A Sylvia Jacobs Duet

LIKE RUTH CHESSMAN last week, today's author, Sylvia Jacobs, didn't generate much short fiction copy in her lifetime, basically just enough to count on both hands (data from 
The FictionMags Index):

 (1) "God to the Ants," Collier’s, March 10, 1945
 (2) "A Stitch in Time," Astounding, April 1951
 (3) "The Pilot and the Bushman," Galaxy, August 1951 (below)
 (4) "Up the Mountain or Down," Universe Science Fiction, September 1953
 (5) "Old Purply-Puss," Vortex Science Fiction (Volume 1, Number 1), 1953
 (6) "The Sportsmen," Vortex Science Fiction (Volume 1, Number 2), 1953
 (7) "Hold That Helium!", Astounding, March 1955
 (8) [letter from San Pedro, CA], Astounding, August 1958
 (9) "Time Payment," IF, July 1960 (below)
 (10) "Young Man from Elsewhen," IF, March 1961
 (11) "Slave to Man," Galaxy, April 1969.

--------------------

   "There's not one single, solitary Earth invention or service left to advertise!"

"The Pilot and the Bushman."
By Sylvia Jacobs (?-?).

Illustrations by David Stone (HERE).
First appearance: Galaxy, August 1951.

Reprints page (HERE).

Novelette (24 pages).

Online at Project Gutenberg (HERE).

     "Do you realize what I'm offering you? In return for ceasing this tourist promotion, I'm offering you the invention that obsolesces all others . . ."

Earth's first contact with aliens from outer space is usually depicted in fiction, movies, and TV as being fraught with danger. Will the aliens destroy our cities, kill us all, and then serve us up as lunch? In today's story, it's true that there's a strong element of peril involved in our first contact with galactic aliens in the person of a go-getting Madison Avenue maven named Jerry Jergins—but the danger, dear friends, is all on the other side . . .

Characters (in order of appearance):
~ The Ambassador from Outer Space:
  ". . . sprang to his feet, taking Jerry's extended hand in a firm, warm grasp. Jerry had been prepared for almost anything—a scholarly brontosaurus, perhaps, or an educated squid or giant caterpillar with telepathic powers. But . . ."
~ Jerry Jergins, PR specialist:
  "You seem to have devoted a lot of study to the larceny in the Earthman's soul."
~ The blonde:
  "Don't you feel a little bit sorry for a girl like me, with nothing but perfectly civilized men to go home to?"

Resources:
- Disinformation is the name of the game in today's narrative; see Wikipedia (HERE) for background.
- TV Tropes tells us that the Matter Repositor as posited in our story is inevitably "a form of Applied Phlebotinum [HERE] that gleefully ignores the laws of thermodynamics as it rearranges and reassembles matter at the nuclear level to do everything from fixing a radio 
to fixing a nice cup of Earl Grey [HERE]." Hirocker contemplates some of the consequences of such a technology (HERE); also see Memory Alpha Fandom (HERE) and Wikipedia (HERE and HERE).

 References:
- "the gold at Fort Knox": Officially known as the United States Bullion Depository 
(Wikipedia HERE).

- "Micronesian bushman": A generic term for several ethnic groups (Wikipedia HERE).
- "the power and speed of a B-29": The bomber Japan wishes had never been built (Wikipedia HERE); in 1951 B-29s were still in frontline service in the Korean War.

- "the N.A.M.": The abbreviation for the National Association of Manufacturers (Wikipedia HERE).
- "One of the Duke University subjects tried to patent his ability to influence the fall of dice mentally.": "In the 1930s, at Duke University in North Carolina, J. B. Rhine and his wife Louisa E. Rhine conducted investigation into extrasensory perception. While Louisa Rhine concen-trated on collecting accounts of spontaneous cases, J. B. Rhine worked largely in the labora-tory, carefully defining terms such as ESP and psi and designing experiments to test them." — Wikipedia (HERE).
- "perpetual motion machines": "Perpetual motion is motion of bodies that continues indefinitely. A perpetual motion machine is a hypothetical machine that can do work indefinitely without an energy source. This kind of machine is impossible, as it would violate the first or second law of thermodynamics." — Wikipedia (HERE).

- "A name band revived 'The Thing'": A hit tune for Phil Harris (Wikipedia HERE).
- "Goofy [HERE], My Friend Irma [HERE] , Mrs. Ace [?], and Gracie Allen [HERE]".

- "the U.S. Post Office broke down and printed an issue of three-cent stamps": "The 3¢ rate for first-class had been unchanged since 1932, but by 1958 there were no more efficiency gains to keep the lid on prices, and the rate went to 4¢, beginning a steady series of rate increases that reached 49¢ as of January 26, 2014." — Wikipedia (HERE).
- "a photo-mural of a ragged, depression-era breadline": "It is believed the term 'breadline' entered the popular lexicon in the 1880s. It was during those years that a noteworthy bakery in New York City’s Greenwich Village, 'Fleischmann Model Viennese Bakery,' instituted a policy of distributing unsold baked goods to the poor at the end of their business day." — Wikipedia (HERE).

