Tales of the Black Widowers Read online

  "Arnold Stacey, Ph.D.," Trumbull had introduced him.

  "Ah," said Avalon, with the air of portentousness he automatically brought to his most trivial statement, "Doctor Doctor Stacey."

  "Doctor Doctor?" murmured Stacey, his lips parting as

  though getting ready for a smile at the pleasantry sure to follow.

  "It is a rule of the Black Widowers," said Trumbull impatiently, "that all members are doctors by virtue of membership. A doctor for any other reason is-"

  "A doctor doctor," finished Stacey. And he smiled.

  "You can count honorary doctorates, too," said Rubin, his wide-spaced teeth gleaming over a beard as straggly as Avalon's was crisp, "but then I would have to be called Doctor Doctor Doctor-"

  Mario Gonzalo was mounting the stairs just then, bringing with him a faint whiff of turpentine as though he had come straight from his artist's studio. (Trumbull maintained you couldn't draw that conclusion; that Gonzalo placed a drop of turpentine behind each ear before any social engagement.)

  Gonzalo was in time to catch Emmanuel Rubin's statement and said, before he had quite reached the top step, "What honorary doctorates did you ever receive, Manny? Dishonorary doctorates, I'm ready to believe."

  Rubin's face froze as it usually did when he was attacked without warning, but that was merely the short pause necessary to gather his forces. He said, "I can list them for you. In 1938, when I was only fifteen, it so happens I was a revivalist preacher and I received a D.D. from-"

  "No, for God's sake," said Trumbull, "don't give us the list. We accept it all."

  "You're fighting out of your weight, Mario," said Avalon with wooden amiability. "You know Rubin can never be spotted in an inconsistency when he starts talking about his early life."

  'Sure," said Gonzalo, "that's why his stories are so lousy. They're all autobiographical. No poetry."

  "I have written poetry," began Rubin, and then Drake came in. Usually, he was the first person there; this time, the last.

  "Train was late," he said quietly, shucking his coat. Since he had to come in from New Jersey to attend, the only surprise was that it didn't happen oftener.

  "Introduce me to the guest," Drake added, as he turned to take the drink Henry held out for him. Henry knew which he preferred, of course.

  Avalon said, "Doctor Doctor Arnold Stacey . . . Doctor Doctor James Drake."

  "Greetings," said Drake, holding up his glass in salute. 'What's the nature of the lesser doctorate, Doctor Stacey?"

  "Ph.D. in chemistry. Doctor Doctor, and call me Arnold."

  Drake's small grizzled mustache seemed to bristle. "Ditto," he said. "My Ph.D. is in chemistry, too."

  They looked at each other, warily, for a moment. Then Drake said, "Industry? Government? Academic?" "I teach. Assistant professor at Berry University." "Where?"

  "Berry University. It's not a large school. It's in-" "I know where it is," said Drake. "I did graduate work there. Considerably before your time, though. Did you get your degree at Berry before you joined the faculty?" "No, I-"

  "Let's sit down, for God's sake," roared Trumbull. "There's more drinking and less eating going on here all the time." He was standing at the host's seat, with his glass raised, glowering at the others as each took his seat. "Sit down! Sit down!" And then he intoned the ritual toast to Old King Cole in singsong while Gonzalo blandly kept time with a hard roll, which he broke and buttered when the last syllable was done.

  "What's this?" said Rubin suddenly, staring down at his dish in dismay.

  "Pâté de la maison, sir," said Henry softly.

  "That's what I thought. Chopped liver. Damn it, Henry, I ask you, as a pathologically honest man, is this fit to eat?"

  "The matter is quite subjective, sir. It depends on the personal taste of the diner."

  Avalon pounded the table. "Point of order! I object to Manny's use of the adjectival phrase 'pathologically honest.' Violation of confidence!"

  Rubin colored slightly. "Hold on, Jeff. I don't violate any confidence. That happens to be my opinion of Henry quite independently of what happened last month."

  "Ruling from the chair," said Avalon stubbornly.

  Trumbull said, "Shut up both of you. It is the ruling of the chair that Henry may be recognized by all Black Widowers as that rare phenomenon, a completey honest man. No reason need be given. It can be taken as a matter of common knowledge."

