There Was a Young Lady, also known as Poetic License, is a mystery short story by Isaac Asimov.
Part of the Union Club series, it was first published in the January 1983 issue of Gallery magazine. Later collected in The Union Club Mysteries.
Summary[]
At the Union Club, a discussion about international terrorism and the Irish Republican Army prompts Griswold to recount a case from his past. He explains that a high-ranking official from a United States intelligence agency consulted him with an urgent problem. An American undercover agent, who had infiltrated an IRA cell smuggling weapons to Northern Ireland, had been murdered.
The official explained that the only clue was a handwritten limerick found in the agent's room, which mentioned a woman named Alice from Los Angeles, Houston, and Dallas. The official’s department had exhaustively searched for a connection to this "Alice" in the three American cities but had found nothing, leaving the investigation at a dead end.
Griswold identified their critical mistake. He realized the clue was not the poem's content but its form: it was a limerick. He deduced the agent had overheard the IRA operatives discussing a key contact in the city of Limerick, Ireland. The agent's mind subconsciously connected this to the poetic form. Following this lead, the agency focused on Limerick, successfully identified the IRA contact, and dismantled the weapons smuggling network.
Characters[]
- Griswold
- Club Member (the narrator)
- Baranov
- Jennings
- U.S. Intelligence Official
- American Undercover Agent
- Alice (the key IRA contact)
Organizations / Factions[]
- Irish Republican Army (IRA)
- United States Intelligence Agency
See Also[]
List of short stories by Isaac Asimov