The Three Goblets, also known as A Flash of Brilliance, is a mystery short story by Isaac Asimov.
Part of the Union Club series, it was first published in the August 1982 issue of Gallery magazine and later collected in The Union Club Mysteries.
Summary[]
At the Union Club, Griswold counters a discussion about the portrayal of police in fiction by asserting that real police work is overwhelmingly methodical and laborious, relying on routine and informants rather than flashes of brilliance. He illustrates this with a case involving a major diamond-smuggling operation that had baffled the Treasury Department.
An informant had tipped off the authorities about a specific package that was key to the smuggling ring. The package was intercepted and found to contain three delicate, etched-glass goblets. The police and Treasury agents conducted a thorough investigation, examining the goblets, the tissue paper wrapping, and the box itself with all available scientific methods, but found no trace of the diamonds.
A frustrated Treasury agent, having exhausted all conventional avenues, consulted Griswold. Griswold focused on a detail others had overlooked: the agent had confirmed the fragile goblets arrived undamaged in a box much larger than the goblets themselves. Griswold reasoned that for the goblets to survive transit intact, they must have been packed in a substantial amount of protective material. He deduced that the common packing "peanuts" made of foam plastic were the ideal hiding place. Upon his instruction, the agents examined the packing material and discovered that many of the plastic pieces had been tampered with; diamonds had been hidden inside them and the entry points carefully concealed. This discovery led to the recovery of a large haul of smuggled diamonds.
Characters[]
- Griswold
- Club Member (the narrator)
- Baranov
- Jennings
- Treasury Department Agent
- The Informer
Fictional Detectives Mentioned[]
- Sherlock Holmes
- Hercule Poirot
- Peter Wimsey
- Appleby
- Leopold
- Philo Vance
See Also[]
List of short stories by Isaac Asimov