The Union Club Mysteries

by Asimov, Isaac

  "I still don't see what I can do. Do you have the date clear? Or in code?" "Clear. J-U-N-E-8. No chance of a coding—or decoding—mistake.''

  "How did your man in London deliver it?"

  "Quite indirectly, but surely. He fished the last cigarette out of a pack and tossed the empty pack into a wastebasket. A little while later, a poorly dressed man scrabbled for a newspaper in the wastebasket and pulled out the cigarette pack with it. Inside the pack was the date—written with a special pen that had a small nib bent at right angles."

  "The 'poorly dressed man' was, I presume, one of ours."

  "Yes, he burnt the cigarette pack, recorded the date and passed it along in a totally different way. Nothing could be traced to our first man, whose position had to be protected, and the second man was dispensable—as he well knew."

  "You think the second man made a mistake in copying the date?"

  "We've used him before. He's never made a mistake. —Yes, yes, I know. Always a first time. He swears he made no mistake. June 8, absolutely. No way of having mistaken it. He insists on that."

  "In that case, your first man—your man in London— must have gotten the wrong date and you're out of luck. Unless the British did do whatever they're supposed to have done on June 8, but did it so quietly that you never noticed."

  "Impossible. If you knew what it was, you wouldn't think that."

  "What about the second man? No matter how well he has done for you in the past, if he's just a London ragpicker you've hired, someone else can outbid you and 'un-hire' him, so to speak."

  "London ragpicker?" said Jim indignantly. "He was born in Dallas. Graduate of Texas A & M. One of our best."

  "Ah! The light, just possibly, dawns."

  "Where?"

  "Never mind," I said austerely. After all, if he felt it was all right to withhold information from me, I saw no reason why I couldn't return the compliment.

  "Suppose I give you an alternate date. Can you hold the fort and keep us from charging blindly forward till then?"

  "What alternate date?"

  I told him.

  He frowned. "What makes you think that's the alternate date?"

  I fixed him with my frank and honest glance. "Have you ever known me to be wrong, when I have said I'm right?"

  "Well, as a matter of fact—"

  "Don't be a wise guy. Just hold the fort—and keep me out of it. If Dulles finds out I had something to do with this, he would rather risk nuclear war than be safe on my say-so."

  He said, "Well, I'll try."

  He succeeded. Revolts in both Poland and Hungary were crushed that year, but the United States took the kind of action that kept the Soviets on the griddle. The point was that they were not able to intervene in the Middle East, when Britain, France and Israel attacked Egypt later that year, and that was more important. Most important of all, there was no nuclear war.

  So don't tell me "friends and allies."

  "Do you propose to leave it there?" I asked.

  "Why not?" said Griswold. "It's a happy ending, isn't it?"

  "Sure, but what was the alternate date, and how did you get it?"

  Griswold puffed out his breath and his white mustache flew in the air before it. He shook his head.

  "Look," he said. "Our man in London wrote the date inside the cigarette pack; far inside, one would suspect, to make it the less noticeable to casual inspection. Operating a bent pen and making the writing clear is a delicate job, and he wasn't going to write an encyclopedia. I was sure he would write the date as concisely as possible, meaning that he wrote it '6/8.' Wouldn't you say so?" "Reasonable," said Jennings.

  "And the second man, our Texan, sending it on in a different way, could afford to be more lavish and scrawled a 'June 8' on something and sent it along in whatever hidden fashion was used."

  "So what?" said Baranov.

  "Well, don't you think there's a question as to which number represented the month and which the day? In the United States, we tend to let the first number represent the month, but in Great Britain, they tend to let the second number represent the month. The second man, an American, seeing 6/8, writes it down as June 8, June being the sixth month. He never gives the matter a second thought, and swears that is what he saw. But our British man in London was symbolizing '6 August,' August being the eighth month, so that was my alternate date. August 6. A very good date and, as it turned out, the correct one."

  To Contents

  Which Is Which?

