“Certainly,” said Henry, “among other things. Especially if we don’t call it a Cross of Lorraine. What the youngster saw as a Cross of Lorraine, out of his special interest, we would see as something else so clearly that its relationship to the Cross of Lorraine would be invisible. What has been happening just now has been precisely what happened earlier with Mr. Larri’s trick with the coin and salt shaker. We concentrated on the coin and didn’t watch the salt shaker, and now we concentrate on the Cross of Lorraine and don’t look for the alternative.”

  Trumbull said, “Henry, if you don’t stop talking in riddles, you’re fired. What the hell is the Cross of Lorraine, if it isn’t the Cross of Lorraine?”

  Henry said gravely, “What is this?” and carefully he drew on the back of the menu…

  Trumbull said, “A Cross of Lorraine—tilted.”

  “No, sir, you would never have thought so, if we hadn’t been talking about the Cross. Those are English letters and a very common symbol on highways if you add something to it…” He wrote quickly and the tilted Cross became:

  “The one thing,” said Henry, “that is designed to be seen, without trouble, day or night, on any highway is a gas-station sign. The child saw the Cross of Lorraine in this one, but Mr. Larri, retracing the route, sees only a double X, since he reads the entire word as Exxon. All signs showing this name, whether on the highway, in advertisements, or on credit cards, show the name in this fashion.”

  Now Larri caught fire. “You mean, Henry, that if I go into the Exxon stations en route and ask for Gwendolyn…”

  “The proprietor of one of them is likely to be her brother, and there would not be more than five or six at most to inquire at.”

  “Good God, Henry,” said Larri, “you’re a magician.”

  “Merely simpleminded,” said Henry, “though perhaps in the nonpejorative sense.”

  9

  The Next Day

  I wrote this story in an automobile. I had had a mild coronary two months before and dear Janet was full of an exaggerated fear for my survival. We were in rustic surroundings for several days and drove out to see a waterfall. Janet and some friends got out of the car to walk about and this was judged too strenuous for me. So I sat in the car with a pad and paper and wrote a story.

  I have often wondered how small an ambiguity I could use as a kernel about which to build a Black Widower story. I have, in this story, I think the smallest possible ambiguity, but I think it works just the same. What’s more, I rarely tell a story about writers and editors because my own experience in this direction is so enormously atypical that it offers me no guidance at all. For all these reasons, I am including this story.

  Emmanuel Rubin’s glasses always gave the illusion of magnifying his eyes with particular intensity when he was aroused. He said, in an intense whisper, “You brought an editor as your guest?”

  James Drake’s train from New Jersey had arrived late and he had, in consequence, almost committed the solecism of being late to his own hostship over the monthly banquet of the Black Widowers. He was in an uncharacteristically snappish mood therefore and said, “Why not?”

  He flicked the ash from his cigarette and added, “If we can have writers for guests, and even as members, Zeus help us, why not editors?”

  Rubin, a writer, of course, said haughtily, “I wouldn’t expect a chemist to understand.” He looked briefly in the direction of the guest, who was tall and spare, with longish red-blond hair and with the kind of abbreviated mustache and beard that gave him a Robin Hood air.

  Drake said, “I may be a chemist to you, Manny, and to all the world besides, but I’m a writer to him.” Drake tried to look modest, and failed signally. “I’m doing a book.”

  “You?” said Rubin.

  “Why not? I can spell and, judging by your career, that’s the only requirement.”

  “If your guest thinks it is, he has about the mental equipment needed for an editor. What’s his name again?”

  “Stephen Bentham.”

  “And what firm is he with?”

  Drake stubbed out his cigarette. “Southby Publications.”

  “A shlock outfit,” said Rubin, with contempt. “They’re a sex-and-sensation house. What do they want with you?”

  Drake said, “I’m doing a book on recombinant DNA, which is a sensational subject these days—not that you know anything about it.”

  Mario Gonzalo had just entered, brushing at his brown velvet jacket to remove the city fly-ash. He said, “Come on, Jim, all the papers are full of it. That’s the stuff they’re going to make new disease germs with and depopulate the world.”

