The Mammoth Book of Modern Ghost Stories

They called for another snort of hooch, testing its strength in the approved gangster way by dipping a finger in it. The nail remaining undissolved, they drank confidently.

In the library of the reassembled Moat Place, Julius Plugg squirmed on a divan and cursed his folly in not entrusting the secret plans of his Pulveriser to the strong-room of his factory. Only a simp would have asked for it by bringing them home, he told himself bluntly. But it was too late now to do anything about them, for he was roped down as tightly as a thrown steer. Also he was gagged with his own handkerchief, a circumstance which gave him literally a pain in the neck.

Mrs Plugg, similarly captive in the big armchair had shed her normal dignity in a way which would have startled the Ararat Branch of the Women’s Watch and Ward Fellowship, over which she presided. Her head was completely obscured by a large wicker wastepaper-basket, and through it there filtered strange canine noises.

As for Hiram Plugg, the leader of sophomore fashion, he was lashed so firmly to the suit of armour in the corner that it positively hurt him to blink; for before the high rewards of ace-gunning had attracted Blowzy Bolloni to the civilization of the West he had helped his father with his fishing-nets in Sicily, and it was now his boast that he could tie a victim up quicker and more unpleasantly than any other gangster in the States.

At the back of the library Redgat Ike lounged gracefully on the table with a finger curled ready round the trigger of a Thompson submachine-gun, trained on the door. He grinned amiably as he thought how bug-house the servants had looked as they went down before his little chloroform-squirt, the cook clutching a rolling-pin and the butler muttering he’d rung the cops already – the poor bozo not knowing the wire had been cut an hour before. Oh, it was a couple of grands for nothing, a show like this. Redgat couldn’t think why every one wasn’t a gangster.

Bolloni and Toledo and the Bug, who had been searching the panels for signs of the safe, gave it up and gathered round the prostrate form of Mr Plugg, who snarled at them as fiercely as he could manage through his nose.

“Come on, Mister,” said Bolloni, “we ain’t playing Hunt the Slipper any more. You’d better squawk where that tin box is and its combination. Otherwise my boyfriend over there might kinda touch his toy by mistake, and that’s goodbye to that teapot dome of yours.” He smiled evilly at Redgat, who smiled back and swung the machine-gun into line with Mr Plugg’s bald head.

“Have his comforter out and see what he says,” suggested Toledo. But, shorn of much pungent criticism of the gangsters and their heredity, all Mr Plugg said was, “There’s no safe here, you big bunch of saps.”

Most sailormen are practical and many are crude. Bolloni was both. Replacing the gag in Mr Plugg’s champing jaws, he drew from his pocket a twelve-bore shot-gun sawn off at the breech and pressed it persuasively against Mr Plugg’s ample stomach. With his other hand he took a firm grip of the magnate’s moustache and began to heave.

“When you sorta remember about the safe,” he said, “give three toots on your nose.”

Who would blame Mr Plugg? Gathering together his remaining breath, he let out a first toot which would have done honour to a Thames tug. He was filling up with air for a second one when suddenly the three gangsters sprang round as if stung. Painfully he turned his head, to see a strange figure standing by the bookshelves. (You’ve got it first guess. It was.)

Tristram hadn’t noticed the others. He was poring over a set of Spenser when Redgat slid back his trigger, and it was not until a heavy .45 bullet tore the book from his hand that he realized that something was happening. A stream of lead was hurtling through him and turning a priceless edition of Boccaccio to pulp, but he felt nothing. He was filled only with resentment at such ill-mannered interruption.

None of the gangsters had ever seen a man take fifty bullets in the chest and remain perpendicular. The sight unnerved them. Redgat continued to fire as accurately as before, but the other three stood irresolute.

Before Bolloni could dodge him Tristram had picked up what was left of The Faëry Queen and brought it down with terrific force on his head, dropping him like a skittle. Boiling with rage, Tristram grabbed up The Anatomy of Melancholy and set about Toledo and the Bug. One of them discharged the shotgun full in his face, but not with any great hope – Gee! a ritzy guy in fancy-dress who only got fresher after a whole drum of slugs!

It was soon over. Redgat clung to his beloved machine-gun to the end, unable to believe that a second drum wouldn’t take effect. But he, too, went down to a thundering crack on the jaw from an illustrated Apocrypha . . .