- "a billy descended on a well-barbered head": A weapon favored by police (Wikipedia HERE).
- "the paddy-wagon": A police van: "The precise origin of the term is uncertain and disputed, though its use dates back to the 1800s." — Wikipedia (HERE).

- "racetrack tout": "A tout is any person who solicits business or employment in a persistent and annoying manner . . ." — Wikipedia (HERE).
- "supplement the Voice of America": "A U.S. multimedia agency which serves as the United States non-government institution for non-military, external broadcasting. It is the largest U.S. international broadcaster." — Wikipedia (HERE).
- "a real honest-to-goodness juke box": Some are still around (Wikipedia HERE).

~ ~ ~

   "The whereabouts of a hideaway can be found—but what about the whenabouts?"

"Time Payment."
By Sylvia Jacobs (?-?).
Illustration by [Bob] Ritter (HERE).
First appearance: Worlds of IF, July 1960.

Short story (12 pages).
Online at Project Gutenberg (HERE).

     "The public's impression that the future can be altered or predicted is incorrect."

Can recidivism be cured? Maybe, just maybe, the metachronoscope is the answer . . .

Characters:
~ Slick Tennant:
  "I ain't one of your nuts, Doc. And I don't want your money. I got plenty. All I want from you is a little trip in your time machine."
~ Dr. Richard Porter:
  "Metachronoscope. It's very misleading to call it a time-travel machine."
~ Dickie Porter:
  "You just do like he says. He's like the bad guys on TV."

Resource:
- Sylvia Jacobs's full SFF-nal bibliography is on the Internet Speculative Fiction Database (HERE).

The bottom line:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"The Scene of a Few Quiet Tortures or Assassinations"

OUR TITLE comes from the Paradox Master himself, G. K. Chesterton; in his book The Uses of Diversity (1921), Chapter V: "The Domesticity of Detectives," Chesterton observes:

   "We might say that the great detective story deals with small things; while the small or silly detective story generally deals with great things.

   ". . . the good detective story is in its nature a good domestic story. It is steeped in the sentiment that an Englishman's house is his castle; even if, like other castles, it is the scene of a few quiet tortures or assassinations.

   "The real romance of detection works inwards towards the household gods, even if they are household devils. One of the best of the Sherlock Holmes stories turns entirely on a trivial point of housekeeping: the provision of curry for the domestic dinner." — ONTOS (HERE).

Authors of what is called these days "domestic suspense" (formerly the HIBK School) generally tend to be women and to limit their focus to what GKC terms the "small things," usually but not always about their uneasy relationships with men, whose principal failing seems to be that they're not mind readers. One such domestic suspenser was Ruth Chessman, all of whose limited output is, thanks to e-book publishing, now available. As 
an author, Chessman's biggest limitation is that she wants to tell more than show in one 
of today's stories ("Silently, Silently"), which these days is regarded as a cardinal sin, a technique which tends to slow down the narrative too much. Chessman is an almost 
completely unknown quantity to us; all we know are the comments made on Amazon.com (HERE). Her very brief bibliography comes from there and FictionMags (data below):

  (1) "Accused," Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, January 1943 (below)
  (2) "Poor Sherm," Manhunt, August 1958
  (3) "Murder—Early American," Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, November 1958
  (4) "The Harrington Farthing," Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, April 1959
  (5) "Is There a Doctor in the House?", Bestseller Mystery Magazine, November 1959
  (6) "[The Search for a] Dead Man's Body," Highway Patrolman, March-April 1957
  (7) "The Perfect Husband," Four Quarters #1, November 1960 (below)
  (8) "Silently, Silently," Four Quarters #3, March 1961 (below)
  (9) "The Crime That Did Not Follow," Four Quarters #11, November 1961 (below).

--------------------

   "If he were to commit suicide, he thought, it would be by a bullet, or by drowning—certainly not by gas."

"Accused."
By Ruth Chessman (?-?).
First appearance: Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine (EQMM), January 1943.

Reprinted in EQMM (Overseas Edition for the Armed Forces), 
July 1945, and EQMM (Australia), July 1948.

Collected in The Second Golden Age of Mystery & Crime Megapack (2015; for sale HERE).

Short short short story (3 pages).
Online at Archive.org (HERE).

     "A powerful vignette . . ."

The jury was satisfied, so why isn't he?

Characters:
~ Stella:
  "The verdict said not guilty, and that's the truth."
~ Michael Carriday:
  "If what he feared were true, how could he accept a jury's verdict . . .?"
~ Mrs. Prentiss:
  "What makes you think I care how you feel . . .?"

~ ~ ~

   "It was a bullet, wasn't it?"

