“Yes.”

  “You did not in this interval leave the park?”

  “No.”

  “You did not at any time go to your apartment, or to his?”

  “No.”

  “You did not go to any private home?”

  “No.”

  “And he was in your sight during all this time?”

  “Not only in my sight, but in my grasp almost all the time. I do not recall even letting go of his arm or his hand or his waist for more than a moment or two. On the carousel, to be sure, we were on separate but adjacent horses.”

  “Miss Fuentes,” I said, “there is nothing I can do. The alibi you offer, though sincere, and apparently airtight, can be broken easily by any lawyer who thinks a bit; by your own even.”

  She and her lawyer asked, simultaneously and with equal indignation, “How?”

  I had to tell them. It was no pleasure for me. And, of course, it broke them. My feeling is that Brown was guilty, but the government never pursued it and he is fortunate to be left merely under a cloud. I remain terribly sorry for Miss Fuentes, however, who, thanks to social convention, did not realize her testimony was patently false.

  I said indignantly, “How did you know her testimony was false, you old fraud?”

  Griswold said calmly, “I don’t expect you to see that. But bend your feeble brain to the matter. Miss Fuentes was in a public place for ten consecutive hours. One doesn’t speak about such things in polite society, so one forgets—honestly forgets. Did she never have to urinate? Did she never visit the ladies’ room in the course of the ten hours?”

  “Oh,” I said, abashed.

  “Of course she did,” said Griswold, “and perhaps more than once. And he visited the men’s room, though that’s less important. When Miss Fuentes was forced to the ladies’ room in a public place, he simply could not accompany her. They had to be separated. She was young. She was in love. She wanted to look lovely and lovable. She adjusted her makeup. She fiddled with her hair. She would take ten minutes. In that time, if the enemy agent kept him in view, she could approach him, identify herself, and make off with the microfilm. Our own agents might miss that meeting and there you are.”

  There was silence and then Baranov said, “But how does that illustrate the fact that conducting espionage operations is like chess?”

  And Griswold said haughtily, “Who said anything about chess?”

  23

  The Magic Umbrella

  Some years back I bought a cheap umbrella that was so small I could put it into my raincoat pocket. After a year or so, I couldn’t help but notice that whenever I carried this umbrella, it never rained. It rained when I didn’t carry it or when I had another umbrella, but not when I carried it. I took to calling it my “magic umbrella” and boasted about it in a manner entirely unsuitable to someone who was as proud of his rationalist philosophy as I am.

  Eventually, of course, I did get rained on and, after withstanding the raindrops for quite a while because I didn’t want to spoil my magic umbrella’s record, I was forced to open it up.

  I made up for the disappointment, however, by writing a story about a magic umbrella.

  Jennings was the last to arrive, and he shook his hat with an air of disgust. Water sprayed this way and that.

  “It started raining just three minutes ago,” he said. “It was just in time to catch me in the last couple of blocks. Naturally, it was when I decided to walk, and naturally, I didn’t have my umbrella.”

  I had looked out the tall windows of the Union Club library just before he had walked in—in fact, I saw him making the last block in an undignified run—and I said, “It’s just a shower. It won’t last long.” (I was hoping I was right, for I didn’t have an umbrella either.)

  Baranov said with disgusting smugness, “I always carry a folding umbrella at the least sign of rain. It fits into my raincoat pocket and is no trouble at all. It’s small, of course, and just fits one, so I can’t offer either of you a corner.” He sounded exactly like Aesop’s ant admonishing the grasshoppers for having loafed away the summer.

  Jennings, still brooding on the injustice of the universe, said, “I swear that there’s a full-time flunky in heaven who has nothing to do but notice when I leave home without an umbrella, so that he can make it rain.”

  That gave me a chance to take out my irritation on him. “Have you kept a statistical account? I’m sure you didn’t carry an umbrella yesterday when you left your place, and it was brilliant sunshine all day.”

