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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Murder in the Gunroom, by Henry Beam Piper
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Murder in the Gunroom
+
+Author: Henry Beam Piper
+
+Release Date: February 26, 2006 [EBook #17866]
+Last updated: January 27, 2009
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MURDER IN THE GUNROOM ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
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+
+
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+
+
+
+                        MURDER IN THE GUNROOM
+
+                          By H. BEAM PIPER
+
+
+
+                              NEW YORK
+                       _Alfred A. Knopf_ 1953
+                            FIRST EDITION
+
+
+
+
+TO _Colonel Henry W. Shoemaker_ an old and valued friend, who was
+promised this dedication, with an entirely different novel in mind,
+twenty-two years ago.
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+_The Lane Fleming collection of early pistols and revolvers was one of
+the best in the country. When Fleming was found dead on the floor of
+his locked gunroom, a Confederate-made Colt-type percussion .36 revolver
+in his hand, the coroner's verdict was "death by accident." But Gladys
+Fleming had her doubts. Enough at any rate to engage Colonel Jefferson
+Davis Rand--better known just as Jeff--private detective and a
+pistol-collector himself, to catalogue, appraise, and negotiate the
+sale of her late husband's collection.
+
+There were a number of people who had wanted the collection. The
+question was: had anyone wanted it badly enough to kill Fleming? And if
+so, how had he done it? Here is a mystery, told against the fascinating
+background of old guns and gun-collecting, which is rapid-fire without
+being hysterical, exciting without losing its contact with reason, and
+which introduces a personable and intelligent new private detective. It
+is a story that will keep your nerves on a hair trigger even if you don't
+know the difference between a cased pair of Paterson .34's and a Texas
+.40 with a ramming-lever._
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 1
+
+
+It was hard to judge Jeff Rand's age from his appearance; he was
+certainly over thirty and considerably under fifty. He looked hard and
+fit, like a man who could be a serviceable friend or a particularly
+unpleasant enemy. Women instinctively suspected that he would make a
+most satisfying lover. One might have taken him for a successful lawyer
+(he had studied law, years ago), or a military officer in mufti (he still
+had a Reserve colonelcy, and used the title occasionally, to impress
+people who he thought needed impressing), or a prosperous businessman,
+as he usually thought of himself. Most of all, he looked like King
+Charles II of England anachronistically clad in a Brooks Brothers suit.
+
+At the moment, he was looking rather like King Charles II being bothered
+by one of his mistresses who wanted a peerage for her husband.
+
+"But, Mrs. Fleming," he was expostulating. "There surely must be somebody
+else.... After all, you'll have to admit that this isn't the sort of work
+this agency handles."
+
+The would-be client released a series of smoke-rings and watched them
+float up toward the air-outlet at the office ceiling. It spoke well for
+Rand's ability to subordinate esthetic to business considerations that he
+was trying to give her a courteous and humane brush-off. She made even
+the Petty and Varga girls seem credible. Her color-scheme was blue and
+gold; blue eyes, and a blue tailored outfit that would have looked severe
+on a less curvate figure, and a charmingly absurd little blue hat perched
+on a mass of golden hair. If Rand had been Charles II, she could have
+walked out of there with a duchess's coronet, and Nell Gwyn would have
+been back selling oranges.
+
+"Why isn't it?" she countered. "Your door's marked _Tri-State Detective
+Agency, Jefferson Davis Rand, Investigation and Protection_. Well, I want
+to know how much the collection's worth, and who'll pay the closest to
+it. That's investigation, isn't it? And I want protection from being
+swindled. And don't tell me you can't do it. You're a pistol-collector,
+yourself; you have one of the best small collections in the state. And
+you're a recognized authority on early pistols; I've read some of your
+articles in the _Rifleman_. If you can't handle this, I don't know who
+can."
+
+Rand's frown deepened. He wondered how much Gladys Fleming knew about the
+principles of General Semantics. Even if she didn't know anything, she
+was still edging him into an untenable position. He hastily shifted from
+the attempt to identify his business with the label, "private detective
+agency."
+
+"Well, here, Mrs. Fleming," he explained. "My business, including
+armed-guard and protected-delivery service, and general investigation
+and protection work, requires some personal supervision, but none of
+it demands my exclusive attention. Now, if you wanted some routine
+investigation made, I could turn it over to my staff, maybe put two or
+three men to work on it. But there's nothing about this business of yours
+that I could delegate to anybody; I'd have to do it all myself, at the
+expense of neglecting the rest of my business. Now, I could do what you
+want done, but it would cost you three or four times what you'd gain by
+retaining me."
+
+"Well, let me decide that, Colonel," she replied. "How much would you
+have to have?"
+
+"Well, this collection of your late husband's consists of some
+twenty-five hundred pistols and revolvers, all types and periods," Rand
+said. "You want me to catalogue it, appraise each item, issue lists, and
+negotiate with prospective buyers. The cataloguing and appraisal alone
+would take from a week to ten days, and it would be a couple more weeks
+until a satisfactory sale could be arranged. Why, say five thousand
+dollars; a thousand as a retainer and the rest on completion."
+
+That, he thought, would settle that. He was expecting an indignant
+outcry, and hardened his heart, like Pharaoh. Instead, Gladys Fleming
+nodded equably.
+
+"That seems reasonable enough, Colonel Rand, considering that you'd have
+to be staying with us at Rosemont, away from your office," she agreed.
+"I'll give you a check for the thousand now, with a letter of
+authorization."
+
+Rand nodded in return. Being thoroughly conscious of the fact that
+he could only know a thin film of the events on the surface of any
+situation, he was not easily surprised.
+
+"Very well," he said. "You've hired an arms-expert. I'll be in Rosemont
+some time tomorrow afternoon. Now, who are these prospective purchasers
+you mentioned, and just how prospective, in terms of United States
+currency, are they?"
+
+"Well, for one, there's Arnold Rivers; he's offering ten thousand for the
+collection. I suppose you know of him; he has an antique-arms business at
+Rosemont."
+
+"I've done some business with him," Rand admitted. "Who else?"
+
+"There's a commission-dealer named Carl Gwinnett, who wants to handle
+the collection for us, for twenty per cent. I'm told that that isn't an
+unusually exorbitant commission, but I'm not exactly crazy about the
+idea."
+
+"You shouldn't be, if you want your money in a hurry," Rand told her.
+"He'd take at least five years to get everything sold. He wouldn't dump
+the whole collection on the market at once, upset prices, and spoil his
+future business. You know, two thousand five hundred pistols of the sort
+Mr. Fleming had, coming on the market in a lot, could do just that. The
+old-arms market isn't so large that it couldn't be easily saturated."
+
+"That's what I'd been thinking.... And then, there are some private
+collectors, mostly friends of Lane's--Mr. Fleming's--who are talking
+about forming a pool to buy the collection for distribution among
+themselves," she continued.
+
+"That's more like it," Rand approved. "If they can raise enough money
+among them, that is. They won't want the stuff for resale, and they may
+pay something resembling a decent price. Who are they?"
+
+"Well, Stephen Gresham appears to be the leading spirit," she said. "The
+corporation lawyer, you know. Then, there is a Mr. Trehearne, and a Mr.
+MacBride, and Philip Cabot, and one or two others."
+
+"I know Gresham and Cabot," Rand said. "They're both friends of mine, and
+I have an account with Cabot, Joyner & Teale, Cabot's brokerage firm.
+I've corresponded with MacBride; he specializes in Colts.... You're the
+sole owner, I take it?"
+
+"Well, no." She paused, picking her words carefully. "We may just run
+into a little trouble, there. You see, the collection is part of the
+residue of the estate, left equally to myself and my two stepdaughters,
+Nelda Dunmore and Geraldine Varcek. You understand, Mr. Fleming and I
+were married in 1941; his first wife died fifteen years before."
+
+"Well, your stepdaughters, now; would they also be my clients?"
+
+"Good Lord, no!" That amused her considerably more than it did Rand.
+"Of course," she continued, "they're just as interested in selling the
+collection for the best possible price, but beyond that, there may be a
+slight divergence of opinion. For instance, Nelda's husband, Fred
+Dunmore, has been insisting that we let him handle the sale of the
+pistols, on the grounds that he is something he calls a businessman.
+Nelda supports him in this. It was Fred who got this ten-thousand-dollar
+offer from Rivers. Personally, I think Rivers is playing him for a
+sucker. Outside his own line, Fred is an awful innocent, and I've never
+trusted this man Rivers. Lane had some trouble with him, just before ..."
+
+"Arnold Rivers," Rand said, when it was evident that she was not going
+to continue, "has the reputation, among collectors, of being the biggest
+crook in the old-gun racket, a reputation he seems determined to live
+up--or down--to. But here; if your stepdaughters are co-owners, what's
+my status? What authority, if any, have I to do any negotiating?"
+
+Gladys Fleming laughed musically. "That, my dear Colonel, is where you
+earn your fee," she told him. "Actually, it won't be as hard as it looks.
+If Nelda gives you any argument, you can count on Geraldine to take your
+side as a matter of principle; if Geraldine objects first, Nelda will
+help you steam-roll her into line. Fred Dunmore is accustomed to dealing
+with a lot of yes-men at the plant; you shouldn't have any trouble
+shouting him down. Anton Varcek won't be interested, one way or another;
+he has what amounts to a pathological phobia about firearms of any sort.
+And Humphrey Goode, our attorney, who's executor of the estate, will
+welcome you with open arms, once he finds out what you want to do. That
+collection has him talking to himself, already. Look; if you come out
+to our happy home in the early afternoon, before Fred and Anton get back
+from the plant, we ought to ram through some sort of agreement with
+Geraldine and Nelda."
+
+"You and whoever else sides with me will be a majority," Rand considered.
+"Of course, the other one may pull a Gromyko on us, but ... I think I'll
+talk to Goode, first."
+
+"Yes. That would be smart," Gladys Fleming agreed. "After all, he's
+responsible for selling the collection." She crossed to the desk and sat
+down in Rand's chair while she wrote out the check and a short letter of
+authorization, then she returned to her own seat.
+
+"There's another thing," she continued, lighting a fresh cigarette.
+"Because of the manner of Mr. Fleming's death, the girls have a horror of
+the collection almost--but not quite--as strong as their desire to get
+the best possible price for it."
+
+"Yes. I'd heard that Mr. Fleming had been killed in a firearms accident,
+last November," Rand mentioned.
+
+"It was with one of his collection-pieces," the widow replied. "One
+he'd bought just that day; a Confederate-made Colt-type percussion .36
+revolver. He'd brought it home with him, simply delighted with it, and
+started cleaning it at once. He could hardly wait until dinner was over
+to get back to work on it.
+
+"We'd finished dinner about seven, or a little after. At about half-past,
+Nelda went out somewhere in the coupé. Anton had gone up to his
+laboratory, in the attic--he's one of these fortunates whose work is also
+his hobby; he's a biochemist and dietitian--and Lane was in the gunroom,
+on the second floor, working on his new revolver. Fred Dunmore was having
+a bath, and Geraldine and I had taken our coffee into the east parlor.
+Geraldine put on the radio, and we were listening to it.
+
+"It must have been about 7:47 or 7:48, because the program had changed
+and the first commercial was just over, when we heard a loud noise from
+somewhere upstairs. Neither of us thought of a shot; my own first idea
+was of a door slamming. Then, about five minutes later, we heard Anton,
+in the upstairs hall, pounding on a door, and shouting: 'Lane! Lane! Are
+you all right?' We ran up the front stairway, and found Anton, in his
+rubber lab-apron, and Fred, in a bathrobe, and barefooted, standing
+outside the gunroom door. The door was locked, and that in itself was
+unusual; there's a Yale lock on it, but nobody ever used it.
+
+"For a minute or so, we just stood there. Anton was explaining that he
+had heard a shot and that nobody in the gunroom answered. Geraldine told
+him, rather impatiently, to go down to the library and up the spiral. You
+see," she explained, "the library is directly under the gunroom, and
+there's a spiral stairway connecting the two rooms. So Anton went
+downstairs and we stood waiting in the hall. Fred was shivering in his
+bathrobe; he said he'd just jumped out of the bathtub, and he had
+nothing on under it. After a while, Anton opened the gunroom door from
+the inside, and stood in the doorway, blocking it. He said: 'You'd better
+not come in. There's been an accident, but it's too late to do anything.
+Lane's shot himself with one of those damned pistols; I always knew
+something like this would happen.'
+
+"Well, I simply elbowed him out of the way and went in, and the others
+followed me. By this time, the uproar had penetrated to the rear of the
+house, and the servants--Walters, the butler, and Mrs. Horder, the
+cook--had joined us. We found Lane inside, lying on the floor, shot
+through the forehead. Of course, he was dead. He'd been sitting on one of
+these old cobblers' benches of the sort that used to be all the thing for
+cocktail-tables; he had his tools and polish and oil and rags on it. He'd
+fallen off it to one side and was lying beside it. He had a revolver in
+his right hand, and an oily rag in his left."
+
+"Was it the revolver he'd brought home with him?" Rand asked.
+
+"I don't know," she replied. "He showed me this Confederate revolver when
+he came home, but it was dirty and dusty, and I didn't touch it. And I
+didn't look closely at the one he had in his hand when he was ... on the
+floor. It was about the same size and design; that's all I could swear
+to." She continued: "We had something of an argument about what to do.
+Walters, the butler, offered to call the police. He's English, and his
+mind seems to run naturally to due process of law. Fred and Anton both
+howled that proposal down; they wanted no part of the police. At the
+same time, Geraldine was going into hysterics, and I was trying to get
+her quieted down. I took her to her room and gave her a couple of
+sleeping-pills, and then went back to the gunroom. While I was gone, it
+seems that Anton had called our family doctor, Dr. Yardman, and then Fred
+called Humphrey Goode, our lawyer. Goode lives next door to us, about two
+hundred yards away, so he arrived almost at once. When the doctor came,
+he called the coroner, and when he arrived, about an hour later, they all
+went into a huddle and decided that it was an obvious accident and that
+no inquest would be necessary. Then somebody, I'm not sure who, called an
+undertaker. It was past eleven when he arrived, and for once, Nelda got
+home early. She was just coming in while they were carrying Lane out in a
+basket. You can imagine how horrible that was for her; it was days before
+she was over the shock. So she'll be just as glad as anybody to see the
+last of the pistol-collection."
+
+Through the recital, Rand had sat silently, toying with the ivory-handled
+Italian Fascist dagger-of-honor that was doing duty as a letter-opener on
+his desk. Gladys Fleming wasn't, he was sure, indulging in any
+masochistic self-harrowing; neither, he thought, was she talking to
+relieve her mind. Once or twice there had been a small catch in her
+voice, but otherwise the narration had been a piece of straight
+reporting, neither callous nor emotional. Good reporting, too; carefully
+detailed. There had been one or two inclusions of inferential matter in
+the guise of description, but that was to be looked for and discounted.
+And she had remembered, at the end, to include her ostensible reason for
+telling the story.
+
+"Yes, it must have been dreadful," he sympathized. "Odd, though, that an
+old hand with guns like Mr. Fleming would have an accident like that. I
+met him, once or twice, and was at your home to see his collection, a
+couple of years ago. He impressed me as knowing firearms pretty
+thoroughly.... Well, you can look for me tomorrow, say around two. In
+the meantime, I'll see Goode, and also Gresham and Arnold Rivers."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 2
+
+
+After ushering his client out the hall door and closing it behind her,
+Rand turned and said:
+
+"All right, Kathie, or Dave; whoever's out there. Come on in."
+
+Then he went to his desk and reached under it, snapping off a switch.
+As he straightened, the door from the reception-office opened and
+his secretary, Kathie O'Grady, entered, loading a cigarette into an
+eight-inch amber holder. She was a handsome woman, built on the generous
+lines of a Renaissance goddess; none of the Renaissance masters, however,
+had ever employed a model so strikingly Hibernian. She had blue eyes, and
+a fair, highly-colored complexion; she wore green, which went well with
+her flaming red hair, and a good deal of gold costume-jewelry.
+
+Behind her came Dave Ritter. He was Rand's assistant, and also Kathie's
+lover. He was five or six years older than his employer, and slightly
+built. His hair, fighting a stubborn rearguard action against baldness,
+was an indeterminate mousy gray-brown. It was one of his professional
+assets that nobody ever noticed him, not even in a crowd of one; when he
+wanted it to, his thin face could assume the weary, baffled expression of
+a middle-aged book-keeper with a wife and four children on fifty dollars
+a week. Actually, he drew three times that much, had no wife, admitted to
+no children. During the war, he and Kathie had kept the Tri-State Agency
+in something better than a state of suspended animation while Rand had
+been in the Army.
+
+Ritter fumbled a Camel out of his shirt pocket and made a beeline for the
+desk, appropriating Rand's lighter and sharing the flame with Kathie.
+
+"You know, Jeff," he said, "one of the reasons why this agency never made
+any money while you were away was that I never had the unadulterated
+insolence to ask the kind of fees you do. I was listening in on the
+extension in the file-room; I could hear Kathie damn near faint when
+you said five grand."
+
+"Yes; five thousand dollars for appraising a collection they've been
+offered ten for, and she only has a third-interest," Kathie said,
+retracting herself into the chair lately vacated by Gladys Fleming.
+"If that makes sense, now ..."
+
+"Ah, don't you get it, Kathleen Mavourneen?" Ritter asked. "She doesn't
+care about the pistols; she wants Jeff to find out who fixed up that
+accident for Fleming. You heard that big, long shaggy-dog story about
+exactly what happened and where everybody was supposed to have been at
+the time. I hope you got all that recorded; it was all told for a
+purpose."
+
+Rand had picked up the outside phone and was dialing. In a moment, a
+girl's voice answered.
+
+"Carter Tipton's law-office; good afternoon."
+
+"Hello, Rheba; is Tip available?"
+
+"Oh, hello, Jeff. Just a sec; I'll see." She buzzed another phone. "Jeff
+Rand on the line," she announced.
+
+A clear, slightly Harvard-accented male voice took over.
+
+"Hello, Jeff. Now what sort of malfeasance have you committed?"
+
+"Nothing, so far--cross my fingers," Rand replied. "I just want a little
+information. Are you busy?... Okay, I'll be up directly."
+
+He replaced the phone and turned to his disciples.
+
+"Our client," he said, "wants two jobs done on one fee. Getting the
+pistol-collection sold is one job. Exploring the whys and wherefores of
+that quote accident unquote is the other. She has a hunch, and probably
+nothing much better, that there's something sour about the accident. She
+expects me to find evidence to that effect while I'm at Rosemont, going
+over the collection. I'm not excluding other possibilities, but I'll work
+on that line until and unless I find out differently. Five thousand
+should cover both jobs."
+
+"You think that's how it is?" Kathie asked.
+
+"Look, Kathie. I got just as far in Arithmetic, at school, as you did,
+and I suspect that Mrs. Fleming got at least as far as long division,
+herself. For reasons I stated, I simply couldn't have handled that
+collection business for anything like a reasonable fee, so I told her
+five thousand, thinking that would stop her. When it didn't, I knew she
+had something else in mind, and when she went into all that detail about
+the death of her husband, she as good as told me that was what it was.
+Now I'm sorry I didn't say ten thousand; I think she'd have bought it at
+that price just as cheerfully. She thinks Lane Fleming was murdered.
+Well, on the face of what she told me, so do I."
+
+"All right, Professor; expound," Ritter said.
+
+"You heard what he was supposed to have shot himself with," Rand began.
+"A Colt-type percussion revolver. You know what they're like. And I know
+enough about Lane Fleming to know how much experience he had with old
+arms. I can't believe that he'd buy a pistol without carefully examining
+it, and I can't believe that he'd bring that thing home and start working
+on it without seeing the caps on the nipples and the charges in the
+chambers, if it had been loaded. And if it had been, he would have first
+taken off the caps, and then taken it apart and drawn the charges. And
+she says he started working on it as soon as he got home--presumably
+around five--and then took time out for dinner, and then went back to
+work on it, and more than half an hour later, there was a shot and he was
+killed." Rand blew a Bronx cheer. "If that accident had been the McCoy,
+it would have happened in the first five minutes after he started working
+on that pistol. No, in the first thirty seconds. And then, when they
+found him, he had the revolver in his right hand, and an oily rag in his
+left. I hope both of you noticed that little touch."
+
+"Yeah. When I clean a gat, I generally have it in my left hand, and clean
+with my right," Ritter said.
+
+"Exactly. And why do you use an oily rag?" Rand inquired.
+
+Ritter looked at him blankly for a half-second, then grinned ruefully.
+
+"Damn, I never thought of that," he admitted. "Okay, he was bumped off,
+all right."
+
+"But you use oily rags on guns," Kathie objected. "I've seen both of you,
+often enough."
+
+"When we're all through, honey," Ritter told her.
+
+"Yes. When he brought home that revolver, it was in neglected condition,"
+Rand said. "Either surface-rusted, or filthy with gummed oil and dirt.
+Even if Mrs. Fleming hadn't mentioned that point, the length of time he
+spent cleaning it would justify such an inference. He would have taken it
+apart, down to the smallest screw, and cleaned everything carefully, and
+then put it together again, and then, when he had finished, he would have
+gone over the surface with an oiled rag, before hanging it on the wall.
+He would certainly not have surface-oiled it before removing the charges,
+if there ever were any. I assume the revolver he was found holding,
+presumably the one with which he was killed, was another one. And I would
+further assume that the killer wasn't particularly familiar with the
+subject of firearms, antique, care and maintenance of."
+
+"And with all the hollering and whooping and hysterics-throwing, nobody
+noticed the switch," Ritter finished. "Wonder what happened to the one he
+was really cleaning."
+
+"That I may possibly find out," Rand said. "The general incompetence with
+which this murder was committed gives me plenty of room to hope that it
+may still be lying around somewhere."
+
+"Well, have you thought that it might just be suicide?" Kathie asked.
+
+"I have, very briefly; I dismissed the thought, almost at once," Rand
+told her. "For two reasons. One, that if it had been suicide, Mrs.
+Fleming wouldn't want it poked into; she'd be more than willing to let it
+ride as an accident. And, two, I doubt if a man who prided himself on his
+gun-knowledge, as Fleming did, would want his self-shooting to be taken
+for an accident. I'm damn sure I wouldn't want my friends to go around
+saying: 'What a dope; didn't know it was loaded!' I doubt if he'd even
+expect people to believe that it had been an accident." He shook his
+head. "No, the only inference I can draw is that somebody murdered
+Fleming, and then faked evidence intended to indicate an accident." He
+rose. "I'll be back, in a little; think it over, while I'm gone."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Carter Tipton had his law-office on the floor above the Tri-State
+Detective Agency. He handled all Rand's not infrequent legal
+involvements, and Rand did all his investigating and witness-chasing;
+annually, they compared books to see who owed whom how much. Tipton was
+about five years Rand's junior, and had been in the Navy during the war.
+He was frequently described as New Belfast's leading younger attorney and
+most eligible bachelor. His dark, conservatively cut clothes fitted him
+as though they had been sprayed on, he wore gold-rimmed glasses, and he
+was so freshly barbered, manicured, valeted and scrubbed as to give the
+impression that he had been born in cellophane and just unwrapped. He
+leaned back in his chair and waved his visitor to a seat.
+
+"Tip, do you know anything about this Fleming family, out at Rosemont?"
+Rand began, getting out his pipe and tobacco.
+
+"The Premix-Foods Flemings?" Tipton asked. "Yes, a little. Which one of
+them wants you to frame what on which other one?"
+
+"That'll do for a good, simplified description, to start with," Rand
+commented. "Why, my client is Mrs. Gladys Fleming. As to what she
+wants...."
+
+He told the young lawyer about his recent interview and subsequent
+conclusions.
+
+"So you see," he finished, "she won't commit herself, even with me. Maybe
+she thinks I have more official status, and more obligations to the
+police, than I have. Maybe she isn't sure in her own mind, and wants me
+to see, independently, if there's any smell of something dead in the
+woodpile. Or, she may think that having a private detective called in may
+throw a scare into somebody. Or maybe she thinks somebody may be fixing
+up an accident for her, next, and she wants a pistol-totin' gent in the
+house for a while. Or any combination thereof. Personally, I deplore
+these clients who hire you to do one thing and expect you to do another,
+but with five grand for sweetening, I can take them."
+
+"Yes. You know, I've heard rumors of suicide, but this is the first whiff
+of murder I've caught." He hesitated slightly. "I must say, I'm not
+greatly surprised. Lane Fleming's death was very convenient to a number
+of people. You know about this Premix Company, don't you?"
+
+"Vaguely. They manufacture ready-mixed pancake flour, and ready-mixed
+ice-cream and pudding powders, and this dehydrated vegetable soup--pour
+on hot water, stir, and serve--don't they? My colored boy, Buck, got some
+of the soup, once, for an experiment. We unanimously voted not to try it
+again."
+
+"They put out quite a line of such godsends to the neophyte in the
+kitchen, the popularity of which is reflected in a steadily rising
+divorce-rate," Tipton said. "They advertise very extensively, including
+half an hour of tear-jerking drama on a national hookup during soap-opera
+time. Your client, the former Gladys Farrand, was on the air for Premix
+for a couple of years; that's how Lane Fleming first met her."
+
+"So you think some irate and dyspeptic husband went to the source of his
+woes?" Rand inquired.
+
+"Well, not exactly. You see, Premix is only Little Business, as the foods
+industry goes, but they have something very sweet. So sweet, in fact,
+that one of the really big fellows, National Milling & Packaging, has
+been going to rather extreme lengths to effect a merger. Mill-Pack, par
+100, is quoted at around 145, and Premix, par 50, is at 75 now, and
+Mill-Pack is offering a two-for-one-share exchange, which would be a
+little less than four-for-one in value. I might add, for what it's worth,
+that this Stephen Gresham you mentioned is Mill-Pack's attorney,
+negotiator, and general Mr. Fixit; he has been trying to put over
+this merger for Mill-Pack."
+
+"I'll bear that in mind, too," Rand said.
+
+"Naturally, all this is not being shouted from the housetops," Tipton
+continued. "Fact is, it's a minor infraction of ethics for me to mention
+it to you."
+
+"I'll file it in the burn-box," Rand promised. "What was the matter;
+didn't Premix want to merge?"
+
+"Lane Fleming didn't. And since he held fifty-two per cent of the common
+stock himself, try and do anything about it."
+
+"Anything short of retiring Fleming to the graveyard, that is," Rand
+amended. "That would do for a murder-motive, very nicely.... What were
+Fleming's objections to the merger?"
+
+"Mainly sentimental. Premix was his baby, or, at least, his kid brother.
+His father started mixing pancake flour back before the First World War,
+and Lane Fleming peddled it off a spring wagon. They worked up a nice
+little local trade, and finally a state-wide wholesale business. They
+incorporated in the early twenties, and then, after the old man died,
+Lane Fleming hired an advertising agency to promote his products, and
+built up a national distribution, and took on some sidelines. Then,
+during the late Mr. Chamberlain's 'Peace in our time,' he picked up a
+refugee Czech chemist and foods-expert named Anton Varcek, who whipped
+up a lot of new products. So business got better and better, and they
+made more money to spend on advertising to get more money to buy more
+advertising to make more money, like Bill Nye's Puritans digging clams
+in the winter to get strength to hoe corn in the summer to get strength
+to dig clams in the winter.
+
+"So Premix became a sort of symbol of achievement to Fleming. Then, he
+was one of these old-model paternalistic employers, and he was afraid
+that if he relinquished control, a lot of his old retainers would be
+turned out to grass. And finally, he was opposed in principle to
+concentration of business ownership. He claimed it made business more
+vulnerable to government control and eventual socialization."
+
+"I'm not sure he didn't have something there," Rand considered. "We get
+all our corporate eggs in a few baskets, and they're that much easier for
+the planned-economy boys to grab.... Just who, on the Premix side, was in
+favor of this merger?"
+
+"Just about everybody but Fleming," Tipton replied. "His two sons-in-law,
+Fred Dunmore and Varcek, who are first and second vice presidents.
+Humphrey Goode, the company attorney, who doubles as board chairman.
+All the directors. All the New York banking crowd who are interested
+in Premix. And all the two-share tinymites. I don't know who inherits
+Fleming's voting interest, but I can find out for you by this time
+tomorrow."
+
+"Do that, Tip, and bill me for what you think finding out is worth," Rand
+said. "It'll be a novel reversal of order for you to be billing me for an
+investigation.... Now, how about the family, as distinct from the
+company?"
+
+"Well, there's your client, Gladys Fleming. She married Lane Fleming
+about ten years ago, when she was twenty-five and he was fifty-five. In
+spite of the age difference, I understand it was a fairly happy marriage.
+Then, there are two daughters by a previous marriage, Nelda Dunmore and
+Geraldine Varcek, and their respective husbands. They all live together,
+in a big house at Rosemont. In the company, Dunmore is Sales, and Varcek
+is Production. They each have a corner of the mantle of Lane Fleming in
+one hand and a dirk in the other. Nelda and Geraldine hate each other
+like Greeks and Trojans. Nelda is the nymphomaniac sister, and Geraldine
+is the dipsomaniac. From time to time, temporary alliances get formed,
+mainly against Gladys; all of them resent the way she married herself
+into a third-interest in the estate. You're going to have yourself a
+nice, pleasant little stay in the country."
+
+"I'm looking forward to it." Rand grimaced. "You mentioned suicide
+rumors. Such as, and who's been spreading them?"
+
+"Oh, they are the usual bodyless voices that float about," Tipton told
+him. "Emanating, I suspect, from sources interested in shaking out the
+less sophisticated small shareholders before the merger. The story is
+always approximately the same: That Lane Fleming saw his company drifting
+reefward, was unwilling to survive the shipwreck, and performed
+_seppuku_. The family are supposed to have faked up the accident
+afterward. I dismiss the whole thing as a rather less than subtle bit of
+market-manipulation chicanery."
+
+"Or a smoke screen, to cover the defects in camouflaging a murder as an
+accident," Rand added.
+
+Tipton nodded. "That could be so, too," he agreed. "Say somebody dislikes
+the looks of that accident, and starts investigating. Then he runs into
+all this miasma of suicide rumors, and promptly shrugs the whole thing
+off. Fleming killed himself, and the family made a few alterations and
+are passing it off as an accident. The families of suicides have been
+known to do that."
+
+"Yes. Regular defense-in-depth system; if the accident line is
+penetrated, the suicide line is back of it," Rand said. "Well, in the
+last few years, we've seen defenses in depth penetrated with monotonous
+regularity. I've jeeped through a couple, myself, to interrogate the
+surviving ex-defenders. It's all in having the guns and armor to smash
+through with."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 3
+
+
+Humphrey Goode was sixty-ish, short and chunky, with a fringe of
+white hair around a bald crown. His brow was corrugated with wrinkles,
+and he peered suspiciously at Rand through a pair of thick-lensed,
+black-ribboned glasses. His wide mouth curved downward at the corners
+in an expression that was probably intended to be stern and succeeded
+only in being pompous. His office was dark, and smelled of dusty books.
+
+"Mr. Rand," he began accusingly, "when your secretary called to make this
+appointment, she informed me that you had been retained by Mrs. Gladys
+Fleming."
+
+"That's correct." Rand slowly packed tobacco into his pipe and lit it.
+"Mrs. Fleming wants me to look after some interests of hers, and as
+you're executor of her late husband's estate, I thought I ought to talk
+to you, first of all."
+
+Goode's eyes narrowed behind the thick glasses.
+
+"Mr. Rand, if you're investigating the death of Lane Fleming, you're
+wasting your time and Mrs. Fleming's money," he lectured. "There is
+nothing whatever for you to find out that is not already public
+knowledge. Mr. Fleming was accidentally killed by the discharge of an old
+revolver he was cleaning. I don't know what foolish feminine impulse led
+Mrs. Fleming to employ you, but you'll do nobody any good in this matter,
+and you may do a great deal of harm."
+
+"Did my secretary tell you I was making an investigation?" Rand demanded
+incredulously. "She doesn't usually make mistakes of that sort."
+
+The wrinkles moved up Goode's brow like a battalion advancing in platoon
+front. He looked even more narrowly at Rand, his suspicion compounded
+with bewilderment.
+
+"Why should I investigate the death of Lane Fleming?" Rand continued.
+"As far as I know, Mrs. Fleming is satisfied that it was an accident. She
+never expressed any other belief to me. Do you think it was anything
+else?"
+
+"Why, of course not!" Goode exclaimed. "That's just what I was telling
+you. I--" He took a fresh start. "There have been rumors--utterly without
+foundation, of course--that Mr. Fleming committed suicide. They are, I
+may say, nothing but malicious fabrications, circulated for the purpose
+of undermining public confidence in Premix Foods, Incorporated. I had
+thought that perhaps Mrs. Fleming might have heard them, and decided, on
+her own responsibility, to bring you in to scotch them; I was afraid that
+such a step might, by giving these rumors fresh currency, defeat its
+intended purpose."
+
+"Oh, nothing of the sort!" Rand told him. "I'm not in the least
+interested in how Mr. Fleming was killed, and the question is simply
+not involved in what Mrs. Fleming wants me to do."
+
+He stopped there. Goode was looking at him sideways, sucking in one
+corner of his mouth and pushing out the other. It was not a facial
+contortion that impressed Rand favorably; it was too reminiscent of
+a high-school principal under whom he had suffered, years ago, in
+Vicksburg, Mississippi. Rand began to suspect that Goode might be just
+another such self-righteous, opinionated, egotistical windbag. Such men
+could be dangerous, were usually quite unscrupulous, and were almost
+always unpleasant to deal with.
+
+"Then why," the lawyer demanded, "did Mrs. Fleming employ you?"
+
+"Well, as you know," Rand began, "the Fleming pistol-collection, now the
+joint property of Mrs. Fleming and her two stepdaughters, is an extremely
+valuable asset. Mr. Fleming spent the better part of his life gathering
+it. At one time or another, he must have owned between four and five
+thousand different pistols and revolvers. The twenty-five hundred left to
+his heirs represent the result of a systematic policy of discriminating
+purchase, replacement of inferior items, and general improvement. It's
+one of the largest and most famous collections of its kind in the
+country."
+
+"Well?" Goode was completely out of his depth by now. "Surely Mrs.
+Fleming doesn't think...?"
+
+"Mrs. Fleming thinks that expert advice is urgently needed in disposing
+of that collection," Rand replied, carefully picking his words to fit
+what he estimated to be Goode's probable semantic reactions. "She has
+the utmost confidence in your ability and integrity, as an attorney;
+however, she realized that you could hardly describe yourself as an
+antique-arms expert. It happens that I am an expert in antique firearms,
+particularly pistols. I have a collection of my own, I am the author of
+a number of articles on the subject, and I am recognized as something
+of an authority. I know arms-values, and understand market conditions.
+Furthermore, not being a dealer, or connected with any museum, I have no
+mercenary motive for undervaluing the collection. That's all there is to
+it; Mrs. Fleming has retained me as a firearms-expert, in connection with
+the collection."
+
+Goode was looking at Rand as though the latter had just torn off a mask,
+revealing another and entirely different set of features underneath. The
+change seemed to be a welcome one, but he was evidently having trouble
+adjusting to it. Rand grinned inwardly; now he was going to have to find
+himself a new set of verbal labels and identifications.
+
+"Well, Mr. Rand, that alters the situation considerably," he said, with
+noticeably less hostility. He was still a bit resentful; people had no
+right to confuse him by jumping about from one category to another, like
+that. "Now understand, I'm not trying to be offensive, but it seems a
+little unusual for a private detective also to be an authority on antique
+firearms."
+
+"Mr. Fleming was an authority on antique firearms, and he was a
+manufacturer of foodstuffs," Rand parried, carefully staying inside
+Goode's Aristotelian system of categories and verbal identifications. "My
+own business does not occupy all my time, any more than his did, and I
+doubt if an interest in the history and development of deadly weapons is
+any more incongruous in a criminologist than in an industrialist. But if
+there's any doubt in your mind as to my qualifications, you can check
+with Colonel Taylor, at the State Museum, or with the editor of the
+_American Rifleman_."
+
+"I see." Goode nodded. "And as you point out, being a sort of
+non-professional expert, you should be free from mercenary bias." He
+nodded again, taking off his glasses and polishing them on an outsize
+white handkerchief. "Frankly, now that I understand your purpose, Mr.
+Rand, I must say that I am quite glad that Mrs. Fleming took this step.
+I was perplexed about how to deal with that collection. I realized that
+it was worth a great deal of money, but I haven't the vaguest idea how
+much, or how it could be sold to the best advantage.... At a rough guess,
+Mr. Rand, how much do you think it ought to bring?"
+
+Rand shook his head. "I only saw it twice, the last time two years ago.
+Ask me that after I've spent a day or so going over it, and I'll be able
+to give you an estimate. I will say this, though: It's probably worth a
+lot more than the ten thousand dollars Arnold Rivers has offered for it."
+
+That produced an unexpected effect. Goode straightened in his chair,
+gobbling in surprised indignation.
+
+"Arnold Rivers? Has he had the impudence to try to buy the collection?"
+he demanded. "Where did you hear that?"
+
+"From Mrs. Fleming. I understand he made the offer to Fred Dunmore.
+That's his business, isn't it?"
+
+"I believe the colloquial term is 'racket,'" Goode said. "Why, that man
+is a notorious swindler! Mr. Rand, do you know that only a week before
+his death, Mr. Fleming instructed me to bring suit against him, and also
+to secure his indictment on criminal charges of fraud?"
+
+"I didn't know that, but I'm not surprised," Rand answered. "What did he
+burn Fleming with?"
+
+"Here; I'll show you." Goode rose from his seat and went to a rank of
+steel filing-cabinets behind the desk. In a moment, he was back, with a
+large manila envelope under his arm, and a huge pistol in either hand.
+"Here, Mr. Rand," he chuckled. "We'll just test your firearms knowledge.
+What do you make of these?"
+
+Rand took the pistols and looked at them. They were wheel locks,
+apparently sixteenth-century South German; they were a good two feet in
+over-all length, with ball-pommels the size of oranges, and long steel
+belt-hooks. The stocks were so covered with ivory inlay that the wood
+showed only in tiny interstices; the metal-work was lavishly engraved and
+gold-inlaid. To the trigger-guards were attached tags marked _Fleming vs.
+Rivers_.
+
+Rand examined each pistol separately, then compared them. Finally, he
+took a six-inch rule from his pocket and made measurements, first with
+one edge and then with the other.
+
+"Well, I'm damned," he said, laying them on the desk. "These things are
+the most complete fakes I ever saw--locks, stocks, barrels and mountings.
+They're supposed to be late sixteenth-century; I doubt if they were made
+before 1920. As far as I can see or measure, there isn't the slightest
+difference between them, except on some of the decorative inlay. The
+whole job must have been miked in ten-thousandths, and what's more,
+whoever made them used metric measurements. You'll find pairs of English
+dueling pistols as early as 1775 that are almost indistinguishable, but
+in 1575, when these things were supposed to have been made, a gunsmith
+was working fine when he was working in sixteenth-inches. They just
+didn't have the measuring instruments, at that time, to do closer work.
+I won't bother taking these things apart, but if I did, I'd bet all
+Wall Street to Junior's piggy-bank that I'd find that the screws were
+machine-threaded and the working-parts interchanged. I've heard about
+fakes like these,"--he named a famous, recently liquidated West Coast
+collection--"but I'd never hoped to see an example like this."
+
+Goode gave a hacking chuckle. "You'll do as an arms-expert, Mr. Rand," he
+said. "And you'd win the piggy-bank. It seems that after Mr. Fleming
+bought them, he took them apart, and found, just as you say, that the
+screw-threads had been machine-cut, and that the working-parts were
+interchangeable from one pistol to the other. There were a lot of papers
+accompanying them--I have them here--purporting to show that they had
+been sold by some Austrian nobleman, an anti-Nazi refugee, in whose
+family they had been since the reign of Maximilian II. They are, of
+course, fabrications. I looked up the family in the _Almanach de Gotha_;
+it simply never existed. At first, Mr. Fleming had been inclined to take
+the view that Rivers had been equally victimized with himself. However,
+when Rivers refused to take back the pistols and refund the purchase
+price, he altered his opinion. He placed them in my hands, instructing me
+to bring suit and also start criminal action; he was in a fearful rage
+about it, and swore that he'd drive Rivers out of business. However,
+before I could start action, Mr. Fleming was killed in that accident, and
+as he was the sole witness to the fact of the sale, and as none of the
+heirs was interested, I did nothing about it. In fact, I advised them
+that action against Rivers would cost the estate more than they could
+hope to recover in damages." He picked up one of the pistols and examined
+it. "Now, I don't know what to do about these."
+
+"Take them home and hang them over the mantel," Rand advised. "If I'm
+going to have anything to do with selling the collection, I don't want
+anything to do with them."
+
+Goode was peering at the ivory inlay on the underbelly of the stock.
+
+"They are beautiful, and I don't care when they were made," he said. "I
+think, if nobody else wants them, I'll do just that.... Now, Mr. Rand,
+what had you intended doing about the collection?"
+
+"Well, that's what I came to see you about, Mr. Goode. As I understand
+it, it is you who are officially responsible for selling the collection,
+and the proceeds would be turned over to you for distribution to Mrs.
+Fleming, Mrs. Dunmore and Mrs. Varcek. Is that correct?"
+
+"Yes. The collection, although in the physical possession of Mrs.
+Fleming, is still an undistributed asset."
+
+"I thought so." Rand got out Gladys Fleming's letter of authorization and
+handed it to Goode. "As you'll see by that, I was retained by, and only
+by, Mrs. Fleming," he said. "I am assuming that her interests are
+identical with those of the other heirs, but I realize that this is true
+only to a very limited extent. It's my understanding that relations
+between the three ladies are not the most pleasant."
+
+Goode produced a short, croaking laugh. "Now there's a cautious
+understatement," he commented. "Mr. Rand, I feel that you should know
+that all three hate each other poisonously."
+
+"That was rather my impression. Now, I expect some trouble, from Mrs.
+Dunmore and/or Mrs. Varcek, either or both of whom are sure to accuse me
+of having been brought into this by Mrs. Fleming to help her defraud the
+others. That, of course, is not the case; they will all profit equally by
+my participation in this. But I'm going to have trouble convincing them
+of that."
+
+"Yes. You will," Goode agreed. "Would you rather carry my authorization
+than Mrs. Fleming's?"
+
+"Yes, indeed, Mr. Goode. To tell the truth, that was why I came here,
+for one reason. You will not be obligated in any way by authorizing me
+to act as your agent--I'm getting my fee from Mrs. Fleming--but I would
+be obligated to represent her only as far as her interests did not
+improperly conflict with those of the other heirs, and that's what I
+want made clear."
+
+Goode favored the detective with a saurian smile. "You're not a lawyer,
+too, Mr. Rand?" he asked.
+
+"Well, I am a member of the Bar in the State of Mississippi, though I
+never practiced," Rand admitted. "Instead of opening a law-office, I went
+into the F.B.I., in 1935, and then opened a private agency a couple of
+years later. But if I had to, which God forbid, I could go home tomorrow
+and hang out my shingle."
+
+"You seem to have had quite an eventful career," Goode remarked, with a
+queer combination of envy and disapproval. "I understand that, until
+recently, you were an officer in the Army Intelligence, too.... I'll have
+your authorization to act for me made out immediately; to list and
+appraise the collection, and to negotiate with prospective purchasers.
+And by the way," he continued, "did I understand you to say that you had
+heard some of these silly rumors to the effect that Lane Fleming had
+committed suicide?"
+
+"Oh, that's what's always heard, under the circumstances," Rand shrugged.
+"A certain type of sensation-loving mind..."
+
+"Mr. Rand, there is not one scintilla of truth in any of these scurrilous
+stories!" Goode declared, pumping up a fine show of indignation. "The
+Premix Company is in the best possible financial condition; a glance at
+its books, or at its last financial statement, would show that. I ought
+to know, I'm chairman of the board of directors. Just because there was
+some talk of retrenchment, shortly before Mr. Fleming's death ..."
+
+"Oh, no responsible person pays any attention to that sort of talk," Rand
+comforted him. "My armed-guard and armored-car service brings me into
+contact with a lot of the local financial crowd. None of them is taking
+these rumors seriously."
+
+"Well, of course, nobody wants the responsibility of starting a panic,
+even a minor one, but people are talking, and it's hurting Premix on the
+market," Goode gloomed. "And now, people will hear of Mrs. Fleming's
+having retained you, and will assume, just as I did at first, that you
+are making some kind of an investigation. I hope you will make a prompt
+denial, if you hear any talk like that." He pressed a button on his desk.
+"And now, I'll get a letter of authorization made out for you, Mr.
+Rand ..."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 4
+
+
+Stephen Gresham was in his early sixties, but he could have still worn
+his World War I uniform without anything giving at the seams, and buckled
+the old Sam Browne at the same hole. As Rand entered, he rose from behind
+his desk and advanced, smiling cordially.
+
+"Why, hello, Jeff!" he greeted the detective, grasping his hand heartily.
+"You haven't been around for months. What have you been doing, and why
+don't you come out to Rosemont to see us? Dot and Irene were wondering
+what had become of you."
+
+"I'm afraid I've been neglecting too many of my old friends lately,"
+Rand admitted, sitting down and getting his pipe out. "Been busy as the
+devil. Fact is, it was business that finally brought me around here. I
+understand that you and some others are forming a pool to buy the Lane
+Fleming collection."
+
+"Yes!" Gresham became enthusiastic. "Want in on it? I'm sure the others
+would be glad to have you in with us. We're going to need all the money
+we can scrape together, with this damned Rivers bidding against us."
+
+"I'm afraid you will, at that, Stephen," Rand told him. "And not
+necessarily on account of Rivers. You see, the Fleming estate has just
+employed me to expertize the collection and handle the sale for them."
+Rand got his pipe lit and drawing properly. "I hate doing this to you,
+but you know how it is."
+
+"Oh, of course. I should have known they'd get somebody like you in
+to sell the collection for them. Humphrey Goode isn't competent to
+handle that. What we were all afraid of was a public auction at some
+sales-gallery."
+
+Rand shook his head. "Worst thing they could do; a collection like
+that would go for peanuts at auction. Remember the big sales in the
+twenties?... Why, here; I'm going to be in Rosemont, staying at the
+Fleming place, working on the collection, for the next week or so. I
+suppose your crowd wouldn't want to make an offer until I have everything
+listed, but I'd like to talk to your associates, in a group, as soon as
+possible."
+
+"Well, we all know pretty much what's in the collection," Gresham said.
+"We were neighbors of his, and collectors are a gregarious lot. But we
+aren't anxious to make any premature offers. We don't want to offer more
+than we have to, and at the same time, we don't want to underbid and see
+the collection sold elsewhere."
+
+"No, of course not." Rand thought for a moment. "Tell you what; I'll give
+you and your friends the best break I can in fairness to my clients. I'm
+not obliged to call for sealed bids, or anything like that, so when I've
+heard from everybody, I'll give you a chance to bid against the highest
+offer in hand. If you want to top it, you can have the collection for any
+kind of an overbid that doesn't look too suspiciously nominal."
+
+"Why, Jeff, I appreciate that," Gresham said. "I think you're entirely
+within your rights, but naturally, we won't mention this outside. I can
+imagine Arnold Rivers, for instance, taking a very righteous view of such
+an arrangement."
+
+"Yes, so can I. Of course, if he'd call me a crook, I'd take that as
+a compliment," Rand said. "I wonder if I could meet your group, say
+tomorrow evening? I want to be in a position to assure the Fleming family
+and Humphrey Goode that you're all serious and responsible."
+
+"Well, we're very serious about it," Gresham replied, "and I think we're
+all responsible. You can look us up, if you wish. Besides myself, there
+is Philip Cabot, of Cabot, Joyner & Teale, whom you know, and Adam
+Trehearne, who's worth about a half-million in industrial shares, and
+Colin MacBride, who's vice president in charge of construction and
+maintenance for Edison-Public Power & Light, at about twenty thousand a
+year, and Pierre Jarrett and his fiancée, Karen Lawrence. Pierre was a
+Marine captain, invalided home after being wounded on Peleliu; he writes
+science-fiction for the pulps. Karen has a little general-antique
+business in Rosemont. They intend using their share of the collection,
+plus such culls and duplicates as the rest of us can consign to them, to
+go into the arms business, with a general-antique sideline, which Karen
+can manage while Pierre's writing.... Tell you what; I'll call a meeting
+at my place tomorrow evening, say at eight thirty. That suit you?"
+
+That, Rand agreed, would be all right. Gresham asked him how recently he
+had seen the Fleming collection.
+
+"About two years ago; right after I got back from Germany. You remember,
+we went there together, one evening in March."
+
+"Yes, that's right. We didn't have time to see everything," Gresham said.
+"My God, Jeff! Twenty-five wheel locks! Ten snaphaunces. And every
+imaginable kind of flintlock--over a hundred U.S. Martials, including the
+1818 Springfield, all the S. North types, a couple of Virginia
+Manufactory models, and--he got this since the last time you saw the
+collection--a real Rappahannock Forge flintlock. And about a hundred and
+fifty Colts, all models and most variants. Remember that big Whitneyville
+Walker, in original condition? He got that one in 1924, at the Fred Hines
+sale, at the old Walpole Galleries. And seven Paterson Colts, including
+a couple of cased sets. And anything else you can think of. A Hall
+flintlock breech-loader; an Elisha Collier flintlock revolver; a pair
+of Forsythe detonator-lock pistols.... Oh, that's a collection to end
+collections."
+
+"By the way, Humphrey Goode showed me a pair of big ball-butt wheel
+locks, all covered with ivory inlay," Rand mentioned.
+
+Gresham laughed heartily. "Aren't they the damnedest ever seen, though?"
+he asked. "Made in Germany, about 1870 or '80, about the time
+arms-collecting was just getting out of the family-heirloom stage,
+wouldn't you say?"
+
+"I'd say made in Japan, about 1920," Rand replied. "Remember, there were
+a couple of small human figures on each pistol, a knight and a huntsman?
+Did you notice that they had slant eyes?" He stopped laughing, and looked
+at Gresham seriously. "Just how much more of that sort of thing do you
+think I'm going to have to weed out of the collection, before I can offer
+it for sale?" he asked.
+
+Gresham shook his head. "They're all. They were Lane Fleming's one false
+step. Ordinarily, Lane was a careful buyer; he must have let himself get
+hypnotized by all that ivory and gold, and all that documentation on
+crested notepaper. You know, Fleming's death was an undeserved stroke of
+luck for Arnold Rivers. If he hadn't been killed just when he was, he'd
+have run Rivers out of the old-arms business."
+
+"I notice that Rivers isn't advertising in the _American Rifleman_ any
+more," Rand observed.
+
+"No; the National Rifle Association stopped his ad, and lifted his
+membership card for good measure," Gresham said. "Rivers sold a rifle to
+a collector down in Virginia, about three years ago, while you were still
+occupying Germany. A fine, early flintlock Kentuck, that had been made
+out of a fine, late percussion Kentuck by sawing off the breech-end of
+the barrel, rethreading it for the breech-plug, drilling a new vent, and
+fitting the lock with a flint hammer and a pan-and-frizzen assembly, and
+shortening the fore-end to fit. Rivers has a gunsmith over at Kingsville,
+one Elmer Umholtz, who does all his fraudulent conversions for him. I
+have an example of Umholtz's craftsmanship, myself. The collector who
+bought this spurious flintlock spotted what had been done, and squawked
+to the Rifle Association, and to the postal authorities."
+
+"Rivers claimed, I suppose, that he had gotten it from a family that had
+owned it ever since it was made, and showed letters signed 'D. Boone' and
+'Davy Crockett' to prove it?"
+
+"No, he claimed to have gotten it in trade from some wayfaring
+collector," Gresham replied. "He convinced Uncle Whiskers, but the
+N.R.A. took a slightly dimmer view of the transaction, so Rivers doesn't
+advertise in the _Rifleman_ any more."
+
+"Wasn't there some talk about Whitneyville Walker Colts that had been
+made out of 1848 Model Colt Dragoons?" Rand asked.
+
+"Oh Lord, yes! This fellow Umholtz was practically turning them out on
+an assembly-line, for a while. Rivers must have sold about ten of them.
+You know, Umholtz is a really fine gunsmith; I had him build a deer-rifle
+for Dot, a couple of years ago--Mexican-Mauser action, Johnson
+barrel, chambered for .300 Savage; Umholtz made the stock and fitted a
+scope-sight--it's a beautiful little rifle. I hate to see him prostitute
+his talents the way he does by making these fake antiques for Rivers. You
+know, he made one of these mythical heavy .44 six-shooters of the sort
+Colt was supposed to have turned out at Paterson in 1839 for Colonel
+Walker's Texas Rangers--you know, the model he couldn't find any of in
+1847, when he made the real Walker Colt. That story you find in Sawyer's
+book."
+
+"Why, that story's been absolutely disproved," Rand said. "There never
+was any such revolver."
+
+"Not till Umholtz made one," Gresham replied. "Rivers sold it to,"--he
+named a moving-picture bigshot--"for twenty-five hundred dollars. His
+story was that he picked it up in Mexico, in 1938; traded a .38-special
+to some halfbreed goat-herder for it."
+
+"This fellow who bought it, now; did he see Belden and Haven's Colt book,
+when it came out in 1940?"
+
+"Yes, and he was plenty burned up, but what could he do? Rivers was dug
+in behind this innocent-purchase-and-sale-in-good-faith Maginot Line of
+his. You know, that bastard took me, once, just one-tenth as badly, with
+a fake U.S. North & Cheney Navy flintlock 1799 Model that had been made
+out of a French 1777 Model." The lawyer muttered obscenely.
+
+"Why didn't you sue hell out of him?" Rand asked. "You might not have
+gotten anything, but you'd have given him a lot of dirty publicity.
+That's all Fleming was expecting to do about those wheel locks."
+
+"I'm not Fleming. He could afford litigation like that; I can't. I want
+my money, and if I don't get it in cash, I'm going to beat it out of that
+dirty little swindler's hide," Gresham replied, an ugly look appearing on
+his face.
+
+"I wouldn't blame you. You could find plenty of other collectors who'd
+hold your coat while you were doing it," Rand told him. Then he inquired,
+idly: "What sort of a pistol was it that Lane Fleming is supposed to have
+shot himself with?"
+
+Gresham frowned. "I really don't know; I didn't see it. It's supposed
+to have been a Confederate Leech & Rigdon .36; you know, one of those
+imitation Colt Navy Models that were made in the South during the Civil
+War."
+
+Rand nodded. He was familiar with the type.
+
+"The story is that Fleming found it hanging back of the counter at some
+roadside lunch-stand, along with a lot of other old pistols, and talked
+the proprietor into letting it go for a few dollars," Gresham continued.
+"It was supposed to have been loaded at the time, and went off while
+Fleming was working on it, at home." He shook his head. "I can't believe
+that, Jeff. Lane Fleming would know a loaded revolver when he saw one. I
+believe he deliberately shot himself, and the family faked the accident
+and fixed the authorities. The police never made any investigation; it
+was handled by the coroner alone. And our coroner, out in Scott County,
+is eminently fixable, if you go about it right; a pitiful little
+nonentity with a tremendous inferiority complex."
+
+"But good Lord, why?" Rand demanded. "I never heard of Fleming having any
+troubles worth killing himself over."
+
+Gresham lowered his voice. "Jeff, I'm not supposed to talk about this,
+but the fact is that I believe Fleming was about to lose control of the
+Premix Company," he said. "I have, well, sources of inside information.
+This is in confidence, so don't quote me, but certain influences were at
+work, inside the company, toward that end." He inspected the tip of his
+cigar and knocked off the ash into the tray at his elbow. "Lane Fleming's
+death is on record as accidental, Jeff. It's been written off as such. It
+would be a great deal better for all concerned if it were left at that."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 5
+
+
+Rand drove slowly through Rosemont, the next day, refreshing his memory
+of the place. It was one of the many commuters' villages strung out for
+fifty miles along the railroad lines radiating from New Belfast, and
+depended for its support upon a population scattered over a five-mile
+radius at estates and country homes. Obviously a planned community, it
+was dominated by a gray-walled, green-roofed railroad station which stood
+on its passenger-platform like a captain in front of four platoons of
+gray-walled, green-roofed houses and stores aligned along as many
+converging roads. There was a post office, uniform with the rest of the
+buildings; an excessive quantity of aluminum trimming dated it somewhere
+in the middle Andrew W. Mellon period. There were four gas stations, a
+movie theater, and a Woolworth store with a red front that made it look
+like some painted hussy who had wandered into a Quaker Meeting.
+
+Over the door of one of the smaller stores, Rand saw a black-lettered
+white sign: _Antiques_. There was a smoke-gray Plymouth coupé parked in
+front of it.
+
+Instead of turning onto the road to the Fleming estate, he continued
+along Route 19 for a mile or so beyond the village, until he came to a
+red brick pseudo-Colonial house on the right. He pulled to the side of
+the road and got out, turning up the collar of his trench coat. The air
+was raw and damp, doubly unpleasant after the recent unseasonable warmth.
+An apathetically persistent rain sogged the seedling-dotted old fields on
+either side, and the pine-woods beyond, and a high ceiling of unbroken
+dirty gray gave no promise of clearing. The mournful hoot of a distant
+locomotive whistle was the only sound to pierce the silence. For a
+moment, Rand stood with his back to the car, looking at the gallows-like
+sign that proclaimed this to be the business-place of Arnold Rivers,
+Fine Antique and Modern Firearms for the Discriminating Collector.
+
+The house faced the road with a long side; at the left, a porch formed
+a continuation under a deck roof, and on the right, an ell had been
+built at right angles, extending thirty feet toward the road. Although
+connected to the house by a shed roof, which acquired a double pitch and
+became a gable roof where the ell projected forward, it was, in effect,
+a separate building, with its own front door and its own door-path. Its
+floor-level was about four feet lower than that of the parent structure.
+
+A Fibber McGee door-chime clanged as Rand entered. Closing the door
+behind him, he looked around. The room, some twenty feet wide and fifty
+long, was lighted by an almost continuous row of casement windows on the
+right, and another on the left for as far as the ell extended beyond the
+house. They were set high, a good five feet from lower sill to floor, and
+there was no ceiling; the sloping roof was supported by bare timber
+rafters. Racks lined the walls, under the windows, holding long-guns
+and swords; the pistols and daggers and other small items were displayed
+on a number of long tables. In the middle of the room, glaring at the
+front door, was a brass four-pounder on a ship's carriage; a Philippine
+_latanka_, muzzle tilted upward, stood beside it. Where the ell joined
+the house under the shed roof, there was a fireplace, and a short flight
+of steps to a landing and a door out of the dwelling, and some
+furniture--a davenport, three or four deep chairs facing the fire, a low
+cocktail-table, a cellarette, and, in the far corner, a big desk.
+
+As Rand went toward the rear, a young man rose from one of the chairs,
+laid aside a magazine, and advanced to meet him. He didn't exactly
+harmonize with all the lethal array around him; he would have looked more
+at home presiding over an establishment devoted to ladies' items. His
+costume ran to pastel shades, he had large and soulful blue eyes and
+prettily dimpled cheeks, and his longish blond hair was carefully
+disordered into a windblown effect.
+
+"Oh, good afternoon," he greeted. "Is there anything in particular you're
+interested in, or would you like to just look about?"
+
+"Mostly look about," Rand said. "Is Mr. Rivers in?"
+
+"Mr. Rivers is having luncheon. He'll be finished before long, if you
+care to wait.... Have you ever been here before?"
+
+"Not for some time," Rand said. "When I was here last, there was a young
+fellow named Jordan, or Gordon, or something like that."
+
+"Oh. He was before my time." The present functionary introduced himself
+as Cecil Gillis. Rand gave his name and shook hands with him. Young
+Gillis wanted to know if Rand was a collector.
+
+"In a small way. General-pistol collector," Rand told him. "Have you many
+Colts, now?"
+
+There was a whole table devoted to Colts. No spurious Whitneyville
+Walkers; after all, a dealer can sell just so many of such top-drawer
+rarities before the finger of suspicion begins leveling itself in his
+direction, and Arnold Rivers had long ago passed that point. There were
+several of the commoner percussion models, however, with lovely, perfect
+bluing that was considerably darker than that applied at the Colt factory
+during the 'fifties and 'sixties of the last century. The silver plating
+on backstraps and trigger-guards was perfect, too, but the naval-battle
+and stagecoach-holdup engravings on the cylinders were far from clear--in
+one case, completely obliterated. The cylinder of one 1851 Navy bore
+serial numbers that looked as though they had been altered to conform to
+the numbers on other parts of the weapon. Many of the Colts, however,
+were entirely correct, and all were in reasonably good condition.
+
+Rand saw something that interested him, and picked it up.
+
+"That isn't a real Colt," the exquisite Mr. Gillis told him. "It's a
+Confederate copy; a Leech & Rigdon."
+
+"So I see. I have a Griswold & Grier, but no Leech & Rigdon."
+
+"The Griswold & Grier; that's the one with the brass frame," Cecil Gillis
+said. "Surprising how many collectors think all Confederate revolvers
+had brass frames, because of the Griswold & Grier, and the Spiller &
+Burr.... That's an unusually fine specimen, Mr. Rand. Mr. Rivers got
+it sometime in late December or early January; from a gentleman in
+Charleston, I understand. I believe it had been carried during the Civil
+War by a member of the former owner's family."
+
+Rand looked at the tag tied to the trigger-guard; it was marked, in
+letter-code, with three different prices. That was characteristic of
+Arnold Rivers's business methods.
+
+"How much does Mr. Rivers want for this?" he asked, handing the revolver
+to young Gillis.
+
+The clerk mentally decoded the three prices and vacillated for a moment
+over them. He had already appraised Rand, from his twenty-dollar Stetson
+past his Burberry trench coat to his English hand-sewn shoes, and placed
+him in the pay-dirt bracket; however, from some remarks Rand had let
+drop, he decided that this customer knew pistols, and probably knew
+values.
+
+"Why, that is sixty dollars, Mr. Rand," he said, with the air of one
+conferring a benefaction. Maybe he was, at that, Rand decided; prices had
+jumped like the very devil since the war.
+
+"I'll take it." He dug out his billfold and extracted three twenties.
+"Nice clean condition; clean it up yourself?"
+
+"Why, no. Mr. Rivers got it like this. As I said, it's supposed to have
+been a family heirloom, but from the way it's been cared for, I would
+have thought it had been in a collection," the clerk replied. "Shall I
+wrap it for you?"
+
+"Yes, if you please." Rand followed him to the rear, laying aside his
+coat and hat. Gillis got some heavy paper out of a closet and packaged
+it, then hunted through a card-file in the top drawer of the desk, until
+he found the card he wanted. He made a few notes on it, and was still
+holding it and the sixty dollars when he rejoined Rand by the fire.
+
+In spite of his effeminate appearance and over-refined manner, the young
+fellow really knew arms. The conversation passed from Confederate
+revolvers to the arms of the Civil War in general, and they were
+discussing the changes in tactics occasioned by the introduction of the
+revolver and the repeating carbine when the door from the house opened
+and Arnold Rivers appeared on the landing.
+
+He looked older than when Rand had last seen him. His hair was thinner on
+top and grayer at the temples. Never particularly robust, he had lost
+weight, and his face was thinner and more hollow-cheeked. His mouth still
+had the old curve of supercilious insolence, and he was still smoking
+with the six-inch carved ivory cigarette-holder which Rand remembered.
+
+He looked his visitor over carefully from the doorway, decided that he
+was not soliciting magazine subscriptions or selling Fuller brushes, and
+came down the steps. As he did, he must have recognized Rand; he shifted
+the cigarette-holder to his left hand and extended his right.
+
+"Mr. Rand, isn't it?" he asked. "I thought I knew you. It's been some
+years since you've been around here."
+
+"I've been a lot of places in the meantime," Rand said.
+
+"You were here last in October, '41, weren't you?" Rivers thought for a
+moment. "You bought a Highlander, then. By Alexander Murdoch, of Doune,
+wasn't it?"
+
+"No; Andrew Strahan, of Edzel," Rand replied.
+
+Rivers snapped his fingers. "That's right! I sold both of those pistols
+at about the same time; a gentleman in Chicago got the Murdoch. The
+Strahan had a star-pierced lobe on the hammer. Did you ever get anybody
+to translate the Gaelic inscription on the barrel?"
+
+"You've a memory like Jim Farley," Rand flattered. "The inscription was
+the clan slogan of the Camerons; something like: _Sons of the hound, come
+and get flesh!_ I won't attempt the original."
+
+"Mr. Rand just bought 6524, the Leech & Rigdon .36," Gillis interjected,
+handing Rivers the card and the money. Rivers looked at both, saw how
+much Rand had been taken for, and nodded.
+
+"A nice item," he faintly praised, as though anything selling for less
+than a hundred dollars was so much garbage. "Considering the condition in
+which Confederate arms are usually found, it's really first-rate. I think
+you'll like it, Mr. Rand."
+
+The telephone rang, Cecil Gillis answered it, listened for a moment, and
+then said: "For you, Mr. Rivers; long distance from Milwaukee."
+
+Rivers's face lit with the beatific smile of a cat at a promising
+mouse-hole. "Ah, excuse me, Mr. Rand." He crossed to the desk, picked
+up the phone and spoke into it. "This is Arnold Rivers," he said, much
+as Edward Murrow used to say, _This--is London!_ The telephone sputtered
+for a moment. "Ah, yes indeed, Mr. Verral. Quite well, I thank you. And
+you?... No, it hasn't been sold yet. Do you wish me to ship it to
+you?... On approval; certainly.... Of course it's an original flintlock;
+I didn't list it as re-altered, did I?... No, not at all; the only
+replacement is the small spring inside the patchbox.... Yes, the rifling
+is excellent.... Of course; I'll ship it at once.... Good-by, Mr.
+Verral."
+
+He hung up and turned to his hireling, fairly licking his chops.
+
+"Cecil, Mr. Verral, in Milwaukee, whose address we have, has just ordered
+6288, the F. Zorger flintlock Kentuck. Will you please attend to it?"
+
+"Right away, Mr. Rivers." Gillis went to one of the racks under the
+windows and selected a long flintlock rifle, carrying it out the door at
+the rear.
+
+"I issued a list, a few days ago," Rivers told Rand. "When Cecil comes
+back, I'll have him get you a copy. I've been receiving calls ever since;
+this is the twelfth long-distance call since Tuesday."
+
+"Business must be good," Rand commented. "I understand you've offered to
+buy the Lane Fleming collection. For ten thousand dollars."
+
+"Where did you hear that?" Rivers demanded, looking up from the drawer in
+which he was filing the card on the Leech & Rigdon.
+
+"From Mrs. Fleming." Rand released a puff of pipe smoke and watched it
+draw downward into the fireplace. "I've been retained to handle the sale
+of that collection; naturally, I'd know who was offering how much."
+
+Rivers's eyes narrowed. He came around the desk, loading another
+cigarette into his holder.
+
+"And just why, might I ask, did Mrs. Fleming think it in order to employ
+a detective in a matter like that?" he wanted to know.
+
+Rand let out more smoke. "She didn't. She employed an arms-expert, a
+Colonel Jefferson Davis Rand, U.S.A., O.R.C., who is a well-known
+contributor to the _American Rifleman_ and the _Infantry Journal_ and
+_Antiques_ and the old _Gun Report_. You've read some of his articles,
+I believe?"
+
+"Then you're not making an investigation?"
+
+"What in the world is there to investigate?" Rand asked. "I'm just
+selling a lot of old pistols for the Fleming estate."
+
+"I thought Fred Dunmore was doing that."
+
+"So did Fred. You're both wrong, though. I am." He got out Goode's letter
+of authorization and handed it to Rivers, who read it through twice
+before handing it back. "You see anything in that about Fred Dunmore,
+or any of the other relatives-in-law?" he asked.
+
+"Well, I didn't understand; I'm glad to know what the situation really
+is." Rivers frowned. "I thought you were making some kind of an
+investigation, and as I'm the only party making any serious offer to buy
+those pistols, I wanted to know what there was to investigate."
+
+"Do you consider ten thousand dollars to be a serious offer?" Rand asked.
+"And aren't you forgetting Stephen Gresham and his friends?"
+
+"Oh, those people!" Rivers scoffed. "Mr. Rand, you certainly don't expect
+them to be able to handle anything like this, do you?"
+
+"Well, the banks speak well of them," Rand replied. "Some of them have
+good listings in Dun & Bradstreet's, too."
+
+"Well, so do I," Rivers reported. "I can top any offer that crowd makes.
+What do you expect to get out of them, anyhow?"
+
+"I haven't talked price with them, yet. A lot more than ten thousand
+dollars, anyhow."
+
+Rivers forced a laugh. "Now, Mr. Rand! That was just an opening offer. I
+thought Fred Dunmore was handling the collection." He grimaced. "What do
+you think it's really worth?"
+
+Rand shrugged. "It probably has a dealer's piece-by-piece list-value
+of around seventy thousand. I'm not nuts enough to expect anything like
+that in a lump sum, but please, let's not mention ten thousand dollars in
+this connection any more. That's on the order of Lawyer Marks bidding
+seventy-five cents for Uncle Tom; it's only good for laughs."
+
+"Well, how much more than that do you think Gresham and his crowd will
+offer?"
+
+"I haven't talked price with them, yet," Rand repeated. "I mean to, as
+soon as I can."
+
+"Well, you get their offer, and I'll top it," Rivers declared. "I'm
+willing to go as high as twenty-five thousand for that collection; they
+won't go that high."
+
+Although he just managed not to show it, Rand was really surprised. Even
+a consciousness of abstracting had not prepared him for the shock of
+hearing Arnold Rivers raise his own offer to something resembling an
+acceptable figure. A good case, he reflected, could be made of that
+for the actuality of miracles.
+
+He rose, picking up his trench coat.
+
+"Well! That's something like it, now," he said. "I'll see you later; I
+don't know how long it's going to take me to get a list prepared, and
+circularize the old-arms trade. I should hear from everybody who's
+interested in a few weeks. You can be sure I'll keep your offer in mind."
+
+He slipped into the coat and put on his hat, and then picked up the
+package containing the Confederate revolver. Rivers had risen, too; he
+was watching Rand nervously. When Rand tucked the package under his arm
+and began drawing on his gloves, Rivers cleared his throat.
+
+"Mr. Rand, I'm dreadfully sorry," he began, "but I'll have to return your
+money and take back that revolver. It should not have been sold." He got
+Rand's sixty dollars out of his pocket as though he expected it to catch
+fire, and held it out.
+
+Rand favored him with a display of pained surprise.
+
+"Why, I can't do that," he replied. "I bought this revolver in good
+faith, and you accepted payment and were satisfied with the transaction.
+The sale's been made, now."
+
+Rivers seemed distressed. It was probably the first time he had ever been
+on the receiving end of that routine, and he didn't like it.
+
+"Now you're being unreasonable, Mr. Rand," he protested. "Look here; I'll
+give you seventy-five dollars' credit on anything else in the shop. You
+certainly can't find fault with an offer like that."
+
+"I don't want anything else in the shop; I want this revolver you sold
+me." Rand gave him a look of supercilious insolence that was at least a
+two hundred per cent improvement on Rivers at his most insolent. "You
+know, I'll begin to acquire a poor idea of your business methods before
+long," he added.
+
+Rivers laughed ruefully. "Well, to tell the truth, I just remembered a
+customer of mine who specializes in Confederate arms, who would pay me at
+least eighty for that item," he admitted. "I thought..."
+
+Rand shook his head. "I have a special fondness for Confederate arms,
+myself. One of my grandfathers was in Mosby's Rangers, and the other was
+with Barksdale, to say nothing of about a dozen great-uncles and so on."
+
+"Well, you're entirely within your rights, Mr. Rand," Rivers conceded. "I
+should apologize for trying to renege on a sale, but.... Well, I hope to
+see you again, soon." He followed Rand to the door, shaking hands with
+him. "Don't forget; I'm willing to pay anything up to twenty-five
+thousand for the Fleming collection."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 6
+
+
+The Fleming butler--Walters, Rand remembered Gladys Fleming having called
+him--became apologetic upon learning who the visitor was.
+
+"Forgive me, Colonel Rand, but I'm afraid I must put you to some
+inconvenience, sir," he said. "You see, we have no chauffeur, at present,
+and I don't drive very well, myself. Would you object to putting up your
+own car, sir? The garage is under the house, at the rear; just follow the
+driveway around. I'll go through the house and meet you there for the
+luggage. I'm dreadfully sorry to put you to the trouble, but...."
+
+"Oh, that's all right," Rand comforted him. "Just as soon do it, myself,
+now, anyhow. I expect to be in and out with the car while I'm here, and
+I'd better learn the layout of the garage now."
+
+"You may back in, sir, or drive straight in and back out," the butler
+told him. "One way's about as easy as the other."
+
+Rand returned to his car, driving around the house. A row of doors opened
+out of the basement garage; Walters, who must have gone through the house
+on the double, was waiting for him. Having what amounted to a conditioned
+reflex to park his car so that he could get it out as fast as possible,
+he cut over to the right, jockeyed a little, and backed in. There were
+already two cars in the garage; a big maroon Packard sedan, and a
+sand-colored Packard station-wagon, standing side by side. Rand put
+his Lincoln in on the left of the sedan.
+
+"Bags in the luggage-compartment; it isn't locked," he told the butler,
+making sure that the glove-compartment, where he had placed the Leech &
+Rigdon revolver, was locked. As he got out, the servant went to the rear
+of the car and took out the Gladstone and the B-4 bag Rand had brought
+with him.
+
+"If you don't mind entering the house from the rear, sir, we can go up
+those steps, there, and through the rear hall," the butler suggested,
+almost as though he were making some indecent and criminal proposal.
+
+Rand told him to forget the protocol and lead the way. The butler picked
+up the bags and conducted him up a short flight of concrete steps to a
+landing and a door opening into a short hall above. An open door from
+this gave access to a longer hall, stretching to the front of the house,
+and there was a third door, closed, which probably led to the servants'
+domain.
+
+Rand followed his guide through the open door and into the long hall,
+which passed under an arch to extend to the front door. There was a door
+on either side, about midway to the arch under the front stairway; the
+one on the right was the dining-room, Walters explained, and the one on
+the left was the library. He seemed to be still suffering from the
+ignominy of admitting a house-guest through any but the main portal.
+
+Emerging into the front hallway, he put down the bags, took Rand's hat
+and coat and laid them on top of the luggage, and then went to an open
+doorway on the right, standing in it and coughing delicately, before
+announcing that Colonel Rand was here.
+
+Gladys Fleming, wearing a pale blue frock, came forward as Rand entered
+the parlor, her hand extended. The two other women in the big parlor
+remained motionless. They would be the sisters, Geraldine Varcek and
+Nelda Dunmore. Rand didn't wonder that they resented Gladys so bitterly;
+economic considerations aside, girls seldom enthuse over a stepmother so
+near their own age who is so much more beautiful.
+
+"Good afternoon, Colonel Rand," Gladys said. "This is Mrs. Varcek." She
+indicated a very pale blonde who sat slumped in a deep chair beside a low
+cocktail-table, a highball in her hand. "And Mrs. Dunmore." She was the
+brunette with the full bust and hips, in the short black skirt and the
+tight white sweater, who was standing by the fireplace.
+
+"H'lo." The blonde--Geraldine--smiled shyly at him. She had big blue
+eyes, and delicately tinted rose-petal lips that seemed to be trying not
+to laugh at some private joke. She wasn't exactly blotto, but she had
+evidently laid a good foundation for a first-class jag. After all, it was
+only two thirty in the afternoon.
+
+The other sister--Nelda--didn't say anything. She merely stood and stared
+at Rand distrustfully. Rand doubted that she ordinarily gave men the
+hostile eye. The full, dark-red lips; the lush figure; the way she draped
+it against the side of the fireplace, to catch the ruddy light on her
+more interesting curves and bulges--there was a bimbo just made to be
+leered at, and she probably resented it like hell if she weren't.
+
+Rand gave them a general good-afternoon, then turned to Gladys. "I had a
+talk with Goode, yesterday afternoon," he said. "I have his authorization
+to handle all the details. As soon as I get an itemized list, I'll
+circularize dealers and other possible buyers and ask for offers."
+
+"Is that all?" Nelda demanded angrily of Gladys. "Why Fred's done all
+that already!"
+
+"Is that correct, Mrs. Fleming?" Rand asked, for the record.
+
+"I told you, yesterday, what's been done," Gladys replied. "Fred has
+talked to one dealer, Arnold Rivers. There has been no inventory of any
+sort made."
+
+"Mr. Rivers is offering us ten thousand dollars," Nelda retorted. "I
+don't see why you had to bring this Colonel What's-his-name into it, at
+all. You think he can get us a better offer? If you do, you're crazy!"
+
+"Ten thousand dollars, for a collection that ought to sell for five times
+that, in Macy's basement!" Geraldine hooted. "How much is Rivers slipping
+Fred, on the side?"
+
+"Oh, go back to your bottle!" Nelda cried. "You're too drunk to know what
+you're talking about!"
+
+"They tell me Colonel Rand is a detective, too," Geraldine continued.
+"Maybe he can find out why Fred never talked to Stephen Gresham, or Carl
+Gwinnett, or anybody else except this Rivers. How much _is_ Fred getting
+out of Rivers, anyhow?"
+
+"My God, Geraldine, shut up!" Nelda howled. Then she decided to take
+direct notice of Rand's presence. "Colonel Rand, I'm sorry to say that,
+in her present condition, my sister doesn't know what she's saying. It's
+bad enough for my stepmother to bring an outsider into what's obviously
+a family matter, but when my sister begins making these ridiculous
+accusations ..."
+
+"What's ridiculous about them?" Geraldine demanded, dumping another two
+ounces of whiskey into her glass and freshening it with the siphon. "I
+think Rivers's offering ten thousand dollars for the collection, and
+Fred's thinking we'd accept it, are the only ridiculous things about it."
+
+"That's rather what I told Rivers, this afternoon," Rand put in. "He
+seemed a bit upset about my being brought into this, too, but he finally
+admitted that he was willing to pay up to twenty-five thousand dollars
+for the collection, and if he buys it, that's exactly what it's going to
+cost him."
+
+"_What?_" Nelda fairly screamed. Her hands opened and closed
+spasmodically: she was using a dark-red nail-tint that made Rand think
+of blood-dripping talons.
+
+"Mr. Arnold Rivers told me, this afternoon, and I quote: I'm willing to
+pay up to twenty-five thousand dollars for that collection, unquote,"
+Rand said. "And I can tell you now that twenty-five thousand dollars is
+just what he will pay for it, unless I can find somebody who's willing to
+pay more, which is not at all improbable."
+
+"H'ray!" Geraldine waved her glass and toasted Rand with it. "And
+twenty-five G ain't hay, brother!"
+
+Gladys smiled quickly at Rand, then turned to Nelda. "Now I hope you see
+why I thought it wise to bring in somebody who knows something about old
+arms," she said.
+
+Nelda evidently saw; there was apparently nothing stupid about her. "And
+Fred was going to take a miserable ten thousand dollars!" The way she
+said it, ten thousand sounded like a fairly generous headwaiter's tip.
+"Did Rivers actually tell you he'd pay twenty-five?"
+
+Rand gave, as nearly verbatim as possible, his conversation with the
+dealer. "And he can afford it, too," he finished. "He can make a nice
+profit on the collection, at that figure."
+
+"My God, do you mean the pistols are worth more than that, even?" she
+wanted to know, aghast.
+
+"Certainly, if you're a dealer with an established business, and
+customers all over the country, and want to take five or six years to
+make your profit," Rand replied. "If you aren't, and want your money in
+a hurry, no."
+
+"That's why I was against turning the collection over to Gwinnett on a
+commission basis," Gladys said. "It would take him five years to get
+everything sold."
+
+Nelda left the fireplace and advanced toward Rand. "Colonel, I owe you an
+apology," she said. "I had no idea Father's pistols were worth anywhere
+near that much. I don't suppose Fred did, either." She frowned. Wait till
+she gets Fred alone, Rand thought; I'd hate to be in his spot.... "You
+say you're acting on Humphrey Goode's authority?"
+
+"That's right. I'll negotiate the sale, but the money will be paid
+directly to him, for distribution according to the terms of your father's
+will." Rand got out Goode's letter and handed it to Nelda.
+
+She read it carefully. "I see." She seemed greatly relieved; she was
+looking at Rand, now, as she was accustomed to look at men, particularly
+handsome six-footers who were broad across the shoulders and narrow at
+the hips and resembled King Charles II. She was probably wondering if
+Rand was equal to Old Rowley in another important respect. "I didn't
+understand ... I thought...." A dirty look, aimed at Gladys, explained
+what she had thought. Then her glance fell on the bottle and siphon on
+the table beside Geraldine's chair, and she changed the subject by
+inquiring if Colonel Rand mightn't like a drink.
+
+"Well, let's go up to the gunroom," Gladys suggested. "We can have our
+drink up there, while Colonel Rand's looking at the pistols.... Coming
+with us, Geraldine?"
+
+Geraldine rose, not too steadily, her glass still in her hand, and took
+Rand's left arm. Gladys, seeing Nelda moving in on the detective's right,
+took his other arm. Nelda was barely successful in suppressing a look of
+murderous anger. The double doorway into the hall was just wide enough
+for Rand and his two flankers to pass through; Nelda had to fall in a
+couple of paces rear of center, and wasn't able to come up into line
+until they were in the hall upstairs.
+
+"There's the gunroom." Gladys pointed. "And that's your room, over
+there." As she spoke, Walters came out of the doorway she had indicated.
+
+"Your bags are unpacked, sir," he reported. Then he told Rand where he
+would find his things, and where the bath was.
+
+There was a brief discussion of drinks. The butler received his
+instructions and went down the stairway; Rand broke up the feminine
+formation around him and ushered the ladies ahead of him into the
+gunroom.
+
+It was much as he remembered it from his visit of two years before.
+There was a desk in one corner, and back of it a short workbench and
+tool-cabinet. There was a long table in the middle of the room, its top
+covered with green baize, upon which many flat rectangular boxes of
+hardwood rested--some walnut, some rosewood, some quartered oak. Each
+would contain a pistol or pair of pistols, with cleaning and loading
+tools. In the corner farthest from the desk, he saw the head of the
+spiral stairway from the library below, mentioned by Gladys Fleming.
+There were ashstands and a couple of cocktail-tables, and a number of
+chairs, and the old maple cobbler's bench on which Lane Fleming had died.
+The only books in the room were in a small case over the workbench; they
+were all arms-books.
+
+Then he looked at the walls. On both ends, and on the long inside wall,
+the pistols hung, hundreds and hundreds of them, the cream of a
+lifetime's collecting. Horizontal white-painted boards had been fixed to
+the walls about four feet from the floor, and similar boards had been
+placed five feet above them. Between, narrow vertical strips, as wide
+as a lath but twice as thick, were set. Rows of pistols were hung, the
+barrels horizontal, on pairs of these strips, with screwhooks at grip
+and muzzle. There were about a hundred such vertical rows of pistols.
+
+Rand was still looking at them when the butler brought in the drinks;
+when Gladys told the servant that that would be all, he went out, rather
+reluctantly, by the spiral stairs to the library.
+
+"Well, what do you think of them, Colonel Rand?" Gladys asked.
+
+Rand tasted his whiskey and looked around. "It's one of the finest
+collections in the country," he said. "I may even be able to find
+somebody who'll top Rivers's offer, but don't be disappointed if I
+don't.... By the way, did anybody help Mr. Fleming keep this stuff clean?
+The room seems dry, but even so, they'd need an occasional wiping-off."
+
+"Oh, Walters was always in here, going over the pistols," Nelda said.
+"He's been in here every day, lately."
+
+"I wonder if you could spare him to help me a little? I'll need somebody
+who knows his way around here, at first."
+
+"Why, of course," Gladys agreed. "He isn't very busy in the mornings, or
+in the afternoons till close to dinner-time. Are you going to start work
+today?"
+
+"I'll have to. I'm going to see Stephen Gresham and his associates this
+evening, and I'll want to know what I'm talking about."
+
+They spent about fifteen minutes over their drinks, talking about the
+collection. Rand and Gladys did most of the talking, in spite of Nelda's
+best efforts to monopolize the conversation. Geraldine, after a few
+minutes, retired into her private world and only roused herself when her
+sister and stepmother were about to leave. When they went out, Gladys
+promised to send Walters up directly; Rand heard her speaking to him at
+the foot of the main stairway.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 7
+
+
+When Walters entered, Rand had his pipe lit and was walking slowly around
+the room, laying out the work ahead of him. Roughly, the earliest pieces
+were on the extreme left, on the short north wall of the room, and the
+most recent ones on the right, at the south end. This was, of course,
+only relatively true; the pistols seemed to have been classified by type
+in vertical rows, and chronologically from top to bottom in each row. The
+collection seemed to consist of a number of intensely specialized small
+groups, with a large number of pistols of general types added. For
+instance, about midway on the long east wall, there were some thirty-odd
+all-metal pistols, from wheel lock to percussion. There was a collection
+of U.S. Martials, with two rows of the regulation pistols, flintlock and
+percussion, of foreign governments, placed on the left, and the
+collection of Colts on the right. After them came the other types of
+percussion revolvers, and the later metallic-cartridge types.
+
+It was an arrangement which made sense, from the arms student's point
+of view, and Rand decided that it would make sense to the dealers and
+museums to whom he intended sending lists. He would save time by
+listing them as they were hung on the walls. Then, there were the cases
+between the windows on the west wall, containing the ammunition
+collection--examples of every type of fixed-pistol ammunition--and the
+collection of bullet-molds and powder flasks and wheel lock spanners and
+assorted cleaning and loading accessories. All that stuff would have to
+be listed, too.
+
+"I beg your pardon, sir," Walters broke in, behind him. "Mrs. Fleming
+said that you wanted me."
+
+"Oh, yes." Rand turned. "Is this the whole thing? What's on the walls,
+here?"
+
+"Yes, sir. There is also a wall-case containing a number of modern
+pistols and revolvers, and several rifles and shotguns, in the room
+formerly occupied by Mr. Fleming, but they are not part of the
+collection, and they are now the personal property of Mrs. Fleming.
+I understand that she intends selling at least some of them, on her
+own account. Then, there is a quantity of ammunition and
+ammunition-components in that closet under the workbench--cartridges,
+primed cartridge-shells, black and smokeless powder, cartridge-primers,
+percussion caps--but they are not part of the collection, either. I
+believe Mrs. Fleming wants to sell most of that, too."
+
+"Well, I'll talk to her about it. I may want to buy some of the
+ammunition for myself," Rand said. "So I only need to bother with what's
+on the walls, in this room?... By the way, did Mr. Fleming keep any sort
+of record of his collection? A book, or a card-index, or anything like
+that?"
+
+"Why no, sir." Walters was positive. Then he hedged. "If he did, I never
+saw or heard of anything of the sort. Mr. Fleming knew everything in this
+room. I've seen him, downstairs, when somebody would ask him about
+something, close his eyes as though trying to visualize and then give a
+perfect description of any pistol in the collection. Or else, he could
+enumerate all the pistols of a certain type; say, all the Philadelphia
+Deringers, or all the Allen pepperboxes, or all the rim-fire Smith &
+Wesson tip-back types. He had a remarkable memory for his pistols,
+although it was not out of the ordinary otherwise, sir."
+
+Rand nodded. Any collector--at least, any collector who was a serious
+arms-student--could do that, particularly if he were a good visualizer
+and kept his stuff in some systematic order. At the moment, he could have
+named and described any or all of his own modest collection of two
+hundred-odd pistols and revolvers.
+
+"I was hoping he'd kept a record," he said. "A great many collectors do,
+and it would have helped me quite a bit." He made up his mind to compile
+such a record, himself, when he got back to New Belfast. It would be a
+big help to Carter Tipton, when it came time to settle his own estate,
+and a man on whom the Reaper has scored as many near-misses as on Jeff
+Rand should begin to think of such things. "And how about writing
+materials? And is there a typewriter available?"
+
+There was: a cased portable was on the floor beside the workbench.
+Walters showed him which desk drawers contained paper and other things.
+There was, Rand noticed, a loaded .38 Colt Detective Special, in the
+upper right-hand desk drawer.
+
+"And these phones," the butler continued, indicating them. "This one is
+a private outside phone; it doesn't connect with any other in the house.
+The other is an extension. It has a buzzer; the outside phone has a
+regular bell."
+
+Rand thanked him for the information. Then, picking up a note-pad and
+pencil, he started on the left of the collection, meaning to make a
+general list and rough approximation of value for use in talking to
+Gresham's friends that evening. Tomorrow he would begin on the detailed
+list for use in soliciting outside offers.
+
+Twenty-five wheel locks: four heavy South German dags, two singles
+and a pair; three Saxon pistols, with sharply dropped grips, a pair
+and one single; five French and Italian sixteenth-century pistols;
+a pair of small pocket or sash pistols; a pair of French petronels,
+and an extremely long seventeenth-century Dutch pistol with an
+ivory-covered stock and a carved ivory Venus-head for a pommel; eight
+seventeenth-century French, Italian and Flemish pistols. Rand noted them
+down, and was about to pass on; then he looked sharply at one of them.
+
+It was nothing out of the ordinary, as wheel locks go; a long Flemish
+weapon of about 1640, the type used by the Royalist cavalry in the
+English Civil War. There were two others almost like it, but this one was
+in simply appalling condition. The metal was rough with rust, and
+apparently no attempt had been made to clean it in a couple of centuries.
+There was a piece cracked out of the fore-end, the ramrod was missing, as
+was the front ramrod-thimble, both the trigger-guard and the butt-cap
+were loose, and when Rand touched the wheel, it revolved freely if
+sluggishly, betraying a broken spring or chain.
+
+The vertical row next to it seemed to be all snaphaunces, but among them
+Rand saw a pair of Turkish flintlocks. Not even good Turkish flintlocks;
+a pair of the sort of weapons hastily thrown together by native craftsmen
+or imported ready-made from Belgium for bazaar sale to gullible tourists.
+Among the fine examples of seventeenth-century Brescian gunmaking above
+and below it, these things looked like a pair of Dogpatchers in the
+Waldorf's Starlight Room. Rand contemplated them with distaste, then
+shrugged. After all, they might have had some sentimental significance;
+say souvenirs of a pleasantly remembered trip to the Levant.
+
+A few rows farther on, among some exceptionally fine flintlocks, all
+of which pre-dated 1700, he saw one of those big Belgian navy pistols,
+_circa_ 1800, of the sort once advertised far and wide by a certain
+old-army-goods dealer for $6.95. This was a particularly repulsive
+specimen of its breed; grimy with hardened dust and gummed oil, maculated
+with yellow-surface-rust, the brasswork green with corrosion. It was
+impossible to shrug off a thing like that. From then on, Rand kept his
+eyes open for similar incongruities.
+
+They weren't hard to find. There was a big army pistol, of Central
+European origin and in abominable condition, among a row of fine
+multi-shot flintlocks. Multi-shot ... Stephen Gresham had mentioned an
+Elisha Collier flintlock revolver. It wasn't there. It should be hanging
+about where this post-Napoleonic German thing was.
