100 malicious little mysteries by unknow

Author:unknow
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: caper, mystery, anthology, short-shorts, detective
ISBN: 9781402711015
Google: gcUni9MyBNoC
Publisher: Sterling Publishing Company Incorporated
Published: 2004-02-15T02:47:11+00:00

The Magnum by Jack Ritchie

Amos Weatherlee clutched a magnum of champagne in one hand and a hammer in the other.

He paused in the wide doorway of the hotel bar.

At this hour of the afternoon, the barroom was nearly empty except for the three women in one booth with Pink Ladies and a middle-aged man alone in another.

Weatherlee approached him and extended the hammer. “Pardon me, but I would regard it as an extreme favor if you would smash my bottle.”

Harry Sloan studied him warily. “Don’t you think that would make quite a mess?”

Weatherlee’s silver-gray hair was somewhat disheveled and he spoke with a slight slur. “I never thought of that. You don’t suppose that the bartender has a basin or something like that we could use?”

Sloan sipped his whiskey and soda. “If you’re really set on smashing that bottle, why don’t you do it yourself?”

Weatherlee sighed. “I tried. I really tried. Captain O’Reilly did too. So did Carruthers and Larson and Cooper and I don’t know how many more. It was quite a wild night.”

“What was?”

“Our club meeting a year ago.”

Sloan’s attention was distracted by the procession of a dozen elderly men filing through the hotel entrance. At least half of them walked with canes. They moved slowly across the lobby toward the open doors of a private dining room.

Sloan showed some interest. “Who in the world are they?”

“Our club,” Weatherlee said. “It’s our annual reunion.

The members just finished a sight-seeing bus tour of the city and now we’re going to have dinner.” He watched as the group entered the dining room. “We were all members of the same National Guard Company. We formed the club right after the war.”

“World War I?”

“No,” Weatherlee said. “The Spanish-American War.” Sloan regarded him skeptically.

“That’s Captain O’Reilly,” Weatherlee said. “Wearing the broad-brimmed campaign hat.” He sat down. “How old do you think I am?”

“I haven’t the faintest idea.”

“Ninety,” Weatherlee said proudly. “I was eighteen when I enlisted.”

“Sure,” Sloan said. “And I suppose you were a member of Teddy Roosevelt’s Rough Riders and charged up San Juan Hill?”

“No. Actually our outfit never got beyond Tampa before the war ended. Our only casualties were to yellow fever.”

“You look pretty spry for ninety.”

“I am,” Weatherlee said firmly. “I take a brisk half-hour walk every day and I’m still in full possession of all my faculties. In full possession.”

“Sure,” Sloan said. “Sure.”

“Of course we weren’t all the same age when we formed the club. Captain O’Reilly, for instance, our oldest man, was thirty-six. Twice as old as I at the time. He joined the club more in the spirit of good-fellowship, rather than really expecting to drink the bottle.”

Sloan eyed the magnum of champagne. “What kind of a club was this?”

“A Last Man club. Perhaps you’ve heard of them? We founded ours in 1898. Right after the war ended and we were waiting to get shipped home. We wanted one hundred members, but actually we could get only ninety-eight to sign up.”

“And those are the survivors? What’s left?”

“Oh, no.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.