  At that moment Griswold stirred in his tall, winged armchair, brought his scotch and soda to his lips, wiped his mustache, and said, “I knew of a magic umbrella once.”

  “A magic umbrella?” I said.

  His ice-blue eyes pierced me and he said, “I see you are all dying to hear the story of the umbrella that kept off the rain and never had to be opened.”

  “Actually, we aren’t,” said Baranov.

  Since you insist [said Griswold], let me tell you the story of the umbrella that kept off the rain and never had to be opened.

  Actually, it is the story of two old men, who had been fast friends for forty years and who quarreled unreasonably over a petty matter with the unforgiving fury that only those who have been fast friends for forty years could show.

  And one of them came to me. This was not surprising. In those days, I was much more active than I am now and it somehow became well known that I was helpful to the police now and then. (One wonders how such news manages to leap mysteriously from person to person; certainly I never said anything.) Some even thought I was a detective myself and would come to me with some small problem. And when I helped them, as I sometimes did, the tale would spread and my reputation would become even more exalted.

  I was sitting on a park bench, reading, on a late autumn day when the air was unseasonably mild and the sun’s warmth was welcome, and then one of the old men took his seat next to me. It was Mr. Levy. I knew him well. We had encountered each other in the park often and, on occasion, I had watched him playing at chess with his perennial opponent—the other old man. They kept meticulous records and I think the score at that time was something like 1,234 to 1,205—I don’t remember in whose favor. They were very well matched and, though they were not very good chess players, they played with the concentration and ferocity of grand masters, so that it did one’s heart good to watch them and to listen to their picturesque threats of chessboard slaughter as they moved their pieces.

  Levy said diffidently, “Mr. Griswold, I have a problem. Maybe you could help me.”

  “I can try,” I said cautiously, putting down my book. “What’s the problem?”

  “It’s Myerson, that idiot, that bum—”

  “You mean your friend? The one you’ve played thousands of chess games with?”

  “For years we’ve been playing chess. Why I wasted my time on him, I’ll never know. A foolish person, you have no idea. How his two sons can both be doctors is a mystery.”

  “Well, what has Myerson done?”

  “He’s got a magic umbrella, can you imagine? That’s what he calls it, a magic umbrella. Last spring—this is what he says—he was going somewhere and it suddenly looked like rain and he didn’t have an umbrella, so he bought a small, cheap folding umbrella with an aluminum handle, and it cost only four dollars. So it kept on looking like rain, but it didn’t rain, and he never had to open the umbrella. A clear waste of four dollars, it sounds like to me.”

  “At least he had a feeling of security. That’s worth something.”

  “Security? Listen, that idiot is so insecure that—But never mind. I’m talking about the umbrella. He carried it a few more times when it looked like rain, and it never rained, and finally he began talking about it. It was a magic umbrella, he said. It kept off the rain. He said he never had to open it; he just put it in his pocket or under his arm and it didn’t rain. Never, he said. It was all he would talk about, day and night. Such a bore!

  “Sometimes it would get cloudy when we were playing chess in the park. Some dinky little cloud would get in the way of the sun. Right away, he would say, ‘It’s all right, Levy. I’ve got my magic umbrella. Don’t try to get out of this game because it’s not going to rain. Stay right here and be slaughtered.’

  “Magic umbrella here; magic umbrella there. He would get me so nervous with this silly talk, I would lose the game sometimes, just from nervousness. That’s why he did it. He has no decency, that Myerson.”

  I said, “Sometimes when you played and it got cloudy, did it actually start to rain, even though he had this umbrella of his?”

  Levy looked chafed. “No, not actually. It encouraged his foolishness each time that happened.”

  “Surely, there are times when it actually does rain. We haven’t been suffering any drought, you know.”

  “Of course it rains. So when it rains, Myerson doesn’t go out of the house. Or if he does, he carries a regular umbrella. I saw him once in the rain with a regular umbrella, and I said to him, ‘Aha, Myerson, and what’s with the magic umbrella? It’s suddenly not magic?’ And he said, ‘It’s magic to keep the rain away, not to stop it after it has started to rain.’”

