Tales of the Black Widowers - Asimov Isaac. Страница 44

"I accepted my envelope and found inside only the words I had heard from my friend's dying lips. 'The curious omission in Alice.'… And that's where the matter now stands."

Trumbull said, "You mean you haven't got your ten thousand dollars?"

"I mean I haven't located the bank. Six months have passed and I have six months more."

Gonzalo said, "The phrase might be an anagram. Maybe if you rearrange the letters you will get the name of the bank."

Atwood shrugged. "It's a possibility I've thought of. I can't remember Sanders ever playing anagrams, but I've tried that sort of thing. I haven't come up with anything hopeful."

Drake, who blew his nose again and looked as though he had no patience at the moment with careful reasoning, said, "Why don't you just go into every bank in White Plains and ask if there is a key to a safe-deposit box put away in your name?"

Avalon shook his head. "Scarcely playing the game, Jim," he said severely.

"Ten thousand dollars is no game," said Gonzalo.

Atwood said, "I admit that I would feel as though I were cheating if 1 simply tried to solve it by hit-or-miss, but I must also admit that I cheated. I tried the banks in several neighboring communities as well as in White Plains. I drew a blank. I'm not surprised at that, though. It's unlikely he would place it near home. He had the whole country to choose from."

"Did he make any trips out of town the last year of his life-during the time he started talking will to you?" asked Halsted.

"I don't think so," said Atwood. "But then he wouldn't have to. His lawyer could attend to that part."

"Well," said Trumbull, "let's try it this way. You've had six months to think about it. What conclusions have you come to?"

"Nothing on the message itself," said Atwood, "but I knew my friend well. He once told me that the best way to hide something was to make use of modern technology. Any document, any record, any set of directions could be converted into microfilm, and a tiny piece of material on which that was recorded could be hidden anywhere and never be uncovered by anything but blind luck. I suppose that the message tells me where to find the microfilm."

Rubin shrugged. "That only switches the focus of the problem. Instead of having the message tell us the location of the bank, it tells us the location of the microfilm. That still leaves us with the curious omission."

"I don't think it's quite the same," said Atwood thoughtfully. "The bank may be thousands of miles away, but the piece of microfilm, or just an ordinary piece of very thin paper, for all I know, might be close at hand. But no matter how close at hand, it might as well be a thousand miles away." He sighed. "Poor Lyon will win this game, too, I'm afraid."

Trumbull said, "If we tackled the problem for you, and managed to solve it, Mr. Atwood, would you feel you had been cheating?"

"Oh, yes," said Mr. Atwood, "but I would accept the ten thousand gladly just the same."

Halsted said curiously, "Have you got some idea as to the moaning of the message, Tom?"

"No," said Trumbull, "but if, as Mr. Atwood says, we're looking for a tiny message in a nearby and accessible place, and if we assumed that Mr. Sanders played fair, then maybe we could carry through some eliminations… To whom did he leave his own house, Mr. Atwood?" "To a cousin, who has since sold it." "What was done to the contents? Surely Sanders had books, games of all sorts, furniture." "Most of it was sold at auction." "Did anything go to you?"

"The cousin was kind enough to offer me whatever I wanted of such material as was not intrinsically valuable. I didn't take anything. I am not the collecting type myself."

"Would your old friend have known this of you?" "Oh, yes." Atwood stirred resdessly. "Gentlemen, I have had six months to think of this. I realize that Sanders would not have hidden the fihn in his own house since he left it to someone else and knew I would have no opportunity to search it. He had ample opportunity to hide it in my house, which he visited as often as I visited his, and it is in my house that I think it exists."

Trumbull said, "Not necessarily. He might have felt certain that there would be some favorite books, some certain memento, you would have asked for."

"No," said Atwood. "How could he be certain I would? He would have left such an item to me in his will."

"That would give it away," said Avalon. "Are you sure he never hinted that you ought to take something? Or that he didn't give you something casually?"

"No," said Atwood, smiling. "You have no idea how unlike Sanders that would be… I tell you. I have thought that since he gave me a year to find it, he must have been pretty confident that it would stay in place for

that length of time. It wouldn't be likely to be part of something I might throw away, sell, or easily lose."

There was a murmur of agreement.

Atwood said, "He might very likely have pasted it over the molding of a wall, somewhere on the undersurface of a heavy piece of furniture, inside the refrigerator-you see what I mean."

"Have you looked?" said Gonzalo.

"Oh, yes," said Atwood. "This little game has kept me busy. I've spent considerable spare time going over moldings and under-surfaces and drawers and various insides. I've even spent time in the cellar and the attic."

"Obviously," said Trumbull, "you haven't found anything or we wouldn't be talking about it now."

"No, I haven't-but that doesn't mean anything. The thing I'm after might be so small as to be barely visible. Probably is. I could look right at it and miss it, unless I knew I was in the right place and was somehow prepared to see it, if you know what I mean."

"Which brings us back," said Avalon heavily, "to the message. If you understood it, you would know where to look and you would see it."

"Ah," said Atwood, "if I understood."

"Well, it seems to me," said Avalon, "that the key word is 'Alice.' Does that name have any personal significance to you? Is it the name of someone you both knew? Is it the name of Sanders' dead wife, for instance? The nickname of some object? Some private joke you shared?"

"No. No to all of that."

Avalon smiled, showing his even teeth beneath his neatly trimmed, ever so slightly graying mustache. "Then I would say that 'Alice' must refer to far and away the most famous Alice in the minds of men-Alice in Wonderland."

"Of course," said Atwood, in clear surprise. "That's what makes it a literary puzzle and that's why I turned to my nephew who teaches English literature. I assumed at the start it was a reference to the Lewis Carroll classic.

Sanders was an Alice enthusiast. He had a collection of various editions of the book, and he had reproductions of the Tenniel illustrations all over the house."

"You never told us that," said Avalon in hurt tones.

Atwood said, "Haven't I? I'm sorry. It's one of those things I know so well, I somehow expect everyone to know it."

"We might have expected it," said Trumbull, the corners of his mouth twisting down. "Alice involves herself with a deck of cards in the book."

"It always helps to have all pertinent information," said Avalon stiffly.

"Well, then," said Trumbull, "that brings us to the curious omission in Alice in Wonderland… And what curious omission is that? Have you any thoughts in that direction, Mr. Atwood?"

"No," said Atwood. "I read Alice as a child and have never returned to it-until the bequest, of course. I must admit I've never seen its charm."

"Good Lord," muttered Drake under his breath. Atwood heard him, for he turned his head sharply in Drake's direction. "I don't deny there may be charm for others but I have never seen the fun in word play. I'm not surprised Sanders enjoyed the book, though. His sense of humor was rather raucous and primitive. In any case, my dislike was compounded by my annoyance at having to detect an omission. I did not wish to have to study the book that closely. I hoped my nephew would help." "A teacher of literature!" said Rubin derisively. "Shut up, Manny," said Trumbull. "What did your nephew say, Mr. Atwood?"