The Cross of Lorraine is a mystery short story by Isaac Asimov.
Part of the Black Widowers series, it was first published in the May 1976 issue of Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine. It was later collected in 1980's Casebook of the Black Widowers and The Best Mysteries of Isaac Asimov.
Summary[]
Emmanuel Rubin is the host for the monthly Black Widowers banquet and is visibly relieved when his guest, a magician who goes by the stage name "the Amazing Larri," arrives with only ten minutes to spare. During dinner, Larri demonstrates his sleight-of-hand skills. He bends Thomas Trumbull's spoon, distracting the group to conceal the act. He then performs a trick with a penny and a salt shaker, making the salt shaker disappear entirely after using the penny as a diversion.
During the formal grilling, Larri explains his profession as an "exposeur," a magician who specializes in debunking fraudulent psychics by duplicating their supposed supernatural effects using natural, trick-based methods. He asserts he has never failed to explain such an effect when he has chosen to investigate it.
Pressed for a personal failure, Larri recounts a story from a month prior. After a performance, he missed his bus and was stranded for two hours in a dreary station. There, he met a congenial woman, and they shared an exceptionally pleasant and engaging conversation without exchanging any personal details. When the bus arrived, they sat together. Larri felt inhibited by a young French boy across the aisle who was watching them intently. He eventually fell asleep and awoke to find the woman gone.
The French boy, speaking through his mother, reported that the woman had gotten off at the "place of the Cross of Lorraine." Larri found a note from her addressed to "Gwendolyn," thanking him for the delightful time, but it contained no other identifying information. Larri has since retraced the bus route by car, searching in vain for any business, landmark, or sign bearing the name or symbol of the Cross of Lorraine.
The Black Widowers discuss the problem, suggesting the boy may have misidentified a different cross, such as that of the Russian Orthodox Church, or that Larri simply missed the symbol. The waiter Henry then intervenes. He proposes that the boy, a Free French enthusiast, correctly identified the symbol but not its context. Henry demonstrates that the double "X" in the Exxon gasoline logo, when seen on a highway sign, closely resembles a tilted Cross of Lorraine. He concludes that the woman disembarked at an Exxon gas station, which was likely operated by her brother, and advises Larri to inquire at those specific locations along the bus route.
Characters[]
Black Widowers[]
- Emmanuel Rubin
- Geoffrey Avalon
- Mario Gonzalo
- Roger Halsted
- James Drake
- Thomas Trumbull
- Henry (the waiter)
Others[]
- The Amazing Larri (the guest)
- Gwendolyn
- The French boy
- The boy's mother
- The bus driver