Wendell Urth

Not sure why but I remembered the name: Wendell Urth - a character who assists the police in four Science Fiction mystery stories by Isaac Asimov:

The Singing Bell, page 98
https://archive.org/details/Fantasy_Science_Fiction_v008n01_1955-01

Perhaps the inspiration for a singing bell might have been a burnt out vacuum tube or even a burnt out light bulb with filament particles ?  But it took Asimov's imagination to change something like that an ethereal sound maker.

The Talking Stone, page 108
https://archive.org/details/Fantasy_Science_Fiction_v009n04_1955-10

Asimov was an expert in biochemistry.  So maybe it was natural that he kicked around the idea of alternative life forms based on silicon rather than carbon ?

The Dying Night, page 3
https://archive.org/details/Fantasy_Science_Fiction_v011n01_1956-07_MadMaxAU

The rapid disappearance of actual silver based photographic film has been amazing - it'd be hard to try to make a video of this story considering that people aren't that familiar with film anymore.  Also Mercury apparently isn't tidally locked to the Sun the way the Moon is to the Earth.

The Key, page 5
https://archive.org/details/Fantasy_Science_Fiction_v031n04_1966-10_PDF

I remembered this from The Key:

But I didn't remember all the details, luckily it's possible to enjoy the reveal again :)

I didn't read these stories in magazine form but in a book: Asimov's Mysteries, a Doubleday Science Fiction Book Club selection (yes, I was a member as a kid).  I have that book - somewhere !  But thanks to the internet I can read those Wendell Urth stories without budging from the recliner, nice !

Like Karl Jennings in The Key, I appreciate puns (and Dad jokes in general) but have no talent in formulating, retaining or performing a play on words :( 

Best Regards,
Chuck, WB9KZY
http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm