Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 77, No. 7. Whole No. 454, June 17, 1981

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While you are reading the newest tale of the Black Widowers, put yourself in the shoes of Mr. John Smith, the guest-grillee at this month’s banquet. Could you have resolved Mr. Smith’s predicament? Could you have satisfied Vee, the mysterious interrogator? Or would you have landed in an alien prison in an alien country, virtually buried alive and beyond hope of rescue?

Henry, the smoothly functioning waiter at the monthly Black Widowers banquet, filled the water glass of the evening’s guest as though knowing in advance that the guest was reaching into his shirt pocket for a small vial of pills.

The guest looked up. “Thank you, waiter — though the pills are small enough to go down au jus, so to speak.”

He looked about the table and sighed. “Advancing age! In our modern times we are not allowed to grow old ad lib. Doctors follow the faltering mechanism in detail and insist on applying the grease. My blood pressure is a touch high and I have an occasional extra-systole, so I take a pretty little orange pill four times a day.”

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