Stuck a feather in his cap

  And called it macaroni.

  Yankee Doodle, keep it up,

  Yankee Doodle dandy.

  Mind the music and the step

  And with the girls be handy.”

  Gonzalo said, “It’s just a nonsense lyric.”

  “Nonsense, hell,” said Rubin indignantly, and his straggly beard quivered. “It makes perfect sense. It’s a satire on the country boy written by a city slicker. ‘Doodle’ is any primitive country instrument—a bagpipe, for instance—so a Yankee Doodle is a backwoods New Englander who’s no more sophisticated than a bagpipe. He comes to town on his pony intent on cutting a fine figure, so he wears what he thinks are city clothes. He wears a feather in his hat and thinks he’s a real dude. And in the late eighteenth century, that’s what a ‘macaroni’ was, a city hepcat dressed in the latest style.

  “The last four lines are the chorus and show the country boy stepping it up at a city dance. He is mockingly told to stamp away and be gallant to the ladies. The word ‘dandy,’ which first came into use about mid-eighteenth century, meant the same as ‘macaroni.’”

  Gonzalo said, “Okay, Manny, you win. It’s not nonsense. But how does it help Sam’s case?”

  “I don’t think it does,” said Rubin. “Sorry, Sam, but Klotz sounds like a country boy making a fool of the city slicker and he can’t help but think of the derisive song and how he’s turning the tables on you.”

  Davenheim said, “I presume, Manny, that you think he must be a country boy because his name is Klotz. By that reasoning you must be a rube because your name is Rubin. Actually, Klotz was born and brought up in Philadelphia and I doubt that he’s ever seen a farm. No country boy, he.”

  “All right,” said Rubin, “then I might have been looking at the wrong end of the stick. He’s the city slicker looking down on you, Sam.”

  “Because I’m a country boy? I was born in Stoneham, Massachusetts, and went through Harvard right up to my law degree. And he knows that, too. He has made enough roundabout references to it in his matador moments.”

  Drake said, “Doesn’t your Massachusetts birth and upbringing make you a Yankee?”

  “Not a Yankee Doodle,” said Davenheim stubbornly.

  “He might think so,” said Drake.

  Davenheim thought about that a while, then said, “Yes, I suppose he might. But if so, surely he would hum it openly, derisively. The point is, I think he’s humming it unconsciously. It has a connection with something he’s trying to hide, not something he’s trying to show.”

  Halsted said, “Maybe he’s looking forward to a future when he’s going to be enriched by his crimes and when he’ll be able to strut his way to town; when he can ‘stick a feather in his cap’ in other words.”

  Drake said, “Or maybe Klotz is thinking that his treatment of you is a feather in his cap.”

  Gonzalo said, “Maybe some particular word has significance. Suppose ‘macaroni’ means he’s hooked up with the Mafia. Or suppose ‘with the girls be handy’ means that some Wac is involved. They still have Wacs in the army, don’t they?”

  It was at this point that Henry said, “I wonder, Mr. Avalon, if, as host, you will permit me to ask a few questions.”

  Avalon said, “Come on, Henry. You know you can at any time.”

  “Thank you, sir. Would the Colonel grant me the same permission?”

  Davenheim looked surprised, but said, “Well, you’re here, Henry, so you might as well.”

  Henry said, “Mr. Avalon recited eight lines of ‘Yankee Doodle’—four lines of a verse followed by the four lines of the chorus. But verse and chorus have different tunes. Did Private Klotz hum all eight lines?”

  Davenheim thought a moment. “No, of course not. He hummed—uh—” He closed his eyes, concentrated, and went “Dum-dum dum-dum dum-dum-dum, dum-dum dum-dum dum-du-u-um-dum. That’s all. The first two lines.”

  “Of the verse?”

  “That’s right. ‘Yankee Doodle went to town, A-riding on a pony.’”

  “Always those two lines?”

  “Yes, I think always.”

  Drake brushed some crumbs from the table. “Colonel, you say this humming took place when the questioning was particularly tense. Did you pay particular attention to exactly what was being discussed at those times?”

  “Yes, of course, but I prefer not to go into detail.”