+
+There was no Hall breech-loader, either, but there was a dilapidated old
+Ketland. There were many such interlopers among the U.S. Martials: an
+English ounce-ball cavalry pistol, a French 1777 and a French 1773, a
+couple more $6.95 bargain-counter specials, a miserable altered S. North
+1816. Among the Colts, there was some awful junk, including a big Spanish
+hinge-frame .44 and a Belgian imitation of a Webley R.I.C. Model. There
+weren't as many Paterson Colts as Gresham had spoken of, and the
+Whitneyville Walker was absent. It went on like that; about a dozen of
+the best pistols which Rand remembered having seen from two years ago
+were gone, and he spotted at least twenty items which the late Lane
+Fleming wouldn't have hung in his backyard privy, if he'd had one.
+
+Well, that was to be expected. The way these pistols were arranged, the
+absence of one from its hooks would have been instantly obvious. So, as
+the good stuff had moved out, these disreputable changelings had moved
+in.
+
+"You had rather a shocking experience here, in Mr. Fleming's death," Rand
+said, over his shoulder, to the butler.
+
+"Oh, yes indeed, sir!" Walters seemed relieved that Rand had broken the
+silence. "A great loss to all of us, sir. And so unexpected."
+
+He didn't seem averse to talking about it, and went on at some length.
+His story closely paralleled that of Gladys Fleming.
+
+"Mr. Varcek called the doctor immediately," he said. "Then Mr. Dunmore
+pointed out that the doctor would be obliged to notify either the coroner
+or the police, so he called Mr. Goode, the family solicitor. That was
+about twenty minutes after the shot. Mr. Goode arrived directly; he was
+here in about ten minutes. I must say, sir, I was glad to see him; to
+tell the truth, I had been afraid that the authorities might claim that
+Mr. Fleming had shot himself deliberately."
+
+Somebody else doesn't like the smell of that accident, Rand thought.
+Aloud, he said:
+
+"Mr. Goode lives nearby, then, I take it?"
+
+"Oh, yes, sir. You can see his house from these windows. Over here, sir."
+
+Rand looked out the window. The rain-soaked lawn of the Fleming residence
+ended about a hundred yards to the west; beyond it, an orchard was
+beginning to break into leaf, and beyond the orchard and another lawn
+stood a half-timbered Tudor-style house, somewhat smaller than the
+Fleming place. A path led down from it to the orchard, and another led
+from the orchard to the rear of the house from which Rand looked.
+
+"Must be comforting to know your lawyer's so handy," he commented. "And
+what do you think, Walters? Are you satisfied, in your own mind, that Mr.
+Fleming was killed accidentally?"
+
+The servant looked at him seriously. "No, sir; I'm not," he replied.
+"I've thought about it a great deal, since it happened, sir, and I just
+can't believe that Mr. Fleming would have that revolver, and start
+working on it, without knowing that it was loaded. That just isn't
+possible, if you'll pardon me, sir. And I can't understand how he would
+have shot himself while removing the charges. The fact is, when I came up
+here at quarter of seven, to call him for cocktails, he had the whole
+thing apart and spread out in front of him." The butler thought for a
+moment. "I believe Mr. Dunmore had something like that in mind when he
+called Mr. Goode."
+
+"Well, what happened?" Rand asked. "Did the coroner or the doctor choke
+on calling it an accident?"
+
+"Oh no, sir; there was no trouble of any sort about that. You see, Dr.
+Yardman called the coroner, as soon as he arrived, but Mr. Goode was here
+already. He'd come over by that path you saw, to the rear of the house,
+and in through the garage, which was open, since Mrs. Dunmore was out
+with the coupé. They all talked it over for a while, and the coroner
+decided that there would be no need for any inquest, and the doctor wrote
+out the certificate. That was all there was to it."
+
+Rand looked at the section of pistol-rack devoted to Colts.
+
+"Which one was it?" he asked.
+
+"Oh it's not here, sir," Walters replied. "The coroner took it away with
+him."
+
+"And hasn't returned it yet? Well, he has no business keeping it. It's
+part of the collection, and belongs to the estate."
+
+"Yes, sir. If I may say so, I thought it was a bit high-handed of him,
+taking it away, myself, but it wasn't my place to say anything about it."
+
+"Well, I'll make it mine. If that revolver's what I'm told it is, it's
+too valuable to let some damned county-seat politician walk off with." A
+thought occurred to him. "And if I find that he's disposed of it, this
+county's going to need a new coroner, at least till the present incumbent
+gets out of jail."
+
+The buzzer of the extension phone went off like an annoyed rattlesnake.
+Walters scooped it up, spoke into it, listened for a moment, and handed
+it to Rand.
+
+"For you, sir; Mrs. Fleming."
+
+"Colonel Rand, Carl Gwinnett, the commission-dealer I told you about is
+here," Gladys told him. "Do you want to talk to him?"
+
+"Why, yes. Do I understand, now, that you and the other ladies want cash,
+and don't want the collection peddled off piecemeal?... All right, send
+him up. I'll talk to him."
+
+A few minutes later, a short, compact-looking man of forty-odd entered
+the gunroom, shifting a brief case to his left hand and extending his
+right. Rand advanced to meet him and shook hands with him.
+
+"You're Colonel Rand? Enjoyed your articles in the _Rifleman_," he said.
+"Mrs. Fleming tells me you're handling the sale of the collection for the
+estate."
+
+"That's right, Mr. Gwinnett. Mrs. Fleming tells me you're interested."
+
+"Yes. Originally, I offered to sell the collection for her on a
+commission basis, but she didn't seem to care for the idea, and neither
+do the other ladies. They all want spot cash, in a lump sum."
+
+"Yes. Mrs. Fleming herself might have been interested in your
+proposition, if she'd been sole owner. You could probably get more for
+the collection, even after deducting your commission, than I'll be able
+to, but the collection belongs to the estate, and has to be sold before
+any division can be made."
+
+"Yes, I see that. Well, how much would the estate, or you, consider a
+reasonable offer?"
+
+"Sit down, Mr. Gwinnett," Rand invited. "What would you consider a
+reasonable offer, yourself? We're not asking any specific price; we're
+just taking bids, as it were."
+
+"Well, how much have you been offered, to date?"
+
+"Well, we haven't heard from everybody. In fact, we haven't put out a
+list, or solicited offers, except locally, as yet. But one gentleman has
+expressed a willingness to pay up to twenty-five thousand dollars."
+
+Gwinnett's face expressed polite skepticism. "Colonel Rand!" he
+protested. "You certainly don't take an offer like that seriously?"
+
+"I think it was made seriously," Rand replied. "A respectable profit
+could be made on the collection, even at that price."
+
+Gwinnett's eyes shifted over the rows of horizontal barrels on the walls.
+He was almost visibly wrestling with mental arithmetic, and at the same
+time trying to keep any hint of his notion of the collection's real value
+out of his face.
+
+"Well, I doubt if I could raise that much," he said. "Might I ask who's
+making this offer?"
+
+"You might; I'm afraid I couldn't tell you. You wouldn't want me to
+publish your own offer broadcast, would you?"
+
+"I think I can guess. If I'm right, don't hold your head in a tub of
+water till you get it," Gwinnett advised. "Making a big offer to scare
+away competition is one thing, and paying off on it is another. I've seen
+that happen before, you know. Fact is, there's one dealer, not far from
+here, who makes a regular habit of it. He'll make some fantastic offer,
+and then, when everybody's been bluffed out, he'll start making
+objections and finding faults, and before long he'll be down to about
+a quarter of his original price."
+
+"The practice isn't unknown," Rand admitted.
+
+"I'll bet you don't have this twenty-five thousand dollar offer on paper,
+over a signature," Gwinnett pursued. "Well, here." He opened his brief
+case and extracted a sheet of paper, handing it to Rand. "You can file
+this; I'll stand back of it."
+
+Rand looked at the typed and signed statement to the effect that Carl
+Gwinnett agreed to pay the sum of fifteen thousand dollars for the Lane
+Fleming pistol-collection, in its entirety, within thirty days of date.
+That was an average of six dollars a pistol. There had been a time, not
+too long ago, when a pistol-collection with an average value of six
+dollars, particularly one as large as the Fleming collection, had been
+something unusual. For one thing, arms values had increased sharply in
+the meantime. For another, Lane Fleming had kept his collection clean of
+the two-dollar items which dragged down so many collectors' average
+values. Except for the two-dozen-odd mysterious interlopers, there wasn't
+a pistol in the Fleming collection that wasn't worth at least twenty
+dollars, and quite a few had values expressible in three figures.
+
+"Well, your offer is duly received and filed, Mr. Gwinnett," Rand told
+him, folding the sheet and putting it in his pocket. "This is better
+than an unwitnessed verbal statement that somebody is willing to pay
+twenty-five thousand. I'll certainly bear you in mind."
+
+"You can show that to Arnold Rivers, if you want to," Gwinnett said. "See
+how much he's willing to commit himself to, over his signature."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 8
+
+
+Pre-dinner cocktails in the library seemed to be a sort of household
+rite--a self-imposed Truce of Bacchus before the resumption of
+hostilities in the dining-room. It lasted from six forty-five to seven;
+everybody sipped Manhattans and kept quiet and listened to the radio
+newscast. The only new face, to Rand, was Fred Dunmore's.
+
+It was a smooth, pinkly-shaven face, decorated with octagonal rimless
+glasses; an entirely unremarkable face; the face of the type that used to
+be labeled "Babbitt." The corner of Rand's mind that handled such data
+subconsciously filed his description: forty-five to fifty, one-eighty,
+five feet eight, hair brown and thinning, eyes blue. To this he added the
+Rotarian button on the lapel, and the small gold globule on the watch
+chain that testified that, when his age and weight had been considerably
+less, Dunmore had played on somebody's basketball team. At that time he
+had probably belonged to the Y.M.C.A., and had thought that Mussolini was
+doing a splendid job in Italy, that H. L. Mencken ought to be deported to
+Russia, and that Prohibition was here to stay. At company sales meetings,
+he probably radiated an aura of synthetic good-fellowship.
+
+As Rand followed Walters down the spiral from the gunroom, the radio
+commercial was just starting, and Geraldine was asking Dunmore where
+Anton was.
+
+"Oh, you know," Dunmore told her, impatiently. "He had to go to
+Louisburg, to that Medical Association meeting; he's reading a paper
+about the new diabetic ration."
+
+He broke off as Rand approached and was introduced by Gladys, who handed
+both men their cocktails. Then the news commentator greeted them out of
+the radio, and everybody absorbed the day's news along with their
+Manhattans. After the broadcast, they all crossed the hall to the
+dining-room, where hostilities began almost before the soup was cool
+enough to taste.
+
+"I don't see why you women had to do this," Dunmore huffed. "Rivers has
+made us a fair offer. Bringing in an outsider will only give him the
+impression that we lack confidence in him."
+
+"Well, won't that be just too, too bad!" Geraldine slashed at him. "We
+mustn't ever hurt dear Mr. Rivers's feelings like that. Let him have the
+collection for half what it's worth, but never, never let him think we
+know what a God-damned crook he is!"
+
+Dunmore evidently didn't think that worth dignifying with an answer.
+Doubtless he expected Nelda to launch a counter-offensive, as a matter of
+principle. If he did, he was disappointed.
+
+"Well?" Nelda demanded. "What did you want us to do; give the collection
+away?"
+
+"You don't understand," Dunmore told her. "You've probably heard somebody
+say what the collection's worth, and you never stopped to realize that
+it's only worth that to a dealer, who can sell it item by item. You can't
+expect ..."
+
+"We can expect a lot more than ten thousand dollars," Nelda retorted. "In
+fact, we can expect more than that from Rivers. Colonel Rand was talking
+to Rivers, this afternoon. Colonel Rand doesn't have any confidence in
+Rivers at all, and he doesn't care who knows it."
+
+"You were talking to Arnold Rivers, this afternoon, about the
+collection?" Dunmore demanded of Rand.
+
+"That's right," Rand confirmed. "I told him his ten thousand dollar offer
+was a joke. Stephen Gresham and his friends can top that out of one
+pocket. Finally, he got around to admitting that he's willing to pay up
+to twenty-five thousand."
+
+"I don't believe it!" Dunmore exclaimed angrily. "Rivers told me
+personally, that neither he nor any other dealer could hope to handle
+that collection profitably at more than ten thousand."
+
+"And you believed that?" Nelda demanded. "And you're a business man? _My
+God!_"
+
+"He's probably a good one, as long as he sticks to pancake flour,"
+Geraldine was generous enough to concede. "But about guns, he barely
+knows which end the bullet comes out at. Ten thousand was probably his
+idea of what we'd think the pistols were worth."
+
+Dunmore ignored that and turned to Rand. "Did Arnold Rivers actually tell
+you he'd pay twenty-five thousand dollars for the collection?" he asked.
+"I can't believe that he'd raise his own offer like that."
+
+"He didn't raise his offer; I threw it out and told him to make one that
+could be taken seriously." Rand repeated, as closely as he could, his
+conversation with the arms-dealer. When he had finished, Dunmore was
+frowning in puzzled displeasure.
+
+"And you think he's actually willing to pay that much?"
+
+"Yes, I do. If he handles them right, he can double his money on the
+pistols inside of five years. I doubt if you realize how valuable those
+pistols are. You probably defined Mr. Fleming's collection as a 'hobby'
+and therefore something not to be taken seriously. And, aside from the
+actual profit, the prestige of handling this collection would be worth
+a good deal to Rivers, as advertising. I haven't the least doubt that he
+can raise the money, or that he's willing to pay it."
+
+Dunmore was still frowning. Maybe he hated being proved wrong in front of
+the women of the family.
+
+"And you think Gresham and his friends will offer enough to force him to
+pay the full amount?"
+
+Rand laughed and told him to stop being naïve. "He's done that, himself,
+and what's more, he knows it. When he told me he was willing to go as
+high as twenty-five thousand, he fixed the price. Unless somebody offers
+more, which isn't impossible."
+
+"But maybe he's just bluffing." Dunmore seemed to be following Gwinnett's
+line of thought. "After he's bluffed Gresham's crowd out, maybe he'll go
+back to his original ten thousand offer."
+
+"Fred, please stop talking about that ten thousand dollars!" Geraldine
+interrupted. "How much did Rivers actually tell you he'd pay? Twenty-five
+thousand, like he did Colonel Rand?"
+
+Dunmore turned in his chair angrily. "Now, look here!" he shouted.
+"There's a limit to what I've got to take from you...."
+
+He stopped short, as Nelda, beside him, moved slightly, and his words
+ended in something that sounded like a smothered moan. Rand suspected
+that she had kicked her husband painfully under the table. Then Walters
+came in with the meat course, and firing ceased until the butler had
+retired.
+
+"By the way," Rand tossed into the conversational vacuum that followed
+his exit, "does anybody know anything about a record Mr. Fleming kept of
+his collection?"
+
+"Why, no; can't say I do," Dunmore replied promptly, evidently grateful
+for the change of subject. "You mean, like an inventory?"
+
+"Oh, Fred, you do!" Nelda told him impatiently. "You know that big gray
+book Father kept all his pistols entered in."
+
+"It was a gray ledger, with a black leather back," Gladys said. "He kept
+it in the little bookcase over the workbench in the gunroom."
+
+"I'll look for it," Rand said. "Sure it's still there? It would be a big
+help to me."
+
+The rest of the dinner passed in relative tranquillity. The conversation
+proceeded in fairly safe channels. Dunmore was anxious to avoid any
+further reference to the sum of ten thousand dollars; when Gladys induced
+Rand to talk about his military experiences, he lapsed into preoccupied
+silence. Several times, Geraldine and Nelda aimed halfhearted feline
+swipes at one another, more out of custom than present and active
+rancor. The women seemed to have erected a temporary tri-partite
+_Entente_-more-or-less-_Cordiale_.
+
+Finally, the meal ended, and the diners drifted away from the table. Rand
+went to his room for a few moments, then went to the gunroom to get the
+notes he had made. Fred Dunmore was using the private phone as he
+entered.
+
+"Well, never mind about that, now," he was saying. "We'll talk about
+it when I see you.... Yes, of course; so am I.... Well, say about
+eleven.... Be seeing you."
+
+He hung up and turned to Rand. "More God-damned union trouble," he said.
+"It's enough to make a saint lose his religion! Our factory-hands are
+organized in the C.I.O., and our warehouse, sales, and shipping personnel
+are in the A.F. of L., and if they aren't fighting the company, they're
+fighting each other. Now they have some damn kind of a jurisdictional
+dispute.... I don't know what this country's coming to!" He glared
+angrily through his octagonal glasses for a moment. Then his voice took
+on an ingratiating note. "Look here, Colonel; I just didn't understand
+the situation, until you explained it. I hope you aren't taking anything
+that sister-in-law of mine said seriously. She just blurts out the first
+thing that comes into her so-called mind; why, only yesterday she was
+accusing Gladys of bringing you into this to help her gyp the rest of us.
+And before that ..."
+
+"Oh, forget it." Rand dismissed Geraldine with a shrug. "I know she was
+talking through a highball glass. As far as selling the collection is
+concerned, you just let Rivers sell you a bill of something you hadn't
+gotten a good look at. He's a smart operator, and he's crooked as a
+wagon-load of blacksnakes. Maybe you never realized just how much money
+Fleming put into this collection; naturally you wouldn't realize how much
+could be gotten out of it again. A lot of this stuff has been here for
+quite a while, and antiques of any kind tend to increase in value."
+
+"Well, I want you to know that I'm just as glad as anybody if you can get
+a better price out of him than I could." Dunmore smiled ruefully. "I
+guess he's just a better poker player than I am."
+
+"Not necessarily. He could see your hand, and you couldn't see his," Rand
+told him.
+
+"You going to see Gresham and his friends, this evening?" Dunmore asked.
+"Well, when you get back, if you find four cars in the garage, counting
+the station-wagon, lock up after you've put your own car away. If you
+find only three, then you'll know that Anton Varcek's still out, so leave
+it open for him. That's the way we do here; last one in locks up."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 9
+
+
+Rand found another car, a smoke-gray Plymouth coupé, standing on the
+left of his Lincoln when he went down to the garage. Running his car
+outside and down to the highway, he settled down to his regular style of
+driving--a barely legal fifty m.p.h., punctuated by bursts of absolutely
+felonious speed whenever he found an unobstructed straightaway. Entering
+Rosemont, he slowed and went through the underpass at the railroad
+tracks, speeding again when he was clear of the village. A few minutes
+later, he was turning into the crushed-limestone drive that led up to the
+buff-brick Gresham house.
+
+A girl met him at the door, a cute little redhead in a red-striped dress,
+who gave him a smile that seemed to start on the bridge of her nose and
+lift her whole face up after it. She held out her hand to him.
+
+"Colonel Rand!" she exclaimed. "I'll bet you don't remember me."
+
+"Sure I do. You're Dot," Rand said. "At least, I think you are; the last
+time I saw you, you were in pigtails. And you were only about so high."
+He measured with his hand. "The last time I was here, you were away at
+school. You must be old enough to vote, by now."
+
+"I will, this fall," she replied. "Come on in; you're the first one
+here. Daddy hasn't gotten back from town yet. He called and said he'd
+be delayed till about nine." In the hall she took his hat and coat and
+guided him toward the parlor on the right.
+
+"Oh, Mother!" she called. "Here's Colonel Rand!"
+
+Rand remembered Irene Gresham, too; an over-age dizzy blonde who was
+still living in the Flaming Youth era of the twenties. She was an
+extremely good egg; he liked her very much. After all, insisting upon
+remaining an F. Scott Fitzgerald character was a harmless and amusing
+foible, and it was no more than right that somebody should try to keep
+the bright banner of Jazz Age innocence flying in a grim and sullen
+world. He accepted a cigarette, shared the flame of his lighter with
+mother and daughter, and submitted to being gushed over.
+
+"... and, honestly, Jeff, you get handsomer every year," Irene Gresham
+rattled on. "Dot, doesn't he look just like Clark Gable in _Gone with the
+Wind_? But then, of course, Jeff really _is_ a Southerner, so ..."
+
+The doorbell interrupted this slight _non sequitur_. She broke off,
+rising.
+
+"Sit still, Jeff; I'm just going to see who it is. You know, we're down
+to only one servant now, and it seems as if it's always her night off, or
+something. I don't know, honestly, what I'm going to do...."
+
+She hurried out of the room. Voices sounded in the hall; a man's and a
+girl's.
+
+"That's Pierre and Karen," Dot said. "Let's all go up in the gunroom, and
+wait for the others there."
+
+They went out to meet the newcomers. The man was a few inches shorter
+than Rand, with gray eyes that looked startlingly light against the dark
+brown of his face. He wasn't using a cane, but he walked with a slight
+limp. Beside him was a slender girl, almost as tall as he was, with dark
+brown hair and brown eyes. She wore a rust-brown sweater and a brown
+skirt, and low-heeled walking-shoes.
+
+Irene Gresham went into the introductions, the newcomers shook hands with
+Rand and were advised that the style of address was "Jeff," rather than
+"Colonel Rand," and then Dot suggested going up to the gunroom. Irene
+Gresham said she'd stay downstairs; she'd have to let the others in.
+
+"Have you seen this collection before?" Pierre Jarrett inquired as he and
+Rand went upstairs together.
+
+"About two years ago," Rand said. "Stephen had just gotten a cased
+dueling set by Wilkinson, then. From the Far West Hobby Shop, I think."
+
+"Oh, he's gotten a lot of new stuff since then, and sold off about a
+dozen culls and duplicates," the former Marine said. "I'll show you
+what's new, till the others come."
+
+They reached the head of the stairs and started down the hall to the
+gunroom, in the wing that projected out over the garage. Along the way,
+the girls detached themselves for nose-powdering.
+
+Unlike the room at the Fleming home, Stephen Gresham's gunroom had
+originally been something else--a nursery, or play-room, or party-room.
+There were windows on both long sides, which considerably reduced the
+available wall-space, and the situation wasn't helped any by the fact
+that the collection was about thirty per cent long-arms. Things were
+pretty badly crowded; most of the rifles and muskets were in circular
+barracks-racks, away from the walls.
+
+"Here, this one's new since you were here," Pierre said, picking a long
+musket from one of the racks and handing it to Rand. "How do you like
+this one?"
+
+Rand took it and whistled appreciatively. "Real European matchlock; no,
+I never saw that. Looks like North Italian, say 1575 to about 1600."
+
+"That musket," Pierre informed him, "came over on the _Mayflower_."
+
+"Really, or just a gag?" Rand asked. "It easily could have. The
+_Mayflower_ Company bought their muskets in Holland, from some
+seventeenth-century forerunner of Bannerman's, and Europe was full of
+muskets like this then, left over from the wars of the Holy Roman Empire
+and the French religious wars."
+
+"Yes; I suppose all their muskets were obsolete types for the period,"
+Pierre agreed. "Well, that's a real _Mayflower_ arm. Stephen has the
+documentation for it. It came from the Charles Winthrop Sawyer
+collection, and there were only three ownership changes between the last
+owner and the _Mayflower_ Company. Stephen only paid a hundred dollars
+for it, too."
+
+"That was practically stealing," Rand said. He carried the musket to the
+light and examined it closely. "Nice condition, too; I wouldn't be afraid
+to fire this with a full charge, right now." He handed the weapon back.
+"He didn't lose a thing on that deal."
+
+"I should say not! I'd give him two hundred for it, any time. Even
+without the history, it's worth that."
+
+"Who buys history, anyhow?" Rand wanted to know. "The fact that it came
+from the Sawyer collection adds more value to it than this _Mayflower_
+business. Past ownership by a recognized authority like Sawyer is a real
+guarantee of quality and authenticity. But history, documented or
+otherwise--hell, only yesterday I saw a pair of pistols with a wonderful
+three-hundred-and-fifty-year documented history. Only not a word of it
+was true; the pistols were made about twenty years ago."
+
+"Those wheel locks Fleming bought from Arnold Rivers?" Pierre asked.
+"God, wasn't that a crime! I'll bet Rivers bought himself a big drink
+when Lane Fleming was killed. Fleming was all set to hang Rivers's scalp
+in his wigwam.... But with Stephen, the history does count for
+something. As you probably know, he collects arms-types that figured in
+American history. Well, he can prove that this individual musket was
+brought over by the Pilgrims, so he can be sure it's an example of the
+type they used. But he'd sooner have a typical Pilgrim musket that never
+was within five thousand miles of Plymouth Rock than a non-typical arm
+brought over as a personal weapon by one of the _Mayflower_ Company."
+
+"Oh, none of us are really interested in the individual history of
+collection weapons," Rand said. "You show me a collection that's full of
+known-history arms, and I'll show you a collection that's either full of
+junk or else cost three times what it's worth. And you show me a
+collector who blows money on history, and nine times out of ten I'll show
+you a collector who doesn't know guns. I saw one such collection, once;
+every item had its history neatly written out on a tag and hung onto the
+trigger-guard. The owner thought that the patent-dates on Colts were
+model-dates, and the model-dates on French military arms were dates of
+fabrication."
+
+Pierre wrinkled his nose disgustedly. "God, I hate to see a collection
+all fouled up with tags hung on things!" he said. "Or stuck over with
+gummed labels; that's even worse. Once in a while I get something with a
+label pasted on it, usually on the stock, and after I get it off, there's
+a job getting the wood under it rubbed up to the same color as the rest
+of the stock."
+
+"Yes. I picked up a lovely little rifled flintlock pistol, once," Rand
+said. "American; full-length curly-maple stock; really a Kentucky rifle
+in pistol form. Whoever had owned it before me had pasted a slip of paper
+on the underside of the stock, between the trigger-guard and the lower
+ramrod thimble, with a lot of crap, mostly erroneous, typed on it. It
+took me six months to remove the last traces of where that thing had been
+stuck on."
+
+"What do you collect, or don't you specialize?"
+
+"Pistols; I try to get the best possible specimens of the most important
+types, special emphasis on British arms after 1700 and American arms
+after 1800. What I'm interested in is the evolution of the pistol. I have
+a couple of wheel locks, to start with, and three miguelet-locks and an
+Italian snaphaunce. Then I have a few early flintlocks, and a number of
+mid-eighteenth-century types, and some late flintlocks and percussion
+types. And about twenty Colts, and so on through percussion revolvers and
+early cartridge types to some modern arms, including a few World War II
+arms."
+
+"I see; about the same idea Lane Fleming had," Pierre said. "I collect
+personal combat-arms, firearms and edge-weapons. Arms that either
+influenced fighting techniques, or were developed to meet special combat
+conditions. From what you say, you're mainly interested in the way
+firearms were designed and made; I'm interested in the conditions under
+which they were used. And Adam Trehearne, who'll be here shortly,
+collects pistols and a few long-arms in wheel lock, proto-flintlock and
+early flintlock, to 1700. And Philip Cabot collects U.S. Martials,
+flintlock to automatic, and also enemy and Allied Army weapons from all
+our wars. And Colin MacBride collects nothing but Colts. Odd how a Scot,
+who's only been in this country twenty years, should become interested
+in so distinctively American a type."
+
+"And I collect anything I can sell at a profit, from Chinese matchlocks
+to tommy-guns," Karen Lawrence interjected, coming into the room with Dot
+Gresham.
+
+Pierre grinned. "Karen is practically a unique specimen herself; the only
+general-antique dealer I've ever seen who doesn't hate the sight of a
+gun-collector."
+
+"That's only because I'm crazy enough to want to marry one," the
+girl dealer replied. "Of all the miserly, unscrupulous, grasping
+characters ..." She expressed a doubt that the average gun-collector
+would pay more than ten cents to see his Lord and Savior riding to hounds
+on a Bren-carrier. "They don't give a hoot whose grandfather owned what,
+and if anything's battered up a little, they don't think it looks quaint,
+they think it looks lousy. And they've never heard of inflation; they
+think arms ought still to sell for the sort of prices they brought at the
+old Mark Field sale, back in 1911."
+
+"What were you looking at?" Dot asked Rand, then glanced at the musket in
+Pierre's hands. "Oh, Priscilla."
+
+Karen laughed. "Dot not only knows everything in the collection; she
+knows it by name. Dot, show Colonel Rand Hester Prynne."
+
+"Hester coming up," Gresham's daughter said, catching another musket out
+of the same rack from which Pierre had gotten the matchlock and passing
+it over to Rand. He grasped the heavy piece, approving of the easy,
+instinctive way in which the girl had handled it. "Look on the barrel,"
+she told him. "On top, right at the breech."
+
+The gun was a flintlock, or rather, a dog-lock; sure enough, stamped on
+the breech was the big "A" of the Company of Workmen Armorers of London,
+the seventeenth-century gunmakers' guild.
+
+"That's right," he nodded. "That's Hester Prynne, all right; the first
+American girl to make her letter."
+
+There were footsteps in the hall outside, and male voices.
+
+"Adam and Colin," Pierre recognized them before they entered.
+
+Both men were past fifty. Colin MacBride was a six-foot black Highlander;
+black eyes, black hair, and a black weeping-willow mustache, from under
+which a stubby pipe jutted. Except when he emptied it of ashes and
+refilled it, it was a permanent fixture of his weather-beaten face.
+Trehearne was somewhat shorter, and fair; his sandy mustache, beginning
+to turn gray at the edges, was clipped to micrometric exactness.
+
+They shook hands with Rand, who set Hester back in her place. Trehearne
+took the matchlock out of Pierre's hands and looked at it wistfully.
+
+"Some chaps have all the luck," he commented. "What do you think of it,
+Mr. Rand?" Pierre, who had made the introductions, had respected the
+detective's present civilian status. "Or don't you collect long-arms?"
+
+"I don't collect them, but I'm interested in anything that'll shoot.
+That's a good one. Those things are scarce, too."
+
+"Yes. You'll find a hundred wheel locks for every matchlock, and yet
+there must have been a hundred matchlocks made for every wheel lock."
+
+"Matchlocks were cheap, and wheel locks were expensive," MacBride
+suggested. He spoke with the faintest trace of Highland accent.
+"Naturally, they got better care."
+
+"It would take a Scot to think of that," Karen said. "Now, you take a
+Scot who collects guns, and you have something!"
+
+"That's only part of it," Rand said. "I believe that by the last quarter
+of the seventeenth century, most of the matchlocks that were lying around
+had been scrapped, and the barrels used in making flintlocks. Hester
+Prynne, over there, could easily have started her career as a matchlock.
+And then, a great many matchlocks went into the West African slave and
+ivory trade, and were promptly ruined by the natives."
+
+"Yes, and I seem to recall having seen Spanish and French miguelet
+muskets that looked as though they had been altered directly from
+matchlock, retaining the original stock and even the original
+lock-plate," Trehearne added.
+
+"So have I, come to think of it." Rand stole a glance at his wrist-watch.
+It was nine five; he was wishing Stephen Gresham would put in an
+appearance.
+
+MacBride and Trehearne joined Pierre and the girls in showing him
+Gresham's collection; evidently they all knew it almost as well as their
+own. After a while, Irene Gresham ushered in Philip Cabot. He, too, was
+past middle age, with prematurely white hair and a thin, scholarly face.
+According to Hollywood type-casting, he might have been a professor, or a
+judge, or a Boston Brahmin, but never a stockbroker.
+
+Irene Gresham wanted to know what everybody wanted to drink. Rand wanted
+Bourbon and plain water; MacBride voted for Jamaica rum; Trehearne and
+Cabot favored brandy and soda, and Pierre and the girls wanted Bacardi
+and Coca-Cola.
+
+"And Stephen'll want rye and soda, when he gets here," Irene said. "Come
+on, girls; let's rustle up the drinks."
+
+Before they returned, Stephen Gresham came in, lighting a cigar. It was
+just nine twenty-two.
+
+"Well, I see everybody's here," he said. "No; where's Karen?"
+
+Pierre told him. A few minutes later the women returned, carrying bottles
+and glasses; when the flurry of drink-mixing had subsided, they all sat
+down.
+
+"Let's get the business over first," Gresham suggested. "I suppose you've
+gone over the collection already, Jeff?"
+
+"Yes, and first of all, I want to know something. When was the last that
+any of you saw it?"
+
+Gresham and Pierre had been in Fleming's gunroom just two days before the
+fatal "accident."
+
+"And can you tell me if the big Whitneyville Colt was still there, then?"
+Rand asked. "Or the Rappahannock Forge, or the Collier flintlock, or the
+Hall?"
+
+"Why, of course ... My God, aren't they there now?" Gresham demanded.
+
+Rand shook his head. "And if Fleming still had them two days before he
+was killed, then somebody's been weeding out the collection since. Doing
+it very cleverly, too," he added. "You know how that stuff's arranged,
+and how conspicuous a missing pistol would be. Well, when I was going
+over the collection, I found about two dozen pieces of the most utter
+trash, things Lane Fleming wouldn't have allowed in the house, all
+hanging where some really good item ought to have been." He took a paper
+from his pocket and read off a list of the dubious items, interpolating
+comments on the condition, and a list of the real rarities which Gresham
+had mentioned the day before, which were now missing.
+
+"All that good stuff was there the last time I saw the collection,"
+Gresham said. "What do you say, Pierre?"
+
+"I had the Hall pistol in my hands," Pierre said. "And I remember looking
+at the Rappahannock Forge."
+
+Trehearne broke in to ask how many English dog-locks there were, and if
+the snaphaunce Highlander and the big all-steel wheel lock were still
+there. At the same time, Cabot was inquiring about the Springfield 1818
+and the Virginia Manufactory pistols.
+
+"I'll have a complete, itemized list in a few days," Rand said. "In the
+meantime, I'd like a couple of you to look at the collection and help me
+decide what's missing. I'm going to try to catch the thief, and then get
+at the fence through him."
+
+"Think Rivers might have gotten the pistols?" Gresham asked. "He's the
+crookedest dealer I know of."
+
+"He's the crookedest dealer anybody knows of," Rand amended. "The only
+thing, he's a little too anxious to buy the collection, for somebody
+who's just skimmed off the cream."
+
+"Ten thousand dollars isn't much in the way of anxiety," Cabot said. "I'd
+call that a nominal bid, to avoid suspicion."
+
+"The dope's changed a little on that." Rand brought him up to date.
+"Rivers's offer is now twenty-five thousand."
+
+There was a stunned hush, followed by a gust of exclamations.
+
+"Guid Lorrd!" The Scots accent fairly curdled on Colin MacBride's tongue.
+"We canna go over that!"
+
+"I'm afraid not; twenty would be about our limit," Gresham agreed. "And
+with the best items gone ..." He shrugged.
+
+Pierre and Karen were looking at each other in blank misery; their dream
+of establishing themselves in the arms business had blown up in their
+faces.
+
+"Oh, he's talking through his hat!" Cabot declared. "He just hopes we'll
+lose interest, and then he'll buy what's left of the collection for a
+song."
+
+"Maybe he knows the collection's been robbed," Trehearne suggested. "That
+would let him out, later. He'd accuse you or the Fleming estate of
+holding out the best pieces, and then offer to take what's left for about
+five thousand."
+
+"Well, that would be presuming that he knows the collection has been
+robbed," Cabot pointed out. "And the only way he'd know that would be if
+he, himself, had bought the stolen pistols."
+
+"Well, does anybody need a chaser to swallow that?" Trehearne countered.
+"I'm bloody sure I don't."
+
+Karen Lawrence shook her head. "No, he'd pay twenty-five thousand for the
+collection, just as it stands, to keep Pierre and me out of the arms
+business. This end of the state couldn't support another arms-dealer, and
+with the reputation he's made for himself, he'd be the one to go under."
+She stubbed out her cigarette and finished her drink. "If you don't mind,
+Pierre, I think I'll go home."
+
+"I'm not feeling very festive, myself, right now." The ex-Marine rose and
+held out his hand to Rand. "Don't get the idea, Jeff, that anybody here
+holds this against you. You have your clients' interests to look out
+for."
+
+"Well, if this be treason make the most of it," Rand said, "but I hope
+Rivers doesn't go through with it. I'd like to see you people get the
+collection, and I'd hate to see a lot of nice pistols like that get into
+the hands of a damned swindler like Rivers.... Maybe I can catch him with
+the hot-goods on him, and send him up for about three-to-five."
+
+"Oh, he's too smart for that," Karen despaired. "He can get away with
+faking, but the dumbest jury in the world would know what receiving
+stolen goods was, and he knows it."
+
+Dorothy and Irene Gresham accompanied Pierre and Karen downstairs. After
+they had gone, Gresham tried, not very successfully, to inject more life
+into the party with another round of drinks. For a while they discussed
+the personal and commercial iniquities of Arnold Rivers. Trehearne and
+MacBride, who had come together in the latter's car, left shortly, and
+half an hour later, Philip Cabot rose and announced that he, too, was
+leaving.
+
+"You haven't seen my collection since before the war, Jeff," he said. "If
+you're not sleepy, why don't you stop at my place and see what's new?
+You're staying at the Flemings'; my house is along your way, about a mile
+on the other side of the railroad."
+
+They went out and got into their cars. Rand kept Cabot's taillight in
+sight until the broker swung into his drive and put his car in the
+garage. Rand parked beside the road, took the Leech & Rigdon out of the
+glove-box, and got out, slipping the Confederate revolver under his
+trouser-band. He was pulling down his vest to cover the butt as he went
+up the walk and joined his friend at the front door.
+
+Cabot's combination library and gunroom was on the first floor. Like
+Rand's own, his collection was hung on racks over low bookcases on either
+side of the room. It was strictly a collector's collection, intensely
+specialized. There were all but a few of the U.S. regulation single-shot
+pistols, a fair representation of secondary types, most of the revolvers
+of the Civil War, and all the later revolvers and automatics. In
+addition, there were British pistols of the Revolution and 1812,
+Confederate revolvers, a couple of Spanish revolvers of 1898, the Lugers
+and Mausers and Steyers of the first World War, and the pistols of all
+our allies, beginning with the French weapons of the Revolution.
+
+"I'm having the devil's own time filling in for this last war," Cabot
+said. "I have a want-ad running in the _Rifleman_, and I've gotten a few:
+that Nambu, and that Japanese Model-14, and the Polish Radom, and the
+Italian Glisenti, and that Tokarev, and, of course, the P-'38 and the
+Canadian Browning; but it's going to take the devil's own time. I hope
+nobody starts another war, for a few years, till I can get caught up on
+the last one."
+
+Rand was looking at the Confederate revolvers. Griswold & Grier, Haiman
+Brothers, Tucker & Sherrod, Dance Brothers & Park, Spiller & Burr--there
+it was: Leech & Rigdon. He tapped it on the cylinder with a finger.
+
+"Wasn't it one of those things that killed Lane Fleming?" he asked.
+
+"Leech & Rigdon? So I'm told." Cabot hesitated. "Jeff, I saw that
+revolver, not four hours before Fleming was shot. Had it in my hands;
+looked it over carefully." He shook his head. "It absolutely was not
+loaded. It was empty, and there was rust in the chambers."
+
+"Then how the hell did he get shot?" Rand wanted to know.
+
+"That I couldn't say; I'm only telling you how he didn't get shot. Here,
+this is how it was. It was a Thursday, and I'd come halfway out from town
+before I remembered that I hadn't bought a copy of _Time_, so I stopped
+at Biddle's drugstore, in the village, for one. Just as I was getting
+into my car, outside, Lane Fleming drove up and saw me. He blew his horn
+at me, and then waved to me with this revolver in his hand. I went over
+and looked at it, and he told me he'd found it hanging back of the
+counter at a barbecue-stand, where the road from Rosemont joins Route 22.
+There had been some other pistols with it, and I went to see them later,
+but they were all trash. The Leech & Rigdon had been the only decent
+thing there, and Fleming had talked it out of this fellow for ten
+dollars. He was disgustingly gleeful about it, particularly as it was
+a better specimen than mine."
+
+"Would you know it, if you saw it again?" Rand asked.
+
+"Yes. I remember the serials. I always look at serials on Confederate
+arms. The highest known serial number for a Leech & Rigdon is 1393; this
+one was 1234."
+
+Rand pulled the .36 revolver from his pants-leg and gave it a quick
+glance; the number was 1234. He handed it to Cabot.
+
+"Is this it?" he asked.
+
+Cabot checked the number. "Yes. And I remember this bruise on the left
+grip; Fleming was saying that he was glad it would be on the inside, so
+it wouldn't show when he hung it on the wall." He carried the revolver to
+the desk and held it under the light. "Why, this thing wasn't fired at
+all!" he exclaimed. "I thought that Fleming might have loaded it, meaning
+to target it--he had a pistol range back of his house--but the chambers
+are clean." He sniffed at it. "Hoppe's Number Nine," he said. "And I can
+see traces of partly dissolved rust, and no traces of fouling. What the
+devil, Jeff?"
+
+"It probably hasn't been fired since Appomattox," Rand agreed. "Philip,
+do you think all this didn't-know-it-was-loaded routine might be an
+elaborate suicide build-up, either before or after the fact?"
+
+"Absolutely not!" There was a trace of impatience in Cabot's voice. "Lane
+Fleming wasn't the man to commit suicide. I knew him too well ever to
+believe that."
+
+"I heard a rumor that he was about to lose control of his company," Rand
+mentioned. "You know how much Premix meant to him."
+
+"That's idiotic!" Cabot's voice was openly scornful, now, and he seemed
+a little angry that Rand should believe such a story, as though his
+confidence in his friend's intelligence had been betrayed. "Good Lord,
+Jeff, where did you ever hear a yarn like that?"
+
+"Quote, usually well-informed sources, unquote."
+
+"Well, they were unusually ill-informed, that time," Cabot replied. "Take
+my word for it, there's absolutely nothing in it."
+
+"So it wasn't an accident, and it wasn't suicide," Rand considered.
+"Philip, what is the prognosis on this merger of Premix and National
+Milling & Packaging, now that Lane Fleming's opposition has been, shall
+we say, liquidated?"
+
+Cabot's head jerked up; he looked at Rand in shocked surprise.
+
+"My God, you don't think...?" he began. "Jeff, are you investigating Lane
+Fleming's death?"
+
+"I was retained to sell the collection," Rand stated. "Now, I suppose,
+I'll have to find out who's been stealing those pistols, and recover
+them, and jail the thief and the fence. But I was not retained to
+investigate the death of Lane Fleming. And I do not do work for which
+I am not paid," he added, with mendacious literalness.
+
+"I see. Well, the merger's going through. It won't be official until the
+sixteenth of May, when the Premix stockholders meet, but that's just a
+formality. It's all cut and dried and in the bag now. Better let me pick
+you up a little Premix; there's still some lying around. You'll make a
+little less than four-for-one on it."
+
+"I'd had that in mind when I asked you about the merger," Rand said. "I
+have about two thousand with you, haven't I?" He did a moment's mental
+arithmetic, then got out his checkbook. "Pick me up about a hundred
+shares," he told the broker. "I've been meaning to get in on this ever
+since I heard about it."
+
+"I don't see how you did hear about it," Cabot said. "For obvious
+reasons, it's being kept pretty well under the hat."
+
+Rand grinned. "Quote, usually well-informed sources, unquote. Not the
+sources mentioned above."
+
+"Jeff, you know, this damned thing's worrying me," Cabot told him,
+writing a receipt and exchanging it for Rand's check. "I've been trying
+to ignore it, but I simply can't. Do you really think Lane Fleming was
+murdered by somebody who wanted to see this merger consummated and who
+knew that that was an impossibility as long as Fleming was alive?"
+
+"Philip, I don't know. And furthermore, I don't give a damn," Rand lied.
+"If somebody wants me to look into it, and pays me my possibly
+exaggerated idea of what constitutes fair compensation, I will. And I'll
+probably come up with Fleming's murderer, dead or alive. But until then,
+it is simply no epidermis off my scrotum. And I advise you to adopt a
+similar attitude."
+
+They changed the subject, then, to the variety of pistols developed and
+used by the opposing nations in World War II, and the difficulties ahead
+of Cabot in assembling even a fairly representative group of them. Rand
+promised to mail Cabot a duplicate copy of his list of the letter-code
+symbols used by the Nazis to indicate the factories manufacturing arms
+for them, as well as copies of some old wartime Intelligence dope on
+enemy small-arms. At a little past one, he left Cabot's home and returned
+to the Fleming residence.
+
+There were four cars in the garage. The Packard sedan had not been moved,
+but the station-wagon was facing in the opposite direction. The gray
+Plymouth was in the space from which Rand had driven earlier in the
+evening, and a black Chrysler Imperial had been run in on the left of the
+Plymouth. He put his own car in on the right of the station-wagon, made
+sure that the Leech & Rigdon was locked in his glove-box, and closed and
+locked the garage doors. Then he went up into the house, through the
+library, and by the spiral stairway to the gunroom.
+
+The garage had been open, he recalled, at the time of Lane Fleming's
+death. The availability of such an easy means of undetected ingress and
+egress threw the suspect field wide open. Anybody who knew the habits of
+the Fleming household could have slipped up to the gunroom, while Varcek
+was in his lab, Dunmore was in the bathroom, and Gladys and Geraldine
+were in the parlor. As he crossed the hall to his own room, Rand was
+thinking of how narrowly Arnold Rivers had escaped a disastrous lawsuit
+and criminal action by the death of Lane Fleming.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 10
+
+
+When Rand came down to breakfast the next morning, he found Gladys,
+Nelda, and a man whom he decided, by elimination, must be Anton Varcek,
+already at the table. The latter rose as Rand entered, and bowed jerkily
+as Gladys verified the guess with an introduction.
+
+He was about Rand's own age and height; he had a smooth-shaven,
+tight-mouthed face, adorned with bushy eyebrows, each of which was almost
+as heavy as Rand's mustache. It was a face that seemed tantalizingly
+familiar, and Rand puzzled for a moment, then nodded mentally. Of course
+he had seen a face like that hundreds of times, in newsreels and
+news-photos, and, once in pre-war Berlin, its living double. Rudolf Hess.
+He wondered how much deeper the resemblance went, and tried not to let it
+prejudice him.
+
+Nelda greeted him with a trowelful of sweetness and a dash of
+bedroom-bait. Gladys waved him to a vacant seat at her right and summoned
+the maid who had been serving breakfast. After Rand had indicated his
+preference of fruit and found out what else there was to eat, he inquired
+where the others were.
+
+"Oh, Fred's still dressing; he'll be down in a minute," Nelda told him.
+"And Geraldine won't; she never eats with her breakfast."
+
+Varcek winced slightly at this, and shifted the subject by inquiring if
+Rand were a professional antiques-expert.
+
+"No, I'm a lily-pure amateur," Rand told him. "Or was until I took this
+job. I have a collection of my own, and I'm supposed to be something of
+an authority. My business is operating a private detective agency."
+
+"But you are here only as an arms-expert?" Varcek inquired. "You are not
+making any sort of detective investigation?"
+
+"That's right," Rand assured him. "This is practically a paid vacation,
+for me. First time I ever handled anything like this; it's a real
+pleasure to be working at something I really enjoy, for a change."
+
+Varcek nodded. "Yes, I can understand that. My own work, for instance. I
+would continue with my research even if I were independently wealthy and
+any sort of work were unnecessary."
+
+"Tell Colonel Rand what you're working on now," Nelda urged.
+
+Varcek gave a small mirthless laugh. "Oh, Colonel Rand would be no more
+interested than I would be in his pistols," he objected, then turned to
+Rand. "It is a series of experiments having to do with the chemical
+nature of life," he said. Another perfunctory chuckle. "No, I am not
+trying to re-create Frankenstein's monster. The fact is, I am working
+with fruit flies."
+
+"Something about heredity?" Rand wanted to know.
+
+Varcek laughed again, with more amusement. "So! One says: 'Fruit flies,'
+and immediately another thinks: 'Heredity.' It is practically a standard
+response. Only, in this case, I am investigating the effect of diet
+changes. I use fruit flies because of their extreme adaptability. If
+I find that I am on the right track, I shall work with mice, next."
+
+"Fred Dunmore mentioned a packaged diabetic ration you'd developed," Rand
+mentioned.
+
+"Oh, yes." Varcek shrugged. "Yes. Something like an Army field-ration,
+for diabetics to carry when traveling, or wherever proper food may be
+unobtainable. That is for the company; soon we put it on the market, and
+make lots of money. But this other, that is my own private work."
+
+Dunmore had come in while Varcek was speaking and had seated himself
+beside his wife.
+
+"Don't let him kid you, Colonel," he said. "Anton's just as keen
+about that dollar as the rest of us. I don't know what he's cooking
+up, up there in the attic, but I'll give ten-to-one we'll be selling
+it in twenty-five-cent packages inside a year, and selling plenty of
+them.... Oh, and speaking about that dollar; how did you make out with
+Gresham and his friends?"
+
+"I didn't. They'd expected to pay about twenty thousand for the
+collection; Rivers's offer has them stopped. And even if they could go
+over twenty-five, I think Rivers would raise them. He's afraid to let
+them get the collection; Pierre Jarrett and Karen Lawrence intended
+using their share of it to go into the old-arms business, in competition
+with him."
+
+"Uh-huh, that's smart," Dunmore approved. "It's always better to take a
+small loss stopping competition than to let it get too big for you. You
+save a damn-sight bigger loss later."
+
+"How soon do you think the pistols will be sold?" Gladys asked.
+
+"Oh, in about a month, at the outside," Rand said, continuing to explain
+what had to be done first.
+
+"Well, I'm glad of that," Varcek commented. "I never liked those things,
+and after what happened ... The sooner they can be sold, the better."
+
+Breakfast finally ended, and Varcek and Dunmore left for the Premix
+plant. Rand debated for a moment the wisdom of speaking to Gladys about
+the missing pistols, then decided to wait until his suspicions were
+better verified. After a few minutes in the gunroom, going over Lane
+Fleming's arms-books on the shelf over the workbench without finding any
+trace of the book in which he had catalogued his collection, he got his
+hat and coat, went down to the garage, and took out his car.
+
+It had stopped raining for the time being; the dingy sky showed broken
+spots like bits of bluing on a badly-rusted piece of steel. As he got out
+of his car in front of Arnold Rivers's red-brick house, he was wondering
+just how he was going to go about what he wanted to do. After all ...
+
+The door of the shop was unlocked, and opened with a slow clanging of the
+door-chime, but the interior was dark. All the shades had been pulled,
+and the lights were out. For a moment Rand stood in the doorway,
+adjusting his eyes to the darkness within and wondering where everybody
+was.
+
+Then, in the path of light that fell inward from the open door, he saw
+two feet in tan shoes, toes up, at the end of tweed-trousered legs, on
+the floor. An instant later he stepped inside, pulled the door shut after
+him, and was using his pen-light to find the electric switch.
+
+For a second or so after he snapped it nothing happened, and then the
+darkness was broken by the flickering of fluorescent tubes. When they
+finally lit, he saw the shape on the floor, arms outflung, the inverted
+rifle above it. For a seemingly long time he stood and stared at the
+grotesquely transfixed body of Arnold Rivers.
+
+The dead man lay on his back, not three feet beyond the radius of the
+door, in a pool of blood that was almost dried and gave the room a
+sickly-sweet butchershop odor. Under the back of Rand's hand, Rivers's
+cheek was cold; his muscles had already begun to stiffen in _rigor
+mortis_. Rand examined the dead man's wounds. His coat was stained with
+blood and gashed in several places; driven into his chest by a downward
+blow, the bayonet of a short German service Mauser pinned him to the
+floor like a specimen on a naturalist's card. Beside the one in which
+the weapon remained, there were three stab-wounds in the chest, and the
+lower part of the face was disfigured by what looked like a butt-blow.
+Bending over, Rand could see the imprint of the Mauser butt-plate on
+Rivers's jaw; on the butt-plate itself were traces of blood.
+
+The rifle, a regulation German infantry weapon, the long-familiar _Gewehr
+'98_ in its most recent modification, was a Nazi product, bearing the
+eagle and encircled swastika of the Third Reich and the code-letters
+_lza_--the symbol of the Mauserwerke A.G. plant at Karlsruhe. It had
+doubtless been sold to Rivers by some returned soldier. In a rack beside
+the door were a number of other bolt-action military rifles--a Krag, a
+couple of Arisakas, a long German infantry rifle of the first World War,
+a Greek Mannlicher, a Mexican Mauser, a British short model Lee-Enfield.
+All had fixed bayonets; between the Lee-Enfield and one of the Arisakas
+there was a vacancy.
+
+Rivers's carved ivory cigarette-holder was lying beside the body, crushed
+at the end as though it had been stepped on. A half-smoked cigarette had
+been in it; it, too, was crushed. There was no evidence of any great
+struggle, however; the attack which had ended the arms-dealer's life must
+have come as a complete surprise. He had probably been holding the
+cigarette-holder in his hand when the butt-blow had been delivered, and
+had dropped it and flung up his arms instinctively. Thereupon, his
+assailant had reversed his weapon and driven the bayonet into his chest.
+The first blow, no doubt, had been fatal--it could have been any of the
+three stabs in the chest--but the killer had given him two more, probably
+while he was on the floor. Then, grasping the rifle in both hands, he had
+stood over his victim and pinned the body to the floor. That last blow
+could have only been inspired by pure anger and hatred.
+
+Yet, apparently, Rivers had been unaware of his visitor's murderous
+intentions, even while the rifle was being taken from the rack. Rand
+strolled back through the shop, looking about. Someone had been here with
+Rivers for some time; the dealer and another man had sat by the fire,
+drinking and smoking. On the low table was a fifth of Haig & Haig, a
+siphon, two glasses, a glass bowl containing water that had evidently
+melted from ice-cubes, and an ashtray. In the ashtray were a number of
+River's cigarette butts, all holder-crimped, and a quantity of ash, some
+of it cigar-ash. There was no cigar-butt, and no band or cellophane
+wrapper.
+
+The fire on the hearth had burned out and the ashes were cold. They were
+not all wood-ashes; a considerable amount of paper--no, cardboard--had
+been burned there also. Poking gently with the point of a sword he took
+from a rack, Rand discovered that what had been burned had been a number
+of cards, about six inches by four, one of which had, somehow, managed to
+escape the flames with nothing more than a charred edge. Improvising
+tweezers from a pipe-cleaner, he picked this up and looked at it. It had
+been typewritten:
+
+4850:
+
+English Screw-Barrel F/L Pocket Pistol. _Queen Anne type, side
+hammer with pan attached to barrel, steel barrel and frame. Marked:
+Wilson, Minories, London. Silver masque butt-cap, hallmarked for 1723.
+4-1/2" barrel; 9-1/4" O.A.; cal. abt .44. Taken in trade, 3/21/'38, from
+V. Sparling, for Kentuck #2538, along with 4851, 4852, 4853. App. cost,
+RLss; Replacement, do. NLss, OSss, LSss._
+
+To this had been added, in pen:
+
+_Sold, R. Kingsley, St. Louis, Mo., Mail order, 12/20/'42, OSss._
+
+Rand laid the card on the cocktail-table, along with the drinking
+equipment. At least, he knew what had gone into the fire: Arnold Rivers's
+card-index purchase and sales record. He doubted very strongly if that
+would have been burned while its owner was still alive. Going over to the
+desk, he checked; the drawer from which he had seen Cecil Gillis get the
+card for the Leech & Rigdon had been cleaned out.
+
+Picking up the phone in an awkward, unnatural manner, he used a pencil
+from his pocket to dial a number with which he was familiar, a number
+that meant the same thing on any telephone exchange in the state.
+
+"State Police, Corporal Kavaalen," a voice singsonged out of the
+receiver.
+
+"My name is Rand," he identified himself. "I am calling from Arnold
+Rivers's antique-arms shop on Route 19, about a mile and a half east of
+Rosemont. I am reporting a homicide."
+
+"Yeah, go ahead--Hey! Did you say homicide?" the other voice asked
+sharply. "Who?"
+
+"Rivers himself. I called at his shop a few minutes ago, found the front
+door open, and walked in. I found Rivers lying dead on the floor, just
+inside the door. He had been killed with a Mauser rifle--not shot;
+clubbed with the butt, and bayoneted. The body is cold, beginning to
+stiffen; a pool of blood on the floor is almost completely dried."
+
+"That's a good report, mister," the corporal approved. "You stick around;
+we'll be right along. You haven't touched anything, have you?"
+
+"Not around the body. How long will it take you to get here?"
+
+"About ten minutes. I'll tell Sergeant McKenna right away."
+
+Rand hung up and glanced at his watch. Ten twenty-two; he gave himself
+seven minutes and went around the room rapidly, looking only at pistols.
+He saw nothing that might have come from the Fleming collection. Finally,
+he opened the front door, just as a white State Police car was pulling up
+at the end of the walk.
+
+Sergeant Ignatius Loyola McKenna--customarily known and addressed as
+Mick--piled out almost before it had stopped. The driver, a stocky,
+blue-eyed Finn with a corporal's chevrons, followed him, and two privates
+got out from behind, dragging after them a box about the size and shape
+of an Army footlocker. McKenna was halfway up the drive before he
+recognized Rand. Then he stopped short.
+
+"Well, Jaysus-me-beads!" He turned suddenly to the corporal. "My God,
+Aarvo; you said his name was Grant!"
+
+"That's what I thought he said." Rand recognized the singsong accent he
+had heard on the phone. "You know him?"
+
+"Know him?" McKenna stepped aside quickly, to avoid being overrun by the
+two privates with the equipment-box. He sighed resignedly. "Aarvo, this
+is the notorious Jefferson Davis Rand. Tri-State Agency, in New Belfast."
+He gestured toward the Finn. "Corporal Aarvo Kavaalen," he introduced.
+"And Privates Skinner and Jameson.... Well, where is it?"
+
+"Right inside." Rand stepped backward, gesturing them in. "Careful; it's
+just inside the doorway."
+
+McKenna and the corporal entered; the two privates set down their box
+outside and followed. They all drew up in a semicircle around the late
+Arnold Rivers and looked at him critically.
+
+"Jesus!" Kavaalen pronounced the _J_-sound as though it were _Zh_; he
+gave all his syllables an equally-accented intonation. "Say, somebody
+gave him a good job!"
+
+"Somebody's been seeing too many war-movies." McKenna got a cigarette out
+of his tunic pocket and lit it in Rand's pipe-bowl. "Want to confess now,
+or do you insist on a third degree with all the trimmings?"
+
+Kavaalen looked wide-eyed at Rand, then at McKenna, and then back at
+Rand. Rand laughed.
+
+"Now, Mick!" he reproved. "You know I never kill anybody unless I have
+a clear case of self-defense, and a flock of witnesses to back it up."
+
+McKenna nodded and reassured his corporal. "That's right, Aarvo; when
+Jeff Rand kills anybody, it's always self-defense. And he doesn't
+generally make messes like this." He gave the body a brief scrutiny, then
+turned to Rand. "You looked around, of course; what do you make of it?"
+
+"Last night, sometime," Rand reconstructed, "Rivers had a visitor. A man,
+who smoked cigars. He and Rivers were on friendly, or at least sociable,
+terms. They sat back there by the fire for some time, smoking and
+drinking. The shades were all drawn. I don't know whether that was
+standard procedure, or because this conference was something clandestine.
+Finally, Rivers's visitor got up to leave.
+
+"Now, of course, he could have left, and somebody else could have come
+here later, been admitted, and killed Rivers. That's a possibility," Rand
+said, "but it's also an assumption without anything to support it. I
+rather like the idea that the man who sat back there drinking and smoking
+with Rivers was the killer. If so, Rivers must have gone with him to the
+door and was about to open it when this fellow picked up that rifle,
+probably from that rack, over there, and clipped him on the jaw with
+the butt. Then he gave him the point three times, the second and third
+probably while Rivers was down. Then he swung it up and slammed down with
+it, and left it sticking through Rivers and in the floor."
+
+McKenna nodded. "Lights on when you got here?" he asked.
+
+"No; I put them on when I came in. The killer must have turned them off
+when he left, but the deadlatch on the door wasn't set, and he doesn't
+seem to have bothered checking on that."
+
+"Think he left right after he killed Rivers?"
+
+Rand shook his head. "No, that was just the first part of it. After he'd
+finished Rivers, he went back to that desk and got all the cards Rivers
+used to record his transactions on--an individual card for every item. He
+destroyed the lot of them, or at least most of them, in the fireplace.
+Now, I'm only guessing, here, but I think he took out a card or cards in
+which he had some interest, and then dumped the rest in the fire to
+prevent anybody from being able to determine which ones he was interested
+in. I am further guessing that the cards which the killer wanted to
+suppress were in the 'sold' file. But I am not guessing about the
+destruction of the record-file; I found the fireplace full of ashes,
+found one card that had escaped unburned--you can be sure that one
+wasn't important--and found the drawer where the record-system was kept
+empty."
+
+"Think he might have stolen something, and covered up by burning the
+cards?" McKenna asked.
+
+Rand shook his head again. "I was here yesterday; bought a pistol from
+Rivers. That's how I noticed this card-index system. Of course, I didn't
+look at everything, while I was here, but I can't see where any quantity
+of arms have been removed, and Rivers didn't have any single item that
+was worth a murder. Fact is, no old firearm is. There are only a very few
+old arms that are worth over a thousand dollars, and most of them are
+well-known, unique specimens that would be unsaleable because every
+collector would know where it came from."
+
+"We can check possible thefts with Rivers's clerk, when he gets here,"
+McKenna said. "Now, suppose you show me these things you found, back at
+the rear ... Aarvo, you and the boys start taking pictures," he told
+the corporal, then he followed Rand back through the shop.
+
+He tested the temperature of the water in the ice-bowl with his finger.
+He looked at the ashtray, and bent over and sniffed at each of the two
+glasses.
+
+"I see one of them's been emptied out," he commented. "Want to bet it
+hasn't been wiped clean, too?"
+
+"Huh-unh." Rand smiled slightly. "Even the tiny tots wipe off the
+cookie-jar, after they've raided it," he said.
+
+A flash-bulb lit the front of the shop briefly. Corporal Kavaalen said
+something to the others. McKenna picked up the card Rand had found by the
+edges and looked at it.
+
+"What in hell's this all about, Jeff?" he asked.
+
+"Rivers made it out for one of his pistols. An English flintlock
+pocket-pistol; I can show you one almost like it, up front. He'd gotten
+it and three others, back in 1938, in trade for a Kentucky rifle. The
+numbers are reference-numbers; the letters are Rivers's private
+price-code. Those three at the end are, respectively, what he absolutely
+had to get for it, what he thought was a reasonable price, and the most
+he thought the traffic would stand. He sold it in 1942 for his middle
+price."
+
+There was another flash by the door, then Kavaalen called out:
+
+"Hey, Mick; we got two of the stiffs, now. All right if we pull out the
+bayonet for a close-up of his chest?"
+
+"Sure. Better chalkline it, first; you'll move things jerking that
+bayonet out." He turned back to Rand. "You think, then, that maybe some
+card in that file would have gotten somebody in trouble, and he had to
+croak Rivers to get it, and then burned the rest of the cards for a
+cover-up?"
+
+"That's the way it looks to me," Rand agreed. "Just because I can't think
+of any other possibility, though, doesn't mean that there aren't any
+others."
+
+"Hey! You think he might have been selling modern arms to criminals,
+without reporting the sale?" McKenna asked.
+
+"I wouldn't put it past him," Rand considered. "There was very little
+that I would put past that fellow. But I wouldn't think he'd be stupid
+enough to carry a record of such sales in his own file, though."
+
+McKenna rubbed the butt of his .38 reflectively; that seemed to be his
+substitute for head-scratching, as an aid to cerebration.
+
+"You said you were here yesterday, and bought a pistol," he began. "All
+right; I know about that collection of yours. But why were you back here
+bright and early this morning? You working on Rivers for somebody? If so,
+give."
+
+Rand told him what he was working on. "Rivers wants to buy the Fleming
+collection. That was the reason I saw him yesterday. But the reason I
+came here, this morning, is that I find that somebody has stolen about
+two dozen of the best pistols out of the collection since Fleming's
+death, and tried to cover up by replacing them with some junk that Lane
+Fleming wouldn't have allowed inside his house. For my money, it's the
+butler. Now that Fleming's dead, he's the only one in the house who knows
+enough about arms to know what was worth stealing. He has constant access
+to the gunroom. I caught him in a lie about a book Fleming kept a record
+of his collection in, and now the book has vanished. And furthermore, and
+most important, if he'd been on the level, he would have spotted what was
+going on, long ago, and squawked about it."
+
+"That's a damn good circumstantial case, Jeff," McKenna nodded. "Nothing
+you could take to a jury, of course, but mighty good grounds for
+suspicion.... You think Rivers could have been the fence?"
+
+"He could have been. Whoever was higrading the collection had to have an
+outlet for his stuff, and he had to have a source of supply for the junk
+he was infiltrating into the collection as replacements. A crooked dealer
+is the answer to both, and Arnold Rivers was definitely crooked."
+
+"You know that?" McKenna inquired. "For sure?"
+
+Another flash lit the front of the shop. Rand nodded.
+
+"For damn good and sure. I can show you half a dozen firearms in this
+shop that have been altered to increase their value. I don't mean
+legitimate restorations; I mean fraudulent alterations." He went on to
+tell McKenna about Rivers's expulsion from membership in the National
+Rifle Association. "And I know that he sold a pair of pistols to Lane
+Fleming, about a week before Fleming was killed, that were outright
+fakes. Fleming was going to sue the ears off Rivers about that; the fact
+is, until this morning, I'd been wondering if that mightn't have been
+why Fleming had that sour-looking accident. If he'd lived, he'd have run
+Rivers out of business."
+
+"Hell, I didn't know that!" McKenna seemed worried. "Fleming used to
+target-shoot with our gang, and he knew too much about gats to pull a
+Russ Columbo on himself. I didn't like that accident, at the time, but I
+figured he'd pulled the Dutch, and the family were making out it was an
+accident. We never were called in; the whole thing was handled through
+the coroner's office. You really think Fleming could have been bumped?"
+
+"Yes. I think he could have been bumped," Rand understated. "I haven't
+found any positive proof, but--" He told McKenna about his purchase, from
+Rivers, of the revolver that had been later identified as the one brought
+home by Fleming on the day of his death. "I still don't know how Rivers
+got hold of it," he continued. "Until I walked in here not half an hour
+ago and found Rivers dead on the floor, I'd had a suspicion that Rivers
+might have sneaked into the Fleming house, shot Fleming with another
+revolver, left it in Fleming's hand and carried away the one Fleming had
+been working on. The motive, of course, would have been to stop a lawsuit
+that would have put Rivers out of business and, not inconceivably, in
+jail. But now ..." He looked toward the front of the shop, where another
+photo-flash glared for an instant. "And don't suggest that Rivers got
+conscience-stricken and killed himself. Aside from the technical
+difficulties of pinning himself to the floor after he was dead, that
+explanation's out. Rivers had no conscience to be stricken with."
+
+"Well, let's skip Fleming, for a minute," McKenna suggested. "You think
+this butler, at the Fleming place, was robbing the collection. And you
+say he could've sold the stuff he stole to Rivers. Well, when the family
+gets you in to work on the collection, Jeeves, or whatever his name is,
+realizes that you're going to spot what's been going on, and will
+probably suspect him. He knows you're no ordinary arms-expert; you're an
+agency dick. So he gets scared. If you catch up with Rivers, Rivers'll
+talk. So he comes over here, last night, and kills Rivers off before you
+can get to him. And while Rivers may not keep a record of the stuff he
+got from Jeeves, or whatever his name is--"
+
+"Walters," Rand supplied.
+
+"Walters, then. While he may not keep a record of what he bought from
+Walters, the chances are he does keep a record of the stuff Walters got
+from him, to use for replacements, so the card-file goes into the fire.
+How's that?"
+
+The flare of another flash-bulb made distorted shadows dance over the
+walls.
+
+"That would hang together, now," Rand agreed. "Of course, I haven't found
+anything here, except the revolver I bought yesterday, that came from the
+Fleming place, but I'll add this: As soon as Rivers found out I was
+working for the Fleming family, he tried to get that revolver back from
+me. Offered me seventy-five dollars' worth of credit on anything else in
+the shop if I'd give it back to him, not twenty minutes after I'd paid
+him sixty for it."
+
+"See!" McKenna pounced. "Look; suppose you had a lot of hot stuff, in a
+place like this. You might take a chance on selling something that had
+gotten mixed in with your legitimate stuff, but would you want to sell
+it right back to where it had been stolen from?"
+
+"No, I wouldn't. And if I were a butler who'd been robbing a valuable
+collection, and an agency man moved in and started poking around, I might
+get in a panic and do something extreme. That all hangs together, too."
+
+While Rand was talking to McKenna, Private Jameson wandered back through
+the shop.
+
+"Hey, Sarge, is there any way into the house from here?" he asked. "The
+outside doors are all locked, and I can't raise anybody."
+
+Rand pointed out the flight of steps beside the fireplace. "I saw Rivers
+come out of the house that way, yesterday," he said.
+
+The State Policeman went up the steps and tried the door; it opened, and
+he went through.
+
+"Chances are Mrs. Rivers is away," McKenna said. "She's away a lot. They
+have a colored girl who comes in by the day, but she doesn't generally
+get here before noon. And the clerk doesn't get here till about the same
+time."
+
+"You seem to know a lot about this household," Rand said.
+
+"Yeah. We have this place marked up as a bad burglary- and stick-up
+hazard; we keep an eye on it. Rivers has all these guns, he does a big
+cash business, he always has a couple of hundred to a thousand on
+him--it's a wonder somebody hasn't made a try at this place long
+ago.... Tell you what, Jeff; say you check up on this butler at the
+Fleming place for us, and we'll check up here and see if we can find any
+of the stuff that was stolen. We can get together and compare notes.
+Maybe one or another of us may run across something about that accident
+of Fleming's, too."
+
+"Suits me. I'll be glad to help you, and I'll be glad for any help you
+can give me on recovering those pistols. I haven't made any formal report
+on that, yet, because I'm not sure exactly what's missing, and I don't
+want any of that kind of publicity while I'm trying to sell the
+collection. It may be that the two matters are related; there are some
+points of similarity, which may or may not mean anything. And, of course,
+I just may find somebody who'll make it worth my time to get interested
+in this killing, while I'm at it."
+
+McKenna chuckled. "That must hurt hell out of you, Jeff," he said. "A
+nice classy murder like this, and nobody to pay you to work on it."
+
+"It does," Rand admitted. "I feel like an undertaker watching a man being
+swallowed by a shark."
+
+"You want to stick around till this clerk of Rivers's gets here?" McKenna
+asked. "He should be here in about an hour and a half."
+
+"No. I'd just as soon not be seen taking too much of an interest in this
+right now. Fact is, I'd just as soon not have my name mentioned at all in
+connection with this. You can charge the discovery of the body up to our
+old friend, Anonymous Tip, can't you?"
+
+"Sure." McKenna accompanied Rand to the front door, past the white
+chalked outline that marked the original position of the body. The body
+itself, with ink-blackened fingertips, lay to one side, out of the way.
+Corporal Kavaalen was going through the dead man's pockets, and Skinner
+was working on the rifle with an insufflator.
+
+"Well, we can't say it was robbery, anyhow," Kavaalen said. "He had eight
+C's in his billfold."
+
+"Migawd, Sarge, is this damn rifle ever lousy with prints," Skinner
+complained. "A lot of Rivers's, and everybody else's who's been fooling
+with it around here, and half the _Wehrmacht_."
+
+"Swell, swell!" McKenna enthused. "Maybe we can pass the case off on the
+War Crimes Commission."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 11
+
+
+Mick McKenna had put his finger right on the sore spot. It did hurt
+Rand like hell; a nice, sensational murder and no money in it for the
+Tri-State Agency. Obviously, somebody would have to be persuaded to
+finance an investigation. Preferably some innocent victim of unjust
+suspicion; somebody who could best clear himself by unmasking the real
+villain.... For "villain," Rand mentally substituted "public benefactor."
+
+He was running over a list of possible suspects as he entered Rosemont.
+Passing the little antique shop he slowed, backed, read the name "Karen
+Lawrence" on the window, and then pulled over to the curb and got out.
+Crossing the sidewalk, he went up the steps to the door, entering to the
+jangling of a spring-mounted cowbell.
+
+The girl dealer was inside, with a visitor, a sallow-faced,
+untidy-looking man of indeterminate age who was opening
+newspaper-wrapped packages on a table-top. Karen greeted Rand by name and
+military rank; Rand told her he'd just look around till she was through.
+She tossed him a look of comic reproach, as though she had counted on him
+to rid her of the man with the packages.
+
+"Now, just you look at this-here, Miss Lawrence," the man was enthusing,
+undoing another package. "Here's something I know you'll want; I think
+this-here is real quaint! Just look, now!" He displayed some long,
+narrow, dark object, holding it out to her. "Ain't this-here an
+interestin' item, now, Miss Lawrence?"
+
+"_Ooooooh!_ What in heaven's name is that thing?" she demanded.
+
+"That-there's a sword. A real African native sword. Look at that
+scabbard, now; made out of real crocodile-skin. A whole young crocodile,
+head, feet, an' all. I tell you, Miss Lawrence, that-there item is
+unique!"
+
+"It's revolting! It's the most repulsive object that's ever been brought
+into this shop, which is saying quite a lot. Colonel Rand! If you don't
+have a hangover this morning, will you please come here and look at this
+thing?"
+
+Rand laid down the Merril carbine he had been examining and walked over
+beside Karen. The man--whom Rand judged to be some rural free-lance
+antique-prospector--extended the object of the girl's repugnance. It was
+an African sword, all right, with a plain iron hilt and cross-guard. The
+design looked Berber, but the workmanship was low-grade, and probably
+attributable to some even more barbarous people. The scabbard was what
+was really surprising, if you liked that kind of surprises. It was an
+infant crocodile, rather indifferently smoke-cured; the sword simply went
+in between the creature's jaws and extended the length of the body and
+into the tail. Either end of a moldy-green leather thong had been
+fastened to the two front paws for a shoulder-baldric. When new, Rand
+thought, it must have given its wearer a really distinctive aroma, even
+for Africa. He drew the blade gingerly, looked at it, and sheathed it
+with caution.
+
+"East African; Danakil, or Somali, or something like that," he commented.
+"Be damn good and careful not to scratch yourself on that; if you do,
+you'll need about a gallon of anti-tetanus shots."
+
+"Y'think it might be poisoned?" the man with the dirty neck and the
+month-old haircut inquired eagerly. "See, Miss Lawrence? What I told you;
+a real African native sword. I got that-there from Hen Sourbaw, over at
+Feltonville; his uncle, the Reverend Sourbaw, that used to preach at
+Hemlock Gap Church, brung it from Africa, himself, about fifty years ago.
+He used to be a missionary, in his younger days.... I can make you an
+awful good price on that-there item, Miss Lawrence."
+
+"God forbid!" she exclaimed. "All my customers are heavy drinkers; I
+wouldn't want to answer for what might happen if some of them saw that
+thing, suddenly."
+
+"Oh, well.... How about that-there little amethyst bottle, then?"
+
+"Well ... I would give you seven dollars for that," she grudged.
+
+"Y'would? Well, it's yours, then. An' how about them-there salt-cellars,
+an' that-there knife-box?"
+
+Rand wandered back to examining firearms. Eventually, after buying the
+knife-box, Karen got rid of the man with the antiques. When he had gone,
+she found a pack of cigarettes, offered it to Rand and lit one for
+herself.
+
+"Well, now you see why girls leave home and start antique shops," she
+said. "Never a dull moment.... Wasn't that sword the awfullest thing you
+ever saw, though?"
+
+"Well, one of the ten awfullest," Rand conceded. "I just stopped in to
+give you some good news. You won't need to consider that offer of Arnold
+Rivers's, any more. He is no longer interested in the Fleming
+collection."
+
+"He isn't?" An eager, happy light danced up in her eyes. "You saw him
+again this morning? What did he say?"
+
+"He didn't say anything. He isn't talking any more, either. Fact is, he
+isn't even breathing any more."
+
+"He.... You mean he's dead?" She was surprised, even shocked. The shock
+was probably a concession to good taste, but the surprise looked genuine.
+"When did he die? It must have been very sudden; I saw him a few days
+ago, and he looked all right. Of course, he's been having trouble with
+his lungs, but--"
+
+"It was very sudden. Some time last night, some person or persons unknown
+gave him a butt-and-bayonet job with a German Mauser out of a rack in his
+shop. A most unpleasantly thorough job. I went to see him this morning,
+hoping to badger something out of him about those pistols that are
+missing from the Fleming collection, and found the body. I notified the
+State Police, and just came from there."
+
+"For God's sake!" The shock was genuine, too, now. "Have the police any
+idea--?"
+
+"Not the foggiest. If some of the Fleming pistols turn up at his place,
+I might think that had something to do with it. So far, though, they
+haven't. I gave the shop a once-over-lightly before the cops arrived, and
+couldn't find anything."
+
+She tried to take a puff from her cigarette and found that she had broken
+it in her fingers. She lit a new one from the mangled butt.
+
+"When did it happen?" She tried to make the question sound casual.
+
+"That I couldn't say, either. Around midnight, would be my guess. They
+might be able to fix a no-earlier time." An idea occurred to him, and he
+smiled.
+
+"But that's dreadful!" She really meant that. "It's a terrible thing to
+happen to anybody, being killed like that." She stopped just short of
+adding: "even Rivers." Instead, she continued: "But I can't say I'm
+really very sorry he's dead, Colonel."
+
+"Outside of maybe his wife, and the gunsmith who made his fake Walker
+Colts and North & Cheney flintlocks, who is?" he countered. "Oh, yes;
+Cecil Gillis. He's about due for induction into the Army of the
+Unemployed, unless Mrs. Rivers intends carrying on the business."
+
+Karen's eyes widened. "Cecil Gillis!" she exclaimed softly. "I wonder,
+now, if he has an alibi for last night!"
+
+"Think he might need one?" Rand asked. "Of course I only saw him once,
+but he didn't strike me as a possible candidate. I can't seem to see
+young Gillis doing a messy job like this was, or going to all that manual
+labor when he could have used something neat, like a pistol or a dagger."
+
+"Well, Cecil isn't quite the languishing flower he looks," Karen told
+him. "He does a lot of swimming, and he's one of the few people around
+here who can beat me at tennis. And he has a motive. Maybe two motives."
+
+"Such as?" Rand prompted.
+
+"Maybe you think Cecil is a--you know--one of those boys," she
+euphemized. "Well, he isn't. He takes a perfectly normal, and even
+slightly wolfish, interest in the female of his species. And while Arnold
+Rivers may have been a good provider from a financial standpoint, he
+wasn't quite up to his wife's requirements in another important respect.
+And Rivers was away a lot, on buying trips and so on, and when he was,
+nobody ever saw Cecil leave the Rivers place in the evenings. At least,
+that's the story; personally, I wouldn't know. Of course, where there's
+smoke, there may be nothing more than somebody with a stogie, but, then,
+there may be a regular conflagration."
+
+"That would be a perfectly satisfactory motive, under some
+circumstances," Rand admitted. "And the other?"
+
+"Cecil might have been doing funny things with the books, and Rivers
+might have caught him."
+
+"That would also be a good enough motive." It would also, Rand thought,
+furnish an explanation for the burning of Rivers's record-cards. "I'll
+mention it to Mick McKenna; he's hard up for a good usable suspect. And
+by the way, the news of this killing will be out before evening, but in
+the meantime I wish you wouldn't mention it to anybody, or mention that
+I was in here to tell you about it."
+
+"I won't. I'm glad you told me, though.... Do you think there may be a
+chance that we can get the collection, now?"
+
+"I wouldn't know why not. Rivers's offer was pretty high; there aren't
+many other dealers who would be able to duplicate it.... Well, don't take
+any Czechoslovakian Stiegel."
+
+He moved his car down the street to the Rosemont Inn, where he went into
+the combination bar and grill and had a Bourbon-and-water at the bar.
+Then he ordered lunch, and, while waiting for it, went into a phone-booth
+and dialed the number of Stephen Gresham's office in New Belfast.
+
+"I'd hoped to catch you before you left for lunch," he said, when the
+lawyer answered. "There's been a new development in the Fleming
+business." He had decided to follow the same line as with Karen Lawrence.
+"You needn't worry about Arnold Rivers's offer, any more."
+
+"Ha! So he backed out?"
+
+"He was shoved out," Rand corrected. "On the sharp end of a Mauser
+bayonet, sometime last night. I found the body this morning, when I went
+to see him, and notified the State Police. They call it murder, but of
+course, they're just prejudiced. I'd call it a nuisance-abatement
+project."
+
+"Look here, are you kidding?" Gresham demanded.
+
+"I never kid about Those Who Have Passed On," Rand denied piously. Then
+he recited the already hackneyed description of what had happened to
+Rivers, with careful attention to all the gruesome details. "So I called
+copper, directly. Sergeant McKenna's up a stump about it, and looking in
+all directions for a suspect."
+
+Gresham was silent for a moment, then swore softly.
+
+"My God, Jeff! This is going to raise all kinds of hell!" He was silent
+for a moment. "Look here, can you see me, at my home, about two thirty
+this afternoon? I want to talk to you about this."
+
+Rand smiled happily. This looked like what he had been angling for. Maybe
+Arnold Rivers hadn't died in vain, after all.
+
+"Why, yes; I can make it," he replied.
+
+"Good. See you there, then."
+
+Rand assured him that he would be on hand. When he returned to his table,
+he found his lunch waiting for him. He sat down and ate with a good
+appetite. After finishing, he had another drink, and sat sipping it
+slowly and smoking his pipe; going over the story Gladys Fleming had told
+him, and the gossip he had gotten from Carter Tipton, and the other
+statements which had been made to him by different people about the death
+of Lane Fleming, and the conclusions he had reached about the theft of
+the pistols, and the killing of Arnold Rivers; sorting out the inferences
+from the descriptions, and the descriptive statements of others from the
+things he himself had observed. When his glass was empty and his pipe
+burned out, he left a tip beside the ashtray, paid his check and went
+out.
+
+He had two hours until his meeting with Stephen Gresham; he knew exactly
+where to spend them. The county seat was a normal twenty minutes' drive
+from Rosemont, but with the road relatively free from traffic he was able
+to cut that to fifteen. Parking his car in front of the courthouse, he
+went inside.
+
+The coroner, one Jason Kirchner, was an inoffensive-looking little fellow
+with a Caspar Milquetoast mustache and an underslung jaw. He wore an Elks
+watchcharm, an Odd Fellows ring, and a Knights of Pythias lapel-pin. He
+looked at Rand's credentials, including the letter Humphrey Goode had
+given him, with some bewilderment.
+
+"You're working for Mr. Goode?" he asked, rather needlessly. "Yes, I see;
+handling the sale of Mr. Fleming's pistols, for the estate. Yes. That
+must be interesting work, Mr. Rand. Now, what can I do for you?"
+
+"Why, I understand you have an item from that collection, here in your
+office," Rand said. "The pistol with which Mr. Fleming shot himself.
+Regardless of its unpleasant associations, that pistol is a valuable
+collector's item, and one of the assets of the estate. If I'm to get full
+value for the collection, for the heirs, I'll have to have that, to sell
+with the rest of the weapons."
+
+"Well, now, look here, Mr. Rand," Kirchner started to argue, "that
+revolver's a dangerous weapon. It's killed one man, already. I don't know
+as I ought to let it get out, where it might kill somebody else."
+
+Rand estimated that this situation called for a modified version of his
+hard-boiled act.
+
+"You think you can show cause why that revolver shouldn't be turned
+over to the Fleming estate?" he demanded. "Well, if I don't get it,
+right away, Mr. Goode will get a court order for it. You had no right
+to impound that revolver, in the first place; you removed it from the
+Fleming home illegally in the second place, since you had no intention
+of holding any formal inquest, and you're holding it illegally now. A
+court order might not be all we could get, either," he added menacingly.
+"Now, if you have any reason to suspect that Mr. Fleming committed
+suicide ... or was murdered, for instance ..."
+
+"Oh, my heavens, no!" Kirchner cried, horrified. "It was an accident,
+pure and simple; I so certified it. Death by accident, due to
+inadvertence of the deceased."
+
+"Well, then," Rand said, "you have no right to hold that revolver, and
+I want it, right now. As Mr. Goode's agent, I'm responsible for that
+collection, of which the revolver you're holding is a part. That revolver
+is too valuable an asset to ignore. You certainly realize that."
+
+"Well, I don't have any intention of exceeding my authority, of course,"
+Kirchner disclaimed hastily. "And I certainly wouldn't want to go against
+Mr. Goode's wishes." Humphrey Goode must pull considerable weight around
+the courthouse, Rand surmised. "But you realize, that revolver's still
+loaded...."
+
+"Oh, that's not your worry. I'll draw the charges, or, better, fire them
+out. It stood one shot, it can stand the other five."
+
+"Well, would you mind if I called Mr. Goode on the phone?"
+
+Rand did, decidedly. However, he shook his head negligently.
+
+"Certainly not; go ahead and call him, by all means."
+
+The coroner went away. In a few minutes he was back, carrying a
+revolver in both hands. Evidently Goode had given him the green light.
+He approached, handling the weapon with a caution that would have been
+excessive for a Mills grenade; after warning Rand again that it was
+loaded, he laid it gently on his desk.
+
+It was a .36 Colt, one of the 1860 series, with the round barrel and the
+so-called "creeping" ramming-lever. Somebody had wound a piece of wire
+around it, back of the hammer and through the loading-aperture in front
+of the cylinder; as the hammer was down on a fired chamber, there was no
+way in God's world, short of throwing the thing into a furnace, in which
+it could be discharged, but Kirchner was shrinking away from it as though
+it might jump at his throat.
+
+"I put the wire on," the coroner said. "I thought it might be safer that
+way."
+
+"It'll be a lot safer after I've emptied it into the first claybank,
+outside town," Rand told him. "Sorry I had to be a little short with you,
+Mr. Kirchner, but you know how it is. I'm responsible to Mr. Goode for
+the collection, and this gun's part of it."
+
+"Oh, that's all right; I really shouldn't have taken the attitude I did,"
+Kirchner met him halfway. "After I talked to Mr. Goode, of course, I knew
+it was all right, but ... You see, I've been bothered a lot about that
+pistol, lately."
+
+"Yes?" Rand succeeded in being negligent about it.
+
+"Oh my, yes! The newspaper people wanted to take pictures of me holding
+it, and then, there was an antique-dealer who was here trying to buy it."
+
+"Who was that--Arnold Rivers?"
+
+"Why yes! Do you know him? He has an antique-shop on the other side of
+Rosemont; he doesn't sell anything but guns and swords and that sort of
+thing," Kirchner said. "He was here, making inquiries about it, and my
+clerk showed it to him, and then he started making offers for it--first
+ten dollars, and then fifteen, and then twenty; he got up as high as
+sixty dollars. I suppose it's worth a couple of hundred."
+
+It was probably worth about thirty-five. Rand was intrigued by this
+second instance of an un-Rivers-like willingness to spare no expense to
+get possession of a .36-caliber percussion revolver.
+
+"Did he have it in his hands?" he asked.
+
+"Oh, yes; he looked it over carefully. I suppose he thought he could get
+a lot of money for it, because of the accident, and Mr. Fleming being
+such a prominent man," Kirchner suggested.
+
+Rand allowed himself to be struck by an idea.
+
+"Say, you know, that _would_ make it worth more, at that!" he exclaimed.
+"What do you know! I never thought of that.... Look, Mr. Kirchner; I'm
+supposed to get as much money for these pistols, for the heirs, as I can.
+How would you like to give me a letter, vouching for this as the pistol
+Mr. Fleming killed himself with? Put in how you found it in his hand, and
+mention the serial numbers, so that whoever buys it will know it's the
+same revolver." He picked up the Colt and showed Kirchner the serials, on
+the butt, and in front of the trigger-guard. "See, here it is: 2444."
+
+Kirchner would be more than willing to oblige Mr. Goode's agent; he typed
+out the letter himself, looked twice at the revolver to make sure of the
+number, took Rand's word for the make, model, and caliber, signed it, and
+even slammed his seal down on it. Rand thanked him profusely, put the
+letter in his pocket, and stuck the Colt down his pants-leg.
+
+About two miles from the county seat Rand stopped his car on a deserted
+stretch of road and got out. Unwinding the wire Kirchner had wrapped
+around the revolver, he picked up an empty beer-can from the ditch,
+set it against an embankment, stepped back about thirty feet and began
+firing. The first shot kicked up dirt a little over the can--Rand never
+could be sure just how high any percussion Colt was sighted--and the
+other four hit the can. He carried the revolver back to the car and put
+it into the glove-box with the Leech & Rigdon.
+
+After starting the car, he snapped on the radio, in time for the two
+fifteen news-broadcast from the New Belfast station. As he had expected,
+the murder was out; the daily budget of strikes and Congressional
+investigations and international turmoil was enlivened by a more or less
+imaginative account of what had already been christened the "Rosemont
+Bayonet Murder." Rand resigned himself to the inevitable influx of
+reporters. Then he swore, as the newscaster continued:
+
+"District Attorney Charles P. Farnsworth, of Scott County, who has taken
+charge of the investigation, says, and we quote: 'There is strong
+evidence implicating certain prominent persons, whom we are not, as yet,
+prepared to name, and if the investigation, now under way and making
+excellent progress, justifies, they will be apprehended and formally
+charged. No effort will be spared, and no consideration of personal
+prominence will be allowed to deter us from clearing up this dastardly
+crime....'"
+
+Rand swore again, with weary bitterness, wondering how much trouble he
+was going to have with District Attorney Charles P. Farnsworth, as he
+pulled to a stop in Stephen Gresham's driveway.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 12
+
+
+Gresham must have been waiting inside the door; as soon as Rand came up
+onto the porch, he opened it, and motioned the detective inside. Beyond a
+hasty greeting as Rand passed the threshold, he did not speak until they
+were seated in the gunroom upstairs. Then he came straight to the point.
+
+"Jeff, can you spare the time from this work you're doing at the
+Flemings' to investigate this Rivers business?" he asked. "And how much
+would an investigation cost me? It's got to be a blitz job. I'm not
+interested in getting anybody convicted in court; I just want the case
+cleared up in a hurry."
+
+"Well--" Rand puffed at the cigar Gresham had given him, watching the ash
+form on the end. "I don't work by the day, Stephen. I take a lump-sum
+fee, and, of course, it's to my interest to get a case cleared up as soon
+as I can. But I can't set any time limit on a job like this. This Rivers
+killing has more angles than _Nude Descending a Staircase_; I don't know
+how much work I'll have to do, or even what kind."
+
+"Well, it'll have to be fast," Gresham told him urgently. "Look. I didn't
+kill Arnold Rivers. I hated his guts, and I think whoever did it ought to
+get a medal and a testimonial dinner, but I did not kill him. You believe
+me?"
+
+"I'm inclined to," Rand replied. "In your law practice, you know what a
+lying client is letting himself in for. As my client, you wouldn't lie to
+me. You seem to think you may be suspected of purging Rivers. But why? Is
+there any reason, aside from that homemade North & Cheney he sold you,
+why anybody would think you'd killed him?"
+
+"Great God, yes!" Gresham exclaimed. "Now look. I'm not worried about
+being railroaded for this. I didn't do it, and I can beat any case that
+half-assed ex-ambulance-chaser, Farnsworth, could dream up against me.
+But I can't afford even to be mentioned in connection with this. You know
+what that would do to me, in town. I just can't get mixed up in this, at
+all. I want you to see to it that I don't."
