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

curled down over his eyes.
    "I mean no disrespect, gentlemen, but Mr. Rubin maintained that dishonesty has value. Mr. Trumbull thinks that Dr. Drake is only annoyed because the cheating was clever enough to escape detection and not because it existed at all, and perhaps all of you agree to that."
    Gonzalo said, "I think you're hinting, Henry, that you're so honest that you're more sensitive to dishonesty than we are and can understand it better."
    Henry said, "I would almost think so, sir, in view of the fact that not one of you has commented on a glaring improbability in Dr. Drake's story that seems to me to explain everything."
    "What's that?" asked Drake.
    "Why, Professor St. George's attitude, sir. Here is a professor who takes pride in flunking many of his students, and who never has anyone get above the 80s on the final examination. And then a student who is thoroughly mediocre—and I gather that everyone in the department, both faculty and students, knew of the mediocrity—gets a 96 and the professor accepts that and even backs him before the qualifying committee. Surely he would have been the first to suspect dishonesty. And most indignantly, too."
    There was a silence. Stacey looked thoughtful.
    Drake said, "Maybe he couldn't admit that he could be cheated from, if you know what I mean."
    Henry said, "You find excuses, sir. In any situation in which a professor asks questions and a student answers them, one always feels somehow that if there is dishonesty, it is always the student's dishonesty. Why? What if it were the professor who were dishonest?"
    Drake said, "What would he get out of that?"
    "What does one usually get? Money, I suspect, sir. The situation as you described it is that of a student who was quite well off financially, and a professor who had the kind of salary a professor had in those days before the government grants began to come. Suppose the student had offered a few thousand dollars—"
    "For what? To hand in a fake mark? We saw Lance's answer paper, and it was legitimate. To let Lance see the questions before having them mimeographed? It wouldn't have done Lance any good."
    "Look at it in reverse, sir. Suppose the student had offered those few thousand dollars to let him, the student, show the professor the questions."
    Again the invisible puppeteer worked and there was a chorus of "What?"s in various degrees of intonation.
    "Suppose, sir," Henry went on patiently, "that it was Mr. Lance Faron who wrote the questions, one by one in the course of the semester, polishing them as he went along. He polished them as the semester proceeded, working hard. As Mr. Avalon said, it is easier to get a few specific points straight than to learn the entire subject matter of a course. He included one question from the last week's lectures, inadvertently making you all sure the test had been created entirely in the last week. It also meant that he turned out a test that was quite different from St. George's usual variety. Previous tests in the course had not turned on students' difficulties. Nor did later ones, if I may judge from Dr. Stacey's surprise. Then at the end of the course, with the test paper completed, he would have mailed it to the professor."
    "Mailed it?" said Gonzalo.
    "I believe Dr. Drake said the young man visited the post office. He might have mailed it. Professor St. George would have received the questions with, perhaps, part of the payment in reasonably small bills. He would then have written it over in his own handwriting, or typed it, and passed it on to his secretary. From then on all would be normal. And, of course, the professor would have had to back the student thereafter all the way."
    "Why not?" said Gonzalo enthusiastically. "Good God, it makes sense."
    Drake said slowly, "I've got to admit that's a possibility that never occurred to any of us. . . . But, of course, we'll never know."
    Stacey broke in loudly. "I've hardly said a word all evening, though I was told I'd be