Upside Down is a mystery short story by Isaac Asimov.
Part of the Union Club series, it was first published in the June 1985 issue of Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine.
Summary[]
In the Union Club library, the narrator, Baranov, and Jennings are relieved to see Griswold return after an absence. They speculate on the reason for his trip to Baltimore, each suggesting an outlandish case. Griswold, overhearing them, announces he was simply visiting his niece but that an incident did occur, which he proceeds to recount.
While in Baltimore, Griswold sought a respite from his family's doting at a hotel lounge. There, he was approached by a desperate, red-haired man. The man explained he had been given a key card to his friend's hotel room but had not received the separate card with the room number. The friend's only clue was the warning, "Just don't turn it upside down." With the hotel fully booked and unable to contact his friend, the man feared that trying every door would lead to his arrest and cause him to miss a career-critical meeting the next day.
Griswold deduced that the room number must be one that would appear to be a different, but also valid, room number if viewed upside down. He reasoned that the first digit must be 1, the only digit that looks the same upside down and corresponds to a hotel floor, and the last digit must also be 1, for the same reason when inverted. After considering which middle digits (0, 1, 6, 8, 9) look like different digits when inverted and eliminating palindromic numbers, he narrowed the possibilities to 161 and 191. He accompanied the man to room 161, and it was the correct one.
Characters[]
- Griswold
- Club Member (the narrator)
- Baranov
- Jennings
- The Red-Haired Man
- The Red-Haired Man's Friend
- Griswold's Niece
See Also[]
List of short stories by Isaac Asimov