+
+"That sounds like a large order." The ash was growing on Rand's cigar;
+he took another heavy drag at it. "But why necessarily you? Rivers had
+plenty of other enemies."
+
+"Yes, but, dammit, they weren't all in his shop, last evening. Just me.
+And one other. The one who killed him."
+
+"On your way out from town?" Rand inquired.
+
+"Yes. I stopped at his place, about a quarter to nine. I was sore as hell
+about the hooking he gave me on that North & Cheney, falsely so-called,
+and I decided to stop and have it out with him. We had words, most of
+them unpleasant. I told him, for one thing, that Lane Fleming's death
+hadn't pulled his bacon off the fire, that I was going to start the same
+sort of action against him on my own account. But that isn't the point.
+The point is that when I was going in, this la-de-da clerk of his, Cecil
+Gillis, was coming out. He got into his car and drove away, leaving me
+alone with Rivers. He'll be the first one the police talk to, and he'll
+tell them all about it."
+
+"That does put you back of the eight ball." Rand dropped the ash into a
+tray and looked at it curiously. It looked like the sort of ash he had
+seen at Rivers's shop, but he couldn't be sure. "But if it can be proved
+that Rivers was alive after nine twenty, when you got here, you'll be in
+the clear."
+
+"I don't want to have to clear myself," Gresham insisted. "I don't want
+anything to do with it, at all. Here; I'll pay you a thousand down, and
+two more when you have the case completed; I want you to get the murder
+cleared up before I can be publicly involved in it. I say publicly,
+because this damned Gillis has probably involved me with the police
+already."
+
+"Well, Gillis isn't exactly in a state of pure sanctity, himself," Rand
+commented. "As a suspect, the smart handicappers are figuring him to run
+well inside the money. For instance, you know, there have been stories
+about him and Mrs. Rivers."
+
+Gresham snapped his fingers. "Damned if there haven't, now!" he said.
+"You talk to Adam Trehearne. He did business with Rivers--there wasn't
+much in his line Rivers and Umholtz were able to fake--and different
+times he's gone to Rivers's shop and there'd be nobody around, and then
+Gillis would come in from the house, smelling of Chanel Number Five.
+Mrs. Rivers uses Chanel Number Five. Maybe you have something there.
+If Cecil thought he could marry the business, with Rivers out of the
+way.... You'll take the case, won't you, Jeff?"
+
+"Oh, certainly," Rand assured him. "Now, all they have on you is that
+there was ill-feeling between you and Rivers about that fake North &
+Cheney, and that you were in Rivers's shop yesterday evening?"
+
+Rand's new client grimaced. "I wish that were all!" he said. "The worst
+part of it is the way Rivers was killed. See, back in Kaiser Willie's
+war, before I was assigned a company of my own, I was regimental
+bayonet-instruction officer. And after we got to France, I always
+carried a rifle and bayonet at the front; hell, I must have killed
+close to a dozen Krauts just the way Rivers was killed. And during
+Schicklgruber's war, I volunteered as bayonet instructor for the local
+Home Guard."
+
+"My God!" Rand made a wry face. "There must be close to a hundred people
+around here who'd know that, and all of them are probably convinced that
+you killed Rivers, and are expressing that opinion at the top of their
+voices to all comers. You don't want a detective, you want a magician!"
+He took another drag at the cigar, and blew smoke through a circular
+gun-rack beside him. "What sort of a character is this Farnsworth,
+anyhow?" he asked. "Before the war, I had all the D.A.'s in the state
+typed and estimated, but since I got back--"
+
+Gresham slandered the county prosecutor's legitimacy. "God-damn
+headline-hunting little egotist! He's running for re-election this
+year, too."
+
+"One way, that could be bad. On the other hand, it might be easy to throw
+a scare into him.... Stephen, when you were at Rivers's, were you smoking
+a cigar?"
+
+Gresham shook his head. "No. I threw my cigar away when I got out of the
+car, and I didn't light another one till I got home. If you remember, I
+was lighting it when I came in here."
+
+"Yes; so you were. Well, I don't suppose, in view of the state of
+relations between you and Rivers, that you had a drink with him, either?"
+
+"I wouldn't drink that guy's liquor if I were dying of snakebite, and he
+wouldn't offer me a drink if he knew I was," Gresham declared.
+
+"Well, did you notice, back near the fireplace, a low table with a fifth
+of Haig & Haig Pinchbottle, and a couple of glasses, and a siphon, and so
+on, on it?"
+
+"I saw the table. There was an ashtray on it, and a book--I think it was
+Gluckman's _United States Martial Pistols and Revolvers_--but no bottle,
+or siphon, or glasses."
+
+"All right, then; it was the killer." Rand explained about the drinks,
+and the cigar-ashes. He went on to tell about the destruction of Rivers's
+record-cards.
+
+"I don't get that." Gresham was puzzled. "Unless it was young Gillis,
+after all. He could have been knocking down on Rivers, and Rivers caught
+him at it."
+
+"I'd thought of that," Rand admitted. "But I doubt if Rivers would sit
+down and drink with him, while accusing him of theft. And I can't seem to
+find anything around Rivers's place that looks as though it might have
+been stolen from the Fleming collection, either.... Oh, and that reminds
+me: If you have time this afternoon, I wonder if you'd come along with me
+to the Flemings' and see just what's missing. I'll have to know that, in
+any case, and there's a good possibility that the thefts from the
+collection and the killing of Rivers are related."
+
+"Yes, of course," Gresham agreed. "And suppose we take Pierre Jarrett
+along with us. He knows that collection as well as I do; he'll spot
+anything I miss. He works at home; I'll call him now. We can pick him up
+before we go to the Flemings'."
+
+They went into Gresham's bedroom, where there was a phone, and Gresham
+talked to Pierre Jarrett. It was arranged that he should pick Jarrett up
+with his car and come to the Flemings', while Rand went there directly.
+
+Then Rand used the phone to call his office in New Belfast. He talked to
+Dave Ritter, explaining the situation to date.
+
+"I'm going to need some help," he continued. "I want you to come here and
+get a room at the Rosemont Inn, under your own name. I'll see you there
+about five thirty. And bring with you a suit of butler's livery, or
+reasonable facsimile. I believe there will be a vacancy in the Fleming
+household tomorrow or the next day, and I want you ready to take over.
+And bring a small gun with you; something you can wear under said livery.
+That .357 Colt of yours is a little too conspicuous. You'll find a .380
+Beretta in the top right-hand drawer of my office desk, with a box of
+ammunition and a couple of spare clips."
+
+"Right. I'll be at Rosemont Inn at five thirty," Ritter promised. "And
+say, Tip was in, this morning, with a lot of dope on the Fleming estate.
+Want me to let you have it now, or shall I give it to you when I see
+you?"
+
+"You have notes? Bring them along; I'll be seeing you in a couple of
+hours."
+
+He parted from Gresham, going out and getting in his car. As Gresham got
+his own car out of the garage and drove off toward Pierre Jarrett's
+house, Rand started in the opposite direction, toward Rosemont.
+
+About a half-mile from Gresham's he caught an advancing gleam of white on
+the highway ahead of him and pulled to the side of the road, waiting
+until the State Police car drew up and stopped. In it were Mick McKenna,
+Aarvo Kavaalen, and a third man, a Nordic type, in an untidy brown suit.
+
+"Hi, Jeff," McKenna greeted him, as Rand got out of his car and came
+across the road. "This is Gus Olsen, investigator for the D.A.'s office.
+Jeff Rand; Tri-State Agency," he introduced.
+
+"Hey!" Olsen yelled. "We been lookin' for you! Where you been?"
+
+Rand raised an eyebrow at McKenna.
+
+"You just came from where we're going," the State Police sergeant
+surmised. "Was Gresham at home?"
+
+"He was; he's gone now," Rand said. "He and another man are going to help
+me check up on what's missing from the Fleming collection."
+
+"Hey!" Olsen exploded. "What I told you, now; he run ahead of us with a
+tip-off! Gresham's skipped out, now!"
+
+"What is all this?" Rand wanted to know. "What's he screaming about,
+Mick?"
+
+"Like he don't know!" Olsen vociferated. "He tipped off Gresham so's he
+could skip out; I'll bet he's in it with Gresham!"
+
+"Pay no attention," McKenna advised. "He doesn't know what the score is;
+hell, he doesn't even know what teams are playing."
+
+"Now you look here!" Olsen bawled. "We'll see what Mr. Farnsworth has to
+say about this. You're supposed to cooperate with us, not go fraternizin'
+with a lot of suspects. Why, it's plain as anything; him and Gresham's
+in it together. I bet that was why he come around, the first thing in the
+morning, to find the body!"
+
+Kavaalen, behind the wheel, turned around and began jabbering at Olsen,
+in the back seat, in something that sounded like Swedish. Most Finns
+can speak Swedish, and Rand was wishing he could understand it. The
+corporal's remarks ran to about a paragraph, and must have been downright
+incendiary. At least, Olsen seemed to catch fire from them. He rose in
+his seat, waving his arms and howling back in the same language.
+
+"Shut up, goddammit, _shut up_!" McKenna bellowed into his face. "Shut up
+before I sling your ass to hell out of this car! I'm talking, and I don't
+want any goddam jaw from you, Olsen. You either," he barked at Kavaalen,
+winking at him at the same time.
+
+Silence fell with a heavy thump in the car.
+
+"Well, now that the international crisis seems to have been averted,
+how's about letting me in on it, too?" Rand asked. "For instance, what
+about Gresham? What's he supposed to be a suspect for?"
+
+"Ah, Olsen suspects him of chopping Rivers up," McKenna replied wearily.
+"See, we questioned this Cecil Gillis, and he told us that last evening,
+as he was leaving Rivers's, he saw Stephen Gresham drive up and go into
+the shop. I wanted to talk to him, myself; I thought he might account for
+the cigar-ashes, and the drink-fixings on that table. But when Farnsworth
+heard about the killing, he sent Olsen around, and when Olsen heard that
+Gresham had been there, he tried him and convicted him on the spot."
+
+"Oh, obscenity! Is that what it's about?" Rand exclaimed in disgust.
+"Yes, Gresham told me about that. He didn't have the drink, and he wasn't
+smoking a cigar in the shop, and he left a little after nine. He got home
+at nine twenty-two. I can testify to that, myself; I was there at the
+time, and so were seven other people." Rand named them. "They dribbled
+away at different times during the evening, but Philip Cabot and I stayed
+till around eleven." He mentioned the approximate time at which the
+others had left. "What time was Rivers killed, or hasn't the time been
+fixed?"
+
+"The M.E. says around ten to two," McKenna said.
+
+"He could be wrong; them guys only guess, half the time," Olsen argued.
+"And besides, Gresham had it in for Rivers. And that ain't all, neither;
+he knew how to use a bayonet, too. I seen him, myself, during the war,
+showin' the Home Guard how to do it, just the way Rivers was killed!" he
+produced triumphantly.
+
+McKenna used a dirty word. "So what? Anybody who's ever had infantry
+training knows that butt-stroke-and-lunge," he retorted. "I learned it
+myself, when I was a kid, in '24 and '25, in C.M.T.C. Hell, anybody who's
+ever seen a war-movie.... If you hadn't lammed out of Sweden when you
+were sixteen, to duck conscription, you'd of known it, too."
+
+"Well, maybe Olsen, or his boss, can explain why Gresham threw those
+record-cards in the fire," Rand contributed. "You know why Olsen says
+Gresham had it in for Rivers? Rivers sold Gresham a fake antique, a flint
+lock navy pistol that had been worked over into something else. Gresham
+was going to subpoena those records, when he brought suit against
+Rivers," Rand lied. "But I can explain why Cecil Gillis might have
+destroyed them, after killing Rivers, if he'd been cheating Rivers and
+Rivers caught him at it."
+
+"Yeah, and that might explain why Gillis was in such a hurry to sic us
+onto Gresham, too," McKenna added. "I thought of something like that. And
+this high-brown girl that works for Rivers says that Gillis and Mrs.
+Rivers played all kinds of games together, when Rivers was away."
+
+"Well, who's in charge of the investigation?" Rand wanted to know. "I
+heard, on the radio ..."
+
+"You're liable to hear anything on the radio, including slanders on
+Bing Crosby's horses. But for the record, I am in charge of this
+investigation. And don't anybody forget it, either," he added, in
+the direction of the rear seat.
+
+"That's what I thought. Well, Stephen Gresham has just retained me to
+make an independent investigation," Rand said. "It is not that he lacks
+confidence in the State Police, or in you; he was afraid that other
+parties might get into the act and try to make political capital out
+of it. Which appears to have happened."
+
+"Well, if Gresham retained you, I'm satisfied," McKenna said. "You can
+take care of that end of it. Glad you're in with us."
+
+"Well, I ain't satisfied!" Olsen began yelling, again. "And Mr.
+Farnsworth won't be, neither. Why, this here private dick is like as
+not workin' for the very man that killed Rivers!"
+
+McKenna turned slowly in his seat, to face Olsen.
+
+"One time, ten years ago," he began, "Jeff Rand had a client who was
+guilty of the crime he hired Jeff to investigate. It was an arson case;
+this guy set fire to his own factory, and then got Jeff to run down a lot
+of fake clues he'd planted. I know about that; I was on the case, myself.
+That's where I first met Jeff, and he saved me from making a jackass out
+of myself. And what happened to this guy who'd hired Jeff was something
+that oughtn't to happen even to Molotov, and it happened because Jeff
+fixed it to happen. If anybody hires Jeff Rand, he's one of two things.
+He's either innocent, or else he's out of luck.... I don't know why the
+hell I bother telling you this."
+
+"Ten to two, you say," Rand considered. "Look. A couple of days ago,
+Rivers put out a new price-list to his regular customers. A lot of them,
+in different parts of the country, order by telephone, and some of them
+live in the West, where there's a couple of hours' time-difference. One
+of them, calling at, say, eight o'clock, local time, would get his call
+in at ten, Eastern Standard. If you checked the long-distance calls to
+Rivers's number last night, now, you might get something."
+
+"Yeah. And if he took a call after nine twenty-two, that would let
+Gresham out. Even Farnsworth could figure that out. Sure. I'll check
+right away."
+
+"Who's at Rivers's now?"
+
+"Skinner and Jameson, of our gang. And Farnsworth, and some of his
+outfit. And the hell's own slew of reporters, of course," McKenna said.
+"Aarvo's going back there, in a little. We're still trying to locate Mrs.
+Rivers; we haven't been able to, yet. The maid says she went to New York
+day before yesterday."
+
+"I'll probably be around at Rivers's, later in the day. I want to check
+on that Fleming angle."
+
+"Uh-huh; I'll be there, in half an hour," Corporal Kavaalen said. "Be
+seeing you."
+
+They exchanged so-longs, and Kavaalen backed, and made a U-turn, moving
+off in the direction of Rosemont. Olsen's voluble protests drifted back
+as the car receded. Rand returned to his own car and followed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 13
+
+
+Rand found Gladys alone in the library. As she rose to greet him, he came
+close to her, gesturing for silence with finger on lips.
+
+"There's a perfect hell of a mess," he whispered. "Somebody murdered
+Arnold Rivers last night."
+
+She looked at him in horror. "Murdered? Who was it? How did it...?"
+
+"I haven't time to talk about that right now," he told her. "Stephen
+Gresham and Pierre Jarrett are on their way here, and I'd like you to
+keep the servants, and particularly Walters, out of earshot of the
+gunroom while they're here. It seems that a number of the best pistols
+have been stolen from the collection, sometime between the death of Mr.
+Fleming and the time I saw the collection yesterday. Stephen and Pierre
+are going to help me find out just what's been taken. I have an idea they
+might have been sold to Rivers. That may have been why he was killed--to
+prevent him from implicating the thief."
+
+"You think somebody here--the servants?" she asked.
+
+"I can't see how it could have been an outsider. The stuff wasn't all
+taken at once; it must have been moved out a piece at a time, and
+worthless pistols moved in and hung on the racks to replace valuable
+pistols taken." He had left the library door purposely open; when the
+doorbell rang, he heard it. "I'll let them in," he said. "You go and head
+Walters off."
+
+Rand hurried to the front door and admitted Gresham and Pierre, hustling
+them down the hall, into the library, and up the spiral to the gunroom,
+while Gladys went to the foot of the front stairs. Through the open
+gunroom door, Rand could hear her speaking to Walters, as though sending
+him on some errand to the rear of the house. He closed the door and
+turned to the others.
+
+"We'll have to make it fast," he said. "Mrs. Fleming can't hold the
+butler off all day. Let's start over here, and go around the racks."
+
+They began at the left, with the wheel locks. Pierre put his finger
+immediately on the shabby and disreputable specimen Rand had first
+noticed.
+
+"Phew! Is that one a stinker!" he said. "What used to be there was a
+nice late sixteenth- or early seventeenth-century North Italian pistol,
+all covered with steel filigree-work. A real beauty; much better than
+average."
+
+"Those Turkish atrocities," Gresham pointed out. "They're filling in for
+a pair of Lazarino Cominazo snaphaunces that Lane Fleming paid seven
+hundred for, back in the mid-thirties, and didn't pay a cent too much
+for, even then. Worth an easy thousand, now. Remember the pair of
+Cominazo flintlocks illustrated in Pollard's _Short History of Firearms_?
+These were even better, and snaphaunces."
+
+"Well, you go over the collection," Rand told them. "Note down anything
+you find missing." He handed them a pad of paper and a pencil from the
+desk. "I have something else to do, for a few minutes."
+
+With that he left them scrutinizing the pistols on the wall, and went to
+the workbench in the corner, drawing the .36 Colt from under his
+waistband. Working rapidly, he dismounted it, taking off the barrel and
+cylinder, and cleaned it thoroughly before putting it together again.
+Pierre and Gresham had just started on the Colts when he slipped the
+revolver out of sight and rejoined them.
+
+It took over a half-hour to finish; when they had gotten completely
+around the collection, Rand had a list of twenty-six missing items,
+including four cased sets. At a conservative estimate, the missing
+pistols were worth ten to twelve thousand dollars, dealer's list value;
+the stuff that had been moved in to replace them might have a value of
+two or three hundred, but no serious collector would buy any of it at any
+price. There had been no attempt to replace the cased items; the cases
+had been merely rearranged on the table to avoid any conspicuous
+vacancies.
+
+"See that thing?" Pierre asked, tapping a small .25 Webley & Scott
+automatic with his finger. Rand looked at it; it had been fitted with an
+English-made silencer. "That thing," Pierre said, "is the one illustrated
+in Pollard's book. The identical pistol; it used to be in the Pollard
+collection."
+
+"Lane had a lot of stuff from some famous collections," Gresham said.
+"Pollard collection, Sawyer collection, Fred Hines collection, Meeks
+collection, even the old Mark Field collection, that was sold at Libbie
+Galleries in 1911. His own could rank with any of them. Think you can get
+any of this stuff back?"
+
+"I hope so. By the way, where does this fellow Umholtz, the fabricator of
+spurious Whitneyville Walker Colts, hang out? I believe he ought to be
+looked into."
+
+"Say, that's an idea!" Pierre ejaculated. "He might have bought the
+pistols, instead of Rivers. Why, he has a gunshop at Kingsville, on Route
+22, about fifteen miles west of here, just this side of the village. He
+had a big sign along the road, and his shop's in the barn, behind the
+house."
+
+"I'll have to check up on him. But first, I want to see if any of this
+stuff's at Rivers's shop. I won't ask you to come along," he told
+Gresham. "No use you sticking your head into the lion's mouth. I've
+talked the State Police temporarily off your trail, but I still have
+Farnsworth to worry about."
+
+"He'd like to prosecute a big corporation lawyer, if he thought he had
+any chance of getting a conviction," Pierre said. "Make a nice impression
+on the proletarian vote in the south end of the county."
+
+"You're a member of the Mohawk Club in New Belfast, aren't you?" Rand
+asked Gresham. "Well, go there and stay there for a couple of days, till
+the heat's off. Pierre, you can come with me to Rivers's; I'll run you
+home in my car when we're through."
+
+Gresham let himself out the front door; Pierre and Rand went out through
+the garage and got into Rand's car.
+
+"You have any idea, so far, about who could have killed Rivers?" the
+ex-Marine asked, as they coasted down the drive to the highway.
+
+"I haven't even the start of an idea," Rand said. He ran briefly over
+what he knew, or at least those items which were likely to become public
+knowledge soon. "From what I've observed at the shop, and from what I
+know of Rivers's character, I'd think that he'd been in some kind of a
+crooked deal with somebody, and got double-crossed, or else the other man
+caught Rivers double-crossing him. Or else, Rivers and somebody else had
+some secret in common, and the other man wanted a monopoly on it and
+killed Rivers as a security measure."
+
+"Think it might be the Fleming pistols?"
+
+"That depends. I'll have to see whether any of the Fleming pistols turn
+up anywhere in Rivers's former possession. Personally, I've about decided
+that the man who was drinking with Rivers killed him. There aren't any
+indications that anybody else was in the shop afterward. If that's the
+case, I doubt if the killer was Walters. You know what a snobbish guy
+Rivers was. And from what I know of him, he seems to have had a
+thoroughly Aristotelian outlook; he identified individuals with
+class-labels. Walters, of course, would be identified with the label
+'butler,' and I can't imagine Rivers sitting down and drinking with a
+'butler.' He would only drink with people whom he thought of as his
+equals, that is, people whom he identified with class-labels of equal
+social importance to his own labels of 'antiquarian' and 'businessman.'"
+
+"That sounds like Korzybski," Pierre said, as they turned onto Route 19
+in the village and headed east. "You've read _Science and Sanity_?"
+
+Rand nodded. "Yes. I first read it in the 1933 edition, back about 1936;
+I've been rereading it every couple of years since. The principles of
+General Semantics come in very handy in my business, especially in
+criminal-investigation work, like this. A consciousness of abstracting,
+a realization that we can only know something about a thin film of events
+on the surface of any given situation, and a habit of thinking
+structurally and of individual things, instead of verbally and of
+categories, saves a lot of blind-alley chasing. And they suggest a
+great many more avenues of investigation than would be evident to one
+whose thinking is limited by intensional, verbal, categories."
+
+"Yes. I find General Semantics helpful in my work, too," Pierre said. "I
+can use it in plotting a story.... Oh-oh!"
+
+"The Gentlemen of the Press," Rand said, looking ahead as the car
+approached the Rivers house and shop. "There hasn't been a good,
+sensational, murder story for some time; this is a gift from the gods."
+
+A swarm of cars were parked in front and beside the red-brick house.
+Among them, Rand spotted a gold-lettered green sedan of the New Belfast
+_Dispatch_ and _Evening Express_, a black coupé bearing the blazonry of
+the New Belfast _Mercury_, cars from a couple of papers at Louisburg, the
+state capital, and cars from papers as far distant as Pittsburgh,
+Buffalo, and Cincinnati. In front of the shop, a motley assemblage of
+journalists was interviewing and photographing an undersized runt in
+a tan Chesterfield topcoat and a gray Homburg hat, whom they were
+addressing as Mr. Farnsworth. The District Attorney of Scott County had
+a mustache which failed miserably to make him look like Tom Dewey; he
+impressed Rand as the sort of offensive little squirt who compensates
+for his general insignificance by bad manners and loud-mouthed
+self-assertion. Corporal Kavaalen, standing in the doorway of the shop,
+caught sight of Rand and his companion as they got out of the car and
+came to meet them, hustling them around the crowd and into the shop
+before anybody could notice and recognize them.
+
+"That was a good tip, about the telephone," he said softly. "Mick checked
+at the Rosemont exchange. Rivers got a long-distance call from Topeka
+last night; ten fifteen to ten seventeen. We got the night long distance
+operator out of bed, and she confirmed it; Rivers took the call himself.
+He gets a lot of long distance calls in the evenings; she knew his
+voice." He corrected himself, shifting to the past tense and glancing, as
+he did, at the chalk outline on the floor, now scuffed by many feet, and
+the dried bloodstains. "You say this puts Gresham in the clear?"
+
+"Absolutely," Rand assured him. "He was at home from nine twenty-two on."
+He introduced Pierre Jarrett, and explained their mission. "You find
+anything except what's here in the shop?"
+
+"Only Rivers's own .38 Smith & Wesson, in his room, and a lot of pistols
+out in the garage, that look like junk to me," Kavaalen said. "I'll show
+them to you."
+
+Rand nodded. "Pierre, you look around the shop; I'll see what this other
+stuff is."
+
+He followed Kavaalen through a door at the rear of the shop; the same one
+through which Cecil Gillis had carried the Kentucky rifle the afternoon
+before. Beside Rivers's car, there was a long workbench in the garage,
+and piles of wood and cardboard cartons, and stacks of newspapers, and
+a barrel full of excelsior, all evidently used in preparing arms for
+shipment. There was also a large pile of old pistols, and a number of
+long-arms.
+
+Rand pawed among the pistols; they were, as the State Police corporal had
+said, all junk. The sort of things a dealer has to buy, at times, in
+order to get something really good. Many of them had been partially
+dismantled for parts. When he was certain that the heap of junk-weapons
+didn't conceal anything of value, he returned to the shop. Pierre was
+waiting for him by Rivers's desk.
+
+He shook his head. "Not a thing," he reported. "I found a couple of
+out-and-out fakes, and about ten or fifteen that had been altered in one
+way or another, and a lot of reblued stuff, but nothing from Fleming's
+collection. What did you find?"
+
+Rand laughed. "I found Rivers's scrap-heap, and some pistols that
+probably contributed parts to some of the stuff you found," he said. "Of
+course, all we can say is that the stuff isn't here; Rivers could have
+bought it, and stored it outside somewhere. But even so, I'm not taking
+the Fleming butler too seriously as a suspect for the murder."
+
+"What's this about Fleming's butler?" a voice broke in. "Have you been
+withholding information from me?"
+
+Rand turned, to find that Farnsworth had left the press conference in
+front and crepe-soled up on him from behind.
+
+"I withheld a theory, which seems to have come to nothing," he replied.
+
+Kavaalen told the D.A. who Rand was. "He's cooperating with us," he
+added. "Sergeant McKenna instructed us to give him every consideration."
+
+"It seems that a number of valuable pistols were stolen from the
+collection of the late Lane Fleming," Rand said. "We suspected that
+the butler had stolen them and sold them to Rivers; I thought it
+possible that he might also have killed Rivers to silence him about the
+transaction." He shrugged. "None of the stolen items have turned up here,
+so there's nothing to connect the thefts with the death of Rivers."
+
+"Good heavens, you certainly didn't suspect a prominent and respected
+citizen like Mr. Rivers of receiving stolen goods?" Farnsworth demanded,
+aghast.
+
+"Who respects him?" Rand hooted. "Rivers was a notorious swindler; he
+had that reputation among arms-collectors all over the country. He was
+expelled from membership in the National Rifle Association for
+misrepresentation and fraud. Why, he even swindled Lane Fleming on a pair
+of fake pistols, a week or so before Fleming's death. And the very reason
+why your man Olsen was inclined to suspect Stephen Gresham was that he
+had had trouble with Rivers about a crooked deal Rivers had put over on
+him. Fortunately, Mr. Gresham has since been cleared of any suspicion,
+but--"
+
+"Who says he's been cleared?" Farnsworth snapped. "He's still a suspect."
+
+"Sergeant McKenna says so," Corporal Kavaalen declared. "He has been
+cleared. I guess we just didn't get around to telling you about that."
+He went on to explain about the long distance call that had furnished
+Stephen Gresham's alibi.
+
+"And Gresham was at home from nine twenty-two on," Rand added. "There are
+eight witnesses to that: His wife and daughter; myself; Captain Jarrett,
+here; and his fiancée, Miss Lawrence; Philip Cabot; Adam Trehearne; Colin
+MacBride."
+
+Farnsworth looked bewildered. "Why wasn't I told about that?" he demanded
+sulkily.
+
+"Sergeant McKenna's been too busy, and I didn't think of it," Kavaalen
+said insolently. "I'm not supposed to report to you, anyhow. Why didn't
+your man Olsen tell you; he was with us when we checked with the
+telephone company."
+
+Farnsworth tried to ignore that by questioning Pierre about the time of
+Gresham's arrival home, then turned to Rand and wanted to know what the
+latter's interest in the case was.
+
+Rand told him about his work in connection with the Fleming collection,
+producing Humphrey Goode's letter of authorization. Farnsworth seemed
+impressed in about the same way as the coroner, Kirchner, but he was
+still puzzled.
+
+"But I understood that you had been retained by Stephen Gresham, to
+investigate this murder," he said.
+
+"So you did talk to Olsen, after I saw him," Rand pounced. "Odd he didn't
+mention this telephone thing.... Why, yes; that's true. My agency handles
+all sorts of business. The two operations aren't mutually exclusive; for
+a while, I even thought they might be related, but now--" He shrugged.
+
+"Well, you believe, now, that Rivers had nothing to do with the pistols
+you say were stolen from the Fleming collection?" Farnsworth asked. Rand
+shook his head ambiguously; Farnsworth took that for a negative answer
+to his question, as he was intended to. "And you say Mr. Gresham has been
+completely cleared of any suspicion of complicity in this murder?"
+
+"Mr. Rand's helping us; we want him to stick around till the case is
+closed," Corporal Kavaalen threw in, perceiving the drift of Farnsworth's
+questions. "He and Sergeant McKenna have worked together before; he's
+given us a lot of good tips."
+
+"You understand," Rand took over, "Mr. Gresham didn't retain me merely
+to help him clear himself. I don't accept that kind of retainers. I was
+retained to find the murderer of Arnold Rivers, and I intend to continue
+working on this case until I do. I hope that the same friendly spirit of
+mutual cooperation will exist between your office and my agency as exists
+between me and the State Police. I certainly don't want to have to work
+at cross purposes with any of the regular law-enforcement agencies."
+
+"Oh, certainly; of course." Farnsworth didn't seem to like the idea, but
+there was no apparent opening for objection. He and Rand exchanged
+mendacious compliments, pledged close cooperation, and did practically
+everything but draw up and sign a treaty of alliance. Then Farnsworth and
+Corporal Kavaalen accompanied Rand and Pierre Jarrett to the front door.
+
+Some of the reporters who were ravening outside must have spotted Rand as
+he had entered; they were all waiting for him to come out, and set up a
+monstrous ululation when he appeared in the doorway. With Farnsworth
+beaming approval, Rand assured the Press that he was no more than a mere
+spectator, that the State Police and the efficient District Attorney of
+Scott County had the situation well in hand, and that an arrest was
+expected within a matter of hours. Then he and Pierre hurried to his car
+and drove away.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 14
+
+
+Neither of them spoke for a moment or two. Then, after they had left the
+criminological-journalistic uproar at the Rivers place behind and were
+approaching the village of Rosemont, Pierre turned to Rand.
+
+"You know," he said, "for a disciple of Korzybski, you came pretty close
+to confusing orders of abstraction, a couple of times, back there. You
+showed that Stephen was at home while Rivers was taking that phone call,
+a little after ten. But when you talk about clearing him completely,
+aren't you overlooking the possibility that he came back to Rivers's
+after you and Philip Cabot left the Gresham place?"
+
+Rand eased the foot-pressure on the gas and spared young Jarrett a
+side-glance before returning his attention to the road ahead.
+
+"Understand," Pierre hastened to add, "I don't believe that Stephen was
+fool enough to kill Rivers over that fake North & Cheney, but weren't you
+producing inferences that hadn't been abstracted from any descriptive
+data?"
+
+"Pierre, when I'm working on a case like this, any resemblance between
+my opinions and the statements I may make is purely due to conscious
+considerations of policy," Rand told him. "I don't want Farnsworth or
+Mick McKenna going around bitching this operation up for me. If they
+feel justified in eliminating Gresham on the strength of that phone
+call, I'm satisfied, regardless of the semantics involved. Right now, the
+thing that's worrying me is the ease with which I seem to have talked
+Farnsworth into laying off Gresham. He and Olsen both have single-track
+minds. They may just dismiss that telephone alibi, such as it is, as mere
+error of the mortal mind, and go right ahead building some kind of a
+ramshackle case against Gresham. Since they picked him for their entry,
+they won't want to have to scratch him.... Damn, I wish I could think of
+where Walters could have sold those pistols!"
+
+"Well, if Rivers wasn't involved somehow, why was he killed?" Pierre
+wondered. "Hey! Maybe Walters sold the pistols to Umholtz! He's just as
+big a crook as Rivers was, only not quite so smart."
+
+Rand nodded thoughtfully. "Maybe so. And suppose Rivers found out about
+it, and tried to declare himself in on it. That stuff would be worth at
+least ten thousand; I doubt if whoever bought it paid Walters more than
+two. In the Umholtz-Rivers income bracket, the difference might be worth
+killing for."
+
+"That's right. And Umholtz was in the infantry, in the other war; he
+served in the Twenty-eighth Division. He was trained to use a bayonet.
+And he'd pick that short Mauser; it has about the same weight and balance
+as a 1903 Springfield."
+
+"Well, you know, the killer wouldn't need to have been trained to use a
+bayonet," Rand pointed out. "Mick McKenna made that point, this
+afternoon. There have been a lot of war-movies that showed bayonet
+fighting; pretty nearly everybody knows about the technique that was
+used. And against an unarmed and probably unsuspecting victim like
+Rivers, a great deal of proficiency wouldn't be needed." He slowed the
+car. "Up this road?" he asked.
+
+"Yes. That's my place, over there."
+
+Pierre pointed to a white-walled, red-roofed house that lay against a
+hillside, about a mile ahead, making a vivid spot in the dull grays and
+greens of the early April landscape. It consisted of a square two-story
+block, with one-story wings projecting to give it an L-shaped floorplan.
+It reminded Rand of farmhouses he had seen in Sicily during the War.
+
+"Come on in and see my stuff, if you have time," Pierre invited, as
+Rand pulled to a stop in the driveway. "I think I told you what I
+collect--personal combat arms, both firearms and edge-weapons."
+
+They entered the front door, which opened directly into a large parlor, a
+brightly colored, cheerful room. A woman rose from a chair where she had
+been reading. She was somewhere between forty-five and fifty, but her
+figure was still trim, and she retained much of what, in her youth, must
+have been great beauty.
+
+"Mother, this is Colonel Rand," Pierre said. "Jeff, my mother."
+
+Rand shook hands with her, and said something polite. She gave him a
+smile of real pleasure.
+
+"Pierre has been telling me about you, Colonel," she said. There was a
+faint trace of French accent in her voice. "I suppose he brought you here
+to show you his treasures?"
+
+"Yes; I collect arms too. Pistols," Rand said.
+
+She laughed. "You gun-collectors; you're like women looking at somebody's
+new hat.... Will you stay for dinner with us, Colonel Rand?"
+
+"Why, I'm sorry; I can't. I have a great many things to do, and I'm
+expected for dinner at the Flemings'. I really wish I could, Mrs.
+Jarrett. Maybe some other time."
+
+They chatted for a few minutes, then Pierre guided Rand into one of the
+wings of the house.
+
+"This is my workshop, too," he said. "Here's where I do my writing." He
+opened a door and showed Rand into a large room.
+
+On one side, the wall was blank; on the other, it was pierced by two
+small casement windows. The far end was of windows for its entire width,
+from within three feet of the floor almost to the ceiling. There were
+bookcases on either long side, and on the rear end, and over them hung
+Pierre's weapons. Rand went slowly around the room, taking everything in.
+Very few of the arms were of issue military type, and most of these
+showed alterations to suit individual requirements. As Pierre had told
+him the evening before, the emphasis was upon weapons which illustrated
+techniques of combat.
+
+At the end of the room, lighted by the wide windows, was a long
+desk which was really a writer's assembly line, with typewriter,
+reference-books, stacks of notes and manuscripts, and a big dictionary
+on a stand beside a comfortable swivel-chair.
+
+"What are you writing?" Rand asked.
+
+"Science-fiction. I do a lot of stories for the pulps," Pierre told him.
+"_Space-Trails_, and _Other Worlds_, and _Wonder-Stories_; mags like
+that. Most of it's standardized formula-stuff; what's known to the trade
+as space-operas. My best stuff goes to _Astonishing_. Parenthetically,
+you mustn't judge any of these magazines by their names. It seems to be
+a convention to use hyperbolic names for science-fiction magazines; a
+heritage from what might be called an earlier and ruder day. What I do
+for _Astonishing_ is really hard work, and I enjoy it. I'm working now on
+one for them, based on J. W. Dunne's time-theories, if you know what they
+are."
+
+"I think so," Rand said. "Polydimensional time, isn't it? Based on an
+effect Dunne observed and described--dreams obviously related to some
+waking event, but preceding rather than following the event to which they
+are related. I read Dunne's _Experiment with Time_ some years before the
+war, and once, when I had nothing better to do, I recorded dreams for
+about a month. I got a few doubtful-to-fair examples, and two
+unmistakable Dunne-Effect dreams. I never got anything that would help
+me pick a race-winner or spot a rise in the stock market, though."
+
+"Well, you know, there's a case on record of a man who had a dream of
+hearing a radio narration of the English Derby of 1933, including the
+announcement that Hyperion had won, which he did," Pierre said. "The
+dream was six hours before the race, and tallied very closely with the
+phraseology used by the radio narrator. Here." He picked up a copy of
+Tyrrell's _Science and Psychical Phenomena_ and leafed through it.
+
+"Did this fellow cash in on it?" Rand asked.
+
+"No. He was a Quaker, and violently opposed to betting. Here." He handed
+the book to Rand. "Case Twelve."
+
+Rand sat down on the edge of the desk, and read the section indicated,
+about three pages in length.
+
+"Well, I'll be damned!" he said, as he finished. The idea of anybody
+passing up a chance like that to enrich himself literally smote him to
+the vitals. "I see the British Society for Psychical Research checked
+that case, and got verification from a couple of independent witnesses.
+If the S.P.R. vouches for a story, it must be the McCoy; they're the
+toughest-minded gang of confirmed skeptics anywhere in Christendom. They
+take an attitude toward evidence that might be advantageously copied by
+most of the district attorneys I've met, the one in this county being no
+exception.... What's this story you're working on?"
+
+"Oh, it's based on Dunne's precognition theories, plus a few ideas of my
+own, plus a theory of alternate lines of time-sequence for alternate
+probabilities," Pierre said. "See, here's the situation ..."
+
+Half an hour later, they were still arguing about a multidimensional
+universe when Rand remembered Dave Ritter, who should be at the Rosemont
+Inn by now. He looked at his watch, saw that it was five forty-five, and
+inquired about a telephone.
+
+"Yes, of course; out here." Pierre took him back to the parlor, where he
+dialed the Inn and inquired if a Mr. Ritter, from New Belfast, were
+registered there yet.
+
+He was. A moment later he was speaking to Ritter.
+
+"Jeff, for Gawdsake, don't come here," Ritter advised. "This place is
+six-deep with reporters; the bar sounds like the second act of _The Front
+Page_. Tony Ashe and Steve Drake from the _Dispatch_ and _Express_;
+Harry Bentz, from the _Mercury_; Joe Rawlings, the AP man from Louisburg;
+Christ only knows who all. This damn thing's going to turn into another
+Hall-Mills case! Look, meet me at that beer joint, about two miles on the
+New Belfast side of Rosemont, on Route 19; the white-with-red-trimmings
+place with the big Pabst sign out in front. I'll try to get there without
+letting a couple of reporters hide in the luggage-trunk."
+
+"Okay; see you directly."
+
+Rand hung up, spent the next few minutes breaking away from Pierre and
+his mother, and went out to his car. Trust Dave Ritter, he thought, to
+pick some place where malt beverages were sold, for a rendezvous.
+
+Dave's coupé was parked inconspicuously beside the red-trimmed roadhouse.
+Opening his glove-box, Rand took out the two percussion revolvers and
+shoved them under his trench coat, one on either side, pulling up the
+belt to hold them in place. As he went into the roadhouse, he felt like
+Damon Runyon's Twelve-Gun Tweeney. He found Ritter in the last booth,
+engaged in finishing a bottle of beer. Rand ordered Bourbon and plain
+water, and Ritter ordered another beer.
+
+"I have the stuff Tip left with Kathie," Ritter said, taking out a couple
+of closely typed sheets and handing them across the table. "He said this
+was the whole business."
+
+Rand glanced over them. Tipton had neatly and concisely summarized the
+provisions of Lane Fleming's will, and had also listed all Fleming's life
+insurance policies, with beneficiaries, including a partnership policy on
+the lives of Fleming, Dunmore, and Anton Varcek, paying each of the
+survivors $25,000.
+
+"I see Gladys and Geraldine and Nelda each get a third of Fleming's
+Premix stock," Rand commented. "But before they can have the certificates
+transferred to them, they have to sign over their voting-power to the
+board of directors. Evidently Fleming didn't approve of the feminine
+touch in business."
+
+"Yeah, isn't that a dandy?" Ritter asked. "The directors are elected by
+majority vote of the stockholders. They now have the voting-power of a
+majority of the stock; that makes the present board self-perpetuating,
+and responsible only to each other."
+
+"So it does, but that wasn't what I was thinking of. According to Tip,
+the board is one hundred per cent in favor of the merger with National
+Milling & Packaging. We'll have to suppose Fleming knew that; there must
+have been considerable intramural acrimony on the subject while he was
+still alive. Now, since he opposed the merger, if he had intended
+committing suicide, he would have made some other arrangement, wouldn't
+he? At least, one would suppose so. Well, then," Rand asked, "why, since
+he is so worried about these suicide rumors, doesn't Goode use the one
+argument which would utterly disprove them? Or is there some reason
+why he doesn't want to call attention to the fact that Fleming's death
+is what makes the merger possible?"
+
+"Well, that would be calling attention to the fact that the merger made
+Fleming's death necessary," Ritter pointed out. He poured more beer into
+his glass. "While we're on it, what's the angle on this butler's livery
+I was supposed to bring? I brought my tux, and I borrowed a striped vest
+from the Theatrical Property Exchange, and I brought that Dago .380 of
+yours. But what makes you think the Flemings are going to be needing a
+new butler? You going to poison the one they have?"
+
+"The one they have has been exceeding his duties," Rand said. "He was
+supposed to clean the pistol-collection. Not content with that, he's
+been cleaning it out. I know it was the butler." He went, at length,
+into his reasons for thinking so, and described the _modus operandi_ of
+the thefts. "Now, all this is just theory, so far, but when I'm able to
+prove it, I'm going to put the arm on this Walters, if it's right in the
+middle of dinner and he only has the roast half served. And I want you
+ready to step into the vacancy thus created. I'm going to be busy as a
+pup in a fireplug factory with this Rivers thing, and I'll need some
+checking-upping done inside the Fleming household."
+
+He went on, in meticulous detail, to explain about the Rivers murder.
+"I'll have some work for you, before you're ready to start buttling,
+too." Disencumbering himself of the two percussion revolvers, he laid
+them on the table. "I want you to take these and show them to this
+barbecue man. Get from him a positive statement, preferably in writing,
+as to which, if either, he sold to Lane Fleming. You might show your
+Agency card and claim to be checking up on some stolen pistols that
+have been recovered. Then, if he identifies the Leech & Rigdon, take the
+Colt and show it to Elmer Umholtz. You want to be careful how you handle
+him; we may want him for puncturing Rivers, though I'm inclined to doubt
+that, as of now. Get him to tell you, yes or no, whether he reblued it
+and replated the back-strap and trigger-guard, and if he did it for
+Rivers; and if so, when. I know that's been done; the bluing is too dark
+for a Civil War period job; the frame, which ought to be case-hardened
+in colors, has been blued like the barrel and cylinder, the
+cylinder-engraving is almost obliterated, and you can see a few rust-pits
+that have been blued over. But I want to know if this gun was ever in
+Rivers's shop; that's the important thing."
+
+"Uh-huh. Got the addresses?"
+
+Rand furnished them, and Ritter noted them down. The waitress wandered
+back to see if they wanted anything else; she gave a small squeak of
+surprise when she saw the two big six-shooters on the table. Rand and
+Ritter repeated their orders, and when she brought back the drinks, the
+Colt and the Leech & Rigdon were out of sight.
+
+"The way I see it, everybody who's within a light-year of this Rivers
+killing is trying to pin the medal on somebody else," Ritter was saying.
+"The Lawrence girl was afraid young Jarrett had done it; right away, she
+sicced you onto Gillis. Gillis didn't lose any time putting McKenna and
+Farnsworth onto Gresham. Gresham's the only one who didn't have a patsy
+ready; you're supposed to dig one up for him. And Jarrett, the first
+chance he gets, introduces Umholtz." He stared into his beer, as though
+he thought Ultimate Verity might be lurking somewhere under the suds. "Do
+you think it might be possible that Rivers bumped Fleming off, in spite
+of his getting killed later?" he asked.
+
+"Anything's possible," Rand replied, "except where some structural
+contradiction is involved, like scoring thirteen with one throw of a pair
+of dice. Yes, he could have. The way the Flemings leave their garage open
+as long as any of the cars are out, anybody could have sneaked into the
+house from the garage, and gone up from the library to the gunroom. The
+only question in my mind is whether Rivers would have known about that.
+That lawsuit and criminal action that Fleming was going to start--and
+that's been verified from sources independent of Goode--was a good sound
+motive. And say he took the Leech & Rigdon away, after leaving the Colt
+in Fleming's hand; selling it to some collector who'd put it in with a
+hundred or so other pistols would be a good way of disposing of it. And I
+can understand his trying to buy the Colt, to get it out of circulation."
+Rand sipped his Bourbon. "But that leaves us with the question of who
+killed Rivers, and why."
+
+"Well, because Fleming is dead--and it doesn't matter whether he was
+murdered or died of old age--Walters starts robbing the collection. He
+sells the pistols to Rivers," Ritter reconstructed. "And, as Rivers
+doesn't want them around his shop till they've had time to cool off, he
+stores them with this Umholtz character, who seems to have been in plenty
+of crooked deals with Rivers in the past. The pistols are worth about ten
+grand, and nobody knows where they are but Rivers and Umholtz, and if
+Rivers drops dead all of a sudden, nobody will know where they are except
+Umholtz, and in a couple of years he can get them sold off and have the
+money all to himself."
+
+"Yes, Dave; that's good sound murder, too. And Rivers would sit down and
+drink with Umholtz, and Umholtz could take that Mauser out of the rack
+right in front of Rivers and Rivers wouldn't suspect a thing till it was
+too late. Of course, it depends upon two unverified assumptions: One,
+that the pistols were sold to Rivers, and, two, that Rivers stored them
+with Umholtz."
+
+"And, three, that Walters stole the pistols in the first place," Ritter
+added. "You know, it's possible that somebody else in that house might
+have stolen them."
+
+"Yes. As I said, anything's possible, within structural limits, but
+possibilities exist on different orders of probability. We can't try to
+consider all the possibilities in any case, because they are indefinitely
+numerous; the best we can do is screen out all the low-order
+probabilities, list the high-order probabilities, and revise our list
+when and as new data comes to light. Well, I've told you why I think
+Walters is a good suspect. From what I've seen of that household, I think
+Walters was personally loyal to Lane Fleming, and I don't believe he
+feels any loyalty to anybody else there, with the exception of Gladys
+Fleming. He might keep quiet about the missing pistols if she were the
+thief; if Dunmore, or Varcek, or either of the girls had done the
+stealing, he'd tell Gladys, and she'd pass it on to me. She would be
+glad of anything that could be used against any of the others. And if,
+on the other hand, she had stolen the pistols herself, she wouldn't have
+wanted me poking around, and wouldn't have brought me in, at least not
+to handle the collection." Rand looked regretfully at his empty glass and
+decided against ordering another. "Dave, I just thought of something," he
+said. "How do you think this would work?"
+
+He told Ritter what he had thought of. Ritter drank beer slowly and
+meditatively.
+
+"It just might work," he considered. "I've seen that gag work a hundred
+times: hell, I've used something like that, myself, at least fifty times,
+and so have you. And I don't think Walters would be familiar enough with
+dick-practice to see what you were doing. But if it turns out that
+Walters didn't sell the pistols to Rivers at all, what then?"
+
+"Well, if he sold them to Umholtz, Pierre Jarrett's theory is still valid
+until disproved," Rand said. "And if he didn't sell them either to Rivers
+or Umholtz, we'll have to conclude that Rivers and Fleming were killed by
+the same person, the Rivers killing being a security measure. That is,
+unless we find that Rivers was killed by Pierre Jarrett, which is a sort
+of medium-high-order probability. Jarrett and the girl left Gresham's
+early enough for him to have killed Rivers; they were both pretty hard
+hit by that twenty-five-grand blockbuster Rivers had dropped on
+them.... Give me back that Colt, Dave. All you have to do is get an
+identification on the Leech & Rigdon from the barbecue man. I'm going
+to let Mick McKenna handle Umholtz, one way or another, after we've
+concluded the Walters experiment. Until then, we don't want to stir
+Umholtz up, at all."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 15
+
+
+Parking in the drive, Rand entered the Fleming house by the front door.
+The butler must have been busy with his pre-dinner tasks in the rear; it
+was Gladys herself who admitted him.
+
+"Stay out of there," she warned him, taking his arm and guiding him away
+from the parlor doorway. "Nelda and Geraldine are in there, ignoring each
+other. If you go in, they'll start talking to you, and then they'll start
+talking at each other through you, and the air will be full of tomahawks
+in a jiffy. Let's go up in the gunroom; that's out of the battle zone."
+
+"What started the hostilities this time?" Rand asked, going up the
+stairway with her.
+
+"Oh, Geraldine lost Nelda's place-marker out of the Kinsey Report, or
+something." She shrugged. "Mainly reaction to Rivers's death. That was a
+great blow to all of us; twenty-five thousand dollars' worth of blow. It
+was a blow to me, too, but I'm not letting it throw me.... What were you
+doing all afternoon?"
+
+"Trying to keep the rest of our prospects out of jail. This
+sixteenth-witted District Attorney you have in this county had the idea
+he could charge Stephen Gresham with the killing. I had a time talking
+him out of it, and I'm still not sure how far I succeeded. And I was
+trying to get a line on where those pistols got to."
+
+"Ssssh!" They reached the top of the stairs, and Rand saw Walters
+approaching down the hall. "It was Colonel Rand, Walters; I let him in
+myself. Are Mr. Varcek and Mr. Dunmore here, yet?"
+
+"Mr. Dunmore is in the library, ma'am, and Mr. Varcek is upstairs, in his
+laboratory. Dinner will be ready in three-quarters of an hour."
+
+"Have you mixed the cocktails? You'd better do that. Serve them in about
+twenty minutes. And you'd better go up and warn Mr. Varcek not to become
+involved in anything messy before dinner."
+
+Walters yes-ma'am'd her and started toward the attic stairway. Rand and
+Gladys went into the gunroom; Rand turned to the left, picked a pistol
+from the wall, and carried it with him as he guided Gladys toward the
+desk in the corner.
+
+"You think Walters stole them?" she asked.
+
+"So far, I'm inclined to. Have you told any of the others, yet?"
+
+"Oh, Lord, no! They'd all be sure that I stole them myself. I'm counting
+on you to get them back with as little fuss as possible. Do you think
+that was why Rivers was killed? After all, when a lot of valuable pistols
+disappear, and a crooked dealer is murdered, I'd expect there to be a
+connection."
+
+"There could be. Did you ever hear any stories about Mrs. Rivers and this
+young fellow Gillis who works in Rivers's shop?"
+
+Gladys laughed. "Is that rearing its ugly head in public, now?" she
+asked. "Well, there's nothing like a good murder to shake the skeletons
+out of the closets. Not that this particular skeleton was ever exactly
+hidden. The stories are numerous, and somewhat repetitious; Cecil and
+Mrs. Rivers would be seen together, at roadhouses and so on, at what they
+imagined was a safe distance from Rosemont, and it was said that when
+Rivers was away over night, Cecil was never seen to leave the Rivers
+place in the evenings. Might this be relevant to Rivers's sudden demise?"
+
+"It could be." Rand was keeping one eye on the hall door and the other on
+the head of the spiral stairway. "Don't mention outside what I told you
+about Farnsworth having this brainstorm about Stephen Gresham. If it got
+out, it might hurt Gresham professionally. The fact is, Gresham has just
+retained me to investigate the Rivers murder for him. That won't
+interfere to any great extent with the work I'm doing here; if necessary,
+I'll bring a couple of my men in from New Belfast to help me on the
+Rivers operation." He broke off abruptly, catching a movement at the head
+of the spiral, and lifted the pistol in his hand, as though showing it to
+Gladys. "See," he went on, "it has two hammers and two nipples, but only
+one barrel. It was loaded with two charges, one on top of the other; the
+bullet of the rear charge acted as the breech-plug for the front
+charge.... Oh, Walters!" He affected to catch sight of the butler for the
+first time. "Bring me that .36 Walch revolver, will you?"
+
+"Yes, sir." Walters, crossing the room, veered to the right and went
+to the middle wall, bringing a revolver over to the desk. It was a
+percussion weapon with an abnormally long cylinder. "The cocktails are
+served," he announced.
+
+"We'll be down in a moment; you can put these back where they belong when
+you find time," Rand told him. "Now, here," he said to Gladys. "This is
+the same idea, in a revolver. Six chambers, two charges in each. In
+theory, it was a good idea, but in actual practice ..."
+
+Walters went out the hall door, presumably to call Varcek. Rand continued
+talking about the superposed-load principle, as used in the Lindsay
+pistol and the Walch revolver, until he was sure the butler was out
+of hearing. Gladys was looking at him in appreciative if slightly
+punch-drunk delight.
+
+"I wondered why you brought that thing over here with you," she said.
+"Brother, was that a quick shift!... You're really sure he's the one?"
+
+"I'm not really sure of anything, except of my own existence and eventual
+extinction," Rand told her. "It pretty nearly has to be somebody inside
+this house. I don't think anybody else here, yourself included, would
+know enough about arms to rob this collection as selectively as it has
+been robbed. Did you see what just happened, here? I asked him for one of
+the most uncommon arms here, and he went straight and got it. He knows
+this collection as well as your husband did, and I assume he knows values
+almost as well.... And, of course, there was a musket, too; Mr. Fleming
+didn't collect long-arms, or he'd have had one. It embodied the same
+principle as the pistol. The legend is that this man Lindsay's brother
+was a soldier; he was supposed to have been killed by Indians who drew
+the fire of the detail he was with and then charged them when their
+muskets were empty." Rand shrugged. "Actually, the superposed-load
+principle is ancient; there's a sixteenth-century wheel lock pistol in
+the Metropolitan Museum, in New York, firing two shots from the same
+barrel."
+
+Varcek and the butler, who had entered by the hall door, went across the
+gunroom and down the spiral. Rand laid down the pistol and escorted
+Gladys after them.
+
+Dunmore and Geraldine were in the library when they went down. Geraldine,
+mildly potted, was reclining in a chair, sipping her drink. Dunmore was
+still radiating his synthetic cheerfulness.
+
+"Get many of the pistols listed, Colonel?" he hailed Rand, with jovial
+condescension.
+
+"No." Rand poured two cocktails, handing one to Gladys. "I went to Arnold
+Rivers's place this morning, on a little unfinished business, and damn
+near tripped over Rivers's corpse. I spent the rest of the day getting
+myself disinvolved from the ensuing uproar," he told Dunmore. "You heard
+about it, of course."
+
+"Yes, of course. Horrible business. I hope you didn't get mixed up in it
+any more than you had to. After all, you're working for us, and if the
+police knew that, we'd be bothered, too.... Look here, you don't think
+some of these other people who were after the collection might have
+killed Rivers, to keep him from outbidding them?"
+
+Nelda, entering from the hallway, caught the last part of that.
+
+"Good God, Fred!" she shrieked at him. "Don't say things like that! Maybe
+they did, but wait till they've bought the collection and paid for it,
+before you start accusing them!"
+
+"I'm not accusing anybody," Dunmore growled back at her. "I don't know
+enough about it to make any accusations. All I'm saying is--"
+
+"Well, don't say it, then, if you don't know what you're talking about,"
+his wife retorted.
+
+In spite of this start, dinner passed in relative quiet. For the most
+part, they talked about the remaining chances of selling the collection,
+about which nobody was optimistic. Rand tried to build up morale with
+pictures of large museums and important dealers, all fairly slavering to
+get their fangs into the Fleming collection, but to little avail. A pall
+of gloom had settled, and he was forced to concede that he had at last
+found somebody who had a valid reason to mourn the sudden and violent end
+of Arnold Rivers.
+
+Dinner finished, he went up to the gunroom and began compiling his list.
+He found a yardstick, and thumbtacked it to the edge of the desk to get
+over-all and barrel lengths, and used a pair of inside calipers and a
+decimal-inch rule from the workbench to get calibers. Sticking a sheet of
+paper into the portable, he began on the wheel locks, leaving spaces to
+insert the description of the stolen pistols, when recovered. When he had
+finished the wheel locks, he began on the snaphaunces, then did the
+miguelet-locks. He had begun on the true flintlocks when Walters, who had
+finished his own dinner, came up to help him. Rand put the butler to work
+fetching pistols from the racks, and replacing those he had already
+listed. After a while, Dunmore strolled in.
+
+"You say you found Rivers's body yourself, Colonel Rand?" he asked.
+
+Rand nodded, finished what he was typing, and looked up.
+
+"Why, yes. There were a few details I wanted to clear up with him, and I
+called at his shop this morning. I found him lying dead inside." He went
+on to describe the manner in which Rivers had met his death. "The radio
+and newspaper accounts were accurate enough, in the main; there were a
+few details omitted, at the request of the police, of course."
+
+"Well, you didn't get involved in it, though?" Dunmore inquired
+anxiously. "I mean, you're not taking any part in the investigation?
+After all, we don't want to be mixed up in anything like this."
+
+"In that case, Mr. Dunmore, let me advise you not to discuss the matter
+of Rivers's offer to buy this collection with anybody outside," Rand told
+him. "So far, the police and the District Attorney's office both seem to
+think that Rivers was killed by somebody whom he'd swindled in a business
+deal. Of course, they know about the collection being for sale, and
+Rivers's offering to buy it."
+
+"They do?" Dunmore asked sharply. "Did you tell them that?"
+
+"Naturally. I had to account for my presence at Rivers's shop, this
+morning," Rand replied. "I don't know if the idea has occurred to them
+that somebody might have killed Rivers to eliminate a rival bidder for
+the collection or not; I wouldn't say anything, if I were you, that might
+give them the idea."
+
+The extension phone rang shrilly. Walters picked it up, spoke into it,
+and listened for a moment.
+
+"Yes, Miss Lawrence; he's right here. You wish to speak to him?" He
+handed the phone across the desk to Rand. "Miss Karen Lawrence, for you,
+Colonel Rand."
+
+Rand took the phone. Before he had time to say "hello," the antique-shop
+girl demanded of him:
+
+"Colonel Rand, you must tell me the truth. Did you have anything to do
+with Pierre Jarrett's being arrested?"
+
+"_What?_" Rand barked. Then he softened his voice. "No; on my honor, Miss
+Lawrence. I knew nothing about it until this moment. Who did it? Olsen?"
+
+"I don't know what his name was. He was a State Police sergeant," she
+replied. "He and another State Policeman came to the Jarrett house about
+half an hour ago, charged Pierre with the murder of Arnold Rivers, and
+took him away. His mother phoned me about it a few minutes ago."
+
+"That God-damned two-faced Jesuitical bastard!" Rand exploded. "Where are
+you now?"
+
+"Here at my shop. Mrs. Jarrett is coming here. She's afraid the reporters
+will be coming out to the house as soon as they hear about it, and she
+doesn't want to talk to them."
+
+"All right. I'll be there as soon as I can. If there's anything I can do
+to help you, you can count on me for it."
+
+He hung up, and turned to Walters. "Is my car still out front?" he asked.
+"It is? Good. I'll be gone for a while; tell the others I have something
+to attend to."
+
+"What's happened now?" Dunmore asked sourly.
+
+"Just what I was speaking about. The Gestapo gathered up Pierre Jarrett;
+they seem to have gotten the idea, now, that the motive may have been
+competition for the collection. Next thing, Farnsworth will think he has
+a case against Carl Gwinnett, and he'll land in the jug, too. I hope you
+realize that every time something like this happens, it peels a thousand
+or so off the price I'll be able to get for you people for these
+pistols."
+
+Dunmore didn't try to ask how that would happen, for which Rand was duly
+thankful; he accepted the statement uncritically. Walters was staring at
+Rand in horror, saying nothing. Rand picked up the outside phone and
+dialed the same number he had called from the Rivers place that morning.
+
+"Is Sergeant McKenna about?... He is? Fine; I'd like to speak to
+him.... Oh, hello, Mick; Jeff Rand."
+
+McKenna chuckled out of the receiver. "Sort of slipped one over on you,
+didn't I?" he gloated. "Why, I was checking up on those people who were
+at Gresham's, last evening, and they all agreed that young Jarrett and
+the Lawrence girl had left the party about ten. So I had a talk with Miss
+Lawrence, and she tried to tell me that Jarrett was with her at her
+apartment, over the antique shop, from about ten fifteen until about
+twelve, when another girl she rooms with got home from a date. I'd of
+took that, too, only right across the street from the antique shop there
+is one of these old hens like you find in every neighborhood, the kind
+that keeps their nose flattened on the window between the curtains,
+checking up on the neighbors. I spotted her when I came out of the
+antique shop, so I slipped around to see her, and she told me that young
+Jarrett went into the apartment with the girl at about quarter past ten,
+stayed inside for about twenty minutes, then came out and drove away. She
+says Jarrett came back in about half an hour, and stayed till this girl
+who shares the Lawrence girl's apartment--a Miss Dupont, who teaches
+sixth grade at Thaddeus Stevens School--got home, about twelve. So there
+you are."
+
+"Uh-huh. Dave Ritter said this was going to turn into another Hall-Mills
+case; well, now you have your Pig Woman," Rand said. "Miss Lawrence
+shouldn't have lied to you, Mick. I suppose she got worried when you
+started asking questions, and there's nothing like a good murder in the
+neighborhood to make liars out of people."
+
+"And damn well I know that!" McKenna agreed. "But that isn't all. It
+seems our cruise-car crew spotted Jarrett's car standing in Rivers's
+drive, about eleven. Just when he was away from the antique-shop, and
+about when the M.E. figures Rivers was getting the business."
+
+"Did they get the number?" Rand asked. "Or how did they identify the
+car?"
+
+"Oh, they knew it; see, our boys shoot a lot with the Scott County Rifle
+& Pistol Club, and they've all seen Jarrett's car at the range, different
+times," McKenna said. "A gray 1947 Plymouth coupé. Like I say, they knew
+the car, and they knew Jarrett collects guns, and the lights were on
+inside the shop and the shades were drawn, so they didn't think anything
+of it, at the time. See, they went to bed about ten this morning, and
+didn't get up till after five, so I didn't find out about it till after
+supper."
+
+Rand shrugged, and managed to get some of the shrug into his voice. "Can
+be, at that," he said. "I hope you're not making a mistake, Mick; if you
+are, his lawyer's going to crucify you. What are you using for a motive?"
+
+"Rivers was outbidding this crowd Jarrett and the girl were in with. They
+all told me about that," McKenna said. "And he and the girl were planning
+to use their end of the collection to go into the arms business, after
+they got married. Rivers got in the way." McKenna, at the other end of
+the line, must have shrugged, too. "After all, for about four years,
+they'd been training Jarrett to overcome resistance with the bayonet, so
+he did just that."
+
+"Maybe so. You find out anything about that other matter I was interested
+in?"
+
+"You mean the pistols? Huh-unh; we went over Rivers's place with a
+fine-tooth comb, and questioned young Gillis about it, and we didn't get
+a thing. You sure those pistols went to Rivers?"
+
+"I'm not sure of anything at all," Rand replied, looking at his watch.
+"You going to be in, say in a couple of hours? I want to have a talk with
+you."
+
+"Sure. I'll be around all evening," McKenna assured him. "If we don't
+have another murder."
+
+Rand hung up. He pulled the sheet out of the typewriter, laid it
+face down on the other sheets he had finished, and laid a long
+seventeenth-century Flemish flintlock on top for a paperweight,
+memorizing the position of the pistol relative to the paper under it.
+
+"Put those pistols back on the wall," he told Walters, indicating several
+he had laid aside after listing. "Leave the others there; I'm not
+finished with them yet. I'll be back before too long. If I don't find any
+more bodies."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 16
+
+
+It was raining again as Rand parked his car about a hundred yards up the
+street from Karen Lawrence's antique-shop. The windows were dark, but
+Karen was waiting inside the door for him. He entered quickly, mindful of
+the All-Seeing Eye across the street, and followed her to a back room,
+where Mrs. Jarrett and Dorothy Gresham were. All three women regarded him
+intently, as though trying to decide whether he was friend or enemy.
+There was a long silence before Mrs. Jarrett spoke, and when she did, her
+words were almost the same as Karen's when she had spoken over the phone.
+
+"Colonel Rand," she began, obviously struggling with herself, "you must
+tell me the truth. Did you have anything to do with my son's being
+arrested?"
+
+Rand shook his head. "Absolutely nothing, Mrs. Jarrett," he told her,
+unbuckling the belt of his raincoat and taking it off. "I have never
+seriously suspected your son of the Rivers murder, I had no idea that
+McKenna was contemplating arresting him, and if I had, I would have
+advised him against it. Besides causing annoyance to innocent people,
+McKenna's made a serious tactical error. He was misled by appearances,
+and he was afraid I'd break this case before he did, which I intend to
+do." He turned to Karen Lawrence. "I talked to McKenna after you called
+me; he as much as admitted making that arrest to get in ahead of me."
+
+"I told you," Dorothy Gresham flashed at the others. "I knew Jeff
+wouldn't stoop to anything as contemptible as pretending to be Pierre's
+friend and then getting him arrested!"
+
+Rand permitted himself a wry inward smile. He hoped she would not have an
+opportunity to observe his stooping capabilities before he had finished
+his various operations at Rosemont.
+
+"I certainly hoped not." Mrs. Jarrett relaxed, smiling faintly at Rand.
+"Pierre likes you, Colonel. I hated the thought that you might have
+betrayed him. Are you working on the Rivers case, too?"
+
+Rand nodded again, turning to Dot Gresham. "Your father retained me to
+make an investigation," he said. "After that trouble he had with Rivers
+about that spurious North & Cheney, he wanted the murderer caught before
+somebody got around to accusing him."
+
+"You mean there's a chance Dad might be suspected?" Dot was scared.
+
+Rand nodded. The girl was beginning to look suspiciously at Karen and
+Mrs. Jarrett. Getting ready to toss Pierre to the wolves if her father
+were in danger, Rand suspected. He hastened to reassure her.
+
+"Rivers was still alive when your father reached home, last evening," he
+told her. "That's been established."
+
+She breathed her obvious relief. If Gresham had left home after Rand's
+departure with Philip Cabot, she didn't know it.
+
+Karen, on the other hand, was growing more and more worried.
+
+"Look, Colonel," she began. "They didn't just pull Pierre's name out of a
+hat. They must have had something to suspect him about."
+
+"Yes. You shouldn't have lied to McKenna. He checked up on your story;
+the woman across the street told him about seeing Pierre leave here a
+little before eleven and come back about half an hour later."
+
+"I was afraid of that," Karen said. "I forgot all about that old hag.
+There's nothing that can go on around here that she doesn't know about;
+Pierre calls her Mrs. G2."
+
+"And then," Rand continued, "McKenna claims that a car like Pierre's was
+seen parked in Rivers's drive about the time Pierre was away from here."
+
+Mrs. Jarrett moaned softly; her face, already haggard, became positively
+ghastly. Karen gasped in fright.
+
+"They only identified it as to model and make; they didn't get the
+license number ... Where did Pierre go, while he was away from here?"
+
+"He went out for cigarettes," Karen said. "When we came here from
+Greshams', we made some coffee, and then sat and talked for a while, and
+then we found out that we were both out of cigarettes and there weren't
+any here. So Pierre said he'd go out and get some. He was gone about half
+an hour; when he came back, he had a carton, and some hot pork
+sandwiches. He'd gotten them at the same place as the cigarettes--Art
+Igoe's lunch-stand."
+
+"Could Igoe verify that?"
+
+"It wouldn't help if he did. Igoe's place isn't a five-minute drive from
+Rivers's, farther down the road."
+
+"Has Pierre a lawyer?" Rand asked.
+
+"No. Not yet. We were just talking about that."
+
+"Dad would defend him," Dot suggested. "Of course, he's not a criminal
+lawyer--"
+
+"Carter Tipton, in New Belfast," Rand told them. "He's my lawyer; he's
+gotten me out of more jams than you could shake a stick at. Where's the
+telephone? I'll call him now."
+
+"You think he'd defend Pierre?"
+
+"Unless I'm badly mistaken, Pierre isn't going to need any trial
+defense," Rand told them. "He will need somebody to look after his
+interests, and we'll try to get him out on a writ as soon as possible."
+
+He looked at his watch. It was ten minutes to nine. It was hard to say
+where Carter Tipton would be at the moment; his manservant would probably
+know. Karen showed him the phone and he started to put through a
+person-to-person call.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was eleven o'clock before he backed his car into the Fleming garage,
+and the rain had turned to a wet, sticky snow. All the Fleming cars were
+in, but Rand left the garage doors open. He also left his hat and coat in
+the car.
+
+After locating and talking to Tipton and arranging for him to meet Dave
+Ritter at the Rosemont Inn, he had gone to the State Police substation,
+where he had talked at length with Mick McKenna. He had been compelled to
+tell the State Police sergeant a number of things he had intended keeping
+to himself. When he was through, McKenna went so far as to admit that he
+had been a trifle hasty in arresting Pierre Jarrett. Rand suspected that
+he was mentally kicking himself with hobnailed boots for his premature
+act. He also submitted, for McKenna's approval, the scheme he had
+outlined to Dave Ritter, and obtained a promise of cooperation.
+
+When he entered the Fleming library, en route to the gunroom, he found
+the entire family assembled there; with them was Humphrey Goode. As he
+came in, they broke off what had evidently been an acrimonious dispute
+and gave him their undivided attention. Geraldine, relaxed in a chair,
+was smoking; for once, she didn't have a glass in her hand. Gladys
+occupied another chair; she was smoking, too. Nelda had been pacing back
+and forth like a caged tiger; at Rand's entrance, she turned to face him,
+and Rand wondered whether she thought he was Clyde Beatty or a side of
+beef. Goode and Dunmore sat together on the sofa, forming what looked
+like a bilateral offensive and defensive alliance, and Varcek, looking
+more than ever like Rudolf Hess, stood with folded arms in one corner.
+
+"Now, see here, Rand," Dunmore began, as soon as the detective was inside
+the room, "we want to know just exactly for whom you're working, around
+here. And I demand to know where you've been since you left here this
+evening."
+
+"And I," Goode piped up, "must protest most strongly against your
+involvement in this local murder case. I am informed that, while in the
+employ of this family, you accepted a retainer from another party to
+investigate the death of Arnold Rivers."
+
+"That's correct," Rand informed him. Then he turned to Gladys. "Just for
+the record, Mrs. Fleming, do you recall any stipulation to the effect
+that the business of handling this pistol-collection should have the
+exclusive attention of my agency? I certainly don't recall anything of
+the sort."
+
+"No, of course not," she replied. "As long as the collection is sold to
+the best advantage, I haven't any interest in any other business of your
+agency, and have no right to have." She turned to the others. "I thought
+I made that clear to all of you."
+
+"You didn't answer my question!" Dunmore yelled at him.
+
+"I don't intend to. You aren't my client, and I'm not answerable to you."
+
+"Well, you carry my authorization," Goode supported him. "I think I have
+a right to know what's being done."
+
+"As far as the collection's concerned, yes. As for the Rivers murder, or
+my armored-car service, or any other business of the Tri-State Agency,
+no."
+
+"Well, you made use of my authorization to get that revolver from
+Kirchner--" Goode began.
+
+"Aah!" Rand cried. "So that concerns the Rivers murder, does it? Well!
+When did you find that out, now? When Kirchner called you, you had no
+objection to his giving me that revolver. What changed your mind for
+you? Didn't you know that Rivers was dead, then?" Rand watched Goode
+trying to assimilate that. "Or didn't you think I knew?"
+
+Goode cleared his throat noisily, twisting his mouth. The others were
+looking back and forth from him to Rand, in obvious bewilderment; they
+realized that Rand had pulled some kind of a rabbit out of a hat, but
+they couldn't understand how he'd done it.
+
+"What I mean is that since then you have allowed yourself to become
+involved in this murder case. You have let it be publicly known that you
+are a private detective, working for the Fleming family," Goode orated.
+"How long, then, will it be before it will be said, by all sorts of
+irresponsible persons, that you are also investigating the death of Lane
+Fleming?"
+
+"Well?" Rand asked patiently. "Are you afraid people will start calling
+that a murder, too?"
+
+Gladys was looking at him apprehensively, as though she were watching him
+juggle four live hand grenades.
+
+"Is anybody saying that now?" Varcek asked sharply.
+
+"Not that I know of," Rand lied. "But if Goode keeps on denying it, they
+will."
+
+"You know perfectly well," Goode exploded, "that I am alluding to these
+unfounded and mischievous rumors of suicide, which are doing the Premix
+Company so much harm. My God, Mr. Rand, can't you realize--"
+
+"Oh, come off it, Goode," Varcek broke in amusedly. "We all--Colonel Rand
+included--know that you started those rumors yourself. Very clever--to
+start a rumor by denying it. But scarcely original. Doctor Goebbels was
+doing it almost twenty years ago."
+
+"My God, is that true?" Nelda demanded. "You mean, he's been going around
+starting all these stories about Father committing suicide?" She turned
+on Goode like an enraged panther. "Why, you lying old son of a bitch!"
+she screamed at him.
+
+"Of course. He wants to start a selling run on Premix," Varcek explained
+to her. "He's buying every share he can get his hands on. We all are." He
+turned to Rand. "I'd advise you to buy some, if you can find any, Colonel
+Rand. In a month or so, it's going to be a really good thing."
+
+"I know about the merger. I am buying," Rand told him. "But are you sure
+of what Goode's been doing?"
+
+"Of course," Gladys put in contemptuously. "I always wondered about this
+suicide talk; I couldn't see why Humphrey was so perturbed about it.
+Anything that lowered the market price of Premix, at this time, would be
+to his advantage." She looked at Goode as though he had six legs and a
+hard shell. "You know, Humphrey, I can't say I exactly thank you for
+this."
+
+"Did you know about it?" Nelda demanded of her husband. "You did! My God,
+Fred, you are a filthy specimen!"
+
+"Oh, you know; anything to turn a dishonest dollar," Geraldine piped up.
+"Like the late Arnold Rivers's ten-thousand offer. Say! I wonder if that
+mightn't be what Rivers died of? Raising the price and leaving Fred out
+in the cold!"
+
+Dunmore simply stared at her, making a noise like a chicken choking on
+a piece of string.
+
+"Well, all this isn't my pidgin," Rand said to Gladys. "I only work here,
+_Deo gratias_, and I still have some work to do."
+
+With that, he walked past Goode and Dunmore and ascended the spiral
+stairway to the gunroom. Even at the desk, in the far corner of the room,
+he could hear them going at it, hammer-and-tongs, in the library.
+Sometimes it would be Nelda's strident shrieks that would dominate the
+bedlam below; sometimes it would be Fred Dunmore, roaring like a bull.
+Now and then, Humphrey Goode would rumble something, and, once in a
+while, he could hear Gladys's trained and modulated voice. Usually, any
+remark she made would be followed by outraged shouts from Goode and
+Dunmore, like the crash of falling masonry after the whip-crack of a
+tank-gun.
+
+At first Rand eavesdropped shamelessly, but there was nothing of more
+than comic interest; it was just a routine parade and guard-mount of the
+older and more dependable family skeletons, with special emphasis on
+Humphrey Goode's business and professional ethics. When he was satisfied
+that he would hear nothing having any bearing on the death of Lane
+Fleming, Rand went back to his work.
+
+After a while, the tumult gradually died out. Rand was still typing when
+Gladys came up the spiral and perched on the corner of the desk, picking
+up a long brass-barreled English flintlock and hefting it.
+
+"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. "Well, pleasant dreams; I'll see you in the
+morning."
+
+After she had left the gunroom, Rand looked at his watch. It was a
+very precise instrument; a Swiss military watch, with a sweep second
+hand, and two timing dials. It had formerly been the property of an
+_Obergruppenführer_ of the S.S., and Rand had appropriated it to
+replace his own, broken while choking the _Obergruppenführer_ to death
+in an alley in Palermo. He zeroed the timing dials and pressed the
+start-button. Then he stood for a time over the old cobbler's bench,
+mentally reconstructing what had been done after Lane Fleming had
+been shot, after which he hurried down the spiral and along the rear hall
+to the garage, where he snatched his hat and coat from the car. He threw
+the coat over his shoulders like a cloak, and went on outside. He made
+his way across the lawn to the orchard, through the orchard to the lawn
+of Humphrey Goode's house, and across this to Goode's side door. He stood
+there for a few seconds, imagining himself opening the door and going
+inside. Then he stopped the timing hands and returned to the Fleming
+house, locking the garage doors behind him. In the garage, he looked at
+the watch.
+
+It had taken exactly six minutes and twenty-two seconds. He knew that he
+could move more rapidly than the dumpy lawyer, but to balance that, he
+had been moving over more or less unfamiliar ground. He left his hat and
+trench coat in the car and went upstairs.
+
+Undressing, he went into the bathroom in his dressing-gown, spent about
+twenty minutes shaving and taking a shower, and then returned to his own
+room.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 17
+
+
+When he rose, the next morning, Rand noticed something which had escaped
+his eye when he had gone to bed the night before. His .38-special, in its
+shoulder-holster, was lying on the dresser; he had not bothered putting
+it on when he had gone to see Rivers the morning before, and it had lain
+there all the previous day. He distinctly remembered having moved it,
+shortly after dinner, when he had gone to his room for some notes he had
+made on the collection.
+
+However, between that time and the present it had managed to flop itself
+over; the holster was now lying back-up. Intrigued by such a remarkable
+accomplishment in an inanimate object, Rand crossed the room in the
+dress-of-nature in which he slept and looked more closely at it,
+receiving a second and considerably more severe surprise. The revolver
+in the holster was not his own.
+
+It was, to be sure, a .38 Colt Detective Special, and it was in his
+holster, but it was not the Detective Special he had brought with him
+from New Belfast. His own gun was of the second type, with the corners
+rounded off the grip; this one was of the original issue, with the square
+Police Positive grip. His own gun had seen hard service; this one was in
+practically new condition. There was a discrepancy of about thirty
+thousand in the serial numbers. His gun had been loaded in six chambers
+with the standard 158-grain loads; this one was loaded in only five, with
+148-grain mid-range wad-cutter loads.
+
+Rand stood for some time looking at the revolver. The worst of it was
+that he couldn't be exactly sure when the substitution had been made. It
+might have happened at any time between eight o'clock and twelve, when he
+had gone to bed. He rather suspected that it had been accomplished while
+he had been in the bathroom, however.
+
+Dumping out the five rounds in the cylinder, he inspected the changeling
+carefully. It was, he thought, the revolver Lane Fleming had kept in the
+drawer of the gunroom desk. There was no obstruction in the two-inch
+barrel, the weapon had not been either fired or cleaned recently, the
+firing-pin had not been shortened, the mainspring showed the proper
+amount of tension, and the mechanism functioned as it should. There was a
+chance that somebody had made up five special hand-loads for him, using
+nitroglycerin instead of powder, but that didn't seem likely, as it would
+not necessitate a switch of revolvers. There were four or five other
+possibilities, all of them disquieting; he would have been a great deal
+less alarmed if somebody had taken a shot at him.
+
+Getting a box of cartridges out of his Gladstone, he filled the
+cylinder with 158-grain loads. When he went to the bathroom, he took
+the revolver in his dressing-gown pocket; when he dressed, he put on
+the shoulder-holster, and pocketed a handful of spare rounds.
+
+Anton Varcek was loitering in the hall when he came out; he gave Rand
+good-morning, and fell into step with him as they went toward the
+stairway.
+
+"Colonel Rand, I wish you wouldn't mention this to anybody, but I would
+like a private talk with you," the Czech said. "After Fred Dunmore has
+left for the plant. Would that be possible?"
+
+"Yes, Mr. Varcek; I'll be in the gunroom all morning, working." They
+reached the bottom of the stairway, where Gladys was waiting.
+"Understand," Rand continued, "I never really studied biology. I was
+exposed to it, in school, but at that time I was preoccupied with the
+so-called social sciences."
+
+Varcek took the conversational shift in stride. "Of course," he agreed.
+"But you are trained in the scientific method of thought. That, at least,
+is something. When I have opportunity to explain my ideas more fully, I
+believe you will be interested in my conclusions."
+
+They greeted Gladys, and walked with her to the dining-room. As usual,
+Geraldine was absent; Dunmore and Nelda were already at the table, eating
+in silence. Both of them seemed self-conscious, after the pitched battle
+of the evening before. Rand broke the tension by offering Humphrey Goode
+in the role of whipping-boy; he had no sooner made a remark in derogation
+of the lawyer than Nelda and her husband broke into a duet of
+vituperation. In the end, everybody affected to agree that the whole
+unpleasant scene had been entirely Goode's fault, and a pleasant spirit
+of mutual cordiality prevailed.
+
+Finally Dunmore got up, wiping his mouth on a napkin.
+
+"Well, it's about time to get to work," he said. "We might as well save
+gas and both use my car. Coming, Anton?"
+
+"I'm sorry, Fred; I can't leave, yet. I have some notes upstairs I have
+to get in order. I was working on this new egg-powder, last evening, and
+I want to continue the experiments at the plant laboratory. I think I
+know how we'll be able to cut production costs on it, about five per
+cent."
+
+"And boy, can we stand that!" Dunmore grunted. "Well, be seeing you at
+the plant."
+
+Rand waited until Dunmore had left, then went across to the library and
+up to the gunroom. As soon as he entered the room above, he saw what was
+wrong. The previous thefts had been masked by substitutions, but whoever
+had helped himself to one of the more recent metallic-cartridge
+specimens, the night before, hadn't bothered with any such precaution,
+and a pair of vacant screwhooks disclosed the removal. A second look told
+Rand what had been taken: the little .25 Webley & Scott from the Pollard
+collection, with the silencer.
+
+The pistol-trade which had been imposed on him had disquieted him; now,
+he had no hesitation in admitting to himself, he was badly scared.
+Whoever had taken that little automatic had had only one thought in
+mind--noiseless and stealthy murder. Very probably with one Colonel
+Jefferson Davis Rand in mind as the prospective corpse.
+
+He sat down at the desk and started typing, at the same time trying to
+keep the hall door and the head of the spiral stairway under observation.
+It was an attempt which was responsible for quite a number of
+typographical errors. Finally, Anton Varcek came in from the hallway,
+approached the desk, and sat down in an armchair.
+
+"Colonel Rand," he began, in a low voice, "I have been thinking over a
+remark you made, last evening. Were you serious when you alluded to the
+possibility that Lane Fleming had been murdered?"
+
+"Well, the idea had occurred to me," Rand understated, keeping his right
+hand close to his left coat lapel. "I take it you have begun to doubt
+that it was an accident?"
+
+"I would doubt a theory that a skilled chemist would accidentally poison
+himself in his own laboratory," Varcek replied. "I would not, for
+instance, pour myself a drink from a bottle labeled HNO_3 in the belief
+that it contained vodka. I believe that Lane Fleming should be credited
+with equal caution about firearms."
+
+"Yet you were the first to advance the theory that the shooting had been
+an accident," Rand pointed out.
+
+"I have a strong dislike for firearms." Varcek looked at the pistols on
+the desk as though they were so many rattlesnakes. "I have always feared
+an accident, with so many in the house. When I saw him lying dead, with a
+revolver in his hand, that was my first thought. First thoughts are so
+often illogical, emotional."
+
+"And you didn't consider the possibility of suicide?"
+
+"No! Absolutely not!" The Czech was emphatic. "The idea never occurred to
+me, then or since. Lane Fleming was not the man to do that. He was deeply
+religious, much interested in church work. And, aside from that, he had
+no reason to wish to die. His health was excellent; much better than that
+of many men twenty years his junior. He had no business worries. The
+company is doing well, we had large Government contracts during the war
+and no reconversion problems afterward, we now have more orders than we
+have plant capacity to fill, and Mr. Fleming was consulting with
+architects about plant expansion. We have been spared any serious labor
+troubles. And Mr. Fleming's wife was devoted to him, and he to her. He
+had no family troubles."
+
+Rand raised an eyebrow over that last. "No?" he inquired.
+
+Varcek flushed. "Please, Colonel Rand, you must not judge by what you
+have seen since you came here. When Lane Fleming was alive, such scenes
+as that in the library last evening would have been unthinkable. Now,
+this family is like a ship without a captain."
+
+"And since you do not think that he shot himself, either deliberately or
+inadvertently, there remains the alternative that he was shot by somebody
+else, either deliberately or, very improbably, by inadvertence," Rand
+said. "I think the latter can be safely disregarded. Let's agree that it
+was murder and go on from there."
+
+Varcek nodded. "You are investigating it as such?" he asked.
+
+"I am appraising and selling this pistol collection," Rand told him
+wearily. "I am curious about who killed Fleming, of course; for my own
+protection I like to know the background of situations in which I am
+involved. But do you think Humphrey Goode would bring me here to stir up
+a lot of sleeping dogs that might awake and grab him by the pants-seat?
+Or did you think that uproar in the library last evening was just a
+prearranged act?"
+
+"I had not thought of Humphrey Goode. It was my understanding that Mrs.
+Fleming brought you here."
+
+"Mrs. Fleming wants her money out of the collection, as soon as
+possible," Rand said. "To reopen the question of her husband's death and
+start a murder investigation wouldn't exactly expedite things. I'm just a
+more or less innocent bystander, who wants to know whether there is going
+to be any trouble or not.... Now, you came here to tell me what happened
+on the night of Lane Fleming's death, didn't you?"
+
+"Yes. We had finished dinner at about seven," Varcek said. "Lane had been
+up here for about an hour before dinner, working on his new revolver; he
+came back here immediately after he was through eating. A little later,
+when I had finished my coffee, I came upstairs, by the main stairway. The
+door of this room was open, and Lane was inside, sitting on that old
+shoemaker's-bench, working on the revolver. He had it apart, and he was
+cleaning a part of it. The round part, where the loads go; the drum, is
+it?"
+
+"Cylinder. How was he cleaning it?" Rand asked.
+
+"He was using a small brush, like a test-tube brush; he was scrubbing out
+the holes. The chambers. He was using a solvent that smelled something
+like banana-oil."
+
+Rand nodded. He could visualize the progress Fleming had made. If Varcek
+was telling the truth, and he remembered what Walters had told him, the
+last flicker of possibility that Lane Fleming's death had been accidental
+vanished.
+
+"I talked with him for some ten minutes or so," Varcek continued, "about
+some technical problems at the plant. All the while, he kept on working
+on this revolver, and finished cleaning out the cylinder, and also the
+barrel. He was beginning to put the revolver together when I left him and
+went up to my laboratory.
+
+"About fifteen minutes later I heard the shot. For a moment, I debated
+with myself as to what I had heard, and then I decided to come down here.
+But first I had to take a solution off a Bunsen burner, where I had been
+heating it, and take the temperature of it, and then wash my hands,
+because I had been working with poisonous materials. I should say all
+this took me about five minutes.
+
+"When I got down here, the door of this room was closed and locked. That
+was most unusual, and I became really worried. I pounded on the door, and
+called out, but I got no answer. Then Fred Dunmore came out of the
+bathroom attached to his room, with nothing on but a bathrobe. His hair
+was wet, and he was in his bare feet and making wet tracks on the floor."
+
+From there on, Varcek's story tallied closely with what Rand had heard
+from Gladys and from Walters. Everybody's story tallied, where it could
+be checked up on.
+
+"You think the murderer locked the door behind him, when he came out of
+here?" Varcek asked.
+
+"I think somebody locked the door, sometime. It might have been the
+murderer, or it might have been Fleming at the murderer's suggestion. But
+why couldn't the murderer have left the gunroom by that stairway?"
+
+Varcek looked around furtively and lowered his voice. Now he looked like
+Rudolf Hess discussing what to do about Ernst Roehm.
+
+"Colonel Rand; don't you think that Fred Dunmore could have shot Lane
+Fleming, and then have gone to his room and waited until I came
+downstairs?" he asked.
+
+Here we go again! Rand thought. Just like the Rivers case; everybody
+putting the finger on everybody else....
+
+"And have undressed and taken a bath, while he was waiting?" he inquired.
+"You came down here only five minutes after the shot. In that time,
+Dunmore would have had to wipe his fingerprints off the revolver, leave
+it in Fleming's hand, put that oily rag in his other hand, set the
+deadlatch, cross the hall, undress, get into the bathtub and start
+bathing. That's pretty fast work."
+
+"But who else could have done it?"
+
+"Well, you, for one. You could have come down from your lab, shot
+Fleming, faked the suicide, and then gone out, locking the door behind
+you, and made a demonstration in the hall until you were joined by
+Dunmore and the ladies. Then, with your innocence well established, you
+could have waited until your wife prompted you, as she or somebody else
+was sure to, and then have gone down to the library and up the spiral,"
+Rand said. "That's about as convincing, no more and no less, as your
+theory about Dunmore."
+
+Varcek agreed sadly. "And I cannot prove otherwise, can I?"
+
+"You can advance your Dunmore theory to establish reasonable doubt," Rand
+told him. "And if Dunmore's accused, he can do the same with the theory
+I've just outlined. And as long as reasonable doubt exists, neither of
+you could be convicted. This isn't the Third Reich or the Soviet Union;
+they wouldn't execute both of you to make sure of getting the right one.
+Both of you had a motive in this Mill-Pack merger that couldn't have been
+negotiated while Fleming lived. One or the other of you may be guilty; on
+the other hand, both of you may be innocent."
+
+"Then who...?" Varcek had evidently bet his roll on Dunmore. "There is no
+one else who could have done it."
+
+"The garage doors were open, if I recall," Rand pointed out. "Anybody
+could have slipped in that way, come through the rear hall to the library
+and up the spiral, and have gone out the same way. Some of the French
+Maquis I worked with, during the war, could have wiped out the whole
+family, one after the other, that way."
+
+A look of intense concentration settled upon Varcek's face. He nodded
+several times.
+
+"Yes. Of course," he said, his thought-chain complete. "And you spoke of
+motive. From what you must have heard, last evening, Humphrey Goode was
+no less interested in the merger than Fred Dunmore or myself. And then
+there is your friend Gresham; he is quite familiar with the interior of
+this house, and who knows what terms National Milling & Packaging may
+have made with him, contingent upon his success in negotiating the
+merger?"
+
+"I'm not forgetting either of them," Rand said. "Or Fred Dunmore, or you.
+If you did it, I'd advise you to confess now; it'll save everybody,
+yourself included, a lot of trouble."
+
+Varcek looked at him, fascinated. "Why, I believe you regard all of us
+just as I do my fruit flies!" he said at length. "You know, Colonel Rand,
+you are not a comfortable sort of man to have around." He rose slowly.
+"Naturally, I'll not mention this interview. I suppose you won't want to,
+either?"