  I was feeling grumpy. I knew it wouldn't last. I had a pleasant sherry in my hand, a comfortable chair under me, the dowdy but quiet atmosphere of the Union Club library about me, and Griswold—a somnolent figure in his personal armchair—across the way.

  Still, I wanted to use the grumpiness while it lasted. I said, "I wish I knew how to make a citizen's arrest. I know it exists, but I have never heard of it actually being done."

  "Whom do you want to arrest?" asked Jennings lazily. "Griswold?"

  I snorted, "Why arrest Griswold? He's a symphony of arrested motion as it is. No, the people I want to arrest are the smokers in elevators. They are clear lawbreakers and I want to be able to pull out my handcuffs—"

  Baranov said with interest, "Handcuffs? You carry handcuffs?"

  "I was speaking symbolically, for Heaven's sake. I put my hand on the person's shoulder—"

  Jennings said, "In the first place, if you do that, he will punch you in the face, if he's a he, or kick you in the shins, if she's a she. And if for any reason somebody should submit to your citizen's arrest, what will you do? Take them to the nearest police station? Do you know where it is? And if you're in an elevator, you're probably going somewhere. Do you abandon that and just become an off-duty policeman? Do you—"

  "Oh, shut up," I said, suddenly more grumpy than ever. Whereupon Griswold stirred, brought his scotch and soda to his lips, took a careful sip and said, "I once made a citizen's arrest. A policeman was on the scene, as it happened, but he was in no position to make the arrest."

  I turned on him savagely. "And you were? Just how do you explain that?"

  "No way at all—unless you ask me to do so politely."

  But I knew I wouldn't have to.

  Their names were Moe and Joe [said Griswold] and I don't know that anyone in the course of their criminal career ever called them anything else. They must have had last names, but those were never used, except in court, and I don't remember what they were.

  The surprising thing about them was that they were not twins. In fact, Moe was Jewish and Joe was an Italian Catholic, but through some peculiar twist of the genes, they looked enormously similar. They could have said they were twins and they would have been believed. In fact, I suspect that many who knew them thought they were twins.

  They met in high school, which neither of them finished, and discovered their similarity then. Moe had just moved into the neighborhood and was two months older than Joe. Both were fascinated by the similarity and they used it in horseplay. One would borrow a quarter and when asked for repayment would insist it had been the other who had done the borrowing. The other, of course, denied it. In the end they paid up, since otherwise the sources of credit would have dried up. But this, and a few other little tricks of the sort, undoubtedly gave them the notion for what was to become their lifelong career.

  They became close friends and cultivated a similarity in clothes, speech, and characteristic ways when they were old enough to rid themselves of unnecessary family ties. They roomed together and were sufficiently close in size to be able to share a wardrobe. They took to wearing identical styles and colors, and, except when taking a vacation from each other, made sure that they wore brother-and-brother outfits.

  They also made sure that they were not often seen together except in their special haunts and by their special boon companions.

  Little by little, they developed their separate specialties. Moe was a clever con-man, who could always manage to wheedle a few bills out of some i
nnocent. Joe was a nimble pickpocket, who could lift those same bills with equal celerity.

  They were careful never to undertake a large job. They merely nickel-and-dimed it in order to be fairly well-off without having to work. I suppose that the small element of danger was exhilarating.

  Just the same, they were not that enamored of danger, for they took care to minimize the risk, and that was where the twinship came in. If one was attempting a job of more-than-average magnitude, the other would set up an alibi.

  Let Joe, for instance, break into an apartment, and that night Moe would be playing poker with half a dozen people of unimpeachable honesty and he would be playing honestly, too. If Joe were seen at the scene of the crime, and the police came about to investigate, he would come out with Moe's alibi—the names of the people, the hands he had held, and so on. Naturally, he would have been fed all the information by Moe, and the other poker players would have no choice but to uphold Joe. Even if Joe and Moe were presented to them in the lineup, they could not have sworn to one rather than the other—not without being ripped apart in cross-examination.