  “I understand, but perhaps you can tell me this. At those times, was it he himself who was under discussion or Sergeant Farber as well?”

  “Generally,” said Davenheim slowly, “the humming times came when he most emphatically protested innocence, but always on behalf of both. I’ll give him that. He has never once tried to clear himself at the expense of the other. It was always that neither Farber nor he did thus-and-so or were responsible for this-and-that.”

  Henry said, “Colonel Davenheim, this is a long shot. If the answer is no, then I’ll have nothing more to say. If, however, the answer is yes, it’s just possible we may have something.”

  “What’s the question, Henry?” asked Davenheim.

  “At the same base where Sergeant Farber and Private Klotz are stationed, Colonel, does there happen to be a Captain Gooden or Gooding or anything resembling that in sound?”

  Davenheim had, until then, been looking at Henry with grave amusement. Now that vanished in a flash. His mouth closed tight and his face whitened visibly. Then his chair scraped as he shoved it back and rose.

  “Yes,” he said strenuously. “Captain Charles Goodwin. How the hell could you possibly have known that?”

  “In that case, he may be your man. I’d forget about Klotz and Farber, sir, if I were you, and concentrate on the captain. That might be the one step upward that you wanted. And the captain may prove an easier nut to crack than Private Klotz has been.”

  Davenheim seemed to find no way to speak further and Trumbull said, “I wish you’d explain, Henry.”

  “It’s the ‘Yankee Doodle,’ as the Colonel expected. The point is, though, that Private Klotz hummed it. We have to consider what words he was thinking when he hummed.”

  Gonzalo said, “The Colonel said he hummed the lines that go ‘Yankee Doodle went to town, A-riding on a pony.’”

  Henry shook his head. “The original poem ‘Yankee Doodle’ had some dozen verses and the macaroni lines were not among them. They arose later, though they’re now the most familiar. The original poem tells of the visit of a young farmboy to the camp of Washington’s Continental Army and his naivete is made fun of, so I believe Mr. Rubin’s interpretation of the nature of the song to be correct.”

  Rubin said, “Henry’s right. I remember now. Washington is even mentioned, but as Captain Washington. The farmboy wasn’t even aware of the nature of military rank.”

  “Yes,” said Henry. “I don’t know all the verses and I imagine very few people do. Perhaps Private Klotz didn’t, either. But anyone who knows the poem at all knows the first verse or, at any rate, the first two lines, and that’s what Private Klotz may have been humming. The first line, for instance—and it’s the farmboy speaking—is ‘Father and I went down to camp.’ You see?”

  “No,” said Davenheim, shaking his head. “Not quite.”

  “It occurred to me that whenever you pressed hard on Private Klotz and might say, ‘Farber and you did thus-and-so,’ and he answered, ‘Farber and I did not do thus-and-so,’ the humming would start. You said, Colonel, that it was at the moment of denial that it tended to come and that he always denied on behalf of both Farber and himself. So when he said ‘Farber and I,’ it would trigger the line ‘Farber and I went down to camp.’” Henry sang it in a soft tenor voice.

  “Farber and he were in an army camp,” said Avalon, “but, good God, that’s stretching for it.”

  “If it stood alone, sir, yes,” said Henry. “But that’s why I asked about a Captain Gooden in the camp. If he were a third member of the conspiracy, the push to hum the tune might be irresistible. The first verse, which is the only one I know—”

  But here Rubin interrupted. Standing up, he roared:

  “Father and I went down to camp

  Along with Cap’n Good’n,

  And there we saw the men and boys

  As thick as hasty puddin’.”

  “That’s right,” said Henry calmly, “Farber and I went down to camp along with Captain Goodwin.”

  “By God,” said Davenheim. “That must be it. If not, it’s the most extraordinary coincidence…And it can’t be. Henry, you’ve put your finger on it.”

  “I hope so. More coffee, Colonel?” said Henry.

  5

  Quicker Than the Eye

  If there’s one type of puzzle story I particularly like, it’s the one where you have to find an object that has been hidden—or any of the different variations on that theme.

  It’s a well-worn type of story dating from Edgar Allan Poe’s classic “The Purloined Letter” and by now, you might think, that every trick of hiding, or of stealing, or of transferring will have been described. The most painstaking search, the most careful watch, reveals nothing and yet something can’t have dropped out of the universe, can it?