+
+"I'd advise you not to talk about it, at that," Rand said. "The situation
+here seems to be very delicate, and rather explosive.... Oh, as you go
+out, I'd be obliged to you for sending Walters up here. I still have this
+work here, and I'll need his help."
+
+After Varcek had left him, Rand looked in the desk drawer, verifying his
+assumption that the .38 he had seen there was gone. He wondered where his
+own was, at the moment.
+
+When the butler arrived, he was put to work bringing pistols to the desk,
+carrying them back to the racks, taking measurements, and the like. All
+the while, Rand kept his eye on the head of the spiral stairway.
+
+Finally he caught a movement, and saw what looked like the top of a
+peak-crowned gray felt hat between the spindles of the railing. He eased
+the Detective Special out of its holster and got to his feet.
+
+"All right!" he sang out. "Come on up!"
+
+Walters looked, obviously startled, at the revolver that had materialized
+in Rand's hand, and at the two men who were emerging from the spiral. He
+was even more startled, it seemed, when he realized that they wore the
+uniform of the State Police.
+
+"What.... What's the meaning of this, sir?" he demanded of Rand.
+
+"You're being arrested," Rand told him. "Just stand still, now."
+
+He stepped around the desk and frisked the butler quickly, wondering
+if he were going to find a .25 Webley & Scott automatic or his own
+.38-Special. When he found neither, he holstered his temporary weapon.
+
+"If this is your idea of a joke, sir, permit me to say that it isn't...."
+
+"It's no joke, son," Sergeant McKenna told him. "In this country, a
+police-officer doesn't have to recite any incantation before he makes an
+arrest, any more than he needs to read any Riot Act before he can start
+shooting, but it won't hurt to warn you that anything you say can be used
+against you."
+
+"At least, I must insist upon knowing why I am being arrested," Walters
+said icily.
+
+"Oh! Don't you know?" McKenna asked. "Why, you're being arrested for the
+murder of Arnold Rivers."
+
+For a moment the butler retained his professional glacial disdain, and
+then the bottom seemed to drop suddenly out of him. Rand suppressed a
+smile at this minor verification of his theory. Walters had been
+expecting to be accused of larceny, and was prepared to treat the charge
+with contempt. Then he had realized, after a second or so, what the State
+Police sergeant had really said.
+
+"Good God, gentlemen!" He looked from Mick McKenna to Corporal Kavaalen
+to Rand and back again in bewilderment. "You surely can't mean that!"
+
+"We can and we do," Rand told him. "You stole about twenty-five pistols
+from this collection, after Mr. Fleming died, and sold them to Arnold
+Rivers. Then, when I came here and started checking up on the
+collection, you knew the game was up. So, last evening, you took out the
+station-wagon and went to see Rivers, and you killed him to keep him from
+turning state's evidence and incriminating you. Or maybe you killed him
+in a quarrel over the division of the loot. I hope, for your sake, that
+it was the latter; if it was, you may get off with second degree murder.
+But if you can't prove that there was no premeditation, you're tagged for
+the electric chair."
+
+"But ... But I didn't kill Mr. Rivers," Walters stammered. "I barely knew
+the gentleman. I saw him, once or twice, when he was here to see Mr.
+Fleming, but outside of that...."
+
+"Outside of that, you sold him about twenty-five of these pistols, and
+got a like number of junk pistols from him, for replacements." He took
+the list Pierre Jarrett and Stephen Gresham had compiled out of his
+pocket and began reading: "Italian wheel lock pistol, late sixteenth- or
+early seventeenth-century; pair Italian snaphaunce pistols, by Lazarino
+Cominazo...." He finished the list and put it away. "I think we've missed
+one or two, but that'll do, for the time."
+
+"But I didn't sell those pistols to Mr. Rivers," Walters expostulated. "I
+sold them to Mr. Carl Gwinnett. I can prove it!"
+
+That Rand had not expected. "Go on!" he jeered. "I suppose you have
+receipts for all of them. Fences always do that, of course."
+
+"But I did sell them to Mr. Gwinnett. I can take you to his house, if you
+get a search warrant, and show you where he has them hidden in the
+garret. He was afraid to offer them for sale until after this collection
+had been broken up and sold; he still has every one of them."
+
+McKenna spat out an obscenity. "Aren't we ever going to have any luck?"
+he demanded. "Jarrett out on a writ this morning, and now this!"
+
+"But he ain't in the clear," Kavaalen argued. "Maybe he didn't sell
+Rivers the pistols, but maybe he did kill him."
+
+"Dope!" McKenna abused his subordinate. "If he didn't sell Rivers the
+pistols, why would he kill him?"
+
+"He's only said he sold them to Gwinnett," Rand pointed out. Then he
+turned to Walters. "Look here; if we find those pistols in Gwinnett's
+possession, you're clear on this murder charge. There's still a slight
+matter of larceny, but that doesn't involve the electric chair. You take
+my advice and make a confession now, and then accompany these officers to
+Gwinnett's place and show them the pistols. If you do that, you may
+expect clemency on the theft charge, too."
+
+"Oh, I will, sir! I'll sign a full confession, and take these
+police-officers and show them every one of the pistols...."
+
+Rand put paper and carbon sheets in the typewriter. As Walters dictated,
+he typed; the butler listed every pistol which Gresham and Pierre Jarrett
+had found missing, and a cased presentation pair of .44 Colt 1860's that
+nobody had missed. He signed the triplicate copies willingly; he didn't
+seem to mind signing himself into jail, as long as he thought he was
+signing himself out of the electric chair.
+
+The book in which Fleming had recorded his pistols he still had; he had
+removed it from the gunroom and was keeping it in his room. He said he
+would get it, along with the things he would need to take to jail with
+him. When it was finished, they all went down the spiral stairway into
+the library.
+
+Nelda was standing at the foot of it. Evidently she had been listening to
+what had been going on upstairs.
+
+"You dirty sneak!" she yelled, catching sight of Walters. "After all
+we've done for you, you turn around and rob us! I hope they give you
+twenty years!"
+
+Walters turned to McKenna. "Sergeant, I am willing to accept the penalty
+of the law for what I have done, but I don't believe, sir, that it
+includes being yapped at by this vulgar bitch."
+
+Nelda let out an inarticulate howl of fury and sprang at him, nails
+raking. Corporal Kavaalen caught her wrist before she could claw the
+prisoner.
+
+"That's enough, you!" he told her. "You stop that, or you'll spend a
+night in jail yourself."
+
+She jerked her arm loose from his grasp and flung out of the library. As
+she went out, Gladys entered; Rand, who had been bringing up in the rear,
+stepped down from the stairway.
+
+"He confessed," he said softly. "We had to bluff it out of him, but he
+came across. Sold the pistols to Carl Gwinnett. We're going, now, to pick
+up Gwinnett and the pistols."
+
+"I'm glad you found the pistols," she told him. "But what're we going to
+do, over the week-end, for a butler...."
+
+Rand snapped his fingers. "Dammit, I never thought of that!" He allowed
+his brow to furrow with thought. "I won't promise anything, but I may be
+able to dig up somebody for you, for a day or so. Some of my friends are
+visiting their son, in a Naval hospital on the West Coast, and their
+butler may be glad for a chance to pick up a little extra money. Shall
+I call him and find out?"
+
+"Oh, Colonel Rand, would you? I'd be eternally grateful!"
+
+It was just as easy as that.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 18
+
+
+Dave Ritter, driving his small coupé, kept his eye on the white State
+Police car ahead. Rand, who had come away from the Fleming home in the
+white car, had called Ritter from the office of the Justice of the Peace
+while waiting for Walters to put up bail, after his hearing. Now, en
+route to Gwinnett's, he was briefing his assistant on what had happened.
+
+"So everything's set," he concluded. "Mrs. Fleming jumped at it; she
+knows you're coming in your own car, which you may keep in the garage
+there. You've left New Belfast about now; if you show up around three,
+you'll be safe on the driving time. Your name is Davies; I decided on
+that in case I suffer a _lapsus linguæ_ and call you Dave in front of
+somebody."
+
+"Yeah. I'll have to watch and not call you Jeff, Colonel Rand, sir." He
+nodded toward the glove-box. "That Leech & Rigdon's in there; you'd
+better get it out before I go to the Flemings'. The guy at the drive-in
+made a positive identification; it's the one he sold Fleming. I saw the
+rest of the pistols he has there; don't waste time looking him up about
+them. They stink. And I saw Tip this morning. He got young Jarrett sprung
+on a writ." He thought for a moment. "What does this do to the Rivers and
+Fleming murders?"
+
+"We can look for one man for both jobs, now," Rand said. "Probably the
+motive for Fleming was that merger he was so violently opposed to, and
+the Rivers killing must have been a security measure of some sort. There;
+that must be Gwinnett's, now."
+
+The State Police car had pulled up in front of a large three-story frame
+house with faded and discolored paint and jigsaw scrollwork around the
+cornices, standing among a clump of trees beside the road. McKenna and
+Kavaalen got out, with Walters between them, and started up the path to
+the front steps. Ritter stopped behind the white sedan, and he and Rand
+got out. By that time, Walters and the two policemen were on the front
+porch.
+
+Suddenly Ritter turned and sprinted around the right side of the house.
+Rand stood looking after him for a moment, then started to follow more
+slowly; as he did, a shot slammed in the rear. Jerking out the changeling
+.38-special, he whirled and ran around the left side of the house,
+arriving at the rear in time to see Gwinnett standing on a boardwalk
+between the house and the stable-garage behind, with his hands raised.
+There was a fresh bullet-scar on the boardwalk at his feet. Ritter was
+covering him from the corner of the house with the .380 Beretta.
+
+Rand strolled over to Gwinnett, frisked him, and told him to put his
+hands down.
+
+"Nice, Dave," he complimented. "I thought of that, too, about a minute
+too late. As soon as he saw Walters coming up the walk with the police,
+he knew what had happened. Come on, Gwinnett; we'll go through the house
+and let them in."
+
+Gwinnett's eyes darted from side to side, like the eyes of a trapped
+animal. "I don't know what you're talking about," he said, stiff-lipped.
+"What is this, a stick-up?"
+
+Nobody bothered to tell him to stop kidding. They marched him through the
+kitchen, where a Negro girl, her arms white with flour, was dithering in
+fright, and into the front hall. A woman in a faded housedress had just
+admitted the two officers and the former Fleming butler.
+
+"You goddam rat!" Gwinnett yelled at Walters, as soon as he saw him.
+
+"For God's sake, Carl," the woman begged. "Don't make things any worse
+than they are. Keep quiet!"
+
+"All right, Gwinnett," McKenna said. "We're arresting you: receiving
+stolen goods, and accessory to larceny. We have a search warrant. Want to
+see it?"
+
+"So you have a search warrant," Gwinnett said. "So go ahead and search;
+if you don't find anything, you'll plant something. I want to call my
+lawyer."
+
+"That's your right," McKenna told him. "Aarvo, take him to a phone; let
+him call the White House if he wants to." He turned to Walters. "Now,
+where would he have this stuff stashed?"
+
+"In the garret, sir. I know the way."
+
+As Kavaalen accompanied Gwinnett to the phone, Walters started upstairs.
+Rand and McKenna followed, with Mrs. Gwinnett bringing up the rear.
+During the search of the attic, she stood to one side, watching the
+ex-butler dig into a pile of pistols.
+
+"This is one, gentlemen," Walters said, producing a Springfield 1818
+Model flintlock. "And here is the Walker Colt, and the .40-caliber Colt
+Paterson, and the Hall...."
+
+Eventually, he had them all assembled, including the five cased sets.
+Rand found a couple of empty bushel baskets and laid the pistols in them,
+between layers of old newspapers. He picked up one, and McKenna took the
+other, while Walters piled the five flat hardwood cases into his arms
+like cordwood. Still saying nothing, her eyes stony with hatred, the
+woman followed them downstairs.
+
+The rest of the afternoon was consumed with formalities. Gwinnett was
+given a hearing, at which he was represented by a lawyer straight out
+of a B-grade gangster picture. Rand had a heated argument with an
+over-zealous Justice of the Peace, who wanted to impound the pistols and
+jackknife-mark them for identification, but after hurling bloodthirsty
+threats of a damage suit for an astronomical figure, he managed to retain
+possession of the recovered weapons.
+
+Ritter left at a little past three, to report for duty in the Fleming
+household. Rand rode with McKenna and Kavaalen to the State Police
+substation, where the pistols were transferred to McKenna's personal car,
+in which they and Rand were to be transported back to the Fleming place.
+
+It was five o'clock before Rand had finished telling the sergeant and the
+corporal everything he felt they ought to know.
+
+"When we get to the Flemings', I'll give you that revolver I got from the
+coroner," he finished. "One of your boys can take it to this fellow
+Umholtz, and get him to identify it. You might also show it to young
+Gillis, and see what he knows about it. Gillis might even give you a name
+for who got it from Rivers. I'm not building any hopes on that, and the
+reason I'm not is that Gillis is still alive. If he knew, I don't think
+he would be."
+
+"Yeah. I can see that," McKenna nodded. "Fact is, I can see everything,
+now, except one thing. This pistol-switch somebody gave you; what's the
+idea of that?"
+
+"Why, that's because I'm on the spot," Rand told him. "I'm to be killed,
+and somebody else is to be killed along with me. The .25 automatic will
+be used on me, and the .38 will be used on the other fellow, and we'll be
+found dead about five feet apart, and I'll be holding my own gun, and the
+other fellow will be holding the .25, and it will look as though we shot
+it out and scored a double knockout. That way, my mouth will be shut
+about what I've learned since I came here, and the man who's supposed to
+have killed me will take the rap for Fleming and Rivers both. Nothing to
+stop an investigation like a couple of corpses who can't tell their own
+story and can take the blame for everything."
+
+"_Zhee-zus!_" Kavaalen's eyes widened. "That must be just it!"
+
+"Well, you got your nerve about you, I'll say that," McKenna commented.
+"You sit there and talk about it like it was something that was going to
+happen to Joe Doakes and Oscar Zilch." He looked at Rand intently. "You
+want us to keep an eye on you?"
+
+Rand leaned over and spat into the brass cuspidor, a gesture of
+braggadocio he had picked up among the French maquis.
+
+"Hell, no! That's the last thing I do want!" he said. "I want him to try
+it. You realize, don't you, that all this is pure assumption and theory?
+We don't have a single fact, as it stands, that proves anything. We could
+go and pick this fellow up, and he's one of three men, so we could grab
+all three of them, and even if we found the .25 Webley & Scott and my .38
+in his pockets, we couldn't charge him with anything. Fact is, right now
+we can't even prove that Lane Fleming's death was anything but the
+accident it's on the books as being. But let him take a shot at me...."
+
+"And then you'll have another nice, clear case of self-defense." McKenna
+frowned. "Goddammit, Jeff, you've had to defend yourself too many times,
+already. This'll be--well, how many will it be?"
+
+"Counting Germans?" Rand grinned. "Hell, I don't know; I can't remember
+all of them."
+
+"One thing," Kavaalen said solemnly, "you never hear of any lawyers
+springing people out of cemeteries on writs."
+
+"Look, Jeff," McKenna said, at length. "If it's the way you think, this
+guy won't dare kill you instantly, will he? Seems to me, the way the
+script reads, this other guy shoots you, and you shoot back and kill him,
+and then you die. Isn't that it?"
+
+Rand nodded. "I'm banking on that. He'll try to give me a fatal but not
+instantly fatal wound, and that means he'll have to take time to pick his
+spot. The reason I've managed to survive these people against whom I've
+had to defend myself has been that I just don't give a damn where I shoot
+a man. A lot of good police officers have gotten themselves killed
+because they tried to wing somebody and took a second or so longer about
+shooting than they should have."
+
+"Something in that, too," McKenna agreed. "But what I'm getting at is
+this: I think I know a way to give you a little more percentage." He
+rose. "Wait a minute; I'll be right back."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 19
+
+
+There was less feuding at dinner that evening than at any previous meal
+Rand had eaten in the Fleming home. In the first place, everybody seemed
+a little awed in the presence of the new butler, who flitted in and out
+of the room like a ghost and, when spoken to, answered in a heavy B.B.C.
+accent. Then, the women, who carried on most of the hostilities, had
+re-erected their _front populaire_ and were sharing a common pleasure in
+the recovery of the stolen pistols. And finally, there was a distinct
+possibility that the swift and dramatic justice that had overtaken
+Walters and Gwinnett at Rand's hands was having a sobering effect upon
+somebody at that table.
+
+Dunmore, Nelda, Varcek, Geraldine and Gladys had been intending to
+go to a party that evening, but at the last minute Gladys had pleaded
+indisposition and telephoned regrets. The meal over, Rand had gone
+up to the gunroom, Gladys drifted into the small drawing-room off the
+dining-room, and the others had gone to their rooms to dress.
+
+Rand was taking down the junk with which Walters had infiltrated the
+collection and was listing and hanging up the recovered items when Fred
+Dunmore, wearing a dressing-gown, strolled in.
+
+"I can't get over the idea of Walters being a thief," he sorrowed.
+"I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen his signed
+confession.... Well, it just goes to show you...."
+
+"He took his medicine standing up," Rand said. "And he helped us recover
+the pistols. If I were you, I'd go easy with him."
+
+Dunmore shook his head. "I'm not a revengeful man, Colonel Rand," he
+said, "but if there's one thing I can't forgive, it's a disloyal
+employee." His mouth closed sternly around his cigar. "He'll have to take
+what's coming to him." He stood by the desk for a moment, looking down at
+the recovered items and the pile of junk on the floor. "When did you
+first suspect him?"
+
+"Almost from the first moment I saw this collection." Rand explained the
+reasoning which had led him to suspect Walters. "The real clincher, to my
+mind, was the fact that he knew this collection almost as well as Lane
+Fleming did, and wouldn't be likely to be deceived by these substitutions
+any more than Fleming would. Yet he said nothing to anybody; neither to
+Mrs. Fleming, nor Goode, nor myself. If he weren't guilty himself, I
+wanted to know his reason for keeping silent. So I put the pressure on
+him, and he cracked open."
+
+"Well, I want you to know how grateful we all are," Dunmore said
+feelingly. "I'm kicking hell out of myself, now, about the way I objected
+when Gladys brought you in here. My God, suppose we'd tried to sell the
+collection ourselves! Anybody who'd have been interested in buying would
+have seen what you saw, and then they'd have claimed that we were trying
+to hold out on them." He hesitated. "You've seen how things are here," he
+continued ruefully. "And that's something else I have to thank you for; I
+mean, keeping your mouth shut till you got the pistols back. There'd have
+been a hell of a row; everybody would have blamed everybody else.... How
+did you get him to confess, though?"
+
+Rand told him about the subterfuge of the trumped-up murder charge.
+Dunmore had evidently never thought of that hoary device; he chuckled
+appreciatively.
+
+"Say, that _was_ smart! No wonder he was so willing to admit everything
+and help you get them back." He looked at the pistols on the desk and
+moved one or two of them. "Did you get the one the coroner had? Goode
+said something--"
+
+"Oh, yes; I got that yesterday." Rand turned and went to the workbench,
+bringing back the Leech & Rigdon, which he handed to Dunmore. "That's it.
+I fired out the other five charges, and cleaned it at the State Police
+substation." He watched Dunmore closely, but there seemed to be no
+reaction.
+
+"So that's it." Dunmore looked at it with a show of interest and honest
+sorrow, and handed it back, then shifted his cigar across his mouth.
+"Look here, Colonel; I've been wanting to ask you something. Did Gladys
+just get you to come here to appraise and sell the collection, or are you
+investigating Lane's death, too?"
+
+"Well, now, you're asking me to be disloyal to my employer," Rand
+objected. "Why don't you ask her that? If she wants you to know, she'll
+tell you."
+
+"Dammit, I can't! Suppose she's satisfied that it really was an accident;
+would I want to start her worrying and imagining things?"
+
+"No, I suppose you wouldn't," Rand conceded. "You're not at all satisfied
+on that point yourself, are you?"
+
+"Well, are you?" Dunmore parried.
+
+That sort of fencing could go on indefinitely. Rand determined to stop
+it. After all, if Dunmore was the murderer of Lane Fleming, he would
+already know how little Rand was deceived by the fake accident; the Leech
+& Rigdon had told him that already. If he weren't, telling him would do
+no harm at this point, and might even do some good.
+
+"Why, I think Fleming was murdered," Rand told him, as casually as though
+he were expressing an opinion on tomorrow's weather. "And I further
+believe that whoever killed Fleming also killed Arnold Rivers. That, by
+the way, is where I come in. Stephen Gresham has retained me to find the
+Rivers murderer; to do that, I must first learn who killed Lane Fleming.
+However, I was not retained to investigate the Fleming murder, and as far
+as I know from anything she has told me, Gladys Fleming is quite
+satisfied that her husband shot himself accidentally." In a universe of
+ordered abstractions and multiordinal meanings, the literal truth, on one
+order of abstraction, was often a black lie on another. "Does that answer
+your question?" he asked, with open-faced innocence.
+
+Dunmore nodded. "Yes, I get it, now. Look here, do you think Anton Varcek
+could have done it? I know it's a horrible idea, and I want you to
+understand that I'm not making any accusations, but we always took it for
+granted that he'd been up in his lab, and had come downstairs when he
+heard the shot. But suppose he came down and shot Fleming, and then went
+out in the hall, and made that rumpus outside after locking the door
+behind him?"
+
+"That's possible," Rand agreed. "You were taking a bath when you heard
+the shot, weren't you?"
+
+Dunmore shook his head. "I suppose so. I didn't hear any shot, to tell
+the truth. All I heard was Anton pounding on the door and yelling. I
+suppose I had my head under the shower, and the noise of the water kept
+me from hearing the shot." He stopped short, taking his cigar from his
+mouth and pointing it at Rand. "And, by God, that would have been about
+five minutes before he started hammering on the door!" he exclaimed.
+"Time enough for him to have fixed things to look like an accident, set
+the deadlatch, and have gone out in the hall, and started making a noise.
+And another thing. You say that whoever killed Lane also killed this
+fellow Rivers. Well, on Thursday night, when Rivers was killed, Anton
+didn't get home till around twelve."
+
+"Yes, I'd thought of that. You know, though, that the murderer doesn't
+have to be Varcek, or anybody else who was in the house at the time. The
+garage doors were open--I'm told that your wife was out at the time--and
+anybody could have sneaked in the back way, up through the library, and
+out the same way. There are one or two possibilities besides you and
+Anton Varcek."
+
+Dunmore's eyes widened. "Yes, and I can think of one, without half
+trying, too!" He nodded once or twice. "For instance, the man who was
+afraid you were investigating Fleming's death; the man who started that
+suicide story!" He looked at Rand interrogatively. "Well, I got to go;
+Nelda'll be out of the bathroom by now. I want to talk to you about this
+some more, Colonel."
+
+After Dunmore had gone out, Rand mopped his face. The room seemed
+insufferably hot. He found an electric fan over the workbench and plugged
+it in, but it made enough noise to cover any sounds of stealthy approach,
+and he shut it off. He had finished revising his list to include the
+recovered pistols for as far as it was completed, and was hanging them
+back on the wall when Ritter came in.
+
+"House is clear, now," his assistant said, stepping out of his P. G.
+Wodehouse character. "Both pairs left in the Packard, Dunmore driving.
+Man, what a cat-and-dog show this place is! It's a wonder our client
+isn't nuts."
+
+"You haven't seen anything; you ought to have been here last
+night ... Where is our client, by the way?"
+
+"Downstairs." Ritter fished a cigarette out of his livery and
+appropriated Rand's lighter. "If we hear her coming, you can grab this."
+He brushed a couple of Paterson Colts to one side and sat down on the
+edge of the desk, taking a deep drag on the cigarette. "What's the
+regular law doing, now that young Jarrett is out?"
+
+"I had a long talk with Mick McKenna," Rand said. "Fortunately, Mick and
+I have worked together before. I was able to tell him the facts of life,
+and he'll be a good boy now. When last heard from, Farnsworth was
+beginning to blow his hot breath on the back of Cecil Gillis's neck."
+
+Ritter picked up the big .44 Colt Walker and tried the balance. "Man,
+this even makes that Colt Magnum of mine feel light!" he said. "Say,
+Jeff, if Farnsworth's going after Gillis, it's probably on account of
+those stories about him and Mrs. Rivers. At least, all that stuff would
+come out if he arrested him. Maybe we could get a fee out of Mrs.
+Rivers."
+
+"I'd thought of that. Unfortunately, Mrs. Rivers had a very convenient
+breakdown, when she heard the news; she is now in a hospital in New York,
+and won't be back until after the funeral. Prostrated with grief. Or
+something. And this case is due to blow up like Hiroshima before then.
+Well, we can't get fees from everybody." That, of course, was one of the
+sad things of life to which one must reconcile oneself. "I got a call
+from Pierre Jarrett; Tip's staying at the Jarrett place tonight. I
+thought it would be a good idea to have him within reach for a while."
+
+The private outside phone rang shrilly. Ritter let it go for several
+rings, then picked it up.
+
+"This is the Fleming residence," he stated, putting on his character
+again. "Oh, yes indeed, sir. Colonel Rand is right here, sir; I'll tell
+him you're calling." He put a hand over the mouthpiece. "Humphrey Goode."
+
+Rand took the phone and named himself into it.
+
+"I would like to talk to you privately, Colonel Rand," the lawyer said.
+"On a subject of considerable importance to our, shall I say, mutual
+clients. Could you find time to drop over, sometime this evening?"
+
+"Well, I'm very busy, at the moment, Mr. Goode," Rand regretted. "There
+have been some rather deplorable developments here, lately. The butler,
+Walters, has been arrested for larceny. It seems that since Mr. Fleming's
+death, he has been systematically looting the pistol-collection. I'm
+trying to get things straightened out, now."
+
+"Good heavens!" Goode was considerably shaken. "When did you discover
+this, Colonel Rand? And why wasn't I notified before? And are there many
+valuable items missing?"
+
+"I discovered it as soon as I saw the collection," Rand began answering
+his questions in order. "Neither you, nor anybody else was notified,
+because I wanted to get evidence to justify an arrest first. And nothing
+is missing; everything has been recovered," he finished. "That's what I'm
+so busy about, now; getting my list revised, and straightening out the
+collection."
+
+"Oh, fine!" Goode was delighted. "I hope everything was handled quietly,
+without any unnecessary publicity? But this other matter; I don't care to
+go into it over the phone, and it's imperative that we discuss it
+privately, at once."
+
+"Well, suppose you come over here, Mr. Goode," Rand suggested. "That way,
+I won't have to interrupt my work so much. There's nobody at home now but
+Mrs. Fleming, and as she's indisposed, we'll be quite alone."
+
+"Oh; very well. I think that's really a good idea; much better than your
+coming over here. I'll see you directly."
+
+Ritter was grinning as Rand hung up. "That's the stuff," he approved.
+"The old Hitler technique; make them come to you, and then you can pound
+the table and yell at them all you want to."
+
+"You go let him in," Rand directed. "Show him up here, and then take a
+plant on that spiral stairway out of the library, just out of sight. I
+don't think this it, but there's no use taking chances." He mopped his
+face again. "Damn, it's hot in here!"
+
+Ten minutes later, Ritter ushered in Humphrey Goode, and inquired if
+there would be anything further, sir? When Rand said there wouldn't, he
+went down the spiral. Just as Rand had expected, Goode began peddling
+the same line as Varcek and Dunmore before him. They all came to see him
+in the gunroom with a common purpose. After easing himself into a chair,
+and going through some prefatory huffing and puffing, Goode came out with
+it. Did Rand believe that Lane Fleming had really been murdered, and was
+he investigating Fleming's death, after all?
+
+"I have always believed that Lane Fleming was murdered," Rand replied.
+"I also believe that his murderer killed Arnold Rivers, as well. I am
+investigating the Rivers murder, and the Fleming murder may be considered
+as a part thereof. But what brings you around to discuss that, now? Did
+you learn something, since last evening, that leads you to suspect the
+same thing?"
+
+"Well, not exactly. But this afternoon, Fred Dunmore and Anton Varcek
+came to my office, separately, of course, and each of them wanted to know
+if I had any reason to suspect that the, uh, tragedy, was actually a case
+of murder. Both had the impression that you were conducting an
+investigation under cover of your work on the pistol collection, and
+wanted to know whether Mrs. Fleming or I had employed you to do so."
+
+"And you denied it, giving them the impression that Mrs. Fleming had?"
+Rand asked. "I hope you haven't put her in any more danger than she is
+now, by doing so."
+
+Goode looked startled. "Colonel Rand! Do you actually mean that...?" he
+began.
+
+"You were Lane Fleming's attorney, and board chairman of his company,"
+Rand said. "You can probably imagine why he was killed. You can ask
+yourself just how safe his principal heir is now." Without giving Goode
+a chance to gather his wits, he pressed on: "Well, what's your opinion
+about Fleming's death? After all, you did go out of your way to create
+a false impression that he had committed suicide."
+
+Goode, still bewildered by Rand's deliberately cryptic hints and a little
+frightened, had the grace to blush at that.
+
+"I admit it; it was entirely unethical, and I'll admit that, too," he
+said. "But.... Well, I'm buying all the Premix stock that's out in small
+blocks, and so are Mr. Dunmore and Mr. Varcek. We all felt that such
+rumors would reduce the market quotation, to our advantage."
+
+Rand nodded. "I picked up a hundred shares, the other day, myself. Your
+shenanigans probably chipped a little off the price I had to pay, so I
+ought to be grateful to you. But we're talking about murder, not market
+manipulation. Did either Varcek or Dunmore express any opinion as to who
+might have killed Fleming?"
+
+The outside telephone rang before Goode could answer. Rand scooped it up
+at the end of the first ring and named himself into it. It was Mick
+McKenna calling.
+
+"Well, we checked up on that cap-and-ball six-shooter you left with me,"
+he said. "This gunsmith, Umholtz, refinished it for Rivers last summer.
+He showed the man who was to see him the entry in his job-book: make,
+model, serials and all."
+
+"Oh, fine! And did you get anything out of young Gillis?" Rand asked.
+
+"The gun was in Rivers's shop from the time Umholtz rejuvenated it till
+around the first of November. Then it was sold, but he doesn't know who
+to. He didn't sell it himself; Rivers must have."
+
+"I assumed that; that's why he's still alive. Well, thanks, Mick. The
+case is getting tighter every minute."
+
+"You haven't had any trouble yet?" McKenna asked anxiously. "How's the
+whoozis doing?"
+
+"About as you might expect," Rand told him, mopping his face again.
+"Thanks for that, too."
+
+He hung up and turned back to Goode. "Pardon the interruption," he said.
+"Sergeant McKenna, of the State Police. The officer who made the arrest
+on Walters and Gwinnett. Well, I suppose Dunmore and Varcek are each
+trying to blame the other," he said.
+
+"Well, yes; I rather got that impression," Goode admitted.
+
+"And which one do you like for the murderer? Or haven't you picked yours,
+yet?"
+
+"You mean.... Yes, of course," Goode said slowly. "It must have been one
+or the other. But I can't think.... It's horrible to have to suspect
+either of them." For a moment, he stared unseeingly at the litter of
+high-priced pistols on the desk. Then:
+
+"Colonel Rand, Lane Fleming is dead, and nothing either of us can do
+will bring him back. To expose his murderer certainly won't. But it
+would cause a scandal that would rock the Premix Company to its very
+foundations. It might even disastrously affect the market as a whole."
+
+"Oh, come!" Rand reproved. "That's like talking about starting a
+hurricane with a palm-leaf fan."
+
+"But you will admit that it would have a dreadful effect on Premix
+Foods," Goode argued. "It would probably prevent this merger from being
+consummated. Look here," he said urgently. "I don't know how much Gladys
+Fleming is paying you to rake all this up, but I'll gladly double her fee
+if you drop it and confine yourself to the matter of the collection."
+
+Even in his colossal avarice, that was one kind of money Jeff Rand had
+never been tempted to take. An offer of that sort invariably made him
+furious. At the moment, he managed to choke down his anger, but he
+rejected Goode's offer in a manner which left no room for further
+discussion. Goode rose, shaking his head sadly.
+
+"I suppose you realize," he said, sorrowfully, "that you're wrecking
+a ten-million-dollar corporation. One in which you, yourself, are a
+stockholder."
+
+Rand brightened. "And the biggest wrecking jobs I ever did before were a
+couple of petrol dumps and a railroad bridge." He got to his feet along
+with the lawyer. "No need to call the butler; I'll let you out myself."
+
+He accompanied Goode down the front stairway to the door. Goode was still
+gloomy.
+
+"I made a mistake in trying to bribe you," he said. "But can't I appeal
+to your sense of fairness? Do you want to inflict serious losses on
+innocent investors merely to avenge one crime?"
+
+"I don't approve of murder," Rand told him. "Least of all, to paraphrase
+Clausewitz, as an extension of business by other means. You know, if we
+let Lane Fleming's killer get away with it, somebody might take that as a
+precedent and bump you off to win a lawsuit, sometime. Ever think of
+that?"
+
+When he returned to the gunroom, he found Gladys Fleming occupying the
+chair lately vacated by the family attorney. She blew a smoke-ring at him
+in greeting as he entered.
+
+"Now what was Hump Goode up to?" she wanted to know.
+
+"I'm taking too much on myself," Rand evaded. "Maybe I should have turned
+Walters over for trial by family court-martial. How do you like Davies,
+by the way?"
+
+"Oh, he's cute," Gladys told him. "One of your operatives, isn't he?"
+
+"Now what in the world gave you an idea like that?" he asked, as though
+humoring the vagaries of a child.
+
+"Well, I suspected something of the sort from the alacrity with which you
+produced him, before Walters was out of the house," she said. "And nobody
+could be as perfect a stage butler as he is. But what really convinced me
+was coming into the library, a little while ago, and finding him
+squatting on the top of the spiral, covering Humphrey Goode with a small
+but particularly evil-looking automatic."
+
+Rand chuckled. "What did you do?"
+
+"Oh, I climbed up and squatted beside him," she replied. "I got there
+just as you were telling Goode what he could do with his bribe. You know,
+with one thing and another, Goode's beginning to become unamusing." She
+smoked in silence for a moment. "I ought to be indignant with you,
+filling my house with spies," she said. "But under the circumstances, I'm
+afraid I'm thankful, instead. Your op's a good egg, by the way; he's on
+his way to bring us some drinks."
+
+"I ought to be sore at you, retaining me into a mess like this and
+telling me nothing," Rand told her. "What was the idea, anyhow? You
+wanted me to investigate your husband's murder, all along, didn't you?"
+
+"I--I hadn't a thing to go on," she replied. "I was afraid, if I came out
+and told you what I suspected, that you'd think it was just another case
+of feminine dam-foolishness, and dismiss it as such. I knew it wasn't an
+accident; Lane didn't have accidents with guns. And if he'd wanted to
+kill himself, he'd have done it and left a note explaining why he had to.
+But I didn't have a single fact to give you. I thought that if you came
+here and started working on the collection, you'd find something."
+
+"You should have taken a chance and told me what you suspected," Rand
+said. "I've taken a lot of cases on flimsier grounds than this. The fact
+is, you practically told me it was murder, when you were talking to me in
+my office."
+
+"Jeff, I never was what the soap-operas call being 'in love' with Lane,"
+she continued. "But he was wonderful to me. He gave me everything a girl
+who grew up in a sixteen-dollar apartment over a fruit store could want.
+And then somebody killed him, just as you'd step on a cockroach, because
+he got in the way of a business deal. I'm glad to be able to spend money
+to help catch whoever did it. It won't help him, but it'll make me feel a
+lot better.... You will catch him, won't you?"
+
+Rand nodded. "I don't know whether he'll ever go to trial and be
+convicted," he said. "I don't think he will. But you can take my word for
+it; he won't get away with it. Tomorrow, I think the lid's going to blow
+off. Maybe you'd better be away from home when it does. Take Nelda and
+Geraldine with you, and go somewhere. There's likely to be some uproar."
+
+"Well, Nelda and Geraldine and I are going to church, in the morning,"
+Gladys said. "It's a question of face. We have a rented pew--Lane was
+quite active in church work--and none of us are willing to let ourselves
+get squeezed out of it. We all go; even Geraldine manages to drag herself
+to the Lord's House through an alcoholic fog. And we'll have to be back
+in time for dinner. It would look funny if we weren't."
+
+"Well, if nothing's happened by the time you get back, I want you to talk
+the girls into going somewhere with you in the afternoon, and stay away
+till evening. And don't get the idea that you could help me here," he
+added, stopping an objection. "I know what I'm talking about. The
+presence of any of you here would only delay matters and make it harder
+for me."
+
+Then Ritter came in, a cigarette in one corner of his mouth, carrying a
+tray on which were a bottle of Bourbon, a bottle of Scotch, a siphon and
+a couple of bottles of beer.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 20
+
+
+The dining-room was empty, when Rand came down to breakfast the next
+morning. Taking the seat he had occupied the evening before, he waited
+until Ritter came out of the kitchen through the pantry.
+
+"Good morning, Colonel Rand," the Perfect Butler greeted him unctuously.
+"If I may say so, sir, you're a bit of an early riser. None of the family
+is up yet, sir."
+
+Rand jerked a thumb toward the kitchen. "Who's out there?" he hissed.
+
+"Just the cook; frying sausage and flipping pancakes. Premix pancakes, of
+course. The maid sleeps out; she hasn't gotten here yet. How'd it go last
+night? You put a dummy under the covers and sleep on the floor?"
+
+"No, last night I was safe. The blow-off isn't due till this morning,
+when the women are at church, and he'll have to catch me and the fall-guy
+together."
+
+"What do you want me to do?" Ritter asked, giving an un-butler-like hitch
+at his shoulder-holster. "I can stand on my official dignity, and get out
+of any cleaning-up work till after dinner, and I won't have any buttling
+to do till the women get home from church."
+
+"Case Varcek and Dunmore, when they come in; see if either of them is
+rod-heavy. Find anything, last night?"
+
+Ritter shook his head. "I searched Varcek's lab, after everybody was in
+bed, and I searched the cars in the garage, and a lot of other places. I
+didn't find them. Whoever he is, the chances are he has them in his
+room."
+
+"Did you look back of the books in the library?" Rand asked. When Ritter
+shook his head, he continued: "That's probably where they are. Not that
+it makes a whole lot of difference."
+
+"If I'd found them, it'd of given me something to watch; then I'd know
+when the fun was going to start." Ritter broke off suddenly. "Yes, sir.
+Will you have your coffee now, or later, sir?"
+
+Gladys entered, wearing the blue tailored outfit she had worn to Rand's
+office, on Wednesday.
+
+"At ease, at ease," she laughed, dropping into her chair. "Anything new?"
+
+Rand shook his head. "We'll have to wait. I'm expecting some action this
+morning; I hope it'll be over before you're home from church."
+
+She looked at him seriously. "Jeff, you're using yourself as
+murder-bait," she said. "Aren't you?"
+
+"More or less. He knows I'm onto him. He's pretty sure I haven't any real
+proof, yet, but he doesn't know how soon I will have. He realizes that
+I'm cat-and-mousing him, the way I did Walters. So he'll try to kill me
+before I pounce, and when he does, he'll convict himself. What he doesn't
+realize is that as long as he sits tight, he's perfectly safe."
+
+Neither of them mentioned the obvious corollary, that conviction and
+execution would be almost simultaneous. It must have been uppermost in
+Gladys's mind; she leaned over and put her hand on Rand's arm.
+
+"Jeff, would it help any if I stayed home, instead of going to church?"
+she asked. "I'm a pretty fair pistol-shot. Lane taught me. I can stay
+over ninety at slow fire, and in the eighties at timed-and-rapid. If I
+hid somewhere with a target pistol--"
+
+"Absolutely not!" Rand vetoed emphatically. "I'm not saying that because
+I'm afraid you might stop a slug yourself. You're a big girl, now; you
+can take your own chances. But if you stayed home, he wouldn't make a
+move. You and Geraldine and Nelda have to be out of the house before
+he'll feel safe coming out of the grass."
+
+"Watch it!" Ritter warned. "Yes, ma'am; at once, ma'am."
+
+Nelda came in and sat down. Ritter held her chair and fussed over her,
+finding out what she wanted to eat. He was bringing in her fruit when
+Varcek and Geraldine entered. Nelda was inquiring if Rand wanted to come
+to church with them.
+
+"No; I'm one of the boys the chaplain couldn't find in the foxholes,"
+Rand said. "I'm going to put in a quiet morning on the collection. If
+nobody gets murdered or arrested in the meantime, that is."
+
+Geraldine looked woebegone; her hands were trembling. "My God, do I have
+a hangover!" she moaned. "Walters, for heaven's sake, fix me up
+something, quick!" Then she saw Ritter. "Who the devil are you?" she
+demanded. "Where's Walters?"
+
+"Out on bail," Rand told her. "Don't you remember?"
+
+"Oh, you did this to me!" she accused. "Walters could always fix me up,
+in the morning. Now what am I going to do?"
+
+"You might stop drinking," her husband suggested mildly.
+
+"Oh, just stop breathing; that would be better all around," Nelda
+interposed.
+
+Ritter coughed delicately. "Begging your pardon, ma'am, but I've always
+rawther fawncied myself for an expert on morning-awfter tonics. If you'll
+wait a moment--"
+
+He departed on his errand of mercy, returning shortly with a highball
+glass filled with some dark, evil-looking potion. He set it on the table
+in front of the sufferer and poured her a cup of coffee.
+
+"Now, ma'am; just try this. Take it gradually, if I may suggest. Don't
+attempt to gulp it; it's quite strong, ma'am."
+
+Geraldine tasted it and pulled a Gorgon-face. Encouraged by Ritter, she
+managed to down about half of the mixture.
+
+"Splendid, ma'am; splendid!" he cheered her on. "Now, drink your coffee,
+ma'am, and then finish it. That's right, ma'am. And now, more coffee."
+
+Geraldine struggled through with the black draft and drank the second cup
+of coffee. As she set down the empty cup, she even managed to smile.
+
+"Why, that's wonderful!" She lit a cigarette. "What is it? I feel as
+though I might live, after all."
+
+"A recipe of my own, a variant on the old Prairie Oyster, but without the
+raw egg, which I consider a needless embellishment, ma'am. I learned it
+in the household of a former employer, a New York stockbroker. Poor man:
+he did himself in in the autumn of 1929."
+
+"Well, it's too bad you won't be with us permanently, Davies," Nelda
+said. "Your recipe seems to be just what Geraldine needs. With a dash of
+prussic acid added, of course."
+
+That got the bush-fighting off to a good start. When Dunmore came in, a
+few minutes later, the two sisters were stalking one another through the
+jungle, blow-gunning poison darts back and forth. The newcomer sat down
+without a word; throughout the meal, he and Varcek treated one another
+with silent and hostile suspicion. Finally Gladys looked at her watch and
+called a truce to the skirmishing by announcing that it was time to start
+for church. Rand left the room with the ladies; in the hall, Gladys
+brushed against him quickly and gripped his left arm.
+
+"Do be careful, Jeff," she whispered.
+
+"Don't worry; I will," Rand assured her. Then he turned into the library
+and went up the spiral to the gunroom, while the three women went down to
+the garage.
+
+He was standing at the window as the big Packard moved out onto the
+drive. Nelda was at the wheel, and Gladys, beside her on the front seat,
+raised a white-gloved hand in the thumbs-up salute. Rand gave it back,
+and watched the car swing around the house. Then he mopped his face with
+a wad of Kleenex and went over to the room-temperature thermostat,
+turning it down to sixty.
+
+Sitting down at the desk, he dialed Humphrey Goode's number on the
+private outside line. A maid answered; a moment later he was talking to
+the Fleming lawyer.
+
+"Rand, here," he identified himself. "Mr. Goode, I've been thinking over
+our conversation of last evening. There is a great deal to be said for
+the position you're taking in the matter. As you reminded me, I'm a
+small, if purely speculative, stockholder in Premix, myself, and even
+if I weren't, I should hate to be responsible for undeserved losses by
+innocent investors."
+
+"Yes?" Goode's voice fairly shook. "Then you're going to drop the
+investigation?"
+
+"No, Mr. Goode; I can't do that. But I believe a formula could be evolved
+which would keep the Premix Company and its affairs out of it. In fact, I
+think that the whole question of the death of Lane Fleming might possibly
+be kept in the background. Would that satisfy you? It would require some
+very careful manipulation on my part, and your cooperation."
+
+"But.... See here, if you're investigating the death of Mr. Fleming, how
+can that be kept in the background?" Goode wanted to know.
+
+"The murderer of Lane Fleming is also guilty of the murder of Arnold
+Rivers," Rand stated. "I know that positively, now. Murder is punished
+capitally, and one of the peculiarities of capital punishment is that it
+can be inflicted only once, on no matter how many counts. If our man goes
+to the chair for the death of Rivers, the death of Fleming might even
+remain an accident. I can hardly guarantee that; I have my agency license
+to think of, among other things. But I feel reasonably safe in saying
+that I could keep the Premix Company from figuring in the case. Would
+that satisfy you?"
+
+"It most certainly would, Colonel Rand!" Goode's voice shook even more.
+"Are you sure?"
+
+"I'm not sure of anything. It'll cost the Premix Company some money to
+get this done--I'll have certain expenses, for one thing, which could not
+very gracefully be itemized--and I will have to have your cooperation.
+Now, I want you to remain at home, where I can reach you at any moment,
+for the rest of the day. I'll call you later."
+
+He listened to Goode babble his gratitude for a while, then terminated
+the call and hung up. Then he transferred the Colt .38 to the side pocket
+of his coat, picked up one of the sheets on which he had been listing
+the collection, and sat for almost fifteen minutes pretending to study
+it, keeping his eyes shifting from the hall door to the spiral stairway
+and back again.
+
+Finally, the hall door opened, and Anton Varcek came in. Rand half rose,
+covering the Czech from his side pocket; Varcek came over and sat down in
+an armchair near the desk. He was looking more than ever like Rudolf
+Hess. Rudolf Hess on the morning of the Beer Hall Putsch.
+
+"Colonel Rand," he began. "There has, within the last half hour, been a
+most important development. I am at a loss to define its significance,
+but its importance is inescapable."
+
+Rand nodded. He had been expecting somebody to give birth to an important
+development; the steps toward gunfire were progressing in logical series.
+
+"Well?" He smiled encouragingly. "What happened?"
+
+"After you and the ladies left the dining-room," Varcek said, "Fred
+Dunmore turned to me and apologized for harboring unjust suspicions of me
+in the matter of Lane Fleming's death. He said that he had been unable
+to understand who else could have murdered Lane, until you had pointed
+out to him that the house could have been entered from the garage, and
+the gunroom from the library. Then, he said, he had had a conversation
+with some unnamed gentleman at the party last evening, and had learned
+that Lane had discovered that Humphrey Goode was deceiving him, and had
+been about to have him dismissed from his position with the company, and
+to sever his personal connections with him."
+
+"The devil, now!" Rand gave a good imitation of surprise. "What sort of
+jiggery-pokery was Goode up to?"
+
+"Fred said that his informant told him that Lane had proof that Goode had
+accepted a bribe from Arnold Rivers, to misconduct the suit which Lane
+was bringing against Rivers about a pair of pistols he had bought from
+Rivers. It seems that Goode was Rivers's attorney, also, and had been
+involved with him in a number of dishonest transactions, although the
+connection had been kept secret."
+
+"That's a new angle, now," Rand said. "I suppose that he killed Rivers in
+order to prevent the latter from incriminating him. Why didn't Fred come
+to me with this?" he asked.
+
+"Eh?" Evidently Varcek hadn't thought of that. "Why, I suppose he was
+concerned about the possibility of repercussions in the business world.
+After all, Goode is our board chairman, and maybe he thought that people
+might begin thinking that the murder had some connection with the affairs
+of the company."
+
+"That's possible, of course," Rand agreed. "And what's your own
+attitude?"
+
+"Colonel Rand, I cannot allow these facts to be suppressed," the Czech
+said. "My own position is too vulnerable; you've showed me that. Except
+for the fact that somebody could have entered the house through the
+garage, the burden of suspicion would lie on me and Fred Dunmore."
+
+"Well, do you want me to help you with it?" Rand asked.
+
+"Yes, if you will. It would be helping yourself, also, I believe," Varcek
+replied. "Fred is downstairs, now, in the library; I suggest that you and
+I go down and have a talk with him. Maybe you could show him the folly of
+trying to suppress any facts concerning Lane's death."
+
+"Yes, that would be both foolish and dangerous." Rand got to his feet,
+keeping his hand on the .38 Colt. "Let's go down and talk to him now."
+
+They walked side by side toward the spiral, Rand keeping on the right and
+lagging behind a little, lifting the stubby revolver clear of his pocket.
+Yet, in spite of his vigilance, it happened before he could prevent it.
+
+A lance of yellow fire jumped out of the shadows of the stairway,
+and there was a soft cough of a silenced pistol, almost lost in the
+_click-click_ of the breech-action. Rand felt something sledge-hammer him
+in the chest, almost knocking him down. He staggered, then swung up the
+Colt he had drawn from his pocket and blazed two shots into the stairway.
+There was a clatter, and the sound of feet descending into the library.
+He rushed forward, revolver poised, and then a shot boomed from below,
+followed by three more in quick succession.
+
+"Okay, Jeff!" Ritter's voice called out. "War's over!"
+
+He managed, somehow, to get down the steep spiral. The little .25 Webley
+& Scott was lying on the bottom step; he pushed it aside with his foot,
+and cautioned Varcek, who was following, to avoid it. Ritter, still
+looking like the Perfect Butler in spite of the .380 Beretta in his hand,
+was standing in the hall doorway. On the floor, midway between the
+stairway and the door, lay Fred Dunmore. His tan coat and vest were
+turning dark in several places, and Rand's own Detective Special was
+lying a few inches from his left hand.
+
+"He came in here and shut the door," Ritter reported. "I couldn't follow
+him in, so I took a plant in the hall. When I heard you blasting
+upstairs, I came in, just in time to see him coming down. You winged him
+in the right shoulder; he'd dropped the .25, and he had your gat in his
+left hand. When he saw mine, he threw one at me and missed; I gave him
+three back for it. See result on floor."
+
+"Uh-uh; he'd have gotten away, if you hadn't been on the job," he told
+Ritter. Then he picked up his own revolver and holstered it. After a
+glance which assured him that Fred Dunmore was beyond any further action
+of any sort, he laid the square-butt Detective Special on the floor
+beside him. "You did all right, Dave," he said. "Now, nobody's going to
+have a chance to bamboozle a jury into acquitting him." He thought of his
+recent conversation with Humphrey Goode. "You did just all right," he
+repeated.
+
+"So it was Fred, then," he heard Varcek, behind him, say. "Then he was
+lying about this evidence against Goode." The Czech came over and stood
+beside Rand, looking down at the body of his late brother-in-law. "But
+why did he tell me that story, and why did he shoot at us when we were
+together?"
+
+"Both for the same general reason." Rand explained about the two pistols
+and the planned double-killing. "With both of us dead, you'd be the
+murderer, and I'd be a martyr to law-and-order, and he'd be in the
+clear."
+
+Varcek regarded the dead man with more distaste than surprise. Evidently
+his experiences in Hitler's Europe had left him with few illusions about
+the sanctity of human life or the extent of human perfidy. Ritter
+holstered the Beretta and got out a cigarette.
+
+"I hope you didn't leave your lighter upstairs," he told Rand.
+
+Rand produced and snapped it, holding the flame out to his assistant.
+"Dave," he lectured, "the Perfect Butler always has a lighter in good
+working order; lighting up the mawster is part of his duties. Remember
+that, the next time you have a buttling job."
+
+Ritter leaned forward for the light. "Dunmore was a better shot with his
+right hand than he was with his left," he commented. "He didn't come
+within a yard of me, and he scored a twelve-o'clock center on you. Right
+through the necktie."
+
+Rand glanced down. Then he burst into a roar of obscene blasphemy.
+
+"Seven dollars and fifty cents I paid for that tie, not three weeks ago,"
+he concluded. "Does your grandmother make patchwork quilts? If she does,
+she can have it."
+
+"My God!" Varcek stared at Rand unbelievingly. "Why, he hit you! You're
+wounded!"
+
+"Only in the necktie," Rand reassured him. "I have a hole in my shirt,
+too." He reached under the latter garment and rummaged, as though to
+evict a small trespasser. When he brought out his hand, he was holding a
+battered .25-caliber bullet. He held it out to show to Varcek and Ritter.
+
+"Sure," Ritter grinned at Varcek. "Didn't you know? Superman."
+
+"I'm wearing a bulletproof vest; Mick McKenna loaned it to me yesterday,"
+Rand enlightened Varcek. "I never wore one of the damn things before, and
+if I can help it, I'll never wear one again. I'm damn near stewed alive
+in it."
+
+"Think how hot you'd be, right now, if you hadn't been wearing it,"
+Ritter reminded him.
+
+"Then you knew, since yesterday, that he would do this?" Varcek asked.
+
+"I knew one or the other of you would," Rand replied. "I had quite a few
+reasons for thinking it might be Dunmore, and one good one for not
+suspecting you."
+
+"You mean my dislike for firearms?"
+
+"That could have been feigned, or it could have been overcome," Rand
+replied. "I mean your knowledge of biology and biochemistry. If you'd
+killed Lane Fleming, there'd have been no clumsy business of fake
+accidents; not as long as both of you ate at the same table. He'd
+have just died, an unimpeachably natural death." He turned to Ritter.
+"Dave, I'm going upstairs; I want to get out of this damned coat of mail
+I'm wearing. While I'm doing it, I want you to call Carter Tipton, at the
+Jarrett place, and Humphrey Goode, and Mick McKenna, in that order. Tell
+Goode to get over here as fast as he can, and come up to my room; tell
+him we have to consider ways and means of implementing my suggestion to
+him."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 21
+
+
+In the month which followed, events transpired through a thickening
+miasma of rumors, official communiques, journalistic conjectures,
+and outright fabrications, fitfully lit by the glare of newsmen's
+photo-bulbs, bulking with strange shapes, and emitting stranger noises.
+There were the portentous rumblings of prepared statements, and the
+hollow thumps of denials. There were soft murmurs of, "Now, this is
+strictly off the record ..." followed by sibilant whispers. The unseen
+screws of political pressure creaked, and whitewash brushes slurped
+suavely. And there was an insistent yammering of bewildered and
+unanswered questions. Fred Dunmore really had killed Arnold Rivers,
+hadn't he? Or had he? Arnold Rivers had been double-crossing
+Dunmore ... or had Dunmore been double-crossing Rivers? Somebody
+had stolen ten--or was it twenty-five--thousand dollars' worth
+of old pistols? Or was it just twenty-five thousand dollars? Or
+what, if anything, had been stolen? Was somebody being framed for
+something ... or was somebody covering up for somebody ... or what?
+And wasn't there something funny about the way Lane Fleming got killed,
+last December?
+
+The surviving members of the Fleming family issued a few noncommittal
+statements through their attorney, Humphrey Goode, and then the Iron
+Curtain slammed down. Mick McKenna gave an outraged squawk or so, then
+subsided. There was a series of pronunciamentos from the office of
+District Attorney Charles P. Farnsworth, all full of high-order
+abstractions and empty of meaning. The reporters, converging on the
+Fleming house, found it occupied by the State Police, who kept them at
+bay. Harry Bentz, of the New Belfast _Evening Mercury_, using a 30-power
+spotting-'scope from the road, observed Dave Ritter, whom he recognized,
+wearing a suit of butler's livery and standing in the doorway of the
+garage, talking to Sergeant McKenna, Carter Tipton and Farnsworth; the
+_Mercury_ exploited this scoop for all it was worth.
+
+On the whole, the Rosemont Bayonet Murder was, from a journalistic
+standpoint, an almost complete bust. There had been no arrest, no
+hearing, no protracted trial, no sensational revelations. Only one
+monolithic fact, officially attested and indisputable, loomed out of
+the murk: "... and the said Frederick Parker Dunmore, deceased, did
+receive the aforesaid gunshot-wounds, hereinbefore enumerated, at the
+hands of the said Jefferson Davis Rand and at the hands of the said
+David Abercrombie Ritter ..." and "... the said Jefferson Davis Rand
+and the said David Abercrombie Ritter, being in mortal fear for their
+several lives, did so act in defense of their several persons..." and,
+finally, "... the said Frederick Parker Dunmore did die."
+
+The _Evening Mercury_, which sheet the said Jefferson Davis Rand had
+once cost the loss of an expensive libel-suit and exposed in certain
+journalistic malpractices verging upon blackmail, promptly burst into
+print with an indignant editorial entitled _Trial by Pistol_. The
+terms: "legalized slaughter," and "flagrant whitewash," were used, and
+mention was made of "the well known preference of a certain notorious
+private detective for the procedure of _habeas_ cadaver." The principal
+result of this outcry was to persuade an important New Belfast
+manufacturer, who had hitherto resisted Rand's sales pressure, to
+contract with the Tri-State Agency for the protection of his payroll
+deliveries.
+
+Then, at the other end of the state, the professor of Moral Science at a
+small theological seminary caught his wife in _flagrante delicto_ with
+one of the fourth-year students and opened fire upon them, at a range of
+ten feet, with a 12-gauge pump-gun. The Rosemont Bayonet Murder, already
+pretty well withered on the vine, passed quietly into limbo.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Summer, almost a month before its official opening, was already a _fait
+accompli_. The trees were in full leaf and invaded by nesting birds, the
+air was fragrant with flower scents, and the mercury column of the
+thermometer was stretching itself up toward the ninety mark.
+
+They were all outside, where the long shadow of the Fleming house
+fell across the lawn and driveway, gathered about the five parked cars.
+The new Fleming butler, a short and somewhat globular Negro with a
+gingerbread-crust complexion and an air of affable dignity, was helping
+Pierre Jarrett and Karen Lawrence put a couple of cartons and a tall
+peach-basket into Pierre's Plymouth. Colin MacBride, a streamer of
+pipe-smoke floating back over his shoulder, was peering into his
+luggage-compartment to check the stowage of his own cargo, while his
+twelve-year-old son, Malcolm, another black Highlander like his
+father, was helping Philip Cabot carry a big laundry hamper full of
+newspaper-wrapped pistols to his Cadillac. Pierre's mother, and the
+stylish-stout Mrs. Trehearne, and Gladys Fleming, obviously detached from
+the bustle of pre-departure preparations, were standing to one side,
+talking. And Rand had finished helping Adam Trehearne pack the last
+container of his share of the Fleming collection into his car.
+
+"I see Colin's about ready to leave, and I'm in his way," Trehearne said.
+He extended his hand to Rand. "No need hashing over how we all feel about
+this. If it hadn't been for you, that offer of Kendall's would have had
+us stopped as dead as Rivers's had. Five hundred dollars deader, in
+fact."
+
+Stephen Gresham, carrying a package-filled orange crate, joined him,
+setting down his burden. His wife and daughter, with another crate
+between them, halted beside him.
+
+"Haven't you got your stuff packed yet, Jeff?" Gresham asked.
+
+"Jeff's been helping everybody else," Irene Gresham burst out. "Come on,
+everybody; let's go help Jeff pack! You're going to have dinner with us,
+aren't you, Jeff?"
+
+"Oh, sorry. I have some more details to clear up; I'm having dinner here,
+with Mrs. Fleming," Rand regretted. "I'll pack my stuff later."
+
+Mrs. Jarrett, Mrs. Trehearne, and Gladys came over; one by one the rest
+of the group converged upon them. Then, when the good-by's had been said,
+and the promises to meet again had been given, they parted. One by one
+the cars moved slowly down the driveway to the road. Only Gladys and
+Rand, standing at the foot of the front steps, and the gingerbread-brown
+butler were left.
+
+"My, my; that was some party!" the Negro chuckled, gathering up three
+empty pasteboard cartons and telescoping them together. "Dinner'll be
+ready in about half an hour, Mrs. Fleming. Shall I go mix the cocktails
+now?"
+
+"Yes; do that, Reuben. In the drawing-room." She watched the servant
+carry the discarded containers around the house, then turned to Rand.
+"You know, not the least of your capabilities is your knack of finding
+servant-replacements on short notice," she told him.
+
+"My general factotum, Buck Pendexter, is a prominent personage in New
+Belfast colored lodge circles," Rand said. "When your cook and maid quit
+on you, the day of the blow-up, all I had to do was phone him, and he did
+the rest." He got out his cigarettes, offered them, and snapped his
+lighter. "I notice you're having cocktails in the drawing-room now."
+
+"Yes. I suppose, in time, I'll stop imagining I see Fred Dunmore's blood
+on the library floor. I got used to what had happened in the gunroom last
+December. Shall we go in?" she asked, taking Rand's arm.
+
+The cocktails were waiting when they entered the drawing-room, off the
+dining-room. The butler poured for them and put the glasses and the
+shaker on a low table by a lounge.
+
+"I'm afraid dinner's going to be a little later than I said, Mrs.
+Fleming," he apologized. "Things were kind of stirred up, today, with all
+those people here."
+
+"That's all right; we can wait," she replied. "We won't need anything
+more, Reuben."
+
+Motioning Rand down on the lounge beside her, she handed him a glass and
+lifted her own.
+
+"Now," she began. "Just what sort of skulduggery has been going on? As of
+Friday, the top offer for the collection was twenty-five thousand five
+hundred, from some dealer up in Massachusetts. And then, on Saturday, you
+came bounding in with Stephen Gresham's certified check for twenty-six
+thousand. And I seem to recall that the late unlamented Rivers's offer of
+twenty-five thousand straight had them stopped. Not that I'm inclined
+to look askance at an extra five hundred--I can buy a new hat with my
+share of that, even after taxes--but I would like to know what happened.
+And I might add, that's only one of many things I'd like to know."
+
+"The client is entitled to a full report," Rand said, tasting his
+cocktail. It was a vodka Martini, and very good. "You know, none of that
+crowd are millionaires. Adam Trehearne, who's the plutocrat of the bunch,
+isn't so filthy rich he doesn't know what to do with all his money--what
+the tax-collectors leave of it--and the rest of them have to figure
+pretty closely. The most they could possibly scratch together was
+twenty-two thousand. So I put four thousand into the pot, myself,
+bringing the total to five hundred over the Kendall offer, and hastily
+declared the collection sold. Of course, my getting into it meant that
+much less for everybody else, but five-sixths of a collection is better
+than no pistols at all. I imagine Colin MacBride is honing up his
+_sgian-dhu_ for me because I got that big Whitneyville Walker Colt, but
+what the hell; he got the cased pair of Paterson .34's, and the Texas .40
+with the ramming-lever."
+
+"Why, I think the division was fair enough," Gladys said. "They'd agreed
+to take your valuation, hadn't they? And all that slide-rule and
+comptometer business.... But Jeff--four thousand dollars?" she queried.
+"You only got five from me, and you can't run a detective agency on old
+pistols."
+
+Rand grinned as he set down his empty glass. Gladys refilled it from the
+shaker.
+
+"My dear lady, that five thousand I unblushingly accepted from you was
+only part of it," he confessed.
+
+"There was also a fee of three thousand from Stephen Gresham, for pulling
+the bloodhounds of the D.A.'s office off his back in the matter of Arnold
+Rivers, and there was five thousand from Humphrey Goode, which I suppose
+he'll get the Premix Company to repay him, for engineering the
+suppression of a lot of facts he wanted suppressed. And, finally, my
+connection with this business brought that merger to my attention, and I
+picked up a hundred shares of Premix at 73-1/4, and now I have two
+hundred shares of Mill-Pack, worth about twenty-nine thousand, which I
+can report for my income tax as capital gains. I'd say I could afford to
+treat myself to a few old pistols for my collection."
+
+"Well!" She raised both eyebrows over that. "Don't anybody tell me crime
+doesn't pay."
+
+"Yes. In my ghoulish way, I generally manage to bear myself in mind, on
+an operation like this. I make no secret of my affection for money." He
+lifted his glass and sipped slowly. "Look here, Gladys; are you satisfied
+with the way this was handled?"
+
+She shrugged. "I should be. When I started out as Lane's blood-avenger,
+I suppose I expected things to end somewhere out of sight, in a nice,
+antiseptic death-chamber at the state penitentiary. You must admit that
+that business in the library was really bringing it home. There's no
+question that you got the man who killed Lane, and if you hadn't, I'd
+never have been at peace with myself. And I suppose all that chicanery
+afterward was necessary, too."
+
+"It was, if you wanted that merger to go through, and unless you wanted
+to see the bottom drop out of your Premix stock," Rand assured her. "If
+the true facts of Mr. Fleming's death had gotten out, there'd have been
+a simply hideous stink. The Mill-Pack people would have backed out of
+that merger like a bear out of an active bee-tree.... You know what the
+situation really was, don't you?"
+
+She shook her head. "I know Mill-Pack wanted to get control of the Premix
+Company, and Lane refused to go in with them. I don't fully understand
+his reasons, though."
+
+"They weren't important; they were mainly verbal, and unrelated to
+actuality," Rand said. "The important thing is that he did refuse, and
+Mill-Pack wanted that merger so badly that it could be tasted in every
+ounce of food they sold. They got Stephen Gresham to negotiate it for
+them, and he was just on the point of reporting it to be an impossibility
+when Fred Dunmore came to him with a proposition. Dunmore said he thought
+he could persuade or force Mr. Fleming to consent, and he wanted a
+contract guaranteeing him a vice-presidency with Mill-Pack, at forty
+thousand a year, if and when the merger was accomplished. The contract
+was duly signed about the first of last November."
+
+"Well, good Lord!" Gladys Fleming's eyes widened. "When did you hear
+about that?"
+
+"I got that out of Gresham, a couple of days after the blow-up, when it
+was too late to be of any use to me," Rand said. "If I'd known it from
+the beginning, it might have saved me some work. Not much, though.
+Gresham was just as badly scared about the facts coming out as Goode was.
+I can't prove collusion between him and Goode, but Gresham was helping
+spread the suicide story, too."
+
+"Nice friends Lane had! But didn't anybody think there was something odd
+about that accident, immediately after that contract was signed?"
+
+"Of course they did, but try and get them to admit it, even to
+themselves. Nobody likes to think that the new vice president of the
+company murdered his way into the position. So everybody assumed the
+attitudes of the three Japanese monkeys, and made respectable noises
+about what a great loss Mr. Fleming was to the business world, and how
+lucky Dunmore was that he had that contract."
+
+She looked at him inquiringly for a moment. "Jeff, I want you to tell me
+exactly how everything happened," she said. "I think I have a right to
+know."
+
+"Yes, you have," he agreed. "I'll tell you the whole thing, what I
+actually know, and what I was forced to guess at:
+
+"When this merger idea first took shape, last summer, Dunmore saw how
+unalterably opposed to it Mr. Fleming was, and he began wishing him out
+of the way. Some time later, he decided to do something about it. I
+suppose Anton Varcek gave him the idea, in the first place, with his
+jabber about the danger of a firearms accident. Dunmore decided he'd fix
+one up for Mr. Fleming. First of all, he'd need a firearm, collector's
+type and in good working order. It couldn't be one of the guns in the
+collection. He'd have to keep it loaded all the time, waiting for an
+opportunity to use it; he couldn't take a weapon out of the collection,
+because it would be missed, and he couldn't load one and hang it up
+again, because that would be discovered. So he had to get one of his own,
+and he got it from Arnold Rivers."
+
+"You know that? I mean, that's not just a guess?"
+
+"I know it. The gun he got from Rivers was a .36 Colt, 1860 Navy-model,
+serial number 2444," Rand told her. "Rivers had that gun last summer. He
+had it refinished by a gunsmith named Umholtz. After Umholtz refinished
+it, the gun was in Rivers's shop until November of last year, when it was
+sold by Rivers personally. And that was the revolver that was found in
+Lane Fleming's hand, and the one I got from the coroner, with a letter
+vouching for the fact that it had been so found."
+
+He finished his cocktail. Gladys picked up the shaker mechanically and
+refilled his glass.
+
+"Now we have Dunmore with this .36 Colt, loaded with powder, caps and
+bullets from the ammunition supply in the gunroom, waiting for a chance
+to use it. And also, he has this Mill-Pack contract in his safe deposit
+box at the bank. That takes care of the weapon and the motive; only the
+opportunity is needed, and that came on the 22nd of December, when Mr.
+Fleming brought home that Confederate Leech & Rigdon .36 he had just
+bought. It was just a piece of luck that both revolvers were alike in
+caliber and general type, but it wouldn't have made a lot of difference.
+Nobody was paying much attention to details, and Dunmore was on the scene
+to misdirect any attention anybody would pay to anything.
+
+"Now, we come to the mechanics of the thing; the _modus operandi_, or,
+as it is professionally known, the M.O. You remember what happened that
+evening. Nelda had gone out. You and Geraldine were listening to the
+radio in the parlor, over there. Varcek had gone up to his lab. Mr.
+Fleming was alone in the gunroom, working on his new revolver. And Fred
+Dunmore said he was going to take a bath. What he did, of course, was to
+draw a tub full of water, undress, put on his bathrobe and slippers, hide
+the .36 Colt under the bathrobe, and then go across the hall to the
+gunroom, where he found Mr. Fleming sitting on that cobbler's bench,
+putting the finishing touches on the Leech & Rigdon. So he fired at close
+range, wiped the prints off the Colt with an oily rag, put it in Lane
+Fleming's right hand, put the rag in his left, grabbed up the Leech &
+Rigdon, and scuttled back to his bathroom, deadlatching and shutting the
+gunroom door as he went out. This last, of course, was a delaying tactic,
+to give him time to establish his bathtub alibi."
+
+He lifted the cocktail glass to his lips. These vodka Martinis were
+strong, and three of them before dinner was leaning way over backward
+maintaining the tradition of the hard-drinking private eye, but Gladys
+was working on her third, and no client was going to drink him under.
+
+"So, in the privacy of his bathroom, he kicked out of his slippers, threw
+off his robe, hid the Leech & Rigdon, probably in a space between the tub
+and the wall that I found while we were searching the house, the night
+before the shooting of Dunmore, and jumped into the tub, there to await
+developments. As soon as he heard Varcek's uproar in the hall, he could
+emerge, dripping bathwater and innocence, to find out what the fuss was
+all about.... Do you know anything about something called General
+Semantics?" he asked suddenly.
+
+"Yes. Before I married Lane, I went around with a radio ad-writer," she
+told him. "He was a nice boy, but he'd get drunker than a boiled owl
+about once a month, and weep about his crimes against sanity and meaning.
+He'd recite long excerpts from his professional creations, and show how
+he had been deliberately objectifying words and identifying them with the
+things for which they stood, and confusing orders of abstraction, and
+juggling multiordinal meanings. He was going to lend me his Koran, a book
+called _Science and Sanity_, and then he took a job with an ad agency in
+Chicago, and I got married, and--"
+
+Rand nodded. "Then you realize that the word is not the thing spoken of,
+and that the inference is not the description, and that we cannot know
+'all' about anything. Etcetera," he added hastily, like a Papist signing
+himself with the Cross. "Well, some considerable disregard of these
+principles seems to have existed in this case. Dunmore is seen in a
+bathrobe, his feet bare and making wet tracks on the floor, his hair wet,
+etcetera. Straightaway, one and all appear to have assumed that he was in
+the tub, splashing soapsuds around, while Lane Fleming was being shot.
+And Anton Varcek, who can be taken as an example of what S. I. Hayakawa
+was talking about when he spoke of people behaving like scientists
+inside but not outside their laboratories, saw Lane Fleming dead, with
+an object labeled 'revolver' in his hand, and, because of his verbal
+identifications and semantic reactions, immediately included the
+inference of an accident in his description of what he had seen. That was
+just an extra dividend of luck for Dunmore; it got the whole crowd of
+you thinking in terms of accidental shooting.
+
+"Well, from there out, everything would have been a wonderful success for
+Dunmore, except for one thing. Arnold Rivers must have heard, somehow,
+that Lane Fleming had been shot with a Confederate .36 that he'd bought
+somewhere that day, and that the revolver was in the hands of this
+coroner of yours. So Arnold, with his big chisel well ground, went to see
+if he could manage to get it out of the coroner for a few dollars. And
+when he saw it, lo! it was the .36 Colt that he'd sold to Dunmore about
+a month before."
+
+Gladys set down her glass. "So!" she said. "Things begin to explain
+themselves!"
+
+"You may say so, indeed," Rand told her. "And what do you suppose Rivers
+did with this little item of information? Why, as nearly as I can
+reconstruct it, he did a very foolish thing. He tried to blackmail a man
+who had committed a murder. He told Fred Dunmore he'd keep his mouth shut
+about the .36 Colt, if Dunmore would get him the Fleming collection. He
+wanted that instead of cash, because he could get more out of it, in a
+few years, than Dunmore could ever scrape, and in the meantime, the
+prestige of handling that collection would go a long way toward repairing
+his rather dilapidated reputation. Fred should have bumped him off, right
+then; it would have been the cheapest and easiest way out, and he'd
+probably be alive and uncaught today if he had. But he was willing to pay
+ten thousand dollars to save himself the trouble, and that's what he told
+you Rivers had offered for the collection. The ten thousand Dunmore told
+you Rivers was willing to pay was really the ten thousand he was willing
+to pay, himself, to keep Rivers quiet.
+
+"Then I was introduced into the picture, and, as you know, one of my
+first acts was to go to Rivers's shop and sneer scornfully at Rivers's
+supposed offer of ten thousand. And, right away, Rivers upped it to
+twenty-five thousand. You'll recall, no doubt, that Mr. Fleming had a
+life-insurance policy, one of these partnership mutual policies, which
+gave both Dunmore and Varcek exactly twenty-five thousand apiece. I
+assume that Rivers had found out about that.
+
+"I thought, at the time, that it was peculiar that Rivers would jump his
+own offer up, without knowing what anybody else was offering for the
+collection. I see, now, that it wasn't his own money he was being so
+generous with. And there was another incident, while I was at Rivers's
+shop, that piqued my curiosity. Rivers had in his shop a .36 Leech &
+Rigdon revolver, and I had been informed that it was a revolver of that
+type that Mr. Fleming had brought home the evening he was killed. I
+thought at the time that it was curious that two Confederate arms of the
+same type and make should show up this far north, but my main idea in
+buying it was the possibility that I might use it, in some way as
+circumstances would permit, to throw a scare into somebody. Rivers was
+quite willing to let me have it until he found out that I would be
+staying at this house, and then he tried to back out of the sale and
+offered me seventy-five dollars' credit on anything else in the shop, if
+I'd return it to him. Well, I'd known that Mr. Fleming had been about to
+start suit against Rivers over a crooked deal Rivers had put over on him,
+and I knew that if Mr. Fleming's death had been murder, there had been a
+substitution of revolvers. So I showed the gun I'd bought from Rivers to
+Philip Cabot, who had seen the revolver Mr. Fleming had bought, and he
+recognized it. It hasn't been established just how Rivers got the Leech
+& Rigdon, and never will be; the only people who knew were Rivers and
+Dunmore, and both are in the proverbial class of non-talebearers. I
+assume that Dunmore gave it to Rivers as a sort of down payment on
+Rivers's silence, and to get rid of it.
+
+"Well, you remember Dunmore's angry incredulity when I told him that
+Rivers was offering twenty-five thousand instead of ten thousand. One
+would have thought, on the face of it, that he would have been glad;
+as Nelda's husband, he would share in the higher price being paid for the
+collection. But when you realize that Rivers was buying the collection
+out of Dunmore's pocket, his reaction becomes quite understandable. I
+daresay I signed Arnold Rivers's death-warrant, right there."
+
+"I'll bet your conscience bothers you about that," Gladys remarked.
+
+"Oh, sure; it's been gnawing hell out of me, ever since," Rand told her
+cheerfully. "But, right away, Dunmore decided to kill Rivers. He called
+him on the phone as soon as he left the table--here I'm speaking by the
+book; I walked in on him, in the gunroom, as he was completing the call,
+though I didn't know it at the time--and arranged to see him that
+evening. Probably to devise ways and means of dealing with the Jeff Rand
+menace, for an ostensible reason.
+
+"So that night, Dunmore killed Rivers, with a bayonet. And here we have
+some more Aristotelian confusion of orders of abstraction. The bayonet
+is defined, verbally, as a 'soldier's weapon,' so Farnsworth and Mick
+McKenna and the rest of them bemused themselves with suspects like
+Stephen Gresham and Pierre Jarrett, and ignored Dunmore, who'd never had
+an hour's military training in his life. I'd like to check up on what
+picture-shows Dunmore had been seeing in the week or so before the
+killing. I'll bet anything he'd been to one of these South-Pacific
+banzai-operas. And speaking of confusing orders of abstraction, Mick
+McKenna and his merry men pulled a classic in that line. They saw
+Dunmore's automobile, verbally defined as a 'gray Plymouth coupé' in
+Rivers's drive at the estimated time of the murder. Pierre Jarrett has
+a car of that sort, so they included the inferential idea of Pierre
+Jarrett's ownership of the car so described.
+
+"Well, that's about all there is to it. Of course, I showed Fred Dunmore
+the Leech & Rigdon, and told him it was the gun I'd gotten from the
+coroner. That was all he needed to tell him that I was onto the murder,
+and probably onto him as the murderer. But he had evidently assumed that
+already; that was after he'd assembled my .38 and that .25 automatic, and
+was planning to double-kill me and Anton Varcek. At that, he'd have
+probably killed me, if I hadn't been wearing that bulletproof vest of
+McKenna's. I owe Mick for my life; I'll have to buy him a drink,
+sometime, to square that."
+
+"Well, how about Walters, and the pistols he stole?" Gladys asked.
+"Didn't that have anything to do with it?"
+
+"No. It was a result of Mr. Fleming's death, of course. I understand that
+the situation here had deteriorated rather abruptly after Mr. Fleming's
+death. Walters was about fed up on the way things were here, and he was
+going to hand in his notice. Then he decided that he ought to have a
+stake to tide him over till he could get another buttling job, so he
+started higrading the collection."
+
+Gladys nodded. "I suppose he decided, after Lane's death, that he didn't
+owe anybody here anything. Too bad he didn't wait, though. The situation
+has remedied itself, and that's something else I owe you."
+
+"Yes? I noticed that there was nobody here but you," Rand mentioned.
+
+"Oh, Anton's gone to New York. The Rockefeller Foundation is financing
+the major part of his research work, and he's well enough off to finance
+the rest himself. Geraldine went with him. Nelda is still recuperating
+from the shock of her sudden bereavement at a high-priced sanatorium--I
+understand there's a very good-looking young doctor there. And she's
+been talking about going to New York herself, in order, as she puts it,
+to lead her own life. I don't know whether she was afraid I'd be a
+restraining influence, or a dangerous competitor, but she feels that her
+own life could be best led away from here." She set down her glass and
+leaned back comfortably. "Peace, it's wonderful!"
+
+Reuben, the gingerbread butler, appeared in the dining-room doorway.
+"Dinner's served now, Mrs. Fleming," he announced.
+
+Rand rose, and Gladys took his arm; together, they went into the
+dining-room.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Murder in the Gunroom, by Henry Beam Piper
+
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+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Murder in the Gunroom, by Henry Beam Piper
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Murder in the Gunroom
+
+Author: Henry Beam Piper
+
+Release Date: February 26, 2006 [EBook #17866]
+Last updated: January 27, 2009
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MURDER IN THE GUNROOM ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
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+</pre>
+
+
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+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<h1>MURDER IN THE GUNROOM</h1>
+
+<h2>By H. BEAM PIPER</h2>
+
+
+<h4>NEW YORK<br />
+<i>Alfred A. Knopf</i> 1953<br />
+FIRST EDITION</h4>
+
+
+
+<h4>TO<br /><i>Colonel Henry W. Shoemaker</i><br />
+ an old and valued friend, who was<br />
+promised this dedication, with an entirely different novel in mind, twenty-two years ago.
+</h4>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p><i>The Lane Fleming collection of early pistols and revolvers was one of
+the best in the country. When Fleming was found dead on the floor of
+his locked gunroom, a Confederate-made Colt-type percussion .36 revolver
+in his hand, the coroner's verdict was "death by accident." But Gladys
+Fleming had her doubts. Enough at any rate to engage Colonel Jefferson
+Davis Rand&mdash;better known just as Jeff&mdash;private detective and a
+pistol-collector himself, to catalogue, appraise, and negotiate the
+sale of her late husband's collection.</i></p>
+
+<p><i>There were a number of people who had wanted the collection. The
+question was: had anyone wanted it badly enough to kill Fleming? And if
+so, how had he done it? Here is a mystery, told against the fascinating
+background of old guns and gun-collecting, which is rapid-fire without
+being hysterical, exciting without losing its contact with reason, and
+which introduces a personable and intelligent new private detective. It
+is a story that will keep your nerves on a hair trigger even if you don't
+know the difference between a cased pair of Paterson .34's and a Texas
+.40 with a ramming-lever.</i></p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+
+<!-- Autogenerated TOC. Modify or delete as required. -->
+
+<h3>CONTENTS</h3>
+<p>
+
+<a href="#CHAPTER_1">CHAPTER 1</a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_2">CHAPTER 2</a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_3">CHAPTER 3</a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_4">CHAPTER 4</a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_5">CHAPTER 5</a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_6">CHAPTER 6</a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_7">CHAPTER 7</a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_8">CHAPTER 8</a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_9">CHAPTER 9</a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_10">CHAPTER 10</a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_11">CHAPTER 11</a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_12">CHAPTER 12</a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_13">CHAPTER 13</a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_14">CHAPTER 14</a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_15">CHAPTER 15</a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_16">CHAPTER 16</a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_17">CHAPTER 17</a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_18">CHAPTER 18</a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_19">CHAPTER 19</a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_20">CHAPTER 20</a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_21">CHAPTER 21</a><br />
+</p>
+<!-- End Autogenerated TOC. -->
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_1" id="CHAPTER_1"></a>CHAPTER 1</h2>
+
+
+<p>It was hard to judge Jeff Rand's age from his appearance; he was
+certainly over thirty and considerably under fifty. He looked hard and
+fit, like a man who could be a serviceable friend or a particularly
+unpleasant enemy. Women instinctively suspected that he would make a
+most satisfying lover. One might have taken him for a successful lawyer
+(he had studied law, years ago), or a military officer in mufti (he still
+had a Reserve colonelcy, and used the title occasionally, to impress
+people who he thought needed impressing), or a prosperous businessman,
+as he usually thought of himself. Most of all, he looked like King
+Charles II of England anachronistically clad in a Brooks Brothers suit.</p>
+
+<p>At the moment, he was looking rather like King Charles II being bothered
+by one of his mistresses who wanted a peerage for her husband.</p>
+
+<p>"But, Mrs. Fleming," he was expostulating. "There surely must be somebody
+else.... After all, you'll have to admit that this isn't the sort of work
+this agency handles."</p>
+
+<p>The would-be client released a series of smoke-rings and watched them
+float up toward the air-outlet at the office ceiling. It spoke well for
+Rand's ability to subordinate esthetic to business considerations that he
+was trying to give her a courteous and humane brush-off. She made even
+the Petty and Varga girls seem credible. Her color-scheme was blue and
+gold; blue eyes, and a blue tailored outfit that would have looked severe
+on a less curvate figure, and a charmingly absurd little blue hat perched
+on a mass of golden hair. If Rand had been Charles II, she could have
+walked out of there with a duchess's coronet, and Nell Gwyn would have
+been back selling oranges.</p>
+
+<p>"Why isn't it?" she countered. "Your door's marked <i>Tri-State Detective
+Agency, Jefferson Davis Rand, Investigation and Protection</i>. Well, I want
+to know how much the collection's worth, and who'll pay the closest to
+it. That's investigation, isn't it? And I want protection from being
+swindled. And don't tell me you can't do it. You're a pistol-collector,
+yourself; you have one of the best small collections in the state. And
+you're a recognized authority on early pistols; I've read some of your
+articles in the <i>Rifleman</i>. If you can't handle this, I don't know who
+can."</p>
+
+<p>Rand's frown deepened. He wondered how much Gladys Fleming knew about the
+principles of General Semantics. Even if she didn't know anything, she
+was still edging him into an untenable position. He hastily shifted from
+the attempt to identify his business with the label, "private detective
+agency."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, here, Mrs. Fleming," he explained. "My business, including
+armed-guard and protected-delivery service, and general investigation
+and protection work, requires some personal supervision, but none of
+it demands my exclusive attention. Now, if you wanted some routine
+investigation made, I could turn it over to my staff, maybe put two or
+three men to work on it. But there's nothing about this business of yours
+that I could delegate to anybody; I'd have to do it all myself, at the
+expense of neglecting the rest of my business. Now, I could do what you
+want done, but it would cost you three or four times what you'd gain by
+retaining me."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, let me decide that, Colonel," she replied. "How much would you
+have to have?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, this collection of your late husband's consists of some
+twenty-five hundred pistols and revolvers, all types and periods," Rand
+said. "You want me to catalogue it, appraise each item, issue lists, and
+negotiate with prospective buyers. The cataloguing and appraisal alone
+would take from a week to ten days, and it would be a couple more weeks
+until a satisfactory sale could be arranged. Why, say five thousand
+dollars; a thousand as a retainer and the rest on completion."</p>
+
+<p>That, he thought, would settle that. He was expecting an indignant
+outcry, and hardened his heart, like Pharaoh. Instead, Gladys Fleming
+nodded equably.</p>
+
+<p>"That seems reasonable enough, Colonel Rand, considering that you'd have
+to be staying with us at Rosemont, away from your office," she agreed.
+"I'll give you a check for the thousand now, with a letter of
+authorization."</p>
+
+<p>Rand nodded in return. Being thoroughly conscious of the fact that
+he could only know a thin film of the events on the surface of any
+situation, he was not easily surprised.</p>
+
+<p>"Very well," he said. "You've hired an arms-expert. I'll be in Rosemont
+some time tomorrow afternoon. Now, who are these prospective purchasers
+you mentioned, and just how prospective, in terms of United States
+currency, are they?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, for one, there's Arnold Rivers; he's offering ten thousand for the
+collection. I suppose you know of him; he has an antique-arms business at
+Rosemont."</p>
+
+<p>"I've done some business with him," Rand admitted. "Who else?"</p>
+
+<p>"There's a commission-dealer named Carl Gwinnett, who wants to handle
+the collection for us, for twenty per cent. I'm told that that isn't an
+unusually exorbitant commission, but I'm not exactly crazy about the
+idea."</p>
+
+<p>"You shouldn't be, if you want your money in a hurry," Rand told her.
+"He'd take at least five years to get everything sold. He wouldn't dump
+the whole collection on the market at once, upset prices, and spoil his
+future business. You know, two thousand five hundred pistols of the sort
+Mr. Fleming had, coming on the market in a lot, could do just that. The
+old-arms market isn't so large that it couldn't be easily saturated."</p>
+
+<p>"That's what I'd been thinking.... And then, there are some private
+collectors, mostly friends of Lane's&mdash;Mr. Fleming's&mdash;who are talking
+about forming a pool to buy the collection for distribution among
+themselves," she continued.</p>
+
+<p>"That's more like it," Rand approved. "If they can raise enough money
+among them, that is. They won't want the stuff for resale, and they may
+pay something resembling a decent price. Who are they?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Stephen Gresham appears to be the leading spirit," she said. "The
+corporation lawyer, you know. Then, there is a Mr. Trehearne, and a Mr.
+MacBride, and Philip Cabot, and one or two others."</p>
+
+<p>"I know Gresham and Cabot," Rand said. "They're both friends of mine, and
+I have an account with Cabot, Joyner &amp; Teale, Cabot's brokerage firm.
+I've corresponded with MacBride; he specializes in Colts.... You're the
+sole owner, I take it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, no." She paused, picking her words carefully. "We may just run
+into a little trouble, there. You see, the collection is part of the
+residue of the estate, left equally to myself and my two stepdaughters,
+Nelda Dunmore and Geraldine Varcek. You understand, Mr. Fleming and I
+were married in 1941; his first wife died fifteen years before."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, your stepdaughters, now; would they also be my clients?"</p>
+
+<p>"Good Lord, no!" That amused her considerably more than it did Rand.
+"Of course," she continued, "they're just as interested in selling the
+collection for the best possible price, but beyond that, there may be a
+slight divergence of opinion. For instance, Nelda's husband, Fred
+Dunmore, has been insisting that we let him handle the sale of the
+pistols, on the grounds that he is something he calls a businessman.
+Nelda supports him in this. It was Fred who got this ten-thousand-dollar
+offer from Rivers. Personally, I think Rivers is playing him for a
+sucker. Outside his own line, Fred is an awful innocent, and I've never
+trusted this man Rivers. Lane had some trouble with him, just before ..."</p>
+
+<p>"Arnold Rivers," Rand said, when it was evident that she was not going
+to continue, "has the reputation, among collectors, of being the biggest
+crook in the old-gun racket, a reputation he seems determined to live
+up&mdash;or down&mdash;to. But here; if your stepdaughters are co-owners, what's
+my status? What authority, if any, have I to do any negotiating?"</p>
+
+<p>Gladys Fleming laughed musically. "That, my dear Colonel, is where you
+earn your fee," she told him. "Actually, it won't be as hard as it looks.
+If Nelda gives you any argument, you can count on Geraldine to take your
+side as a matter of principle; if Geraldine objects first, Nelda will
+help you steam-roll her into line. Fred Dunmore is accustomed to dealing
+with a lot of yes-men at the plant; you shouldn't have any trouble
+shouting him down. Anton Varcek won't be interested, one way or another;
+he has what amounts to a pathological phobia about firearms of any sort.
+And Humphrey Goode, our attorney, who's executor of the estate, will
+welcome you with open arms, once he finds out what you want to do. That
+collection has him talking to himself, already. Look; if you come out
+to our happy home in the early afternoon, before Fred and Anton get back
+from the plant, we ought to ram through some sort of agreement with
+Geraldine and Nelda."</p>
+
+<p>"You and whoever else sides with me will be a majority," Rand considered.
+"Of course, the other one may pull a Gromyko on us, but ... I think I'll
+talk to Goode, first."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. That would be smart," Gladys Fleming agreed. "After all, he's
+responsible for selling the collection." She crossed to the desk and sat
+down in Rand's chair while she wrote out the check and a short letter of
+authorization, then she returned to her own seat.</p>
+
+<p>"There's another thing," she continued, lighting a fresh cigarette.
+"Because of the manner of Mr. Fleming's death, the girls have a horror of
+the collection almost&mdash;but not quite&mdash;as strong as their desire to get
+the best possible price for it."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. I'd heard that Mr. Fleming had been killed in a firearms accident,
+last November," Rand mentioned.</p>
+
+<p>"It was with one of his collection-pieces," the widow replied. "One
+he'd bought just that day; a Confederate-made Colt-type percussion .36
+revolver. He'd brought it home with him, simply delighted with it, and
+started cleaning it at once. He could hardly wait until dinner was over
+to get back to work on it.</p>
+
+<p>"We'd finished dinner about seven, or a little after. At about half-past,
+Nelda went out somewhere in the coup&eacute;. Anton had gone up to his
+laboratory, in the attic&mdash;he's one of these fortunates whose work is also
+his hobby; he's a biochemist and dietitian&mdash;and Lane was in the gunroom,
+on the second floor, working on his new revolver. Fred Dunmore was having
+a bath, and Geraldine and I had taken our coffee into the east parlor.