"The Perfect Husband."
By Ruth Chessman (?-?).
First appearance: Four Quarters #1, November 1960.
Collected in The Second Golden Age of Mystery & Crime Megapack (2015; for sale HERE).
Short short story (9 pages).
Online at Archive.org (HERE).

     ". . . he couldn't lie to her."

Disillusionment—when it comes, it comes down hard . . .

Characters:
~ Rickey Garber:
  "He was really the perfect husband every girl dreamed of."
~ Dad:
  "Never heard of him. He's a mighty slick-looking article, isn't he?"
~ Court:
  "How much do you know?"
~ The doctor:
  "I could have helped, earlier."
~ Ellen Garber:
  ". . . the appalling thing was that she did, she understood everything."

Resources:
Quite a few movie matinee idols from the 1940s, '50s, and '60s get mentioned in our story; see the Wikipedia entries for Tony Curtis (HERE), Errol Flynn (HERE), Van Johnson (HERE), Clark Gable (HERE), Robert Mitchum (HERE), Joseph Cotten (HERE), Rock Hunter (actually 
a fictional character; HERE), and Robert Montgomery (HERE).

~ ~ ~

   "What would Ellen do?"

"Silently, Silently."
By Ruth Chessman (?-?).
First appearance: Four Quarters #3, March 1961.
Collected in The Second Golden Age of Mystery & Crime Megapack (2015; for sale HERE).
Short short story (9 pages).
Online at Archive.org (HERE).

     "People like us don't need people like that."

The thing about trainwrecks is that nobody sees them coming, primarily because somebody somewhere wasn't paying enough attention to small, seemingly insignificant things like a loose coupling or, as in today's story, fingernail chewing . . .

Characters:
~ Ellen Windsor:
  "I'm never together with anyone."
~ Letty Windsor:
  "Once and for all, stop looking for trouble!"
~ Janice Perrice:
  "Rowdy, noisy, rebellious Janice was poles apart from Ellen."
~ Peter:
  "So Janice finally had a tantrum big enough to draw notice."
~ Hilda Perrice:
  ". . . thought Janice was in bed when the police came!"
~ Mrs. Sturgess:
  "I'm glad you got here in time to say goodbye to Janice . . ."

Resource:
- Ellen says, "A real J.D.," meaning a juvenile delinquent; juvenile delinquency was the cause célèbre of countless stories, TV shows, and movies during the 1950s and '60s:

"The two largest predictors of juvenile delinquency are [(1) parenting style and (2) peer group association]:

 (1) parenting style, with the two styles most likely to predict delinquency being:

     (a) 'permissive' parenting, characterized by a lack of consequence-based discipline and encompassing two subtypes known as:
    'neglectful' parenting, characterized by a lack of monitoring and thus of knowledge of the child's activities; and
    'indulgent' parenting, characterized by affirmative enablement of misbehavior;
     (b) 'authoritarian' parenting, characterized by harsh discipline and refusal to justify discipline on any basis other than "because I said so".

"According to Laura E. Berk, the style of parenting that would be most beneficial for a child, and thus stand[s] the highest probability of preventing delinquent behavior, is:

  'The authoritative child-rearing style - the most successful approach - involves high acceptance and involvement, adaptive control techniques, and appropriate autonomy granting.'

Berk’s accretions regarding parenting styles derive primarily from the studies conducted by Diana Baumrind.

 (2) peer group association, particularly with antisocial peer groups, as is more likely when adolescents are left unsupervised." — Wikipedia (HERE)

~ ~ ~

   "Children only love people who love them."

"The Crime That Did Not Follow."
By Ruth Chessman (?-?).
First appearance: Four Quarters #11, November 1961.
Collected in The Second Golden Age of Mystery & Crime Megapack (2015; for sale HERE).
Short short story (7 pages).
Online at Archive.org (HERE).

     "She then made the innocent comment that was to lead to a policeman in the house, not to mention a pretty girl stiff with terror."

When Shakespeare told us, "The robbed that smiles, steals something from the thief," he probably never imagined what would happen next door to Mrs. Brace . . .

Characters:
~ Mrs. Brace:
  "Within ten minutes of focusing all her lively mental powers on the problem, she was left with no alternative at all. There was only one thing to do. She reached for the telephone."
~ Mrs. Matthews:
  ". . . not at any point what you might call a social type, became frankly confused, although she remained grimly polite and gave courteous little answers as they were called for."
~ Elizabeth Caldwell:
  ". . . was a heartless, superficial woman. She couldn't have succeeded in making Billy smile where even his own mother failed."
~ Police Inspector Harrity:
  "Nobody every suspects a utility company."
~ Peter Brace:
  "Do you happen to like beef stew?"
~ Margery Varrick:
  "As a matter of fact I do."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"If We're Not Very Careful, She'll Kill Others"

"Apple."
By Anne McCaffrey (1926-2011).

Part of the author's "Talents" universe (HERE); taken from 

To Ride Pegasus (1973; HERE).

First appearance: Crime Prevention in the 30th Century 

(1969; HERE).

