"The Deadly Cherub."
By Arthur Porges (1915-2006; Wikipedia HERE.)
First appearance: Shell Scott Mystery Magazine, March 1966.
Short story (10 pages).
Online at The Luminist Archives (HERE; go to text page 118).
"Three grand is a small price for a man's life, but many have gone for less."
IF a lawman were to put out an APB for a murderer that looks just like that little kid seen on millions of jars of applesauce, he'd be guaranteed to lose the next election, if they don't lock him up first. Yet that's where the evidence seems to point for a young and relatively inexperienced sheriff dealing with the demise of a local big shot . . .
Principal characters:
~ James Travis Manion, Gus Miller, Mrs. Tabor, Danny Bowen, and Lloyd Pearson.
Typos: "the Texas was rumored"; "the Texas signed".
References:
- "the Mohave desert":
"Named after the indigenous Mohave people, it is located primarily in southeastern California and southwestern Nevada, with small portions extending into Arizona and Utah.
"The 54,000 square mile desert supports a number of human activities, including recreation, ranching, and military training. The Mojave Desert also contains various silver, tungsten, iron and gold deposits.
"The spelling Mojave originates from the Spanish language, while the spelling Mohave comes from modern English. Both are used today, although the Mojave Tribal Nation officially uses the spelling Mojave, which is a shortened form of Hamakhaave, an endonym in their native language, meaning 'beside the water'." (Wikipedia HERE.)
- "a handicapper":
"Handicapping also refers to the various methods by which spectators can predict and quantify the results of a sporting match. The term is applied to the practice of predicting the result of a competition, such as for purposes of betting against the point spread. A favored team that wins by less than the point spread still wins the game, but bets on that team loss." (Wikipedia HERE.)
- "the hare against the tortoise":
"'The Tortoise and the Hare' is one of Aesop's Fables and is numbered 226 in the Perry Index. The account of a race between unequal partners has attracted conflicting interpretations. The fable itself is a variant of a common folktale theme in which ingenuity and trickery (rather than doggedness) are employed to overcome a stronger opponent." (Wikipedia HERE.)
- "Goliath against David":
"According to 1 Samuel, Goliath challenges the Israelites to best him in single combat. David, then a young shepherd, takes up the challenge and kills Goliath with a stone slung from a sling. The narrative signifies King Saul's unfitness to rule for not taking up the giant's challenge himself." (Wikipedia HERE.)
- "Harold the Saxon against William the Norman":
It was one of those battles that change history.
"The Battle of Hastings was fought on 14 October 1066 between the Norman-French army of William, Duke of Normandy, and an English army under the Anglo-Saxon King Harold Godwinson, beginning the Norman Conquest of England." (Wikipedia HERE.)
- "his magpie instinct":
This slur on a noble bird species may stem from an 1817 opera by Rossini:
"La gazza ladra (The Thieving Magpie) is a melodramma or opera semiseria in two acts by Gioachino Rossini, with a libretto by Giovanni Gherardini based on La pie voleuse by Théodore Baudouin d'Aubigny and Louis-Charles Caigniez. The Thieving Magpie's overture uses snare drums to evoke the image of the opera's main subject: a devilishly clever, thieving magpie." (Wikipedia HERE.)
- "use moulage":
"It is sometimes necessary at a crime scene to make a cast of footwear or tire mark impression in soil. Plaster of Paris can be used to make a quick-drying and -setting cast of an impression. This preserves the mark for later examination by a forensic scientist. Although there are proprietary casting materials available, Plaster of Paris is sufficient." (WikiHow HERE.)
- "the hyoid bone":
"Due to its position, the hyoid bone is not easily susceptible to fracture. In a suspected case of murder of an adult, a fractured hyoid strongly indicates strangulation. However, in children and adolescents, where the hyoid bone is still flexible as ossification is yet to be completed, strangulation is less likely to fracture the hyoid." (Wikipedia HERE.)
- "a hairless orang":
"They are covered in long reddish hair that starts out bright orange and darkens to maroon or chocolate with age, while the skin is grey-black." (Wikipedia HERE.)
- "enough hair for all four Beatles":
In 1966 they were front page news.
"Their hairstyle, unusually long for the era and mocked by many adults, became an emblem of rebellion to the burgeoning youth culture." (Wikipedia HERE.)
- "not exactly a Dr. Thorndyke"; "prefer Freeman to the Gunsel-and-Gonad School":
"Dr. John Evelyn Thorndyke is a fictional detective in a long series of 21 novels and 40 short stories by British author R. Austin Freeman (1862–1943). Thorndyke was described by his author as a 'medical jurispractitioner': originally a medical doctor, he turned to the bar and became one of the first — in modern parlance — forensic scientists. His solutions were based on his method of collecting all possible data (including dust and pond weed) and making inferences from them before looking at any of the protagonists and motives in the crimes. Freeman ensured that his methods were practical by conducting all experiments mentioned in the stories himself." (Wikipedia HERE.)
"Dr. Richard Austin Freeman MRCS LSA (11 April 1862–28 September 1943) was a British writer of detective stories, mostly featuring the medico-legal forensic investigator Dr. Thorndyke. He invented the inverted detective story (a crime fiction in which the commission of the crime is described at the beginning, usually including the identity of the perpetrator, with the story then describing the detective's attempt to solve the mystery). This invention has been described as Freeman's most notable contribution to detective fiction." (Wikipedia HERE.)
- "the hands of a cherub, so to speak":
"In the 1430s and 1440s, Donatello made many sculptures of young children dancing, as well as putti (cherubs) and a variant of these traditionally called spiritelli ('imps' or 'sprites'). Putti were not new in Italian sculpture but were given a rather unusual prominence by Donatello." (Wikipedia HERE.)
- "Donatello":
No, not the teenage mutant turtle.
"Donato di Niccolò di Betto Bardi (c. 1386–13 December 1466), known mononymously as Donatello, was an Italian sculptor of the Renaissance period." (Wikipedia HERE).
Resource:
- Arthur Porges's "Seeds of Death" recently shared the spotlight with Fredric Brown's "See No Murder" (HERE).
The bottom line:
Unless otherwise noted, all bibliographical data are derived from The FictionMags Index created by William G. Contento & edited by Phil Stephensen-Payne.
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