  Henry smiled gently. "Shall I take away the pate, sir?"

  "Would you eat it, Henry?" asked Rubin.

  "With pleasure, sir."

  "Then I'll eat it, too." And he did so, with every sign of barely controlled nausea.

  Trumbull leaned over to Drake and said in a voice that was low for him, "What the hell's bothering you?"

  Drake started slightly and said, "Nothing. What's bothering you?"

  "You are," said Trumbull. "I've never seen a roll taken apart into so many pieces in my life."

  The conversation grew general after that, centering chiefly on Rubin's aggrieved contention that honesty lacked survival value and that all the forces of natural selection combined to eliminate it as a human trait. He did well defending his thesis till Gonzalo asked him if he attributed his own success as a writer ("such as it is," said Gonzalo) to plagiarism. When Rubin met the point head on and tried to prove, by close reasoning, that plagiarism was fundamentally different from other forms of dishonesty and might be treated independently, he was hooted down.

  Then, between main course and dessert, Drake left for the men's room and Trumbull followed him.

  Trumbull said, "Do you know this guy Stacey, Jim?"

  Drake shook his head. "No. Not at all."

  "Well, what's wrong, then? I admit you're not an animated phonograph needle like Rubin but you haven't said a word all dinner, damn it. And you keep looking at Stacey."

  Drake said, "Do me a favor, Tom. Let me question him after dinner."

  Trumbull shrugged. "Sure."

  Over the coffee, Trumbull said, "The time has come for the grilling of the guest. Under ordinary circumstances, I, as the possessor of the only logical mind at the table, would begin. On this occasion, I pass to Doctor Doctor Drake since he is of the same professional persuasion as our honored guest."

  "Doctor Doctor Stacey," began Drake heavily, "how do you justify your existence?"

  "Less and less as time goes on," said Stacey, unperturbed.

  "What the hell does that mean?" broke in Trumbull.

  "I'm asking the questions," said Drake with unaccustomed firmness.

  "I don't mind answering," said Stacey. "Since the universities seem to be in deeper trouble each year, and as I do nothing about it, my own function as a university appendage seems continually less defensible, that's all."

  Drake ignored that. He said, "You teach at the school where I earned my master's degree. Have you ever heard of me?"

  Stacey hesitated. "I'm sorry, Jim. There are a lot of chemists I haven't heard of. No offense intended."

  "I'm not sensitive. I never heard of you, either. What I mean is: Have you ever heard of me at Berry U.? As a student there?"

  "No, I haven't."

  "I'm not surprised. But there was another student at Berry at the same time as myself. He went on for his doctorate at Berry. His name was Faron, FA-R-O-N; Lance Faron. Did you ever hear of him?"

  "Lance Faron?" Stacey frowned.

  "Lance may have been short for Lancelot; Lancelot Faron. I don't know. We always called him Lance."

  Finally Stacey shook his head. "No, the name isn't familiar."

  Drake said, "But you have heard of David St. George?"

  "Professor St. George? Certainly. He died the same year I joined the faculty. I can't say I know him, but I've certainly heard of him."

  Trumbull said, "Hell and damnation, Jim. What kind of questions are these? Is this old-grad week?"

  Drake, who had drifted off into thought, scrambled out of it and said, "Wait, Tom. I'm getting at something, and I don't wan
t to ask questions. I want to tell a story first. My God, this has been bothering me for years and I never thought of putting it up to all of you till now that our guest-"

  "I vote the story," shouted Gonzalo.

  "On condition," said Avalon, "it not be construed as setting a precedent."

  "Chair decides the precedents," said Trumbull at once. "Go ahead, Drake. Only, for God's sake, don't take all night."

  "It's simple enough," said Drake, "and it's about Lance Faron, which is his real name, and I'm going to slander him, so you'll have to understand, Arnold, that everything said within these walls is strictly confidential."

  "That's been explained to me," said Stacey.

  "Go on," shouted Trumbull. "You will take all night. I know it."

  Drake said, "The thing about Lance is that I don't think he ever intended to be a chemist. His family was rich enough-well, I'll tell you. When he was doing graduate work, he had his lab outfitted with a cork floor at his own expense."