Reprinted in Science Fiction Monthly, June 1974.

Illustrations by Ian Pollock (born 1950; HERE).
Reprints page (HERE).

Short short story (7 pages) in magazine; novelette (37 pages) 
in book publication.

Online at The Luminist Archives (HERE; slow load; go to text 

page 6/PDF page 8).

(Parental note: Strong language.)

     ". . . the only way in which such valuable items could have been removed from a store dummy in a scanned, warded, very public display window in the five-minute period between the fixed TV frames was by kinetic energy."

A relatively minor crime in the grand scheme of things it may be, but it threatens to undo all the good will the psychically-gifted Talents have managed to establish with the normals and 
to scuttle an important Senate vote—all of which is bad enough, but then someone is killed, triggering a frantic and highly dangerous chase. Needless to say, Daffyd op Owen has his hands full . . .

Characters:
~ Daffyd op Owen:
  ". . . we are far more determined . . . and better-equipped . . . to discover the real criminal than you could ever be, no matter what your personal stake in assigning guilt might conceivably be."
~ Lester Welch:
  "A man'll use any tool that works . . . until it scratches him, that is."
~ Charlie Moorfield:

  "There never has been so much as a civil misdemeanour by any of our people. No breach 

of confidence, nor integrity. No crime could be shielded from fellow Talents."

~ Harold Orley:
  "He tried to rise, one clenched fist straining towards the building."
~ Police Commissioner Frank Gillings:
  "We regret exceedingly that the evidence points to a person with psychic talents. We must insist that the larcenist be surrendered to us immediately . . ."
~ Gil Gracie:
  "Try keeping your physical eye on an object for an hour!"
~ Ted Lewis:

  "Op Owen nodded to Ted Lewis, the top police finder who had accompanied the official group. He stood a little to one side of the others. Of all the visitors, his mind was wide 

open."

~ City Manager Julian Pennstrak:

  "I have, however, used my official prerogative to supervise the hunt. There're enough sympathetic people on the public media channels to play down the Talent angle—at my request—but you know what this kind of adverse publicity is going to do to you, this 

Centre and the Talented in general. One renegade can discredit a hundred honest injuns. 

So, what can I do to help?"

~ "Maggie O":

  "She had not been pretty by ordinary standards but she had been so different that her 

image had registered sharply. The narrow face, the brilliant eyes, slightly slanted above 

sharp cheekbones, the thin, small mouth and the pointed chin were unusual even in an 

area of ethnic variety."

~ Webster and Heis:
  "Op Owen pushed gently against their minds and was satisfied with his findings. They possessed the natural shielding of the untemperamental which made them less suscep-
tible to emotional storms."

Typos: "in a conservative but expensive grey fitted [what? suit?]"; "mindless [mindlessly] brushing aside".

Resources:
- The late Anne Inez McCaffrey was a mainstay in SFF; see Wikipedia (HERE), the SFE (HERE), the ISFDb (HERE), and the IMDb (HERE).
- Psionics, telepathy, clairvoyance, teleportation, and telempathy are all mentioned in our story. The SFE provides a good summary of psi powers (HERE), while Winchell Chung's Atomic Rockets website has a skeptical page devoted to psionics (HERE):

   "Putting this section into this website is really straining things to the breaking point since there is little or no hard scientific evidence that 
such a thing exists. But, like faster-than-light starships, it shows no 
signs of going away. Psionics are mystical powers of the human mind 
that always seem to be absent when tested for in a research lab. Sort 
of like Mr. Snuffleupagus. These are powers such as telepathy and psychokinesis. In other words, psionics is Magic with a fancy science-
fictional name."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Stamped to Death

IN THE VACUUM created by the vanishment of new Sherlock Holmes stories from contemporary magazine publications, there was a rush on the part of detective fiction authors to fill that void with their own versions of the Sage of Baker Street, one of whom was Peter J. Clancy, the creation of established pulp author H. Bedford-Jones and possibly the only private detective who is/was also a practicing dentist. Clancy appeared in only eight adventures before Bedford-Jones moved on to Durant, his next series character.

~ ~ ~ Peter J. Clancy Mysteries ~ ~ ~

  (1) "The Case of Colette," Cassell’s Magazine, December 1925
      Reprinted in The Blue Book Magazine, April 1926 as "Clancy, Detective"
  (2) "Japanese Fans," Cassell’s Magazine, January 1926
      Reprinted in The Blue Book Magazine, May 1926
  (3) "The Cibourne Trail," Cassell’s Magazine, February 1926
      Reprinted in Blue Book, July 1926
  (4) "The Regency Bar," Cassell’s Magazine, March 1926
      Reprinted in The Blue Book Magazine, August 1926
  (5) "After Five Years," Cassell’s Magazine, April 1926
  (6) "Clancy, Detective," The Blue Book Magazine, April 1926 (below)
      Originally published in Cassell's Magazine, December 1925 as "The Case of Colette"
  (7) "The Trail of the Harp," Cassell’s Magazine, May 1926
      Reprinted in Blue Book, June 1926
  (8) "Five Years After," The Blue Book Magazine, September 1926.
  (Note: All data are from The FictionMags Index, HERE).

