FRIENDSHIP - Anyone who peers into the abyss must be prepared to confront whatever stares back at him. The neophyte investigator naturally braces himself to confront monsters. He must, however, prepare himself for the inevitable occasion on which the torch of revelation illuminates the face of a friend. How does he reconcile the demands of frienship with his duty to the truth? The answer, to the conscientious investigator, is straightforward: regardless of his relationship to the participants, it's incumbent upon him remain a dispassionate observer of events.

In attempting to cause Billy Ure to reassess his relationship with me, Karen Balsillie made much of the three hundred page dossier I freely acknowledge having maintained on him since he was charged with plagiarism (see BAKER, TOM). "What sort of person," she demanded, "treats his friends as suspects?" "What sort of person," I responded, "presents someone else's work as his own?" The fact that Billy is my friend doesn't blind me to a pronounced tendency to certain types of transgression. Karen's ire, I suggested, would have been better targetted at those who snubbed and mocked him in the wake of his humiliation. It didn't seem to occur to her, however, that I had remained resolute despite repeated indications of Billy's defective character.

More recently, Muriel's various misdemeanours, rapidly escalating on my patented 'Teen Concern Scale' from insolence to smoking and petty theft, have necessitated the opening of a new file. This has become a bone of contention with my sister, though, as I reminded her, my intervention in the Mystery of the Missing Necklace was sufficient to deter her from further delinquencies.

 

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