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Piper, H. Beam, 1904-1964

"Murder in the Gunroom"


"You know, I sometimes wonder why we don't all come up here, break out
the ammunition, pick our weapons, and settle things," she said. "It never
was like this when Lane was around. Oh, Nelda and Geraldine would bare
their teeth at each other, once in a while, but now this place has turned
into a miniature Iwo Jima. I don't know how much longer I'm going to be
able to take it. I'm developing combat fatigue."
"It's snowing," Rand mentioned. "Let's throw them out into the storm."
"I can't. I have to give Nelda and Geraldine a home, as long as
they live," she replied. "Terms of the will. Oh, well, Geraldine'll
drink herself to death in a few years, and Nelda will elope with a
prize-fighter, sometime."
"Why don't you have the house haunted? The Tri-State Agency has an
excellent house-haunting department. Anything you want; poltergeists;
apparitions; cold, clammy hands in the dark; footsteps in the attic;
clanking chains and eldritch screams; banshees. Any three for the price
of two."
"It wouldn't work. Geraldine is so used to polka-dotted dinosaurs and
Little Green Men from Mars that she wouldn't mind an ordinary ghost, and
Nelda'd probably try to drag it into bed with her." She laid down the
pistol and slid off the desk.


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