"Clancy, Detective."
By H. Bedford-Jones (1887-1949).
First appearance: The Blue Book Magazine, April 1926.

Collected in The H. Bedford-Jones Pulp Fiction Megapack: 20 Classic Tales by the King of the Pulps (2014; for sale HERE).

Short story (15 pages).

Online at Archive.org (HERE).

     "I'll give you a job—if you can tell me the difference between a Sydney View and a Saint Helena grilled."

On its surface, the murder of a stamp dealer in the Rue St. Honoré would seem to be a case of theft unintentionally escalating into a killing, and to all appearances that is how the police regard it; however, this apparently simple crime has far-reaching implications . . .

Characters:
~ Colette, dealer in rare stamps, deceased:

  "I looked at the dead man. A small, swarthy, fat little chap, he had been one who dressed carefully for his business, with morning coat, starched front and cuffs—even a rosebud in 

his buttonhole. The left arm was stretched out away from the body. Under it, the coat had 

been pulled away, vest and underwear cut to permit examination of the wound. From the 

man’s immaculate appearance, I concluded he had been caught unawares. Whoever had 

looked at the wound had probably done the slight disarrangement visible—or so I thought."

~ Gersault, thief, and the obvious prime suspect:
  "The police have arrested a man named Gersault, of the Apache class, on the strength of his fingerprints."
~ Peter J. Clancy, D.D.S., of 33 Bis, Rue Cambon:
  "Gloves save prints, but they carry scent."
~ Jim Logan, initially a newspaperman but presently unemployed:

  "I went back to my lodgings, feeling that my first essay as a detective was not up to story-book style, by a long shot."

~ The Préfect:
  "'Most people are usually surprised by the efficiency of Paris police,' he returned, beaming on me."
~ The gendarme:
  ". . . not the usual agent, but the rarely seen gendarme, in all his glory . . ."
~ Phil Brady:
  "I know your friend Clancy—he doesn’t fool away time on nothing. If it’s politics, it may reach anywhere."
~ Georges Lebrun:
  ". . . was almost a dwarf in size, but his pride made up for lack of inches."
~ Jean Galtier:

  "Pale-haired, chalky of face, indeterminate, thin-lipped, a man of perhaps 
thirty-five, Galtier looked no man to be the lover of a fashionable beauty. I 
understood that these women reduced their lovers to a platonic state, how-
ever, making them fetch and carry more like dogs than men. For such a 
part, it struck me, this Galtier would be an ideal subject."

~ Levallois:
  "You now have the set complete?"
~ Madame de Lautenac:
  ". . . never have I seen anything more swift and shocking than the change in Madame de Lautenac. One moment proudly beautiful, the next she was shrinking in stark terror."
~ the Marquise d’Auteuil:
  ". . . my eyes went to the diamond-studded object on her corsage—a tiny stiletto, an 
ancient bit of gold-work. Its hilt would have meant a year’s income to me. Small as it 
was, it was large enough to let out a man’s life."

First sentence:
   "Half a second more, and the truck would have backed the little old man out of existence."
Final sentence:
   "Phil Brady did not get much of a story out of it, after all."

References and resources:
-  Several of the many rare stamps mentioned in the story: "a pair of the Niger Coast one-pound surcharge" (Dead Country Stamps and Banknotes HERE); "the Mauritius 'post-office' stamp" (Wikipedia HERE); "the unique Guiana rarity" (Wikipedia HERE).

~ "a man named Gersault, of the Apache class": A violent group broken up, ironically enough, by the First World War: "Les Apaches was a Parisian Belle Époque violent criminal under-world subculture of early 20th-century hooligans, night muggers, street gangs and other criminals." — Wikipedia (HERE).

~ "stroking his gray imperial": A moustache style: "Imperial – whiskers growing from 
both the upper lip and cheeks, curled upward (distinct from the royale, or impériale)." 
— Wikipedia (HERE).

~ "a base hospital on the Moroccan front": At the time of our story, Morocco was under French control:

  "The treaties officially assured Morocco of its legal status as a sovereign state, and the sultan remained the country's head of state. In practice, the sultan had no real power and the country was ruled by the colonial administration. French civil servants allied themselves with the French settlers and with their supporters in France to prevent any moves in the direction of Moroccan autonomy. As 'pacification' proceeded, the French government focused on the exploitation of Morocco's mineral wealth, the creation of a modern transportation system, and the development of a modern agricultural sector geared to the French market. Tens of thousands of colons, or colonists, entered Morocco and acquired large tracts of the rich agricultural land. Morocco was home to half a million Europeans. They formed almost half the population of the city of Casablanca. Since the kingdom's independence in 1956, the European element has largely departed." — Wikipedia (HERE).