  The very few occasions in which the police got the idea that the two of them were working in combination, they saw no way of getting witnesses to distinguish between them, and had to be content with warning them and making threatening noises—which the two ignored.

  Moe and Joe even got to the point where they occasionally joked about it. Moe would casually help himself to a couple of apples from a fruit stand and walk to the corner. The proprietor, stunned for a moment by the effrontery of it, would finally come to himself and set out in chase, shouting names. Moe would have turned the corner and when the proprietor also turned, he would find Moe standing with Joe, and each grinning and pointing to the other.

  By being moderate in their goals, Moe and Joe managed to gain a minor prosperity without arousing too much official frustration or public outcry, and the prosperity showed in their attire. They took to wearing string ties of interesting and identical design, and, since both were nearsighted, both adopted black-rimmed glasses with the kind of lenses that darkened after a minute or so in the sunlight and then cleared after a minute or so indoors. They had their hair styled by the same barber, and each carried the same kind of umbrella at any hint of rain.

  This is not to say they couldn't be told apart. Moe was half an inch taller than Joe. Their dental work was different, and they had different eyeglass prescriptions. Joe had a small scar under one ear and Moe's eyebrows were bushier. These were not the sorts of things, however, that the casual witness could swear to with any certainty, or even credibility.

  I suppose they might have gone on forever, if it weren't for one bad break—but then bad breaks are bound to come if you take risks long enough. Even small risks.

  Joe had cased a small jewelry shop and it seemed to him that if he came in during lunch hour when the place was crowded, he would be able to ask to be shown a case of rings and could manage to palm one of them, and substitute a piece of fine glass. Just in case something went wrong, he had stationed Moe in a nearby hotel lobby.

  Well, something went wrong. Even the finest prestidigitator can get an attack of the dropsy now and then, and Joe, receiving an accidental nudge from the person next to him at just the wrong time, dropped the ring. The proprietor of the store noted the event, drew the correct conclusion at once, and, being an irascible man who had been burglarized in the past and was tired of it, drew a gun.

  Customers scattered, and Joe, who was not a man of violence, panicked. He tried to grab the gun to keep it from being fired in his direction. There was a short struggle, and the gun went off.

  As happens too often in such cases, the bullet was stopped by the honest citizen. The jeweler dropped, and if Joe had panicked before, he was in a frenzy now. He dashed out of the store, intent on making it to the hotel lobby, picking up Moe, and then clearing out of town for a good long time.

  But once bad breaks start coming, they don't stop easily. These days you hardly ever see a policeman in the street, but there was one outside the jewelry store. He heard the shot, he saw a man running and he took off in pursuit.

  And then, of course, we have to add one topper to the thing, the cherry on top of the sundae. I was in the street, too. When you stop to think of it, having Joe get himself into such a mess and having not only a policeman but me waiting for him—each of us there for two thoroughly independent reasons—is asking too much of coincidence. Just the same, it can happen, and on this occasion it did.

  It was a bright, sunny day, not a cloud in the sky, cool and dry, so the avenue was as crowded as it is ever likely to get. This meant it might be easy to lose Joe, but it also meant he couldn't get on much speed. He had to twist and turn and he was wearing a checked summer jacket, in shades of blue, that made him stand out.

  The policeman, as it happened, had heard the shot and had seen Joe come flying out of the jewelry shop and would have run after him even if he hadn't known him—but he did. Joe was a familiar figure to him.

  Of course, with the street crowded, the policeman couldn't threaten to shoot; he couldn't go near his gun. He might have expected someone in the crowd to tackle Joe, if he were out of touch with reality. Naturally, no one did. The crowd scattered, following the unwritten law of today, "Thou shall not get involved!"

  The policeman wasn't going to have much chance if the pursuit was a long and involved one, for he was out of condition, and to tell you the truth I was going to do even worse. It wasn't many years ago that this happened, and I was already past those days when I was young and lissome. I managed a fast trot, which was clearly going to get me in third in a field of three.