  Rubin said, “If Mario’s heard about it, Jim, you’ll have to admit I have, too—and everyone else in the world has.”

  “Good. Then my book is what the world needs,” said Drake.

  Gonzalo said, “The world needs it about as much as it needs air pollution. I’ve seen two books on the subject advertised already.”

  “Ha,” said Drake, “they’re talking about the controversy, the politics. I’m going to talk about the chemistry.”

  “Then it will never sell,” said Rubin.

  It was at this point that Henry, that paragon of waiters, without whom no Black Widowers banquet could endure, announced softly to Drake that the gentlemen might seat themselves.

  Geoffrey Avalon drifted toward Henry, having now had the pleasure of a sedate conversation with the guest—with whom he had talked eye to eye, something which, from his 74 inches of height, he could not often do.

  “I detect a fishy aroma, Henry,” he said. “What has been planned for this evening?”

  “A bouillabaisse, sir,” said Henry. “An excellent one, I believe.”

  Avalon nodded gravely, and Roger Halsted, smiling, said, “Even an average bouillabaisse is excellent, and with Henry’s encomium, I stand ready to be delighted.”

  Avalon said, “I hope, Mr. Bentham, that you have no objection?”

  “I can’t say I’ve ever eaten it.” Bentham spoke in a distinct, but not exaggerated, English accent, “but I’m prepared to have a go at it. A French dish, I believe.”

  “Marseillaise in origin,” said Halsted, looking as though he were coming very close to licking his chops, “but universal in appeal. Where’s Tom, by the way?”

  “Right here,” came an exasperated voice from the steps. “Damn taxi driver. Thanks, Henry.” Thomas Trumbull, his tanned forehead creased and furrowed into fifty lines of anger, gratefully took the scotch and soda. “You haven’t started eating, have you?”

  “Just about,” said Gonzalo, “and if you hadn’t arrived, Roger would have had your share of the bouillabaisse, so it would have been a silver lining for someone. What was with the taxicab?”

  Trumbull seated himself, took another invigorating sip of his drink, buttered a roll, and said, “I told the idiot to take me to the Milano and the next thing I knew I was at some dive movie on West Eighty-sixth Street called the Milano. We had to make our way through four extra miles of Manhattan streets to get here. He claimed he had never heard of the Milano Restaurant, but he did know that flea dive. It cost me three bucks extra in taxi fare.”

  Rubin said, “You’re pretty far gone, Tom, if you couldn’t tell he was going northwest when you wanted to go southeast.”

  “You don’t think I was watching the streets, do you?” growled Trumbull. “I was lost in thought.”

  Avalon said austerely, “You can’t rely on the local wisdom of the New York taxi driver. You ought to have said explicitly, ‘Fifth Avenue and Thirteenth Street.’”

  “Thanks a lot,” said Trumbull. “I shall instantly turn the clock back and say it.”

  “I presume there’ll be a next time, Tom, and that you’re capable of learning from experience,” said Avalon, and received a scowl for his pains.

  After the bouillabaisse arrived, there was a lull in the conversation for a while as the banqueters concentrated on the evisceration of mussels and the cracking of lobster shells.

  It was Drake who broke it. He said, “If we consider recombinant DNA…”

  “We aren’t,” said Rubin, spearing a scallop neatly. “…then what it amounts to is that the whole argument is about benefits that no one can demonstrate and dangers that no one can really pinpoint. There are only blue-sky probabilities on either side, and the debaters make up for their lack of hard knowledge by raising their voices. What I propose to do is to go into the chemistry and genetics of the matter and try to work out the real chances and significance of specific genetic change. Without that, both sides are just searching in a dark room for a black cat that isn’t there.”

  Avalon said, “And all this for the general public?”

  “Certainly.”

  “Isn’t that rather heavy going for the general public?”

  “It isn’t for the comic-book audience, but I think I can manage the Scientific American to Natural History range. Tell them, Bentham,” said Drake, with perhaps a trace of smugness, “you’ve seen the sample chapters.”