~ "a wealthy title bought under the Empire": It's unclear whether the First French Empire (Wikipedia HERE) or the Second (Wikipedia HERE) is meant, probably the latter.
~ "killed at Verdun": The longest battle in the First World War:

  "The battle lasted for 303 days, the longest and one of the most costly in human history. In 2000, Hannes Heer and K. Naumann calculated that the French suffered 377,231 casualties and the Germans 337,000, a total of 714,231 and an average of 70,000 a month. In 2014, William Philpott wrote of 976,000 casualties in 1916 and 1,250,000 suffered around the city during the war. In France, the battle came to symbolise the determination of the French Army and the destructiveness of the war." 
— Wikipedia (HERE).

~ "Clancy’s half-formed notions about the Hotel Drouot": You could buy just about anything there: "Hôtel Drouot is a large auction house in Paris, known for fine art, antiques, and antiquities." — Wikipedia (HERE).

~ "Marie Antoinette’s nightcap": As everybody knows, she lost her head: "Marie Antoinette (born Maria Antonia Josepha Johanna, 1755-93) was the last Queen of France before the French Revolution." —  Wikipedia (HERE).
~ "a dozen places to get absinth": Usually spelled with a final e: "Absinthe has often been portrayed as a dangerously addictive psychoactive drug and hallucinogen." — Wikipedia (HERE).
~ "dressed up to the nines": A once popular expression (Wikipedia HERE).
~ "her bonne à tout faire had departed": Probably meaning a chamber-maid.
~ "it is Faust, which matters nothing until the ballet at the end": An opera first performed in 1859: "In 1869 a ballet had to be inserted (into the first scene of the final act) before the work could be played at the Opéra: it became the most frequently performed opera at that house. With the change from spoken dialogue to sung recitatives, plus the musical and balletic additions, the opera was thus finally transformed into a work following the conventions of grand opera." — Wikipedia (HERE).

~ "Cleopatra's vinegar destroyed no greater value than this little meal": "The Banquet of Cleopatra is the title of several works showing the culmination of a wager between Cleopatra and Mark Antony as to which one could provide the most expensive feast. As recounted in Pliny the Elder's Natural History she wins the wager: after Mark Antony's feast, Cleopatra drops a rare and precious pearl from her earring into a cup of vinegar and drinks it once the pearl has dissolved." — Wikipedia (HERE and HERE).

- Another murder mystery featuring stamps and set in Paris, this one a motion picture starring Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn, is Charade (1963; SPOILERS; Wikipedia HERE).

- There's an article about Henry James O'Brien Bedford-Jones on Wikipedia (HERE); meanwhile The Pulp Super-Fan (HERE) covers Bedford-Jones's career in some detail.
- If you prefer longer fiction, Bedford-Jones's novel The Mardi Gras Mystery (1921) is available at Project Gutenberg (HERE).
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Surprises Had Come Too Fast—Surprise Number One Being That He Was Still Alive"

SCIENCE FICTION often deals with the impact of new developments on society, e.g., if more people have cars, how would that affect the birthrate? (Think about it.) The advent of personal force shields on society at large and social status in particular is the main concern of today's story, appropriately entitled . . .

"Crack in the Shield."
By Arthur Sellings (Arthur Gordon Ley, 1921-68).
First appearance: The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, January 1968.

Reprints page (HERE).
Novelette (26 pages).
Online at Archive.org (HERE).

     "A gun spoke from somewhere."

It seems self-evident—in fact, blindingly obvious—that if everyone is impervious to harm, crime would plummet—and wouldn't that be great? But, then, there are always unintended consequences . . .

Characters:
~ Randall Gotfryd:
  "Some of you could find yourselves laughing all the way down to the Street."
~ Freda Tawn:
  ". . . had turned on her heel and was stalking off."
~ George Bleckendorf:
  "George had a wicked sense of humor, but he kept it in check at his wife's gatherings."
~ Ray Donovan:
  "All you millions of people behind your smug little personal shields and car shields and house shields are living in a womb."
~ Gloria Paston:
  "Why, hel-lo. Where have you been hiding your gorgeous self all this time?"
~ Philip Tawn:
  ". . . ran amok—such being the world in which he lived—with the utmost probity, within himself."
~ Kim:
  "They didn't solve the problem of violence, only retreated from it."

First sentence:
   "The day—the climactic day in the life of Philip Tawn—began with deceptive normality."
Final sentence:
   "The trumpets sounded fine."

Comment: The Eloi (HERE)-Morlock (HERE) schism flipped over with a few clever tweaks.

Resources:
- "Chicago's nurse slayer": A sensational crime that dominated the news at the time of our story's publication:

   "Richard Benjamin Speck (1941-91) was an American mass murderer who systematically tortured, raped, and murdered eight student nurses from South Chicago Community Hospital on the night of July 13 into the early morning hours of July 14, 1966." — Wikipedia (HERE).