  It’s delightful—it gives you a warm feeling all over to think of a way of doing it that you have never seen before. It is for the sake of that warm feeling that I include this story.

  Thomas Trumbull, who worked for the government as a cryptologist, was clearly uneasy. His tanned and wrinkled face was set in a carved attitude of worry. He said, “He’s a man from the department; my superior, in fact. It’s damned important, but I don’t want Henry to feel the pressure.”

  He was whispering and he couldn’t resist the quick look over his shoulder at Henry, the waiter at the Black Widower monthly banquets. Henry, who was several years older than Trumbull, had a face that was unwrinkled, and, as he quickly set the table, he seemed tranquil and utterly unaware of the fact that five of the Black Widowers were huddled quietly at the opposite end of the room. Or, if not unaware, then certainly undisturbed.

  Geoffrey Avalon, the tall patent lawyer, had, under the best of conditions, difficulty in keeping his voice low. Still, stirring his drink with a middle finger on the ice cube, he managed to impart sufficient hoarseness. “How can we prevent it, Tom? Henry is no fool.”

  “I’m not sure anyone from the federal administration qualifies as a guest, Tom,” said Emmanuel Rubin in a swerving non sequitur. His sparse beard bristled truculently and his eyes flashed through the thick lenses of his glasses. “And I say that even though you’re in the category. Eighty per cent of the tax money I pay to Washington is expended in ways of which I strongly disapprove.”

  “You’ve got the vote, haven’t you?” said Trumbull testily.

  “And a fat lot of good that does, when the manipulation—” began Rubin, quite forgetting to keep his voice low.

  Oddly enough, it was Roger Halsted, the mathematics teacher, whose quiet voice had sufficient difficulty in controlling a junior high school class, who managed to stop Rubin in mid-roar. He did it by placing his hand firmly over the smaller man’s mouth. He said, “You don’t sound very happy about your boss coming here, Tom.”

  “I’m not,” said Trumbull. “It’s a difficult thing. The point is that I’ve gotten considerable credit on two different occasions over matters that were really Henry’s insights. I’ve had to take the credit, damn it, since what we say here in this room is confidential. Now something has come up and they’re turning to me, and I’m as stuck as the rest of them. I’ve had to invite Bob here without really explaining why.”

  James Drake, the organic chemist, coughed over his cigarette and fingered his walrus-head bolo-tie. “Have you been talking too much about our dinners, Tom?”

  “I suppose it could be viewed in that way. What bothers me is Henry, though. He enjoys the game, I know, when it is a game, but if there’s real pressure and he won’t—or can’t—under that pressure—”

  “Then you’ll look bad, eh, Tom?” said Rubin with just a touch, perhaps, of malice.

  Avalon said frigidly, “I have said before and I will say it again that what began as a friendly social get-together is becoming a strain on us all. Can’t we have one session with just conversation?”

  “I’m afraid not this one,” said Trumbull. “All right, here’s my boss.—Now let’s carry all the load we can and put as little as possible on Henry.”

  But it was only Mario Gonzalo walking noisily up the stairs, uncharacteristically late, and resplendent in his long hair, a crimson jacket, and subtly matching striped shirt, to say nothing of a flowing scarf meticulously arranged to display the effect of casualness.

  “Sorry I’m late, Henry—” But the proper drink was in his hand before he could say more. “Thanks, Henry. Sorry, fellows, trouble with getting a taxi. That put me in a grim mood and when the driver began to lecture me on the crimes and misdemeanors of the mayor I argued with him.”

  “Lord help us,” said Drake.

  “I always argue every tenth time I hear that kind of crap. Then he managed to get lost, and I didn’t notice and it took us a long time to pull out.—I mean, he was giving me this business about welfare recipients being a bunch of lazy, free-loading troublemakers and how no decent person should expect a handout but instead they should work for what they get and earn every cent. So I said what about sick people and old people and mothers with young children and he started telling me what a hard life he had led and he had never gone to anyone for a handout.