  Bentham, who had tackled the bouillabaisse with a certain tentativeness but had grown steadily more enthusiastic, said, “I can only judge by myself, to be sure, but I suspect that since I follow the line of argument, the average college man ought to.”

  “That still limits your audience,” said Gonzalo.

  Bentham said, “We can’t say that. It’s a very hot subject and, properly promoted…”

  “A Southby specialty,” muttered Rubin.

  “It could catch on,” Bentham said. “People who don’t really understand might nevertheless buy it to be in fashion; and who knows, they might read it and get something out of it.”

  Drake tapped his water glass as Henry doled out the brandy. Drake said, “If everyone is sufficiently defishified and if Henry will remove the towels and finger bowls, I think we may start to grill our guest, Mr. Stephen Bentham. Tom, will you do the honors?”

  “Glad to,” said Trumbull. “Mr. Bentham, it is our custom, ordinarily, to inquire as to how a guest may justify his existence. In this case, I suppose we can allow the fact that you are involved with the production of a book by our esteemed colleague, Dr. Drake, to speak for you. We will therefore pass on to more mundane questions. You seem young. How old are you?”

  “Twenty-eight.”

  “I have the feeling you have not been long in the United States. Am I right?”

  “I’ve been living and working here for about five months now, but I have been here on brief visits before. Three times.”

  “I see. And what are your qualifications for your post; as editor, that is?”

  “Not overwhelming.” Bentham smiled suddenly, an oddly charming and rueful smile. “I have done some editing with Fearn and Russell in London. Rather happy with them—low-key concern, you know, but then, British publishing generally is low-key.”

  “Why throw that over to take a job with an American firm where the pressures are bound to be greater? They are greater, I assume.”

  “Very much so,” again the rueful smile, “but there’s no mystery as to why I came. The explanation is so simple that it embarrasses me to advance it. In a word—money. I was offered three times my British salary, and all moving expenses paid.”

  Halsted intervened suddenly. “Are you a married man, Mr. Bentham?”

  “No, Mr. Halsted. Quite single, though not necessarily celibate. However, single men can use money, too.”

  Rubin said, “If you don’t mind, Tom, I would like to add the reverse of the question you asked. I can see why you’ve joined Southby Publications. Money is a potent argument. But why the hell did that schlock concern hire you? You’re young, without much experience, and they’re not the kind of firm to hire promising young men out of benevolence. Yet they triple your salary and pay moving expenses. What have you got on them?”

  Bentham said, “I met Mr. Southby on one of my earlier trips and I think he was rather taken with me.” His fair skin turned a noticeable pink. “I suspect it was my accent and my appearance. Perhaps it seemed to him I would lend an air of scholarship to the firm.”

  “A touch of class,” murmured Avalon, and Bentham turned pinker still.

  Trumbull resumed the questioning, “Manny calls Southby Publications a shlock concern. Do you agree with that?”

  Bentham hesitated. “I don’t know. What does the expression mean?”

  Rubin said, “Cheap, worthless books, sold by high-pressure campaigns hinting at sex and sensationalism.”

  Bentham remained silent.

  Drake said, “Go ahead, Bentham. Anything you say here will never go beyond these walls. The club observes complete confidentiality.”

  “It isn’t that, Jim,” said Bentham, “but if I were to agree, it might wound your feelings. You’re an author of ours.”

  Drake lit another cigarette. “That wouldn’t bother me. You’re hired to give the firm a touch of class and you’ll do my book as another touch of class.”

  Bentham says, “I grant you that I don’t think much of some of the books on the list, but Dr. Drake is right. Mr. Southby doesn’t object to good books if he thinks they will sell. He is personally pleased with what he has seen of Dr. Drake’s book; even enthusiastic. Perhaps the firm’s character can be improved.”

  Avalon said, “I would like to put in my oar, Tom, if you don’t mind. Mr. Bentham, I am not a psychologist, or a tracer of men’s thoughts through their expressions. I am just a humble patent attorney. However, it seems to me that you have looked distinctly uneasy each time you mentioned your employer. Are you sure that there is nothing you are keeping from Dr. Drake that he ought to know? I want an unequivocal answer.”

