Miscellaneous

"Stick 'em up"!
St. Joseph's College Magazine, 1949
By A.S.P. Gift I U.C.

It was a Monday evening when I seated myself before my table. I was very tired, for I had just returned from the playground after an hour and a half's game. I felt dull and lonely, for everyone except my father had gone out and even my father was busy in his office. Since I have a great liking for detective stories, I then remembered a magazine recommended to me by a neighbor. I found the magazine, which was full of true criminal cases from America, and I went to .the drawing-room (for my father's office was the next room) to read it.

The first story ended in a murder. A pair of young men walked into a liquor shop and demanded two bottles of whisky. The two men were neatly dressed and had a fine personality. An elderly man was at the counter and his son, a young man, moved to take the two bottles of whisky. Like lightning the two customers produced nickel-plated automatics and commanded curtly: "Hands up! Quick! It's a hold-up". When the old man stared at them, one of them added : " Stick 'em up--a false move--I'll shoot you down". When they began ordering the old man to give up all his day's income, his son at the bar took a bottle and flung it at one of the bandits. It hit him on the head. Two shots rang out and the brave young man stumbled down. The two bandits left the place with a sneer after emptying their revolvers into the dead man and at the counter, where the old man had dropped down and taken shelter. They took to flight in their waiting auto and when the Police arrived they could find no clues to the identity of the killer.

I was filled with horror, so I did not finish the story but turned the pages and began another story. It also was a description of a daylight robbery and gun-duel. Four men entered a bank at noon and demanded the cashier's money at gun-point. They covered the few customers with guns drawn and the leader took about $ 2000 in currency and stuffed it into his handbag ...... Accidentally a Police detective came from the rear and smelt something wrong. When he found the customers in the power of threatening gun-men he took his service revolver and taking his position behind a pile of boxes, waited till he thought it was safe for the customers, and when he saw the leader of the gang turning back towards the door with the bag of money, he opened fire. The robber ran out with a wild cry of pain clutching his right arm. In the gun-battle that followed one of the bandits dropped down and the other two carried him out after sending a hail of wild bullets into the air. The four stick-up men vanished in their new car and the Police arrived only to find the cashier and a customer mortally wounded.

I was so terribly alarmed that I threw away the magazine. I was almost sleeping when I took up the half finished "Valley of Fear" written by the famous Conan Doyle. It is a good story book with Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson.

I heard a car coming to a sudden stop before our house and I could see three good-looking, neatly dressed men walking into my father's office. My father is a secretary in a big bank in town and so the visit was not unusual, but the men had peculiar bulges in their coat pockets. They shook hands with my father and one of them wearing rimless spectacles sat by my father and began chatting.

All of a sudden the three men rose and the man with rimless glasses pressed a revolver against my father and ordered him to throw his hands up in the air. They demanded Rs. 10,000 and added that if he failed to give them they would blow out his brains. My father had drawn Rs. 10,000 from the bank as a loan only that afternoon to buy a field the next day in a nearby village. He turned towards the door and looked as if for help, but a stern command "Quick" from the bandit leader made him stare at them.

I sat there motionless for some moments and then a plan flashed on my mind. I knew my father's weapon had been cleaned only the day previous, and it lay fully loaded in a drawer next to me. I took it from the drawer without making any noise and raised it to shoot. 1 had handled it about half a dozen times, but now it seemed very heavy. With great difficulty I aimed it at the bandit leader's head with my shaking hands. When I was about to pull the trigger my trembling hands gave way under the heavy gun and down it went with a terrible crash. I heard heavy footsteps and my heart was beating very fast and I feared it might stop altogether.

At once I cried out "Help" from the depth of my throat. Suddenly I woke up and stared at my father and mother who were looking at the table with wide-open eyes. I also turned my glance towards the table only to find the expensive table-lamp with its beautiful dome and bulb shattered to fragments; the big volume of "Valley of Fear" lay in the middle of them. Then only did I realize that it was a dream, and instead of the revolver, I had dropped the story book on the table-lamp. Though I was very sorry for the new table-lamp, I was glad there was no stick-up and gun-battle in our house to end with murder.