected to do, however, is to follow, in great detail, the tortuous and muddled pathology of the criminal’s emotional life. You find yourself involved, therefore, with a large number of very unpleasant people, a great many of them uneducated and rather drearily stupid.

  This change of emphasis hasn’t pleased me. I don’t enjoy scenes of gruesome violence in books. I hold with the ancient Greeks that all deeds of violence should take place offstage. To be sure, there is such violence in real life—and worse than anything described in fiction—but, oddly enough, I don’t enjoy it in real life, either. Nor do I enjoy immersion in psychopathology.

  What do I do, then? I read those few writers who turn out the old classical stuff, and I re-read, whenever desperate, the old masters and mistresses of the genre. And I note that on the paperback racks the Agatha Christies are spread out in wild profusion so that one can be quite sure that the old girl is still read without stint.

  There came a time when I became involved in this matter as something more than a dissatisfied reader yearning for the vanished days of yore.

  I am, you must understand, a science fiction writer primarily, and have been a prominent professional in the field since I was eighteen.

  And yet—and yet—I have an urge to write mysteries. What’s more, the urge has grown stronger with the years. Occasionally, I would even write one, though without remarkable success.

  Beginning in 1972, however, I threw caution to the winds and began to write mystery short stories in great numbers. In the last thirteen years, in fact, I have written over a hundred of them.

  What’s more, I have refused to compromise. There is no way I can force other writers to turn out stories a la Christie, but I made up my mind that my stories were going to be of the classic variety.

  In fact, I decided to be even purer than the pure. I was going to try to have no violence at all in my stories. My stories rarely involve murder and, when they do, the murder takes place offstage and preferably before the story begins. And that murder, if it takes place at all, is the only one. I do not kill someone else the minute the tension seems to flag. For the most part, though, the detective must find a missing object, or choose one correct alternative among many, or foil a spy, and so on.

  What’s more, almost every mystery story I write belongs to the “armchair detective” variety. Our hero listens to a puzzling story of some kind that seems to have no solution and, taking into account only what he is told, comes up with the answer in so cogent a fashion that every other character in the story (and the reader, too) is at once convinced of its legitimacy.

  Naturally, the story under such conditions must be a fair one. The detective must know only what the reader knows so that there is nothing to stop a particularly ingenious reader from beating the detective to the solution. And, indeed, my stories openly challenge the reader to do so; and often enough, the reader does.

  My stories are, in short, not exercises in violence, not thrillers, not psychological suspense stories. They are, generally speaking, puzzles, and rather intellectual ones.

  Christie used to say she didn’t have lower-class characters in her stories because she had never associated with them and therefore didn’t know how they talked and acted.

  So it is with me, too. A writer should remain in those milieus in which he feels at home, and so my characters tend to be professional men who are cerebral and, if anything, overeducated. Every one of them (I suspect) has a little of myself in him. Or a lot of myself, perhaps.

  As it happens, I have published half a dozen or so collections of my short stories, but what I want to do here is to put out an omnibus volume, larger than the ordinary ones, and pile into it thirty-one of my favorite mystery stories. This has not been an easy job for me, for I am the kind of fortunate writer who enjoys everything he writes, without exception. I have, however, managed and I have placed before each story a short explanation as to why I have chosen it.

  PART I

  BLACK WIDOWER MYSTERIES

  1

  The Obvious Factor

  In many a classic mystery, the crime is described as having occurred under conditions where no one can seem to have committed it. The fun then consists in showing how the “impossible” can be made possible. Naturally, to enhance the suspense an author sometimes throws a pall of the possible-supernatural over the whole thing. I love stories like that.

  It is tempting, though, for an author to conclude with an intimation that something supernatural has happened, after all. Agatha Christie and John Dickson Carr have each written stories of the supernatural, for instance.

  I include this story, then, because I set up a situation that seems to make no solution possible that doesn’t involve the paranormal. And then I produce my solution—the one solution that is almost always overlooked in stories of this type.

  Thomas Trumbull looked about the table and said, with some satisfaction, “Well, at least you won’t get yourself pen-and-inked into oblivion, Voss. Our resident artist isn’t here…Henry!”

  Henry was at Trumbull’s elbow before the echo of the bellow had died, with no sign of perturbation on his bright-eyed and unlined face. Trumbull took the scotch and soda the waiter had on his tray and said, “Has Mario called, Henry?”

  “No, sir,” said Henry calmly.

  Geoffrey Avalon had reduced his second drink to the halfway point and swirled it absently. “After last month’s tale about his murdered sister, it could be that he didn’t—”

  He did not complete the sentence, but put down his glass carefully at the seat he intended to take. The monthly banquet of the Black Widowers was about to begin.

  Trumbull, who was host, took the armchair at the head of the table and said, “Have you got them all straight, Voss? At my left is James Drake. He’s a chemist and knows more about pulp fiction than about chemistry, and that probably isn’t much. Then Geoffrey Avalon, a lawyer who never sees the inside of a courtroom; Emmanuel Rubin, who writes in between talking, which is practically never; and Roger Halsted…Roger, you’re not inflicting another limerick on us this session, are you?”