Ph as in Phony

Ph as in Phony is a mystery written by Isaac Asimov in 1972. It was first published in the July 1972 issue of Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine under the title The Phony Ph.D.[1] The reason for this title change was that the magazine ran a series by Lawrence Treat with similar "_ is for _" titles. When it was republished in Tales of the Black Widowers in 1974, the original title was restored. It is the second published story about the Black Widowers, a gentlemen's club that solves mysteries based loosely upon the Trap Door Spiders, a stag-club of which Asimov was a member.[2] It was reprinted in the collection The Return of the Black Widowers in 2003.

Plot summary

Dr. Thomas Trumbull, as the evening's host, brings a Doctor Doctor Arnold Stacey to dinner. (Note: the rules of the club dictate that all members and guests receive the title of "doctor," so all with doctorates are known as "doctor doctor.") Upon questioning by James Drake, it is revealed that Stacey's "lesser doctorate" is in chemistry, and that he teaches at the university where Drake got his doctorate.

This prompts Drake to discuss a student in his classes, a Lance Faron, who he believes to have cheated on his finals in a class, even though the system was airtight, the questions were all based on things students got wrong in class, and the boy's classmates watched him constantly. He received a 96 on a course known to be the most difficult in the school, and the professor backed him when he used it as a reason to apply for his Ph.D. The members of the club make several suggestions as to the method by which he cheated.

Finally, Henry, the waiter, speaks up. He asks if it were not possible that the student gave the teacher the answers, instead of the other way around, and that he had written the test based on what he had observed his fellow students struggling with.

Characters

Black Widowers

Characters only appearing in this story

Notes

  1. Many of the details on this webpage are confirmed on Isaac Asimov's author page, which is here (link), accessed July 21st 2014.
  2. Asimov 1994, I. Asimov, chapter "120. The Trap Door Spiders".

See also

External links