Plot: 5/9.
When no man pursueth 4/9
The guest said he was confused that his editor had bought a story without publishing it.
Henry guessed that the editor’s real purpose in buying the article was to suppress it, because part of the article implicated his deceased wife’s heart disease, which might trigger something in the husband’s mind.
Quicker than the eye 5/9
The guest wondered how a man could pass a conspicuous object in the restaurant abundant under their close surveillance.
Henry thought that the target might have camouflaged himself with the customary action of tipping the doorman.
The iron gem 7/9
Why did a man offer a considerable amount of money for a worthless heirloom—first bidding a laughably low price, then jumping to an incredible offer, and finally threatening the owner after being rejected— yet never actually disturbing the owner hereafter?
Because these actions could effectively distract the owner’s attention from the truly valuable heirloom—the antique stamp attached to the inconspicuous package, which was probably stolen by the man at that time.
The three numbers 4/9
The guest asked them to decode a safe left by his demented colleagues.
Henry guessed the guest had mistaken the lowercase letter “l” for the number “1”.
Nothing like murder 2/9
The Russian guest claimed he overheard two college students planning a murder in broad daylight beside him in the park, as they supposed him as a foreigner unfamiliar to English.
Henry thought they were just talking about Tolkien’s thematic poems, which was eventually confirmed by this guest.
(The word murder also refers to a group of crows, which acted in accordance with the fact that crows like snuggling together in cold winter. But this assumption ignored the aforementioned theme related to best-sellers and therefore I conceded that Asimov’s answer bettered mine.
However, the reasons I don’t like this article had nothing to do with my failure:
Firstly, I just feel it unacceptable to introduce unfamiliar elements into the ultimate solution of the mystery without first rendering thorough exploration or assumption by side characters in advance. The hint of popular novels was too vague to indicate any efficient specification.
What’s more, it would have been more interesting or dramatic if Henry had gave the final conclusion when the conundrum confused all the other brilliant minds in the assembly.
Finally, how could a fluent foreigner mistake a poem having a peculiar rhythm for a conversation about a real horrid scheme?)
No smoking 2/9
Today’s guest said he had once rejected a candidate merely because of his unsolicited behaviour of smocking. The decision had turned out as a disaster, because the other candidate eventually absconded with corporate fund of which the location was lost due to his accidental death.
Henry judged that candidate as an accomplice of the burglary from the account of lighting a cigarette with just one hand in the interview—an adept behaviour suggesting that’s an impromptu performance to downplay himself intentionally.
(This answer didn’t explain why this man intentionally abandoned the opportunity of promotion and what exactly they had conspired prior to the interview, since normally a person wouldn’t accept an unfair scheme that placed only himself at risk.)
Season’s greeting 6/9
The guest and his wife had a predilection for posting their received greeting cards to the wall of their house and inviting friends to appreciate these elaborations. But today they received a plain, somewhat ugly card whose sender was a stranger unheard of.
Henry suspected that considering their enormous incoming flow of letters, the guest’s address could be an ideal camouflage for the postman to transform confidential information without notice.
The one and only east 6/9
The guest’s uncle bequeathed him thousands of dollars posthumously, as long as the guest could guess out the city indicating “the one and only east” from the six options.
I love the moment when members fought for their own diverse solutions to this puzzle out of their plausible reasons. In the end, Henry looked up the old map and found the city his uncle and family once lived in had borne the name of east.
Earthset and evening star 4/9
As a mystery reader, I find it my satisfying to have the piece of information delivered to me and to find that I have been insufficiently clever and did not notice.
In the beginning of the assembly, the mystery writer thought it needed great skill to hide necessary clues of the answer in a natural fashion to avoid the “idiot plot”.
Today’s guest presumed the quarrel over the location of the site of the lunar foundation between him and his partner derided from his partner’s wife’s sudden suicide. the guest once accidentally discovered the wife hanging out intimately with another man who disappeared strangely after the unexpected suicide.
Henry assumed it’s the name of the site resembling the wife’s secret lover that might have irritated his partner. He also urged the guest to investigate the safety of the lover, in case the husband had already killed him in a fit of anger.
(Could the wife have committed suicide for fear of the husband’s threat over the safety of her secret lover?)
Friday the thirteen 8/9
Today’s guest wanted to clear his superstitious grandfather-in-law named Hennessy of the accusation of assassinating the president. to Hennessy’s his disadvantage, his suspicious letter written on Friday the thirteen was found after his death in which he told his friend:
- Their plan was complete and their job would undoubtedly be finished next month no matter the cost.
- God’s finger has already touched a poor man.
- But God’s mercy granted a forty-year miracle: there would be no Friday the thirteen next month again.
The math teacher explained the compilation of the calender, which made it possible for Henry to pinpoint the exact date indicated by the letter and hence deduce its true meaning:
- The letter was written on Friday, February 13, 1920, since normally two consecutive months never have the same Friday the thirteen unless the leading month was the February, and only the February of the leap year wasn’t followed by the same Friday the thirteen.
- On March 12, 1920, Hennessy helped Debs—a poor man who was in jail at that day—to collect votes for the presidency, which accounted for the plan and the job.
- Hennessy’s gratitude of a forty-year miracle derived from the fact that, only in 1880 was there a Friday 13 not followed by another one in the next month. Usually the pattern of the calender repeats every 28 years but the additional omission of a leap year in 1900 disturbed the pattern and prolonged the gap to 40 years.
(I once learnt about the algorithm behind the Gregorian calender for the requirement of a program, but it never occurred to me that this concept could be woven into a mystery story. Amazing!)
The unabridged 3/9
The guest wanted to find the most valuable stamp hidden by his uncle, but the only clue was once his aunt heard from his uncle that he had hid it in “one of the unabridged volumes”. They hired a butch of naive children to examine all the books page by page, only to find nothing at all.
Henry considered that since his aunt was fastidious about her language and therefore chances were that the original locution was “uncut” instead of “unabridged”, which indicated the possible location might have been the inner bags of those uncut books.
(Yes, I didn’t know the fact that some old books have inner bags and henceforth missed the answer completely.)
The ultimate crime 3/9
Today’s guest intended to write a fan-fictional essay titled the dynamic of an asteroid, mentioned in Sherlock Holmes featuring high-class mathematics of the original researcher in the book. but he found it impossible to find an apposite astronomical research fulfilling requirements.
In the end, Henry suggested he should write a hypothetical asteroid orbiting between Mars and Jupiter long time ago but somehow exploded, leaving behind only fragments now in the vacuum. He also supplemented that the essay was suppressed, for other mathematicians suspected his evil reference to a similar explosion for the Earth.
(Personally, however much I admire Asimov’s splendiferous knowledge on the astronomy, I don’t think it’s an adequate issue for the general mystery aimed at entertainment.)
Core: 5/9. Asimov’s impressive knowledge base couldn’t obfuscate his sometimes inadequate choice about the topic of mysteries and his insufficient elaboration on the necessary elimination of alternative possibilities.
To be more frank, for me, it is not enough for a story to be created only backward from an answer merely known by the author, because the forward pursuit to the answer also plays an important role, which Asimov sometimes failed to develop.
Character: 5/9. Admiringly, Asimov fabricated lively characters living in twentieth-century America.
My dissatisfaction lay in the fact that Asimov didn’t exploit all the possibility related to characters’ respective vocations, and therefor failed to give them enough opportunities to show themselves especially their individual advantages in every story. It is sometimes tedious when only one character is consistently given the spotlight.