The Return of the Black Widowers by Isaac Asimov Read Free Book Online

was a mistake in a derivation, and St. George—well, never mind. The point is that the tests had to be prepared after the last lectures."
    Arnold Stacey broke in, "Did St. George always do that? If he did, he would have been handing a hell of a lot to the kids."
    "You mean the students would have been waiting for questions covering errors made in the discussion periods?"
    "More than that. The students would have deliberately pulled boners on those parts of the subject they actually knew well in order to lure St. George into placing twenty points' worth on it."
    Drake said, "I can't answer that. We weren't in his previous classes, so we don't know whether his previous tests followed the same line."
    "Previous classes would have passed on the news, wouldn't they? At least if classes in the forties were anything like classes now."
    "They would have," admitted Drake, "and they didn't. He did it that way that year, anyway."
    "Say, Jim," said Gonzalo, "how did Lance do in the discussion periods?" "He kept quiet; played it safe. We all took it for granted he'd do that. We weren't surprised."
    Gonzalo said, "What about the department secretary? Couldn't Lance have wheedled her into telling him the questions?"
    Drake said grimly, "You don't know the secretary. Besides, he couldn't have. He couldn't have suborned the secretary, or broken into the safe, or pulled any trick at all. From the nature of the questions, we could tell the exam had been constructed in the last week before it had been taken, and during that last week he couldn't have done a thing."
    "Are you sure?" asked Trumbull.
    "Oh, you bet! It bugged us all that he was so confident. The rest of us were sea green with the fear of flunking and he smiled. He kept smiling. On the day of the last lecture, someone said, 'He's going to steal the question sheet.' Actually, I said it, but the others agreed and we decided to—to—well, we kept an eye on him."
    "You mean you never let him out of your sight?" demanded Avalon. "Did you watch at night in shifts? Did you follow him into the John?"
    "Damn near. He was Burroughs' roommate and Burroughs was a light sleeper and swore he knew every time Lance turned over."
    "Burroughs might have been drugged one night," said Rubin.
    "He might have, but he didn't think so, and no one else thought so. Lance just didn't act suspicious in any way; he didn't even act annoyed at being watched."
    "Did he know he was being watched?" said Rubin.
    "He probably did. Every time he went somewhere he would grin and say, 'Who's coming along?' "
    "Where did he go?"
    "Just the normal places. He ate, drank, slept, eliminated. He went to the school library to study, or sat in his room. He went to the post office, the bank, a shoe store. We followed him on every errand all up and down Berry's main street. Besides—"
    "Besides, what?" said Trumbull.
    "Besides, even if he had gotten hold of the question paper, it could only have been in those few days before the test, maybe only the night before. He would have had to sweat out the answers, being Lance. It would have taken him days of solid work over the books. If he could have answered them just by getting a look at them, he wouldn't have had to cheat; he would have gotten a look at them in the opening minutes of the test period."
    Rubin said sardonically, "It seems to me, Jim, that you've painted yourself into a corner. Your man couldn't possibly have cheated."
    "That's the whole point," cried Drake. "He must have cheated and he did it so cleverly no one could catch him. No one could even figure out how. Tom's right. That's what gripes me."
    And then Henry coughed and said, "If I may offer a word, gentlemen?"
    Every face went up as though some invisible puppeteer had pulled the strings.
    "Yes, Henry?" said Trumbull.
    "It seems to me, gentlemen, that you are too much at home with petty dishonesty to understand it very well."
    "Why, Henry, you hurt me cruelly," said Avalon with a smile, but his dark eyebrows