+Geraldine put on the radio, and we were listening to it.</p>
+
+<p>"It must have been about 7:47 or 7:48, because the program had changed
+and the first commercial was just over, when we heard a loud noise from
+somewhere upstairs. Neither of us thought of a shot; my own first idea
+was of a door slamming. Then, about five minutes later, we heard Anton,
+in the upstairs hall, pounding on a door, and shouting: 'Lane! Lane! Are
+you all right?' We ran up the front stairway, and found Anton, in his
+rubber lab-apron, and Fred, in a bathrobe, and barefooted, standing
+outside the gunroom door. The door was locked, and that in itself was
+unusual; there's a Yale lock on it, but nobody ever used it.</p>
+
+<p>"For a minute or so, we just stood there. Anton was explaining that he
+had heard a shot and that nobody in the gunroom answered. Geraldine told
+him, rather impatiently, to go down to the library and up the spiral. You
+see," she explained, "the library is directly under the gunroom, and
+there's a spiral stairway connecting the two rooms. So Anton went
+downstairs and we stood waiting in the hall. Fred was shivering in his
+bathrobe; he said he'd just jumped out of the bathtub, and he had
+nothing on under it. After a while, Anton opened the gunroom door from
+the inside, and stood in the doorway, blocking it. He said: 'You'd better
+not come in. There's been an accident, but it's too late to do anything.
+Lane's shot himself with one of those damned pistols; I always knew
+something like this would happen.'</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I simply elbowed him out of the way and went in, and the others
+followed me. By this time, the uproar had penetrated to the rear of the
+house, and the servants&mdash;Walters, the butler, and Mrs. Horder, the
+cook&mdash;had joined us. We found Lane inside, lying on the floor, shot
+through the forehead. Of course, he was dead. He'd been sitting on one of
+these old cobblers' benches of the sort that used to be all the thing for
+cocktail-tables; he had his tools and polish and oil and rags on it. He'd
+fallen off it to one side and was lying beside it. He had a revolver in
+his right hand, and an oily rag in his left."</p>
+
+<p>"Was it the revolver he'd brought home with him?" Rand asked.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know," she replied. "He showed me this Confederate revolver when
+he came home, but it was dirty and dusty, and I didn't touch it. And I
+didn't look closely at the one he had in his hand when he was ... on the
+floor. It was about the same size and design; that's all I could swear
+to." She continued: "We had something of an argument about what to do.
+Walters, the butler, offered to call the police. He's English, and his
+mind seems to run naturally to due process of law. Fred and Anton both
+howled that proposal down; they wanted no part of the police. At the
+same time, Geraldine was going into hysterics, and I was trying to get
+her quieted down. I took her to her room and gave her a couple of
+sleeping-pills, and then went back to the gunroom. While I was gone, it
+seems that Anton had called our family doctor, Dr. Yardman, and then Fred
+called Humphrey Goode, our lawyer. Goode lives next door to us, about two
+hundred yards away, so he arrived almost at once. When the doctor came,
+he called the coroner, and when he arrived, about an hour later, they all
+went into a huddle and decided that it was an obvious accident and that
+no inquest would be necessary. Then somebody, I'm not sure who, called an
+undertaker. It was past eleven when he arrived, and for once, Nelda got
+home early. She was just coming in while they were carrying Lane out in a
+basket. You can imagine how horrible that was for her; it was days before
+she was over the shock. So she'll be just as glad as anybody to see the
+last of the pistol-collection."</p>
+
+<p>Through the recital, Rand had sat silently, toying with the ivory-handled
+Italian Fascist dagger-of-honor that was doing duty as a letter-opener on
+his desk. Gladys Fleming wasn't, he was sure, indulging in any
+masochistic self-harrowing; neither, he thought, was she talking to
+relieve her mind. Once or twice there had been a small catch in her
+voice, but otherwise the narration had been a piece of straight
+reporting, neither callous nor emotional. Good reporting, too; carefully
+detailed. There had been one or two inclusions of inferential matter in
+the guise of description, but that was to be looked for and discounted.
+And she had remembered, at the end, to include her ostensible reason for
+telling the story.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, it must have been dreadful," he sympathized. "Odd, though, that an
+old hand with guns like Mr. Fleming would have an accident like that. I
+met him, once or twice, and was at your home to see his collection, a
+couple of years ago. He impressed me as knowing firearms pretty
+thoroughly.... Well, you can look for me tomorrow, say around two. In
+the meantime, I'll see Goode, and also Gresham and Arnold Rivers."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_2" id="CHAPTER_2"></a>CHAPTER 2</h2>
+
+
+<p>After ushering his client out the hall door and closing it behind her,
+Rand turned and said:</p>
+
+<p>"All right, Kathie, or Dave; whoever's out there. Come on in."</p>
+
+<p>Then he went to his desk and reached under it, snapping off a switch.
+As he straightened, the door from the reception-office opened and
+his secretary, Kathie O'Grady, entered, loading a cigarette into an
+eight-inch amber holder. She was a handsome woman, built on the generous
+lines of a Renaissance goddess; none of the Renaissance masters, however,
+had ever employed a model so strikingly Hibernian. She had blue eyes, and
+a fair, highly-colored complexion; she wore green, which went well with
+her flaming red hair, and a good deal of gold costume-jewelry.</p>
+
+<p>Behind her came Dave Ritter. He was Rand's assistant, and also Kathie's
+lover. He was five or six years older than his employer, and slightly
+built. His hair, fighting a stubborn rearguard action against baldness,
+was an indeterminate mousy gray-brown. It was one of his professional
+assets that nobody ever noticed him, not even in a crowd of one; when he
+wanted it to, his thin face could assume the weary, baffled expression of
+a middle-aged book-keeper with a wife and four children on fifty dollars
+a week. Actually, he drew three times that much, had no wife, admitted to
+no children. During the war, he and Kathie had kept the Tri-State Agency
+in something better than a state of suspended animation while Rand had
+been in the Army.</p>
+
+<p>Ritter fumbled a Camel out of his shirt pocket and made a beeline for the
+desk, appropriating Rand's lighter and sharing the flame with Kathie.</p>
+
+<p>"You know, Jeff," he said, "one of the reasons why this agency never made
+any money while you were away was that I never had the unadulterated
+insolence to ask the kind of fees you do. I was listening in on the
+extension in the file-room; I could hear Kathie damn near faint when
+you said five grand."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; five thousand dollars for appraising a collection they've been
+offered ten for, and she only has a third-interest," Kathie said,
+retracting herself into the chair lately vacated by Gladys Fleming.
+"If that makes sense, now ..."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, don't you get it, Kathleen Mavourneen?" Ritter asked. "She doesn't
+care about the pistols; she wants Jeff to find out who fixed up that
+accident for Fleming. You heard that big, long shaggy-dog story about
+exactly what happened and where everybody was supposed to have been at
+the time. I hope you got all that recorded; it was all told for a
+purpose."</p>
+
+<p>Rand had picked up the outside phone and was dialing. In a moment, a
+girl's voice answered.</p>
+
+<p>"Carter Tipton's law-office; good afternoon."</p>
+
+<p>"Hello, Rheba; is Tip available?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, hello, Jeff. Just a sec; I'll see." She buzzed another phone. "Jeff
+Rand on the line," she announced.</p>
+
+<p>A clear, slightly Harvard-accented male voice took over.</p>
+
+<p>"Hello, Jeff. Now what sort of malfeasance have you committed?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing, so far&mdash;cross my fingers," Rand replied. "I just want a little
+information. Are you busy?... Okay, I'll be up directly."</p>
+
+<p>He replaced the phone and turned to his disciples.</p>
+
+<p>"Our client," he said, "wants two jobs done on one fee. Getting the
+pistol-collection sold is one job. Exploring the whys and wherefores of
+that quote accident unquote is the other. She has a hunch, and probably
+nothing much better, that there's something sour about the accident. She
+expects me to find evidence to that effect while I'm at Rosemont, going
+over the collection. I'm not excluding other possibilities, but I'll work
+on that line until and unless I find out differently. Five thousand
+should cover both jobs."</p>
+
+<p>"You think that's how it is?" Kathie asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Look, Kathie. I got just as far in Arithmetic, at school, as you did,
+and I suspect that Mrs. Fleming got at least as far as long division,
+herself. For reasons I stated, I simply couldn't have handled that
+collection business for anything like a reasonable fee, so I told her
+five thousand, thinking that would stop her. When it didn't, I knew she
+had something else in mind, and when she went into all that detail about
+the death of her husband, she as good as told me that was what it was.
+Now I'm sorry I didn't say ten thousand; I think she'd have bought it at
+that price just as cheerfully. She thinks Lane Fleming was murdered.
+Well, on the face of what she told me, so do I."</p>
+
+<p>"All right, Professor; expound," Ritter said.</p>
+
+<p>"You heard what he was supposed to have shot himself with," Rand began.
+"A Colt-type percussion revolver. You know what they're like. And I know
+enough about Lane Fleming to know how much experience he had with old
+arms. I can't believe that he'd buy a pistol without carefully examining
+it, and I can't believe that he'd bring that thing home and start working
+on it without seeing the caps on the nipples and the charges in the
+chambers, if it had been loaded. And if it had been, he would have first
+taken off the caps, and then taken it apart and drawn the charges. And
+she says he started working on it as soon as he got home&mdash;presumably
+around five&mdash;and then took time out for dinner, and then went back to
+work on it, and more than half an hour later, there was a shot and he was
+killed." Rand blew a Bronx cheer. "If that accident had been the McCoy,
+it would have happened in the first five minutes after he started working
+on that pistol. No, in the first thirty seconds. And then, when they
+found him, he had the revolver in his right hand, and an oily rag in his
+left. I hope both of you noticed that little touch."</p>
+
+<p>"Yeah. When I clean a gat, I generally have it in my left hand, and clean
+with my right," Ritter said.</p>
+
+<p>"Exactly. And why do you use an oily rag?" Rand inquired.</p>
+
+<p>Ritter looked at him blankly for a half-second, then grinned ruefully.</p>
+
+<p>"Damn, I never thought of that," he admitted. "Okay, he was bumped off,
+all right."</p>
+
+<p>"But you use oily rags on guns," Kathie objected. "I've seen both of you,
+often enough."</p>
+
+<p>"When we're all through, honey," Ritter told her.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. When he brought home that revolver, it was in neglected condition,"
+Rand said. "Either surface-rusted, or filthy with gummed oil and dirt.
+Even if Mrs. Fleming hadn't mentioned that point, the length of time he
+spent cleaning it would justify such an inference. He would have taken it
+apart, down to the smallest screw, and cleaned everything carefully, and
+then put it together again, and then, when he had finished, he would have
+gone over the surface with an oiled rag, before hanging it on the wall.
+He would certainly not have surface-oiled it before removing the charges,
+if there ever were any. I assume the revolver he was found holding,
+presumably the one with which he was killed, was another one. And I would
+further assume that the killer wasn't particularly familiar with the
+subject of firearms, antique, care and maintenance of."</p>
+
+<p>"And with all the hollering and whooping and hysterics-throwing, nobody
+noticed the switch," Ritter finished. "Wonder what happened to the one he
+was really cleaning."</p>
+
+<p>"That I may possibly find out," Rand said. "The general incompetence with
+which this murder was committed gives me plenty of room to hope that it
+may still be lying around somewhere."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, have you thought that it might just be suicide?" Kathie asked.</p>
+
+<p>"I have, very briefly; I dismissed the thought, almost at once," Rand
+told her. "For two reasons. One, that if it had been suicide, Mrs.
+Fleming wouldn't want it poked into; she'd be more than willing to let it
+ride as an accident. And, two, I doubt if a man who prided himself on his
+gun-knowledge, as Fleming did, would want his self-shooting to be taken
+for an accident. I'm damn sure I wouldn't want my friends to go around
+saying: 'What a dope; didn't know it was loaded!' I doubt if he'd even
+expect people to believe that it had been an accident." He shook his
+head. "No, the only inference I can draw is that somebody murdered
+Fleming, and then faked evidence intended to indicate an accident." He
+rose. "I'll be back, in a little; think it over, while I'm gone."</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Carter Tipton had his law-office on the floor above the Tri-State
+Detective Agency. He handled all Rand's not infrequent legal
+involvements, and Rand did all his investigating and witness-chasing;
+annually, they compared books to see who owed whom how much. Tipton was
+about five years Rand's junior, and had been in the Navy during the war.
+He was frequently described as New Belfast's leading younger attorney and
+most eligible bachelor. His dark, conservatively cut clothes fitted him
+as though they had been sprayed on, he wore gold-rimmed glasses, and he
+was so freshly barbered, manicured, valeted and scrubbed as to give the
+impression that he had been born in cellophane and just unwrapped. He
+leaned back in his chair and waved his visitor to a seat.</p>
+
+<p>"Tip, do you know anything about this Fleming family, out at Rosemont?"
+Rand began, getting out his pipe and tobacco.</p>
+
+<p>"The Premix-Foods Flemings?" Tipton asked. "Yes, a little. Which one of
+them wants you to frame what on which other one?"</p>
+
+<p>"That'll do for a good, simplified description, to start with," Rand
+commented. "Why, my client is Mrs. Gladys Fleming. As to what she
+wants...."</p>
+
+<p>He told the young lawyer about his recent interview and subsequent
+conclusions.</p>
+
+<p>"So you see," he finished, "she won't commit herself, even with me. Maybe
+she thinks I have more official status, and more obligations to the
+police, than I have. Maybe she isn't sure in her own mind, and wants me
+to see, independently, if there's any smell of something dead in the
+woodpile. Or, she may think that having a private detective called in may
+throw a scare into somebody. Or maybe she thinks somebody may be fixing
+up an accident for her, next, and she wants a pistol-totin' gent in the
+house for a while. Or any combination thereof. Personally, I deplore
+these clients who hire you to do one thing and expect you to do another,
+but with five grand for sweetening, I can take them."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. You know, I've heard rumors of suicide, but this is the first whiff
+of murder I've caught." He hesitated slightly. "I must say, I'm not
+greatly surprised. Lane Fleming's death was very convenient to a number
+of people. You know about this Premix Company, don't you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Vaguely. They manufacture ready-mixed pancake flour, and ready-mixed
+ice-cream and pudding powders, and this dehydrated vegetable soup&mdash;pour
+on hot water, stir, and serve&mdash;don't they? My colored boy, Buck, got some
+of the soup, once, for an experiment. We unanimously voted not to try it
+again."</p>
+
+<p>"They put out quite a line of such godsends to the neophyte in the
+kitchen, the popularity of which is reflected in a steadily rising
+divorce-rate," Tipton said. "They advertise very extensively, including
+half an hour of tear-jerking drama on a national hookup during soap-opera
+time. Your client, the former Gladys Farrand, was on the air for Premix
+for a couple of years; that's how Lane Fleming first met her."</p>
+
+<p>"So you think some irate and dyspeptic husband went to the source of his
+woes?" Rand inquired.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, not exactly. You see, Premix is only Little Business, as the foods
+industry goes, but they have something very sweet. So sweet, in fact,
+that one of the really big fellows, National Milling &amp; Packaging, has
+been going to rather extreme lengths to effect a merger. Mill-Pack, par
+100, is quoted at around 145, and Premix, par 50, is at 75 now, and
+Mill-Pack is offering a two-for-one-share exchange, which would be a
+little less than four-for-one in value. I might add, for what it's worth,
+that this Stephen Gresham you mentioned is Mill-Pack's attorney,
+negotiator, and general Mr. Fixit; he has been trying to put over
+this merger for Mill-Pack."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll bear that in mind, too," Rand said.</p>
+
+<p>"Naturally, all this is not being shouted from the housetops," Tipton
+continued. "Fact is, it's a minor infraction of ethics for me to mention
+it to you."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll file it in the burn-box," Rand promised. "What was the matter;
+didn't Premix want to merge?"</p>
+
+<p>"Lane Fleming didn't. And since he held fifty-two per cent of the common
+stock himself, try and do anything about it."</p>
+
+<p>"Anything short of retiring Fleming to the graveyard, that is," Rand
+amended. "That would do for a murder-motive, very nicely.... What were
+Fleming's objections to the merger?"</p>
+
+<p>"Mainly sentimental. Premix was his baby, or, at least, his kid brother.
+His father started mixing pancake flour back before the First World War,
+and Lane Fleming peddled it off a spring wagon. They worked up a nice
+little local trade, and finally a state-wide wholesale business. They
+incorporated in the early twenties, and then, after the old man died,
+Lane Fleming hired an advertising agency to promote his products, and
+built up a national distribution, and took on some sidelines. Then,
+during the late Mr. Chamberlain's 'Peace in our time,' he picked up a
+refugee Czech chemist and foods-expert named Anton Varcek, who whipped
+up a lot of new products. So business got better and better, and they
+made more money to spend on advertising to get more money to buy more
+advertising to make more money, like Bill Nye's Puritans digging clams
+in the winter to get strength to hoe corn in the summer to get strength
+to dig clams in the winter.</p>
+
+<p>"So Premix became a sort of symbol of achievement to Fleming. Then, he
+was one of these old-model paternalistic employers, and he was afraid
+that if he relinquished control, a lot of his old retainers would be
+turned out to grass. And finally, he was opposed in principle to
+concentration of business ownership. He claimed it made business more
+vulnerable to government control and eventual socialization."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm not sure he didn't have something there," Rand considered. "We get
+all our corporate eggs in a few baskets, and they're that much easier for
+the planned-economy boys to grab.... Just who, on the Premix side, was in
+favor of this merger?"</p>
+
+<p>"Just about everybody but Fleming," Tipton replied. "His two sons-in-law,
+Fred Dunmore and Varcek, who are first and second vice presidents.
+Humphrey Goode, the company attorney, who doubles as board chairman.
+All the directors. All the New York banking crowd who are interested
+in Premix. And all the two-share tinymites. I don't know who inherits
+Fleming's voting interest, but I can find out for you by this time
+tomorrow."</p>
+
+<p>"Do that, Tip, and bill me for what you think finding out is worth," Rand
+said. "It'll be a novel reversal of order for you to be billing me for an
+investigation.... Now, how about the family, as distinct from the
+company?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, there's your client, Gladys Fleming. She married Lane Fleming
+about ten years ago, when she was twenty-five and he was fifty-five. In
+spite of the age difference, I understand it was a fairly happy marriage.
+Then, there are two daughters by a previous marriage, Nelda Dunmore and
+Geraldine Varcek, and their respective husbands. They all live together,
+in a big house at Rosemont. In the company, Dunmore is Sales, and Varcek
+is Production. They each have a corner of the mantle of Lane Fleming in
+one hand and a dirk in the other. Nelda and Geraldine hate each other
+like Greeks and Trojans. Nelda is the nymphomaniac sister, and Geraldine
+is the dipsomaniac. From time to time, temporary alliances get formed,
+mainly against Gladys; all of them resent the way she married herself
+into a third-interest in the estate. You're going to have yourself a
+nice, pleasant little stay in the country."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm looking forward to it." Rand grimaced. "You mentioned suicide
+rumors. Such as, and who's been spreading them?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, they are the usual bodyless voices that float about," Tipton told
+him. "Emanating, I suspect, from sources interested in shaking out the
+less sophisticated small shareholders before the merger. The story is
+always approximately the same: That Lane Fleming saw his company drifting
+reefward, was unwilling to survive the shipwreck, and performed
+<i>seppuku</i>. The family are supposed to have faked up the accident
+afterward. I dismiss the whole thing as a rather less than subtle bit of
+market-manipulation chicanery."</p>
+
+<p>"Or a smoke screen, to cover the defects in camouflaging a murder as an
+accident," Rand added.</p>
+
+<p>Tipton nodded. "That could be so, too," he agreed. "Say somebody dislikes
+the looks of that accident, and starts investigating. Then he runs into
+all this miasma of suicide rumors, and promptly shrugs the whole thing
+off. Fleming killed himself, and the family made a few alterations and
+are passing it off as an accident. The families of suicides have been
+known to do that."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. Regular defense-in-depth system; if the accident line is
+penetrated, the suicide line is back of it," Rand said. "Well, in the
+last few years, we've seen defenses in depth penetrated with monotonous
+regularity. I've jeeped through a couple, myself, to interrogate the
+surviving ex-defenders. It's all in having the guns and armor to smash
+through with."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_3" id="CHAPTER_3"></a>CHAPTER 3</h2>
+
+
+<p>Humphrey Goode was sixty-ish, short and chunky, with a fringe of
+white hair around a bald crown. His brow was corrugated with wrinkles,
+and he peered suspiciously at Rand through a pair of thick-lensed,
+black-ribboned glasses. His wide mouth curved downward at the corners
+in an expression that was probably intended to be stern and succeeded
+only in being pompous. His office was dark, and smelled of dusty books.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Rand," he began accusingly, "when your secretary called to make this
+appointment, she informed me that you had been retained by Mrs. Gladys
+Fleming."</p>
+
+<p>"That's correct." Rand slowly packed tobacco into his pipe and lit it.
+"Mrs. Fleming wants me to look after some interests of hers, and as
+you're executor of her late husband's estate, I thought I ought to talk
+to you, first of all."</p>
+
+<p>Goode's eyes narrowed behind the thick glasses.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Rand, if you're investigating the death of Lane Fleming, you're
+wasting your time and Mrs. Fleming's money," he lectured. "There is
+nothing whatever for you to find out that is not already public
+knowledge. Mr. Fleming was accidentally killed by the discharge of an old
+revolver he was cleaning. I don't know what foolish feminine impulse led
+Mrs. Fleming to employ you, but you'll do nobody any good in this matter,
+and you may do a great deal of harm."</p>
+
+<p>"Did my secretary tell you I was making an investigation?" Rand demanded
+incredulously. "She doesn't usually make mistakes of that sort."</p>
+
+<p>The wrinkles moved up Goode's brow like a battalion advancing in platoon
+front. He looked even more narrowly at Rand, his suspicion compounded
+with bewilderment.</p>
+
+<p>"Why should I investigate the death of Lane Fleming?" Rand continued.
+"As far as I know, Mrs. Fleming is satisfied that it was an accident. She
+never expressed any other belief to me. Do you think it was anything
+else?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, of course not!" Goode exclaimed. "That's just what I was telling
+you. I&mdash;" He took a fresh start. "There have been rumors&mdash;utterly without
+foundation, of course&mdash;that Mr. Fleming committed suicide. They are, I
+may say, nothing but malicious fabrications, circulated for the purpose
+of undermining public confidence in Premix Foods, Incorporated. I had
+thought that perhaps Mrs. Fleming might have heard them, and decided, on
+her own responsibility, to bring you in to scotch them; I was afraid that
+such a step might, by giving these rumors fresh currency, defeat its
+intended purpose."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, nothing of the sort!" Rand told him. "I'm not in the least
+interested in how Mr. Fleming was killed, and the question is simply
+not involved in what Mrs. Fleming wants me to do."</p>
+
+<p>He stopped there. Goode was looking at him sideways, sucking in one
+corner of his mouth and pushing out the other. It was not a facial
+contortion that impressed Rand favorably; it was too reminiscent of
+a high-school principal under whom he had suffered, years ago, in
+Vicksburg, Mississippi. Rand began to suspect that Goode might be just
+another such self-righteous, opinionated, egotistical windbag. Such men
+could be dangerous, were usually quite unscrupulous, and were almost
+always unpleasant to deal with.</p>
+
+<p>"Then why," the lawyer demanded, "did Mrs. Fleming employ you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, as you know," Rand began, "the Fleming pistol-collection, now the
+joint property of Mrs. Fleming and her two stepdaughters, is an extremely
+valuable asset. Mr. Fleming spent the better part of his life gathering
+it. At one time or another, he must have owned between four and five
+thousand different pistols and revolvers. The twenty-five hundred left to
+his heirs represent the result of a systematic policy of discriminating
+purchase, replacement of inferior items, and general improvement. It's
+one of the largest and most famous collections of its kind in the
+country."</p>
+
+<p>"Well?" Goode was completely out of his depth by now. "Surely Mrs.
+Fleming doesn't think...?"</p>
+
+<p>"Mrs. Fleming thinks that expert advice is urgently needed in disposing
+of that collection," Rand replied, carefully picking his words to fit
+what he estimated to be Goode's probable semantic reactions. "She has
+the utmost confidence in your ability and integrity, as an attorney;
+however, she realized that you could hardly describe yourself as an
+antique-arms expert. It happens that I am an expert in antique firearms,
+particularly pistols. I have a collection of my own, I am the author of
+a number of articles on the subject, and I am recognized as something
+of an authority. I know arms-values, and understand market conditions.
+Furthermore, not being a dealer, or connected with any museum, I have no
+mercenary motive for undervaluing the collection. That's all there is to
+it; Mrs. Fleming has retained me as a firearms-expert, in connection with
+the collection."</p>
+
+<p>Goode was looking at Rand as though the latter had just torn off a mask,
+revealing another and entirely different set of features underneath. The
+change seemed to be a welcome one, but he was evidently having trouble
+adjusting to it. Rand grinned inwardly; now he was going to have to find
+himself a new set of verbal labels and identifications.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Mr. Rand, that alters the situation considerably," he said, with
+noticeably less hostility. He was still a bit resentful; people had no
+right to confuse him by jumping about from one category to another, like
+that. "Now understand, I'm not trying to be offensive, but it seems a
+little unusual for a private detective also to be an authority on antique
+firearms."</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Fleming was an authority on antique firearms, and he was a
+manufacturer of foodstuffs," Rand parried, carefully staying inside
+Goode's Aristotelian system of categories and verbal identifications. "My
+own business does not occupy all my time, any more than his did, and I
+doubt if an interest in the history and development of deadly weapons is
+any more incongruous in a criminologist than in an industrialist. But if
+there's any doubt in your mind as to my qualifications, you can check
+with Colonel Taylor, at the State Museum, or with the editor of the
+<i>American Rifleman</i>."</p>
+
+<p>"I see." Goode nodded. "And as you point out, being a sort of
+non-professional expert, you should be free from mercenary bias." He
+nodded again, taking off his glasses and polishing them on an outsize
+white handkerchief. "Frankly, now that I understand your purpose, Mr.
+Rand, I must say that I am quite glad that Mrs. Fleming took this step.
+I was perplexed about how to deal with that collection. I realized that
+it was worth a great deal of money, but I haven't the vaguest idea how
+much, or how it could be sold to the best advantage.... At a rough guess,
+Mr. Rand, how much do you think it ought to bring?"</p>
+
+<p>Rand shook his head. "I only saw it twice, the last time two years ago.
+Ask me that after I've spent a day or so going over it, and I'll be able
+to give you an estimate. I will say this, though: It's probably worth a
+lot more than the ten thousand dollars Arnold Rivers has offered for it."</p>
+
+<p>That produced an unexpected effect. Goode straightened in his chair,
+gobbling in surprised indignation.</p>
+
+<p>"Arnold Rivers? Has he had the impudence to try to buy the collection?"
+he demanded. "Where did you hear that?"</p>
+
+<p>"From Mrs. Fleming. I understand he made the offer to Fred Dunmore.
+That's his business, isn't it?"</p>
+
+<p>"I believe the colloquial term is 'racket,'" Goode said. "Why, that man
+is a notorious swindler! Mr. Rand, do you know that only a week before
+his death, Mr. Fleming instructed me to bring suit against him, and also
+to secure his indictment on criminal charges of fraud?"</p>
+
+<p>"I didn't know that, but I'm not surprised," Rand answered. "What did he
+burn Fleming with?"</p>
+
+<p>"Here; I'll show you." Goode rose from his seat and went to a rank of
+steel filing-cabinets behind the desk. In a moment, he was back, with a
+large manila envelope under his arm, and a huge pistol in either hand.
+"Here, Mr. Rand," he chuckled. "We'll just test your firearms knowledge.
+What do you make of these?"</p>
+
+<p>Rand took the pistols and looked at them. They were wheel locks,
+apparently sixteenth-century South German; they were a good two feet in
+over-all length, with ball-pommels the size of oranges, and long steel
+belt-hooks. The stocks were so covered with ivory inlay that the wood
+showed only in tiny interstices; the metal-work was lavishly engraved and
+gold-inlaid. To the trigger-guards were attached tags marked <i>Fleming vs.
+Rivers</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Rand examined each pistol separately, then compared them. Finally, he
+took a six-inch rule from his pocket and made measurements, first with
+one edge and then with the other.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I'm damned," he said, laying them on the desk. "These things are
+the most complete fakes I ever saw&mdash;locks, stocks, barrels and mountings.
+They're supposed to be late sixteenth-century; I doubt if they were made
+before 1920. As far as I can see or measure, there isn't the slightest
+difference between them, except on some of the decorative inlay. The
+whole job must have been miked in ten-thousandths, and what's more,
+whoever made them used metric measurements. You'll find pairs of English
+dueling pistols as early as 1775 that are almost indistinguishable, but
+in 1575, when these things were supposed to have been made, a gunsmith
+was working fine when he was working in sixteenth-inches. They just
+didn't have the measuring instruments, at that time, to do closer work.
+I won't bother taking these things apart, but if I did, I'd bet all
+Wall Street to Junior's piggy-bank that I'd find that the screws were
+machine-threaded and the working-parts interchanged. I've heard about
+fakes like these,"&mdash;he named a famous, recently liquidated West Coast
+collection&mdash;"but I'd never hoped to see an example like this."</p>
+
+<p>Goode gave a hacking chuckle. "You'll do as an arms-expert, Mr. Rand," he
+said. "And you'd win the piggy-bank. It seems that after Mr. Fleming
+bought them, he took them apart, and found, just as you say, that the
+screw-threads had been machine-cut, and that the working-parts were
+interchangeable from one pistol to the other. There were a lot of papers
+accompanying them&mdash;I have them here&mdash;purporting to show that they had
+been sold by some Austrian nobleman, an anti-Nazi refugee, in whose
+family they had been since the reign of Maximilian II. They are, of
+course, fabrications. I looked up the family in the <i>Almanach de Gotha</i>;
+it simply never existed. At first, Mr. Fleming had been inclined to take
+the view that Rivers had been equally victimized with himself. However,
+when Rivers refused to take back the pistols and refund the purchase
+price, he altered his opinion. He placed them in my hands, instructing me
+to bring suit and also start criminal action; he was in a fearful rage
+about it, and swore that he'd drive Rivers out of business. However,
+before I could start action, Mr. Fleming was killed in that accident, and
+as he was the sole witness to the fact of the sale, and as none of the
+heirs was interested, I did nothing about it. In fact, I advised them
+that action against Rivers would cost the estate more than they could
+hope to recover in damages." He picked up one of the pistols and examined
+it. "Now, I don't know what to do about these."</p>
+
+<p>"Take them home and hang them over the mantel," Rand advised. "If I'm
+going to have anything to do with selling the collection, I don't want
+anything to do with them."</p>
+
+<p>Goode was peering at the ivory inlay on the underbelly of the stock.</p>
+
+<p>"They are beautiful, and I don't care when they were made," he said. "I
+think, if nobody else wants them, I'll do just that.... Now, Mr. Rand,
+what had you intended doing about the collection?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, that's what I came to see you about, Mr. Goode. As I understand
+it, it is you who are officially responsible for selling the collection,
+and the proceeds would be turned over to you for distribution to Mrs.
+Fleming, Mrs. Dunmore and Mrs. Varcek. Is that correct?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. The collection, although in the physical possession of Mrs.
+Fleming, is still an undistributed asset."</p>
+
+<p>"I thought so." Rand got out Gladys Fleming's letter of authorization and
+handed it to Goode. "As you'll see by that, I was retained by, and only
+by, Mrs. Fleming," he said. "I am assuming that her interests are
+identical with those of the other heirs, but I realize that this is true
+only to a very limited extent. It's my understanding that relations
+between the three ladies are not the most pleasant."</p>
+
+<p>Goode produced a short, croaking laugh. "Now there's a cautious
+understatement," he commented. "Mr. Rand, I feel that you should know
+that all three hate each other poisonously."</p>
+
+<p>"That was rather my impression. Now, I expect some trouble, from Mrs.
+Dunmore and/or Mrs. Varcek, either or both of whom are sure to accuse me
+of having been brought into this by Mrs. Fleming to help her defraud the
+others. That, of course, is not the case; they will all profit equally by
+my participation in this. But I'm going to have trouble convincing them
+of that."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. You will," Goode agreed. "Would you rather carry my authorization
+than Mrs. Fleming's?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, indeed, Mr. Goode. To tell the truth, that was why I came here,
+for one reason. You will not be obligated in any way by authorizing me
+to act as your agent&mdash;I'm getting my fee from Mrs. Fleming&mdash;but I would
+be obligated to represent her only as far as her interests did not
+improperly conflict with those of the other heirs, and that's what I
+want made clear."</p>
+
+<p>Goode favored the detective with a saurian smile. "You're not a lawyer,
+too, Mr. Rand?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I am a member of the Bar in the State of Mississippi, though I
+never practiced," Rand admitted. "Instead of opening a law-office, I went
+into the F.B.I., in 1935, and then opened a private agency a couple of
+years later. But if I had to, which God forbid, I could go home tomorrow
+and hang out my shingle."</p>
+
+<p>"You seem to have had quite an eventful career," Goode remarked, with a
+queer combination of envy and disapproval. "I understand that, until
+recently, you were an officer in the Army Intelligence, too.... I'll have
+your authorization to act for me made out immediately; to list and
+appraise the collection, and to negotiate with prospective purchasers.
+And by the way," he continued, "did I understand you to say that you had
+heard some of these silly rumors to the effect that Lane Fleming had
+committed suicide?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, that's what's always heard, under the circumstances," Rand shrugged.
+"A certain type of sensation-loving mind..."</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Rand, there is not one scintilla of truth in any of these scurrilous
+stories!" Goode declared, pumping up a fine show of indignation. "The
+Premix Company is in the best possible financial condition; a glance at
+its books, or at its last financial statement, would show that. I ought
+to know, I'm chairman of the board of directors. Just because there was
+some talk of retrenchment, shortly before Mr. Fleming's death ..."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, no responsible person pays any attention to that sort of talk," Rand
+comforted him. "My armed-guard and armored-car service brings me into
+contact with a lot of the local financial crowd. None of them is taking
+these rumors seriously."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, of course, nobody wants the responsibility of starting a panic,
+even a minor one, but people are talking, and it's hurting Premix on the
+market," Goode gloomed. "And now, people will hear of Mrs. Fleming's
+having retained you, and will assume, just as I did at first, that you
+are making some kind of an investigation. I hope you will make a prompt
+denial, if you hear any talk like that." He pressed a button on his desk.
+"And now, I'll get a letter of authorization made out for you, Mr.
+Rand ..."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_4" id="CHAPTER_4"></a>CHAPTER 4</h2>
+
+
+<p>Stephen Gresham was in his early sixties, but he could have still worn
+his World War I uniform without anything giving at the seams, and buckled
+the old Sam Browne at the same hole. As Rand entered, he rose from behind
+his desk and advanced, smiling cordially.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, hello, Jeff!" he greeted the detective, grasping his hand heartily.
+"You haven't been around for months. What have you been doing, and why
+don't you come out to Rosemont to see us? Dot and Irene were wondering
+what had become of you."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm afraid I've been neglecting too many of my old friends lately,"
+Rand admitted, sitting down and getting his pipe out. "Been busy as the
+devil. Fact is, it was business that finally brought me around here. I
+understand that you and some others are forming a pool to buy the Lane
+Fleming collection."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes!" Gresham became enthusiastic. "Want in on it? I'm sure the others
+would be glad to have you in with us. We're going to need all the money
+we can scrape together, with this damned Rivers bidding against us."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm afraid you will, at that, Stephen," Rand told him. "And not
+necessarily on account of Rivers. You see, the Fleming estate has just
+employed me to expertize the collection and handle the sale for them."
+Rand got his pipe lit and drawing properly. "I hate doing this to you,
+but you know how it is."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, of course. I should have known they'd get somebody like you in
+to sell the collection for them. Humphrey Goode isn't competent to
+handle that. What we were all afraid of was a public auction at some
+sales-gallery."</p>
+
+<p>Rand shook his head. "Worst thing they could do; a collection like
+that would go for peanuts at auction. Remember the big sales in the
+twenties?... Why, here; I'm going to be in Rosemont, staying at the
+Fleming place, working on the collection, for the next week or so. I
+suppose your crowd wouldn't want to make an offer until I have everything
+listed, but I'd like to talk to your associates, in a group, as soon as
+possible."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, we all know pretty much what's in the collection," Gresham said.
+"We were neighbors of his, and collectors are a gregarious lot. But we
+aren't anxious to make any premature offers. We don't want to offer more
+than we have to, and at the same time, we don't want to underbid and see
+the collection sold elsewhere."</p>
+
+<p>"No, of course not." Rand thought for a moment. "Tell you what; I'll give
+you and your friends the best break I can in fairness to my clients. I'm
+not obliged to call for sealed bids, or anything like that, so when I've
+heard from everybody, I'll give you a chance to bid against the highest
+offer in hand. If you want to top it, you can have the collection for any
+kind of an overbid that doesn't look too suspiciously nominal."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, Jeff, I appreciate that," Gresham said. "I think you're entirely
+within your rights, but naturally, we won't mention this outside. I can
+imagine Arnold Rivers, for instance, taking a very righteous view of such
+an arrangement."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, so can I. Of course, if he'd call me a crook, I'd take that as
+a compliment," Rand said. "I wonder if I could meet your group, say
+tomorrow evening? I want to be in a position to assure the Fleming family
+and Humphrey Goode that you're all serious and responsible."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, we're very serious about it," Gresham replied, "and I think we're
+all responsible. You can look us up, if you wish. Besides myself, there
+is Philip Cabot, of Cabot, Joyner &amp; Teale, whom you know, and Adam
+Trehearne, who's worth about a half-million in industrial shares, and
+Colin MacBride, who's vice president in charge of construction and
+maintenance for Edison-Public Power &amp; Light, at about twenty thousand a
+year, and Pierre Jarrett and his fianc&eacute;e, Karen Lawrence. Pierre was a
+Marine captain, invalided home after being wounded on Peleliu; he writes
+science-fiction for the pulps. Karen has a little general-antique
+business in Rosemont. They intend using their share of the collection,
+plus such culls and duplicates as the rest of us can consign to them, to
+go into the arms business, with a general-antique sideline, which Karen
+can manage while Pierre's writing.... Tell you what; I'll call a meeting
+at my place tomorrow evening, say at eight thirty. That suit you?"</p>
+
+<p>That, Rand agreed, would be all right. Gresham asked him how recently he
+had seen the Fleming collection.</p>
+
+<p>"About two years ago; right after I got back from Germany. You remember,
+we went there together, one evening in March."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, that's right. We didn't have time to see everything," Gresham said.
+"My God, Jeff! Twenty-five wheel locks! Ten snaphaunces. And every
+imaginable kind of flintlock&mdash;over a hundred U.S. Martials, including the
+1818 Springfield, all the S. North types, a couple of Virginia
+Manufactory models, and&mdash;he got this since the last time you saw the
+collection&mdash;a real Rappahannock Forge flintlock. And about a hundred and
+fifty Colts, all models and most variants. Remember that big Whitneyville
+Walker, in original condition? He got that one in 1924, at the Fred Hines
+sale, at the old Walpole Galleries. And seven Paterson Colts, including
+a couple of cased sets. And anything else you can think of. A Hall
+flintlock breech-loader; an Elisha Collier flintlock revolver; a pair
+of Forsythe detonator-lock pistols.... Oh, that's a collection to end
+collections."</p>
+
+<p>"By the way, Humphrey Goode showed me a pair of big ball-butt wheel
+locks, all covered with ivory inlay," Rand mentioned.</p>
+
+<p>Gresham laughed heartily. "Aren't they the damnedest ever seen, though?"
+he asked. "Made in Germany, about 1870 or '80, about the time
+arms-collecting was just getting out of the family-heirloom stage,
+wouldn't you say?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'd say made in Japan, about 1920," Rand replied. "Remember, there were
+a couple of small human figures on each pistol, a knight and a huntsman?
+Did you notice that they had slant eyes?" He stopped laughing, and looked
+at Gresham seriously. "Just how much more of that sort of thing do you
+think I'm going to have to weed out of the collection, before I can offer
+it for sale?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>Gresham shook his head. "They're all. They were Lane Fleming's one false
+step. Ordinarily, Lane was a careful buyer; he must have let himself get
+hypnotized by all that ivory and gold, and all that documentation on
+crested notepaper. You know, Fleming's death was an undeserved stroke of
+luck for Arnold Rivers. If he hadn't been killed just when he was, he'd
+have run Rivers out of the old-arms business."</p>
+
+<p>"I notice that Rivers isn't advertising in the <i>American Rifleman</i> any
+more," Rand observed.</p>
+
+<p>"No; the National Rifle Association stopped his ad, and lifted his
+membership card for good measure," Gresham said. "Rivers sold a rifle to
+a collector down in Virginia, about three years ago, while you were still
+occupying Germany. A fine, early flintlock Kentuck, that had been made
+out of a fine, late percussion Kentuck by sawing off the breech-end of
+the barrel, rethreading it for the breech-plug, drilling a new vent, and
+fitting the lock with a flint hammer and a pan-and-frizzen assembly, and
+shortening the fore-end to fit. Rivers has a gunsmith over at Kingsville,
+one Elmer Umholtz, who does all his fraudulent conversions for him. I
+have an example of Umholtz's craftsmanship, myself. The collector who
+bought this spurious flintlock spotted what had been done, and squawked
+to the Rifle Association, and to the postal authorities."</p>
+
+<p>"Rivers claimed, I suppose, that he had gotten it from a family that had
+owned it ever since it was made, and showed letters signed 'D. Boone' and
+'Davy Crockett' to prove it?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, he claimed to have gotten it in trade from some wayfaring
+collector," Gresham replied. "He convinced Uncle Whiskers, but the
+N.R.A. took a slightly dimmer view of the transaction, so Rivers doesn't
+advertise in the <i>Rifleman</i> any more."</p>
+
+<p>"Wasn't there some talk about Whitneyville Walker Colts that had been
+made out of 1848 Model Colt Dragoons?" Rand asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh Lord, yes! This fellow Umholtz was practically turning them out on
+an assembly-line, for a while. Rivers must have sold about ten of them.
+You know, Umholtz is a really fine gunsmith; I had him build a deer-rifle
+for Dot, a couple of years ago&mdash;Mexican-Mauser action, Johnson
+barrel, chambered for .300 Savage; Umholtz made the stock and fitted a
+scope-sight&mdash;it's a beautiful little rifle. I hate to see him prostitute
+his talents the way he does by making these fake antiques for Rivers. You
+know, he made one of these mythical heavy .44 six-shooters of the sort
+Colt was supposed to have turned out at Paterson in 1839 for Colonel
+Walker's Texas Rangers&mdash;you know, the model he couldn't find any of in
+1847, when he made the real Walker Colt. That story you find in Sawyer's
+book."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, that story's been absolutely disproved," Rand said. "There never
+was any such revolver."</p>
+
+<p>"Not till Umholtz made one," Gresham replied. "Rivers sold it to,"&mdash;he
+named a moving-picture bigshot&mdash;"for twenty-five hundred dollars. His
+story was that he picked it up in Mexico, in 1938; traded a .38-special
+to some halfbreed goat-herder for it."</p>
+
+<p>"This fellow who bought it, now; did he see Belden and Haven's Colt book,
+when it came out in 1940?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, and he was plenty burned up, but what could he do? Rivers was dug
+in behind this innocent-purchase-and-sale-in-good-faith Maginot Line of
+his. You know, that bastard took me, once, just one-tenth as badly, with
+a fake U.S. North &amp; Cheney Navy flintlock 1799 Model that had been made
+out of a French 1777 Model." The lawyer muttered obscenely.</p>
+
+<p>"Why didn't you sue hell out of him?" Rand asked. "You might not have
+gotten anything, but you'd have given him a lot of dirty publicity.
+That's all Fleming was expecting to do about those wheel locks."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm not Fleming. He could afford litigation like that; I can't. I want
+my money, and if I don't get it in cash, I'm going to beat it out of that
+dirty little swindler's hide," Gresham replied, an ugly look appearing on
+his face.</p>
+
+<p>"I wouldn't blame you. You could find plenty of other collectors who'd
+hold your coat while you were doing it," Rand told him. Then he inquired,
+idly: "What sort of a pistol was it that Lane Fleming is supposed to have
+shot himself with?"</p>
+
+<p>Gresham frowned. "I really don't know; I didn't see it. It's supposed
+to have been a Confederate Leech &amp; Rigdon .36; you know, one of those
+imitation Colt Navy Models that were made in the South during the Civil
+War."</p>
+
+<p>Rand nodded. He was familiar with the type.</p>
+
+<p>"The story is that Fleming found it hanging back of the counter at some
+roadside lunch-stand, along with a lot of other old pistols, and talked
+the proprietor into letting it go for a few dollars," Gresham continued.
+"It was supposed to have been loaded at the time, and went off while
+Fleming was working on it, at home." He shook his head. "I can't believe
+that, Jeff. Lane Fleming would know a loaded revolver when he saw one. I
+believe he deliberately shot himself, and the family faked the accident
+and fixed the authorities. The police never made any investigation; it
+was handled by the coroner alone. And our coroner, out in Scott County,
+is eminently fixable, if you go about it right; a pitiful little
+nonentity with a tremendous inferiority complex."</p>
+
+<p>"But good Lord, why?" Rand demanded. "I never heard of Fleming having any
+troubles worth killing himself over."</p>
+
+<p>Gresham lowered his voice. "Jeff, I'm not supposed to talk about this,
+but the fact is that I believe Fleming was about to lose control of the
+Premix Company," he said. "I have, well, sources of inside information.
+This is in confidence, so don't quote me, but certain influences were at
+work, inside the company, toward that end." He inspected the tip of his
+cigar and knocked off the ash into the tray at his elbow. "Lane Fleming's
+death is on record as accidental, Jeff. It's been written off as such. It
+would be a great deal better for all concerned if it were left at that."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_5" id="CHAPTER_5"></a>CHAPTER 5</h2>
+
+
+<p>Rand drove slowly through Rosemont, the next day, refreshing his memory
+of the place. It was one of the many commuters' villages strung out for
+fifty miles along the railroad lines radiating from New Belfast, and
+depended for its support upon a population scattered over a five-mile
+radius at estates and country homes. Obviously a planned community, it
+was dominated by a gray-walled, green-roofed railroad station which stood
+on its passenger-platform like a captain in front of four platoons of
+gray-walled, green-roofed houses and stores aligned along as many
+converging roads. There was a post office, uniform with the rest of the
+buildings; an excessive quantity of aluminum trimming dated it somewhere
+in the middle Andrew W. Mellon period. There were four gas stations, a
+movie theater, and a Woolworth store with a red front that made it look
+like some painted hussy who had wandered into a Quaker Meeting.</p>
+
+<p>Over the door of one of the smaller stores, Rand saw a black-lettered
+white sign: <i>Antiques</i>. There was a smoke-gray Plymouth coup&eacute; parked in
+front of it.</p>
+
+<p>Instead of turning onto the road to the Fleming estate, he continued
+along Route 19 for a mile or so beyond the village, until he came to a
+red brick pseudo-Colonial house on the right. He pulled to the side of
+the road and got out, turning up the collar of his trench coat. The air
+was raw and damp, doubly unpleasant after the recent unseasonable warmth.
+An apathetically persistent rain sogged the seedling-dotted old fields on
+either side, and the pine-woods beyond, and a high ceiling of unbroken
+dirty gray gave no promise of clearing. The mournful hoot of a distant
+locomotive whistle was the only sound to pierce the silence. For a
+moment, Rand stood with his back to the car, looking at the gallows-like
+sign that proclaimed this to be the business-place of Arnold Rivers,
+Fine Antique and Modern Firearms for the Discriminating Collector.</p>
+
+<p>The house faced the road with a long side; at the left, a porch formed
+a continuation under a deck roof, and on the right, an ell had been
+built at right angles, extending thirty feet toward the road. Although
+connected to the house by a shed roof, which acquired a double pitch and
+became a gable roof where the ell projected forward, it was, in effect,
+a separate building, with its own front door and its own door-path. Its
+floor-level was about four feet lower than that of the parent structure.</p>
+
+<p>A Fibber McGee door-chime clanged as Rand entered. Closing the door
+behind him, he looked around. The room, some twenty feet wide and fifty
+long, was lighted by an almost continuous row of casement windows on the
+right, and another on the left for as far as the ell extended beyond the
+house. They were set high, a good five feet from lower sill to floor, and
+there was no ceiling; the sloping roof was supported by bare timber
+rafters. Racks lined the walls, under the windows, holding long-guns
+and swords; the pistols and daggers and other small items were displayed
+on a number of long tables. In the middle of the room, glaring at the
+front door, was a brass four-pounder on a ship's carriage; a Philippine
+<i>latanka</i>, muzzle tilted upward, stood beside it. Where the ell joined
+the house under the shed roof, there was a fireplace, and a short flight
+of steps to a landing and a door out of the dwelling, and some
+furniture&mdash;a davenport, three or four deep chairs facing the fire, a low
+cocktail-table, a cellarette, and, in the far corner, a big desk.</p>
+
+<p>As Rand went toward the rear, a young man rose from one of the chairs,
+laid aside a magazine, and advanced to meet him. He didn't exactly
+harmonize with all the lethal array around him; he would have looked more
+at home presiding over an establishment devoted to ladies' items. His
+costume ran to pastel shades, he had large and soulful blue eyes and
+prettily dimpled cheeks, and his longish blond hair was carefully
+disordered into a windblown effect.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, good afternoon," he greeted. "Is there anything in particular you're
+interested in, or would you like to just look about?"</p>
+
+<p>"Mostly look about," Rand said. "Is Mr. Rivers in?"</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Rivers is having luncheon. He'll be finished before long, if you
+care to wait.... Have you ever been here before?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not for some time," Rand said. "When I was here last, there was a young
+fellow named Jordan, or Gordon, or something like that."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh. He was before my time." The present functionary introduced himself
+as Cecil Gillis. Rand gave his name and shook hands with him. Young
+Gillis wanted to know if Rand was a collector.</p>
+
+<p>"In a small way. General-pistol collector," Rand told him. "Have you many
+Colts, now?"</p>
+
+<p>There was a whole table devoted to Colts. No spurious Whitneyville
+Walkers; after all, a dealer can sell just so many of such top-drawer
+rarities before the finger of suspicion begins leveling itself in his
+direction, and Arnold Rivers had long ago passed that point. There were
+several of the commoner percussion models, however, with lovely, perfect
+bluing that was considerably darker than that applied at the Colt factory
+during the 'fifties and 'sixties of the last century. The silver plating
+on backstraps and trigger-guards was perfect, too, but the naval-battle
+and stagecoach-holdup engravings on the cylinders were far from clear&mdash;in
+one case, completely obliterated. The cylinder of one 1851 Navy bore
+serial numbers that looked as though they had been altered to conform to
+the numbers on other parts of the weapon. Many of the Colts, however,
+were entirely correct, and all were in reasonably good condition.</p>
+
+<p>Rand saw something that interested him, and picked it up.</p>
+
+<p>"That isn't a real Colt," the exquisite Mr. Gillis told him. "It's a
+Confederate copy; a Leech &amp; Rigdon."</p>
+
+<p>"So I see. I have a Griswold &amp; Grier, but no Leech &amp; Rigdon."</p>
+
+<p>"The Griswold &amp; Grier; that's the one with the brass frame," Cecil Gillis
+said. "Surprising how many collectors think all Confederate revolvers
+had brass frames, because of the Griswold &amp; Grier, and the Spiller &amp;
+Burr.... That's an unusually fine specimen, Mr. Rand. Mr. Rivers got
+it sometime in late December or early January; from a gentleman in
+Charleston, I understand. I believe it had been carried during the Civil
+War by a member of the former owner's family."</p>
+
+<p>Rand looked at the tag tied to the trigger-guard; it was marked, in
+letter-code, with three different prices. That was characteristic of
+Arnold Rivers's business methods.</p>
+
+<p>"How much does Mr. Rivers want for this?" he asked, handing the revolver
+to young Gillis.</p>
+
+<p>The clerk mentally decoded the three prices and vacillated for a moment
+over them. He had already appraised Rand, from his twenty-dollar Stetson
+past his Burberry trench coat to his English hand-sewn shoes, and placed
+him in the pay-dirt bracket; however, from some remarks Rand had let
+drop, he decided that this customer knew pistols, and probably knew
+values.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, that is sixty dollars, Mr. Rand," he said, with the air of one
+conferring a benefaction. Maybe he was, at that, Rand decided; prices had
+jumped like the very devil since the war.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll take it." He dug out his billfold and extracted three twenties.
+"Nice clean condition; clean it up yourself?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, no. Mr. Rivers got it like this. As I said, it's supposed to have
+been a family heirloom, but from the way it's been cared for, I would
+have thought it had been in a collection," the clerk replied. "Shall I
+wrap it for you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, if you please." Rand followed him to the rear, laying aside his
+coat and hat. Gillis got some heavy paper out of a closet and packaged
+it, then hunted through a card-file in the top drawer of the desk, until
+he found the card he wanted. He made a few notes on it, and was still
+holding it and the sixty dollars when he rejoined Rand by the fire.</p>
+
+<p>In spite of his effeminate appearance and over-refined manner, the young
+fellow really knew arms. The conversation passed from Confederate
+revolvers to the arms of the Civil War in general, and they were
+discussing the changes in tactics occasioned by the introduction of the
+revolver and the repeating carbine when the door from the house opened
+and Arnold Rivers appeared on the landing.</p>
+
+<p>He looked older than when Rand had last seen him. His hair was thinner on
+top and grayer at the temples. Never particularly robust, he had lost
+weight, and his face was thinner and more hollow-cheeked. His mouth still
+had the old curve of supercilious insolence, and he was still smoking
+with the six-inch carved ivory cigarette-holder which Rand remembered.</p>
+
+<p>He looked his visitor over carefully from the doorway, decided that he
+was not soliciting magazine subscriptions or selling Fuller brushes, and
+came down the steps. As he did, he must have recognized Rand; he shifted
+the cigarette-holder to his left hand and extended his right.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Rand, isn't it?" he asked. "I thought I knew you. It's been some
+years since you've been around here."</p>
+
+<p>"I've been a lot of places in the meantime," Rand said.</p>
+
+<p>"You were here last in October, '41, weren't you?" Rivers thought for a
+moment. "You bought a Highlander, then. By Alexander Murdoch, of Doune,
+wasn't it?"</p>
+
+<p>"No; Andrew Strahan, of Edzel," Rand replied.</p>
+
+<p>Rivers snapped his fingers. "That's right! I sold both of those pistols
+at about the same time; a gentleman in Chicago got the Murdoch. The
+Strahan had a star-pierced lobe on the hammer. Did you ever get anybody
+to translate the Gaelic inscription on the barrel?"</p>
+
+<p>"You've a memory like Jim Farley," Rand flattered. "The inscription was
+the clan slogan of the Camerons; something like: <i>Sons of the hound, come
+and get flesh!</i> I won't attempt the original."</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Rand just bought 6524, the Leech &amp; Rigdon .36," Gillis interjected,
+handing Rivers the card and the money. Rivers looked at both, saw how
+much Rand had been taken for, and nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"A nice item," he faintly praised, as though anything selling for less
+than a hundred dollars was so much garbage. "Considering the condition in
+which Confederate arms are usually found, it's really first-rate. I think
+you'll like it, Mr. Rand."</p>
+
+<p>The telephone rang, Cecil Gillis answered it, listened for a moment, and
+then said: "For you, Mr. Rivers; long distance from Milwaukee."</p>
+
+<p>Rivers's face lit with the beatific smile of a cat at a promising
+mouse-hole. "Ah, excuse me, Mr. Rand." He crossed to the desk, picked
+up the phone and spoke into it. "This is Arnold Rivers," he said, much
+as Edward Murrow used to say, <i>This&mdash;is London!</i> The telephone sputtered
+for a moment. "Ah, yes indeed, Mr. Verral. Quite well, I thank you. And
+you?... No, it hasn't been sold yet. Do you wish me to ship it to
+you?... On approval; certainly.... Of course it's an original flintlock;
+I didn't list it as re-altered, did I?... No, not at all; the only
+replacement is the small spring inside the patchbox.... Yes, the rifling
+is excellent.... Of course; I'll ship it at once.... Good-by, Mr.
+Verral."</p>
+
+<p>He hung up and turned to his hireling, fairly licking his chops.</p>
+
+<p>"Cecil, Mr. Verral, in Milwaukee, whose address we have, has just ordered
+6288, the F. Zorger flintlock Kentuck. Will you please attend to it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Right away, Mr. Rivers." Gillis went to one of the racks under the
+windows and selected a long flintlock rifle, carrying it out the door at
+the rear.</p>
+
+<p>"I issued a list, a few days ago," Rivers told Rand. "When Cecil comes
+back, I'll have him get you a copy. I've been receiving calls ever since;
+this is the twelfth long-distance call since Tuesday."</p>
+
+<p>"Business must be good," Rand commented. "I understand you've offered to
+buy the Lane Fleming collection. For ten thousand dollars."</p>
+
+<p>"Where did you hear that?" Rivers demanded, looking up from the drawer in
+which he was filing the card on the Leech &amp; Rigdon.</p>
+
+<p>"From Mrs. Fleming." Rand released a puff of pipe smoke and watched it
+draw downward into the fireplace. "I've been retained to handle the sale
+of that collection; naturally, I'd know who was offering how much."</p>
+
+<p>Rivers's eyes narrowed. He came around the desk, loading another
+cigarette into his holder.</p>
+
+<p>"And just why, might I ask, did Mrs. Fleming think it in order to employ
+a detective in a matter like that?" he wanted to know.</p>
+
+<p>Rand let out more smoke. "She didn't. She employed an arms-expert, a
+Colonel Jefferson Davis Rand, U.S.A., O.R.C., who is a well-known
+contributor to the <i>American Rifleman</i> and the <i>Infantry Journal</i> and
+<i>Antiques</i> and the old <i>Gun Report</i>. You've read some of his articles,
+I believe?"</p>
+
+<p>"Then you're not making an investigation?"</p>
+
+<p>"What in the world is there to investigate?" Rand asked. "I'm just
+selling a lot of old pistols for the Fleming estate."</p>
+
+<p>"I thought Fred Dunmore was doing that."</p>
+
+<p>"So did Fred. You're both wrong, though. I am." He got out Goode's letter
+of authorization and handed it to Rivers, who read it through twice
+before handing it back. "You see anything in that about Fred Dunmore,
+or any of the other relatives-in-law?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I didn't understand; I'm glad to know what the situation really
+is." Rivers frowned. "I thought you were making some kind of an
+investigation, and as I'm the only party making any serious offer to buy
+those pistols, I wanted to know what there was to investigate."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you consider ten thousand dollars to be a serious offer?" Rand asked.
+"And aren't you forgetting Stephen Gresham and his friends?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, those people!" Rivers scoffed. "Mr. Rand, you certainly don't expect
+them to be able to handle anything like this, do you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, the banks speak well of them," Rand replied. "Some of them have
+good listings in Dun &amp; Bradstreet's, too."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, so do I," Rivers reported. "I can top any offer that crowd makes.
+What do you expect to get out of them, anyhow?"</p>
+
+<p>"I haven't talked price with them, yet. A lot more than ten thousand
+dollars, anyhow."</p>
+
+<p>Rivers forced a laugh. "Now, Mr. Rand! That was just an opening offer. I
+thought Fred Dunmore was handling the collection." He grimaced. "What do
+you think it's really worth?"</p>
+
+<p>Rand shrugged. "It probably has a dealer's piece-by-piece list-value
+of around seventy thousand. I'm not nuts enough to expect anything like
+that in a lump sum, but please, let's not mention ten thousand dollars in
+this connection any more. That's on the order of Lawyer Marks bidding
+seventy-five cents for Uncle Tom; it's only good for laughs."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, how much more than that do you think Gresham and his crowd will
+offer?"</p>
+
+<p>"I haven't talked price with them, yet," Rand repeated. "I mean to, as
+soon as I can."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, you get their offer, and I'll top it," Rivers declared. "I'm
+willing to go as high as twenty-five thousand for that collection; they
+won't go that high."</p>
+
+<p>Although he just managed not to show it, Rand was really surprised. Even
+a consciousness of abstracting had not prepared him for the shock of
+hearing Arnold Rivers raise his own offer to something resembling an
+acceptable figure. A good case, he reflected, could be made of that
+for the actuality of miracles.</p>
+
+<p>He rose, picking up his trench coat.</p>
+
+<p>"Well! That's something like it, now," he said. "I'll see you later; I
+don't know how long it's going to take me to get a list prepared, and
+circularize the old-arms trade. I should hear from everybody who's
+interested in a few weeks. You can be sure I'll keep your offer in mind."</p>
+
+<p>He slipped into the coat and put on his hat, and then picked up the
+package containing the Confederate revolver. Rivers had risen, too; he
+was watching Rand nervously. When Rand tucked the package under his arm
+and began drawing on his gloves, Rivers cleared his throat.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Rand, I'm dreadfully sorry," he began, "but I'll have to return your
+money and take back that revolver. It should not have been sold." He got
+Rand's sixty dollars out of his pocket as though he expected it to catch
+fire, and held it out.</p>
+
+<p>Rand favored him with a display of pained surprise.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, I can't do that," he replied. "I bought this revolver in good
+faith, and you accepted payment and were satisfied with the transaction.
+The sale's been made, now."</p>
+
+<p>Rivers seemed distressed. It was probably the first time he had ever been
+on the receiving end of that routine, and he didn't like it.</p>
+
+<p>"Now you're being unreasonable, Mr. Rand," he protested. "Look here; I'll
+give you seventy-five dollars' credit on anything else in the shop. You
+certainly can't find fault with an offer like that."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't want anything else in the shop; I want this revolver you sold
+me." Rand gave him a look of supercilious insolence that was at least a
+two hundred per cent improvement on Rivers at his most insolent. "You
+know, I'll begin to acquire a poor idea of your business methods before
+long," he added.</p>
+
+<p>Rivers laughed ruefully. "Well, to tell the truth, I just remembered a
+customer of mine who specializes in Confederate arms, who would pay me at
+least eighty for that item," he admitted. "I thought..."</p>
+
+<p>Rand shook his head. "I have a special fondness for Confederate arms,
+myself. One of my grandfathers was in Mosby's Rangers, and the other was
+with Barksdale, to say nothing of about a dozen great-uncles and so on."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, you're entirely within your rights, Mr. Rand," Rivers conceded. "I
+should apologize for trying to renege on a sale, but.... Well, I hope to
+see you again, soon." He followed Rand to the door, shaking hands with
+him. "Don't forget; I'm willing to pay anything up to twenty-five
+thousand for the Fleming collection."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_6" id="CHAPTER_6"></a>CHAPTER 6</h2>
+
+
+<p>The Fleming butler&mdash;Walters, Rand remembered Gladys Fleming having called
+him&mdash;became apologetic upon learning who the visitor was.</p>
+
+<p>"Forgive me, Colonel Rand, but I'm afraid I must put you to some
+inconvenience, sir," he said. "You see, we have no chauffeur, at present,
+and I don't drive very well, myself. Would you object to putting up your
+own car, sir? The garage is under the house, at the rear; just follow the
+driveway around. I'll go through the house and meet you there for the
+luggage. I'm dreadfully sorry to put you to the trouble, but...."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, that's all right," Rand comforted him. "Just as soon do it, myself,
+now, anyhow. I expect to be in and out with the car while I'm here, and
+I'd better learn the layout of the garage now."</p>
+
+<p>"You may back in, sir, or drive straight in and back out," the butler
+told him. "One way's about as easy as the other."</p>
+
+<p>Rand returned to his car, driving around the house. A row of doors opened
+out of the basement garage; Walters, who must have gone through the house
+on the double, was waiting for him. Having what amounted to a conditioned
+reflex to park his car so that he could get it out as fast as possible,
+he cut over to the right, jockeyed a little, and backed in. There were
+already two cars in the garage; a big maroon Packard sedan, and a
+sand-colored Packard station-wagon, standing side by side. Rand put
+his Lincoln in on the left of the sedan.</p>
+
+<p>"Bags in the luggage-compartment; it isn't locked," he told the butler,
+making sure that the glove-compartment, where he had placed the Leech &amp;
+Rigdon revolver, was locked. As he got out, the servant went to the rear
+of the car and took out the Gladstone and the B-4 bag Rand had brought
+with him.</p>
+
+<p>"If you don't mind entering the house from the rear, sir, we can go up
+those steps, there, and through the rear hall," the butler suggested,
+almost as though he were making some indecent and criminal proposal.</p>
+
+<p>Rand told him to forget the protocol and lead the way. The butler picked
+up the bags and conducted him up a short flight of concrete steps to a
+landing and a door opening into a short hall above. An open door from
+this gave access to a longer hall, stretching to the front of the house,
+and there was a third door, closed, which probably led to the servants'
+domain.</p>
+
+<p>Rand followed his guide through the open door and into the long hall,
+which passed under an arch to extend to the front door. There was a door
+on either side, about midway to the arch under the front stairway; the
+one on the right was the dining-room, Walters explained, and the one on
+the left was the library. He seemed to be still suffering from the
+ignominy of admitting a house-guest through any but the main portal.</p>
+
+<p>Emerging into the front hallway, he put down the bags, took Rand's hat
+and coat and laid them on top of the luggage, and then went to an open
+doorway on the right, standing in it and coughing delicately, before
+announcing that Colonel Rand was here.</p>
+
+<p>Gladys Fleming, wearing a pale blue frock, came forward as Rand entered
+the parlor, her hand extended. The two other women in the big parlor
+remained motionless. They would be the sisters, Geraldine Varcek and
+Nelda Dunmore. Rand didn't wonder that they resented Gladys so bitterly;
+economic considerations aside, girls seldom enthuse over a stepmother so
+near their own age who is so much more beautiful.</p>
+
+<p>"Good afternoon, Colonel Rand," Gladys said. "This is Mrs. Varcek." She
+indicated a very pale blonde who sat slumped in a deep chair beside a low
+cocktail-table, a highball in her hand. "And Mrs. Dunmore." She was the
+brunette with the full bust and hips, in the short black skirt and the
+tight white sweater, who was standing by the fireplace.</p>
+
+<p>"H'lo." The blonde&mdash;Geraldine&mdash;smiled shyly at him. She had big blue
+eyes, and delicately tinted rose-petal lips that seemed to be trying not
+to laugh at some private joke. She wasn't exactly blotto, but she had
+evidently laid a good foundation for a first-class jag. After all, it was
+only two thirty in the afternoon.</p>
+
+<p>The other sister&mdash;Nelda&mdash;didn't say anything. She merely stood and stared
+at Rand distrustfully. Rand doubted that she ordinarily gave men the
+hostile eye. The full, dark-red lips; the lush figure; the way she draped
+it against the side of the fireplace, to catch the ruddy light on her
+more interesting curves and bulges&mdash;there was a bimbo just made to be
+leered at, and she probably resented it like hell if she weren't.</p>
+
+<p>Rand gave them a general good-afternoon, then turned to Gladys. "I had a
+talk with Goode, yesterday afternoon," he said. "I have his authorization
+to handle all the details. As soon as I get an itemized list, I'll
+circularize dealers and other possible buyers and ask for offers."</p>
+
+<p>"Is that all?" Nelda demanded angrily of Gladys. "Why Fred's done all
+that already!"</p>
+
+<p>"Is that correct, Mrs. Fleming?" Rand asked, for the record.</p>
+
+<p>"I told you, yesterday, what's been done," Gladys replied. "Fred has
+talked to one dealer, Arnold Rivers. There has been no inventory of any
+sort made."</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Rivers is offering us ten thousand dollars," Nelda retorted. "I
+don't see why you had to bring this Colonel What's-his-name into it, at
+all. You think he can get us a better offer? If you do, you're crazy!"</p>
+
+<p>"Ten thousand dollars, for a collection that ought to sell for five times
+that, in Macy's basement!" Geraldine hooted. "How much is Rivers slipping
+Fred, on the side?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, go back to your bottle!" Nelda cried. "You're too drunk to know what
+you're talking about!"</p>
+
+<p>"They tell me Colonel Rand is a detective, too," Geraldine continued.
+"Maybe he can find out why Fred never talked to Stephen Gresham, or Carl
+Gwinnett, or anybody else except this Rivers. How much <i>is</i> Fred getting
+out of Rivers, anyhow?"</p>
+
+<p>"My God, Geraldine, shut up!" Nelda howled. Then she decided to take
+direct notice of Rand's presence. "Colonel Rand, I'm sorry to say that,
+in her present condition, my sister doesn't know what she's saying. It's
+bad enough for my stepmother to bring an outsider into what's obviously
+a family matter, but when my sister begins making these ridiculous
+accusations ..."</p>
+
+<p>"What's ridiculous about them?" Geraldine demanded, dumping another two
+ounces of whiskey into her glass and freshening it with the siphon. "I
+think Rivers's offering ten thousand dollars for the collection, and
+Fred's thinking we'd accept it, are the only ridiculous things about it."</p>
+
+<p>"That's rather what I told Rivers, this afternoon," Rand put in. "He
+seemed a bit upset about my being brought into this, too, but he finally
+admitted that he was willing to pay up to twenty-five thousand dollars
+for the collection, and if he buys it, that's exactly what it's going to
+cost him."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>What?</i>" Nelda fairly screamed. Her hands opened and closed
+spasmodically: she was using a dark-red nail-tint that made Rand think
+of blood-dripping talons.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Arnold Rivers told me, this afternoon, and I quote: I'm willing to
+pay up to twenty-five thousand dollars for that collection, unquote,"
+Rand said. "And I can tell you now that twenty-five thousand dollars is
+just what he will pay for it, unless I can find somebody who's willing to
+pay more, which is not at all improbable."</p>
+
+<p>"H'ray!" Geraldine waved her glass and toasted Rand with it. "And
+twenty-five G ain't hay, brother!"</p>
+
+<p>Gladys smiled quickly at Rand, then turned to Nelda. "Now I hope you see
+why I thought it wise to bring in somebody who knows something about old
+arms," she said.</p>
+
+<p>Nelda evidently saw; there was apparently nothing stupid about her. "And
+Fred was going to take a miserable ten thousand dollars!" The way she
+said it, ten thousand sounded like a fairly generous headwaiter's tip.
+"Did Rivers actually tell you he'd pay twenty-five?"</p>
+
+<p>Rand gave, as nearly verbatim as possible, his conversation with the
+dealer. "And he can afford it, too," he finished. "He can make a nice
+profit on the collection, at that figure."</p>
+
+<p>"My God, do you mean the pistols are worth more than that, even?" she
+wanted to know, aghast.</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly, if you're a dealer with an established business, and
+customers all over the country, and want to take five or six years to
+make your profit," Rand replied. "If you aren't, and want your money in
+a hurry, no."</p>
+
+<p>"That's why I was against turning the collection over to Gwinnett on a
+commission basis," Gladys said. "It would take him five years to get
+everything sold."</p>
+
+<p>Nelda left the fireplace and advanced toward Rand. "Colonel, I owe you an
+apology," she said. "I had no idea Father's pistols were worth anywhere
+near that much. I don't suppose Fred did, either." She frowned. Wait till
+she gets Fred alone, Rand thought; I'd hate to be in his spot.... "You
+say you're acting on Humphrey Goode's authority?"</p>
+
+<p>"That's right. I'll negotiate the sale, but the money will be paid
+directly to him, for distribution according to the terms of your father's
+will." Rand got out Goode's letter and handed it to Nelda.</p>
+
+<p>She read it carefully. "I see." She seemed greatly relieved; she was
+looking at Rand, now, as she was accustomed to look at men, particularly
+handsome six-footers who were broad across the shoulders and narrow at
+the hips and resembled King Charles II. She was probably wondering if
+Rand was equal to Old Rowley in another important respect. "I didn't
+understand ... I thought...." A dirty look, aimed at Gladys, explained
+what she had thought. Then her glance fell on the bottle and siphon on
+the table beside Geraldine's chair, and she changed the subject by
+inquiring if Colonel Rand mightn't like a drink.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, let's go up to the gunroom," Gladys suggested. "We can have our
+drink up there, while Colonel Rand's looking at the pistols.... Coming
+with us, Geraldine?"</p>
+
+<p>Geraldine rose, not too steadily, her glass still in her hand, and took
+Rand's left arm. Gladys, seeing Nelda moving in on the detective's right,
+took his other arm. Nelda was barely successful in suppressing a look of
+murderous anger. The double doorway into the hall was just wide enough
+for Rand and his two flankers to pass through; Nelda had to fall in a
+couple of paces rear of center, and wasn't able to come up into line
+until they were in the hall upstairs.</p>
+
+<p>"There's the gunroom." Gladys pointed. "And that's your room, over
+there." As she spoke, Walters came out of the doorway she had indicated.</p>
+
+<p>"Your bags are unpacked, sir," he reported. Then he told Rand where he
+would find his things, and where the bath was.</p>
+
+<p>There was a brief discussion of drinks. The butler received his
+instructions and went down the stairway; Rand broke up the feminine
+formation around him and ushered the ladies ahead of him into the
+gunroom.</p>
+
+<p>It was much as he remembered it from his visit of two years before.
+There was a desk in one corner, and back of it a short workbench and
+tool-cabinet. There was a long table in the middle of the room, its top
+covered with green baize, upon which many flat rectangular boxes of
+hardwood rested&mdash;some walnut, some rosewood, some quartered oak. Each
+would contain a pistol or pair of pistols, with cleaning and loading
+tools. In the corner farthest from the desk, he saw the head of the
+spiral stairway from the library below, mentioned by Gladys Fleming.
+There were ashstands and a couple of cocktail-tables, and a number of
+chairs, and the old maple cobbler's bench on which Lane Fleming had died.
+The only books in the room were in a small case over the workbench; they
+were all arms-books.</p>
+
+<p>Then he looked at the walls. On both ends, and on the long inside wall,
+the pistols hung, hundreds and hundreds of them, the cream of a
+lifetime's collecting. Horizontal white-painted boards had been fixed to
+the walls about four feet from the floor, and similar boards had been
+placed five feet above them. Between, narrow vertical strips, as wide
+as a lath but twice as thick, were set. Rows of pistols were hung, the
+barrels horizontal, on pairs of these strips, with screwhooks at grip
+and muzzle. There were about a hundred such vertical rows of pistols.</p>
+
+<p>Rand was still looking at them when the butler brought in the drinks;
+when Gladys told the servant that that would be all, he went out, rather
+reluctantly, by the spiral stairs to the library.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, what do you think of them, Colonel Rand?" Gladys asked.</p>
+
+<p>Rand tasted his whiskey and looked around. "It's one of the finest
+collections in the country," he said. "I may even be able to find
+somebody who'll top Rivers's offer, but don't be disappointed if I
+don't.... By the way, did anybody help Mr. Fleming keep this stuff clean?
+The room seems dry, but even so, they'd need an occasional wiping-off."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Walters was always in here, going over the pistols," Nelda said.
+"He's been in here every day, lately."</p>
+
+<p>"I wonder if you could spare him to help me a little? I'll need somebody
+who knows his way around here, at first."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, of course," Gladys agreed. "He isn't very busy in the mornings, or
+in the afternoons till close to dinner-time. Are you going to start work
+today?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'll have to. I'm going to see Stephen Gresham and his associates this
+evening, and I'll want to know what I'm talking about."</p>
+
+<p>They spent about fifteen minutes over their drinks, talking about the
+collection. Rand and Gladys did most of the talking, in spite of Nelda's
+best efforts to monopolize the conversation. Geraldine, after a few
+minutes, retired into her private world and only roused herself when her
+sister and stepmother were about to leave. When they went out, Gladys
+promised to send Walters up directly; Rand heard her speaking to him at
+the foot of the main stairway.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_7" id="CHAPTER_7"></a>CHAPTER 7</h2>
+
+
+<p>When Walters entered, Rand had his pipe lit and was walking slowly around
+the room, laying out the work ahead of him. Roughly, the earliest pieces
+were on the extreme left, on the short north wall of the room, and the
+most recent ones on the right, at the south end. This was, of course,
+only relatively true; the pistols seemed to have been classified by type
+in vertical rows, and chronologically from top to bottom in each row. The
+collection seemed to consist of a number of intensely specialized small
+groups, with a large number of pistols of general types added. For
+instance, about midway on the long east wall, there were some thirty-odd
+all-metal pistols, from wheel lock to percussion. There was a collection
+of U.S. Martials, with two rows of the regulation pistols, flintlock and
+percussion, of foreign governments, placed on the left, and the
+collection of Colts on the right. After them came the other types of
+percussion revolvers, and the later metallic-cartridge types.</p>
+
+<p>It was an arrangement which made sense, from the arms student's point
+of view, and Rand decided that it would make sense to the dealers and
+museums to whom he intended sending lists. He would save time by
+listing them as they were hung on the walls. Then, there were the cases
+between the windows on the west wall, containing the ammunition
+collection&mdash;examples of every type of fixed-pistol ammunition&mdash;and the
+collection of bullet-molds and powder flasks and wheel lock spanners and
+assorted cleaning and loading accessories. All that stuff would have to
+be listed, too.</p>
+
+<p>"I beg your pardon, sir," Walters broke in, behind him. "Mrs. Fleming
+said that you wanted me."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes." Rand turned. "Is this the whole thing? What's on the walls,
+here?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir. There is also a wall-case containing a number of modern
+pistols and revolvers, and several rifles and shotguns, in the room
+formerly occupied by Mr. Fleming, but they are not part of the
+collection, and they are now the personal property of Mrs. Fleming.
+I understand that she intends selling at least some of them, on her
+own account. Then, there is a quantity of ammunition and
+ammunition-components in that closet under the workbench&mdash;cartridges,
+primed cartridge-shells, black and smokeless powder, cartridge-primers,
+percussion caps&mdash;but they are not part of the collection, either. I
+believe Mrs. Fleming wants to sell most of that, too."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I'll talk to her about it. I may want to buy some of the
+ammunition for myself," Rand said. "So I only need to bother with what's
+on the walls, in this room?... By the way, did Mr. Fleming keep any sort
+of record of his collection? A book, or a card-index, or anything like
+that?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why no, sir." Walters was positive. Then he hedged. "If he did, I never
+saw or heard of anything of the sort. Mr. Fleming knew everything in this
+room. I've seen him, downstairs, when somebody would ask him about
+something, close his eyes as though trying to visualize and then give a
+perfect description of any pistol in the collection. Or else, he could
+enumerate all the pistols of a certain type; say, all the Philadelphia
+Deringers, or all the Allen pepperboxes, or all the rim-fire Smith &amp;
+Wesson tip-back types. He had a remarkable memory for his pistols,
+although it was not out of the ordinary otherwise, sir."</p>
+
+<p>Rand nodded. Any collector&mdash;at least, any collector who was a serious
+arms-student&mdash;could do that, particularly if he were a good visualizer
+and kept his stuff in some systematic order. At the moment, he could have
+named and described any or all of his own modest collection of two
+hundred-odd pistols and revolvers.</p>
+
+<p>"I was hoping he'd kept a record," he said. "A great many collectors do,
+and it would have helped me quite a bit." He made up his mind to compile
+such a record, himself, when he got back to New Belfast. It would be a
+big help to Carter Tipton, when it came time to settle his own estate,
+and a man on whom the Reaper has scored as many near-misses as on Jeff
+Rand should begin to think of such things. "And how about writing
+materials? And is there a typewriter available?"</p>
+
+<p>There was: a cased portable was on the floor beside the workbench.
+Walters showed him which desk drawers contained paper and other things.
+There was, Rand noticed, a loaded .38 Colt Detective Special, in the
+upper right-hand desk drawer.</p>
+
+<p>"And these phones," the butler continued, indicating them. "This one is
+a private outside phone; it doesn't connect with any other in the house.
+The other is an extension. It has a buzzer; the outside phone has a
+regular bell."</p>
+
+<p>Rand thanked him for the information. Then, picking up a note-pad and
+pencil, he started on the left of the collection, meaning to make a
+general list and rough approximation of value for use in talking to
+Gresham's friends that evening. Tomorrow he would begin on the detailed
+list for use in soliciting outside offers.</p>
+
+<p>Twenty-five wheel locks: four heavy South German dags, two singles
+and a pair; three Saxon pistols, with sharply dropped grips, a pair
+and one single; five French and Italian sixteenth-century pistols;
+a pair of small pocket or sash pistols; a pair of French petronels,
+and an extremely long seventeenth-century Dutch pistol with an
+ivory-covered stock and a carved ivory Venus-head for a pommel; eight
+seventeenth-century French, Italian and Flemish pistols. Rand noted them
+down, and was about to pass on; then he looked sharply at one of them.</p>
+
+<p>It was nothing out of the ordinary, as wheel locks go; a long Flemish
+weapon of about 1640, the type used by the Royalist cavalry in the
+English Civil War. There were two others almost like it, but this one was
+in simply appalling condition. The metal was rough with rust, and
+apparently no attempt had been made to clean it in a couple of centuries.
+There was a piece cracked out of the fore-end, the ramrod was missing, as
+was the front ramrod-thimble, both the trigger-guard and the butt-cap
+were loose, and when Rand touched the wheel, it revolved freely if
+sluggishly, betraying a broken spring or chain.</p>
+
+<p>The vertical row next to it seemed to be all snaphaunces, but among them
+Rand saw a pair of Turkish flintlocks. Not even good Turkish flintlocks;
+a pair of the sort of weapons hastily thrown together by native craftsmen
+or imported ready-made from Belgium for bazaar sale to gullible tourists.
+Among the fine examples of seventeenth-century Brescian gunmaking above
+and below it, these things looked like a pair of Dogpatchers in the
+Waldorf's Starlight Room. Rand contemplated them with distaste, then
+shrugged. After all, they might have had some sentimental significance;
+say souvenirs of a pleasantly remembered trip to the Levant.</p>
+
+<p>A few rows farther on, among some exceptionally fine flintlocks, all
+of which pre-dated 1700, he saw one of those big Belgian navy pistols,
+<i>circa</i> 1800, of the sort once advertised far and wide by a certain
+old-army-goods dealer for $6.95. This was a particularly repulsive
+specimen of its breed; grimy with hardened dust and gummed oil, maculated
+with yellow-surface-rust, the brasswork green with corrosion. It was
+impossible to shrug off a thing like that. From then on, Rand kept his
+eyes open for similar incongruities.</p>
+
+<p>They weren't hard to find. There was a big army pistol, of Central
+European origin and in abominable condition, among a row of fine
+multi-shot flintlocks. Multi-shot ... Stephen Gresham had mentioned an
+Elisha Collier flintlock revolver. It wasn't there. It should be hanging
+about where this post-Napoleonic German thing was.</p>
+
+<p>There was no Hall breech-loader, either, but there was a dilapidated old
+Ketland. There were many such interlopers among the U.S. Martials: an
+English ounce-ball cavalry pistol, a French 1777 and a French 1773, a
+couple more $6.95 bargain-counter specials, a miserable altered S. North
+1816. Among the Colts, there was some awful junk, including a big Spanish
+hinge-frame .44 and a Belgian imitation of a Webley R.I.C. Model. There
+weren't as many Paterson Colts as Gresham had spoken of, and the
+Whitneyville Walker was absent. It went on like that; about a dozen of
+the best pistols which Rand remembered having seen from two years ago
+were gone, and he spotted at least twenty items which the late Lane
+Fleming wouldn't have hung in his backyard privy, if he'd had one.</p>
+
+<p>Well, that was to be expected. The way these pistols were arranged, the
+absence of one from its hooks would have been instantly obvious. So, as
+the good stuff had moved out, these disreputable changelings had moved
+in.</p>
+
+<p>"You had rather a shocking experience here, in Mr. Fleming's death," Rand
+said, over his shoulder, to the butler.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes indeed, sir!" Walters seemed relieved that Rand had broken the
+silence. "A great loss to all of us, sir. And so unexpected."</p>
+
+<p>He didn't seem averse to talking about it, and went on at some length.
+His story closely paralleled that of Gladys Fleming.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Varcek called the doctor immediately," he said. "Then Mr. Dunmore
+pointed out that the doctor would be obliged to notify either the coroner
+or the police, so he called Mr. Goode, the family solicitor. That was
+about twenty minutes after the shot. Mr. Goode arrived directly; he was
+here in about ten minutes. I must say, sir, I was glad to see him; to
+tell the truth, I had been afraid that the authorities might claim that
+Mr. Fleming had shot himself deliberately."</p>
+
+<p>Somebody else doesn't like the smell of that accident, Rand thought.
+Aloud, he said:</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Goode lives nearby, then, I take it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes, sir. You can see his house from these windows. Over here, sir."</p>
+
+<p>Rand looked out the window. The rain-soaked lawn of the Fleming residence
+ended about a hundred yards to the west; beyond it, an orchard was
+beginning to break into leaf, and beyond the orchard and another lawn
+stood a half-timbered Tudor-style house, somewhat smaller than the
+Fleming place. A path led down from it to the orchard, and another led
+from the orchard to the rear of the house from which Rand looked.</p>
+
+<p>"Must be comforting to know your lawyer's so handy," he commented. "And
+what do you think, Walters? Are you satisfied, in your own mind, that Mr.
+Fleming was killed accidentally?"</p>
+
+<p>The servant looked at him seriously. "No, sir; I'm not," he replied.
+"I've thought about it a great deal, since it happened, sir, and I just
+can't believe that Mr. Fleming would have that revolver, and start
+working on it, without knowing that it was loaded. That just isn't
+possible, if you'll pardon me, sir. And I can't understand how he would
+have shot himself while removing the charges. The fact is, when I came up
+here at quarter of seven, to call him for cocktails, he had the whole
+thing apart and spread out in front of him." The butler thought for a
+moment. "I believe Mr. Dunmore had something like that in mind when he
+called Mr. Goode."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, what happened?" Rand asked. "Did the coroner or the doctor choke
+on calling it an accident?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh no, sir; there was no trouble of any sort about that. You see, Dr.
+Yardman called the coroner, as soon as he arrived, but Mr. Goode was here
+already. He'd come over by that path you saw, to the rear of the house,
+and in through the garage, which was open, since Mrs. Dunmore was out
+with the coup&eacute;. They all talked it over for a while, and the coroner
+decided that there would be no need for any inquest, and the doctor wrote
+out the certificate. That was all there was to it."</p>
+
+<p>Rand looked at the section of pistol-rack devoted to Colts.</p>
+
+<p>"Which one was it?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh it's not here, sir," Walters replied. "The coroner took it away with
+him."</p>
+
+<p>"And hasn't returned it yet? Well, he has no business keeping it. It's
+part of the collection, and belongs to the estate."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir. If I may say so, I thought it was a bit high-handed of him,
+taking it away, myself, but it wasn't my place to say anything about it."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I'll make it mine. If that revolver's what I'm told it is, it's
+too valuable to let some damned county-seat politician walk off with." A
+thought occurred to him. "And if I find that he's disposed of it, this
+county's going to need a new coroner, at least till the present incumbent
+gets out of jail."</p>
+
+<p>The buzzer of the extension phone went off like an annoyed rattlesnake.
+Walters scooped it up, spoke into it, listened for a moment, and handed
+it to Rand.</p>
+
+<p>"For you, sir; Mrs. Fleming."</p>
+
+<p>"Colonel Rand, Carl Gwinnett, the commission-dealer I told you about is
+here," Gladys told him. "Do you want to talk to him?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, yes. Do I understand, now, that you and the other ladies want cash,
+and don't want the collection peddled off piecemeal?... All right, send
+him up. I'll talk to him."</p>
+
+<p>A few minutes later, a short, compact-looking man of forty-odd entered
+the gunroom, shifting a brief case to his left hand and extending his
+right. Rand advanced to meet him and shook hands with him.</p>
+
+<p>"You're Colonel Rand? Enjoyed your articles in the <i>Rifleman</i>," he said.
+"Mrs. Fleming tells me you're handling the sale of the collection for the
+estate."</p>
+
+<p>"That's right, Mr. Gwinnett. Mrs. Fleming tells me you're interested."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. Originally, I offered to sell the collection for her on a
+commission basis, but she didn't seem to care for the idea, and neither
+do the other ladies. They all want spot cash, in a lump sum."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. Mrs. Fleming herself might have been interested in your
+proposition, if she'd been sole owner. You could probably get more for
+the collection, even after deducting your commission, than I'll be able
+to, but the collection belongs to the estate, and has to be sold before
+any division can be made."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I see that. Well, how much would the estate, or you, consider a
+reasonable offer?"</p>
+
+<p>"Sit down, Mr. Gwinnett," Rand invited. "What would you consider a
+reasonable offer, yourself? We're not asking any specific price; we're
+just taking bids, as it were."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, how much have you been offered, to date?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, we haven't heard from everybody. In fact, we haven't put out a
+list, or solicited offers, except locally, as yet. But one gentleman has
+expressed a willingness to pay up to twenty-five thousand dollars."</p>
+
+<p>Gwinnett's face expressed polite skepticism. "Colonel Rand!" he
+protested. "You certainly don't take an offer like that seriously?"</p>
+
+<p>"I think it was made seriously," Rand replied. "A respectable profit
+could be made on the collection, even at that price."</p>
+
+<p>Gwinnett's eyes shifted over the rows of horizontal barrels on the walls.
+He was almost visibly wrestling with mental arithmetic, and at the same
+time trying to keep any hint of his notion of the collection's real value
+out of his face.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I doubt if I could raise that much," he said. "Might I ask who's
+making this offer?"</p>
+
+<p>"You might; I'm afraid I couldn't tell you. You wouldn't want me to
+publish your own offer broadcast, would you?"</p>
+
+<p>"I think I can guess. If I'm right, don't hold your head in a tub of
+water till you get it," Gwinnett advised. "Making a big offer to scare
+away competition is one thing, and paying off on it is another. I've seen
+that happen before, you know. Fact is, there's one dealer, not far from
+here, who makes a regular habit of it. He'll make some fantastic offer,
+and then, when everybody's been bluffed out, he'll start making
+objections and finding faults, and before long he'll be down to about
+a quarter of his original price."</p>
+
+<p>"The practice isn't unknown," Rand admitted.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll bet you don't have this twenty-five thousand dollar offer on paper,
+over a signature," Gwinnett pursued. "Well, here." He opened his brief
+case and extracted a sheet of paper, handing it to Rand. "You can file
+this; I'll stand back of it."</p>
+
+<p>Rand looked at the typed and signed statement to the effect that Carl
+Gwinnett agreed to pay the sum of fifteen thousand dollars for the Lane
+Fleming pistol-collection, in its entirety, within thirty days of date.