  “No,” said Bentham quickly, “there is nothing wrong with Dr. Drake’s book. Provided he completes the book and that the whole is of the quality of the parts we have seen, we will publish and then promote it adequately. There are no hidden reservations to that statement.”

  Gonzalo said, “Then what are you uneasy about? Or is Geoff all wrong about your feelings in the first place?” He was gazing complacently at the caricature of Bentham he had produced for the guest gallery that lined the walls of the meeting room. He had not missed the Robin Hood resemblance and had even lightly sketched in a feathered hat in green, of the type one associated with the Merry Men.

  Bentham said, in sudden anger, “You could say I’m uneasy, considering that I’m about to be bloody well slung out on my can.”

  “Fired?” said Gonzalo, on a rising note.

  “That’s the rough one-syllable version of what I have just said.”

  “Why?” said Drake, in sudden concern.

  “I’ve lost a manuscript,” said Bentham. “Not yours, Dr. Drake.” Gonzalo said, “In the mails?”

  “No. Through malice, according to Southby. Actually, I did every ruddy thing I could do to get it back. I don’t know what was in that man’s mind.”

  “Southby’s?”

  “No, the author’s. Joshua Fairfield’s his name.”

  “Never heard of him,” said Rubin.

  Trumbull said, “Suppose you tell us what happened, Mr. Bentham.” Bentham said, “It’s a grim, stupid thing. I don’t want to cast a pall over a very pleasant evening.”

  Trumbull said, “Sorry, Mr. Bentham, but I think Jim warned you that answering our questions was the price of the meal. Please tell us exactly what happened.”

  Bentham said, “I suppose the most exciting thing that can happen in a publishing house is to have something good come in over the transom; something good that has not passed through the hands of a reputable agent and is not by a recognized author; something that has reached you by mail, written by someone whom no one has ever heard of.

  “Aside from the sheer pleasure of the unexpected windfall, there is the possibility that you have a new author who can be milked for years to come, provided the product is not that of a one-book author—which is not an unheard-of phenomenon.”

  Rubin began, “Margaret Mitchell…” and stopped when Trumbull, who sat next to him, elbowed him ungently.

  “Anyway,” said Bentham, jarred only momentarily by the interruption, “Southby thought he had one. One of the readers brought it to him in excitement, as well he might, for readers don’t often get anything that’s above the written-in-crayon-on-lined-paper level.

  “He should have gone to an editor—not necessarily me—with the manuscript, but he chose to go directly to Southby. I presume he felt there might be a deal of credit for the discovery and he didn’t want Southby to be unaware of the discoverer. I can’t say I blame him.

  “In any case, Southby was infatuated with the manuscript, called an editorial conference, said he was accepting the book and had notified the author. He explained, quite enthusiastically, that it was to get the full Southby treatment…”

  Rubin said indignantly, “Up to and including cooking the best-seller lists. Tom, if you give me the elbow again, I’ll break it off.”

  Bentham said, “I dare say you’re right, Mr. Rubin, but this book deserved all it could get—potentially. Southby said he thought it needed work and he gave it to me to edit. That struck me as a remarkable sign of confidence and I was rather gung-ho on the matter. I saw quick promotions on the horizon if I could manage to carry it off. The other editors didn’t seem to mind, though. One of them said to me, ‘It’s your butt that’s in the sling if this doesn’t work, because Southby’s never wrong.’”

  Avalon said gravely, “It sometimes happens that when the boss makes a mistake, the underling tabbed to reverse the mistake is fired if he fails.”

  Bentham nodded. “The thought occurred to me, eventually, but it excited me further. The scent of dangers sharpens the desire to be in at the kill, you know.

  “You can see, then, I went over the manuscript in a painstaking manner. I went through it once at moderate speed to get a sense of the whole and was not displeased. Southby’s description of it was not, on the whole, wrong. It had a good pace and was rich in detail. A long family saga—a rough and domineering father, a smooth and insinuating mother in a rather subtle battle over the sons, their wives, and their children. The plot was interlocking, never halting, and there was enough sex to be suitable for Southby, but the sex worked. It fit the story.