  "Why a cork floor?" Gonzalo wanted to know.

  "If you'd ever dropped a beaker on a tile floor, you wouldn't ask," said Drake. "He majored in chemistry as an undergraduate because he had to major in something and then he went on to do graduate work in the same field because World War II was on in Europe, the draft was beginning-it was 1940-and graduate work in chemistry would look good to the draft board. And it did; he never got into the Army as far as I know. But that was perfectly legitimate; I never got into uniform, either, and I point no fingers."

  Avalon, who had been an army officer, looked austere, but said, "Perfectly legitimate."

  Drake said, "He wasn't serious about it-about chemistry, I mean. He had no natural aptitude for it and he never worked, particularly. He was satisfied to get no more than a B minus and it was about all he was good for. Nothing wrong with that, I suppose, and it was good enough to sweat out a master's degree for himself-which doesn't amount to much in chemistry. The grades weren't good enough to qualify him for research toward the doctorate, however.

  "That was the whole point. We all-the rest of us who were in graduate chemistry that year-assumed he would only go as far as the master's. Then he'd get some sort of job that would keep his draft exemption going; we figured his father would help out there-"

  "Were the rest of you jealous of him?" asked Rubin. "Because that kind of guy-"

  "We weren't jealous of him," said Drake. "Sure, we envied the situation. Hell, those were the days before government grants fell about us like snowflakes. Every college semester, I lived a suspense story called 'Do I Dig Up the Tuition Or Do I Drop Out?' All of us would have liked to be rich. But Lance was a likable guy. He didn't parade the situation and would lend us a few bucks when we were in a hole and do it unostentatiously. And he was perfectly willing to admit he wasn't a brain,

  "We even helped him. Gus Blue tutored him in physical organic-for a fee. Of course, he wasn't always scrupulous. There was one preparation he was supposed to have synthesized in lab, and we knew that he bought a sample at a chemical supply house and turned it in as his own. At least, we were pretty sure he did, but it didn't bother us."

  Rubin said, "Why not? That was dishonest, wasn't it?"

  "Because it wouldn't do him any good," said Drake in annoyance. "It just meant another B minus at best. But the reason I bring it up is that we all knew he was capable of cheating."

  "You mean the rest of you wouldn't have?" interposed Stacey. There was a touch of cynicism in his voice.

  Drake lifted his eyebrows, then dropped them again. "I wouldn't guarantee any of us if we were really pushed. The point is, we weren't. We all had a fighting chance to get through without the risk of cheating, and none of us did. As far as I know. Certainly, I didn't.

  "But then there came a time when Lance made up his mind to go on for his Ph.D. It was at a smoker. The war jobs were just beginning to open up and there were a few recruiters on campus. It meant money and complete security from the draft, but Ph.D.'s meant a lot to us and there was some question as to whether we'd come back to school once we got away from class for any reason.

  "Someone (not I) said he wished he were in Lance's shoes. Lance had no choice to make. He would take the job.

  " 'I don't know,' said Lance, maybe just to be contrary. 'I think I'll stay right here and go on for the Ph.D.'

  "He may have been joking. I'm sure he was joking. Anyway, we all thought he was, and we laughed. But we were all a little high and it became one of those laughs without reason, you know. If one of us started to die down, he would catch someone else's eyes and start off again. It wasn't that funny. It wasn't funny at all. But we laughed till we were half suffocated. And Lance turned red, and then white.

  "I remember I tried to say, 'Lance, we're not laughing at you,' but I couldn't. I was choking and sputtering. And Lance walked out on us.

  "After that, he was going for his Ph.D. He wouldn't, talk about it but he signed all the necessary forms and that seemed to satisfy him. After a while, the situation was as before. He was friendly.

  "I said to him, 'Listen, Lance, you'll be disappointed. You can't get faculty approval for doctoral research with not a single A on your record. You just can't.'

  "He said, 'Why not? I've talked to the committee. I told them I'd take chemical kinetics under St. George, and that I'd make an A in that. I said I'd let them see what I could do.'

  "That made less than no sense to me. That was funnier than the remark we laughed at. You'd have to know St. George. You ought to know what I mean, Arnold."

