Free Mildred Pierced by Stuart M. Kaminsky

hands,” he said. “By 1330 in Europe they were making prods—”
    “Prods?”
    “Springs,” he explained. “Of steel with pulls of fifty pounds and much more. Deadly at distances well over one hundred and fifty feet.”
    “Are they hard to make?”
    “Not if you know what you are doing,” he said. “It’s relatively easy to buy plans for crossbows, or to buy them already made.”
    “The things they shoot—bolts, quarrels, whatever,” I said. “Are they all pretty much the same?’
    “No,” he said. “Different lengths, designs, even special specifications for the avid user.”
    “Is there any way of telling if one of these bolts came from a particular, I mean, a specific crossbow?”
    “You mean like ballistics with a bullet? No, but if you show me a bolt and a crossbow, I can tell you if that bolt was shot from that specific design of crossbow.”
    I looked at Gunther. He didn’t seem to have any questions.
    “Thanks,” I said. “Would you be willing to testify in court as a crossbow expert?”
    Blake beamed.
    “Murder case?” he asked.
    “Yes,” I said.
    “Sure.”
    I thanked him. He ushered us back to the tunnel, shook our hands and got back in the elevator.
    Dinah Shore sang “April in Paris” to us in the car as we headed back to Hollywood and Mrs. Plaut’s.
    Back at Mrs. Plaut’s, I got undressed, put on a pair of clean boxer shorts, pulled the mattress to the floor, and sat in my armchair reading Mrs. Plaut’s pages:
THE EPISODE OF THE SILVER CREEK GHOST
He is said to have had a small but distinctly purple wart on the end of his nose, which was the only distraction from what was generally agreed to be a face rivaling that of the infamous but handsome male members of the Booth family, particularly Edwin not the one who shot Mr. President Abraham Lincoln. My grandfather Wallace Edward Hamilton Simcox whose name was longer than he was tall since he is reported to have been no more than five feet and three inches in height even before he shrunk from the natural mystery of age.
My grandfather resided in Silver Creek, Colorado with my grandmother and their two sons, Wayne and Warren. My grandfather was the foreman of the December Silver Mine, a very responsible job.
It is reported though I don’t remember it myself that my grandfather was weak of eye, fond of the bottle and possessed no sense of direction often walking two miles the wrong way to work though he traversed the self same road for more than twenty-five years.
One night after stopping after work at the Horseback Saloon to get quite stinking drunk which he felt was his right and obligation as a hard working man once a week, he recalled that he had left a lantern burning near a shaft. He had done no such of a thing but the recollection had come to him in his cups.
Mason Thurling, who made a meager but honest living cleaning the spittoons at the Horseback, had volunteered to accompany my father back to the mine to be sure he went in the right direction. All in the Horseback thought this an idea of merit. We are talking about a barroom filled with drunken louts who would not know an idea of merit were it branded on their bicuspids and they could taste it.
Mason Thurling was the town drunk in a town of drunks, an accomplishment of no small stature.
And so they proceeded back to the December on a moonless night. They discovered no lamp left lit and in the darkness Mason tumbled over a wheelbarrow and went unconscious. My grandfather stumbled toward the mineshaft and was about to step into it when the ghost appeared glowing in front of him.
Stop you goddamned fool the ghost so said to my grandfather who stopped.
The ghost so my grandfather said afterwards looked exactly like Dolly Madison though when questioned my grandfather could not give accurate information on where he might have seen Dolly Madison’s image.
My grandfather took several steps back and tripped over Mason Thurling who awoke with a start seeing the ghost. Mason’s