- "Austin's mad sniper": A mass murderer whose story has attracted the attention of movie and TV producers over the years:

   "On August 1, 1966, after stabbing his mother and his wife to death the night before, Charles Whitman (1941-66), a former Marine, took rifles and other weapons to the observation deck atop the Main Building tower at the University of Texas at Austin, then opened fire indiscriminately on people on the surrounding campus and streets. Over the next 96 minutes he shot and killed 14 more people (including an unborn baby) and injured 31 others. One final victim died in 2001 from the lingering effects of his wounds. The incident ended when a policeman and a civilian reached Whitman and shot him dead. The attack was the deadliest mass shooting by a lone gunman in U.S. history until it was surpassed 18 years later by the San Ysidro McDonald's massacre." — Wikipedia (HERE).

- "the riot in 1967": Referring to civil unrest in Motor City:

   "The 1967 Detroit Rebellion, also known as the 1967 Detroit Riot or 12th Street riot was the bloodiest incident in the 'Long, hot summer of 1967'. Composed mainly of confrontations between black residents and the Detroit Police Department, it began in the early morning hours of Sunday July 23, 1967, in Detroit, Michigan. The precipitating event was a police raid of an unlicensed, after-hours bar then known as a blind pig, on the city's Near 
West Side. It exploded into one of the deadliest and most destructive riots in American history, lasting five days and surpassing the violence and property destruction of Detroit's 1943 race riot 24 years earlier." — Wikipedia (HERE).

- "he had been without the protection of his shield": An artificial force field:

   "In speculative fiction, a force field, sometimes known as an energy shield, force shield, force bubble, defence shield or deflector shield, is a barrier made of energy, plasma, or particles. It protects a person, area, or object from attacks or intrusions. This fictional technology is created as a field of energy without mass that acts as a wall, so that objects affected by the particular force relating to the field are unable to pass through the field and reach the other side. This concept has become a staple of many science-fiction works, so much that authors frequently do not even bother to explain or justify them to their readers, treating them almost as established fact and attributing whatever capabilities the plot requires." — Wikipedia (HERE).

- "much more primitive roots of totem and taboo": An oblique allusion to a book by Sigmund Freud (Wikipedia HERE).

- "guns synchronized to shoot through the sweep of their airscrews": Quite popular for a while:

   "A synchronization gear, or a gun synchronizer, sometimes rather less accurately called an interrupter, is attached to the armament of a single-engine tractor-configuration aircraft so it can fire through the arc of its spinning propeller without bullets striking the blades. The idea presupposes a fixed armament directed by aiming the aircraft in which it is fitted at the target, rather than aiming the gun independently." — Wikipedia (HERE).

- Until his fatal heart attack, Arthur Sellings was on a roll to achieve even greater fame in SFF circles; see Wikipedia (HERE), the SFE (HERE), and the ISFDb (HERE).
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"He Ran His Eyes Over the Array of Death Weapons and the Heat of Passion Blued His Eyes"

EDWARD WELLEN is remembered primarily for his SFF (science fiction-fantasy), but now and then he would wander confidently into pure crime fiction territory, an example of which 
is . . .

"Bannerman Collection."
By Edward Wellen (1919-2011).
First appearance: Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine, September 1976.

Short short story (7 pages).
Online at The Luminist Archives (HERE; scroll down to 
text page 59/PDF page 61).

     "Lloyd planned a surprise for his bride's wealthy uncle—but things failed 
to work exactly as planned."

A clichéd plot saved by a neat, but nasty, twist . . .

Characters:
~ Natalie Bannerman Pollard:
  ". . . had come into millions."
~ Lloyd Pollard:
  ". . . had a right to share in those millions."
~ Roland Bannerman:
  ". . . it would be well if you were to do some reconsidering of your own."

Resources:
- You might remember Edward Paul Wellen's SFF-crime fiction crossovers that we've featured on ONTOS: "Origins of Galactic Law" (HERE), "Hijack" (HERE), "Mouthpiece" (HERE), and "While-You-Wait" and "Finger of Fate" (HERE).
- The SFE (HERE) and the ISFDb (HERE) concern themselves only with Wellen's SFF; his contact with Hollywood seems to have been limited to providing the story for a single episode of Bourbon Street Beat (1960; IMDb HERE).
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"A Brilliant, Imaginative Ameboid Criminal at Large on a Planet As Volatile Culturally As Earth!"

TODAY'S AUTHOR was "notable for many stories with satirical elements," and this tale is certainly no exception . . .

"Party of the Two Parts."
By William Tenn (Philip Klass, 1920-2010).
Illustrations by Ashman (HERE).

First appearance: Galaxy, August 1954.

Reprints page (HERE).
Collected in Immodest Proposals: The Complete Science Fiction 
of William Tenn, Volume 1 (2001).

Novelette (24 pages).

Online at Archive.org (HERE).
(Note: Faded text.)