+That was an average of six dollars a pistol. There had been a time, not
+too long ago, when a pistol-collection with an average value of six
+dollars, particularly one as large as the Fleming collection, had been
+something unusual. For one thing, arms values had increased sharply in
+the meantime. For another, Lane Fleming had kept his collection clean of
+the two-dollar items which dragged down so many collectors' average
+values. Except for the two-dozen-odd mysterious interlopers, there wasn't
+a pistol in the Fleming collection that wasn't worth at least twenty
+dollars, and quite a few had values expressible in three figures.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, your offer is duly received and filed, Mr. Gwinnett," Rand told
+him, folding the sheet and putting it in his pocket. "This is better
+than an unwitnessed verbal statement that somebody is willing to pay
+twenty-five thousand. I'll certainly bear you in mind."</p>
+
+<p>"You can show that to Arnold Rivers, if you want to," Gwinnett said. "See
+how much he's willing to commit himself to, over his signature."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_8" id="CHAPTER_8"></a>CHAPTER 8</h2>
+
+
+<p>Pre-dinner cocktails in the library seemed to be a sort of household
+rite&mdash;a self-imposed Truce of Bacchus before the resumption of
+hostilities in the dining-room. It lasted from six forty-five to seven;
+everybody sipped Manhattans and kept quiet and listened to the radio
+newscast. The only new face, to Rand, was Fred Dunmore's.</p>
+
+<p>It was a smooth, pinkly-shaven face, decorated with octagonal rimless
+glasses; an entirely unremarkable face; the face of the type that used to
+be labeled "Babbitt." The corner of Rand's mind that handled such data
+subconsciously filed his description: forty-five to fifty, one-eighty,
+five feet eight, hair brown and thinning, eyes blue. To this he added the
+Rotarian button on the lapel, and the small gold globule on the watch
+chain that testified that, when his age and weight had been considerably
+less, Dunmore had played on somebody's basketball team. At that time he
+had probably belonged to the Y.M.C.A., and had thought that Mussolini was
+doing a splendid job in Italy, that H. L. Mencken ought to be deported to
+Russia, and that Prohibition was here to stay. At company sales meetings,
+he probably radiated an aura of synthetic good-fellowship.</p>
+
+<p>As Rand followed Walters down the spiral from the gunroom, the radio
+commercial was just starting, and Geraldine was asking Dunmore where
+Anton was.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, you know," Dunmore told her, impatiently. "He had to go to
+Louisburg, to that Medical Association meeting; he's reading a paper
+about the new diabetic ration."</p>
+
+<p>He broke off as Rand approached and was introduced by Gladys, who handed
+both men their cocktails. Then the news commentator greeted them out of
+the radio, and everybody absorbed the day's news along with their
+Manhattans. After the broadcast, they all crossed the hall to the
+dining-room, where hostilities began almost before the soup was cool
+enough to taste.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't see why you women had to do this," Dunmore huffed. "Rivers has
+made us a fair offer. Bringing in an outsider will only give him the
+impression that we lack confidence in him."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, won't that be just too, too bad!" Geraldine slashed at him. "We
+mustn't ever hurt dear Mr. Rivers's feelings like that. Let him have the
+collection for half what it's worth, but never, never let him think we
+know what a God-damned crook he is!"</p>
+
+<p>Dunmore evidently didn't think that worth dignifying with an answer.
+Doubtless he expected Nelda to launch a counter-offensive, as a matter of
+principle. If he did, he was disappointed.</p>
+
+<p>"Well?" Nelda demanded. "What did you want us to do; give the collection
+away?"</p>
+
+<p>"You don't understand," Dunmore told her. "You've probably heard somebody
+say what the collection's worth, and you never stopped to realize that
+it's only worth that to a dealer, who can sell it item by item. You can't
+expect ..."</p>
+
+<p>"We can expect a lot more than ten thousand dollars," Nelda retorted. "In
+fact, we can expect more than that from Rivers. Colonel Rand was talking
+to Rivers, this afternoon. Colonel Rand doesn't have any confidence in
+Rivers at all, and he doesn't care who knows it."</p>
+
+<p>"You were talking to Arnold Rivers, this afternoon, about the
+collection?" Dunmore demanded of Rand.</p>
+
+<p>"That's right," Rand confirmed. "I told him his ten thousand dollar offer
+was a joke. Stephen Gresham and his friends can top that out of one
+pocket. Finally, he got around to admitting that he's willing to pay up
+to twenty-five thousand."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't believe it!" Dunmore exclaimed angrily. "Rivers told me
+personally, that neither he nor any other dealer could hope to handle
+that collection profitably at more than ten thousand."</p>
+
+<p>"And you believed that?" Nelda demanded. "And you're a business man? <i>My
+God!</i>"</p>
+
+<p>"He's probably a good one, as long as he sticks to pancake flour,"
+Geraldine was generous enough to concede. "But about guns, he barely
+knows which end the bullet comes out at. Ten thousand was probably his
+idea of what we'd think the pistols were worth."</p>
+
+<p>Dunmore ignored that and turned to Rand. "Did Arnold Rivers actually tell
+you he'd pay twenty-five thousand dollars for the collection?" he asked.
+"I can't believe that he'd raise his own offer like that."</p>
+
+<p>"He didn't raise his offer; I threw it out and told him to make one that
+could be taken seriously." Rand repeated, as closely as he could, his
+conversation with the arms-dealer. When he had finished, Dunmore was
+frowning in puzzled displeasure.</p>
+
+<p>"And you think he's actually willing to pay that much?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I do. If he handles them right, he can double his money on the
+pistols inside of five years. I doubt if you realize how valuable those
+pistols are. You probably defined Mr. Fleming's collection as a 'hobby'
+and therefore something not to be taken seriously. And, aside from the
+actual profit, the prestige of handling this collection would be worth
+a good deal to Rivers, as advertising. I haven't the least doubt that he
+can raise the money, or that he's willing to pay it."</p>
+
+<p>Dunmore was still frowning. Maybe he hated being proved wrong in front of
+the women of the family.</p>
+
+<p>"And you think Gresham and his friends will offer enough to force him to
+pay the full amount?"</p>
+
+<p>Rand laughed and told him to stop being na&iuml;ve. "He's done that, himself,
+and what's more, he knows it. When he told me he was willing to go as
+high as twenty-five thousand, he fixed the price. Unless somebody offers
+more, which isn't impossible."</p>
+
+<p>"But maybe he's just bluffing." Dunmore seemed to be following Gwinnett's
+line of thought. "After he's bluffed Gresham's crowd out, maybe he'll go
+back to his original ten thousand offer."</p>
+
+<p>"Fred, please stop talking about that ten thousand dollars!" Geraldine
+interrupted. "How much did Rivers actually tell you he'd pay? Twenty-five
+thousand, like he did Colonel Rand?"</p>
+
+<p>Dunmore turned in his chair angrily. "Now, look here!" he shouted.
+"There's a limit to what I've got to take from you...."</p>
+
+<p>He stopped short, as Nelda, beside him, moved slightly, and his words
+ended in something that sounded like a smothered moan. Rand suspected
+that she had kicked her husband painfully under the table. Then Walters
+came in with the meat course, and firing ceased until the butler had
+retired.</p>
+
+<p>"By the way," Rand tossed into the conversational vacuum that followed
+his exit, "does anybody know anything about a record Mr. Fleming kept of
+his collection?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, no; can't say I do," Dunmore replied promptly, evidently grateful
+for the change of subject. "You mean, like an inventory?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Fred, you do!" Nelda told him impatiently. "You know that big gray
+book Father kept all his pistols entered in."</p>
+
+<p>"It was a gray ledger, with a black leather back," Gladys said. "He kept
+it in the little bookcase over the workbench in the gunroom."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll look for it," Rand said. "Sure it's still there? It would be a big
+help to me."</p>
+
+<p>The rest of the dinner passed in relative tranquillity. The conversation
+proceeded in fairly safe channels. Dunmore was anxious to avoid any
+further reference to the sum of ten thousand dollars; when Gladys induced
+Rand to talk about his military experiences, he lapsed into preoccupied
+silence. Several times, Geraldine and Nelda aimed halfhearted feline
+swipes at one another, more out of custom than present and active
+rancor. The women seemed to have erected a temporary tri-partite
+<i>Entente</i>-more-or-less-<i>Cordiale</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Finally, the meal ended, and the diners drifted away from the table. Rand
+went to his room for a few moments, then went to the gunroom to get the
+notes he had made. Fred Dunmore was using the private phone as he
+entered.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, never mind about that, now," he was saying. "We'll talk about
+it when I see you.... Yes, of course; so am I.... Well, say about
+eleven.... Be seeing you."</p>
+
+<p>He hung up and turned to Rand. "More God-damned union trouble," he said.
+"It's enough to make a saint lose his religion! Our factory-hands are
+organized in the C.I.O., and our warehouse, sales, and shipping personnel
+are in the A.F. of L., and if they aren't fighting the company, they're
+fighting each other. Now they have some damn kind of a jurisdictional
+dispute.... I don't know what this country's coming to!" He glared
+angrily through his octagonal glasses for a moment. Then his voice took
+on an ingratiating note. "Look here, Colonel; I just didn't understand
+the situation, until you explained it. I hope you aren't taking anything
+that sister-in-law of mine said seriously. She just blurts out the first
+thing that comes into her so-called mind; why, only yesterday she was
+accusing Gladys of bringing you into this to help her gyp the rest of us.
+And before that ..."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, forget it." Rand dismissed Geraldine with a shrug. "I know she was
+talking through a highball glass. As far as selling the collection is
+concerned, you just let Rivers sell you a bill of something you hadn't
+gotten a good look at. He's a smart operator, and he's crooked as a
+wagon-load of blacksnakes. Maybe you never realized just how much money
+Fleming put into this collection; naturally you wouldn't realize how much
+could be gotten out of it again. A lot of this stuff has been here for
+quite a while, and antiques of any kind tend to increase in value."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I want you to know that I'm just as glad as anybody if you can get
+a better price out of him than I could." Dunmore smiled ruefully. "I
+guess he's just a better poker player than I am."</p>
+
+<p>"Not necessarily. He could see your hand, and you couldn't see his," Rand
+told him.</p>
+
+<p>"You going to see Gresham and his friends, this evening?" Dunmore asked.
+"Well, when you get back, if you find four cars in the garage, counting
+the station-wagon, lock up after you've put your own car away. If you
+find only three, then you'll know that Anton Varcek's still out, so leave
+it open for him. That's the way we do here; last one in locks up."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_9" id="CHAPTER_9"></a>CHAPTER 9</h2>
+
+
+<p>Rand found another car, a smoke-gray Plymouth coup&eacute;, standing on the
+left of his Lincoln when he went down to the garage. Running his car
+outside and down to the highway, he settled down to his regular style of
+driving&mdash;a barely legal fifty m.p.h., punctuated by bursts of absolutely
+felonious speed whenever he found an unobstructed straightaway. Entering
+Rosemont, he slowed and went through the underpass at the railroad
+tracks, speeding again when he was clear of the village. A few minutes
+later, he was turning into the crushed-limestone drive that led up to the
+buff-brick Gresham house.</p>
+
+<p>A girl met him at the door, a cute little redhead in a red-striped dress,
+who gave him a smile that seemed to start on the bridge of her nose and
+lift her whole face up after it. She held out her hand to him.</p>
+
+<p>"Colonel Rand!" she exclaimed. "I'll bet you don't remember me."</p>
+
+<p>"Sure I do. You're Dot," Rand said. "At least, I think you are; the last
+time I saw you, you were in pigtails. And you were only about so high."
+He measured with his hand. "The last time I was here, you were away at
+school. You must be old enough to vote, by now."</p>
+
+<p>"I will, this fall," she replied. "Come on in; you're the first one
+here. Daddy hasn't gotten back from town yet. He called and said he'd
+be delayed till about nine." In the hall she took his hat and coat and
+guided him toward the parlor on the right.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Mother!" she called. "Here's Colonel Rand!"</p>
+
+<p>Rand remembered Irene Gresham, too; an over-age dizzy blonde who was
+still living in the Flaming Youth era of the twenties. She was an
+extremely good egg; he liked her very much. After all, insisting upon
+remaining an F. Scott Fitzgerald character was a harmless and amusing
+foible, and it was no more than right that somebody should try to keep
+the bright banner of Jazz Age innocence flying in a grim and sullen
+world. He accepted a cigarette, shared the flame of his lighter with
+mother and daughter, and submitted to being gushed over.</p>
+
+<p>"... and, honestly, Jeff, you get handsomer every year," Irene Gresham
+rattled on. "Dot, doesn't he look just like Clark Gable in <i>Gone with the
+Wind</i>? But then, of course, Jeff really <i>is</i> a Southerner, so ..."</p>
+
+<p>The doorbell interrupted this slight <i>non sequitur</i>. She broke off,
+rising.</p>
+
+<p>"Sit still, Jeff; I'm just going to see who it is. You know, we're down
+to only one servant now, and it seems as if it's always her night off, or
+something. I don't know, honestly, what I'm going to do...."</p>
+
+<p>She hurried out of the room. Voices sounded in the hall; a man's and a
+girl's.</p>
+
+<p>"That's Pierre and Karen," Dot said. "Let's all go up in the gunroom, and
+wait for the others there."</p>
+
+<p>They went out to meet the newcomers. The man was a few inches shorter
+than Rand, with gray eyes that looked startlingly light against the dark
+brown of his face. He wasn't using a cane, but he walked with a slight
+limp. Beside him was a slender girl, almost as tall as he was, with dark
+brown hair and brown eyes. She wore a rust-brown sweater and a brown
+skirt, and low-heeled walking-shoes.</p>
+
+<p>Irene Gresham went into the introductions, the newcomers shook hands with
+Rand and were advised that the style of address was "Jeff," rather than
+"Colonel Rand," and then Dot suggested going up to the gunroom. Irene
+Gresham said she'd stay downstairs; she'd have to let the others in.</p>
+
+<p>"Have you seen this collection before?" Pierre Jarrett inquired as he and
+Rand went upstairs together.</p>
+
+<p>"About two years ago," Rand said. "Stephen had just gotten a cased
+dueling set by Wilkinson, then. From the Far West Hobby Shop, I think."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, he's gotten a lot of new stuff since then, and sold off about a
+dozen culls and duplicates," the former Marine said. "I'll show you
+what's new, till the others come."</p>
+
+<p>They reached the head of the stairs and started down the hall to the
+gunroom, in the wing that projected out over the garage. Along the way,
+the girls detached themselves for nose-powdering.</p>
+
+<p>Unlike the room at the Fleming home, Stephen Gresham's gunroom had
+originally been something else&mdash;a nursery, or play-room, or party-room.
+There were windows on both long sides, which considerably reduced the
+available wall-space, and the situation wasn't helped any by the fact
+that the collection was about thirty per cent long-arms. Things were
+pretty badly crowded; most of the rifles and muskets were in circular
+barracks-racks, away from the walls.</p>
+
+<p>"Here, this one's new since you were here," Pierre said, picking a long
+musket from one of the racks and handing it to Rand. "How do you like
+this one?"</p>
+
+<p>Rand took it and whistled appreciatively. "Real European matchlock; no,
+I never saw that. Looks like North Italian, say 1575 to about 1600."</p>
+
+<p>"That musket," Pierre informed him, "came over on the <i>Mayflower</i>."</p>
+
+<p>"Really, or just a gag?" Rand asked. "It easily could have. The
+<i>Mayflower</i> Company bought their muskets in Holland, from some
+seventeenth-century forerunner of Bannerman's, and Europe was full of
+muskets like this then, left over from the wars of the Holy Roman Empire
+and the French religious wars."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; I suppose all their muskets were obsolete types for the period,"
+Pierre agreed. "Well, that's a real <i>Mayflower</i> arm. Stephen has the
+documentation for it. It came from the Charles Winthrop Sawyer
+collection, and there were only three ownership changes between the last
+owner and the <i>Mayflower</i> Company. Stephen only paid a hundred dollars
+for it, too."</p>
+
+<p>"That was practically stealing," Rand said. He carried the musket to the
+light and examined it closely. "Nice condition, too; I wouldn't be afraid
+to fire this with a full charge, right now." He handed the weapon back.
+"He didn't lose a thing on that deal."</p>
+
+<p>"I should say not! I'd give him two hundred for it, any time. Even
+without the history, it's worth that."</p>
+
+<p>"Who buys history, anyhow?" Rand wanted to know. "The fact that it came
+from the Sawyer collection adds more value to it than this <i>Mayflower</i>
+business. Past ownership by a recognized authority like Sawyer is a real
+guarantee of quality and authenticity. But history, documented or
+otherwise&mdash;hell, only yesterday I saw a pair of pistols with a wonderful
+three-hundred-and-fifty-year documented history. Only not a word of it
+was true; the pistols were made about twenty years ago."</p>
+
+<p>"Those wheel locks Fleming bought from Arnold Rivers?" Pierre asked.
+"God, wasn't that a crime! I'll bet Rivers bought himself a big drink
+when Lane Fleming was killed. Fleming was all set to hang Rivers's scalp
+in his wigwam.... But with Stephen, the history does count for
+something. As you probably know, he collects arms-types that figured in
+American history. Well, he can prove that this individual musket was
+brought over by the Pilgrims, so he can be sure it's an example of the
+type they used. But he'd sooner have a typical Pilgrim musket that never
+was within five thousand miles of Plymouth Rock than a non-typical arm
+brought over as a personal weapon by one of the <i>Mayflower</i> Company."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, none of us are really interested in the individual history of
+collection weapons," Rand said. "You show me a collection that's full of
+known-history arms, and I'll show you a collection that's either full of
+junk or else cost three times what it's worth. And you show me a
+collector who blows money on history, and nine times out of ten I'll show
+you a collector who doesn't know guns. I saw one such collection, once;
+every item had its history neatly written out on a tag and hung onto the
+trigger-guard. The owner thought that the patent-dates on Colts were
+model-dates, and the model-dates on French military arms were dates of
+fabrication."</p>
+
+<p>Pierre wrinkled his nose disgustedly. "God, I hate to see a collection
+all fouled up with tags hung on things!" he said. "Or stuck over with
+gummed labels; that's even worse. Once in a while I get something with a
+label pasted on it, usually on the stock, and after I get it off, there's
+a job getting the wood under it rubbed up to the same color as the rest
+of the stock."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. I picked up a lovely little rifled flintlock pistol, once," Rand
+said. "American; full-length curly-maple stock; really a Kentucky rifle
+in pistol form. Whoever had owned it before me had pasted a slip of paper
+on the underside of the stock, between the trigger-guard and the lower
+ramrod thimble, with a lot of crap, mostly erroneous, typed on it. It
+took me six months to remove the last traces of where that thing had been
+stuck on."</p>
+
+<p>"What do you collect, or don't you specialize?"</p>
+
+<p>"Pistols; I try to get the best possible specimens of the most important
+types, special emphasis on British arms after 1700 and American arms
+after 1800. What I'm interested in is the evolution of the pistol. I have
+a couple of wheel locks, to start with, and three miguelet-locks and an
+Italian snaphaunce. Then I have a few early flintlocks, and a number of
+mid-eighteenth-century types, and some late flintlocks and percussion
+types. And about twenty Colts, and so on through percussion revolvers and
+early cartridge types to some modern arms, including a few World War II
+arms."</p>
+
+<p>"I see; about the same idea Lane Fleming had," Pierre said. "I collect
+personal combat-arms, firearms and edge-weapons. Arms that either
+influenced fighting techniques, or were developed to meet special combat
+conditions. From what you say, you're mainly interested in the way
+firearms were designed and made; I'm interested in the conditions under
+which they were used. And Adam Trehearne, who'll be here shortly,
+collects pistols and a few long-arms in wheel lock, proto-flintlock and
+early flintlock, to 1700. And Philip Cabot collects U.S. Martials,
+flintlock to automatic, and also enemy and Allied Army weapons from all
+our wars. And Colin MacBride collects nothing but Colts. Odd how a Scot,
+who's only been in this country twenty years, should become interested
+in so distinctively American a type."</p>
+
+<p>"And I collect anything I can sell at a profit, from Chinese matchlocks
+to tommy-guns," Karen Lawrence interjected, coming into the room with Dot
+Gresham.</p>
+
+<p>Pierre grinned. "Karen is practically a unique specimen herself; the only
+general-antique dealer I've ever seen who doesn't hate the sight of a
+gun-collector."</p>
+
+<p>"That's only because I'm crazy enough to want to marry one," the
+girl dealer replied. "Of all the miserly, unscrupulous, grasping
+characters ..." She expressed a doubt that the average gun-collector
+would pay more than ten cents to see his Lord and Savior riding to hounds
+on a Bren-carrier. "They don't give a hoot whose grandfather owned what,
+and if anything's battered up a little, they don't think it looks quaint,
+they think it looks lousy. And they've never heard of inflation; they
+think arms ought still to sell for the sort of prices they brought at the
+old Mark Field sale, back in 1911."</p>
+
+<p>"What were you looking at?" Dot asked Rand, then glanced at the musket in
+Pierre's hands. "Oh, Priscilla."</p>
+
+<p>Karen laughed. "Dot not only knows everything in the collection; she
+knows it by name. Dot, show Colonel Rand Hester Prynne."</p>
+
+<p>"Hester coming up," Gresham's daughter said, catching another musket out
+of the same rack from which Pierre had gotten the matchlock and passing
+it over to Rand. He grasped the heavy piece, approving of the easy,
+instinctive way in which the girl had handled it. "Look on the barrel,"
+she told him. "On top, right at the breech."</p>
+
+<p>The gun was a flintlock, or rather, a dog-lock; sure enough, stamped on
+the breech was the big "A" of the Company of Workmen Armorers of London,
+the seventeenth-century gunmakers' guild.</p>
+
+<p>"That's right," he nodded. "That's Hester Prynne, all right; the first
+American girl to make her letter."</p>
+
+<p>There were footsteps in the hall outside, and male voices.</p>
+
+<p>"Adam and Colin," Pierre recognized them before they entered.</p>
+
+<p>Both men were past fifty. Colin MacBride was a six-foot black Highlander;
+black eyes, black hair, and a black weeping-willow mustache, from under
+which a stubby pipe jutted. Except when he emptied it of ashes and
+refilled it, it was a permanent fixture of his weather-beaten face.
+Trehearne was somewhat shorter, and fair; his sandy mustache, beginning
+to turn gray at the edges, was clipped to micrometric exactness.</p>
+
+<p>They shook hands with Rand, who set Hester back in her place. Trehearne
+took the matchlock out of Pierre's hands and looked at it wistfully.</p>
+
+<p>"Some chaps have all the luck," he commented. "What do you think of it,
+Mr. Rand?" Pierre, who had made the introductions, had respected the
+detective's present civilian status. "Or don't you collect long-arms?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't collect them, but I'm interested in anything that'll shoot.
+That's a good one. Those things are scarce, too."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. You'll find a hundred wheel locks for every matchlock, and yet
+there must have been a hundred matchlocks made for every wheel lock."</p>
+
+<p>"Matchlocks were cheap, and wheel locks were expensive," MacBride
+suggested. He spoke with the faintest trace of Highland accent.
+"Naturally, they got better care."</p>
+
+<p>"It would take a Scot to think of that," Karen said. "Now, you take a
+Scot who collects guns, and you have something!"</p>
+
+<p>"That's only part of it," Rand said. "I believe that by the last quarter
+of the seventeenth century, most of the matchlocks that were lying around
+had been scrapped, and the barrels used in making flintlocks. Hester
+Prynne, over there, could easily have started her career as a matchlock.
+And then, a great many matchlocks went into the West African slave and
+ivory trade, and were promptly ruined by the natives."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, and I seem to recall having seen Spanish and French miguelet
+muskets that looked as though they had been altered directly from
+matchlock, retaining the original stock and even the original
+lock-plate," Trehearne added.</p>
+
+<p>"So have I, come to think of it." Rand stole a glance at his wrist-watch.
+It was nine five; he was wishing Stephen Gresham would put in an
+appearance.</p>
+
+<p>MacBride and Trehearne joined Pierre and the girls in showing him
+Gresham's collection; evidently they all knew it almost as well as their
+own. After a while, Irene Gresham ushered in Philip Cabot. He, too, was
+past middle age, with prematurely white hair and a thin, scholarly face.
+According to Hollywood type-casting, he might have been a professor, or a
+judge, or a Boston Brahmin, but never a stockbroker.</p>
+
+<p>Irene Gresham wanted to know what everybody wanted to drink. Rand wanted
+Bourbon and plain water; MacBride voted for Jamaica rum; Trehearne and
+Cabot favored brandy and soda, and Pierre and the girls wanted Bacardi
+and Coca-Cola.</p>
+
+<p>"And Stephen'll want rye and soda, when he gets here," Irene said. "Come
+on, girls; let's rustle up the drinks."</p>
+
+<p>Before they returned, Stephen Gresham came in, lighting a cigar. It was
+just nine twenty-two.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I see everybody's here," he said. "No; where's Karen?"</p>
+
+<p>Pierre told him. A few minutes later the women returned, carrying bottles
+and glasses; when the flurry of drink-mixing had subsided, they all sat
+down.</p>
+
+<p>"Let's get the business over first," Gresham suggested. "I suppose you've
+gone over the collection already, Jeff?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, and first of all, I want to know something. When was the last that
+any of you saw it?"</p>
+
+<p>Gresham and Pierre had been in Fleming's gunroom just two days before the
+fatal "accident."</p>
+
+<p>"And can you tell me if the big Whitneyville Colt was still there, then?"
+Rand asked. "Or the Rappahannock Forge, or the Collier flintlock, or the
+Hall?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, of course ... My God, aren't they there now?" Gresham demanded.</p>
+
+<p>Rand shook his head. "And if Fleming still had them two days before he
+was killed, then somebody's been weeding out the collection since. Doing
+it very cleverly, too," he added. "You know how that stuff's arranged,
+and how conspicuous a missing pistol would be. Well, when I was going
+over the collection, I found about two dozen pieces of the most utter
+trash, things Lane Fleming wouldn't have allowed in the house, all
+hanging where some really good item ought to have been." He took a paper
+from his pocket and read off a list of the dubious items, interpolating
+comments on the condition, and a list of the real rarities which Gresham
+had mentioned the day before, which were now missing.</p>
+
+<p>"All that good stuff was there the last time I saw the collection,"
+Gresham said. "What do you say, Pierre?"</p>
+
+<p>"I had the Hall pistol in my hands," Pierre said. "And I remember looking
+at the Rappahannock Forge."</p>
+
+<p>Trehearne broke in to ask how many English dog-locks there were, and if
+the snaphaunce Highlander and the big all-steel wheel lock were still
+there. At the same time, Cabot was inquiring about the Springfield 1818
+and the Virginia Manufactory pistols.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll have a complete, itemized list in a few days," Rand said. "In the
+meantime, I'd like a couple of you to look at the collection and help me
+decide what's missing. I'm going to try to catch the thief, and then get
+at the fence through him."</p>
+
+<p>"Think Rivers might have gotten the pistols?" Gresham asked. "He's the
+crookedest dealer I know of."</p>
+
+<p>"He's the crookedest dealer anybody knows of," Rand amended. "The only
+thing, he's a little too anxious to buy the collection, for somebody
+who's just skimmed off the cream."</p>
+
+<p>"Ten thousand dollars isn't much in the way of anxiety," Cabot said. "I'd
+call that a nominal bid, to avoid suspicion."</p>
+
+<p>"The dope's changed a little on that." Rand brought him up to date.
+"Rivers's offer is now twenty-five thousand."</p>
+
+<p>There was a stunned hush, followed by a gust of exclamations.</p>
+
+<p>"Guid Lorrd!" The Scots accent fairly curdled on Colin MacBride's tongue.
+"We canna go over that!"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm afraid not; twenty would be about our limit," Gresham agreed. "And
+with the best items gone ..." He shrugged.</p>
+
+<p>Pierre and Karen were looking at each other in blank misery; their dream
+of establishing themselves in the arms business had blown up in their
+faces.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, he's talking through his hat!" Cabot declared. "He just hopes we'll
+lose interest, and then he'll buy what's left of the collection for a
+song."</p>
+
+<p>"Maybe he knows the collection's been robbed," Trehearne suggested. "That
+would let him out, later. He'd accuse you or the Fleming estate of
+holding out the best pieces, and then offer to take what's left for about
+five thousand."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, that would be presuming that he knows the collection has been
+robbed," Cabot pointed out. "And the only way he'd know that would be if
+he, himself, had bought the stolen pistols."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, does anybody need a chaser to swallow that?" Trehearne countered.
+"I'm bloody sure I don't."</p>
+
+<p>Karen Lawrence shook her head. "No, he'd pay twenty-five thousand for the
+collection, just as it stands, to keep Pierre and me out of the arms
+business. This end of the state couldn't support another arms-dealer, and
+with the reputation he's made for himself, he'd be the one to go under."
+She stubbed out her cigarette and finished her drink. "If you don't mind,
+Pierre, I think I'll go home."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm not feeling very festive, myself, right now." The ex-Marine rose and
+held out his hand to Rand. "Don't get the idea, Jeff, that anybody here
+holds this against you. You have your clients' interests to look out
+for."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, if this be treason make the most of it," Rand said, "but I hope
+Rivers doesn't go through with it. I'd like to see you people get the
+collection, and I'd hate to see a lot of nice pistols like that get into
+the hands of a damned swindler like Rivers.... Maybe I can catch him with
+the hot-goods on him, and send him up for about three-to-five."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, he's too smart for that," Karen despaired. "He can get away with
+faking, but the dumbest jury in the world would know what receiving
+stolen goods was, and he knows it."</p>
+
+<p>Dorothy and Irene Gresham accompanied Pierre and Karen downstairs. After
+they had gone, Gresham tried, not very successfully, to inject more life
+into the party with another round of drinks. For a while they discussed
+the personal and commercial iniquities of Arnold Rivers. Trehearne and
+MacBride, who had come together in the latter's car, left shortly, and
+half an hour later, Philip Cabot rose and announced that he, too, was
+leaving.</p>
+
+<p>"You haven't seen my collection since before the war, Jeff," he said. "If
+you're not sleepy, why don't you stop at my place and see what's new?
+You're staying at the Flemings'; my house is along your way, about a mile
+on the other side of the railroad."</p>
+
+<p>They went out and got into their cars. Rand kept Cabot's taillight in
+sight until the broker swung into his drive and put his car in the
+garage. Rand parked beside the road, took the Leech &amp; Rigdon out of the
+glove-box, and got out, slipping the Confederate revolver under his
+trouser-band. He was pulling down his vest to cover the butt as he went
+up the walk and joined his friend at the front door.</p>
+
+<p>Cabot's combination library and gunroom was on the first floor. Like
+Rand's own, his collection was hung on racks over low bookcases on either
+side of the room. It was strictly a collector's collection, intensely
+specialized. There were all but a few of the U.S. regulation single-shot
+pistols, a fair representation of secondary types, most of the revolvers
+of the Civil War, and all the later revolvers and automatics. In
+addition, there were British pistols of the Revolution and 1812,
+Confederate revolvers, a couple of Spanish revolvers of 1898, the Lugers
+and Mausers and Steyers of the first World War, and the pistols of all
+our allies, beginning with the French weapons of the Revolution.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm having the devil's own time filling in for this last war," Cabot
+said. "I have a want-ad running in the <i>Rifleman</i>, and I've gotten a few:
+that Nambu, and that Japanese Model-14, and the Polish Radom, and the
+Italian Glisenti, and that Tokarev, and, of course, the P-'38 and the
+Canadian Browning; but it's going to take the devil's own time. I hope
+nobody starts another war, for a few years, till I can get caught up on
+the last one."</p>
+
+<p>Rand was looking at the Confederate revolvers. Griswold &amp; Grier, Haiman
+Brothers, Tucker &amp; Sherrod, Dance Brothers &amp; Park, Spiller &amp; Burr&mdash;there
+it was: Leech &amp; Rigdon. He tapped it on the cylinder with a finger.</p>
+
+<p>"Wasn't it one of those things that killed Lane Fleming?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Leech &amp; Rigdon? So I'm told." Cabot hesitated. "Jeff, I saw that
+revolver, not four hours before Fleming was shot. Had it in my hands;
+looked it over carefully." He shook his head. "It absolutely was not
+loaded. It was empty, and there was rust in the chambers."</p>
+
+<p>"Then how the hell did he get shot?" Rand wanted to know.</p>
+
+<p>"That I couldn't say; I'm only telling you how he didn't get shot. Here,
+this is how it was. It was a Thursday, and I'd come halfway out from town
+before I remembered that I hadn't bought a copy of <i>Time</i>, so I stopped
+at Biddle's drugstore, in the village, for one. Just as I was getting
+into my car, outside, Lane Fleming drove up and saw me. He blew his horn
+at me, and then waved to me with this revolver in his hand. I went over
+and looked at it, and he told me he'd found it hanging back of the
+counter at a barbecue-stand, where the road from Rosemont joins Route 22.
+There had been some other pistols with it, and I went to see them later,
+but they were all trash. The Leech &amp; Rigdon had been the only decent
+thing there, and Fleming had talked it out of this fellow for ten
+dollars. He was disgustingly gleeful about it, particularly as it was
+a better specimen than mine."</p>
+
+<p>"Would you know it, if you saw it again?" Rand asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. I remember the serials. I always look at serials on Confederate
+arms. The highest known serial number for a Leech &amp; Rigdon is 1393; this
+one was 1234."</p>
+
+<p>Rand pulled the .36 revolver from his pants-leg and gave it a quick
+glance; the number was 1234. He handed it to Cabot.</p>
+
+<p>"Is this it?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>Cabot checked the number. "Yes. And I remember this bruise on the left
+grip; Fleming was saying that he was glad it would be on the inside, so
+it wouldn't show when he hung it on the wall." He carried the revolver to
+the desk and held it under the light. "Why, this thing wasn't fired at
+all!" he exclaimed. "I thought that Fleming might have loaded it, meaning
+to target it&mdash;he had a pistol range back of his house&mdash;but the chambers
+are clean." He sniffed at it. "Hoppe's Number Nine," he said. "And I can
+see traces of partly dissolved rust, and no traces of fouling. What the
+devil, Jeff?"</p>
+
+<p>"It probably hasn't been fired since Appomattox," Rand agreed. "Philip,
+do you think all this didn't-know-it-was-loaded routine might be an
+elaborate suicide build-up, either before or after the fact?"</p>
+
+<p>"Absolutely not!" There was a trace of impatience in Cabot's voice. "Lane
+Fleming wasn't the man to commit suicide. I knew him too well ever to
+believe that."</p>
+
+<p>"I heard a rumor that he was about to lose control of his company," Rand
+mentioned. "You know how much Premix meant to him."</p>
+
+<p>"That's idiotic!" Cabot's voice was openly scornful, now, and he seemed
+a little angry that Rand should believe such a story, as though his
+confidence in his friend's intelligence had been betrayed. "Good Lord,
+Jeff, where did you ever hear a yarn like that?"</p>
+
+<p>"Quote, usually well-informed sources, unquote."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, they were unusually ill-informed, that time," Cabot replied. "Take
+my word for it, there's absolutely nothing in it."</p>
+
+<p>"So it wasn't an accident, and it wasn't suicide," Rand considered.
+"Philip, what is the prognosis on this merger of Premix and National
+Milling &amp; Packaging, now that Lane Fleming's opposition has been, shall
+we say, liquidated?"</p>
+
+<p>Cabot's head jerked up; he looked at Rand in shocked surprise.</p>
+
+<p>"My God, you don't think...?" he began. "Jeff, are you investigating Lane
+Fleming's death?"</p>
+
+<p>"I was retained to sell the collection," Rand stated. "Now, I suppose,
+I'll have to find out who's been stealing those pistols, and recover
+them, and jail the thief and the fence. But I was not retained to
+investigate the death of Lane Fleming. And I do not do work for which
+I am not paid," he added, with mendacious literalness.</p>
+
+<p>"I see. Well, the merger's going through. It won't be official until the
+sixteenth of May, when the Premix stockholders meet, but that's just a
+formality. It's all cut and dried and in the bag now. Better let me pick
+you up a little Premix; there's still some lying around. You'll make a
+little less than four-for-one on it."</p>
+
+<p>"I'd had that in mind when I asked you about the merger," Rand said. "I
+have about two thousand with you, haven't I?" He did a moment's mental
+arithmetic, then got out his checkbook. "Pick me up about a hundred
+shares," he told the broker. "I've been meaning to get in on this ever
+since I heard about it."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't see how you did hear about it," Cabot said. "For obvious
+reasons, it's being kept pretty well under the hat."</p>
+
+<p>Rand grinned. "Quote, usually well-informed sources, unquote. Not the
+sources mentioned above."</p>
+
+<p>"Jeff, you know, this damned thing's worrying me," Cabot told him,
+writing a receipt and exchanging it for Rand's check. "I've been trying
+to ignore it, but I simply can't. Do you really think Lane Fleming was
+murdered by somebody who wanted to see this merger consummated and who
+knew that that was an impossibility as long as Fleming was alive?"</p>
+
+<p>"Philip, I don't know. And furthermore, I don't give a damn," Rand lied.
+"If somebody wants me to look into it, and pays me my possibly
+exaggerated idea of what constitutes fair compensation, I will. And I'll
+probably come up with Fleming's murderer, dead or alive. But until then,
+it is simply no epidermis off my scrotum. And I advise you to adopt a
+similar attitude."</p>
+
+<p>They changed the subject, then, to the variety of pistols developed and
+used by the opposing nations in World War II, and the difficulties ahead
+of Cabot in assembling even a fairly representative group of them. Rand
+promised to mail Cabot a duplicate copy of his list of the letter-code
+symbols used by the Nazis to indicate the factories manufacturing arms
+for them, as well as copies of some old wartime Intelligence dope on
+enemy small-arms. At a little past one, he left Cabot's home and returned
+to the Fleming residence.</p>
+
+<p>There were four cars in the garage. The Packard sedan had not been moved,
+but the station-wagon was facing in the opposite direction. The gray
+Plymouth was in the space from which Rand had driven earlier in the
+evening, and a black Chrysler Imperial had been run in on the left of the
+Plymouth. He put his own car in on the right of the station-wagon, made
+sure that the Leech &amp; Rigdon was locked in his glove-box, and closed and
+locked the garage doors. Then he went up into the house, through the
+library, and by the spiral stairway to the gunroom.</p>
+
+<p>The garage had been open, he recalled, at the time of Lane Fleming's
+death. The availability of such an easy means of undetected ingress and
+egress threw the suspect field wide open. Anybody who knew the habits of
+the Fleming household could have slipped up to the gunroom, while Varcek
+was in his lab, Dunmore was in the bathroom, and Gladys and Geraldine
+were in the parlor. As he crossed the hall to his own room, Rand was
+thinking of how narrowly Arnold Rivers had escaped a disastrous lawsuit
+and criminal action by the death of Lane Fleming.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_10" id="CHAPTER_10"></a>CHAPTER 10</h2>
+
+
+<p>When Rand came down to breakfast the next morning, he found Gladys,
+Nelda, and a man whom he decided, by elimination, must be Anton Varcek,
+already at the table. The latter rose as Rand entered, and bowed jerkily
+as Gladys verified the guess with an introduction.</p>
+
+<p>He was about Rand's own age and height; he had a smooth-shaven,
+tight-mouthed face, adorned with bushy eyebrows, each of which was almost
+as heavy as Rand's mustache. It was a face that seemed tantalizingly
+familiar, and Rand puzzled for a moment, then nodded mentally. Of course
+he had seen a face like that hundreds of times, in newsreels and
+news-photos, and, once in pre-war Berlin, its living double. Rudolf Hess.
+He wondered how much deeper the resemblance went, and tried not to let it
+prejudice him.</p>
+
+<p>Nelda greeted him with a trowelful of sweetness and a dash of
+bedroom-bait. Gladys waved him to a vacant seat at her right and summoned
+the maid who had been serving breakfast. After Rand had indicated his
+preference of fruit and found out what else there was to eat, he inquired
+where the others were.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Fred's still dressing; he'll be down in a minute," Nelda told him.
+"And Geraldine won't; she never eats with her breakfast."</p>
+
+<p>Varcek winced slightly at this, and shifted the subject by inquiring if
+Rand were a professional antiques-expert.</p>
+
+<p>"No, I'm a lily-pure amateur," Rand told him. "Or was until I took this
+job. I have a collection of my own, and I'm supposed to be something of
+an authority. My business is operating a private detective agency."</p>
+
+<p>"But you are here only as an arms-expert?" Varcek inquired. "You are not
+making any sort of detective investigation?"</p>
+
+<p>"That's right," Rand assured him. "This is practically a paid vacation,
+for me. First time I ever handled anything like this; it's a real
+pleasure to be working at something I really enjoy, for a change."</p>
+
+<p>Varcek nodded. "Yes, I can understand that. My own work, for instance. I
+would continue with my research even if I were independently wealthy and
+any sort of work were unnecessary."</p>
+
+<p>"Tell Colonel Rand what you're working on now," Nelda urged.</p>
+
+<p>Varcek gave a small mirthless laugh. "Oh, Colonel Rand would be no more
+interested than I would be in his pistols," he objected, then turned to
+Rand. "It is a series of experiments having to do with the chemical
+nature of life," he said. Another perfunctory chuckle. "No, I am not
+trying to re-create Frankenstein's monster. The fact is, I am working
+with fruit flies."</p>
+
+<p>"Something about heredity?" Rand wanted to know.</p>
+
+<p>Varcek laughed again, with more amusement. "So! One says: 'Fruit flies,'
+and immediately another thinks: 'Heredity.' It is practically a standard
+response. Only, in this case, I am investigating the effect of diet
+changes. I use fruit flies because of their extreme adaptability. If
+I find that I am on the right track, I shall work with mice, next."</p>
+
+<p>"Fred Dunmore mentioned a packaged diabetic ration you'd developed," Rand
+mentioned.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes." Varcek shrugged. "Yes. Something like an Army field-ration,
+for diabetics to carry when traveling, or wherever proper food may be
+unobtainable. That is for the company; soon we put it on the market, and
+make lots of money. But this other, that is my own private work."</p>
+
+<p>Dunmore had come in while Varcek was speaking and had seated himself
+beside his wife.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't let him kid you, Colonel," he said. "Anton's just as keen
+about that dollar as the rest of us. I don't know what he's cooking
+up, up there in the attic, but I'll give ten-to-one we'll be selling
+it in twenty-five-cent packages inside a year, and selling plenty of
+them.... Oh, and speaking about that dollar; how did you make out with
+Gresham and his friends?"</p>
+
+<p>"I didn't. They'd expected to pay about twenty thousand for the
+collection; Rivers's offer has them stopped. And even if they could go
+over twenty-five, I think Rivers would raise them. He's afraid to let
+them get the collection; Pierre Jarrett and Karen Lawrence intended
+using their share of it to go into the old-arms business, in competition
+with him."</p>
+
+<p>"Uh-huh, that's smart," Dunmore approved. "It's always better to take a
+small loss stopping competition than to let it get too big for you. You
+save a damn-sight bigger loss later."</p>
+
+<p>"How soon do you think the pistols will be sold?" Gladys asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, in about a month, at the outside," Rand said, continuing to explain
+what had to be done first.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I'm glad of that," Varcek commented. "I never liked those things,
+and after what happened ... The sooner they can be sold, the better."</p>
+
+<p>Breakfast finally ended, and Varcek and Dunmore left for the Premix
+plant. Rand debated for a moment the wisdom of speaking to Gladys about
+the missing pistols, then decided to wait until his suspicions were
+better verified. After a few minutes in the gunroom, going over Lane
+Fleming's arms-books on the shelf over the workbench without finding any
+trace of the book in which he had catalogued his collection, he got his
+hat and coat, went down to the garage, and took out his car.</p>
+
+<p>It had stopped raining for the time being; the dingy sky showed broken
+spots like bits of bluing on a badly-rusted piece of steel. As he got out
+of his car in front of Arnold Rivers's red-brick house, he was wondering
+just how he was going to go about what he wanted to do. After all ...</p>
+
+<p>The door of the shop was unlocked, and opened with a slow clanging of the
+door-chime, but the interior was dark. All the shades had been pulled,
+and the lights were out. For a moment Rand stood in the doorway,
+adjusting his eyes to the darkness within and wondering where everybody
+was.</p>
+
+<p>Then, in the path of light that fell inward from the open door, he saw
+two feet in tan shoes, toes up, at the end of tweed-trousered legs, on
+the floor. An instant later he stepped inside, pulled the door shut after
+him, and was using his pen-light to find the electric switch.</p>
+
+<p>For a second or so after he snapped it nothing happened, and then the
+darkness was broken by the flickering of fluorescent tubes. When they
+finally lit, he saw the shape on the floor, arms outflung, the inverted
+rifle above it. For a seemingly long time he stood and stared at the
+grotesquely transfixed body of Arnold Rivers.</p>
+
+<p>The dead man lay on his back, not three feet beyond the radius of the
+door, in a pool of blood that was almost dried and gave the room a
+sickly-sweet butchershop odor. Under the back of Rand's hand, Rivers's
+cheek was cold; his muscles had already begun to stiffen in <i>rigor
+mortis</i>. Rand examined the dead man's wounds. His coat was stained with
+blood and gashed in several places; driven into his chest by a downward
+blow, the bayonet of a short German service Mauser pinned him to the
+floor like a specimen on a naturalist's card. Beside the one in which
+the weapon remained, there were three stab-wounds in the chest, and the
+lower part of the face was disfigured by what looked like a butt-blow.
+Bending over, Rand could see the imprint of the Mauser butt-plate on
+Rivers's jaw; on the butt-plate itself were traces of blood.</p>
+
+<p>The rifle, a regulation German infantry weapon, the long-familiar <i>Gewehr
+'98</i> in its most recent modification, was a Nazi product, bearing the
+eagle and encircled swastika of the Third Reich and the code-letters
+<i>lza</i>&mdash;the symbol of the Mauserwerke A.G. plant at Karlsruhe. It had
+doubtless been sold to Rivers by some returned soldier. In a rack beside
+the door were a number of other bolt-action military rifles&mdash;a Krag, a
+couple of Arisakas, a long German infantry rifle of the first World War,
+a Greek Mannlicher, a Mexican Mauser, a British short model Lee-Enfield.
+All had fixed bayonets; between the Lee-Enfield and one of the Arisakas
+there was a vacancy.</p>
+
+<p>Rivers's carved ivory cigarette-holder was lying beside the body, crushed
+at the end as though it had been stepped on. A half-smoked cigarette had
+been in it; it, too, was crushed. There was no evidence of any great
+struggle, however; the attack which had ended the arms-dealer's life must
+have come as a complete surprise. He had probably been holding the
+cigarette-holder in his hand when the butt-blow had been delivered, and
+had dropped it and flung up his arms instinctively. Thereupon, his
+assailant had reversed his weapon and driven the bayonet into his chest.
+The first blow, no doubt, had been fatal&mdash;it could have been any of the
+three stabs in the chest&mdash;but the killer had given him two more, probably
+while he was on the floor. Then, grasping the rifle in both hands, he had
+stood over his victim and pinned the body to the floor. That last blow
+could have only been inspired by pure anger and hatred.</p>
+
+<p>Yet, apparently, Rivers had been unaware of his visitor's murderous
+intentions, even while the rifle was being taken from the rack. Rand
+strolled back through the shop, looking about. Someone had been here with
+Rivers for some time; the dealer and another man had sat by the fire,
+drinking and smoking. On the low table was a fifth of Haig &amp; Haig, a
+siphon, two glasses, a glass bowl containing water that had evidently
+melted from ice-cubes, and an ashtray. In the ashtray were a number of
+River's cigarette butts, all holder-crimped, and a quantity of ash, some
+of it cigar-ash. There was no cigar-butt, and no band or cellophane
+wrapper.</p>
+
+<p>The fire on the hearth had burned out and the ashes were cold. They were
+not all wood-ashes; a considerable amount of paper&mdash;no, cardboard&mdash;had
+been burned there also. Poking gently with the point of a sword he took
+from a rack, Rand discovered that what had been burned had been a number
+of cards, about six inches by four, one of which had, somehow, managed to
+escape the flames with nothing more than a charred edge. Improvising
+tweezers from a pipe-cleaner, he picked this up and looked at it. It had
+been typewritten:</p>
+
+<p>4850:</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">English Screw-Barrel F/L Pocket Pistol.</span> <i>Queen Anne type, side
+hammer with pan attached to barrel, steel barrel and frame. Marked:
+Wilson, Minories, London. Silver masque butt-cap, hallmarked for 1723.
+4-1/2" barrel; 9-1/4" O.A.; cal. abt .44. Taken in trade, 3/21/'38, from
+V. Sparling, for Kentuck #2538, along with 4851, 4852, 4853. App. cost,
+RLss; Replacement, do. NLss, OSss, LSss.</i></p>
+
+<p>To this had been added, in pen:</p>
+
+<p><i>Sold, R. Kingsley, St. Louis, Mo., Mail order, 12/20/'42, OSss.</i></p>
+
+<p>Rand laid the card on the cocktail-table, along with the drinking
+equipment. At least, he knew what had gone into the fire: Arnold Rivers's
+card-index purchase and sales record. He doubted very strongly if that
+would have been burned while its owner was still alive. Going over to the
+desk, he checked; the drawer from which he had seen Cecil Gillis get the
+card for the Leech &amp; Rigdon had been cleaned out.</p>
+
+<p>Picking up the phone in an awkward, unnatural manner, he used a pencil
+from his pocket to dial a number with which he was familiar, a number
+that meant the same thing on any telephone exchange in the state.</p>
+
+<p>"State Police, Corporal Kavaalen," a voice singsonged out of the
+receiver.</p>
+
+<p>"My name is Rand," he identified himself. "I am calling from Arnold
+Rivers's antique-arms shop on Route 19, about a mile and a half east of
+Rosemont. I am reporting a homicide."</p>
+
+<p>"Yeah, go ahead&mdash;Hey! Did you say homicide?" the other voice asked
+sharply. "Who?"</p>
+
+<p>"Rivers himself. I called at his shop a few minutes ago, found the front
+door open, and walked in. I found Rivers lying dead on the floor, just
+inside the door. He had been killed with a Mauser rifle&mdash;not shot;
+clubbed with the butt, and bayoneted. The body is cold, beginning to
+stiffen; a pool of blood on the floor is almost completely dried."</p>
+
+<p>"That's a good report, mister," the corporal approved. "You stick around;
+we'll be right along. You haven't touched anything, have you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not around the body. How long will it take you to get here?"</p>
+
+<p>"About ten minutes. I'll tell Sergeant McKenna right away."</p>
+
+<p>Rand hung up and glanced at his watch. Ten twenty-two; he gave himself
+seven minutes and went around the room rapidly, looking only at pistols.
+He saw nothing that might have come from the Fleming collection. Finally,
+he opened the front door, just as a white State Police car was pulling up
+at the end of the walk.</p>
+
+<p>Sergeant Ignatius Loyola McKenna&mdash;customarily known and addressed as
+Mick&mdash;piled out almost before it had stopped. The driver, a stocky,
+blue-eyed Finn with a corporal's chevrons, followed him, and two privates
+got out from behind, dragging after them a box about the size and shape
+of an Army footlocker. McKenna was halfway up the drive before he
+recognized Rand. Then he stopped short.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Jaysus-me-beads!" He turned suddenly to the corporal. "My God,
+Aarvo; you said his name was Grant!"</p>
+
+<p>"That's what I thought he said." Rand recognized the singsong accent he
+had heard on the phone. "You know him?"</p>
+
+<p>"Know him?" McKenna stepped aside quickly, to avoid being overrun by the
+two privates with the equipment-box. He sighed resignedly. "Aarvo, this
+is the notorious Jefferson Davis Rand. Tri-State Agency, in New Belfast."
+He gestured toward the Finn. "Corporal Aarvo Kavaalen," he introduced.
+"And Privates Skinner and Jameson.... Well, where is it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Right inside." Rand stepped backward, gesturing them in. "Careful; it's
+just inside the doorway."</p>
+
+<p>McKenna and the corporal entered; the two privates set down their box
+outside and followed. They all drew up in a semicircle around the late
+Arnold Rivers and looked at him critically.</p>
+
+<p>"Jesus!" Kavaalen pronounced the <i>J</i>-sound as though it were <i>Zh</i>; he
+gave all his syllables an equally-accented intonation. "Say, somebody
+gave him a good job!"</p>
+
+<p>"Somebody's been seeing too many war-movies." McKenna got a cigarette out
+of his tunic pocket and lit it in Rand's pipe-bowl. "Want to confess now,
+or do you insist on a third degree with all the trimmings?"</p>
+
+<p>Kavaalen looked wide-eyed at Rand, then at McKenna, and then back at
+Rand. Rand laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, Mick!" he reproved. "You know I never kill anybody unless I have
+a clear case of self-defense, and a flock of witnesses to back it up."</p>
+
+<p>McKenna nodded and reassured his corporal. "That's right, Aarvo; when
+Jeff Rand kills anybody, it's always self-defense. And he doesn't
+generally make messes like this." He gave the body a brief scrutiny, then
+turned to Rand. "You looked around, of course; what do you make of it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Last night, sometime," Rand reconstructed, "Rivers had a visitor. A man,
+who smoked cigars. He and Rivers were on friendly, or at least sociable,
+terms. They sat back there by the fire for some time, smoking and
+drinking. The shades were all drawn. I don't know whether that was
+standard procedure, or because this conference was something clandestine.
+Finally, Rivers's visitor got up to leave.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, of course, he could have left, and somebody else could have come
+here later, been admitted, and killed Rivers. That's a possibility," Rand
+said, "but it's also an assumption without anything to support it. I
+rather like the idea that the man who sat back there drinking and smoking
+with Rivers was the killer. If so, Rivers must have gone with him to the
+door and was about to open it when this fellow picked up that rifle,
+probably from that rack, over there, and clipped him on the jaw with
+the butt. Then he gave him the point three times, the second and third
+probably while Rivers was down. Then he swung it up and slammed down with
+it, and left it sticking through Rivers and in the floor."</p>
+
+<p>McKenna nodded. "Lights on when you got here?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"No; I put them on when I came in. The killer must have turned them off
+when he left, but the deadlatch on the door wasn't set, and he doesn't
+seem to have bothered checking on that."</p>
+
+<p>"Think he left right after he killed Rivers?"</p>
+
+<p>Rand shook his head. "No, that was just the first part of it. After he'd
+finished Rivers, he went back to that desk and got all the cards Rivers
+used to record his transactions on&mdash;an individual card for every item. He
+destroyed the lot of them, or at least most of them, in the fireplace.
+Now, I'm only guessing, here, but I think he took out a card or cards in
+which he had some interest, and then dumped the rest in the fire to
+prevent anybody from being able to determine which ones he was interested
+in. I am further guessing that the cards which the killer wanted to
+suppress were in the 'sold' file. But I am not guessing about the
+destruction of the record-file; I found the fireplace full of ashes,
+found one card that had escaped unburned&mdash;you can be sure that one
+wasn't important&mdash;and found the drawer where the record-system was kept
+empty."</p>
+
+<p>"Think he might have stolen something, and covered up by burning the
+cards?" McKenna asked.</p>
+
+<p>Rand shook his head again. "I was here yesterday; bought a pistol from
+Rivers. That's how I noticed this card-index system. Of course, I didn't
+look at everything, while I was here, but I can't see where any quantity
+of arms have been removed, and Rivers didn't have any single item that
+was worth a murder. Fact is, no old firearm is. There are only a very few
+old arms that are worth over a thousand dollars, and most of them are
+well-known, unique specimens that would be unsaleable because every
+collector would know where it came from."</p>
+
+<p>"We can check possible thefts with Rivers's clerk, when he gets here,"
+McKenna said. "Now, suppose you show me these things you found, back at
+the rear ... Aarvo, you and the boys start taking pictures," he told
+the corporal, then he followed Rand back through the shop.</p>
+
+<p>He tested the temperature of the water in the ice-bowl with his finger.
+He looked at the ashtray, and bent over and sniffed at each of the two
+glasses.</p>
+
+<p>"I see one of them's been emptied out," he commented. "Want to bet it
+hasn't been wiped clean, too?"</p>
+
+<p>"Huh-unh." Rand smiled slightly. "Even the tiny tots wipe off the
+cookie-jar, after they've raided it," he said.</p>
+
+<p>A flash-bulb lit the front of the shop briefly. Corporal Kavaalen said
+something to the others. McKenna picked up the card Rand had found by the
+edges and looked at it.</p>
+
+<p>"What in hell's this all about, Jeff?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Rivers made it out for one of his pistols. An English flintlock
+pocket-pistol; I can show you one almost like it, up front. He'd gotten
+it and three others, back in 1938, in trade for a Kentucky rifle. The
+numbers are reference-numbers; the letters are Rivers's private
+price-code. Those three at the end are, respectively, what he absolutely
+had to get for it, what he thought was a reasonable price, and the most
+he thought the traffic would stand. He sold it in 1942 for his middle
+price."</p>
+
+<p>There was another flash by the door, then Kavaalen called out:</p>
+
+<p>"Hey, Mick; we got two of the stiffs, now. All right if we pull out the
+bayonet for a close-up of his chest?"</p>
+
+<p>"Sure. Better chalkline it, first; you'll move things jerking that
+bayonet out." He turned back to Rand. "You think, then, that maybe some
+card in that file would have gotten somebody in trouble, and he had to
+croak Rivers to get it, and then burned the rest of the cards for a
+cover-up?"</p>
+
+<p>"That's the way it looks to me," Rand agreed. "Just because I can't think
+of any other possibility, though, doesn't mean that there aren't any
+others."</p>
+
+<p>"Hey! You think he might have been selling modern arms to criminals,
+without reporting the sale?" McKenna asked.</p>
+
+<p>"I wouldn't put it past him," Rand considered. "There was very little
+that I would put past that fellow. But I wouldn't think he'd be stupid
+enough to carry a record of such sales in his own file, though."</p>
+
+<p>McKenna rubbed the butt of his .38 reflectively; that seemed to be his
+substitute for head-scratching, as an aid to cerebration.</p>
+
+<p>"You said you were here yesterday, and bought a pistol," he began. "All
+right; I know about that collection of yours. But why were you back here
+bright and early this morning? You working on Rivers for somebody? If so,
+give."</p>
+
+<p>Rand told him what he was working on. "Rivers wants to buy the Fleming
+collection. That was the reason I saw him yesterday. But the reason I
+came here, this morning, is that I find that somebody has stolen about
+two dozen of the best pistols out of the collection since Fleming's
+death, and tried to cover up by replacing them with some junk that Lane
+Fleming wouldn't have allowed inside his house. For my money, it's the
+butler. Now that Fleming's dead, he's the only one in the house who knows
+enough about arms to know what was worth stealing. He has constant access
+to the gunroom. I caught him in a lie about a book Fleming kept a record
+of his collection in, and now the book has vanished. And furthermore, and
+most important, if he'd been on the level, he would have spotted what was
+going on, long ago, and squawked about it."</p>
+
+<p>"That's a damn good circumstantial case, Jeff," McKenna nodded. "Nothing
+you could take to a jury, of course, but mighty good grounds for
+suspicion.... You think Rivers could have been the fence?"</p>
+
+<p>"He could have been. Whoever was higrading the collection had to have an
+outlet for his stuff, and he had to have a source of supply for the junk
+he was infiltrating into the collection as replacements. A crooked dealer
+is the answer to both, and Arnold Rivers was definitely crooked."</p>
+
+<p>"You know that?" McKenna inquired. "For sure?"</p>
+
+<p>Another flash lit the front of the shop. Rand nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"For damn good and sure. I can show you half a dozen firearms in this
+shop that have been altered to increase their value. I don't mean
+legitimate restorations; I mean fraudulent alterations." He went on to
+tell McKenna about Rivers's expulsion from membership in the National
+Rifle Association. "And I know that he sold a pair of pistols to Lane
+Fleming, about a week before Fleming was killed, that were outright
+fakes. Fleming was going to sue the ears off Rivers about that; the fact
+is, until this morning, I'd been wondering if that mightn't have been
+why Fleming had that sour-looking accident. If he'd lived, he'd have run
+Rivers out of business."</p>
+
+<p>"Hell, I didn't know that!" McKenna seemed worried. "Fleming used to
+target-shoot with our gang, and he knew too much about gats to pull a
+Russ Columbo on himself. I didn't like that accident, at the time, but I
+figured he'd pulled the Dutch, and the family were making out it was an
+accident. We never were called in; the whole thing was handled through
+the coroner's office. You really think Fleming could have been bumped?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. I think he could have been bumped," Rand understated. "I haven't
+found any positive proof, but&mdash;" He told McKenna about his purchase, from
+Rivers, of the revolver that had been later identified as the one brought
+home by Fleming on the day of his death. "I still don't know how Rivers
+got hold of it," he continued. "Until I walked in here not half an hour
+ago and found Rivers dead on the floor, I'd had a suspicion that Rivers
+might have sneaked into the Fleming house, shot Fleming with another
+revolver, left it in Fleming's hand and carried away the one Fleming had
+been working on. The motive, of course, would have been to stop a lawsuit
+that would have put Rivers out of business and, not inconceivably, in
+jail. But now ..." He looked toward the front of the shop, where another
+photo-flash glared for an instant. "And don't suggest that Rivers got
+conscience-stricken and killed himself. Aside from the technical
+difficulties of pinning himself to the floor after he was dead, that
+explanation's out. Rivers had no conscience to be stricken with."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, let's skip Fleming, for a minute," McKenna suggested. "You think
+this butler, at the Fleming place, was robbing the collection. And you
+say he could've sold the stuff he stole to Rivers. Well, when the family
+gets you in to work on the collection, Jeeves, or whatever his name is,
+realizes that you're going to spot what's been going on, and will
+probably suspect him. He knows you're no ordinary arms-expert; you're an
+agency dick. So he gets scared. If you catch up with Rivers, Rivers'll
+talk. So he comes over here, last night, and kills Rivers off before you
+can get to him. And while Rivers may not keep a record of the stuff he
+got from Jeeves, or whatever his name is&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Walters," Rand supplied.</p>
+
+<p>"Walters, then. While he may not keep a record of what he bought from
+Walters, the chances are he does keep a record of the stuff Walters got
+from him, to use for replacements, so the card-file goes into the fire.
+How's that?"</p>
+
+<p>The flare of another flash-bulb made distorted shadows dance over the
+walls.</p>
+
+<p>"That would hang together, now," Rand agreed. "Of course, I haven't found
+anything here, except the revolver I bought yesterday, that came from the
+Fleming place, but I'll add this: As soon as Rivers found out I was
+working for the Fleming family, he tried to get that revolver back from
+me. Offered me seventy-five dollars' worth of credit on anything else in
+the shop if I'd give it back to him, not twenty minutes after I'd paid
+him sixty for it."</p>
+
+<p>"See!" McKenna pounced. "Look; suppose you had a lot of hot stuff, in a
+place like this. You might take a chance on selling something that had
+gotten mixed in with your legitimate stuff, but would you want to sell
+it right back to where it had been stolen from?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, I wouldn't. And if I were a butler who'd been robbing a valuable
+collection, and an agency man moved in and started poking around, I might
+get in a panic and do something extreme. That all hangs together, too."</p>
+
+<p>While Rand was talking to McKenna, Private Jameson wandered back through
+the shop.</p>
+
+<p>"Hey, Sarge, is there any way into the house from here?" he asked. "The
+outside doors are all locked, and I can't raise anybody."</p>
+
+<p>Rand pointed out the flight of steps beside the fireplace. "I saw Rivers
+come out of the house that way, yesterday," he said.</p>
+
+<p>The State Policeman went up the steps and tried the door; it opened, and
+he went through.</p>
+
+<p>"Chances are Mrs. Rivers is away," McKenna said. "She's away a lot. They
+have a colored girl who comes in by the day, but she doesn't generally
+get here before noon. And the clerk doesn't get here till about the same
+time."</p>
+
+<p>"You seem to know a lot about this household," Rand said.</p>
+
+<p>"Yeah. We have this place marked up as a bad burglary- and stick-up
+hazard; we keep an eye on it. Rivers has all these guns, he does a big
+cash business, he always has a couple of hundred to a thousand on
+him&mdash;it's a wonder somebody hasn't made a try at this place long
+ago.... Tell you what, Jeff; say you check up on this butler at the
+Fleming place for us, and we'll check up here and see if we can find any
+of the stuff that was stolen. We can get together and compare notes.
+Maybe one or another of us may run across something about that accident
+of Fleming's, too."</p>
+
+<p>"Suits me. I'll be glad to help you, and I'll be glad for any help you
+can give me on recovering those pistols. I haven't made any formal report
+on that, yet, because I'm not sure exactly what's missing, and I don't
+want any of that kind of publicity while I'm trying to sell the
+collection. It may be that the two matters are related; there are some
+points of similarity, which may or may not mean anything. And, of course,
+I just may find somebody who'll make it worth my time to get interested
+in this killing, while I'm at it."</p>
+
+<p>McKenna chuckled. "That must hurt hell out of you, Jeff," he said. "A
+nice classy murder like this, and nobody to pay you to work on it."</p>
+
+<p>"It does," Rand admitted. "I feel like an undertaker watching a man being
+swallowed by a shark."</p>
+
+<p>"You want to stick around till this clerk of Rivers's gets here?" McKenna
+asked. "He should be here in about an hour and a half."</p>
+
+<p>"No. I'd just as soon not be seen taking too much of an interest in this
+right now. Fact is, I'd just as soon not have my name mentioned at all in
+connection with this. You can charge the discovery of the body up to our
+old friend, Anonymous Tip, can't you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Sure." McKenna accompanied Rand to the front door, past the white
+chalked outline that marked the original position of the body. The body
+itself, with ink-blackened fingertips, lay to one side, out of the way.
+Corporal Kavaalen was going through the dead man's pockets, and Skinner
+was working on the rifle with an insufflator.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, we can't say it was robbery, anyhow," Kavaalen said. "He had eight
+C's in his billfold."</p>
+
+<p>"Migawd, Sarge, is this damn rifle ever lousy with prints," Skinner
+complained. "A lot of Rivers's, and everybody else's who's been fooling
+with it around here, and half the <i>Wehrmacht</i>."</p>
+
+<p>"Swell, swell!" McKenna enthused. "Maybe we can pass the case off on the
+War Crimes Commission."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_11" id="CHAPTER_11"></a>CHAPTER 11</h2>
+
+
+<p>Mick McKenna had put his finger right on the sore spot. It did hurt
+Rand like hell; a nice, sensational murder and no money in it for the
+Tri-State Agency. Obviously, somebody would have to be persuaded to
+finance an investigation. Preferably some innocent victim of unjust
+suspicion; somebody who could best clear himself by unmasking the real
+villain.... For "villain," Rand mentally substituted "public benefactor."</p>
+
+<p>He was running over a list of possible suspects as he entered Rosemont.
+Passing the little antique shop he slowed, backed, read the name "Karen
+Lawrence" on the window, and then pulled over to the curb and got out.
+Crossing the sidewalk, he went up the steps to the door, entering to the
+jangling of a spring-mounted cowbell.</p>
+
+<p>The girl dealer was inside, with a visitor, a sallow-faced,
+untidy-looking man of indeterminate age who was opening
+newspaper-wrapped packages on a table-top. Karen greeted Rand by name and
+military rank; Rand told her he'd just look around till she was through.
+She tossed him a look of comic reproach, as though she had counted on him
+to rid her of the man with the packages.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, just you look at this-here, Miss Lawrence," the man was enthusing,
+undoing another package. "Here's something I know you'll want; I think
+this-here is real quaint! Just look, now!" He displayed some long,
+narrow, dark object, holding it out to her. "Ain't this-here an
+interestin' item, now, Miss Lawrence?"</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Ooooooh!</i> What in heaven's name is that thing?" she demanded.</p>
+
+<p>"That-there's a sword. A real African native sword. Look at that
+scabbard, now; made out of real crocodile-skin. A whole young crocodile,
+head, feet, an' all. I tell you, Miss Lawrence, that-there item is
+unique!"</p>
+
+<p>"It's revolting! It's the most repulsive object that's ever been brought
+into this shop, which is saying quite a lot. Colonel Rand! If you don't
+have a hangover this morning, will you please come here and look at this
+thing?"</p>
+
+<p>Rand laid down the Merril carbine he had been examining and walked over
+beside Karen. The man&mdash;whom Rand judged to be some rural free-lance
+antique-prospector&mdash;extended the object of the girl's repugnance. It was
+an African sword, all right, with a plain iron hilt and cross-guard. The
+design looked Berber, but the workmanship was low-grade, and probably
+attributable to some even more barbarous people. The scabbard was what
+was really surprising, if you liked that kind of surprises. It was an
+infant crocodile, rather indifferently smoke-cured; the sword simply went
+in between the creature's jaws and extended the length of the body and
+into the tail. Either end of a moldy-green leather thong had been
+fastened to the two front paws for a shoulder-baldric. When new, Rand
+thought, it must have given its wearer a really distinctive aroma, even
+for Africa. He drew the blade gingerly, looked at it, and sheathed it
+with caution.</p>
+
+<p>"East African; Danakil, or Somali, or something like that," he commented.
+"Be damn good and careful not to scratch yourself on that; if you do,
+you'll need about a gallon of anti-tetanus shots."</p>
+
+<p>"Y'think it might be poisoned?" the man with the dirty neck and the
+month-old haircut inquired eagerly. "See, Miss Lawrence? What I told you;
+a real African native sword. I got that-there from Hen Sourbaw, over at
+Feltonville; his uncle, the Reverend Sourbaw, that used to preach at
+Hemlock Gap Church, brung it from Africa, himself, about fifty years ago.
+He used to be a missionary, in his younger days.... I can make you an
+awful good price on that-there item, Miss Lawrence."</p>
+
+<p>"God forbid!" she exclaimed. "All my customers are heavy drinkers; I
+wouldn't want to answer for what might happen if some of them saw that
+thing, suddenly."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, well.... How about that-there little amethyst bottle, then?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well ... I would give you seven dollars for that," she grudged.</p>
+
+<p>"Y'would? Well, it's yours, then. An' how about them-there salt-cellars,
+an' that-there knife-box?"</p>
+
+<p>Rand wandered back to examining firearms. Eventually, after buying the
+knife-box, Karen got rid of the man with the antiques. When he had gone,
+she found a pack of cigarettes, offered it to Rand and lit one for
+herself.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, now you see why girls leave home and start antique shops," she
+said. "Never a dull moment.... Wasn't that sword the awfullest thing you
+ever saw, though?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, one of the ten awfullest," Rand conceded. "I just stopped in to
+give you some good news. You won't need to consider that offer of Arnold
+Rivers's, any more. He is no longer interested in the Fleming
+collection."</p>
+
+<p>"He isn't?" An eager, happy light danced up in her eyes. "You saw him
+again this morning? What did he say?"</p>
+
+<p>"He didn't say anything. He isn't talking any more, either. Fact is, he
+isn't even breathing any more."</p>
+
+<p>"He.... You mean he's dead?" She was surprised, even shocked. The shock
+was probably a concession to good taste, but the surprise looked genuine.
+"When did he die? It must have been very sudden; I saw him a few days
+ago, and he looked all right. Of course, he's been having trouble with
+his lungs, but&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"It was very sudden. Some time last night, some person or persons unknown
+gave him a butt-and-bayonet job with a German Mauser out of a rack in his
+shop. A most unpleasantly thorough job. I went to see him this morning,
+hoping to badger something out of him about those pistols that are
+missing from the Fleming collection, and found the body. I notified the
+State Police, and just came from there."</p>
+
+<p>"For God's sake!" The shock was genuine, too, now. "Have the police any
+idea&mdash;?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not the foggiest. If some of the Fleming pistols turn up at his place,
+I might think that had something to do with it. So far, though, they
+haven't. I gave the shop a once-over-lightly before the cops arrived, and
+couldn't find anything."</p>
+
+<p>She tried to take a puff from her cigarette and found that she had broken
+it in her fingers. She lit a new one from the mangled butt.</p>
+
+<p>"When did it happen?" She tried to make the question sound casual.</p>
+
+<p>"That I couldn't say, either. Around midnight, would be my guess. They
+might be able to fix a no-earlier time." An idea occurred to him, and he
+smiled.</p>
+
+<p>"But that's dreadful!" She really meant that. "It's a terrible thing to
+happen to anybody, being killed like that." She stopped just short of
+adding: "even Rivers." Instead, she continued: "But I can't say I'm
+really very sorry he's dead, Colonel."</p>
+
+<p>"Outside of maybe his wife, and the gunsmith who made his fake Walker
+Colts and North &amp; Cheney flintlocks, who is?" he countered. "Oh, yes;
+Cecil Gillis. He's about due for induction into the Army of the
+Unemployed, unless Mrs. Rivers intends carrying on the business."</p>
+
+<p>Karen's eyes widened. "Cecil Gillis!" she exclaimed softly. "I wonder,
+now, if he has an alibi for last night!"</p>
+
+<p>"Think he might need one?" Rand asked. "Of course I only saw him once,
+but he didn't strike me as a possible candidate. I can't seem to see
+young Gillis doing a messy job like this was, or going to all that manual
+labor when he could have used something neat, like a pistol or a dagger."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Cecil isn't quite the languishing flower he looks," Karen told
+him. "He does a lot of swimming, and he's one of the few people around
+here who can beat me at tennis. And he has a motive. Maybe two motives."</p>
+
+<p>"Such as?" Rand prompted.</p>
+
+<p>"Maybe you think Cecil is a&mdash;you know&mdash;one of those boys," she
+euphemized. "Well, he isn't. He takes a perfectly normal, and even
+slightly wolfish, interest in the female of his species. And while Arnold
+Rivers may have been a good provider from a financial standpoint, he
+wasn't quite up to his wife's requirements in another important respect.
+And Rivers was away a lot, on buying trips and so on, and when he was,
+nobody ever saw Cecil leave the Rivers place in the evenings. At least,
+that's the story; personally, I wouldn't know. Of course, where there's
+smoke, there may be nothing more than somebody with a stogie, but, then,
+there may be a regular conflagration."</p>
+
+<p>"That would be a perfectly satisfactory motive, under some
+circumstances," Rand admitted. "And the other?"</p>
+
+<p>"Cecil might have been doing funny things with the books, and Rivers
+might have caught him."</p>
+
+<p>"That would also be a good enough motive." It would also, Rand thought,
+furnish an explanation for the burning of Rivers's record-cards. "I'll
+mention it to Mick McKenna; he's hard up for a good usable suspect. And
+by the way, the news of this killing will be out before evening, but in
+the meantime I wish you wouldn't mention it to anybody, or mention that
+I was in here to tell you about it."</p>
+
+<p>"I won't. I'm glad you told me, though.... Do you think there may be a
+chance that we can get the collection, now?"</p>
+
+<p>"I wouldn't know why not. Rivers's offer was pretty high; there aren't
+many other dealers who would be able to duplicate it.... Well, don't take
+any Czechoslovakian Stiegel."</p>
+
+<p>He moved his car down the street to the Rosemont Inn, where he went into
+the combination bar and grill and had a Bourbon-and-water at the bar.
+Then he ordered lunch, and, while waiting for it, went into a phone-booth
+and dialed the number of Stephen Gresham's office in New Belfast.</p>
+
+<p>"I'd hoped to catch you before you left for lunch," he said, when the
+lawyer answered. "There's been a new development in the Fleming
+business." He had decided to follow the same line as with Karen Lawrence.
+"You needn't worry about Arnold Rivers's offer, any more."</p>
+
+<p>"Ha! So he backed out?"</p>
+
+<p>"He was shoved out," Rand corrected. "On the sharp end of a Mauser
+bayonet, sometime last night. I found the body this morning, when I went
+to see him, and notified the State Police. They call it murder, but of
+course, they're just prejudiced. I'd call it a nuisance-abatement
+project."</p>
+
+<p>"Look here, are you kidding?" Gresham demanded.</p>
+
+<p>"I never kid about Those Who Have Passed On," Rand denied piously. Then
+he recited the already hackneyed description of what had happened to
+Rivers, with careful attention to all the gruesome details. "So I called
+copper, directly. Sergeant McKenna's up a stump about it, and looking in
+all directions for a suspect."</p>
+
+<p>Gresham was silent for a moment, then swore softly.</p>
+
+<p>"My God, Jeff! This is going to raise all kinds of hell!" He was silent
+for a moment. "Look here, can you see me, at my home, about two thirty
+this afternoon? I want to talk to you about this."</p>
+
+<p>Rand smiled happily. This looked like what he had been angling for. Maybe
+Arnold Rivers hadn't died in vain, after all.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, yes; I can make it," he replied.</p>
+
+<p>"Good. See you there, then."</p>
+
+<p>Rand assured him that he would be on hand. When he returned to his table,
+he found his lunch waiting for him. He sat down and ate with a good
+appetite. After finishing, he had another drink, and sat sipping it
+slowly and smoking his pipe; going over the story Gladys Fleming had told
+him, and the gossip he had gotten from Carter Tipton, and the other
+statements which had been made to him by different people about the death
+of Lane Fleming, and the conclusions he had reached about the theft of
+the pistols, and the killing of Arnold Rivers; sorting out the inferences
+from the descriptions, and the descriptive statements of others from the
+things he himself had observed. When his glass was empty and his pipe
+burned out, he left a tip beside the ashtray, paid his check and went
+out.</p>
+
+<p>He had two hours until his meeting with Stephen Gresham; he knew exactly
+where to spend them. The county seat was a normal twenty minutes' drive
+from Rosemont, but with the road relatively free from traffic he was able
+to cut that to fifteen. Parking his car in front of the courthouse, he
+went inside.</p>
+
+<p>The coroner, one Jason Kirchner, was an inoffensive-looking little fellow
+with a Caspar Milquetoast mustache and an underslung jaw. He wore an Elks
+watchcharm, an Odd Fellows ring, and a Knights of Pythias lapel-pin. He
+looked at Rand's credentials, including the letter Humphrey Goode had
+given him, with some bewilderment.</p>
+
+<p>"You're working for Mr. Goode?" he asked, rather needlessly. "Yes, I see;
+handling the sale of Mr. Fleming's pistols, for the estate. Yes. That
+must be interesting work, Mr. Rand. Now, what can I do for you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, I understand you have an item from that collection, here in your
+office," Rand said. "The pistol with which Mr. Fleming shot himself.
+Regardless of its unpleasant associations, that pistol is a valuable
+collector's item, and one of the assets of the estate. If I'm to get full
+value for the collection, for the heirs, I'll have to have that, to sell
+with the rest of the weapons."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, now, look here, Mr. Rand," Kirchner started to argue, "that
+revolver's a dangerous weapon. It's killed one man, already. I don't know
+as I ought to let it get out, where it might kill somebody else."</p>
+
+<p>Rand estimated that this situation called for a modified version of his
+hard-boiled act.</p>
+
+<p>"You think you can show cause why that revolver shouldn't be turned
+over to the Fleming estate?" he demanded. "Well, if I don't get it,
+right away, Mr. Goode will get a court order for it. You had no right
+to impound that revolver, in the first place; you removed it from the
+Fleming home illegally in the second place, since you had no intention
+of holding any formal inquest, and you're holding it illegally now. A
+court order might not be all we could get, either," he added menacingly.
+"Now, if you have any reason to suspect that Mr. Fleming committed
+suicide ... or was murdered, for instance ..."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, my heavens, no!" Kirchner cried, horrified. "It was an accident,
+pure and simple; I so certified it. Death by accident, due to
+inadvertence of the deceased."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, then," Rand said, "you have no right to hold that revolver, and
+I want it, right now. As Mr. Goode's agent, I'm responsible for that
+collection, of which the revolver you're holding is a part. That revolver
+is too valuable an asset to ignore. You certainly realize that."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I don't have any intention of exceeding my authority, of course,"
+Kirchner disclaimed hastily. "And I certainly wouldn't want to go against
+Mr. Goode's wishes." Humphrey Goode must pull considerable weight around
+the courthouse, Rand surmised. "But you realize, that revolver's still
+loaded...."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, that's not your worry. I'll draw the charges, or, better, fire them
+out. It stood one shot, it can stand the other five."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, would you mind if I called Mr. Goode on the phone?"</p>
+
+<p>Rand did, decidedly. However, he shook his head negligently.</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly not; go ahead and call him, by all means."</p>
+
+<p>The coroner went away. In a few minutes he was back, carrying a
+revolver in both hands. Evidently Goode had given him the green light.
+He approached, handling the weapon with a caution that would have been
+excessive for a Mills grenade; after warning Rand again that it was
+loaded, he laid it gently on his desk.</p>
+
+<p>It was a .36 Colt, one of the 1860 series, with the round barrel and the
+so-called "creeping" ramming-lever. Somebody had wound a piece of wire
+around it, back of the hammer and through the loading-aperture in front
+of the cylinder; as the hammer was down on a fired chamber, there was no
+way in God's world, short of throwing the thing into a furnace, in which
+it could be discharged, but Kirchner was shrinking away from it as though
+it might jump at his throat.</p>
+
+<p>"I put the wire on," the coroner said. "I thought it might be safer that
+way."</p>
+
+<p>"It'll be a lot safer after I've emptied it into the first claybank,
+outside town," Rand told him. "Sorry I had to be a little short with you,
+Mr. Kirchner, but you know how it is. I'm responsible to Mr. Goode for
+the collection, and this gun's part of it."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, that's all right; I really shouldn't have taken the attitude I did,"
+Kirchner met him halfway. "After I talked to Mr. Goode, of course, I knew
+it was all right, but ... You see, I've been bothered a lot about that
+pistol, lately."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes?" Rand succeeded in being negligent about it.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh my, yes! The newspaper people wanted to take pictures of me holding
+it, and then, there was an antique-dealer who was here trying to buy it."</p>
+
+<p>"Who was that&mdash;Arnold Rivers?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why yes! Do you know him? He has an antique-shop on the other side of
+Rosemont; he doesn't sell anything but guns and swords and that sort of
+thing," Kirchner said. "He was here, making inquiries about it, and my
+clerk showed it to him, and then he started making offers for it&mdash;first
+ten dollars, and then fifteen, and then twenty; he got up as high as
+sixty dollars. I suppose it's worth a couple of hundred."</p>
+
+<p>It was probably worth about thirty-five. Rand was intrigued by this
+second instance of an un-Rivers-like willingness to spare no expense to
+get possession of a .36-caliber percussion revolver.</p>
+
+<p>"Did he have it in his hands?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes; he looked it over carefully. I suppose he thought he could get
+a lot of money for it, because of the accident, and Mr. Fleming being
+such a prominent man," Kirchner suggested.</p>
+
+<p>Rand allowed himself to be struck by an idea.</p>
+
+<p>"Say, you know, that <i>would</i> make it worth more, at that!" he exclaimed.
+"What do you know! I never thought of that.... Look, Mr. Kirchner; I'm
+supposed to get as much money for these pistols, for the heirs, as I can.
+How would you like to give me a letter, vouching for this as the pistol
+Mr. Fleming killed himself with? Put in how you found it in his hand, and
+mention the serial numbers, so that whoever buys it will know it's the
+same revolver." He picked up the Colt and showed Kirchner the serials, on
+the butt, and in front of the trigger-guard. "See, here it is: 2444."</p>
+
+<p>Kirchner would be more than willing to oblige Mr. Goode's agent; he typed
+out the letter himself, looked twice at the revolver to make sure of the
+number, took Rand's word for the make, model, and caliber, signed it, and
+even slammed his seal down on it. Rand thanked him profusely, put the
+letter in his pocket, and stuck the Colt down his pants-leg.</p>
+
+<p>About two miles from the county seat Rand stopped his car on a deserted
+stretch of road and got out. Unwinding the wire Kirchner had wrapped
+around the revolver, he picked up an empty beer-can from the ditch,
+set it against an embankment, stepped back about thirty feet and began
+firing. The first shot kicked up dirt a little over the can&mdash;Rand never
+could be sure just how high any percussion Colt was sighted&mdash;and the
+other four hit the can. He carried the revolver back to the car and put
+it into the glove-box with the Leech &amp; Rigdon.</p>
+
+<p>After starting the car, he snapped on the radio, in time for the two
+fifteen news-broadcast from the New Belfast station. As he had expected,
+the murder was out; the daily budget of strikes and Congressional
+investigations and international turmoil was enlivened by a more or less
+imaginative account of what had already been christened the "Rosemont
+Bayonet Murder." Rand resigned himself to the inevitable influx of
+reporters. Then he swore, as the newscaster continued:</p>
+
+<p>"District Attorney Charles P. Farnsworth, of Scott County, who has taken
+charge of the investigation, says, and we quote: 'There is strong
+evidence implicating certain prominent persons, whom we are not, as yet,
+prepared to name, and if the investigation, now under way and making
+excellent progress, justifies, they will be apprehended and formally
+charged. No effort will be spared, and no consideration of personal
+prominence will be allowed to deter us from clearing up this dastardly
+crime....'"</p>
+
+<p>Rand swore again, with weary bitterness, wondering how much trouble he
+was going to have with District Attorney Charles P. Farnsworth, as he
+pulled to a stop in Stephen Gresham's driveway.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_12" id="CHAPTER_12"></a>CHAPTER 12</h2>
+
+
+<p>Gresham must have been waiting inside the door; as soon as Rand came up
+onto the porch, he opened it, and motioned the detective inside. Beyond a
+hasty greeting as Rand passed the threshold, he did not speak until they
+were seated in the gunroom upstairs. Then he came straight to the point.</p>
+
+<p>"Jeff, can you spare the time from this work you're doing at the
+Flemings' to investigate this Rivers business?" he asked. "And how much
+would an investigation cost me? It's got to be a blitz job. I'm not
+interested in getting anybody convicted in court; I just want the case
+cleared up in a hurry."</p>
+
+<p>"Well&mdash;" Rand puffed at the cigar Gresham had given him, watching the ash
+form on the end. "I don't work by the day, Stephen. I take a lump-sum
+fee, and, of course, it's to my interest to get a case cleared up as soon
+as I can. But I can't set any time limit on a job like this. This Rivers
+killing has more angles than <i>Nude Descending a Staircase</i>; I don't know
+how much work I'll have to do, or even what kind."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, it'll have to be fast," Gresham told him urgently. "Look. I didn't
+kill Arnold Rivers. I hated his guts, and I think whoever did it ought to
+get a medal and a testimonial dinner, but I did not kill him. You believe
+me?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm inclined to," Rand replied. "In your law practice, you know what a
+lying client is letting himself in for. As my client, you wouldn't lie to
+me. You seem to think you may be suspected of purging Rivers. But why? Is
+there any reason, aside from that homemade North &amp; Cheney he sold you,
+why anybody would think you'd killed him?"</p>
+
+<p>"Great God, yes!" Gresham exclaimed. "Now look. I'm not worried about
+being railroaded for this. I didn't do it, and I can beat any case that
+half-assed ex-ambulance-chaser, Farnsworth, could dream up against me.
+But I can't afford even to be mentioned in connection with this. You know
+what that would do to me, in town. I just can't get mixed up in this, at
+all. I want you to see to it that I don't."</p>
+
+<p>"That sounds like a large order." The ash was growing on Rand's cigar;
+he took another heavy drag at it. "But why necessarily you? Rivers had
+plenty of other enemies."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, but, dammit, they weren't all in his shop, last evening. Just me.
+And one other. The one who killed him."</p>
+
+<p>"On your way out from town?" Rand inquired.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. I stopped at his place, about a quarter to nine. I was sore as hell
+about the hooking he gave me on that North &amp; Cheney, falsely so-called,
+and I decided to stop and have it out with him. We had words, most of
+them unpleasant. I told him, for one thing, that Lane Fleming's death
+hadn't pulled his bacon off the fire, that I was going to start the same
+sort of action against him on my own account. But that isn't the point.
+The point is that when I was going in, this la-de-da clerk of his, Cecil
+Gillis, was coming out. He got into his car and drove away, leaving me
+alone with Rivers. He'll be the first one the police talk to, and he'll
+tell them all about it."</p>
+
+<p>"That does put you back of the eight ball." Rand dropped the ash into a
+tray and looked at it curiously. It looked like the sort of ash he had
+seen at Rivers's shop, but he couldn't be sure. "But if it can be proved
+that Rivers was alive after nine twenty, when you got here, you'll be in
+the clear."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't want to have to clear myself," Gresham insisted. "I don't want
+anything to do with it, at all. Here; I'll pay you a thousand down, and
+two more when you have the case completed; I want you to get the murder
+cleared up before I can be publicly involved in it. I say publicly,
+because this damned Gillis has probably involved me with the police
+already."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Gillis isn't exactly in a state of pure sanctity, himself," Rand
+commented. "As a suspect, the smart handicappers are figuring him to run
+well inside the money. For instance, you know, there have been stories
+about him and Mrs. Rivers."</p>
+
+<p>Gresham snapped his fingers. "Damned if there haven't, now!" he said.
+"You talk to Adam Trehearne. He did business with Rivers&mdash;there wasn't
+much in his line Rivers and Umholtz were able to fake&mdash;and different
+times he's gone to Rivers's shop and there'd be nobody around, and then
+Gillis would come in from the house, smelling of Chanel Number Five.
+Mrs. Rivers uses Chanel Number Five. Maybe you have something there.
+If Cecil thought he could marry the business, with Rivers out of the
+way.... You'll take the case, won't you, Jeff?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, certainly," Rand assured him. "Now, all they have on you is that
+there was ill-feeling between you and Rivers about that fake North &amp;
+Cheney, and that you were in Rivers's shop yesterday evening?"</p>
+
+<p>Rand's new client grimaced. "I wish that were all!" he said. "The worst
+part of it is the way Rivers was killed. See, back in Kaiser Willie's
+war, before I was assigned a company of my own, I was regimental
+bayonet-instruction officer. And after we got to France, I always
+carried a rifle and bayonet at the front; hell, I must have killed
+close to a dozen Krauts just the way Rivers was killed. And during
+Schicklgruber's war, I volunteered as bayonet instructor for the local
+Home Guard."</p>
+
+<p>"My God!" Rand made a wry face. "There must be close to a hundred people
+around here who'd know that, and all of them are probably convinced that
+you killed Rivers, and are expressing that opinion at the top of their
+voices to all comers. You don't want a detective, you want a magician!"
+He took another drag at the cigar, and blew smoke through a circular
+gun-rack beside him. "What sort of a character is this Farnsworth,
+anyhow?" he asked. "Before the war, I had all the D.A.'s in the state
+typed and estimated, but since I got back&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Gresham slandered the county prosecutor's legitimacy. "God-damn
+headline-hunting little egotist! He's running for re-election this
+year, too."</p>
+
+<p>"One way, that could be bad. On the other hand, it might be easy to throw
+a scare into him.... Stephen, when you were at Rivers's, were you smoking
+a cigar?"</p>
+
+<p>Gresham shook his head. "No. I threw my cigar away when I got out of the
+car, and I didn't light another one till I got home. If you remember, I
+was lighting it when I came in here."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; so you were. Well, I don't suppose, in view of the state of
+relations between you and Rivers, that you had a drink with him, either?"</p>
+
+<p>"I wouldn't drink that guy's liquor if I were dying of snakebite, and he
+wouldn't offer me a drink if he knew I was," Gresham declared.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, did you notice, back near the fireplace, a low table with a fifth
+of Haig &amp; Haig Pinchbottle, and a couple of glasses, and a siphon, and so
+on, on it?"</p>
+
+<p>"I saw the table. There was an ashtray on it, and a book&mdash;I think it was
+Gluckman's <i>United States Martial Pistols and Revolvers</i>&mdash;but no bottle,
+or siphon, or glasses."</p>
+
+<p>"All right, then; it was the killer." Rand explained about the drinks,
+and the cigar-ashes. He went on to tell about the destruction of Rivers's
+record-cards.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't get that." Gresham was puzzled. "Unless it was young Gillis,
+after all. He could have been knocking down on Rivers, and Rivers caught
+him at it."</p>
+
+<p>"I'd thought of that," Rand admitted. "But I doubt if Rivers would sit
+down and drink with him, while accusing him of theft. And I can't seem to
+find anything around Rivers's place that looks as though it might have
+been stolen from the Fleming collection, either.... Oh, and that reminds
+me: If you have time this afternoon, I wonder if you'd come along with me
+to the Flemings' and see just what's missing. I'll have to know that, in
+any case, and there's a good possibility that the thefts from the
+collection and the killing of Rivers are related."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, of course," Gresham agreed. "And suppose we take Pierre Jarrett
+along with us. He knows that collection as well as I do; he'll spot
+anything I miss. He works at home; I'll call him now. We can pick him up
+before we go to the Flemings'."</p>
+
+<p>They went into Gresham's bedroom, where there was a phone, and Gresham
+talked to Pierre Jarrett. It was arranged that he should pick Jarrett up
+with his car and come to the Flemings', while Rand went there directly.</p>
+
+<p>Then Rand used the phone to call his office in New Belfast. He talked to
+Dave Ritter, explaining the situation to date.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm going to need some help," he continued. "I want you to come here and
+get a room at the Rosemont Inn, under your own name. I'll see you there
+about five thirty. And bring with you a suit of butler's livery, or
+reasonable facsimile. I believe there will be a vacancy in the Fleming
+household tomorrow or the next day, and I want you ready to take over.
