The 2nd story in the Black Widowers case files, Isaac Asimov wrote it for Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine (July 1972 issue), under the title of "The Phony Ph.D."
Trumbull is host tonight, and his guest is Arnold Stacey, a teaching chemist. Avalon plays with Stacey's chemistry doctorate while helping to introduce people, such as Doctor Doctor Stacey, Doctor Doctor Drake, and Doctor, Doctor, Doctor Rubin.
The discussion during dinner is about how valuable dishonesty is as a survival tactic, making the completely honest man vulnerable. After dinner, Drake grills the guest and they talk about their mutual experiences with Berry University, a fictional college where Drake earned his degree. Then he tells a story about a classmate of his, Lance Faron, who cheated on the final exam of the hardest course in the whole school. Naturally, Henry is able to conclude Faron's method of deceit, and Dr Stacey supports his conclusion.
This story has been reprinted twice; Tales of the Black Widowers (1974) and The Return of the Black Widowers (2003).
Tropes that may have been faked:
- Ahem: Henry clears his throat to interrupt the frustrated Drake when he's ready to give The Summation.
- Alliterative Title: As both "The Phony Ph.D." and "Ph As In Phony".
- Being Watched: Drake and his friends decide to keep a surveillance of Faron, to make sure he doesn't cheat on the test. Faron notices (they're college students and not very stealthy), and doesn't mind while they follow him on errands several days in a row; school library, post office, bank, shoestore…
- Best Served Cold: Because his friends laughed at him, Faron decided to prove he was capable of earning a PhD, despite his otherwise lackluster academic achievements. He took the hardest course offered and got an A+. Thirty years later, his friends are still troubled by how he must have cheated, and they can't figure out how.
- The Con: Faron's method of cheating worked like a confidence game. He signed up to the most difficult course in the college, then offered to bribe the professor to let him write the final exam and support his bid for a doctorate. Since he was very rich and trying to avoid the draft, it worked. Even thirty years later, none of his classmates could figure out how Faron had cheated.
- Contagious Laughter: Drake and his friends start laughing when Faron had announced he might try to earn a PhD, only it kept going. Drake pointed out that the idea wasn't that funny, but they'd look at another person still laughing, and it made them laugh even harder.
- Doctor, Doctor, Doctor: When the guest, Dr Stacey, is introduced to Avalon, his PhD is mentioned, so Avalon calls him "Doctor Doctor Stacey" because each of the members is an honorary doctor, which means those that actually have degrees are doctor doctors. To prevent this from becoming verbal nonsense, the titles are usually dispensed with during conversation.
- Draft Dodging: During college, Drake and his friends didn't want to join the war, so they made use of the rule that allowed active college students to continue studying rather than being drafted. Certain jobs also allowed people to contribute to the war effort instead of being drafted, and those were highly competitive.
- Driving Question: How did Faron cheat on his test?
- Embodiment of Virtue: Henry's status as a "pathologically honest man" is given as a reason for his ability to identify how Faron cheated on the final exam.
- Fairplay Whodunnit: The clues are all presented during the grilling, and the audience can deduce how Faron cheated on the test by the time Henry coughs.
- Fancy Dinner: The Black Widowers meet every month at the Milano, a fancy restaurant in New York City, tonight's dinner is veal cordon bleu and pate de la maison (chopped liver).
- Featureless Plane of Disembodied Dialogue: The Milano is sparsely described, along with minimal description of characters and meal.
- Framing Device: The Fancy Dinner and grilling provide a location and characters to hear about a college cheating scam.
- Hesitation Equals Dishonesty: Rubin's hesitation when Gonzalo demands an explanation for his claim of multiple honorary doctorates implies he is being dishonest, but he smoothly starts talking about his youth, which nobody has ever been able to find a contradiction.
- The Jeeves: Henry has the veal placed around the table before anyone notices, Drake's drink ready even before it's ordered, and solves the mystery for the group.
- Never Gets Drunk: Rubin is already on their third glass of drinks by the time everyone else is on their second, because the alcohol just doesn't seem to affect them.
- Not Cheating Unless You Get Caught: Inverted Trope, because Drake knows Faron cheated, and the part that bothers him is that he doesn't know how Faron managed it.
- Not That Kind of Doctor: Tonight's guest had worked with medical students who claimed Ph.D. stood for "Phony Doctor" (rather than Doctorate of Philosophy).
- Orwellian Retcon:
- Dr Asimov didn't like the title that the magazine gave this story ("The Phony Ph.D."), so he changed it back when editing Tales of the Black Widowers.
- In the afterword, Dr Asimov admits that Professor Porter of the University of Oregon had raised certain objections to the story, which he corrected for the republished version.
- Phone-In Detective: Henry is able to deduce the mystery of Faron's cheating by figuring out how Faron could create the test rather than stealing the test.
- Plot Hole: The original story didn't explain clearly enough how a doctorate was obtained, a situation remedied upon republication.
- Seamless Spontaneous Lie: The club isn't convinced of Rubin's list of honorary doctorates, but since they've never been able to catch him in a lie about his early life, they accept it as true.
- Shout-Out:
- Drake compares Professor St. George to Captain Bligh from the mutiny of the Bounty, because St. George was an extremely strict teacher.
- In the afterword, Dr Asimov mentions Lawrence Treat for why
the magazine changed the title of this story.
- Stern Teacher: Professor St. George is established as someone who enjoys making his course so difficult, barely three students can even achieve an A-, with the brightest students usually scoring a B. The highest score anyone ever got on the final exam was 96%, and the entire class was certain Faron had cheated to earn that grade, but nobody knew how it was done.
- Stock "Yuck!": Rubin doesn't want to eat chopped liver, and requires Henry's assurances before he'll try eating any.
- The Summation: Henry coughs and asks to interrupt so that he can explain how Faron was able to cheat on the test.
- Uncle Pennybags: Drake says that he and his classmates were all friends with Faron, and while they envied his wealth, they considered him a friend.
- Who's Laughing Now?: Faron quietly and smugly aced the hardest course in the entire college after his friends laughed at the idea of him earning a PhD.
- Will Not Tell a Lie: Mention of Henry's status as a "pathologically honest man" is objected to, as it may be influenced by last month's meeting. The members agree that it should be considered
Common Knowledge that Henry is completely honest, and no explanation for why is needed.