     "As you've no doubt suspected by now, most of the trouble has to do with that damp and irritating third planet of Sol . . ."

It's amazing how a known criminal could start a fashion revolution . . .

Characters:
~ Stellar Sergeant O-Dik-Veh, Commander of Outlying Patrol Office 1001625:
  "I notified all our agents in North America to be on the alert and settled back to wait it out with prayerfully knotted tentacles."
~ L'payr:
  ". . . thought about the problem until his nucleus was a mass of corrugations."
~ Osborne Blatch:
  "This elderly teacher of adolescent terrestrials insisted throughout all my interrogations that, to the best of his knowledge, no mental force was used upon him."
~ Stellar Corporal Pah-Chi-Luh:
  "He had never before encountered such complete self-assurance in the face of a perfect structure of criminal evidence."

Typo: "TOP PRIORORITY".

Comment: "I have," O-Dik-Veh informs us, "to maintain a staff of about two hundred agents on their planet, all encased in clumsy and uncomfortable protoplasmic disguises . . ." Of course it's just a coincidence that the producers of the Men in Black franchise came up with the same basic premise forty-three years later . . .

References and resources:
~ "Vega XXI": So far no planets, much less twenty-one of them, have been confirmed orbiting the star Vega; however,". . . the presence of a planetary system can not yet be ruled out. Thus there could be smaller, terrestrial planets orbiting closer to the star. The inclination of planetary orbits around Vega is likely to be closely aligned to the equatorial plane of this star." — Wikipedia (HERE).

~ "the planet they call Pluto": At the time our story was published, Pluto was classified as 
a full-fledged planet (and as far we're concerned, it always will be): "Pluto (minor planet designation: 134340 Pluto) is a dwarf planet in the Kuiper belt, a ring of bodies beyond 
the orbit of Neptune. It was the first Kuiper belt object to be discovered and is the largest 
known plutoid (or ice dwarf)." — Wikipedia (HERE and HERE).

~ "halfway between the third and fourth planets": That is, between Earth and Mars.

~ "reproduce by asexual fission": You have to wonder how much fun that is: "Some organ-isms, all single-celled, can asexually reproduce simply through the act of dividing their cells. When this division creates two identical cells, it is referred to as binary fission. When it creates three or more new cells, it is called multiple fission. Either way, a number of bacteria and protists rely on this form of asexual reproduction to replicate their DNA." — Science Terms (HERE).

~ "the Hercules Cluster M13": If you've got a spaceship and you're on the run from the law, it's a great place to hide: "Messier 13 or M-13, also designated NGC-6205 and sometimes called the Great Globular Cluster in Hercules or the Hercules Globular Cluster, is a globular cluster of several hundred thousand stars in the constellation of Hercules." — Wikipedia (HERE).

~ "Ganymede, the largest satellite of the planet Jupiter": It's also "the ninth largest object in the Solar System, [and] the largest without a substantial atmosphere." — Wikipedia (HERE and HERE).

~ "the time of Leewenhoek [sic]": That would be Antonie Philips van Leeuwenhoek (1632-1723), "best known for his pioneering work in microscopy and for his contributions toward the establishment of microbiology as a scientific discipline." — Wikipedia (HERE).

~ "the Rigellian-Sagittarian Convention": "Rigellian" is the adjectival form of Rigel, a star roughly 860 light-years from Earth (Wikipedia HERE and HERE), and "Sagittarian" the adjectival form of Sagittarius, a constellation towards which the center of the Milky Way 

galaxy lies (Wikipedia HERE).

~ "Antares XII": A red supergiant star, this one about 550 light-years distant; current cosmological theory frowns upon the notion that it might have any planets: "Antares appears as a single star when viewed with the naked eye, but it is actually a binary star, with its two components called α Scorpii A and α Scorpii B." — Wikipedia (HERE and HERE).

~ "the Black Hole in Cygnus": Not a lucky guess on the author's part since the term referring to a gravitational anomaly didn't become commonplace until the next decade; the Black Hole he's referring to is meant as a counterpart to the infamous Black Hole of Calcutta, a dungeon in which "British soldiers, Anglo-Indian soldiers, and Indian civilians were imprisoned over-
night in conditions so cramped that many people died from suffocation and heat exhaustion" (Wikipedia HERE). There is, however, thought to be an unobserved black hole in the Cygnus constellation (Wikipedia HERE): "This hypothesis lacks direct empirical evidence but has generally been accepted from indirect evidence."
- Using both the William Tenn byline for his science fiction and his real name for everything else, Wikipedia (HERE) tells us that "Klass published academic articles, essays, two novels and more than 60 short stories"; the SFE (HERE) notes, "From the first, Tenn was one of the genre's very few genuinely comic, genuinely incisive writers of short fiction." See more at 
his home page (HERE), the ISFDb (HERE), the "Official Bibliography" (HERE), and the IMDb (HERE), the last giving him only five story credits.
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