+And bring a small gun with you; something you can wear under said livery.
+That .357 Colt of yours is a little too conspicuous. You'll find a .380
+Beretta in the top right-hand drawer of my office desk, with a box of
+ammunition and a couple of spare clips."</p>
+
+<p>"Right. I'll be at Rosemont Inn at five thirty," Ritter promised. "And
+say, Tip was in, this morning, with a lot of dope on the Fleming estate.
+Want me to let you have it now, or shall I give it to you when I see
+you?"</p>
+
+<p>"You have notes? Bring them along; I'll be seeing you in a couple of
+hours."</p>
+
+<p>He parted from Gresham, going out and getting in his car. As Gresham got
+his own car out of the garage and drove off toward Pierre Jarrett's
+house, Rand started in the opposite direction, toward Rosemont.</p>
+
+<p>About a half-mile from Gresham's he caught an advancing gleam of white on
+the highway ahead of him and pulled to the side of the road, waiting
+until the State Police car drew up and stopped. In it were Mick McKenna,
+Aarvo Kavaalen, and a third man, a Nordic type, in an untidy brown suit.</p>
+
+<p>"Hi, Jeff," McKenna greeted him, as Rand got out of his car and came
+across the road. "This is Gus Olsen, investigator for the D.A.'s office.
+Jeff Rand; Tri-State Agency," he introduced.</p>
+
+<p>"Hey!" Olsen yelled. "We been lookin' for you! Where you been?"</p>
+
+<p>Rand raised an eyebrow at McKenna.</p>
+
+<p>"You just came from where we're going," the State Police sergeant
+surmised. "Was Gresham at home?"</p>
+
+<p>"He was; he's gone now," Rand said. "He and another man are going to help
+me check up on what's missing from the Fleming collection."</p>
+
+<p>"Hey!" Olsen exploded. "What I told you, now; he run ahead of us with a
+tip-off! Gresham's skipped out, now!"</p>
+
+<p>"What is all this?" Rand wanted to know. "What's he screaming about,
+Mick?"</p>
+
+<p>"Like he don't know!" Olsen vociferated. "He tipped off Gresham so's he
+could skip out; I'll bet he's in it with Gresham!"</p>
+
+<p>"Pay no attention," McKenna advised. "He doesn't know what the score is;
+hell, he doesn't even know what teams are playing."</p>
+
+<p>"Now you look here!" Olsen bawled. "We'll see what Mr. Farnsworth has to
+say about this. You're supposed to cooperate with us, not go fraternizin'
+with a lot of suspects. Why, it's plain as anything; him and Gresham's
+in it together. I bet that was why he come around, the first thing in the
+morning, to find the body!"</p>
+
+<p>Kavaalen, behind the wheel, turned around and began jabbering at Olsen,
+in the back seat, in something that sounded like Swedish. Most Finns
+can speak Swedish, and Rand was wishing he could understand it. The
+corporal's remarks ran to about a paragraph, and must have been downright
+incendiary. At least, Olsen seemed to catch fire from them. He rose in
+his seat, waving his arms and howling back in the same language.</p>
+
+<p>"Shut up, goddammit, <i>shut up</i>!" McKenna bellowed into his face. "Shut up
+before I sling your ass to hell out of this car! I'm talking, and I don't
+want any goddam jaw from you, Olsen. You either," he barked at Kavaalen,
+winking at him at the same time.</p>
+
+<p>Silence fell with a heavy thump in the car.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, now that the international crisis seems to have been averted,
+how's about letting me in on it, too?" Rand asked. "For instance, what
+about Gresham? What's he supposed to be a suspect for?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, Olsen suspects him of chopping Rivers up," McKenna replied wearily.
+"See, we questioned this Cecil Gillis, and he told us that last evening,
+as he was leaving Rivers's, he saw Stephen Gresham drive up and go into
+the shop. I wanted to talk to him, myself; I thought he might account for
+the cigar-ashes, and the drink-fixings on that table. But when Farnsworth
+heard about the killing, he sent Olsen around, and when Olsen heard that
+Gresham had been there, he tried him and convicted him on the spot."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, obscenity! Is that what it's about?" Rand exclaimed in disgust.
+"Yes, Gresham told me about that. He didn't have the drink, and he wasn't
+smoking a cigar in the shop, and he left a little after nine. He got home
+at nine twenty-two. I can testify to that, myself; I was there at the
+time, and so were seven other people." Rand named them. "They dribbled
+away at different times during the evening, but Philip Cabot and I stayed
+till around eleven." He mentioned the approximate time at which the
+others had left. "What time was Rivers killed, or hasn't the time been
+fixed?"</p>
+
+<p>"The M.E. says around ten to two," McKenna said.</p>
+
+<p>"He could be wrong; them guys only guess, half the time," Olsen argued.
+"And besides, Gresham had it in for Rivers. And that ain't all, neither;
+he knew how to use a bayonet, too. I seen him, myself, during the war,
+showin' the Home Guard how to do it, just the way Rivers was killed!" he
+produced triumphantly.</p>
+
+<p>McKenna used a dirty word. "So what? Anybody who's ever had infantry
+training knows that butt-stroke-and-lunge," he retorted. "I learned it
+myself, when I was a kid, in '24 and '25, in C.M.T.C. Hell, anybody who's
+ever seen a war-movie.... If you hadn't lammed out of Sweden when you
+were sixteen, to duck conscription, you'd of known it, too."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, maybe Olsen, or his boss, can explain why Gresham threw those
+record-cards in the fire," Rand contributed. "You know why Olsen says
+Gresham had it in for Rivers? Rivers sold Gresham a fake antique, a flint
+lock navy pistol that had been worked over into something else. Gresham
+was going to subpoena those records, when he brought suit against
+Rivers," Rand lied. "But I can explain why Cecil Gillis might have
+destroyed them, after killing Rivers, if he'd been cheating Rivers and
+Rivers caught him at it."</p>
+
+<p>"Yeah, and that might explain why Gillis was in such a hurry to sic us
+onto Gresham, too," McKenna added. "I thought of something like that. And
+this high-brown girl that works for Rivers says that Gillis and Mrs.
+Rivers played all kinds of games together, when Rivers was away."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, who's in charge of the investigation?" Rand wanted to know. "I
+heard, on the radio ..."</p>
+
+<p>"You're liable to hear anything on the radio, including slanders on
+Bing Crosby's horses. But for the record, I am in charge of this
+investigation. And don't anybody forget it, either," he added, in
+the direction of the rear seat.</p>
+
+<p>"That's what I thought. Well, Stephen Gresham has just retained me to
+make an independent investigation," Rand said. "It is not that he lacks
+confidence in the State Police, or in you; he was afraid that other
+parties might get into the act and try to make political capital out
+of it. Which appears to have happened."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, if Gresham retained you, I'm satisfied," McKenna said. "You can
+take care of that end of it. Glad you're in with us."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I ain't satisfied!" Olsen began yelling, again. "And Mr.
+Farnsworth won't be, neither. Why, this here private dick is like as
+not workin' for the very man that killed Rivers!"</p>
+
+<p>McKenna turned slowly in his seat, to face Olsen.</p>
+
+<p>"One time, ten years ago," he began, "Jeff Rand had a client who was
+guilty of the crime he hired Jeff to investigate. It was an arson case;
+this guy set fire to his own factory, and then got Jeff to run down a lot
+of fake clues he'd planted. I know about that; I was on the case, myself.
+That's where I first met Jeff, and he saved me from making a jackass out
+of myself. And what happened to this guy who'd hired Jeff was something
+that oughtn't to happen even to Molotov, and it happened because Jeff
+fixed it to happen. If anybody hires Jeff Rand, he's one of two things.
+He's either innocent, or else he's out of luck.... I don't know why the
+hell I bother telling you this."</p>
+
+<p>"Ten to two, you say," Rand considered. "Look. A couple of days ago,
+Rivers put out a new price-list to his regular customers. A lot of them,
+in different parts of the country, order by telephone, and some of them
+live in the West, where there's a couple of hours' time-difference. One
+of them, calling at, say, eight o'clock, local time, would get his call
+in at ten, Eastern Standard. If you checked the long-distance calls to
+Rivers's number last night, now, you might get something."</p>
+
+<p>"Yeah. And if he took a call after nine twenty-two, that would let
+Gresham out. Even Farnsworth could figure that out. Sure. I'll check
+right away."</p>
+
+<p>"Who's at Rivers's now?"</p>
+
+<p>"Skinner and Jameson, of our gang. And Farnsworth, and some of his
+outfit. And the hell's own slew of reporters, of course," McKenna said.
+"Aarvo's going back there, in a little. We're still trying to locate Mrs.
+Rivers; we haven't been able to, yet. The maid says she went to New York
+day before yesterday."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll probably be around at Rivers's, later in the day. I want to check
+on that Fleming angle."</p>
+
+<p>"Uh-huh; I'll be there, in half an hour," Corporal Kavaalen said. "Be
+seeing you."</p>
+
+<p>They exchanged so-longs, and Kavaalen backed, and made a U-turn, moving
+off in the direction of Rosemont. Olsen's voluble protests drifted back
+as the car receded. Rand returned to his own car and followed.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_13" id="CHAPTER_13"></a>CHAPTER 13</h2>
+
+
+<p>Rand found Gladys alone in the library. As she rose to greet him, he came
+close to her, gesturing for silence with finger on lips.</p>
+
+<p>"There's a perfect hell of a mess," he whispered. "Somebody murdered
+Arnold Rivers last night."</p>
+
+<p>She looked at him in horror. "Murdered? Who was it? How did it...?"</p>
+
+<p>"I haven't time to talk about that right now," he told her. "Stephen
+Gresham and Pierre Jarrett are on their way here, and I'd like you to
+keep the servants, and particularly Walters, out of earshot of the
+gunroom while they're here. It seems that a number of the best pistols
+have been stolen from the collection, sometime between the death of Mr.
+Fleming and the time I saw the collection yesterday. Stephen and Pierre
+are going to help me find out just what's been taken. I have an idea they
+might have been sold to Rivers. That may have been why he was killed&mdash;to
+prevent him from implicating the thief."</p>
+
+<p>"You think somebody here&mdash;the servants?" she asked.</p>
+
+<p>"I can't see how it could have been an outsider. The stuff wasn't all
+taken at once; it must have been moved out a piece at a time, and
+worthless pistols moved in and hung on the racks to replace valuable
+pistols taken." He had left the library door purposely open; when the
+doorbell rang, he heard it. "I'll let them in," he said. "You go and head
+Walters off."</p>
+
+<p>Rand hurried to the front door and admitted Gresham and Pierre, hustling
+them down the hall, into the library, and up the spiral to the gunroom,
+while Gladys went to the foot of the front stairs. Through the open
+gunroom door, Rand could hear her speaking to Walters, as though sending
+him on some errand to the rear of the house. He closed the door and
+turned to the others.</p>
+
+<p>"We'll have to make it fast," he said. "Mrs. Fleming can't hold the
+butler off all day. Let's start over here, and go around the racks."</p>
+
+<p>They began at the left, with the wheel locks. Pierre put his finger
+immediately on the shabby and disreputable specimen Rand had first
+noticed.</p>
+
+<p>"Phew! Is that one a stinker!" he said. "What used to be there was a
+nice late sixteenth- or early seventeenth-century North Italian pistol,
+all covered with steel filigree-work. A real beauty; much better than
+average."</p>
+
+<p>"Those Turkish atrocities," Gresham pointed out. "They're filling in for
+a pair of Lazarino Cominazo snaphaunces that Lane Fleming paid seven
+hundred for, back in the mid-thirties, and didn't pay a cent too much
+for, even then. Worth an easy thousand, now. Remember the pair of
+Cominazo flintlocks illustrated in Pollard's <i>Short History of Firearms</i>?
+These were even better, and snaphaunces."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, you go over the collection," Rand told them. "Note down anything
+you find missing." He handed them a pad of paper and a pencil from the
+desk. "I have something else to do, for a few minutes."</p>
+
+<p>With that he left them scrutinizing the pistols on the wall, and went to
+the workbench in the corner, drawing the .36 Colt from under his
+waistband. Working rapidly, he dismounted it, taking off the barrel and
+cylinder, and cleaned it thoroughly before putting it together again.
+Pierre and Gresham had just started on the Colts when he slipped the
+revolver out of sight and rejoined them.</p>
+
+<p>It took over a half-hour to finish; when they had gotten completely
+around the collection, Rand had a list of twenty-six missing items,
+including four cased sets. At a conservative estimate, the missing
+pistols were worth ten to twelve thousand dollars, dealer's list value;
+the stuff that had been moved in to replace them might have a value of
+two or three hundred, but no serious collector would buy any of it at any
+price. There had been no attempt to replace the cased items; the cases
+had been merely rearranged on the table to avoid any conspicuous
+vacancies.</p>
+
+<p>"See that thing?" Pierre asked, tapping a small .25 Webley &amp; Scott
+automatic with his finger. Rand looked at it; it had been fitted with an
+English-made silencer. "That thing," Pierre said, "is the one illustrated
+in Pollard's book. The identical pistol; it used to be in the Pollard
+collection."</p>
+
+<p>"Lane had a lot of stuff from some famous collections," Gresham said.
+"Pollard collection, Sawyer collection, Fred Hines collection, Meeks
+collection, even the old Mark Field collection, that was sold at Libbie
+Galleries in 1911. His own could rank with any of them. Think you can get
+any of this stuff back?"</p>
+
+<p>"I hope so. By the way, where does this fellow Umholtz, the fabricator of
+spurious Whitneyville Walker Colts, hang out? I believe he ought to be
+looked into."</p>
+
+<p>"Say, that's an idea!" Pierre ejaculated. "He might have bought the
+pistols, instead of Rivers. Why, he has a gunshop at Kingsville, on Route
+22, about fifteen miles west of here, just this side of the village. He
+had a big sign along the road, and his shop's in the barn, behind the
+house."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll have to check up on him. But first, I want to see if any of this
+stuff's at Rivers's shop. I won't ask you to come along," he told
+Gresham. "No use you sticking your head into the lion's mouth. I've
+talked the State Police temporarily off your trail, but I still have
+Farnsworth to worry about."</p>
+
+<p>"He'd like to prosecute a big corporation lawyer, if he thought he had
+any chance of getting a conviction," Pierre said. "Make a nice impression
+on the proletarian vote in the south end of the county."</p>
+
+<p>"You're a member of the Mohawk Club in New Belfast, aren't you?" Rand
+asked Gresham. "Well, go there and stay there for a couple of days, till
+the heat's off. Pierre, you can come with me to Rivers's; I'll run you
+home in my car when we're through."</p>
+
+<p>Gresham let himself out the front door; Pierre and Rand went out through
+the garage and got into Rand's car.</p>
+
+<p>"You have any idea, so far, about who could have killed Rivers?" the
+ex-Marine asked, as they coasted down the drive to the highway.</p>
+
+<p>"I haven't even the start of an idea," Rand said. He ran briefly over
+what he knew, or at least those items which were likely to become public
+knowledge soon. "From what I've observed at the shop, and from what I
+know of Rivers's character, I'd think that he'd been in some kind of a
+crooked deal with somebody, and got double-crossed, or else the other man
+caught Rivers double-crossing him. Or else, Rivers and somebody else had
+some secret in common, and the other man wanted a monopoly on it and
+killed Rivers as a security measure."</p>
+
+<p>"Think it might be the Fleming pistols?"</p>
+
+<p>"That depends. I'll have to see whether any of the Fleming pistols turn
+up anywhere in Rivers's former possession. Personally, I've about decided
+that the man who was drinking with Rivers killed him. There aren't any
+indications that anybody else was in the shop afterward. If that's the
+case, I doubt if the killer was Walters. You know what a snobbish guy
+Rivers was. And from what I know of him, he seems to have had a
+thoroughly Aristotelian outlook; he identified individuals with
+class-labels. Walters, of course, would be identified with the label
+'butler,' and I can't imagine Rivers sitting down and drinking with a
+'butler.' He would only drink with people whom he thought of as his
+equals, that is, people whom he identified with class-labels of equal
+social importance to his own labels of 'antiquarian' and 'businessman.'"</p>
+
+<p>"That sounds like Korzybski," Pierre said, as they turned onto Route 19
+in the village and headed east. "You've read <i>Science and Sanity</i>?"</p>
+
+<p>Rand nodded. "Yes. I first read it in the 1933 edition, back about 1936;
+I've been rereading it every couple of years since. The principles of
+General Semantics come in very handy in my business, especially in
+criminal-investigation work, like this. A consciousness of abstracting,
+a realization that we can only know something about a thin film of events
+on the surface of any given situation, and a habit of thinking
+structurally and of individual things, instead of verbally and of
+categories, saves a lot of blind-alley chasing. And they suggest a
+great many more avenues of investigation than would be evident to one
+whose thinking is limited by intensional, verbal, categories."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. I find General Semantics helpful in my work, too," Pierre said. "I
+can use it in plotting a story.... Oh-oh!"</p>
+
+<p>"The Gentlemen of the Press," Rand said, looking ahead as the car
+approached the Rivers house and shop. "There hasn't been a good,
+sensational, murder story for some time; this is a gift from the gods."</p>
+
+<p>A swarm of cars were parked in front and beside the red-brick house.
+Among them, Rand spotted a gold-lettered green sedan of the New Belfast
+<i>Dispatch</i> and <i>Evening Express</i>, a black coup&eacute; bearing the blazonry of
+the New Belfast <i>Mercury</i>, cars from a couple of papers at Louisburg, the
+state capital, and cars from papers as far distant as Pittsburgh,
+Buffalo, and Cincinnati. In front of the shop, a motley assemblage of
+journalists was interviewing and photographing an undersized runt in
+a tan Chesterfield topcoat and a gray Homburg hat, whom they were
+addressing as Mr. Farnsworth. The District Attorney of Scott County had
+a mustache which failed miserably to make him look like Tom Dewey; he
+impressed Rand as the sort of offensive little squirt who compensates
+for his general insignificance by bad manners and loud-mouthed
+self-assertion. Corporal Kavaalen, standing in the doorway of the shop,
+caught sight of Rand and his companion as they got out of the car and
+came to meet them, hustling them around the crowd and into the shop
+before anybody could notice and recognize them.</p>
+
+<p>"That was a good tip, about the telephone," he said softly. "Mick checked
+at the Rosemont exchange. Rivers got a long-distance call from Topeka
+last night; ten fifteen to ten seventeen. We got the night long distance
+operator out of bed, and she confirmed it; Rivers took the call himself.
+He gets a lot of long distance calls in the evenings; she knew his
+voice." He corrected himself, shifting to the past tense and glancing, as
+he did, at the chalk outline on the floor, now scuffed by many feet, and
+the dried bloodstains. "You say this puts Gresham in the clear?"</p>
+
+<p>"Absolutely," Rand assured him. "He was at home from nine twenty-two on."
+He introduced Pierre Jarrett, and explained their mission. "You find
+anything except what's here in the shop?"</p>
+
+<p>"Only Rivers's own .38 Smith &amp; Wesson, in his room, and a lot of pistols
+out in the garage, that look like junk to me," Kavaalen said. "I'll show
+them to you."</p>
+
+<p>Rand nodded. "Pierre, you look around the shop; I'll see what this other
+stuff is."</p>
+
+<p>He followed Kavaalen through a door at the rear of the shop; the same one
+through which Cecil Gillis had carried the Kentucky rifle the afternoon
+before. Beside Rivers's car, there was a long workbench in the garage,
+and piles of wood and cardboard cartons, and stacks of newspapers, and
+a barrel full of excelsior, all evidently used in preparing arms for
+shipment. There was also a large pile of old pistols, and a number of
+long-arms.</p>
+
+<p>Rand pawed among the pistols; they were, as the State Police corporal had
+said, all junk. The sort of things a dealer has to buy, at times, in
+order to get something really good. Many of them had been partially
+dismantled for parts. When he was certain that the heap of junk-weapons
+didn't conceal anything of value, he returned to the shop. Pierre was
+waiting for him by Rivers's desk.</p>
+
+<p>He shook his head. "Not a thing," he reported. "I found a couple of
+out-and-out fakes, and about ten or fifteen that had been altered in one
+way or another, and a lot of reblued stuff, but nothing from Fleming's
+collection. What did you find?"</p>
+
+<p>Rand laughed. "I found Rivers's scrap-heap, and some pistols that
+probably contributed parts to some of the stuff you found," he said. "Of
+course, all we can say is that the stuff isn't here; Rivers could have
+bought it, and stored it outside somewhere. But even so, I'm not taking
+the Fleming butler too seriously as a suspect for the murder."</p>
+
+<p>"What's this about Fleming's butler?" a voice broke in. "Have you been
+withholding information from me?"</p>
+
+<p>Rand turned, to find that Farnsworth had left the press conference in
+front and crepe-soled up on him from behind.</p>
+
+<p>"I withheld a theory, which seems to have come to nothing," he replied.</p>
+
+<p>Kavaalen told the D.A. who Rand was. "He's cooperating with us," he
+added. "Sergeant McKenna instructed us to give him every consideration."</p>
+
+<p>"It seems that a number of valuable pistols were stolen from the
+collection of the late Lane Fleming," Rand said. "We suspected that
+the butler had stolen them and sold them to Rivers; I thought it
+possible that he might also have killed Rivers to silence him about the
+transaction." He shrugged. "None of the stolen items have turned up here,
+so there's nothing to connect the thefts with the death of Rivers."</p>
+
+<p>"Good heavens, you certainly didn't suspect a prominent and respected
+citizen like Mr. Rivers of receiving stolen goods?" Farnsworth demanded,
+aghast.</p>
+
+<p>"Who respects him?" Rand hooted. "Rivers was a notorious swindler; he
+had that reputation among arms-collectors all over the country. He was
+expelled from membership in the National Rifle Association for
+misrepresentation and fraud. Why, he even swindled Lane Fleming on a pair
+of fake pistols, a week or so before Fleming's death. And the very reason
+why your man Olsen was inclined to suspect Stephen Gresham was that he
+had had trouble with Rivers about a crooked deal Rivers had put over on
+him. Fortunately, Mr. Gresham has since been cleared of any suspicion,
+but&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Who says he's been cleared?" Farnsworth snapped. "He's still a suspect."</p>
+
+<p>"Sergeant McKenna says so," Corporal Kavaalen declared. "He has been
+cleared. I guess we just didn't get around to telling you about that."
+He went on to explain about the long distance call that had furnished
+Stephen Gresham's alibi.</p>
+
+<p>"And Gresham was at home from nine twenty-two on," Rand added. "There are
+eight witnesses to that: His wife and daughter; myself; Captain Jarrett,
+here; and his fianc&eacute;e, Miss Lawrence; Philip Cabot; Adam Trehearne; Colin
+MacBride."</p>
+
+<p>Farnsworth looked bewildered. "Why wasn't I told about that?" he demanded
+sulkily.</p>
+
+<p>"Sergeant McKenna's been too busy, and I didn't think of it," Kavaalen
+said insolently. "I'm not supposed to report to you, anyhow. Why didn't
+your man Olsen tell you; he was with us when we checked with the
+telephone company."</p>
+
+<p>Farnsworth tried to ignore that by questioning Pierre about the time of
+Gresham's arrival home, then turned to Rand and wanted to know what the
+latter's interest in the case was.</p>
+
+<p>Rand told him about his work in connection with the Fleming collection,
+producing Humphrey Goode's letter of authorization. Farnsworth seemed
+impressed in about the same way as the coroner, Kirchner, but he was
+still puzzled.</p>
+
+<p>"But I understood that you had been retained by Stephen Gresham, to
+investigate this murder," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"So you did talk to Olsen, after I saw him," Rand pounced. "Odd he didn't
+mention this telephone thing.... Why, yes; that's true. My agency handles
+all sorts of business. The two operations aren't mutually exclusive; for
+a while, I even thought they might be related, but now&mdash;" He shrugged.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, you believe, now, that Rivers had nothing to do with the pistols
+you say were stolen from the Fleming collection?" Farnsworth asked. Rand
+shook his head ambiguously; Farnsworth took that for a negative answer
+to his question, as he was intended to. "And you say Mr. Gresham has been
+completely cleared of any suspicion of complicity in this murder?"</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Rand's helping us; we want him to stick around till the case is
+closed," Corporal Kavaalen threw in, perceiving the drift of Farnsworth's
+questions. "He and Sergeant McKenna have worked together before; he's
+given us a lot of good tips."</p>
+
+<p>"You understand," Rand took over, "Mr. Gresham didn't retain me merely
+to help him clear himself. I don't accept that kind of retainers. I was
+retained to find the murderer of Arnold Rivers, and I intend to continue
+working on this case until I do. I hope that the same friendly spirit of
+mutual cooperation will exist between your office and my agency as exists
+between me and the State Police. I certainly don't want to have to work
+at cross purposes with any of the regular law-enforcement agencies."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, certainly; of course." Farnsworth didn't seem to like the idea, but
+there was no apparent opening for objection. He and Rand exchanged
+mendacious compliments, pledged close cooperation, and did practically
+everything but draw up and sign a treaty of alliance. Then Farnsworth and
+Corporal Kavaalen accompanied Rand and Pierre Jarrett to the front door.</p>
+
+<p>Some of the reporters who were ravening outside must have spotted Rand as
+he had entered; they were all waiting for him to come out, and set up a
+monstrous ululation when he appeared in the doorway. With Farnsworth
+beaming approval, Rand assured the Press that he was no more than a mere
+spectator, that the State Police and the efficient District Attorney of
+Scott County had the situation well in hand, and that an arrest was
+expected within a matter of hours. Then he and Pierre hurried to his car
+and drove away.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_14" id="CHAPTER_14"></a>CHAPTER 14</h2>
+
+
+<p>Neither of them spoke for a moment or two. Then, after they had left the
+criminological-journalistic uproar at the Rivers place behind and were
+approaching the village of Rosemont, Pierre turned to Rand.</p>
+
+<p>"You know," he said, "for a disciple of Korzybski, you came pretty close
+to confusing orders of abstraction, a couple of times, back there. You
+showed that Stephen was at home while Rivers was taking that phone call,
+a little after ten. But when you talk about clearing him completely,
+aren't you overlooking the possibility that he came back to Rivers's
+after you and Philip Cabot left the Gresham place?"</p>
+
+<p>Rand eased the foot-pressure on the gas and spared young Jarrett a
+side-glance before returning his attention to the road ahead.</p>
+
+<p>"Understand," Pierre hastened to add, "I don't believe that Stephen was
+fool enough to kill Rivers over that fake North &amp; Cheney, but weren't you
+producing inferences that hadn't been abstracted from any descriptive
+data?"</p>
+
+<p>"Pierre, when I'm working on a case like this, any resemblance between
+my opinions and the statements I may make is purely due to conscious
+considerations of policy," Rand told him. "I don't want Farnsworth or
+Mick McKenna going around bitching this operation up for me. If they
+feel justified in eliminating Gresham on the strength of that phone
+call, I'm satisfied, regardless of the semantics involved. Right now, the
+thing that's worrying me is the ease with which I seem to have talked
+Farnsworth into laying off Gresham. He and Olsen both have single-track
+minds. They may just dismiss that telephone alibi, such as it is, as mere
+error of the mortal mind, and go right ahead building some kind of a
+ramshackle case against Gresham. Since they picked him for their entry,
+they won't want to have to scratch him.... Damn, I wish I could think of
+where Walters could have sold those pistols!"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, if Rivers wasn't involved somehow, why was he killed?" Pierre
+wondered. "Hey! Maybe Walters sold the pistols to Umholtz! He's just as
+big a crook as Rivers was, only not quite so smart."</p>
+
+<p>Rand nodded thoughtfully. "Maybe so. And suppose Rivers found out about
+it, and tried to declare himself in on it. That stuff would be worth at
+least ten thousand; I doubt if whoever bought it paid Walters more than
+two. In the Umholtz-Rivers income bracket, the difference might be worth
+killing for."</p>
+
+<p>"That's right. And Umholtz was in the infantry, in the other war; he
+served in the Twenty-eighth Division. He was trained to use a bayonet.
+And he'd pick that short Mauser; it has about the same weight and balance
+as a 1903 Springfield."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, you know, the killer wouldn't need to have been trained to use a
+bayonet," Rand pointed out. "Mick McKenna made that point, this
+afternoon. There have been a lot of war-movies that showed bayonet
+fighting; pretty nearly everybody knows about the technique that was
+used. And against an unarmed and probably unsuspecting victim like
+Rivers, a great deal of proficiency wouldn't be needed." He slowed the
+car. "Up this road?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. That's my place, over there."</p>
+
+<p>Pierre pointed to a white-walled, red-roofed house that lay against a
+hillside, about a mile ahead, making a vivid spot in the dull grays and
+greens of the early April landscape. It consisted of a square two-story
+block, with one-story wings projecting to give it an L-shaped floorplan.
+It reminded Rand of farmhouses he had seen in Sicily during the War.</p>
+
+<p>"Come on in and see my stuff, if you have time," Pierre invited, as
+Rand pulled to a stop in the driveway. "I think I told you what I
+collect&mdash;personal combat arms, both firearms and edge-weapons."</p>
+
+<p>They entered the front door, which opened directly into a large parlor, a
+brightly colored, cheerful room. A woman rose from a chair where she had
+been reading. She was somewhere between forty-five and fifty, but her
+figure was still trim, and she retained much of what, in her youth, must
+have been great beauty.</p>
+
+<p>"Mother, this is Colonel Rand," Pierre said. "Jeff, my mother."</p>
+
+<p>Rand shook hands with her, and said something polite. She gave him a
+smile of real pleasure.</p>
+
+<p>"Pierre has been telling me about you, Colonel," she said. There was a
+faint trace of French accent in her voice. "I suppose he brought you here
+to show you his treasures?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; I collect arms too. Pistols," Rand said.</p>
+
+<p>She laughed. "You gun-collectors; you're like women looking at somebody's
+new hat.... Will you stay for dinner with us, Colonel Rand?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, I'm sorry; I can't. I have a great many things to do, and I'm
+expected for dinner at the Flemings'. I really wish I could, Mrs.
+Jarrett. Maybe some other time."</p>
+
+<p>They chatted for a few minutes, then Pierre guided Rand into one of the
+wings of the house.</p>
+
+<p>"This is my workshop, too," he said. "Here's where I do my writing." He
+opened a door and showed Rand into a large room.</p>
+
+<p>On one side, the wall was blank; on the other, it was pierced by two
+small casement windows. The far end was of windows for its entire width,
+from within three feet of the floor almost to the ceiling. There were
+bookcases on either long side, and on the rear end, and over them hung
+Pierre's weapons. Rand went slowly around the room, taking everything in.
+Very few of the arms were of issue military type, and most of these
+showed alterations to suit individual requirements. As Pierre had told
+him the evening before, the emphasis was upon weapons which illustrated
+techniques of combat.</p>
+
+<p>At the end of the room, lighted by the wide windows, was a long
+desk which was really a writer's assembly line, with typewriter,
+reference-books, stacks of notes and manuscripts, and a big dictionary
+on a stand beside a comfortable swivel-chair.</p>
+
+<p>"What are you writing?" Rand asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Science-fiction. I do a lot of stories for the pulps," Pierre told him.
+"<i>Space-Trails</i>, and <i>Other Worlds</i>, and <i>Wonder-Stories</i>; mags like
+that. Most of it's standardized formula-stuff; what's known to the trade
+as space-operas. My best stuff goes to <i>Astonishing</i>. Parenthetically,
+you mustn't judge any of these magazines by their names. It seems to be
+a convention to use hyperbolic names for science-fiction magazines; a
+heritage from what might be called an earlier and ruder day. What I do
+for <i>Astonishing</i> is really hard work, and I enjoy it. I'm working now on
+one for them, based on J. W. Dunne's time-theories, if you know what they
+are."</p>
+
+<p>"I think so," Rand said. "Polydimensional time, isn't it? Based on an
+effect Dunne observed and described&mdash;dreams obviously related to some
+waking event, but preceding rather than following the event to which they
+are related. I read Dunne's <i>Experiment with Time</i> some years before the
+war, and once, when I had nothing better to do, I recorded dreams for
+about a month. I got a few doubtful-to-fair examples, and two
+unmistakable Dunne-Effect dreams. I never got anything that would help
+me pick a race-winner or spot a rise in the stock market, though."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, you know, there's a case on record of a man who had a dream of
+hearing a radio narration of the English Derby of 1933, including the
+announcement that Hyperion had won, which he did," Pierre said. "The
+dream was six hours before the race, and tallied very closely with the
+phraseology used by the radio narrator. Here." He picked up a copy of
+Tyrrell's <i>Science and Psychical Phenomena</i> and leafed through it.</p>
+
+<p>"Did this fellow cash in on it?" Rand asked.</p>
+
+<p>"No. He was a Quaker, and violently opposed to betting. Here." He handed
+the book to Rand. "Case Twelve."</p>
+
+<p>Rand sat down on the edge of the desk, and read the section indicated,
+about three pages in length.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I'll be damned!" he said, as he finished. The idea of anybody
+passing up a chance like that to enrich himself literally smote him to
+the vitals. "I see the British Society for Psychical Research checked
+that case, and got verification from a couple of independent witnesses.
+If the S.P.R. vouches for a story, it must be the McCoy; they're the
+toughest-minded gang of confirmed skeptics anywhere in Christendom. They
+take an attitude toward evidence that might be advantageously copied by
+most of the district attorneys I've met, the one in this county being no
+exception.... What's this story you're working on?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, it's based on Dunne's precognition theories, plus a few ideas of my
+own, plus a theory of alternate lines of time-sequence for alternate
+probabilities," Pierre said. "See, here's the situation ..."</p>
+
+<p>Half an hour later, they were still arguing about a multidimensional
+universe when Rand remembered Dave Ritter, who should be at the Rosemont
+Inn by now. He looked at his watch, saw that it was five forty-five, and
+inquired about a telephone.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, of course; out here." Pierre took him back to the parlor, where he
+dialed the Inn and inquired if a Mr. Ritter, from New Belfast, were
+registered there yet.</p>
+
+<p>He was. A moment later he was speaking to Ritter.</p>
+
+<p>"Jeff, for Gawdsake, don't come here," Ritter advised. "This place is
+six-deep with reporters; the bar sounds like the second act of <i>The Front
+Page</i>. Tony Ashe and Steve Drake from the <i>Dispatch</i> and <i>Express</i>;
+Harry Bentz, from the <i>Mercury</i>; Joe Rawlings, the AP man from Louisburg;
+Christ only knows who all. This damn thing's going to turn into another
+Hall-Mills case! Look, meet me at that beer joint, about two miles on the
+New Belfast side of Rosemont, on Route 19; the white-with-red-trimmings
+place with the big Pabst sign out in front. I'll try to get there without
+letting a couple of reporters hide in the luggage-trunk."</p>
+
+<p>"Okay; see you directly."</p>
+
+<p>Rand hung up, spent the next few minutes breaking away from Pierre and
+his mother, and went out to his car. Trust Dave Ritter, he thought, to
+pick some place where malt beverages were sold, for a rendezvous.</p>
+
+<p>Dave's coup&eacute; was parked inconspicuously beside the red-trimmed roadhouse.
+Opening his glove-box, Rand took out the two percussion revolvers and
+shoved them under his trench coat, one on either side, pulling up the
+belt to hold them in place. As he went into the roadhouse, he felt like
+Damon Runyon's Twelve-Gun Tweeney. He found Ritter in the last booth,
+engaged in finishing a bottle of beer. Rand ordered Bourbon and plain
+water, and Ritter ordered another beer.</p>
+
+<p>"I have the stuff Tip left with Kathie," Ritter said, taking out a couple
+of closely typed sheets and handing them across the table. "He said this
+was the whole business."</p>
+
+<p>Rand glanced over them. Tipton had neatly and concisely summarized the
+provisions of Lane Fleming's will, and had also listed all Fleming's life
+insurance policies, with beneficiaries, including a partnership policy on
+the lives of Fleming, Dunmore, and Anton Varcek, paying each of the
+survivors $25,000.</p>
+
+<p>"I see Gladys and Geraldine and Nelda each get a third of Fleming's
+Premix stock," Rand commented. "But before they can have the certificates
+transferred to them, they have to sign over their voting-power to the
+board of directors. Evidently Fleming didn't approve of the feminine
+touch in business."</p>
+
+<p>"Yeah, isn't that a dandy?" Ritter asked. "The directors are elected by
+majority vote of the stockholders. They now have the voting-power of a
+majority of the stock; that makes the present board self-perpetuating,
+and responsible only to each other."</p>
+
+<p>"So it does, but that wasn't what I was thinking of. According to Tip,
+the board is one hundred per cent in favor of the merger with National
+Milling &amp; Packaging. We'll have to suppose Fleming knew that; there must
+have been considerable intramural acrimony on the subject while he was
+still alive. Now, since he opposed the merger, if he had intended
+committing suicide, he would have made some other arrangement, wouldn't
+he? At least, one would suppose so. Well, then," Rand asked, "why, since
+he is so worried about these suicide rumors, doesn't Goode use the one
+argument which would utterly disprove them? Or is there some reason
+why he doesn't want to call attention to the fact that Fleming's death
+is what makes the merger possible?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, that would be calling attention to the fact that the merger made
+Fleming's death necessary," Ritter pointed out. He poured more beer into
+his glass. "While we're on it, what's the angle on this butler's livery
+I was supposed to bring? I brought my tux, and I borrowed a striped vest
+from the Theatrical Property Exchange, and I brought that Dago .380 of
+yours. But what makes you think the Flemings are going to be needing a
+new butler? You going to poison the one they have?"</p>
+
+<p>"The one they have has been exceeding his duties," Rand said. "He was
+supposed to clean the pistol-collection. Not content with that, he's
+been cleaning it out. I know it was the butler." He went, at length,
+into his reasons for thinking so, and described the <i>modus operandi</i> of
+the thefts. "Now, all this is just theory, so far, but when I'm able to
+prove it, I'm going to put the arm on this Walters, if it's right in the
+middle of dinner and he only has the roast half served. And I want you
+ready to step into the vacancy thus created. I'm going to be busy as a
+pup in a fireplug factory with this Rivers thing, and I'll need some
+checking-upping done inside the Fleming household."</p>
+
+<p>He went on, in meticulous detail, to explain about the Rivers murder.
+"I'll have some work for you, before you're ready to start buttling,
+too." Disencumbering himself of the two percussion revolvers, he laid
+them on the table. "I want you to take these and show them to this
+barbecue man. Get from him a positive statement, preferably in writing,
+as to which, if either, he sold to Lane Fleming. You might show your
+Agency card and claim to be checking up on some stolen pistols that
+have been recovered. Then, if he identifies the Leech &amp; Rigdon, take the
+Colt and show it to Elmer Umholtz. You want to be careful how you handle
+him; we may want him for puncturing Rivers, though I'm inclined to doubt
+that, as of now. Get him to tell you, yes or no, whether he reblued it
+and replated the back-strap and trigger-guard, and if he did it for
+Rivers; and if so, when. I know that's been done; the bluing is too dark
+for a Civil War period job; the frame, which ought to be case-hardened
+in colors, has been blued like the barrel and cylinder, the
+cylinder-engraving is almost obliterated, and you can see a few rust-pits
+that have been blued over. But I want to know if this gun was ever in
+Rivers's shop; that's the important thing."</p>
+
+<p>"Uh-huh. Got the addresses?"</p>
+
+<p>Rand furnished them, and Ritter noted them down. The waitress wandered
+back to see if they wanted anything else; she gave a small squeak of
+surprise when she saw the two big six-shooters on the table. Rand and
+Ritter repeated their orders, and when she brought back the drinks, the
+Colt and the Leech &amp; Rigdon were out of sight.</p>
+
+<p>"The way I see it, everybody who's within a light-year of this Rivers
+killing is trying to pin the medal on somebody else," Ritter was saying.
+"The Lawrence girl was afraid young Jarrett had done it; right away, she
+sicced you onto Gillis. Gillis didn't lose any time putting McKenna and
+Farnsworth onto Gresham. Gresham's the only one who didn't have a pasty
+ready; you're supposed to dig one up for him. And Jarrett, the first
+chance he gets, introduces Umholtz." He stared into his beer, as though
+he thought Ultimate Verity might be lurking somewhere under the suds. "Do
+you think it might be possible that Rivers bumped Fleming off, in spite
+of his getting killed later?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Anything's possible," Rand replied, "except where some structural
+contradiction is involved, like scoring thirteen with one throw of a pair
+of dice. Yes, he could have. The way the Flemings leave their garage open
+as long as any of the cars are out, anybody could have sneaked into the
+house from the garage, and gone up from the library to the gunroom. The
+only question in my mind is whether Rivers would have known about that.
+That lawsuit and criminal action that Fleming was going to start&mdash;and
+that's been verified from sources independent of Goode&mdash;was a good sound
+motive. And say he took the Leech &amp; Rigdon away, after leaving the Colt
+in Fleming's hand; selling it to some collector who'd put it in with a
+hundred or so other pistols would be a good way of disposing of it. And I
+can understand his trying to buy the Colt, to get it out of circulation."
+Rand sipped his Bourbon. "But that leaves us with the question of who
+killed Rivers, and why."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, because Fleming is dead&mdash;and it doesn't matter whether he was
+murdered or died of old age&mdash;Walters starts robbing the collection. He
+sells the pistols to Rivers," Ritter reconstructed. "And, as Rivers
+doesn't want them around his shop till they've had time to cool off, he
+stores them with this Umholtz character, who seems to have been in plenty
+of crooked deals with Rivers in the past. The pistols are worth about ten
+grand, and nobody knows where they are but Rivers and Umholtz, and if
+Rivers drops dead all of a sudden, nobody will know where they are except
+Umholtz, and in a couple of years he can get them sold off and have the
+money all to himself."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Dave; that's good sound murder, too. And Rivers would sit down and
+drink with Umholtz, and Umholtz could take that Mauser out of the rack
+right in front of Rivers and Rivers wouldn't suspect a thing till it was
+too late. Of course, it depends upon two unverified assumptions: One,
+that the pistols were sold to Rivers, and, two, that Rivers stored them
+with Umholtz."</p>
+
+<p>"And, three, that Walters stole the pistols in the first place," Ritter
+added. "You know, it's possible that somebody else in that house might
+have stolen them."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. As I said, anything's possible, within structural limits, but
+possibilities exist on different orders of probability. We can't try to
+consider all the possibilities in any case, because they are indefinitely
+numerous; the best we can do is screen out all the low-order
+probabilities, list the high-order probabilities, and revise our list
+when and as new data comes to light. Well, I've told you why I think
+Walters is a good suspect. From what I've seen of that household, I think
+Walters was personally loyal to Lane Fleming, and I don't believe he
+feels any loyalty to anybody else there, with the exception of Gladys
+Fleming. He might keep quiet about the missing pistols if she were the
+thief; if Dunmore, or Varcek, or either of the girls had done the
+stealing, he'd tell Gladys, and she'd pass it on to me. She would be
+glad of anything that could be used against any of the others. And if,
+on the other hand, she had stolen the pistols herself, she wouldn't have
+wanted me poking around, and wouldn't have brought me in, at least not
+to handle the collection." Rand looked regretfully at his empty glass and
+decided against ordering another. "Dave, I just thought of something," he
+said. "How do you think this would work?"</p>
+
+<p>He told Ritter what he had thought of. Ritter drank beer slowly and
+meditatively.</p>
+
+<p>"It just might work," he considered. "I've seen that gag work a hundred
+times: hell, I've used something like that, myself, at least fifty times,
+and so have you. And I don't think Walters would be familiar enough with
+dick-practice to see what you were doing. But if it turns out that
+Walters didn't sell the pistols to Rivers at all, what then?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, if he sold them to Umholtz, Pierre Jarrett's theory is still valid
+until disproved," Rand said. "And if he didn't sell them either to Rivers
+or Umholtz, we'll have to conclude that Rivers and Fleming were killed by
+the same person, the Rivers killing being a security measure. That is,
+unless we find that Rivers was killed by Pierre Jarrett, which is a sort
+of medium-high-order probability. Jarrett and the girl left Gresham's
+early enough for him to have killed Rivers; they were both pretty hard
+hit by that twenty-five-grand blockbuster Rivers had dropped on
+them.... Give me back that Colt, Dave. All you have to do is get an
+identification on the Leech &amp; Rigdon from the barbecue man. I'm going
+to let Mick McKenna handle Umholtz, one way or another, after we've
+concluded the Walters experiment. Until then, we don't want to stir
+Umholtz up, at all."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_15" id="CHAPTER_15"></a>CHAPTER 15</h2>
+
+
+<p>Parking in the drive, Rand entered the Fleming house by the front door.
+The butler must have been busy with his pre-dinner tasks in the rear; it
+was Gladys herself who admitted him.</p>
+
+<p>"Stay out of there," she warned him, taking his arm and guiding him away
+from the parlor doorway. "Nelda and Geraldine are in there, ignoring each
+other. If you go in, they'll start talking to you, and then they'll start
+talking at each other through you, and the air will be full of tomahawks
+in a jiffy. Let's go up in the gunroom; that's out of the battle zone."</p>
+
+<p>"What started the hostilities this time?" Rand asked, going up the
+stairway with her.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Geraldine lost Nelda's place-marker out of the Kinsey Report, or
+something." She shrugged. "Mainly reaction to Rivers's death. That was a
+great blow to all of us; twenty-five thousand dollars' worth of blow. It
+was a blow to me, too, but I'm not letting it throw me.... What were you
+doing all afternoon?"</p>
+
+<p>"Trying to keep the rest of our prospects out of jail. This
+sixteenth-witted District Attorney you have in this county had the idea
+he could charge Stephen Gresham with the killing. I had a time talking
+him out of it, and I'm still not sure how far I succeeded. And I was
+trying to get a line on where those pistols got to."</p>
+
+<p>"Ssssh!" They reached the top of the stairs, and Rand saw Walters
+approaching down the hall. "It was Colonel Rand, Walters; I let him in
+myself. Are Mr. Varcek and Mr. Dunmore here, yet?"</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Dunmore is in the library, ma'am, and Mr. Varcek is upstairs, in his
+laboratory. Dinner will be ready in three-quarters of an hour."</p>
+
+<p>"Have you mixed the cocktails? You'd better do that. Serve them in about
+twenty minutes. And you'd better go up and warn Mr. Varcek not to become
+involved in anything messy before dinner."</p>
+
+<p>Walters yes-ma'am'd her and started toward the attic stairway. Rand and
+Gladys went into the gunroom; Rand turned to the left, picked a pistol
+from the wall, and carried it with him as he guided Gladys toward the
+desk in the corner.</p>
+
+<p>"You think Walters stole them?" she asked.</p>
+
+<p>"So far, I'm inclined to. Have you told any of the others, yet?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Lord, no! They'd all be sure that I stole them myself. I'm counting
+on you to get them back with as little fuss as possible. Do you think
+that was why Rivers was killed? After all, when a lot of valuable pistols
+disappear, and a crooked dealer is murdered, I'd expect there to be a
+connection."</p>
+
+<p>"There could be. Did you ever hear any stories about Mrs. Rivers and this
+young fellow Gillis who works in Rivers's shop?"</p>
+
+<p>Gladys laughed. "Is that rearing its ugly head in public, now?" she
+asked. "Well, there's nothing like a good murder to shake the skeletons
+out of the closets. Not that this particular skeleton was ever exactly
+hidden. The stories are numerous, and somewhat repetitious; Cecil and
+Mrs. Rivers would be seen together, at roadhouses and so on, at what they
+imagined was a safe distance from Rosemont, and it was said that when
+Rivers was away over night, Cecil was never seen to leave the Rivers
+place in the evenings. Might this be relevant to Rivers's sudden demise?"</p>
+
+<p>"It could be." Rand was keeping one eye on the hall door and the other on
+the head of the spiral stairway. "Don't mention outside what I told you
+about Farnsworth having this brainstorm about Stephen Gresham. If it got
+out, it might hurt Gresham professionally. The fact is, Gresham has just
+retained me to investigate the Rivers murder for him. That won't
+interfere to any great extent with the work I'm doing here; if necessary,
+I'll bring a couple of my men in from New Belfast to help me on the
+Rivers operation." He broke off abruptly, catching a movement at the head
+of the spiral, and lifted the pistol in his hand, as though showing it to
+Gladys. "See," he went on, "it has two hammers and two nipples, but only
+one barrel. It was loaded with two charges, one on top of the other; the
+bullet of the rear charge acted as the breech-plug for the front
+charge.... Oh, Walters!" He affected to catch sight of the butler for the
+first time. "Bring me that .36 Walch revolver, will you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir." Walters, crossing the room, veered to the right and went
+to the middle wall, bringing a revolver over to the desk. It was a
+percussion weapon with an abnormally long cylinder. "The cocktails are
+served," he announced.</p>
+
+<p>"We'll be down in a moment; you can put these back where they belong when
+you find time," Rand told him. "Now, here," he said to Gladys. "This is
+the same idea, in a revolver. Six chambers, two charges in each. In
+theory, it was a good idea, but in actual practice ..."</p>
+
+<p>Walters went out the hall door, presumably to call Varcek. Rand continued
+talking about the superposed-load principle, as used in the Lindsay
+pistol and the Walch revolver, until he was sure the butler was out
+of hearing. Gladys was looking at him in appreciative if slightly
+punch-drunk delight.</p>
+
+<p>"I wondered why you brought that thing over here with you," she said.
+"Brother, was that a quick shift!... You're really sure he's the one?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm not really sure of anything, except of my own existence and eventual
+extinction," Rand told her. "It pretty nearly has to be somebody inside
+this house. I don't think anybody else here, yourself included, would
+know enough about arms to rob this collection as selectively as it has
+been robbed. Did you see what just happened, here? I asked him for one of
+the most uncommon arms here, and he went straight and got it. He knows
+this collection as well as your husband did, and I assume he knows values
+almost as well.... And, of course, there was a musket, too; Mr. Fleming
+didn't collect long-arms, or he'd have had one. It embodied the same
+principle as the pistol. The legend is that this man Lindsay's brother
+was a soldier; he was supposed to have been killed by Indians who drew
+the fire of the detail he was with and then charged them when their
+muskets were empty." Rand shrugged. "Actually, the superposed-load
+principle is ancient; there's a sixteenth-century wheel lock pistol in
+the Metropolitan Museum, in New York, firing two shots from the same
+barrel."</p>
+
+<p>Varcek and the butler, who had entered by the hall door, went across the
+gunroom and down the spiral. Rand laid down the pistol and escorted
+Gladys after them.</p>
+
+<p>Dunmore and Geraldine were in the library when they went down. Geraldine,
+mildly potted, was reclining in a chair, sipping her drink. Dunmore was
+still radiating his synthetic cheerfulness.</p>
+
+<p>"Get many of the pistols listed, Colonel?" he hailed Rand, with jovial
+condescension.</p>
+
+<p>"No." Rand poured two cocktails, handing one to Gladys. "I went to Arnold
+Rivers's place this morning, on a little unfinished business, and damn
+near tripped over Rivers's corpse. I spent the rest of the day getting
+myself disinvolved from the ensuing uproar," he told Dunmore. "You heard
+about it, of course."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, of course. Horrible business. I hope you didn't get mixed up in it
+any more than you had to. After all, you're working for us, and if the
+police knew that, we'd be bothered, too.... Look here, you don't think
+some of these other people who were after the collection might have
+killed Rivers, to keep him from outbidding them?"</p>
+
+<p>Nelda, entering from the hallway, caught the last part of that.</p>
+
+<p>"Good God, Fred!" she shrieked at him. "Don't say things like that! Maybe
+they did, but wait till they've bought the collection and paid for it,
+before you start accusing them!"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm not accusing anybody," Dunmore growled back at her. "I don't know
+enough about it to make any accusations. All I'm saying is&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, don't say it, then, if you don't know what you're talking about,"
+his wife retorted.</p>
+
+<p>In spite of this start, dinner passed in relative quiet. For the most
+part, they talked about the remaining chances of selling the collection,
+about which nobody was optimistic. Rand tried to build up morale with
+pictures of large museums and important dealers, all fairly slavering to
+get their fangs into the Fleming collection, but to little avail. A pall
+of gloom had settled, and he was forced to concede that he had at last
+found somebody who had a valid reason to mourn the sudden and violent end
+of Arnold Rivers.</p>
+
+<p>Dinner finished, he went up to the gunroom and began compiling his list.
+He found a yardstick, and thumbtacked it to the edge of the desk to get
+over-all and barrel lengths, and used a pair of inside calipers and a
+decimal-inch rule from the workbench to get calibers. Sticking a sheet of
+paper into the portable, he began on the wheel locks, leaving spaces to
+insert the description of the stolen pistols, when recovered. When he had
+finished the wheel locks, he began on the snaphaunces, then did the
+miguelet-locks. He had begun on the true flintlocks when Walters, who had
+finished his own dinner, came up to help him. Rand put the butler to work
+fetching pistols from the racks, and replacing those he had already
+listed. After a while, Dunmore strolled in.</p>
+
+<p>"You say you found Rivers's body yourself, Colonel Rand?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>Rand nodded, finished what he was typing, and looked up.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, yes. There were a few details I wanted to clear up with him, and I
+called at his shop this morning. I found him lying dead inside." He went
+on to describe the manner in which Rivers had met his death. "The radio
+and newspaper accounts were accurate enough, in the main; there were a
+few details omitted, at the request of the police, of course."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, you didn't get involved in it, though?" Dunmore inquired
+anxiously. "I mean, you're not taking any part in the investigation?
+After all, we don't want to be mixed up in anything like this."</p>
+
+<p>"In that case, Mr. Dunmore, let me advise you not to discuss the matter
+of Rivers's offer to buy this collection with anybody outside," Rand told
+him. "So far, the police and the District Attorney's office both seem to
+think that Rivers was killed by somebody whom he'd swindled in a business
+deal. Of course, they know about the collection being for sale, and
+Rivers's offering to buy it."</p>
+
+<p>"They do?" Dunmore asked sharply. "Did you tell them that?"</p>
+
+<p>"Naturally. I had to account for my presence at Rivers's shop, this
+morning," Rand replied. "I don't know if the idea has occurred to them
+that somebody might have killed Rivers to eliminate a rival bidder for
+the collection or not; I wouldn't say anything, if I were you, that might
+give them the idea."</p>
+
+<p>The extension phone rang shrilly. Walters picked it up, spoke into it,
+and listened for a moment.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Miss Lawrence; he's right here. You wish to speak to him?" He
+handed the phone across the desk to Rand. "Miss Karen Lawrence, for you,
+Colonel Rand."</p>
+
+<p>Rand took the phone. Before he had time to say "hello," the antique-shop
+girl demanded of him:</p>
+
+<p>"Colonel Rand, you must tell me the truth. Did you have anything to do
+with Pierre Jarrett's being arrested?"</p>
+
+<p>"<i>What?</i>" Rand barked. Then he softened his voice. "No; on my honor, Miss
+Lawrence. I knew nothing about it until this moment. Who did it? Olsen?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know what his name was. He was a State Police sergeant," she
+replied. "He and another State Policeman came to the Jarrett house about
+half an hour ago, charged Pierre with the murder of Arnold Rivers, and
+took him away. His mother phoned me about it a few minutes ago."</p>
+
+<p>"That God-damned two-faced Jesuitical bastard!" Rand exploded. "Where are
+you now?"</p>
+
+<p>"Here at my shop. Mrs. Jarrett is coming here. She's afraid the reporters
+will be coming out to the house as soon as they hear about it, and she
+doesn't want to talk to them."</p>
+
+<p>"All right. I'll be there as soon as I can. If there's anything I can do
+to help you, you can count on me for it."</p>
+
+<p>He hung up, and turned to Walters. "Is my car still out front?" he asked.
+"It is? Good. I'll be gone for a while; tell the others I have something
+to attend to."</p>
+
+<p>"What's happened now?" Dunmore asked sourly.</p>
+
+<p>"Just what I was speaking about. The Gestapo gathered up Pierre Jarrett;
+they seem to have gotten the idea, now, that the motive may have been
+competition for the collection. Next thing, Farnsworth will think he has
+a case against Carl Gwinnett, and he'll land in the jug, too. I hope you
+realize that every time something like this happens, it peels a thousand
+or so off the price I'll be able to get for you people for these
+pistols."</p>
+
+<p>Dunmore didn't try to ask how that would happen, for which Rand was duly
+thankful; he accepted the statement uncritically. Walters was staring at
+Rand in horror, saying nothing. Rand picked up the outside phone and
+dialed the same number he had called from the Rivers place that morning.</p>
+
+<p>"Is Sergeant McKenna about?... He is? Fine; I'd like to speak to
+him.... Oh, hello, Mick; Jeff Rand."</p>
+
+<p>McKenna chuckled out of the receiver. "Sort of slipped one over on you,
+didn't I?" he gloated. "Why, I was checking up on those people who were
+at Gresham's, last evening, and they all agreed that young Jarrett and
+the Lawrence girl had left the party about ten. So I had a talk with Miss
+Lawrence, and she tried to tell me that Jarrett was with her at her
+apartment, over the antique shop, from about ten fifteen until about
+twelve, when another girl she rooms with got home from a date. I'd of
+took that, too, only right across the street from the antique shop there
+is one of these old hens like you find in every neighborhood, the kind
+that keeps their nose flattened on the window between the curtains,
+checking up on the neighbors. I spotted her when I came out of the
+antique shop, so I slipped around to see her, and she told me that young
+Jarrett went into the apartment with the girl at about quarter past ten,
+stayed inside for about twenty minutes, then came out and drove away. She
+says Jarrett came back in about half an hour, and stayed till this girl
+who shares the Lawrence girl's apartment&mdash;a Miss Dupont, who teaches
+sixth grade at Thaddeus Stevens School&mdash;got home, about twelve. So there
+you are."</p>
+
+<p>"Uh-huh. Dave Ritter said this was going to turn into another Hall-Mills
+case; well, now you have your Pig Woman," Rand said. "Miss Lawrence
+shouldn't have lied to you, Mick. I suppose she got worried when you
+started asking questions, and there's nothing like a good murder in the
+neighborhood to make liars out of people."</p>
+
+<p>"And damn well I know that!" McKenna agreed. "But that isn't all. It
+seems our cruise-car crew spotted Jarrett's car standing in Rivers's
+drive, about eleven. Just when he was away from the antique-shop, and
+about when the M.E. figures Rivers was getting the business."</p>
+
+<p>"Did they get the number?" Rand asked. "Or how did they identify the
+car?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, they knew it; see, our boys shoot a lot with the Scott County Rifle
+&amp; Pistol Club, and they've all seen Jarrett's car at the range, different
+times," McKenna said. "A gray 1947 Plymouth coup&eacute;. Like I say, they knew
+the car, and they knew Jarrett collects guns, and the lights were on
+inside the shop and the shades were drawn, so they didn't think anything
+of it, at the time. See, they went to bed about ten this morning, and
+didn't get up till after five, so I didn't find out about it till after
+supper."</p>
+
+<p>Rand shrugged, and managed to get some of the shrug into his voice. "Can
+be, at that," he said. "I hope you're not making a mistake, Mick; if you
+are, his lawyer's going to crucify you. What are you using for a motive?"</p>
+
+<p>"Rivers was outbidding this crowd Jarrett and the girl were in with. They
+all told me about that," McKenna said. "And he and the girl were planning
+to use their end of the collection to go into the arms business, after
+they got married. Rivers got in the way." McKenna, at the other end of
+the line, must have shrugged, too. "After all, for about four years,
+they'd been training Jarrett to overcome resistance with the bayonet, so
+he did just that."</p>
+
+<p>"Maybe so. You find out anything about that other matter I was interested
+in?"</p>
+
+<p>"You mean the pistols? Huh-unh; we went over Rivers's place with a
+fine-tooth comb, and questioned young Gillis about it, and we didn't get
+a thing. You sure those pistols went to Rivers?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm not sure of anything at all," Rand replied, looking at his watch.
+"You going to be in, say in a couple of hours? I want to have a talk with
+you."</p>
+
+<p>"Sure. I'll be around all evening," McKenna assured him. "If we don't
+have another murder."</p>
+
+<p>Rand hung up. He pulled the sheet out of the typewriter, laid it
+face down on the other sheets he had finished, and laid a long
+seventeenth-century Flemish flintlock on top for a paperweight,
+memorizing the position of the pistol relative to the paper under it.</p>
+
+<p>"Put those pistols back on the wall," he told Walters, indicating several
+he had laid aside after listing. "Leave the others there; I'm not
+finished with them yet. I'll be back before too long. If I don't find any
+more bodies."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_16" id="CHAPTER_16"></a>CHAPTER 16</h2>
+
+
+<p>It was raining again as Rand parked his car about a hundred yards up the
+street from Karen Lawrence's antique-shop. The windows were dark, but
+Karen was waiting inside the door for him. He entered quickly, mindful of
+the All-Seeing Eye across the street, and followed her to a back room,
+where Mrs. Jarrett and Dorothy Gresham were. All three women regarded him
+intently, as though trying to decide whether he was friend or enemy.
+There was a long silence before Mrs. Jarrett spoke, and when she did, her
+words were almost the same as Karen's when she had spoken over the phone.</p>
+
+<p>"Colonel Rand," she began, obviously struggling with herself, "you must
+tell me the truth. Did you have anything to do with my son's being
+arrested?"</p>
+
+<p>Rand shook his head. "Absolutely nothing, Mrs. Jarrett," he told her,
+unbuckling the belt of his raincoat and taking it off. "I have never
+seriously suspected your son of the Rivers murder, I had no idea that
+McKenna was contemplating arresting him, and if I had, I would have
+advised him against it. Besides causing annoyance to innocent people,
+McKenna's made a serious tactical error. He was misled by appearances,
+and he was afraid I'd break this case before he did, which I intend to
+do." He turned to Karen Lawrence. "I talked to McKenna after you called
+me; he as much as admitted making that arrest to get in ahead of me."</p>
+
+<p>"I told you," Dorothy Gresham flashed at the others. "I knew Jeff
+wouldn't stoop to anything as contemptible as pretending to be Pierre's
+friend and then getting him arrested!"</p>
+
+<p>Rand permitted himself a wry inward smile. He hoped she would not have an
+opportunity to observe his stooping capabilities before he had finished
+his various operations at Rosemont.</p>
+
+<p>"I certainly hoped not." Mrs. Jarrett relaxed, smiling faintly at Rand.
+"Pierre likes you, Colonel. I hated the thought that you might have
+betrayed him. Are you working on the Rivers case, too?"</p>
+
+<p>Rand nodded again, turning to Dot Gresham. "Your father retained me to
+make an investigation," he said. "After that trouble he had with Rivers
+about that spurious North &amp; Cheney, he wanted the murderer caught before
+somebody got around to accusing him."</p>
+
+<p>"You mean there's a chance Dad might be suspected?" Dot was scared.</p>
+
+<p>Rand nodded. The girl was beginning to look suspiciously at Karen and
+Mrs. Jarrett. Getting ready to toss Pierre to the wolves if her father
+were in danger, Rand suspected. He hastened to reassure her.</p>
+
+<p>"Rivers was still alive when your father reached home, last evening," he
+told her. "That's been established."</p>
+
+<p>She breathed her obvious relief. If Gresham had left home after Rand's
+departure with Philip Cabot, she didn't know it.</p>
+
+<p>Karen, on the other hand, was growing more and more worried.</p>
+
+<p>"Look, Colonel," she began. "They didn't just pull Pierre's name out of a
+hat. They must have had something to suspect him about."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. You shouldn't have lied to McKenna. He checked up on your story;
+the woman across the street told him about seeing Pierre leave here a
+little before eleven and come back about half an hour later."</p>
+
+<p>"I was afraid of that," Karen said. "I forgot all about that old hag.
+There's nothing that can go on around here that she doesn't know about;
+Pierre calls her Mrs. G2."</p>
+
+<p>"And then," Rand continued, "McKenna claims that a car like Pierre's was
+seen parked in Rivers's drive about the time Pierre was away from here."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Jarrett moaned softly; her face, already haggard, became positively
+ghastly. Karen gasped in fright.</p>
+
+<p>"They only identified it as to model and make; they didn't get the
+license number ... Where did Pierre go, while he was away from here?"</p>
+
+<p>"He went out for cigarettes," Karen said. "When we came here from
+Greshams', we made some coffee, and then sat and talked for a while, and
+then we found out that we were both out of cigarettes and there weren't
+any here. So Pierre said he'd go out and get some. He was gone about half
+an hour; when he came back, he had a carton, and some hot pork
+sandwiches. He'd gotten them at the same place as the cigarettes&mdash;Art
+Igoe's lunch-stand."</p>
+
+<p>"Could Igoe verify that?"</p>
+
+<p>"It wouldn't help if he did. Igoe's place isn't a five-minute drive from
+Rivers's, farther down the road."</p>
+
+<p>"Has Pierre a lawyer?" Rand asked.</p>
+
+<p>"No. Not yet. We were just talking about that."</p>
+
+<p>"Dad would defend him," Dot suggested. "Of course, he's not a criminal
+lawyer&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Carter Tipton, in New Belfast," Rand told them. "He's my lawyer; he's
+gotten me out of more jams than you could shake a stick at. Where's the
+telephone? I'll call him now."</p>
+
+<p>"You think he'd defend Pierre?"</p>
+
+<p>"Unless I'm badly mistaken, Pierre isn't going to need any trial
+defense," Rand told them. "He will need somebody to look after his
+interests, and we'll try to get him out on a writ as soon as possible."</p>
+
+<p>He looked at his watch. It was ten minutes to nine. It was hard to say
+where Carter Tipton would be at the moment; his manservant would probably
+know. Karen showed him the phone and he started to put through a
+person-to-person call.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>It was eleven o'clock before he backed his car into the Fleming garage,
+and the rain had turned to a wet, sticky snow. All the Fleming cars were
+in, but Rand left the garage doors open. He also left his hat and coat in
+the car.</p>
+
+<p>After locating and talking to Tipton and arranging for him to meet Dave
+Ritter at the Rosemont Inn, he had gone to the State Police substation,
+where he had talked at length with Mick McKenna. He had been compelled to
+tell the State Police sergeant a number of things he had intended keeping
+to himself. When he was through, McKenna went so far as to admit that he
+had been a trifle hasty in arresting Pierre Jarrett. Rand suspected that
+he was mentally kicking himself with hobnailed boots for his premature
+act. He also submitted, for McKenna's approval, the scheme he had
+outlined to Dave Ritter, and obtained a promise of cooperation.</p>
+
+<p>When he entered the Fleming library, en route to the gunroom, he found
+the entire family assembled there; with them was Humphrey Goode. As he
+came in, they broke off what had evidently been an acrimonious dispute
+and gave him their undivided attention. Geraldine, relaxed in a chair,
+was smoking; for once, she didn't have a glass in her hand. Gladys
+occupied another chair; she was smoking, too. Nelda had been pacing back
+and forth like a caged tiger; at Rand's entrance, she turned to face him,
+and Rand wondered whether she thought he was Clyde Beatty or a side of
+beef. Goode and Dunmore sat together on the sofa, forming what looked
+like a bilateral offensive and defensive alliance, and Varcek, looking
+more than ever like Rudolf Hess, stood with folded arms in one corner.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, see here, Rand," Dunmore began, as soon as the detective was inside
+the room, "we want to know just exactly for whom you're working, around
+here. And I demand to know where you've been since you left here this
+evening."</p>
+
+<p>"And I," Goode piped up, "must protest most strongly against your
+involvement in this local murder case. I am informed that, while in the
+employ of this family, you accepted a retainer from another party to
+investigate the death of Arnold Rivers."</p>
+
+<p>"That's correct," Rand informed him. Then he turned to Gladys. "Just for
+the record, Mrs. Fleming, do you recall any stipulation to the effect
+that the business of handling this pistol-collection should have the
+exclusive attention of my agency? I certainly don't recall anything of
+the sort."</p>
+
+<p>"No, of course not," she replied. "As long as the collection is sold to
+the best advantage, I haven't any interest in any other business of your
+agency, and have no right to have." She turned to the others. "I thought
+I made that clear to all of you."</p>
+
+<p>"You didn't answer my question!" Dunmore yelled at him.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't intend to. You aren't my client, and I'm not answerable to you."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, you carry my authorization," Goode supported him. "I think I have
+a right to know what's being done."</p>
+
+<p>"As far as the collection's concerned, yes. As for the Rivers murder, or
+my armored-car service, or any other business of the Tri-State Agency,
+no."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, you made use of my authorization to get that revolver from
+Kirchner&mdash;" Goode began.</p>
+
+<p>"Aah!" Rand cried. "So that concerns the Rivers murder, does it? Well!
+When did you find that out, now? When Kirchner called you, you had no
+objection to his giving me that revolver. What changed your mind for
+you? Didn't you know that Rivers was dead, then?" Rand watched Goode
+trying to assimilate that. "Or didn't you think I knew?"</p>
+
+<p>Goode cleared his throat noisily, twisting his mouth. The others were
+looking back and forth from him to Rand, in obvious bewilderment; they
+realized that Rand had pulled some kind of a rabbit out of a hat, but
+they couldn't understand how he'd done it.</p>
+
+<p>"What I mean is that since then you have allowed yourself to become
+involved in this murder case. You have let it be publicly known that you
+are a private detective, working for the Fleming family," Goode orated.
+"How long, then, will it be before it will be said, by all sorts of
+irresponsible persons, that you are also investigating the death of Lane
+Fleming?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well?" Rand asked patiently. "Are you afraid people will start calling
+that a murder, too?"</p>
+
+<p>Gladys was looking at him apprehensively, as though she were watching him
+juggle four live hand grenades.</p>
+
+<p>"Is anybody saying that now?" Varcek asked sharply.</p>
+
+<p>"Not that I know of," Rand lied. "But if Goode keeps on denying it, they
+will."</p>
+
+<p>"You know perfectly well," Goode exploded, "that I am alluding to these
+unfounded and mischievous rumors of suicide, which are doing the Premix
+Company so much harm. My God, Mr. Rand, can't you realize&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, come off it, Goode," Varcek broke in amusedly. "We all&mdash;Colonel Rand
+included&mdash;know that you started those rumors yourself. Very clever&mdash;to
+start a rumor by denying it. But scarcely original. Doctor Goebbels was
+doing it almost twenty years ago."</p>
+
+<p>"My God, is that true?" Nelda demanded. "You mean, he's been going around
+starting all these stories about Father committing suicide?" She turned
+on Goode like an enraged panther. "Why, you lying old son of a bitch!"
+she screamed at him.</p>
+
+<p>"Of course. He wants to start a selling run on Premix," Varcek explained
+to her. "He's buying every share he can get his hands on. We all are." He
+turned to Rand. "I'd advise you to buy some, if you can find any, Colonel
+Rand. In a month or so, it's going to be a really good thing."</p>
+
+<p>"I know about the merger. I am buying," Rand told him. "But are you sure
+of what Goode's been doing?"</p>
+
+<p>"Of course," Gladys put in contemptuously. "I always wondered about this
+suicide talk; I couldn't see why Humphrey was so perturbed about it.
+Anything that lowered the market price of Premix, at this time, would be
+to his advantage." She looked at Goode as though he had six legs and a
+hard shell. "You know, Humphrey, I can't say I exactly thank you for
+this."</p>
+
+<p>"Did you know about it?" Nelda demanded of her husband. "You did! My God,
+Fred, you are a filthy specimen!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, you know; anything to turn a dishonest dollar," Geraldine piped up.
+"Like the late Arnold Rivers's ten-thousand offer. Say! I wonder if that
+mightn't be what Rivers died of? Raising the price and leaving Fred out
+in the cold!"</p>
+
+<p>Dunmore simply stared at her, making a noise like a chicken choking on
+a piece of string.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, all this isn't my pidgin," Rand said to Gladys. "I only work here,
+<i>Deo gratias</i>, and I still have some work to do."</p>
+
+<p>With that, he walked past Goode and Dunmore and ascended the spiral
+stairway to the gunroom. Even at the desk, in the far corner of the room,
+he could hear them going at it, hammer-and-tongs, in the library.
+Sometimes it would be Nelda's strident shrieks that would dominate the
+bedlam below; sometimes it would be Fred Dunmore, roaring like a bull.
+Now and then, Humphrey Goode would rumble something, and, once in a
+while, he could hear Gladys's trained and modulated voice. Usually, any
+remark she made would be followed by outraged shouts from Goode and
+Dunmore, like the crash of falling masonry after the whip-crack of a
+tank-gun.</p>
+
+<p>At first Rand eavesdropped shamelessly, but there was nothing of more
+than comic interest; it was just a routine parade and guard-mount of the
+older and more dependable family skeletons, with special emphasis on
+Humphrey Goode's business and professional ethics. When he was satisfied
+that he would hear nothing having any bearing on the death of Lane
+Fleming, Rand went back to his work.</p>
+
+<p>After a while, the tumult gradually died out. Rand was still typing when
+Gladys came up the spiral and perched on the corner of the desk, picking
+up a long brass-barreled English flintlock and hefting it.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"It's snowing," Rand mentioned. "Let's throw them out into the storm."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"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. "Well, pleasant dreams; I'll see you in the
+morning."</p>
+
+<p>After she had left the gunroom, Rand looked at his watch. It was a
+very precise instrument; a Swiss military watch, with a sweep second
+hand, and two timing dials. It had formerly been the property of an
+<i>Obergruppenf&uuml;hrer</i> of the S.S., and Rand had appropriated it to
+replace his own, broken while choking the <i>Obergruppenf&uuml;hrer</i> to death
+in an alley in Palermo. He zeroed the timing dials and pressed the
+start-button. Then he stood for a time over the old cobbler's bench,
+mentally reconstructing what had been done after Lane Fleming had
+been shot, after which he hurried down the spiral and along the rear hall
+to the garage, where he snatched his hat and coat from the car. He threw
+the coat over his shoulders like a cloak, and went on outside. He made
+his way across the lawn to the orchard, through the orchard to the lawn
+of Humphrey Goode's house, and across this to Goode's side door. He stood
+there for a few seconds, imagining himself opening the door and going
+inside. Then he stopped the timing hands and returned to the Fleming
+house, locking the garage doors behind him. In the garage, he looked at
+the watch.</p>
+
+<p>It had taken exactly six minutes and twenty-two seconds. He knew that he
+could move more rapidly than the dumpy lawyer, but to balance that, he
+had been moving over more or less unfamiliar ground. He left his hat and
+trench coat in the car and went upstairs.</p>
+
+<p>Undressing, he went into the bathroom in his dressing-gown, spent about
+twenty minutes shaving and taking a shower, and then returned to his own
+room.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_17" id="CHAPTER_17"></a>CHAPTER 17</h2>
+
+
+<p>When he rose, the next morning, Rand noticed something which had escaped
+his eye when he had gone to bed the night before. His .38-special, in its
+shoulder-holster, was lying on the dresser; he had not bothered putting
+it on when he had gone to see Rivers the morning before, and it had lain
+there all the previous day. He distinctly remembered having moved it,
+shortly after dinner, when he had gone to his room for some notes he had
+made on the collection.</p>
+
+<p>However, between that time and the present it had managed to flop itself
+over; the holster was now lying back-up. Intrigued by such a remarkable
+accomplishment in an inanimate object, Rand crossed the room in the
+dress-of-nature in which he slept and looked more closely at it,
+receiving a second and considerably more severe surprise. The revolver
+in the holster was not his own.</p>
+
+<p>It was, to be sure, a .38 Colt Detective Special, and it was in his
+holster, but it was not the Detective Special he had brought with him
+from New Belfast. His own gun was of the second type, with the corners
+rounded off the grip; this one was of the original issue, with the square
+Police Positive grip. His own gun had seen hard service; this one was in
+practically new condition. There was a discrepancy of about thirty
+thousand in the serial numbers. His gun had been loaded in six chambers
+with the standard 158-grain loads; this one was loaded in only five, with
+148-grain mid-range wad-cutter loads.</p>
+
+<p>Rand stood for some time looking at the revolver. The worst of it was
+that he couldn't be exactly sure when the substitution had been made. It
+might have happened at any time between eight o'clock and twelve, when he
+had gone to bed. He rather suspected that it had been accomplished while
+he had been in the bathroom, however.</p>
+
+<p>Dumping out the five rounds in the cylinder, he inspected the changeling
+carefully. It was, he thought, the revolver Lane Fleming had kept in the
+drawer of the gunroom desk. There was no obstruction in the two-inch
+barrel, the weapon had not been either fired or cleaned recently, the
+firing-pin had not been shortened, the mainspring showed the proper
+amount of tension, and the mechanism functioned as it should. There was a
+chance that somebody had made up five special hand-loads for him, using
+nitroglycerin instead of powder, but that didn't seem likely, as it would
+not necessitate a switch of revolvers. There were four or five other
+possibilities, all of them disquieting; he would have been a great deal
+less alarmed if somebody had taken a shot at him.</p>
+
+<p>Getting a box of cartridges out of his Gladstone, he filled the
+cylinder with 158-grain loads. When he went to the bathroom, he took
+the revolver in his dressing-gown pocket; when he dressed, he put on
+the shoulder-holster, and pocketed a handful of spare rounds.</p>
+
+<p>Anton Varcek was loitering in the hall when he came out; he gave Rand
+good-morning, and fell into step with him as they went toward the
+stairway.</p>
+
+<p>"Colonel Rand, I wish you wouldn't mention this to anybody, but I would
+like a private talk with you," the Czech said. "After Fred Dunmore has
+left for the plant. Would that be possible?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Mr. Varcek; I'll be in the gunroom all morning, working." They
+reached the bottom of the stairway, where Gladys was waiting.
+"Understand," Rand continued, "I never really studied biology. I was
+exposed to it, in school, but at that time I was preoccupied with the
+so-called social sciences."</p>
+
+<p>Varcek took the conversational shift in stride. "Of course," he agreed.
+"But you are trained in the scientific method of thought. That, at least,
+is something. When I have opportunity to explain my ideas more fully, I
+believe you will be interested in my conclusions."</p>
+
+<p>They greeted Gladys, and walked with her to the dining-room. As usual,
+Geraldine was absent; Dunmore and Nelda were already at the table, eating
+in silence. Both of them seemed self-conscious, after the pitched battle
+of the evening before. Rand broke the tension by offering Humphrey Goode
+in the role of whipping-boy; he had no sooner made a remark in derogation
+of the lawyer than Nelda and her husband broke into a duet of
+vituperation. In the end, everybody affected to agree that the whole
+unpleasant scene had been entirely Goode's fault, and a pleasant spirit
+of mutual cordiality prevailed.</p>
+
+<p>Finally Dunmore got up, wiping his mouth on a napkin.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, it's about time to get to work," he said. "We might as well save
+gas and both use my car. Coming, Anton?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm sorry, Fred; I can't leave, yet. I have some notes upstairs I have
+to get in order. I was working on this new egg-powder, last evening, and
+I want to continue the experiments at the plant laboratory. I think I
+know how we'll be able to cut production costs on it, about five per
+cent."</p>
+
+<p>"And boy, can we stand that!" Dunmore grunted. "Well, be seeing you at
+the plant."</p>
+
+<p>Rand waited until Dunmore had left, then went across to the library and
+up to the gunroom. As soon as he entered the room above, he saw what was
+wrong. The previous thefts had been masked by substitutions, but whoever
+had helped himself to one of the more recent metallic-cartridge
+specimens, the night before, hadn't bothered with any such precaution,
+and a pair of vacant screwhooks disclosed the removal. A second look told
+Rand what had been taken: the little .25 Webley &amp; Scott from the Pollard
+collection, with the silencer.</p>
+
+<p>The pistol-trade which had been imposed on him had disquieted him; now,
+he had no hesitation in admitting to himself, he was badly scared.
+Whoever had taken that little automatic had had only one thought in
+mind&mdash;noiseless and stealthy murder. Very probably with one Colonel
+Jefferson Davis Rand in mind as the prospective corpse.</p>
+
+<p>He sat down at the desk and started typing, at the same time trying to
+keep the hall door and the head of the spiral stairway under observation.
+It was an attempt which was responsible for quite a number of
+typographical errors. Finally, Anton Varcek came in from the hallway,
+approached the desk, and sat down in an armchair.</p>
+
+<p>"Colonel Rand," he began, in a low voice, "I have been thinking over a
+remark you made, last evening. Were you serious when you alluded to the
+possibility that Lane Fleming had been murdered?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, the idea had occurred to me," Rand understated, keeping his right
+hand close to his left coat lapel. "I take it you have begun to doubt
+that it was an accident?"</p>
+
+<p>"I would doubt a theory that a skilled chemist would accidentally poison
+himself in his own laboratory," Varcek replied. "I would not, for
+instance, pour myself a drink from a bottle labeled HNO3 in the belief
+that it contained vodka. I believe that Lane Fleming should be credited
+with equal caution about firearms."</p>
+
+<p>"Yet you were the first to advance the theory that the shooting had been
+an accident," Rand pointed out.</p>
+
+<p>"I have a strong dislike for firearms." Varcek looked at the pistols on
+the desk as though they were so many rattlesnakes. "I have always feared
+an accident, with so many in the house. When I saw him lying dead, with a
+revolver in his hand, that was my first thought. First thoughts are so
+often illogical, emotional."</p>
+
+<p>"And you didn't consider the possibility of suicide?"</p>
+
+<p>"No! Absolutely not!" The Czech was emphatic. "The idea never occurred to
+me, then or since. Lane Fleming was not the man to do that. He was deeply
+religious, much interested in church work. And, aside from that, he had
+no reason to wish to die. His health was excellent; much better than that
+of many men twenty years his junior. He had no business worries. The
+company is doing well, we had large Government contracts during the war
+and no reconversion problems afterward, we now have more orders than we
+have plant capacity to fill, and Mr. Fleming was consulting with
+architects about plant expansion. We have been spared any serious labor
+troubles. And Mr. Fleming's wife was devoted to him, and he to her. He
+had no family troubles."</p>
+
+<p>Rand raised an eyebrow over that last. "No?" he inquired.</p>
+
+<p>Varcek flushed. "Please, Colonel Rand, you must not judge by what you
+have seen since you came here. When Lane Fleming was alive, such scenes
+as that in the library last evening would have been unthinkable. Now,
+this family is like a ship without a captain."</p>
+
+<p>"And since you do not think that he shot himself, either deliberately or
+inadvertently, there remains the alternative that he was shot by somebody
+else, either deliberately or, very improbably, by inadvertence," Rand
+said. "I think the latter can be safely disregarded. Let's agree that it
+was murder and go on from there."</p>
+
+<p>Varcek nodded. "You are investigating it as such?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"I am appraising and selling this pistol collection," Rand told him
+wearily. "I am curious about who killed Fleming, of course; for my own
+protection I like to know the background of situations in which I am
+involved. But do you think Humphrey Goode would bring me here to stir up
+a lot of sleeping dogs that might awake and grab him by the pants-seat?
+Or did you think that uproar in the library last evening was just a
+prearranged act?"</p>
+
+<p>"I had not thought of Humphrey Goode. It was my understanding that Mrs.
+Fleming brought you here."</p>
+
+<p>"Mrs. Fleming wants her money out of the collection, as soon as
+possible," Rand said. "To reopen the question of her husband's death and
+start a murder investigation wouldn't exactly expedite things. I'm just a
+more or less innocent bystander, who wants to know whether there is going
+to be any trouble or not.... Now, you came here to tell me what happened
+on the night of Lane Fleming's death, didn't you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. We had finished dinner at about seven," Varcek said. "Lane had been
+up here for about an hour before dinner, working on his new revolver; he
+came back here immediately after he was through eating. A little later,
+when I had finished my coffee, I came upstairs, by the main stairway. The
+door of this room was open, and Lane was inside, sitting on that old
+shoemaker's-bench, working on the revolver. He had it apart, and he was
+cleaning a part of it. The round part, where the loads go; the drum, is
+it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Cylinder. How was he cleaning it?" Rand asked.</p>
+
+<p>"He was using a small brush, like a test-tube brush; he was scrubbing out
+the holes. The chambers. He was using a solvent that smelled something
+like banana-oil."</p>
+
+<p>Rand nodded. He could visualize the progress Fleming had made. If Varcek
+was telling the truth, and he remembered what Walters had told him, the
+last flicker of possibility that Lane Fleming's death had been accidental
+vanished.</p>
+
+<p>"I talked with him for some ten minutes or so," Varcek continued, "about
+some technical problems at the plant. All the while, he kept on working
+on this revolver, and finished cleaning out the cylinder, and also the
+barrel. He was beginning to put the revolver together when I left him and
+went up to my laboratory.</p>
+
+<p>"About fifteen minutes later I heard the shot. For a moment, I debated
+with myself as to what I had heard, and then I decided to come down here.
+But first I had to take a solution off a Bunsen burner, where I had been
+heating it, and take the temperature of it, and then wash my hands,
+because I had been working with poisonous materials. I should say all
+this took me about five minutes.</p>
+
+<p>"When I got down here, the door of this room was closed and locked. That
+was most unusual, and I became really worried. I pounded on the door, and
+called out, but I got no answer. Then Fred Dunmore came out of the
+bathroom attached to his room, with nothing on but a bathrobe. His hair
+was wet, and he was in his bare feet and making wet tracks on the floor."</p>
+
+<p>From there on, Varcek's story tallied closely with what Rand had heard
+from Gladys and from Walters. Everybody's story tallied, where it could
+be checked up on.</p>
+
+<p>"You think the murderer locked the door behind him, when he came out of
+here?" Varcek asked.</p>
+
+<p>"I think somebody locked the door, sometime. It might have been the
+murderer, or it might have been Fleming at the murderer's suggestion. But
+why couldn't the murderer have left the gunroom by that stairway?"</p>
+
+<p>Varcek looked around furtively and lowered his voice. Now he looked like
+Rudolf Hess discussing what to do about Ernst Roehm.</p>
+
+<p>"Colonel Rand; don't you think that Fred Dunmore could have shot Lane
+Fleming, and then have gone to his room and waited until I came
+downstairs?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>Here we go again! Rand thought. Just like the Rivers case; everybody
+putting the finger on everybody else....</p>
+
+<p>"And have undressed and taken a bath, while he was waiting?" he inquired.
+"You came down here only five minutes after the shot. In that time,
+Dunmore would have had to wipe his fingerprints off the revolver, leave
+it in Fleming's hand, put that oily rag in his other hand, set the
+deadlatch, cross the hall, undress, get into the bathtub and start
+bathing. That's pretty fast work."</p>
+
+<p>"But who else could have done it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, you, for one. You could have come down from your lab, shot
+Fleming, faked the suicide, and then gone out, locking the door behind
+you, and made a demonstration in the hall until you were joined by
+Dunmore and the ladies. Then, with your innocence well established, you
+could have waited until your wife prompted you, as she or somebody else
+was sure to, and then have gone down to the library and up the spiral,"
+Rand said. "That's about as convincing, no more and no less, as your
+theory about Dunmore."</p>
+
+<p>Varcek agreed sadly. "And I cannot prove otherwise, can I?"</p>
+
+<p>"You can advance your Dunmore theory to establish reasonable doubt," Rand
+told him. "And if Dunmore's accused, he can do the same with the theory
+I've just outlined. And as long as reasonable doubt exists, neither of
+you could be convicted. This isn't the Third Reich or the Soviet Union;
+they wouldn't execute both of you to make sure of getting the right one.
+Both of you had a motive in this Mill-Pack merger that couldn't have been
+negotiated while Fleming lived. One or the other of you may be guilty; on
+the other hand, both of you may be innocent."</p>
+
+<p>"Then who...?" Varcek had evidently bet his roll on Dunmore. "There is no
+one else who could have done it."</p>
+
+<p>"The garage doors were open, if I recall," Rand pointed out. "Anybody
+could have slipped in that way, come through the rear hall to the library
+and up the spiral, and have gone out the same way. Some of the French
+Maquis I worked with, during the war, could have wiped out the whole
+family, one after the other, that way."</p>
+
+<p>A look of intense concentration settled upon Varcek's face. He nodded
+several times.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. Of course," he said, his thought-chain complete. "And you spoke of
+motive. From what you must have heard, last evening, Humphrey Goode was
+no less interested in the merger than Fred Dunmore or myself. And then
+there is your friend Gresham; he is quite familiar with the interior of
+this house, and who knows what terms National Milling &amp; Packaging may
+have made with him, contingent upon his success in negotiating the
+merger?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm not forgetting either of them," Rand said. "Or Fred Dunmore, or you.
+If you did it, I'd advise you to confess now; it'll save everybody,
+yourself included, a lot of trouble."</p>
+
+<p>Varcek looked at him, fascinated. "Why, I believe you regard all of us
+just as I do my fruit flies!" he said at length. "You know, Colonel Rand,
+you are not a comfortable sort of man to have around." He rose slowly.