  “Actually,” I said, “there’s no magic involved. You are old and experienced men who have been living in this city all your lives. You know when it looks sure that it will rain and when it looks as though, even with clouds, it won’t rain. What’s more, there are weather reports to listen to. I’m sure that Myerson only carries his magic umbrella in cloudy weather when he is quite certain it won’t rain.”

  Levy shook his head. “You know that and I know that, but how are you going to explain to Myerson? Anyway, I’ll tell you what I did. A few weeks ago, I came across umbrellas exactly like Myerson’s in a department store. So I bought one. And it only cost me three dollars and fifty cents, a clear saving of half a dollar. After that, I had a magic umbrella, too. And listen, I’ve never had to open it. I never even touched it. I made them put it into my portfolio where I keep my chess board, and it’s been there ever since. I haven’t even looked at it. It’s just there. And, to tell you the truth, I haven’t been caught in the rain since I bought it. So I tell Myerson I have a magic umbrella, too. Naturally, it irritates him, and good. He should be irritated.”

  “So what is the problem, Mr. Levy?”

  “So last week, Myerson was caught in the rain.”

  “When he was carrying his magic umbrella?”

  “Absolutely. That stubborn idiot wouldn’t open it and he got good and soaked, and when I found out, I laughed. Wouldn’t you have laughed, Mr. Griswold?”

  “Possibly,” I said.

  “So he got mad. Very mad. Listen what he says. He says I bought the umbrella, and when he wasn’t looking, I switched them, so that now I have the magic umbrella and he has a piece of trash. He won’t speak to me now, he won’t play chess, and good riddance, except—” He looked to the right and left to make sure he wouldn’t be overheard. “Except, I miss the chess—and him, too, the idiot he is.”

  “Did you by any chance switch umbrellas?” I asked.

  He stared at me with a hurt expression. “Mr. Griswold, my word of honor. The same umbrella I bought is in my portfolio right now. I haven’t even looked at it, let alone touched it. For all I know, I can’t even open it, or it will fall apart if I lift it out. I did not switch.”

  “And you’re sure it’s the same umbrella in appearance.”

  “Yes. That’s why I bought it. They’re precisely the same. How can one be magic and the other not? That Myerson is a foolish man.”

  “Is it possible that Myerson stained his, or tore it, or put a chip in the handle—something that can distinguish between the two.”

  Levy shook his head. “I don’t think so. He never opened his either, not even when he was caught in the rain, that stupid moron.”

  “Well, what is it you would like me to do, Mr. Levy?”

  “Explain to him, somehow, I didn’t switch and let’s be friends again. It’s my curse. With him, I have to be friends.”

  “If he doesn’t want to believe it, Mr. Levy, if his feelings are badly hurt, there may be nothing we can do. Perhaps you should just say you switched them, and then exchange umbrellas. Then he’d be happy and—”

  But Levy’s eyes opened wide and he said, “Never! I wouldn’t give in like that. I did not switch, and I will not say I did. You don’t know the man. He will hold it over my head for the next fifty years, we should only live so long.”

  I sighed. “Well, let’s try. There’s one chance. Is he in the park?”

  “Where else? He sits here so when I pass he can move to one side like he doesn’t want my shadow should fall on him. If I believed in the evil eye—”

  We found Myerson without trouble. He looked at Levy with contempt and said, “Watch out, Mr. Griswold. If you deal with certain people in this park, you better count your change when you’re finished.”

  I had a hand on Levy’s elbow and a tightening of pressure kept him from answering hotly. I said, “Mr. Myerson, I am told by Mr. Levy that you suspect him of switching his umbrella with yours.”

  “Suspect? He did.”

  “Suppose I prove to you that he did not switch. Will you both dismiss the whole matter, promise never to refer to it, and be friends again? It is silly to abandon forty years of friendship over such a small matter.”

  “It’s not a small matter,” said Myerson intransigently, “and how are you going to prove he didn’t switch?”

