SHORT STORY WEDNESDAY: THE PROBLEM OF THE COUNTY FAIR

 "The Problem of the County Fair" by Edward D. Hoch  (first published in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, February 1978; reprinted in Uncollected Crimes, edited by Bill Pronzini & Martin H. Greenberg, 1987; reprinted in Hoch's collection Diagnosis:  Impossible:  The Problems of Dr. Sam Hawthorne, 2004)   

Ed Hoch began his Dr. Sam Hawthorne series of short stories with "The Problem of the Covered Bridge" (EQMM, 12/74); the series ran for 72 stories, concluding with "The Problem of the English Patient" (EQMM, 5/2008).  Hawthorne is a small town country doctor, probably born around 1896; the mysteries take place usually in the New England town of Northmont during the 1920's, 30's and 40's.  The vast majority of the stories 9perhaps all) involve "impossible crimes."

"The Problem of the County Fair," the eleventh story in the series, takes place in 1927.  Hawthorne has been in practice for some five years, has a comfortable practice, and is well-know in the small community.  The County Fair has drawn a large crowd to Northmont, one of the attractions of this year is the dedication of a time capsule to commemorate the 300th anniversary of the town's founding.  The capsule was the brainchild of spinster Emma Thane, a straight-laced woman who was the closest thing Northmont had to a town historian. The capsule was constructed by Gus Antwerp, who had opened a local metal fabrication business almost a year ago.  Gus's office assistant is young Gert Friar, who is desperately in love with local "bad boy" Max McNear (the "bad boy" was now 31 years old; some reputations you don't outgrow).  Max had left town suddenly a year before after severely beating the Mayor's son's, who is still hospitalized because of his injuries; Gert has been pining for Max since he vanished, not knowing if he was alive or not.  Now, Gert had received a telephone call from Max the night before, saying he was coming back to Northmont, and they arranged to meet up at the fair.

The time capsule was a large cylinder with a two-foot opening at the top to be welded shut before burying.  Local residents and schoolchildren all had items they wished placed in the capsule, dropping them through the opening and allowing them to pile up inside.  Hawthorne's item was a copy of the local school's medical records from the year before, thinking that the information might be interesting to the people 100 years from now who would open the capsule.  Dropping his item into the capsule, he could see the pile of items that had already gone into it.  The capsule was welded shut and buried.

Meanwhile, Gert had searched the entire fairgrounds and could not find Max.  She did find his car , though, and it was covered in blood.  Emma Thane complained that Max's car had nearly hit her earlier that morning.  The Hawthorne found a school textbook on the fairgrounds, one that was supposed to been deposited in the capsule -- the schoolbook was covered in blood.  Fearing the worst, he convinced the mayor and the sheriff to have the capsule dug up and opened.  Inside the capsule was Max's body, his head smashed in.

Hawthorne himself had seen the inside of the capsule before it had been sealed and the body was not in it.  The capsule could not be entered by tunneling, and it was in plain sight by dozens of witnesses until it was buried.  The opening to the capsule was still welded shut when it was dug up and opened to discover the body.  An absolutely impossible murder.

But solving impossible murders is a specialty of Dr. Sam Hawthorne.

The remarkable thing is not that Dr. Sam solved the mystery; it's that he solved 71 other seemingly impossible crimes over his career.

The stories in the series are related by a much older Sam; he's probably about 80 years old when relating the mysteries.  For several years, the stories opened and closed with a framing device, with Hawthorne greeting a friend and pouring him a libation while he narrated the tale.  At the end he gave a hint of what story he would tell when the friend next stopped by.  Hoch gave up on the framing device fairly early in the series; it's only purpose seemed to be to allow the stories continue sequentially over the decades, but once that pattern was accepted, the saga did not really need to continue with the framing device.

Hawthorne was one of the most popular characters created by Hoch, who had written published nearly one thousand stories in his lifetime, mot of them extremely fair play detective stories.  Although he also wrote several novels and edited a number of anthologies, Hoch was perhaps the only modern writer of detective stories who wrote them fulltime.  Other popular detectives and series characters created by Hoch include thief Nick Velvet (who would steal only worthless items for a very large fee), Jeffrey Rand (a code and cipher expert for British Intelligence), Captain Jules Leopold (head of the Violent Crimes Division for a Connecticut city), Simon Ark (who claimed to be a 2000-year-old Coptic priest who travels the world seeking out evil), Ben Snow (an Old West detective often thought to be Billy the Kid by those who did not believe Pat Garrett shot him), Michael Vlado (a Gypsy king in contemporary Europe), Alexander Swift (an intelligence agent for George Washington during the Revolutionary War), Carl Crader and Earl Jazine ("computer cops" who appeared in three science fiction novels), Sebastian Blue and Laura Charm (Interpol agents), Al Darlan (private investigator, originally named Al Diamond, but Hoch changed his name to avoid confusion with television's Richard Diamond), Susan Holt ( in charge of promotions for a large department store), (David Piper (the "Manhunter," in charge of the Department of Apprehension), Father David Noone (an inner city priest), and Barney Hamet (mystery writer who finds murder at mystery conventions).  And there are probably others -- Hoch's inventiveness seems to have known no end.  It is easy to see why he became a mystery legend.

Check out any (or all) of Hoch's Dr. Sam Hawthorne stories, as well as his many other characters.  All of the Hawthorne stories are available in collections from Crippen and Landry.  Collections have also been published featuring stories about Simon Ark, Nick Velvet, Jeffrey Rand, Captain Leopold, Michael Vlado, Ben Snow, and David Noone, as well as other lesser characters.    (Full Disclosure:  Hawthorne is my third favorite Hoch character, trailing behind only slightly behind Simon Ark and Ben Snow.)