  Stacey nodded, "He gave a stiff course in kinetics. One or two of the brightest would get an A minus; B's and C's otherwise."

  Drake shrugged. "There are some professors who take pride in that. It's a kind of professorial version of Captain Bligh. But he was a good chemist; probably the best Berry has ever had. He was the only member of the faculty to achieve national prominence after the war. If Lance could take his course and get a high mark, that would be bound to be impressive. Even with C's in everything else, the argument would be: 'Well, he hasn't worked much because he hasn't had to, but when he finally decided to buckle down, he showed fire-cracking ability.'

  "He and I took chemical kinetics together and I was running and sweating and snorting every day of that course. But Lance sat in the seat next to me and never stopped smiling. He took notes carefully, and I know he studied them, because when I found him in the library it was always chemical kinetics he was working on. It went down to the wire like that. St. George didn't give quizzes. He let everything hang on the discussion periods and on the final examination, which lasted three hours-a jull three hours.

  "In the last week of the course, there were no lectures and the students had their last chance to pull themselves together before finals week. Lance was still smiling. His work in the other courses had been usual Lance quality, but that didn't bother him. We would say, 'How are you doing in kinetics, Lance?' and he would say, 'No sweat!' and sound cheerful, damn it.

  "Then came the day of the finals-" Drake paused, and his lips tightened.

  "Well?" said Trumbull.

  Drake said, his voice a little lower, "Lance Faron passed. He did more than pass. He got a 96. No one had ever gotten over 90 before in one of St. George's finals. I doubt somehow that anyone ever did afterward."

  "I never heard of anyone getting it in recent times," said Stacey.

  "What did you get?" asked Gonzalo.

  "I got 82," said Drake. "And except for Lance's, it was the best mark in the class. Except for Lance's."

  "What happened to the fellow?" asked Avalon.

  "He went on for his Ph.D., of course. The faculty qualified him without trouble and the story was that St. George himself went to bat for him.

  "I left after that," Drake went on. "I worked on isotope separation during the war and eventually shifted to Wisconsin for my doctoral research. But I would hear about Lance sometimes from old friends. The last I heard he was down in Maryland somewhere, running a privat
e lab of his own. About ten years ago, I remember I looked up his name in Chemical Abstracts and found the record of a few papers he turned out. Run of the mill. Typically Lance."

  "He's still independently wealthy?" asked Trumbull.

  "I suppose so."

  Trumbull leaned back. "If that's your story, Jim, then what the hell is biting you?"

  Drake looked about the table, first at one and then at another. Then he brought his fist down so that the coffee-cups jumped and clattered. "Because he cheated, damn his hide. That was not a legitimate final exam and as long as he has his Ph.D., mine is cheapened by that much- and yours, too," he said to Stacey.

  Stacey murmured, "Phony doctor."

  "What?" said Drake, a little wildly.

  "Nothing," said Stacey, "I was just thinking of a colleague who did a stint at a medical school where the students regarded the M.D. as the only legitimate doctor's degree in the universe. To them, a Ph.D. stood for 'phony doctor.' "

  Drake snorted.

  "Actually," began Rubin, with the typical air of argu-mentativeness he could put into even a casual connective, "if you-"

  Avalon cut in from his impressive height, "Well, see here, Jim, if he cheated, how did he get through?" "Because there was nothing to show he cheated." "Did it ever occur to you," said Gonzalo, "that maybe he didn't cheat? Maybe it was really true that when he buckled down, he had fire-cracking ability."

  "No," said Drake, with another coffeecup-rattling fist on the table. "That's impossible. He never showed the ability before and he never showed it afterward. Besides he had that confidence all through the course. He had the confidence that could only mean he had worked out a foolproof plan to get his A."

  Trumbull said heavily, "All right, say he did. He got his Ph.D. but he didn't do so well. From what you say, he's just off in a corner somewhere, poking along. You know damn well, Jim, that lots of guys get through to all kinds of professional positions, even without cheating, who have all their brains in their elbows, and so what. Why get mad at one particular guy, cheating or not? You know why I think you're off your rocker on the subject, Jim? What gripes you is that you don't know how he did it. If you could figure it out, why you'd forget the whole thing."