  “I’ll leave it to you,” I said. “Mr. Levy says he has never touched his umbrella from the moment that he bought it—”

  “Not even when I bought it. Plain and simple, I never touched it. I have no fingerprint on it,” said Levy.

  I said, “So you take it out, Mr. Myerson and look at it. If you’re satisfied it is Mr. Levy’s umbrella, let that be the end of it.”

  Myerson sneered. “So let me see the nudnick’s portfolio.”

  I handed it to him. It was a gamble, of course, but it paid off. Myerson had no choice but to admit error, and it did my heart good to see them shaking hands while trying to hide their tears. When I left, Levy had taken out his chessboard, and they were setting up their pieces and each was vowing checkmate in ten moves. I believe they remained fast friends till their dying day, and neither ever referred to a magic umbrella again.

  Baranov said, “I thought you said both umbrellas were identical.”

  “They were,” said Griswold.

  “Then how could Myerson tell they weren’t switched?”

  Griswold finished his scotch and soda and shook his head pityingly. “I told you that Levy had sworn he had never touched the umbrella, even when he bought it. The salesman had placed it in his portfolio. I took the chance that he was telling the truth. In that case, it was very likely that the price tag was still on it. I told you that Myerson had spent four dollars for his umbrella, but that Levy had managed to get his for three dollars and fifty cents.

  “When Myerson took it out and found a three-fifty price tag on it, he had to admit it wasn’t his umbrella. Could anything be simpler?”

  24

  The Speck

  Altogether, Gallery published thirty-seven of my Union Club mysteries in thirty-seven months, but then there was a change of editor and of publisher and the new people knew not Joseph. They decided they had had enough of me and said they didn’t want any more.

  It didn’t matter to me. I could go back to my Black Widowers (which I had neglected because of the necessity of turning out a monthly mystery) and I could even continue to write an occasional Union Club mystery and sell it to EQMM also.

  This I did. I have now sold no fewer than nine Union Club mysteries to EQMM, and the following is one of them, written, as you can guess, after I had visited Montreal on a speaking engagement.

  Jennings pointed it out within five minutes of my arrival at the Union Club that night.

  “You’ve got a speck on your shirt,” he said. “Looks like tomato sauce.—It’s right in front. Your jacket doesn’t hide it,” he added gratuitously.

  I scowled at him. “I know it’s there. A fresh shirt, too. I put it on just before going to dinner this evening. And I’ve had comments on the matter from my wife, thank you. She wanted me to change again.”

  Baranov said, “And you very rightly told her that you were going to spend your usual evening with your friends and it didn’t matter how filthy-sloppy you were and, of course, she agreed.”

  They were baiting me, obviously. I knew they were, and yet I couldn’t help responding. “It’s a tiny speck,” I said heatedly, “lost amid acres and acres of fresh and gleaming shirtfront. Why the devil make a fuss about it? Even with the speck, my shirt is probably cleaner than any other in the room. Look at Griswold,” I said, pointing to where the old man nodded in his chair, his scotch and soda held firmly in his hand by reflex action. “He must have a pint of scotch and soda soaking various parts of his shirt.”

  That was pure slander, of course, since no one had ever seen Griswold spill a drop of any drink he held, but I had to strike out, if only because I was furious with myself. Could I never eat dinner without sending a droplet of sauce or gravy flying in my own direction?

  Griswold, to my total lack of surprise, had heard it all. One blue eye opened under its shaggy white eyebrow and he said to me, “A speck, however small, can be of key importance. Not in your case, of course, for you probably have, on your clothes, the finest collection of gravy drenchings in the world and one more doesn’t matter. In other cases, however—” He shrugged, sipped with exaggerated care at his drink, and composed himself as though to sleep again.

  “Are you thinking of something specific?” said Jennings unwarily, and both Griswold’s eyes snapped open at once.

  Since you ask and seem interested [said Griswold], let me tell you the matter I have in mind.