tales of the hotel st crispian, chapter 22: "Nolan"

by Horace P. Sternwall

edited by Dan Leo *

illustrated by rhoda penmarq, konrad kraus and roy dismas

*Ass’t Professor of Classics and Erudition, Olney Community College; editor of Reveille at Midnight: Selected Poems and Stories of Horace P. Sternwall (1942-1945); Olney Community College Press.

Francis J. Nolan had spent thirty years in the New York City Police Department, and, having served the last twelve years of his service at the rank of Detective First-Grade, he retired gladly at the age of fifty-one.  He had been shot at on several occasions and wounded by gunfire twice, once in the left thigh and once above his right lung. He had also been clubbed, sapped, tackled and punched on dozens of occasions. He had dealt with thousands of battered and bleeding people, and he had examined hundreds of dead men as well as women and children and infants; he had heard every type of scream and ungodly howl the human voice was capable of producing, and now upon his retirement he looked forward to a life of peace and tranquility.

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