What Time Is It? is a mystery short story by Isaac Asimov.
Part of the Black Widowers series, it was first published in the January 1980 collection Casebook of the Black Widowers. It was later collected in The Best Mysteries of Isaac Asimov.
Summary[]
At a Black Widowers banquet, the conversation turns to whether trivial differences can cause major rifts. The guest, defense attorney Barry Levine, discusses a current case that hinges on such a triviality. His client, Johnson, owed money to a loan shark. After a heated argument during which Johnson threatened the shark, he left the hotel at 3:15 PM, witnessed by the desk clerk, Brancusi. The loan shark was seen alive until he returned to his room around 5:15 PM, where he was later found murdered.
Johnson's alibi is that he returned to the hotel just before 6:00 PM with a partial payment, saw police at the scene, and fled. Brancusi confirms he saw Johnson leave at 5:50 PM. However, another witness, the accountant William Sandow, claims he saw Johnson fleeing the hotel at 5:30 PM—just after the murder. Sandow is a credible witness, while Brancusi, a friend of Johnson's with a minor criminal record, is not. The case rests on this conflicting testimony about the time.
The waiter Henry deduces the key detail: the hotel lobby clock is digital. He reasons that an accountant like Sandow, mentally associating numbers with money, would instinctively read "5:50" as "five and a half" (dollars) and later recall it as half-past five (5:30). This explains the honest mistake and creates the reasonable doubt needed to defend Johnson, turning a trivial detail into the crucial element of the case.
Characters[]
Black Widowers[]
- James Drake (the host)
- Thomas Trumbull
- Emmanuel Rubin
- Geoffrey Avalon
- Roger Halsted
- Mario Gonzalo
- Henry (the waiter)
Others[]
- Barry Levine (the guest)
- Johnson
- The loan shark
- Brancusi
- William Sandow
- The security guard
- The bartender
- The hotel guest