  “Anyway, I got out and the fare came to $4.80, and it was a good half dollar more than it should have been because of getting lost, so I counted out four singles and then spent some time getting the exact eighty cents change and I handed it to him. He counted it over, looked surprised, and I said, just as sweetly as I could, That’s what you earned, driver. You looking for a handout too?’”

  Gonzalo burst out laughing, but no one joined him. Drake said, “That’s a dirty trick on the poor guy just because you egged him into arguing.”

  Avalon stared down austerely from his lean height and said, “You might have gotten beaten up, Mario, and I wouldn’t blame him.”

  “That’s a hell of an attitude you fellows are taking,” said Gonzalo, aggrieved—and at that point Trumbull’s boss did arrive.

  Trumbull introduced the newcomer all round, looking uncommonly subdued as he did so. The guest’s name was Robert Alford Bunsen and he was both heavy and large. His face was pink and his white hair was sleeked back from an old-fashioned part down the middle.

  “What will you have, Mr. Bunsen?” said Avalon, with a small and courtly bend at the middle. He was the only one present who was taller than the newcomer.

  Bunsen cleared his throat. “Glad to meet you all. No—no—I’ve had my alcoholic calories for today. Some diet drink.” He snapped his fingers at Henry. “A diet cola, waiter. If you don’t have that, a diet anything.”

  Gonzalo’s eyes widened and Drake, whispering philosophically through the curling smoke of the cigarette stub he held between his tobacco-stained fingers, said, “Oh well, he’s government.”

  “Still,” muttered Gonzalo, “there’s such a thing as courtesy. You don’t snap your fingers. Henry isn’t a peon.”

  “You’re rude to taxi drivers,” said Drake. “This guy’s rude to waiters.”

  “That’s a different thing,” said Gonzalo vehemently, his voice rising. “That was a matter of principle.”

  Henry, who had shown no signs of resentment at being finger-snapped, had returned with a bottle of soft drink on a tray and had presented it solemnly for inspection.

  “Sure, sure,” said Bunsen, and Henry opened it and poured half its contents into an ice-filled glass and let the foam settle. Bunsen took it and Henry left the bottle.

  The dinner was less comfortable than many in the past had been. The only one who seemed unsubdued over the fact that the guest was a high, if a not very well known, official of the government was Rubin. In fact, he seized the occasion to attack the government in the person of its surrogate by proclaiming loudly that diet drinks were one of the great causes of overweight in America.

  “Because you drink a lot of them and the one calorie per bottle mounts up?” asked Halsted, with as much derision as he could pack into his colorless voice.

  “They’ve got more than one calorie per bottle now that cyclamates have been eliminated on the basis of fallacious animal experiments,” said Rubin hotly, “but that’s not the point. Diet anything is bad psychologically. Anyone overweight who takes a diet drink is overcome with virtue. He has saved two hundred calories, so he celebrates by taking another pat of butter and consuming three hundred calories. The only way to lose weight is to stay hungry. The hunger is telling you that you’re getting less calories than you’re expending—”

  Halsted, who knew very well that there was a certain softness in his abdominal region, muttered, “Oh well.”

  “But he’s right, though,” said Bunsen, attacking the veal Marengo with gusto. “The diet drinks don’t do me any good, but I like the taste. And I approve of looking at matters from the psychological angle.”

  Gonzalo, frowning, showed no signs of listening. When Henry bent over him to fill his coffee cup, he said, “What do you think, Henry? I mean about the taxi driver. Wasn’t I right?”

  Henry said, “A gratuity is not quite a handout, Mr. Gonzalo. Personal service is customarily rewarded in a small way and to equate that with welfare is perhaps not quite just.”

  “You’re just saying that because you—” began Gonzalo, and then he stopped abruptly.

  Henry said, “Yes, I benefit in the same way as the taxi driver does, but despite that I believe my statement to be correct.”

  Gonzalo threw himself back in his chair and chafed visibly.

  “Gentlemen,” said Trumbull, tapping his empty water glass with a fork, as Henry poured the liqueur, “this is an interesting occasion. Mr. Bunsen, who is my superior at the department, has a small puzzle to present to us. Let’s see what we can make of it.” Again, he cast a quick glance at Henry, who had replaced the bottle on the sideboard and now stood placidly in the background.