  Fortunately for us, if not for Joe, Joe didn't keep up the race. He had no chance for thought and only knew he had to run to the safety of Moe. He ducked into the hotel not more than a block and a half from the scene of the crime. Ten seconds afterward, the policeman ran through the entrance, and fifteen seconds after that, I ran in.

  Joe was standing right there, and Moe was next to him. Both were in blue-checked jackets, darker-blue trousers, black belts, string ties, and Moe was putting on the show of his life. His hair was mussed up, as Joe's was, and he was panting. He even looked a little moist, perhaps from anxiety, as Joe was, from running.

  By God, Joe even managed a grin, pointed at Moe, and said, "This guy just ran in here."

  And Moe managed the same grin, pointed at Joe and said, "No, he did."

  The policeman glared from one to the other and shouted, "Did anyone here notice which one of these jokers just ran into the lobby?"

  He might just as well have asked if anyone knew the middle name of his Aunt Jemima.

  But I had caught my breath by this time and I put my hand firmly on Joe's shoulder and said, "Officer, this is the man, and I am making a citizen's arrest until you can manage the real thing."

  He didn't know me. "What makes you so sure?" he asked.

  "See for yourself," I said. "And what's more, his pal, or his twin, or whatever is going to back us up, because. this wasn't just a robbery. A shot was fired, my friend," I said to Moe, whose name and background I didn't know at this time, "and it's certainly assault, and very likely murder during the commission of a felony. Are you sure you want to be an accessory after the fact in a thing like that?"

  Moe cast a horrified glance at Joe, and it was clear he didn't. We had no trouble. The jeweler was only wounded, but Joe got a sentence that put him away for a while and Moe had a lesson he wouldn't forget either.

  Griswold had that rotten air of satisfaction he always gets when he tells of one of his triumphs, and Baranov said, "And how did you know which one of the two had just run into the lobby?"

  "Yes," said Jennings, "and in a way that would stick in court."

  "No problem at all," said Griswold with a distinct sneer. "I told you they both wore glasses of the kind that darken in the sunlight and clear again indoors, and I told you it was a bright, sunny day. One of those tw
o had just run in from the sunlight, and his glasses were still dark, while the other's glasses were not. I pointed that out to the policeman before Joe's glasses had quite cleared, and Moe, seeing we had his pal cold, was quite willing to testify against him to save his own neck."

  To Contents

  The Sign

  Baranov said, "According to the forecast in the daily paper, today was a good day for taking financial risks, so I bet a friend of mine fifty cents it wouldn't rain this afternoon and you saw what happened. It poured! The question is: should I sue the forecaster?"

  I said with infinite disdain (for I had carefully carried an umbrella), "By forecast, I presume you mean the astrological column?"

  "Do you suppose I meant the weather forecast?" said Baranov tartly. "Of course I meant the astrologer. Who else would tell me to take financial risks?"

  "The weatherman," said Jennings, "said 'partly cloudy.' He didn't predict rain, either."

  I refused to be lured off the track. "Asking a stupid question isn't as bad as falling for stupid mysticism. Since when has astrology impressed you as a substitute for financial acumen?"

  "Reading the column is an amusement," said Baranov stiffly, "and I can afford fifty cents."

  "The question is whether you can afford intellectual decay. I think not," I said.

  In his high-backed armchair in the library of the Union Club where we all sat, Griswold was comfortably asleep to the tune of a faint snoring. But now he attracted our attention when he scraped the sole of his shoe on the floor, as he shifted position without spilling the drink he held in his hand.

  I said softly, "You know the way he's always reminded of a story by anything we say. I'll bet if we wake him up and talk about astrology, he won't be able to think of a thing."

  Baranov said eagerly, "I'll take that bet. Fifty cents. I want to make it back."

  At this point, Griswold's drink moved toward his lips. He sipped daintily, his eyes still closed. He said, "As it happens, I do have an astrological story to tell, so hand over the half-dollar."