+"Naturally, I'll not mention this interview. I suppose you won't want to,
+either?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'd advise you not to talk about it, at that," Rand said. "The situation
+here seems to be very delicate, and rather explosive.... Oh, as you go
+out, I'd be obliged to you for sending Walters up here. I still have this
+work here, and I'll need his help."</p>
+
+<p>After Varcek had left him, Rand looked in the desk drawer, verifying his
+assumption that the .38 he had seen there was gone. He wondered where his
+own was, at the moment.</p>
+
+<p>When the butler arrived, he was put to work bringing pistols to the desk,
+carrying them back to the racks, taking measurements, and the like. All
+the while, Rand kept his eye on the head of the spiral stairway.</p>
+
+<p>Finally he caught a movement, and saw what looked like the top of a
+peak-crowned gray felt hat between the spindles of the railing. He eased
+the Detective Special out of its holster and got to his feet.</p>
+
+<p>"All right!" he sang out. "Come on up!"</p>
+
+<p>Walters looked, obviously startled, at the revolver that had materialized
+in Rand's hand, and at the two men who were emerging from the spiral. He
+was even more startled, it seemed, when he realized that they wore the
+uniform of the State Police.</p>
+
+<p>"What.... What's the meaning of this, sir?" he demanded of Rand.</p>
+
+<p>"You're being arrested," Rand told him. "Just stand still, now."</p>
+
+<p>He stepped around the desk and frisked the butler quickly, wondering
+if he were going to find a .25 Webley &amp; Scott automatic or his own
+.38-Special. When he found neither, he holstered his temporary weapon.</p>
+
+<p>"If this is your idea of a joke, sir, permit me to say that it isn't...."</p>
+
+<p>"It's no joke, son," Sergeant McKenna told him. "In this country, a
+police-officer doesn't have to recite any incantation before he makes an
+arrest, any more than he needs to read any Riot Act before he can start
+shooting, but it won't hurt to warn you that anything you say can be used
+against you."</p>
+
+<p>"At least, I must insist upon knowing why I am being arrested," Walters
+said icily.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! Don't you know?" McKenna asked. "Why, you're being arrested for the
+murder of Arnold Rivers."</p>
+
+<p>For a moment the butler retained his professional glacial disdain, and
+then the bottom seemed to drop suddenly out of him. Rand suppressed a
+smile at this minor verification of his theory. Walters had been
+expecting to be accused of larceny, and was prepared to treat the charge
+with contempt. Then he had realized, after a second or so, what the State
+Police sergeant had really said.</p>
+
+<p>"Good God, gentlemen!" He looked from Mick McKenna to Corporal Kavaalen
+to Rand and back again in bewilderment. "You surely can't mean that!"</p>
+
+<p>"We can and we do," Rand told him. "You stole about twenty-five pistols
+from this collection, after Mr. Fleming died, and sold them to Arnold
+Rivers. Then, when I came here and started checking up on the
+collection, you knew the game was up. So, last evening, you took out the
+station-wagon and went to see Rivers, and you killed him to keep him from
+turning state's evidence and incriminating you. Or maybe you killed him
+in a quarrel over the division of the loot. I hope, for your sake, that
+it was the latter; if it was, you may get off with second degree murder.
+But if you can't prove that there was no premeditation, you're tagged for
+the electric chair."</p>
+
+<p>"But ... But I didn't kill Mr. Rivers," Walters stammered. "I barely knew
+the gentleman. I saw him, once or twice, when he was here to see Mr.
+Fleming, but outside of that...."</p>
+
+<p>"Outside of that, you sold him about twenty-five of these pistols, and
+got a like number of junk pistols from him, for replacements." He took
+the list Pierre Jarrett and Stephen Gresham had compiled out of his
+pocket and began reading: "Italian wheel lock pistol, late sixteenth- or
+early seventeenth-century; pair Italian snaphaunce pistols, by Lazarino
+Cominazo...." He finished the list and put it away. "I think we've missed
+one or two, but that'll do, for the time."</p>
+
+<p>"But I didn't sell those pistols to Mr. Rivers," Walters expostulated. "I
+sold them to Mr. Carl Gwinnett. I can prove it!"</p>
+
+<p>That Rand had not expected. "Go on!" he jeered. "I suppose you have
+receipts for all of them. Fences always do that, of course."</p>
+
+<p>"But I did sell them to Mr. Gwinnett. I can take you to his house, if you
+get a search warrant, and show you where he has them hidden in the
+garret. He was afraid to offer them for sale until after this collection
+had been broken up and sold; he still has every one of them."</p>
+
+<p>McKenna spat out an obscenity. "Aren't we ever going to have any luck?"
+he demanded. "Jarrett out on a writ this morning, and now this!"</p>
+
+<p>"But he ain't in the clear," Kavaalen argued. "Maybe he didn't sell
+Rivers the pistols, but maybe he did kill him."</p>
+
+<p>"Dope!" McKenna abused his subordinate. "If he didn't sell Rivers the
+pistols, why would he kill him?"</p>
+
+<p>"He's only said he sold them to Gwinnett," Rand pointed out. Then he
+turned to Walters. "Look here; if we find those pistols in Gwinnett's
+possession, you're clear on this murder charge. There's still a slight
+matter of larceny, but that doesn't involve the electric chair. You take
+my advice and make a confession now, and then accompany these officers to
+Gwinnett's place and show them the pistols. If you do that, you may
+expect clemency on the theft charge, too."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I will, sir! I'll sign a full confession, and take these
+police-officers and show them every one of the pistols...."</p>
+
+<p>Rand put paper and carbon sheets in the typewriter. As Walters dictated,
+he typed; the butler listed every pistol which Gresham and Pierre Jarrett
+had found missing, and a cased presentation pair of .44 Colt 1860's that
+nobody had missed. He signed the triplicate copies willingly; he didn't
+seem to mind signing himself into jail, as long as he thought he was
+signing himself out of the electric chair.</p>
+
+<p>The book in which Fleming had recorded his pistols he still had; he had
+removed it from the gunroom and was keeping it in his room. He said he
+would get it, along with the things he would need to take to jail with
+him. When it was finished, they all went down the spiral stairway into
+the library.</p>
+
+<p>Nelda was standing at the foot of it. Evidently she had been listening to
+what had been going on upstairs.</p>
+
+<p>"You dirty sneak!" she yelled, catching sight of Walters. "After all
+we've done for you, you turn around and rob us! I hope they give you
+twenty years!"</p>
+
+<p>Walters turned to McKenna. "Sergeant, I am willing to accept the penalty
+of the law for what I have done, but I don't believe, sir, that it
+includes being yapped at by this vulgar bitch."</p>
+
+<p>Nelda let out an inarticulate howl of fury and sprang at him, nails
+raking. Corporal Kavaalen caught her wrist before she could claw the
+prisoner.</p>
+
+<p>"That's enough, you!" he told her. "You stop that, or you'll spend a
+night in jail yourself."</p>
+
+<p>She jerked her arm loose from his grasp and flung out of the library. As
+she went out, Gladys entered; Rand, who had been bringing up in the rear,
+stepped down from the stairway.</p>
+
+<p>"He confessed," he said softly. "We had to bluff it out of him, but he
+came across. Sold the pistols to Carl Gwinnett. We're going, now, to pick
+up Gwinnett and the pistols."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm glad you found the pistols," she told him. "But what're we going to
+do, over the week-end, for a butler...."</p>
+
+<p>Rand snapped his fingers. "Dammit, I never thought of that!" He allowed
+his brow to furrow with thought. "I won't promise anything, but I may be
+able to dig up somebody for you, for a day or so. Some of my friends are
+visiting their son, in a Naval hospital on the West Coast, and their
+butler may be glad for a chance to pick up a little extra money. Shall
+I call him and find out?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Colonel Rand, would you? I'd be eternally grateful!"</p>
+
+<p>It was just as easy as that.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_18" id="CHAPTER_18"></a>CHAPTER 18</h2>
+
+
+<p>Dave Ritter, driving his small coup&eacute;, kept his eye on the white State
+Police car ahead. Rand, who had come away from the Fleming home in the
+white car, had called Ritter from the office of the Justice of the Peace
+while waiting for Walters to put up bail, after his hearing. Now, en
+route to Gwinnett's, he was briefing his assistant on what had happened.</p>
+
+<p>"So everything's set," he concluded. "Mrs. Fleming jumped at it; she
+knows you're coming in your own car, which you may keep in the garage
+there. You've left New Belfast about now; if you show up around three,
+you'll be safe on the driving time. Your name is Davies; I decided on
+that in case I suffer a <i>lapsus lingu&aelig;</i> and call you Dave in front of
+somebody."</p>
+
+<p>"Yeah. I'll have to watch and not call you Jeff, Colonel Rand, sir." He
+nodded toward the glove-box. "That Leech &amp; Rigdon's in there; you'd
+better get it out before I go to the Flemings'. The guy at the drive-in
+made a positive identification; it's the one he sold Fleming. I saw the
+rest of the pistols he has there; don't waste time looking him up about
+them. They stink. And I saw Tip this morning. He got young Jarrett sprung
+on a writ." He thought for a moment. "What does this do to the Rivers and
+Fleming murders?"</p>
+
+<p>"We can look for one man for both jobs, now," Rand said. "Probably the
+motive for Fleming was that merger he was so violently opposed to, and
+the Rivers killing must have been a security measure of some sort. There;
+that must be Gwinnett's, now."</p>
+
+<p>The State Police car had pulled up in front of a large three-story frame
+house with faded and discolored paint and jigsaw scrollwork around the
+cornices, standing among a clump of trees beside the road. McKenna and
+Kavaalen got out, with Walters between them, and started up the path to
+the front steps. Ritter stopped behind the white sedan, and he and Rand
+got out. By that time, Walters and the two policemen were on the front
+porch.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly Ritter turned and sprinted around the right side of the house.
+Rand stood looking after him for a moment, then started to follow more
+slowly; as he did, a shot slammed in the rear. Jerking out the changeling
+.38-special, he whirled and ran around the left side of the house,
+arriving at the rear in time to see Gwinnett standing on a boardwalk
+between the house and the stable-garage behind, with his hands raised.
+There was a fresh bullet-scar on the boardwalk at his feet. Ritter was
+covering him from the corner of the house with the .380 Beretta.</p>
+
+<p>Rand strolled over to Gwinnett, frisked him, and told him to put his
+hands down.</p>
+
+<p>"Nice, Dave," he complimented. "I thought of that, too, about a minute
+too late. As soon as he saw Walters coming up the walk with the police,
+he knew what had happened. Come on, Gwinnett; we'll go through the house
+and let them in."</p>
+
+<p>Gwinnett's eyes darted from side to side, like the eyes of a trapped
+animal. "I don't know what you're talking about," he said, stiff-lipped.
+"What is this, a stick-up?"</p>
+
+<p>Nobody bothered to tell him to stop kidding. They marched him through the
+kitchen, where a Negro girl, her arms white with flour, was dithering in
+fright, and into the front hall. A woman in a faded housedress had just
+admitted the two officers and the former Fleming butler.</p>
+
+<p>"You goddam rat!" Gwinnett yelled at Walters, as soon as he saw him.</p>
+
+<p>"For God's sake, Carl," the woman begged. "Don't make things any worse
+than they are. Keep quiet!"</p>
+
+<p>"All right, Gwinnett," McKenna said. "We're arresting you: receiving
+stolen goods, and accessory to larceny. We have a search warrant. Want to
+see it?"</p>
+
+<p>"So you have a search warrant," Gwinnett said. "So go ahead and search;
+if you don't find anything, you'll plant something. I want to call my
+lawyer."</p>
+
+<p>"That's your right," McKenna told him. "Aarvo, take him to a phone; let
+him call the White House if he wants to." He turned to Walters. "Now,
+where would he have this stuff stashed?"</p>
+
+<p>"In the garret, sir. I know the way."</p>
+
+<p>As Kavaalen accompanied Gwinnett to the phone, Walters started upstairs.
+Rand and McKenna followed, with Mrs. Gwinnett bringing up the rear.
+During the search of the attic, she stood to one side, watching the
+ex-butler dig into a pile of pistols.</p>
+
+<p>"This is one, gentlemen," Walters said, producing a Springfield 1818
+Model flintlock. "And here is the Walker Colt, and the .40-caliber Colt
+Paterson, and the Hall...."</p>
+
+<p>Eventually, he had them all assembled, including the five cased sets.
+Rand found a couple of empty bushel baskets and laid the pistols in them,
+between layers of old newspapers. He picked up one, and McKenna took the
+other, while Walters piled the five flat hardwood cases into his arms
+like cordwood. Still saying nothing, her eyes stony with hatred, the
+woman followed them downstairs.</p>
+
+<p>The rest of the afternoon was consumed with formalities. Gwinnett was
+given a hearing, at which he was represented by a lawyer straight out
+of a B-grade gangster picture. Rand had a heated argument with an
+over-zealous Justice of the Peace, who wanted to impound the pistols and
+jackknife-mark them for identification, but after hurling bloodthirsty
+threats of a damage suit for an astronomical figure, he managed to retain
+possession of the recovered weapons.</p>
+
+<p>Ritter left at a little past three, to report for duty in the Fleming
+household. Rand rode with McKenna and Kavaalen to the State Police
+substation, where the pistols were transferred to McKenna's personal car,
+in which they and Rand were to be transported back to the Fleming place.</p>
+
+<p>It was five o'clock before Rand had finished telling the sergeant and the
+corporal everything he felt they ought to know.</p>
+
+<p>"When we get to the Flemings', I'll give you that revolver I got from the
+coroner," he finished. "One of your boys can take it to this fellow
+Umholtz, and get him to identify it. You might also show it to young
+Gillis, and see what he knows about it. Gillis might even give you a name
+for who got it from Rivers. I'm not building any hopes on that, and the
+reason I'm not is that Gillis is still alive. If he knew, I don't think
+he would be."</p>
+
+<p>"Yeah. I can see that," McKenna nodded. "Fact is, I can see everything,
+now, except one thing. This pistol-switch somebody gave you; what's the
+idea of that?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, that's because I'm on the spot," Rand told him. "I'm to be killed,
+and somebody else is to be killed along with me. The .25 automatic will
+be used on me, and the .38 will be used on the other fellow, and we'll be
+found dead about five feet apart, and I'll be holding my own gun, and the
+other fellow will be holding the .25, and it will look as though we shot
+it out and scored a double knockout. That way, my mouth will be shut
+about what I've learned since I came here, and the man who's supposed to
+have killed me will take the rap for Fleming and Rivers both. Nothing to
+stop an investigation like a couple of corpses who can't tell their own
+story and can take the blame for everything."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Zhee-zus!</i>" Kavaalen's eyes widened. "That must be just it!"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, you got your nerve about you, I'll say that," McKenna commented.
+"You sit there and talk about it like it was something that was going to
+happen to Joe Doakes and Oscar Zilch." He looked at Rand intently. "You
+want us to keep an eye on you?"</p>
+
+<p>Rand leaned over and spat into the brass cuspidor, a gesture of
+braggadocio he had picked up among the French maquis.</p>
+
+<p>"Hell, no! That's the last thing I do want!" he said. "I want him to try
+it. You realize, don't you, that all this is pure assumption and theory?
+We don't have a single fact, as it stands, that proves anything. We could
+go and pick this fellow up, and he's one of three men, so we could grab
+all three of them, and even if we found the .25 Webley &amp; Scott and my .38
+in his pockets, we couldn't charge him with anything. Fact is, right now
+we can't even prove that Lane Fleming's death was anything but the
+accident it's on the books as being. But let him take a shot at me...."</p>
+
+<p>"And then you'll have another nice, clear case of self-defense." McKenna
+frowned. "Goddammit, Jeff, you've had to defend yourself too many times,
+already. This'll be&mdash;well, how many will it be?"</p>
+
+<p>"Counting Germans?" Rand grinned. "Hell, I don't know; I can't remember
+all of them."</p>
+
+<p>"One thing," Kavaalen said solemnly, "you never hear of any lawyers
+springing people out of cemeteries on writs."</p>
+
+<p>"Look, Jeff," McKenna said, at length. "If it's the way you think, this
+guy won't dare kill you instantly, will he? Seems to me, the way the
+script reads, this other guy shoots you, and you shoot back and kill him,
+and then you die. Isn't that it?"</p>
+
+<p>Rand nodded. "I'm banking on that. He'll try to give me a fatal but not
+instantly fatal wound, and that means he'll have to take time to pick his
+spot. The reason I've managed to survive these people against whom I've
+had to defend myself has been that I just don't give a damn where I shoot
+a man. A lot of good police officers have gotten themselves killed
+because they tried to wing somebody and took a second or so longer about
+shooting than they should have."</p>
+
+<p>"Something in that, too," McKenna agreed. "But what I'm getting at is
+this: I think I know a way to give you a little more percentage." He
+rose. "Wait a minute; I'll be right back."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_19" id="CHAPTER_19"></a>CHAPTER 19</h2>
+
+
+<p>There was less feuding at dinner that evening than at any previous meal
+Rand had eaten in the Fleming home. In the first place, everybody seemed
+a little awed in the presence of the new butler, who flitted in and out
+of the room like a ghost and, when spoken to, answered in a heavy B.B.C.
+accent. Then, the women, who carried on most of the hostilities, had
+re-erected their <i>front populaire</i> and were sharing a common pleasure in
+the recovery of the stolen pistols. And finally, there was a distinct
+possibility that the swift and dramatic justice that had overtaken
+Walters and Gwinnett at Rand's hands was having a sobering effect upon
+somebody at that table.</p>
+
+<p>Dunmore, Nelda, Varcek, Geraldine and Gladys had been intending to
+go to a party that evening, but at the last minute Gladys had pleaded
+indisposition and telephoned regrets. The meal over, Rand had gone
+up to the gunroom, Gladys drifted into the small drawing-room off the
+dining-room, and the others had gone to their rooms to dress.</p>
+
+<p>Rand was taking down the junk with which Walters had infiltrated the
+collection and was listing and hanging up the recovered items when Fred
+Dunmore, wearing a dressing-gown, strolled in.</p>
+
+<p>"I can't get over the idea of Walters being a thief," he sorrowed.
+"I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen his signed
+confession.... Well, it just goes to show you...."</p>
+
+<p>"He took his medicine standing up," Rand said. "And he helped us recover
+the pistols. If I were you, I'd go easy with him."</p>
+
+<p>Dunmore shook his head. "I'm not a revengeful man, Colonel Rand," he
+said, "but if there's one thing I can't forgive, it's a disloyal
+employee." His mouth closed sternly around his cigar. "He'll have to take
+what's coming to him." He stood by the desk for a moment, looking down at
+the recovered items and the pile of junk on the floor. "When did you
+first suspect him?"</p>
+
+<p>"Almost from the first moment I saw this collection." Rand explained the
+reasoning which had led him to suspect Walters. "The real clincher, to my
+mind, was the fact that he knew this collection almost as well as Lane
+Fleming did, and wouldn't be likely to be deceived by these substitutions
+any more than Fleming would. Yet he said nothing to anybody; neither to
+Mrs. Fleming, nor Goode, nor myself. If he weren't guilty himself, I
+wanted to know his reason for keeping silent. So I put the pressure on
+him, and he cracked open."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I want you to know how grateful we all are," Dunmore said
+feelingly. "I'm kicking hell out of myself, now, about the way I objected
+when Gladys brought you in here. My God, suppose we'd tried to sell the
+collection ourselves! Anybody who'd have been interested in buying would
+have seen what you saw, and then they'd have claimed that we were trying
+to hold out on them." He hesitated. "You've seen how things are here," he
+continued ruefully. "And that's something else I have to thank you for; I
+mean, keeping your mouth shut till you got the pistols back. There'd have
+been a hell of a row; everybody would have blamed everybody else.... How
+did you get him to confess, though?"</p>
+
+<p>Rand told him about the subterfuge of the trumped-up murder charge.
+Dunmore had evidently never thought of that hoary device; he chuckled
+appreciatively.</p>
+
+<p>"Say, that <i>was</i> smart! No wonder he was so willing to admit everything
+and help you get them back." He looked at the pistols on the desk and
+moved one or two of them. "Did you get the one the coroner had? Goode
+said something&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes; I got that yesterday." Rand turned and went to the workbench,
+bringing back the Leech &amp; Rigdon, which he handed to Dunmore. "That's it.
+I fired out the other five charges, and cleaned it at the State Police
+substation." He watched Dunmore closely, but there seemed to be no
+reaction.</p>
+
+<p>"So that's it." Dunmore looked at it with a show of interest and honest
+sorrow, and handed it back, then shifted his cigar across his mouth.
+"Look here, Colonel; I've been wanting to ask you something. Did Gladys
+just get you to come here to appraise and sell the collection, or are you
+investigating Lane's death, too?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, now, you're asking me to be disloyal to my employer," Rand
+objected. "Why don't you ask her that? If she wants you to know, she'll
+tell you."</p>
+
+<p>"Dammit, I can't! Suppose she's satisfied that it really was an accident;
+would I want to start her worrying and imagining things?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, I suppose you wouldn't," Rand conceded. "You're not at all satisfied
+on that point yourself, are you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, are you?" Dunmore parried.</p>
+
+<p>That sort of fencing could go on indefinitely. Rand determined to stop
+it. After all, if Dunmore was the murderer of Lane Fleming, he would
+already know how little Rand was deceived by the fake accident; the Leech
+&amp; Rigdon had told him that already. If he weren't, telling him would do
+no harm at this point, and might even do some good.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, I think Fleming was murdered," Rand told him, as casually as though
+he were expressing an opinion on tomorrow's weather. "And I further
+believe that whoever killed Fleming also killed Arnold Rivers. That, by
+the way, is where I come in. Stephen Gresham has retained me to find the
+Rivers murderer; to do that, I must first learn who killed Lane Fleming.
+However, I was not retained to investigate the Fleming murder, and as far
+as I know from anything she has told me, Gladys Fleming is quite
+satisfied that her husband shot himself accidentally." In a universe of
+ordered abstractions and multiordinal meanings, the literal truth, on one
+order of abstraction, was often a black lie on another. "Does that answer
+your question?" he asked, with open-faced innocence.</p>
+
+<p>Dunmore nodded. "Yes, I get it, now. Look here, do you think Anton Varcek
+could have done it? I know it's a horrible idea, and I want you to
+understand that I'm not making any accusations, but we always took it for
+granted that he'd been up in his lab, and had come downstairs when he
+heard the shot. But suppose he came down and shot Fleming, and then went
+out in the hall, and made that rumpus outside after locking the door
+behind him?"</p>
+
+<p>"That's possible," Rand agreed. "You were taking a bath when you heard
+the shot, weren't you?"</p>
+
+<p>Dunmore shook his head. "I suppose so. I didn't hear any shot, to tell
+the truth. All I heard was Anton pounding on the door and yelling. I
+suppose I had my head under the shower, and the noise of the water kept
+me from hearing the shot." He stopped short, taking his cigar from his
+mouth and pointing it at Rand. "And, by God, that would have been about
+five minutes before he started hammering on the door!" he exclaimed.
+"Time enough for him to have fixed things to look like an accident, set
+the deadlatch, and have gone out in the hall, and started making a noise.
+And another thing. You say that whoever killed Lane also killed this
+fellow Rivers. Well, on Thursday night, when Rivers was killed, Anton
+didn't get home till around twelve."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I'd thought of that. You know, though, that the murderer doesn't
+have to be Varcek, or anybody else who was in the house at the time. The
+garage doors were open&mdash;I'm told that your wife was out at the time&mdash;and
+anybody could have sneaked in the back way, up through the library, and
+out the same way. There are one or two possibilities besides you and
+Anton Varcek."</p>
+
+<p>Dunmore's eyes widened. "Yes, and I can think of one, without half
+trying, too!" He nodded once or twice. "For instance, the man who was
+afraid you were investigating Fleming's death; the man who started that
+suicide story!" He looked at Rand interrogatively. "Well, I got to go;
+Nelda'll be out of the bathroom by now. I want to talk to you about this
+some more, Colonel."</p>
+
+<p>After Dunmore had gone out, Rand mopped his face. The room seemed
+insufferably hot. He found an electric fan over the workbench and plugged
+it in, but it made enough noise to cover any sounds of stealthy approach,
+and he shut it off. He had finished revising his list to include the
+recovered pistols for as far as it was completed, and was hanging them
+back on the wall when Ritter came in.</p>
+
+<p>"House is clear, now," his assistant said, stepping out of his P. G.
+Wodehouse character. "Both pairs left in the Packard, Dunmore driving.
+Man, what a cat-and-dog show this place is! It's a wonder our client
+isn't nuts."</p>
+
+<p>"You haven't seen anything; you ought to have been here last
+night ... Where is our client, by the way?"</p>
+
+<p>"Downstairs." Ritter fished a cigarette out of his livery and
+appropriated Rand's lighter. "If we hear her coming, you can grab this."
+He brushed a couple of Paterson Colts to one side and sat down on the
+edge of the desk, taking a deep drag on the cigarette. "What's the
+regular law doing, now that young Jarrett is out?"</p>
+
+<p>"I had a long talk with Mick McKenna," Rand said. "Fortunately, Mick and
+I have worked together before. I was able to tell him the facts of life,
+and he'll be a good boy now. When last heard from, Farnsworth was
+beginning to blow his hot breath on the back of Cecil Gillis's neck."</p>
+
+<p>Ritter picked up the big .44 Colt Walker and tried the balance. "Man,
+this even makes that Colt Magnum of mine feel light!" he said. "Say,
+Jeff, if Farnsworth's going after Gillis, it's probably on account of
+those stories about him and Mrs. Rivers. At least, all that stuff would
+come out if he arrested him. Maybe we could get a fee out of Mrs.
+Rivers."</p>
+
+<p>"I'd thought of that. Unfortunately, Mrs. Rivers had a very convenient
+breakdown, when she heard the news; she is now in a hospital in New York,
+and won't be back until after the funeral. Prostrated with grief. Or
+something. And this case is due to blow up like Hiroshima before then.
+Well, we can't get fees from everybody." That, of course, was one of the
+sad things of life to which one must reconcile oneself. "I got a call
+from Pierre Jarrett; Tip's staying at the Jarrett place tonight. I
+thought it would be a good idea to have him within reach for a while."</p>
+
+<p>The private outside phone rang shrilly. Ritter let it go for several
+rings, then picked it up.</p>
+
+<p>"This is the Fleming residence," he stated, putting on his character
+again. "Oh, yes indeed, sir. Colonel Rand is right here, sir; I'll tell
+him you're calling." He put a hand over the mouthpiece. "Humphrey Goode."</p>
+
+<p>Rand took the phone and named himself into it.</p>
+
+<p>"I would like to talk to you privately, Colonel Rand," the lawyer said.
+"On a subject of considerable importance to our, shall I say, mutual
+clients. Could you find time to drop over, sometime this evening?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I'm very busy, at the moment, Mr. Goode," Rand regretted. "There
+have been some rather deplorable developments here, lately. The butler,
+Walters, has been arrested for larceny. It seems that since Mr. Fleming's
+death, he has been systematically looting the pistol-collection. I'm
+trying to get things straightened out, now."</p>
+
+<p>"Good heavens!" Goode was considerably shaken. "When did you discover
+this, Colonel Rand? And why wasn't I notified before? And are there many
+valuable items missing?"</p>
+
+<p>"I discovered it as soon as I saw the collection," Rand began answering
+his questions in order. "Neither you, nor anybody else was notified,
+because I wanted to get evidence to justify an arrest first. And nothing
+is missing; everything has been recovered," he finished. "That's what I'm
+so busy about, now; getting my list revised, and straightening out the
+collection."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, fine!" Goode was delighted. "I hope everything was handled quietly,
+without any unnecessary publicity? But this other matter; I don't care to
+go into it over the phone, and it's imperative that we discuss it
+privately, at once."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, suppose you come over here, Mr. Goode," Rand suggested. "That way,
+I won't have to interrupt my work so much. There's nobody at home now but
+Mrs. Fleming, and as she's indisposed, we'll be quite alone."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh; very well. I think that's really a good idea; much better than your
+coming over here. I'll see you directly."</p>
+
+<p>Ritter was grinning as Rand hung up. "That's the stuff," he approved.
+"The old Hitler technique; make them come to you, and then you can pound
+the table and yell at them all you want to."</p>
+
+<p>"You go let him in," Rand directed. "Show him up here, and then take a
+plant on that spiral stairway out of the library, just out of sight. I
+don't think this it, but there's no use taking chances." He mopped his
+face again. "Damn, it's hot in here!"</p>
+
+<p>Ten minutes later, Ritter ushered in Humphrey Goode, and inquired if
+there would be anything further, sir? When Rand said there wouldn't, he
+went down the spiral. Just as Rand had expected, Goode began peddling
+the same line as Varcek and Dunmore before him. They all came to see him
+in the gunroom with a common purpose. After easing himself into a chair,
+and going through some prefatory huffing and puffing, Goode came out with
+it. Did Rand believe that Lane Fleming had really been murdered, and was
+he investigating Fleming's death, after all?</p>
+
+<p>"I have always believed that Lane Fleming was murdered," Rand replied.
+"I also believe that his murderer killed Arnold Rivers, as well. I am
+investigating the Rivers murder, and the Fleming murder may be considered
+as a part thereof. But what brings you around to discuss that, now? Did
+you learn something, since last evening, that leads you to suspect the
+same thing?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, not exactly. But this afternoon, Fred Dunmore and Anton Varcek
+came to my office, separately, of course, and each of them wanted to know
+if I had any reason to suspect that the, uh, tragedy, was actually a case
+of murder. Both had the impression that you were conducting an
+investigation under cover of your work on the pistol collection, and
+wanted to know whether Mrs. Fleming or I had employed you to do so."</p>
+
+<p>"And you denied it, giving them the impression that Mrs. Fleming had?"
+Rand asked. "I hope you haven't put her in any more danger than she is
+now, by doing so."</p>
+
+<p>Goode looked startled. "Colonel Rand! Do you actually mean that...?" he
+began.</p>
+
+<p>"You were Lane Fleming's attorney, and board chairman of his company,"
+Rand said. "You can probably imagine why he was killed. You can ask
+yourself just how safe his principal heir is now." Without giving Goode
+a chance to gather his wits, he pressed on: "Well, what's your opinion
+about Fleming's death? After all, you did go out of your way to create
+a false impression that he had committed suicide."</p>
+
+<p>Goode, still bewildered by Rand's deliberately cryptic hints and a little
+frightened, had the grace to blush at that.</p>
+
+<p>"I admit it; it was entirely unethical, and I'll admit that, too," he
+said. "But.... Well, I'm buying all the Premix stock that's out in small
+blocks, and so are Mr. Dunmore and Mr. Varcek. We all felt that such
+rumors would reduce the market quotation, to our advantage."</p>
+
+<p>Rand nodded. "I picked up a hundred shares, the other day, myself. Your
+shenanigans probably chipped a little off the price I had to pay, so I
+ought to be grateful to you. But we're talking about murder, not market
+manipulation. Did either Varcek or Dunmore express any opinion as to who
+might have killed Fleming?"</p>
+
+<p>The outside telephone rang before Goode could answer. Rand scooped it up
+at the end of the first ring and named himself into it. It was Mick
+McKenna calling.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, we checked up on that cap-and-ball six-shooter you left with me,"
+he said. "This gunsmith, Umholtz, refinished it for Rivers last summer.
+He showed the man who was to see him the entry in his job-book: make,
+model, serials and all."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, fine! And did you get anything out of young Gillis?" Rand asked.</p>
+
+<p>"The gun was in Rivers's shop from the time Umholtz rejuvenated it till
+around the first of November. Then it was sold, but he doesn't know who
+to. He didn't sell it himself; Rivers must have."</p>
+
+<p>"I assumed that; that's why he's still alive. Well, thanks, Mick. The
+case is getting tighter every minute."</p>
+
+<p>"You haven't had any trouble yet?" McKenna asked anxiously. "How's the
+whoozis doing?"</p>
+
+<p>"About as you might expect," Rand told him, mopping his face again.
+"Thanks for that, too."</p>
+
+<p>He hung up and turned back to Goode. "Pardon the interruption," he said.
+"Sergeant McKenna, of the State Police. The officer who made the arrest
+on Walters and Gwinnett. Well, I suppose Dunmore and Varcek are each
+trying to blame the other," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, yes; I rather got that impression," Goode admitted.</p>
+
+<p>"And which one do you like for the murderer? Or haven't you picked yours,
+yet?"</p>
+
+<p>"You mean.... Yes, of course," Goode said slowly. "It must have been one
+or the other. But I can't think.... It's horrible to have to suspect
+either of them." For a moment, he stared unseeingly at the litter of
+high-priced pistols on the desk. Then:</p>
+
+<p>"Colonel Rand, Lane Fleming is dead, and nothing either of us can do
+will bring him back. To expose his murderer certainly won't. But it
+would cause a scandal that would rock the Premix Company to its very
+foundations. It might even disastrously affect the market as a whole."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, come!" Rand reproved. "That's like talking about starting a
+hurricane with a palm-leaf fan."</p>
+
+<p>"But you will admit that it would have a dreadful effect on Premix
+Foods," Goode argued. "It would probably prevent this merger from being
+consummated. Look here," he said urgently. "I don't know how much Gladys
+Fleming is paying you to rake all this up, but I'll gladly double her fee
+if you drop it and confine yourself to the matter of the collection."</p>
+
+<p>Even in his colossal avarice, that was one kind of money Jeff Rand had
+never been tempted to take. An offer of that sort invariably made him
+furious. At the moment, he managed to choke down his anger, but he
+rejected Goode's offer in a manner which left no room for further
+discussion. Goode rose, shaking his head sadly.</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose you realize," he said, sorrowfully, "that you're wrecking
+a ten-million-dollar corporation. One in which you, yourself, are a
+stockholder."</p>
+
+<p>Rand brightened. "And the biggest wrecking jobs I ever did before were a
+couple of petrol dumps and a railroad bridge." He got to his feet along
+with the lawyer. "No need to call the butler; I'll let you out myself."</p>
+
+<p>He accompanied Goode down the front stairway to the door. Goode was still
+gloomy.</p>
+
+<p>"I made a mistake in trying to bribe you," he said. "But can't I appeal
+to your sense of fairness? Do you want to inflict serious losses on
+innocent investors merely to avenge one crime?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't approve of murder," Rand told him. "Least of all, to paraphrase
+Clausewitz, as an extension of business by other means. You know, if we
+let Lane Fleming's killer get away with it, somebody might take that as a
+precedent and bump you off to win a lawsuit, sometime. Ever think of
+that?"</p>
+
+<p>When he returned to the gunroom, he found Gladys Fleming occupying the
+chair lately vacated by the family attorney. She blew a smoke-ring at him
+in greeting as he entered.</p>
+
+<p>"Now what was Hump Goode up to?" she wanted to know.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm taking too much on myself," Rand evaded. "Maybe I should have turned
+Walters over for trial by family court-martial. How do you like Davies,
+by the way?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, he's cute," Gladys told him. "One of your operatives, isn't he?"</p>
+
+<p>"Now what in the world gave you an idea like that?" he asked, as though
+humoring the vagaries of a child.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I suspected something of the sort from the alacrity with which you
+produced him, before Walters was out of the house," she said. "And nobody
+could be as perfect a stage butler as he is. But what really convinced me
+was coming into the library, a little while ago, and finding him
+squatting on the top of the spiral, covering Humphrey Goode with a small
+but particularly evil-looking automatic."</p>
+
+<p>Rand chuckled. "What did you do?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I climbed up and squatted beside him," she replied. "I got there
+just as you were telling Goode what he could do with his bribe. You know,
+with one thing and another, Goode's beginning to become unamusing." She
+smoked in silence for a moment. "I ought to be indignant with you,
+filling my house with spies," she said. "But under the circumstances, I'm
+afraid I'm thankful, instead. Your op's a good egg, by the way; he's on
+his way to bring us some drinks."</p>
+
+<p>"I ought to be sore at you, retaining me into a mess like this and
+telling me nothing," Rand told her. "What was the idea, anyhow? You
+wanted me to investigate your husband's murder, all along, didn't you?"</p>
+
+<p>"I&mdash;I hadn't a thing to go on," she replied. "I was afraid, if I came out
+and told you what I suspected, that you'd think it was just another case
+of feminine dam-foolishness, and dismiss it as such. I knew it wasn't an
+accident; Lane didn't have accidents with guns. And if he'd wanted to
+kill himself, he'd have done it and left a note explaining why he had to.
+But I didn't have a single fact to give you. I thought that if you came
+here and started working on the collection, you'd find something."</p>
+
+<p>"You should have taken a chance and told me what you suspected," Rand
+said. "I've taken a lot of cases on flimsier grounds than this. The fact
+is, you practically told me it was murder, when you were talking to me in
+my office."</p>
+
+<p>"Jeff, I never was what the soap-operas call being 'in love' with Lane,"
+she continued. "But he was wonderful to me. He gave me everything a girl
+who grew up in a sixteen-dollar apartment over a fruit store could want.
+And then somebody killed him, just as you'd step on a cockroach, because
+he got in the way of a business deal. I'm glad to be able to spend money
+to help catch whoever did it. It won't help him, but it'll make me feel a
+lot better.... You will catch him, won't you?"</p>
+
+<p>Rand nodded. "I don't know whether he'll ever go to trial and be
+convicted," he said. "I don't think he will. But you can take my word for
+it; he won't get away with it. Tomorrow, I think the lid's going to blow
+off. Maybe you'd better be away from home when it does. Take Nelda and
+Geraldine with you, and go somewhere. There's likely to be some uproar."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Nelda and Geraldine and I are going to church, in the morning,"
+Gladys said. "It's a question of face. We have a rented pew&mdash;Lane was
+quite active in church work&mdash;and none of us are willing to let ourselves
+get squeezed out of it. We all go; even Geraldine manages to drag herself
+to the Lord's House through an alcoholic fog. And we'll have to be back
+in time for dinner. It would look funny if we weren't."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, if nothing's happened by the time you get back, I want you to talk
+the girls into going somewhere with you in the afternoon, and stay away
+till evening. And don't get the idea that you could help me here," he
+added, stopping an objection. "I know what I'm talking about. The
+presence of any of you here would only delay matters and make it harder
+for me."</p>
+
+<p>Then Ritter came in, a cigarette in one corner of his mouth, carrying a
+tray on which were a bottle of Bourbon, a bottle of Scotch, a siphon and
+a couple of bottles of beer.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_20" id="CHAPTER_20"></a>CHAPTER 20</h2>
+
+
+<p>The dining-room was empty, when Rand came down to breakfast the next
+morning. Taking the seat he had occupied the evening before, he waited
+until Ritter came out of the kitchen through the pantry.</p>
+
+<p>"Good morning, Colonel Rand," the Perfect Butler greeted him unctuously.
+"If I may say so, sir, you're a bit of an early riser. None of the family
+is up yet, sir."</p>
+
+<p>Rand jerked a thumb toward the kitchen. "Who's out there?" he hissed.</p>
+
+<p>"Just the cook; frying sausage and flipping pancakes. Premix pancakes, of
+course. The maid sleeps out; she hasn't gotten here yet. How'd it go last
+night? You put a dummy under the covers and sleep on the floor?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, last night I was safe. The blow-off isn't due till this morning,
+when the women are at church, and he'll have to catch me and the fall-guy
+together."</p>
+
+<p>"What do you want me to do?" Ritter asked, giving an un-butler-like hitch
+at his shoulder-holster. "I can stand on my official dignity, and get out
+of any cleaning-up work till after dinner, and I won't have any buttling
+to do till the women get home from church."</p>
+
+<p>"Case Varcek and Dunmore, when they come in; see if either of them is
+rod-heavy. Find anything, last night?"</p>
+
+<p>Ritter shook his head. "I searched Varcek's lab, after everybody was in
+bed, and I searched the cars in the garage, and a lot of other places. I
+didn't find them. Whoever he is, the chances are he has them in his
+room."</p>
+
+<p>"Did you look back of the books in the library?" Rand asked. When Ritter
+shook his head, he continued: "That's probably where they are. Not that
+it makes a whole lot of difference."</p>
+
+<p>"If I'd found them, it'd of given me something to watch; then I'd know
+when the fun was going to start." Ritter broke off suddenly. "Yes, sir.
+Will you have your coffee now, or later, sir?"</p>
+
+<p>Gladys entered, wearing the blue tailored outfit she had worn to Rand's
+office, on Wednesday.</p>
+
+<p>"At ease, at ease," she laughed, dropping into her chair. "Anything new?"</p>
+
+<p>Rand shook his head. "We'll have to wait. I'm expecting some action this
+morning; I hope it'll be over before you're home from church."</p>
+
+<p>She looked at him seriously. "Jeff, you're using yourself as
+murder-bait," she said. "Aren't you?"</p>
+
+<p>"More or less. He knows I'm onto him. He's pretty sure I haven't any real
+proof, yet, but he doesn't know how soon I will have. He realizes that
+I'm cat-and-mousing him, the way I did Walters. So he'll try to kill me
+before I pounce, and when he does, he'll convict himself. What he doesn't
+realize is that as long as he sits tight, he's perfectly safe."</p>
+
+<p>Neither of them mentioned the obvious corollary, that conviction and
+execution would be almost simultaneous. It must have been uppermost in
+Gladys's mind; she leaned over and put her hand on Rand's arm.</p>
+
+<p>"Jeff, would it help any if I stayed home, instead of going to church?"
+she asked. "I'm a pretty fair pistol-shot. Lane taught me. I can stay
+over ninety at slow fire, and in the eighties at timed-and-rapid. If I
+hid somewhere with a target pistol&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Absolutely not!" Rand vetoed emphatically. "I'm not saying that because
+I'm afraid you might stop a slug yourself. You're a big girl, now; you
+can take your own chances. But if you stayed home, he wouldn't make a
+move. You and Geraldine and Nelda have to be out of the house before
+he'll feel safe coming out of the grass."</p>
+
+<p>"Watch it!" Ritter warned. "Yes, ma'am; at once, ma'am."</p>
+
+<p>Nelda came in and sat down. Ritter held her chair and fussed over her,
+finding out what she wanted to eat. He was bringing in her fruit when
+Varcek and Geraldine entered. Nelda was inquiring if Rand wanted to come
+to church with them.</p>
+
+<p>"No; I'm one of the boys the chaplain couldn't find in the foxholes,"
+Rand said. "I'm going to put in a quiet morning on the collection. If
+nobody gets murdered or arrested in the meantime, that is."</p>
+
+<p>Geraldine looked woebegone; her hands were trembling. "My God, do I have
+a hangover!" she moaned. "Walters, for heaven's sake, fix me up
+something, quick!" Then she saw Ritter. "Who the devil are you?" she
+demanded. "Where's Walters?"</p>
+
+<p>"Out on bail," Rand told her. "Don't you remember?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, you did this to me!" she accused. "Walters could always fix me up,
+in the morning. Now what am I going to do?"</p>
+
+<p>"You might stop drinking," her husband suggested mildly.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, just stop breathing; that would be better all around," Nelda
+interposed.</p>
+
+<p>Ritter coughed delicately. "Begging your pardon, ma'am, but I've always
+rawther fawncied myself for an expert on morning-awfter tonics. If you'll
+wait a moment&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>He departed on his errand of mercy, returning shortly with a highball
+glass filled with some dark, evil-looking potion. He set it on the table
+in front of the sufferer and poured her a cup of coffee.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, ma'am; just try this. Take it gradually, if I may suggest. Don't
+attempt to gulp it; it's quite strong, ma'am."</p>
+
+<p>Geraldine tasted it and pulled a Gorgon-face. Encouraged by Ritter, she
+managed to down about half of the mixture.</p>
+
+<p>"Splendid, ma'am; splendid!" he cheered her on. "Now, drink your coffee,
+ma'am, and then finish it. That's right, ma'am. And now, more coffee."</p>
+
+<p>Geraldine struggled through with the black draft and drank the second cup
+of coffee. As she set down the empty cup, she even managed to smile.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, that's wonderful!" She lit a cigarette. "What is it? I feel as
+though I might live, after all."</p>
+
+<p>"A recipe of my own, a variant on the old Prairie Oyster, but without the
+raw egg, which I consider a needless embellishment, ma'am. I learned it
+in the household of a former employer, a New York stockbroker. Poor man:
+he did himself in in the autumn of 1929."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, it's too bad you won't be with us permanently, Davies," Nelda
+said. "Your recipe seems to be just what Geraldine needs. With a dash of
+prussic acid added, of course."</p>
+
+<p>That got the bush-fighting off to a good start. When Dunmore came in, a
+few minutes later, the two sisters were stalking one another through the
+jungle, blow-gunning poison darts back and forth. The newcomer sat down
+without a word; throughout the meal, he and Varcek treated one another
+with silent and hostile suspicion. Finally Gladys looked at her watch and
+called a truce to the skirmishing by announcing that it was time to start
+for church. Rand left the room with the ladies; in the hall, Gladys
+brushed against him quickly and gripped his left arm.</p>
+
+<p>"Do be careful, Jeff," she whispered.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't worry; I will," Rand assured her. Then he turned into the library
+and went up the spiral to the gunroom, while the three women went down to
+the garage.</p>
+
+<p>He was standing at the window as the big Packard moved out onto the
+drive. Nelda was at the wheel, and Gladys, beside her on the front seat,
+raised a white-gloved hand in the thumbs-up salute. Rand gave it back,
+and watched the car swing around the house. Then he mopped his face with
+a wad of Kleenex and went over to the room-temperature thermostat,
+turning it down to sixty.</p>
+
+<p>Sitting down at the desk, he dialed Humphrey Goode's number on the
+private outside line. A maid answered; a moment later he was talking to
+the Fleming lawyer.</p>
+
+<p>"Rand, here," he identified himself. "Mr. Goode, I've been thinking over
+our conversation of last evening. There is a great deal to be said for
+the position you're taking in the matter. As you reminded me, I'm a
+small, if purely speculative, stockholder in Premix, myself, and even
+if I weren't, I should hate to be responsible for undeserved losses by
+innocent investors."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes?" Goode's voice fairly shook. "Then you're going to drop the
+investigation?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, Mr. Goode; I can't do that. But I believe a formula could be evolved
+which would keep the Premix Company and its affairs out of it. In fact, I
+think that the whole question of the death of Lane Fleming might possibly
+be kept in the background. Would that satisfy you? It would require some
+very careful manipulation on my part, and your cooperation."</p>
+
+<p>"But.... See here, if you're investigating the death of Mr. Fleming, how
+can that be kept in the background?" Goode wanted to know.</p>
+
+<p>"The murderer of Lane Fleming is also guilty of the murder of Arnold
+Rivers," Rand stated. "I know that positively, now. Murder is punished
+capitally, and one of the peculiarities of capital punishment is that it
+can be inflicted only once, on no matter how many counts. If our man goes
+to the chair for the death of Rivers, the death of Fleming might even
+remain an accident. I can hardly guarantee that; I have my agency license
+to think of, among other things. But I feel reasonably safe in saying
+that I could keep the Premix Company from figuring in the case. Would
+that satisfy you?"</p>
+
+<p>"It most certainly would, Colonel Rand!" Goode's voice shook even more.
+"Are you sure?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm not sure of anything. It'll cost the Premix Company some money to
+get this done&mdash;I'll have certain expenses, for one thing, which could not
+very gracefully be itemized&mdash;and I will have to have your cooperation.
+Now, I want you to remain at home, where I can reach you at any moment,
+for the rest of the day. I'll call you later."</p>
+
+<p>He listened to Goode babble his gratitude for a while, then terminated
+the call and hung up. Then he transferred the Colt .38 to the side pocket
+of his coat, picked up one of the sheets on which he had been listing
+the collection, and sat for almost fifteen minutes pretending to study
+it, keeping his eyes shifting from the hall door to the spiral stairway
+and back again.</p>
+
+<p>Finally, the hall door opened, and Anton Varcek came in. Rand half rose,
+covering the Czech from his side pocket; Varcek came over and sat down in
+an armchair near the desk. He was looking more than ever like Rudolf
+Hess. Rudolf Hess on the morning of the Beer Hall Putsch.</p>
+
+<p>"Colonel Rand," he began. "There has, within the last half hour, been a
+most important development. I am at a loss to define its significance,
+but its importance is inescapable."</p>
+
+<p>Rand nodded. He had been expecting somebody to give birth to an important
+development; the steps toward gunfire were progressing in logical series.</p>
+
+<p>"Well?" He smiled encouragingly. "What happened?"</p>
+
+<p>"After you and the ladies left the dining-room," Varcek said, "Fred
+Dunmore turned to me and apologized for harboring unjust suspicions of me
+in the matter of Lane Fleming's death. He said that he had been unable
+to understand who else could have murdered Lane, until you had pointed
+out to him that the house could have been entered from the garage, and
+the gunroom from the library. Then, he said, he had had a conversation
+with some unnamed gentleman at the party last evening, and had learned
+that Lane had discovered that Humphrey Goode was deceiving him, and had
+been about to have him dismissed from his position with the company, and
+to sever his personal connections with him."</p>
+
+<p>"The devil, now!" Rand gave a good imitation of surprise. "What sort of
+jiggery-pokery was Goode up to?"</p>
+
+<p>"Fred said that his informant told him that Lane had proof that Goode had
+accepted a bribe from Arnold Rivers, to misconduct the suit which Lane
+was bringing against Rivers about a pair of pistols he had bought from
+Rivers. It seems that Goode was Rivers's attorney, also, and had been
+involved with him in a number of dishonest transactions, although the
+connection had been kept secret."</p>
+
+<p>"That's a new angle, now," Rand said. "I suppose that he killed Rivers in
+order to prevent the latter from incriminating him. Why didn't Fred come
+to me with this?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Eh?" Evidently Varcek hadn't thought of that. "Why, I suppose he was
+concerned about the possibility of repercussions in the business world.
+After all, Goode is our board chairman, and maybe he thought that people
+might begin thinking that the murder had some connection with the affairs
+of the company."</p>
+
+<p>"That's possible, of course," Rand agreed. "And what's your own
+attitude?"</p>
+
+<p>"Colonel Rand, I cannot allow these facts to be suppressed," the Czech
+said. "My own position is too vulnerable; you've showed me that. Except
+for the fact that somebody could have entered the house through the
+garage, the burden of suspicion would lie on me and Fred Dunmore."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, do you want me to help you with it?" Rand asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, if you will. It would be helping yourself, also, I believe," Varcek
+replied. "Fred is downstairs, now, in the library; I suggest that you and
+I go down and have a talk with him. Maybe you could show him the folly of
+trying to suppress any facts concerning Lane's death."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, that would be both foolish and dangerous." Rand got to his feet,
+keeping his hand on the .38 Colt. "Let's go down and talk to him now."</p>
+
+<p>They walked side by side toward the spiral, Rand keeping on the right and
+lagging behind a little, lifting the stubby revolver clear of his pocket.
+Yet, in spite of his vigilance, it happened before he could prevent it.</p>
+
+<p>A lance of yellow fire jumped out of the shadows of the stairway,
+and there was a soft cough of a silenced pistol, almost lost in the
+<i>click-click</i> of the breech-action. Rand felt something sledge-hammer him
+in the chest, almost knocking him down. He staggered, then swung up the
+Colt he had drawn from his pocket and blazed two shots into the stairway.
+There was a clatter, and the sound of feet descending into the library.
+He rushed forward, revolver poised, and then a shot boomed from below,
+followed by three more in quick succession.</p>
+
+<p>"Okay, Jeff!" Ritter's voice called out. "War's over!"</p>
+
+<p>He managed, somehow, to get down the steep spiral. The little .25 Webley
+&amp; Scott was lying on the bottom step; he pushed it aside with his foot,
+and cautioned Varcek, who was following, to avoid it. Ritter, still
+looking like the Perfect Butler in spite of the .380 Beretta in his hand,
+was standing in the hall doorway. On the floor, midway between the
+stairway and the door, lay Fred Dunmore. His tan coat and vest were
+turning dark in several places, and Rand's own Detective Special was
+lying a few inches from his left hand.</p>
+
+<p>"He came in here and shut the door," Ritter reported. "I couldn't follow
+him in, so I took a plant in the hall. When I heard you blasting
+upstairs, I came in, just in time to see him coming down. You winged him
+in the right shoulder; he'd dropped the .25, and he had your gat in his
+left hand. When he saw mine, he threw one at me and missed; I gave him
+three back for it. See result on floor."</p>
+
+<p>"Uh-uh; he'd have gotten away, if you hadn't been on the job," he told
+Ritter. Then he picked up his own revolver and holstered it. After a
+glance which assured him that Fred Dunmore was beyond any further action
+of any sort, he laid the square-butt Detective Special on the floor
+beside him. "You did all right, Dave," he said. "Now, nobody's going to
+have a chance to bamboozle a jury into acquitting him." He thought of his
+recent conversation with Humphrey Goode. "You did just all right," he
+repeated.</p>
+
+<p>"So it was Fred, then," he heard Varcek, behind him, say. "Then he was
+lying about this evidence against Goode." The Czech came over and stood
+beside Rand, looking down at the body of his late brother-in-law. "But
+why did he tell me that story, and why did he shoot at us when we were
+together?"</p>
+
+<p>"Both for the same general reason." Rand explained about the two pistols
+and the planned double-killing. "With both of us dead, you'd be the
+murderer, and I'd be a martyr to law-and-order, and he'd be in the
+clear."</p>
+
+<p>Varcek regarded the dead man with more distaste than surprise. Evidently
+his experiences in Hitler's Europe had left him with few illusions about
+the sanctity of human life or the extent of human perfidy. Ritter
+holstered the Beretta and got out a cigarette.</p>
+
+<p>"I hope you didn't leave your lighter upstairs," he told Rand.</p>
+
+<p>Rand produced and snapped it, holding the flame out to his assistant.
+"Dave," he lectured, "the Perfect Butler always has a lighter in good
+working order; lighting up the mawster is part of his duties. Remember
+that, the next time you have a buttling job."</p>
+
+<p>Ritter leaned forward for the light. "Dunmore was a better shot with his
+right hand than he was with his left," he commented. "He didn't come
+within a yard of me, and he scored a twelve-o'clock center on you. Right
+through the necktie."</p>
+
+<p>Rand glanced down. Then he burst into a roar of obscene blasphemy.</p>
+
+<p>"Seven dollars and fifty cents I paid for that tie, not three weeks ago,"
+he concluded. "Does your grandmother make patchwork quilts? If she does,
+she can have it."</p>
+
+<p>"My God!" Varcek stared at Rand unbelievingly. "Why, he hit you! You're
+wounded!"</p>
+
+<p>"Only in the necktie," Rand reassured him. "I have a hole in my shirt,
+too." He reached under the latter garment and rummaged, as though to
+evict a small trespasser. When he brought out his hand, he was holding a
+battered .25-caliber bullet. He held it out to show to Varcek and Ritter.</p>
+
+<p>"Sure," Ritter grinned at Varcek. "Didn't you know? Superman."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm wearing a bulletproof vest; Mick McKenna loaned it to me yesterday,"
+Rand enlightened Varcek. "I never wore one of the damn things before, and
+if I can help it, I'll never wear one again. I'm damn near stewed alive
+in it."</p>
+
+<p>"Think how hot you'd be, right now, if you hadn't been wearing it,"
+Ritter reminded him.</p>
+
+<p>"Then you knew, since yesterday, that he would do this?" Varcek asked.</p>
+
+<p>"I knew one or the other of you would," Rand replied. "I had quite a few
+reasons for thinking it might be Dunmore, and one good one for not
+suspecting you."</p>
+
+<p>"You mean my dislike for firearms?"</p>
+
+<p>"That could have been feigned, or it could have been overcome," Rand
+replied. "I mean your knowledge of biology and biochemistry. If you'd
+killed Lane Fleming, there'd have been no clumsy business of fake
+accidents; not as long as both of you ate at the same table. He'd
+have just died, an unimpeachably natural death." He turned to Ritter.
+"Dave, I'm going upstairs; I want to get out of this damned coat of mail
+I'm wearing. While I'm doing it, I want you to call Carter Tipton, at the
+Jarrett place, and Humphrey Goode, and Mick McKenna, in that order. Tell
+Goode to get over here as fast as he can, and come up to my room; tell
+him we have to consider ways and means of implementing my suggestion to
+him."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_21" id="CHAPTER_21"></a>CHAPTER 21</h2>
+
+
+<p>In the month which followed, events transpired through a thickening
+miasma of rumors, official communiques, journalistic conjectures,
+and outright fabrications, fitfully lit by the glare of newsmen's
+photo-bulbs, bulking with strange shapes, and emitting stranger noises.
+There were the portentous rumblings of prepared statements, and the
+hollow thumps of denials. There were soft murmurs of, "Now, this is
+strictly off the record ..." followed by sibilant whispers. The unseen
+screws of political pressure creaked, and whitewash brushes slurped
+suavely. And there was an insistent yammering of bewildered and
+unanswered questions. Fred Dunmore really had killed Arnold Rivers,
+hadn't he? Or had he? Arnold Rivers had been double-crossing
+Dunmore ... or had Dunmore been double-crossing Rivers? Somebody
+had stolen ten&mdash;or was it twenty-five&mdash;thousand dollars' worth
+of old pistols? Or was it just twenty-five thousand dollars? Or
+what, if anything, had been stolen? Was somebody being framed for
+something ... or was somebody covering up for somebody ... or what?
+And wasn't there something funny about the way Lane Fleming got killed,
+last December?</p>
+
+<p>The surviving members of the Fleming family issued a few noncommittal
+statements through their attorney, Humphrey Goode, and then the Iron
+Curtain slammed down. Mick McKenna gave an outraged squawk or so, then
+subsided. There was a series of pronunciamentos from the office of
+District Attorney Charles P. Farnsworth, all full of high-order
+abstractions and empty of meaning. The reporters, converging on the
+Fleming house, found it occupied by the State Police, who kept them at
+bay. Harry Bentz, of the New Belfast <i>Evening Mercury</i>, using a 30-power
+spotting-'scope from the road, observed Dave Ritter, whom he recognized,
+wearing a suit of butler's livery and standing in the doorway of the
+garage, talking to Sergeant McKenna, Carter Tipton and Farnsworth; the
+<i>Mercury</i> exploited this scoop for all it was worth.</p>
+
+<p>On the whole, the Rosemont Bayonet Murder was, from a journalistic
+standpoint, an almost complete bust. There had been no arrest, no
+hearing, no protracted trial, no sensational revelations. Only one
+monolithic fact, officially attested and indisputable, loomed out of
+the murk: "... and the said Frederick Parker Dunmore, deceased, did
+receive the aforesaid gunshot-wounds, hereinbefore enumerated, at the
+hands of the said Jefferson Davis Rand and at the hands of the said
+David Abercrombie Ritter ..." and "... the said Jefferson Davis Rand
+and the said David Abercrombie Ritter, being in mortal fear for their
+several lives, did so act in defense of their several persons..." and,
+finally, "... the said Frederick Parker Dunmore did die."</p>
+
+<p>The <i>Evening Mercury</i>, which sheet the said Jefferson Davis Rand had
+once cost the loss of an expensive libel-suit and exposed in certain
+journalistic malpractices verging upon blackmail, promptly burst into
+print with an indignant editorial entitled <i>Trial by Pistol</i>. The
+terms: "legalized slaughter," and "flagrant whitewash," were used, and
+mention was made of "the well known preference of a certain notorious
+private detective for the procedure of <i>habeas</i> cadaver." The principal
+result of this outcry was to persuade an important New Belfast
+manufacturer, who had hitherto resisted Rand's sales pressure, to
+contract with the Tri-State Agency for the protection of his payroll
+deliveries.</p>
+
+<p>Then, at the other end of the state, the professor of Moral Science at a
+small theological seminary caught his wife in <i>flagrante delicto</i> with
+one of the fourth-year students and opened fire upon them, at a range of
+ten feet, with a 12-gauge pump-gun. The Rosemont Bayonet Murder, already
+pretty well withered on the vine, passed quietly into limbo.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Summer, almost a month before its official opening, was already a <i>fait
+accompli</i>. The trees were in full leaf and invaded by nesting birds, the
+air was fragrant with flower scents, and the mercury column of the
+thermometer was stretching itself up toward the ninety mark.</p>
+
+<p>They were all outside, where the long shadow of the Fleming house
+fell across the lawn and driveway, gathered about the five parked cars.
+The new Fleming butler, a short and somewhat globular Negro with a
+gingerbread-crust complexion and an air of affable dignity, was helping
+Pierre Jarrett and Karen Lawrence put a couple of cartons and a tall
+peach-basket into Pierre's Plymouth. Colin MacBride, a streamer of
+pipe-smoke floating back over his shoulder, was peering into his
+luggage-compartment to check the stowage of his own cargo, while his
+twelve-year-old son, Malcolm, another black Highlander like his
+father, was helping Philip Cabot carry a big laundry hamper full of
+newspaper-wrapped pistols to his Cadillac. Pierre's mother, and the
+stylish-stout Mrs. Trehearne, and Gladys Fleming, obviously detached from
+the bustle of pre-departure preparations, were standing to one side,
+talking. And Rand had finished helping Adam Trehearne pack the last
+container of his share of the Fleming collection into his car.</p>
+
+<p>"I see Colin's about ready to leave, and I'm in his way," Trehearne said.
+He extended his hand to Rand. "No need hashing over how we all feel about
+this. If it hadn't been for you, that offer of Kendall's would have had
+us stopped as dead as Rivers's had. Five hundred dollars deader, in
+fact."</p>
+
+<p>Stephen Gresham, carrying a package-filled orange crate, joined him,
+setting down his burden. His wife and daughter, with another crate
+between them, halted beside him.</p>
+
+<p>"Haven't you got your stuff packed yet, Jeff?" Gresham asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Jeff's been helping everybody else," Irene Gresham burst out. "Come on,
+everybody; let's go help Jeff pack! You're going to have dinner with us,
+aren't you, Jeff?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, sorry. I have some more details to clear up; I'm having dinner here,
+with Mrs. Fleming," Rand regretted. "I'll pack my stuff later."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Jarrett, Mrs. Trehearne, and Gladys came over; one by one the rest
+of the group converged upon them. Then, when the good-by's had been said,
+and the promises to meet again had been given, they parted. One by one
+the cars moved slowly down the driveway to the road. Only Gladys and
+Rand, standing at the foot of the front steps, and the gingerbread-brown
+butler were left.</p>
+
+<p>"My, my; that was some party!" the Negro chuckled, gathering up three
+empty pasteboard cartons and telescoping them together. "Dinner'll be
+ready in about half an hour, Mrs. Fleming. Shall I go mix the cocktails
+now?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; do that, Reuben. In the drawing-room." She watched the servant
+carry the discarded containers around the house, then turned to Rand.
+"You know, not the least of your capabilities is your knack of finding
+servant-replacements on short notice," she told him.</p>
+
+<p>"My general factotum, Buck Pendexter, is a prominent personage in New
+Belfast colored lodge circles," Rand said. "When your cook and maid quit
+on you, the day of the blow-up, all I had to do was phone him, and he did
+the rest." He got out his cigarettes, offered them, and snapped his
+lighter. "I notice you're having cocktails in the drawing-room now."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. I suppose, in time, I'll stop imagining I see Fred Dunmore's blood
+on the library floor. I got used to what had happened in the gunroom last
+December. Shall we go in?" she asked, taking Rand's arm.</p>
+
+<p>The cocktails were waiting when they entered the drawing-room, off the
+dining-room. The butler poured for them and put the glasses and the
+shaker on a low table by a lounge.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm afraid dinner's going to be a little later than I said, Mrs.
+Fleming," he apologized. "Things were kind of stirred up, today, with all
+those people here."</p>
+
+<p>"That's all right; we can wait," she replied. "We won't need anything
+more, Reuben."</p>
+
+<p>Motioning Rand down on the lounge beside her, she handed him a glass and
+lifted her own.</p>
+
+<p>"Now," she began. "Just what sort of skulduggery has been going on? As of
+Friday, the top offer for the collection was twenty-five thousand five
+hundred, from some dealer up in Massachusetts. And then, on Saturday, you
+came bounding in with Stephen Gresham's certified check for twenty-six
+thousand. And I seem to recall that the late unlamented Rivers's offer of
+twenty-five thousand straight had them stopped. Not that I'm inclined
+to look askance at an extra five hundred&mdash;I can buy a new hat with my
+share of that, even after taxes&mdash;but I would like to know what happened.
+And I might add, that's only one of many things I'd like to know."</p>
+
+<p>"The client is entitled to a full report," Rand said, tasting his
+cocktail. It was a vodka Martini, and very good. "You know, none of that
+crowd are millionaires. Adam Trehearne, who's the plutocrat of the bunch,
+isn't so filthy rich he doesn't know what to do with all his money&mdash;what
+the tax-collectors leave of it&mdash;and the rest of them have to figure
+pretty closely. The most they could possibly scratch together was
+twenty-two thousand. So I put four thousand into the pot, myself,
+bringing the total to five hundred over the Kendall offer, and hastily
+declared the collection sold. Of course, my getting into it meant that
+much less for everybody else, but five-sixths of a collection is better
+than no pistols at all. I imagine Colin MacBride is honing up his
+<i>sgian-dhu</i> for me because I got that big Whitneyville Walker Colt, but
+what the hell; he got the cased pair of Paterson .34's, and the Texas .40
+with the ramming-lever."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, I think the division was fair enough," Gladys said. "They'd agreed
+to take your valuation, hadn't they? And all that slide-rule and
+comptometer business.... But Jeff&mdash;four thousand dollars?" she queried.
+"You only got five from me, and you can't run a detective agency on old
+pistols."</p>
+
+<p>Rand grinned as he set down his empty glass. Gladys refilled it from the
+shaker.</p>
+
+<p>"My dear lady, that five thousand I unblushingly accepted from you was
+only part of it," he confessed.</p>
+
+<p>"There was also a fee of three thousand from Stephen Gresham, for pulling
+the bloodhounds of the D.A.'s office off his back in the matter of Arnold
+Rivers, and there was five thousand from Humphrey Goode, which I suppose
+he'll get the Premix Company to repay him, for engineering the
+suppression of a lot of facts he wanted suppressed. And, finally, my
+connection with this business brought that merger to my attention, and I
+picked up a hundred shares of Premix at 73-1/4, and now I have two
+hundred shares of Mill-Pack, worth about twenty-nine thousand, which I
+can report for my income tax as capital gains. I'd say I could afford to
+treat myself to a few old pistols for my collection."</p>
+
+<p>"Well!" She raised both eyebrows over that. "Don't anybody tell me crime
+doesn't pay."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. In my ghoulish way, I generally manage to bear myself in mind, on
+an operation like this. I make no secret of my affection for money." He
+lifted his glass and sipped slowly. "Look here, Gladys; are you satisfied
+with the way this was handled?"</p>
+
+<p>She shrugged. "I should be. When I started out as Lane's blood-avenger,
+I suppose I expected things to end somewhere out of sight, in a nice,
+antiseptic death-chamber at the state penitentiary. You must admit that
+that business in the library was really bringing it home. There's no
+question that you got the man who killed Lane, and if you hadn't, I'd
+never have been at peace with myself. And I suppose all that chicanery
+afterward was necessary, too."</p>
+
+<p>"It was, if you wanted that merger to go through, and unless you wanted
+to see the bottom drop out of your Premix stock," Rand assured her. "If
+the true facts of Mr. Fleming's death had gotten out, there'd have been
+a simply hideous stink. The Mill-Pack people would have backed out of
+that merger like a bear out of an active bee-tree.... You know what the
+situation really was, don't you?"</p>
+
+<p>She shook her head. "I know Mill-Pack wanted to get control of the Premix
+Company, and Lane refused to go in with them. I don't fully understand
+his reasons, though."</p>
+
+<p>"They weren't important; they were mainly verbal, and unrelated to
+actuality," Rand said. "The important thing is that he did refuse, and
+Mill-Pack wanted that merger so badly that it could be tasted in every
+ounce of food they sold. They got Stephen Gresham to negotiate it for
+them, and he was just on the point of reporting it to be an impossibility
+when Fred Dunmore came to him with a proposition. Dunmore said he thought
+he could persuade or force Mr. Fleming to consent, and he wanted a
+contract guaranteeing him a vice-presidency with Mill-Pack, at forty
+thousand a year, if and when the merger was accomplished. The contract
+was duly signed about the first of last November."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, good Lord!" Gladys Fleming's eyes widened. "When did you hear
+about that?"</p>
+
+<p>"I got that out of Gresham, a couple of days after the blow-up, when it
+was too late to be of any use to me," Rand said. "If I'd known it from
+the beginning, it might have saved me some work. Not much, though.
+Gresham was just as badly scared about the facts coming out as Goode was.
+I can't prove collusion between him and Goode, but Gresham was helping
+spread the suicide story, too."</p>
+
+<p>"Nice friends Lane had! But didn't anybody think there was something odd
+about that accident, immediately after that contract was signed?"</p>
+
+<p>"Of course they did, but try and get them to admit it, even to
+themselves. Nobody likes to think that the new vice president of the
+company murdered his way into the position. So everybody assumed the
+attitudes of the three Japanese monkeys, and made respectable noises
+about what a great loss Mr. Fleming was to the business world, and how
+lucky Dunmore was that he had that contract."</p>
+
+<p>She looked at him inquiringly for a moment. "Jeff, I want you to tell me
+exactly how everything happened," she said. "I think I have a right to
+know."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, you have," he agreed. "I'll tell you the whole thing, what I
+actually know, and what I was forced to guess at:</p>
+
+<p>"When this merger idea first took shape, last summer, Dunmore saw how
+unalterably opposed to it Mr. Fleming was, and he began wishing him out
+of the way. Some time later, he decided to do something about it. I
+suppose Anton Varcek gave him the idea, in the first place, with his
+jabber about the danger of a firearms accident. Dunmore decided he'd fix
+one up for Mr. Fleming. First of all, he'd need a firearm, collector's
+type and in good working order. It couldn't be one of the guns in the
+collection. He'd have to keep it loaded all the time, waiting for an
+opportunity to use it; he couldn't take a weapon out of the collection,
+because it would be missed, and he couldn't load one and hang it up
+again, because that would be discovered. So he had to get one of his own,
+and he got it from Arnold Rivers."</p>
+
+<p>"You know that? I mean, that's not just a guess?"</p>
+
+<p>"I know it. The gun he got from Rivers was a .36 Colt, 1860 Navy-model,
+serial number 2444," Rand told her. "Rivers had that gun last summer. He
+had it refinished by a gunsmith named Umholtz. After Umholtz refinished
+it, the gun was in Rivers's shop until November of last year, when it was
+sold by Rivers personally. And that was the revolver that was found in
+Lane Fleming's hand, and the one I got from the coroner, with a letter
+vouching for the fact that it had been so found."</p>
+
+<p>He finished his cocktail. Gladys picked up the shaker mechanically and
+refilled his glass.</p>
+
+<p>"Now we have Dunmore with this .36 Colt, loaded with powder, caps and
+bullets from the ammunition supply in the gunroom, waiting for a chance
+to use it. And also, he has this Mill-Pack contract in his safe deposit
+box at the bank. That takes care of the weapon and the motive; only the
+opportunity is needed, and that came on the 22nd of December, when Mr.
+Fleming brought home that Confederate Leech &amp; Rigdon .36 he had just
+bought. It was just a piece of luck that both revolvers were alike in
+caliber and general type, but it wouldn't have made a lot of difference.
+Nobody was paying much attention to details, and Dunmore was on the scene
+to misdirect any attention anybody would pay to anything.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, we come to the mechanics of the thing; the <i>modus operandi</i>, or,
+as it is professionally known, the M.O. You remember what happened that
+evening. Nelda had gone out. You and Geraldine were listening to the
+radio in the parlor, over there. Varcek had gone up to his lab. Mr.
+Fleming was alone in the gunroom, working on his new revolver. And Fred
+Dunmore said he was going to take a bath. What he did, of course, was to
+draw a tub full of water, undress, put on his bathrobe and slippers, hide
+the .36 Colt under the bathrobe, and then go across the hall to the
+gunroom, where he found Mr. Fleming sitting on that cobbler's bench,
+putting the finishing touches on the Leech &amp; Rigdon. So he fired at close
+range, wiped the prints off the Colt with an oily rag, put it in Lane
+Fleming's right hand, put the rag in his left, grabbed up the Leech &amp;
+Rigdon, and scuttled back to his bathroom, deadlatching and shutting the
+gunroom door as he went out. This last, of course, was a delaying tactic,
+to give him time to establish his bathtub alibi."</p>
+
+<p>He lifted the cocktail glass to his lips. These vodka Martinis were
+strong, and three of them before dinner was leaning way over backward
+maintaining the tradition of the hard-drinking private eye, but Gladys
+was working on her third, and no client was going to drink him under.</p>
+
+<p>"So, in the privacy of his bathroom, he kicked out of his slippers, threw
+off his robe, hid the Leech &amp; Rigdon, probably in a space between the tub
+and the wall that I found while we were searching the house, the night
+before the shooting of Dunmore, and jumped into the tub, there to await
+developments. As soon as he heard Varcek's uproar in the hall, he could
+emerge, dripping bathwater and innocence, to find out what the fuss was
+all about.... Do you know anything about something called General
+Semantics?" he asked suddenly.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. Before I married Lane, I went around with a radio ad-writer," she
+told him. "He was a nice boy, but he'd get drunker than a boiled owl
+about once a month, and weep about his crimes against sanity and meaning.
+He'd recite long excerpts from his professional creations, and show how
+he had been deliberately objectifying words and identifying them with the
+things for which they stood, and confusing orders of abstraction, and
+juggling multiordinal meanings. He was going to lend me his Koran, a book
+called <i>Science and Sanity</i>, and then he took a job with an ad agency in
+Chicago, and I got married, and&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Rand nodded. "Then you realize that the word is not the thing spoken of,
+and that the inference is not the description, and that we cannot know
+'all' about anything. Etcetera," he added hastily, like a Papist signing
+himself with the Cross. "Well, some considerable disregard of these
+principles seems to have existed in this case. Dunmore is seen in a
+bathrobe, his feet bare and making wet tracks on the floor, his hair wet,
+etcetera. Straightaway, one and all appear to have assumed that he was in
+the tub, splashing soapsuds around, while Lane Fleming was being shot.
+And Anton Varcek, who can be taken as an example of what S. I. Hayakawa
+was talking about when he spoke of people behaving like scientists
+inside but not outside their laboratories, saw Lane Fleming dead, with
+an object labeled 'revolver' in his hand, and, because of his verbal
+identifications and semantic reactions, immediately included the
+inference of an accident in his description of what he had seen. That was
+just an extra dividend of luck for Dunmore; it got the whole crowd of
+you thinking in terms of accidental shooting.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, from there out, everything would have been a wonderful success for
+Dunmore, except for one thing. Arnold Rivers must have heard, somehow,
+that Lane Fleming had been shot with a Confederate .36 that he'd bought
+somewhere that day, and that the revolver was in the hands of this
+coroner of yours. So Arnold, with his big chisel well ground, went to see
+if he could manage to get it out of the coroner for a few dollars. And
+when he saw it, lo! it was the .36 Colt that he'd sold to Dunmore about
+a month before."</p>
+
+<p>Gladys set down her glass. "So!" she said. "Things begin to explain
+themselves!"</p>
+
+<p>"You may say so, indeed," Rand told her. "And what do you suppose Rivers
+did with this little item of information? Why, as nearly as I can
+reconstruct it, he did a very foolish thing. He tried to blackmail a man
+who had committed a murder. He told Fred Dunmore he'd keep his mouth shut
+about the .36 Colt, if Dunmore would get him the Fleming collection. He
+wanted that instead of cash, because he could get more out of it, in a
+few years, than Dunmore could ever scrape, and in the meantime, the
+prestige of handling that collection would go a long way toward repairing
+his rather dilapidated reputation. Fred should have bumped him off, right
+then; it would have been the cheapest and easiest way out, and he'd
+probably be alive and uncaught today if he had. But he was willing to pay
+ten thousand dollars to save himself the trouble, and that's what he told
+you Rivers had offered for the collection. The ten thousand Dunmore told
+you Rivers was willing to pay was really the ten thousand he was willing
+to pay, himself, to keep Rivers quiet.</p>
+
+<p>"Then I was introduced into the picture, and, as you know, one of my
+first acts was to go to Rivers's shop and sneer scornfully at Rivers's
+supposed offer of ten thousand. And, right away, Rivers upped it to
+twenty-five thousand. You'll recall, no doubt, that Mr. Fleming had a
+life-insurance policy, one of these partnership mutual policies, which
+gave both Dunmore and Varcek exactly twenty-five thousand apiece. I
+assume that Rivers had found out about that.</p>
+
+<p>"I thought, at the time, that it was peculiar that Rivers would jump his
+own offer up, without knowing what anybody else was offering for the
+collection. I see, now, that it wasn't his own money he was being so
+generous with. And there was another incident, while I was at Rivers's
+shop, that piqued my curiosity. Rivers had in his shop a .36 Leech &amp;
+Rigdon revolver, and I had been informed that it was a revolver of that
+type that Mr. Fleming had brought home the evening he was killed. I
+thought at the time that it was curious that two Confederate arms of the
+same type and make should show up this far north, but my main idea in
+buying it was the possibility that I might use it, in some way as
+circumstances would permit, to throw a scare into somebody. Rivers was
+quite willing to let me have it until he found out that I would be
+staying at this house, and then he tried to back out of the sale and
+offered me seventy-five dollars' credit on anything else in the shop, if
+I'd return it to him. Well, I'd known that Mr. Fleming had been about to
+start suit against Rivers over a crooked deal Rivers had put over on him,
+and I knew that if Mr. Fleming's death had been murder, there had been a
+substitution of revolvers. So I showed the gun I'd bought from Rivers to
+Philip Cabot, who had seen the revolver Mr. Fleming had bought, and he
+recognized it. It hasn't been established just how Rivers got the Leech
+&amp; Rigdon, and never will be; the only people who knew were Rivers and
+Dunmore, and both are in the proverbial class of non-talebearers. I
+assume that Dunmore gave it to Rivers as a sort of down payment on
+Rivers's silence, and to get rid of it.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, you remember Dunmore's angry incredulity when I told him that
+Rivers was offering twenty-five thousand instead of ten thousand. One
+would have thought, on the face of it, that he would have been glad;
+as Nelda's husband, he would share in the higher price being paid for the
+collection. But when you realize that Rivers was buying the collection
+out of Dunmore's pocket, his reaction becomes quite understandable. I
+daresay I signed Arnold Rivers's death-warrant, right there."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll bet your conscience bothers you about that," Gladys remarked.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, sure; it's been gnawing hell out of me, ever since," Rand told her
+cheerfully. "But, right away, Dunmore decided to kill Rivers. He called
+him on the phone as soon as he left the table&mdash;here I'm speaking by the
+book; I walked in on him, in the gunroom, as he was completing the call,
+though I didn't know it at the time&mdash;and arranged to see him that
+evening. Probably to devise ways and means of dealing with the Jeff Rand
+menace, for an ostensible reason.</p>
+
+<p>"So that night, Dunmore killed Rivers, with a bayonet. And here we have
+some more Aristotelian confusion of orders of abstraction. The bayonet
+is defined, verbally, as a 'soldier's weapon,' so Farnsworth and Mick
+McKenna and the rest of them bemused themselves with suspects like
+Stephen Gresham and Pierre Jarrett, and ignored Dunmore, who'd never had
+an hour's military training in his life. I'd like to check up on what
+picture-shows Dunmore had been seeing in the week or so before the
+killing. I'll bet anything he'd been to one of these South-Pacific
+banzai-operas. And speaking of confusing orders of abstraction, Mick
+McKenna and his merry men pulled a classic in that line. They saw
+Dunmore's automobile, verbally defined as a 'gray Plymouth coup&eacute;' in
+Rivers's drive at the estimated time of the murder. Pierre Jarrett has
+a car of that sort, so they included the inferential idea of Pierre
+Jarrett's ownership of the car so described.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, that's about all there is to it. Of course, I showed Fred Dunmore
+the Leech &amp; Rigdon, and told him it was the gun I'd gotten from the
+coroner. That was all he needed to tell him that I was onto the murder,
+and probably onto him as the murderer. But he had evidently assumed that
+already; that was after he'd assembled my .38 and that .25 automatic, and
+was planning to double-kill me and Anton Varcek. At that, he'd have
+probably killed me, if I hadn't been wearing that bulletproof vest of
+McKenna's. I owe Mick for my life; I'll have to buy him a drink,
+sometime, to square that."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, how about Walters, and the pistols he stole?" Gladys asked.
+"Didn't that have anything to do with it?"</p>
+
+<p>"No. It was a result of Mr. Fleming's death, of course. I understand that
+the situation here had deteriorated rather abruptly after Mr. Fleming's
+death. Walters was about fed up on the way things were here, and he was
+going to hand in his notice. Then he decided that he ought to have a
+stake to tide him over till he could get another buttling job, so he
+started higrading the collection."</p>
+
+<p>Gladys nodded. "I suppose he decided, after Lane's death, that he didn't
+owe anybody here anything. Too bad he didn't wait, though. The situation
+has remedied itself, and that's something else I owe you."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes? I noticed that there was nobody here but you," Rand mentioned.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Anton's gone to New York. The Rockefeller Foundation is financing
+the major part of his research work, and he's well enough off to finance
+the rest himself. Geraldine went with him. Nelda is still recuperating
+from the shock of her sudden bereavement at a high-priced sanatorium&mdash;I
+understand there's a very good-looking young doctor there. And she's
+been talking about going to New York herself, in order, as she puts it,
+to lead her own life. I don't know whether she was afraid I'd be a
+restraining influence, or a dangerous competitor, but she feels that her
+own life could be best led away from here." She set down her glass and
+leaned back comfortably. "Peace, it's wonderful!"</p>
+
+<p>Reuben, the gingerbread butler, appeared in the dining-room doorway.
+"Dinner's served now, Mrs. Fleming," he announced.</p>
+
+<p>Rand rose, and Gladys took his arm; together, they went into the
+dining-room.</p>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Murder in the Gunroom, by Henry Beam Piper
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+</pre>
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+</body>
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Murder in the Gunroom, by Henry Beam Piper
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Murder in the Gunroom
+
+Author: Henry Beam Piper
+
+Release Date: February 26, 2006 [EBook #17866]
+Last updated: January 27, 2009
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MURDER IN THE GUNROOM ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                        MURDER IN THE GUNROOM
+
+                          By H. BEAM PIPER
+
+
+
+                              NEW YORK
+                       _Alfred A. Knopf_ 1953
+                            FIRST EDITION
+
+
+
+
+TO _Colonel Henry W. Shoemaker_ an old and valued friend, who was
+promised this dedication, with an entirely different novel in mind,
+twenty-two years ago.
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+_The Lane Fleming collection of early pistols and revolvers was one of
+the best in the country. When Fleming was found dead on the floor of
+his locked gunroom, a Confederate-made Colt-type percussion .36 revolver
+in his hand, the coroner's verdict was "death by accident." But Gladys
+Fleming had her doubts. Enough at any rate to engage Colonel Jefferson
+Davis Rand--better known just as Jeff--private detective and a
+pistol-collector himself, to catalogue, appraise, and negotiate the
+sale of her late husband's collection.
+
+There were a number of people who had wanted the collection. The
+question was: had anyone wanted it badly enough to kill Fleming? And if
+so, how had he done it? Here is a mystery, told against the fascinating
+background of old guns and gun-collecting, which is rapid-fire without
+being hysterical, exciting without losing its contact with reason, and
+which introduces a personable and intelligent new private detective. It
+is a story that will keep your nerves on a hair trigger even if you don't
+know the difference between a cased pair of Paterson .34's and a Texas
+.40 with a ramming-lever._
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 1
+
+
+It was hard to judge Jeff Rand's age from his appearance; he was
+certainly over thirty and considerably under fifty. He looked hard and
+fit, like a man who could be a serviceable friend or a particularly
+unpleasant enemy. Women instinctively suspected that he would make a
+most satisfying lover. One might have taken him for a successful lawyer
+(he had studied law, years ago), or a military officer in mufti (he still
+had a Reserve colonelcy, and used the title occasionally, to impress
+people who he thought needed impressing), or a prosperous businessman,
+as he usually thought of himself. Most of all, he looked like King
+Charles II of England anachronistically clad in a Brooks Brothers suit.
+
+At the moment, he was looking rather like King Charles II being bothered
+by one of his mistresses who wanted a peerage for her husband.
+
+"But, Mrs. Fleming," he was expostulating. "There surely must be somebody
+else.... After all, you'll have to admit that this isn't the sort of work
+this agency handles."
+
+The would-be client released a series of smoke-rings and watched them
+float up toward the air-outlet at the office ceiling. It spoke well for
+Rand's ability to subordinate esthetic to business considerations that he
+was trying to give her a courteous and humane brush-off. She made even
+the Petty and Varga girls seem credible. Her color-scheme was blue and
+gold; blue eyes, and a blue tailored outfit that would have looked severe
+on a less curvate figure, and a charmingly absurd little blue hat perched
+on a mass of golden hair. If Rand had been Charles II, she could have
+walked out of there with a duchess's coronet, and Nell Gwyn would have
+been back selling oranges.
+
+"Why isn't it?" she countered. "Your door's marked _Tri-State Detective
+Agency, Jefferson Davis Rand, Investigation and Protection_. Well, I want
+to know how much the collection's worth, and who'll pay the closest to
+it. That's investigation, isn't it? And I want protection from being
+swindled. And don't tell me you can't do it. You're a pistol-collector,
+yourself; you have one of the best small collections in the state. And
+you're a recognized authority on early pistols; I've read some of your
+articles in the _Rifleman_. If you can't handle this, I don't know who
+can."
+
+Rand's frown deepened. He wondered how much Gladys Fleming knew about the
+principles of General Semantics. Even if she didn't know anything, she
+was still edging him into an untenable position. He hastily shifted from
+the attempt to identify his business with the label, "private detective
+agency."
+
+"Well, here, Mrs. Fleming," he explained. "My business, including
+armed-guard and protected-delivery service, and general investigation
+and protection work, requires some personal supervision, but none of
+it demands my exclusive attention. Now, if you wanted some routine
+investigation made, I could turn it over to my staff, maybe put two or
+three men to work on it. But there's nothing about this business of yours
+that I could delegate to anybody; I'd have to do it all myself, at the
+expense of neglecting the rest of my business. Now, I could do what you
+want done, but it would cost you three or four times what you'd gain by
+retaining me."
+
+"Well, let me decide that, Colonel," she replied. "How much would you
+have to have?"
+
+"Well, this collection of your late husband's consists of some
+twenty-five hundred pistols and revolvers, all types and periods," Rand
+said. "You want me to catalogue it, appraise each item, issue lists, and
+negotiate with prospective buyers. The cataloguing and appraisal alone
+would take from a week to ten days, and it would be a couple more weeks
+until a satisfactory sale could be arranged. Why, say five thousand
+dollars; a thousand as a retainer and the rest on completion."
+
+That, he thought, would settle that. He was expecting an indignant
+outcry, and hardened his heart, like Pharaoh. Instead, Gladys Fleming
+nodded equably.
+
+"That seems reasonable enough, Colonel Rand, considering that you'd have
+to be staying with us at Rosemont, away from your office," she agreed.
+"I'll give you a check for the thousand now, with a letter of
+authorization."
+
+Rand nodded in return. Being thoroughly conscious of the fact that
+he could only know a thin film of the events on the surface of any
+situation, he was not easily surprised.
+
+"Very well," he said. "You've hired an arms-expert. I'll be in Rosemont
+some time tomorrow afternoon. Now, who are these prospective purchasers
+you mentioned, and just how prospective, in terms of United States
+currency, are they?"
+
+"Well, for one, there's Arnold Rivers; he's offering ten thousand for the
+collection. I suppose you know of him; he has an antique-arms business at
+Rosemont."
+
+"I've done some business with him," Rand admitted. "Who else?"
+
+"There's a commission-dealer named Carl Gwinnett, who wants to handle
+the collection for us, for twenty per cent. I'm told that that isn't an
+unusually exorbitant commission, but I'm not exactly crazy about the
+idea."
+
+"You shouldn't be, if you want your money in a hurry," Rand told her.
+"He'd take at least five years to get everything sold. He wouldn't dump
+the whole collection on the market at once, upset prices, and spoil his
+future business. You know, two thousand five hundred pistols of the sort
+Mr. Fleming had, coming on the market in a lot, could do just that. The
+old-arms market isn't so large that it couldn't be easily saturated."
+
+"That's what I'd been thinking.... And then, there are some private
+collectors, mostly friends of Lane's--Mr. Fleming's--who are talking
+about forming a pool to buy the collection for distribution among
+themselves," she continued.
+
+"That's more like it," Rand approved. "If they can raise enough money
+among them, that is. They won't want the stuff for resale, and they may
+pay something resembling a decent price. Who are they?"
+
+"Well, Stephen Gresham appears to be the leading spirit," she said. "The
+corporation lawyer, you know. Then, there is a Mr. Trehearne, and a Mr.
+MacBride, and Philip Cabot, and one or two others."
+
+"I know Gresham and Cabot," Rand said. "They're both friends of mine, and
+I have an account with Cabot, Joyner & Teale, Cabot's brokerage firm.
+I've corresponded with MacBride; he specializes in Colts.... You're the
+sole owner, I take it?"
+
+"Well, no." She paused, picking her words carefully. "We may just run
+into a little trouble, there. You see, the collection is part of the
+residue of the estate, left equally to myself and my two stepdaughters,
+Nelda Dunmore and Geraldine Varcek. You understand, Mr. Fleming and I
+were married in 1941; his first wife died fifteen years before."
+
+"Well, your stepdaughters, now; would they also be my clients?"
+
+"Good Lord, no!" That amused her considerably more than it did Rand.
+"Of course," she continued, "they're just as interested in selling the
+collection for the best possible price, but beyond that, there may be a
+slight divergence of opinion. For instance, Nelda's husband, Fred
+Dunmore, has been insisting that we let him handle the sale of the
+pistols, on the grounds that he is something he calls a businessman.
+Nelda supports him in this. It was Fred who got this ten-thousand-dollar
+offer from Rivers. Personally, I think Rivers is playing him for a
+sucker. Outside his own line, Fred is an awful innocent, and I've never
+trusted this man Rivers. Lane had some trouble with him, just before ..."
+
+"Arnold Rivers," Rand said, when it was evident that she was not going
+to continue, "has the reputation, among collectors, of being the biggest
+crook in the old-gun racket, a reputation he seems determined to live
+up--or down--to. But here; if your stepdaughters are co-owners, what's
+my status? What authority, if any, have I to do any negotiating?"
+
+Gladys Fleming laughed musically. "That, my dear Colonel, is where you
+earn your fee," she told him. "Actually, it won't be as hard as it looks.
+If Nelda gives you any argument, you can count on Geraldine to take your
+side as a matter of principle; if Geraldine objects first, Nelda will
+help you steam-roll her into line. Fred Dunmore is accustomed to dealing
+with a lot of yes-men at the plant; you shouldn't have any trouble
+shouting him down. Anton Varcek won't be interested, one way or another;
+he has what amounts to a pathological phobia about firearms of any sort.
+And Humphrey Goode, our attorney, who's executor of the estate, will
+welcome you with open arms, once he finds out what you want to do. That
+collection has him talking to himself, already. Look; if you come out
+to our happy home in the early afternoon, before Fred and Anton get back
+from the plant, we ought to ram through some sort of agreement with
+Geraldine and Nelda."
+
+"You and whoever else sides with me will be a majority," Rand considered.
+"Of course, the other one may pull a Gromyko on us, but ... I think I'll
+talk to Goode, first."
+
+"Yes. That would be smart," Gladys Fleming agreed. "After all, he's
+responsible for selling the collection." She crossed to the desk and sat
+down in Rand's chair while she wrote out the check and a short letter of
+authorization, then she returned to her own seat.
+
+"There's another thing," she continued, lighting a fresh cigarette.
+"Because of the manner of Mr. Fleming's death, the girls have a horror of
+the collection almost--but not quite--as strong as their desire to get
+the best possible price for it."
+
+"Yes. I'd heard that Mr. Fleming had been killed in a firearms accident,
+last November," Rand mentioned.
+
+"It was with one of his collection-pieces," the widow replied. "One
+he'd bought just that day; a Confederate-made Colt-type percussion .36
+revolver. He'd brought it home with him, simply delighted with it, and
+started cleaning it at once. He could hardly wait until dinner was over
+to get back to work on it.
+
+"We'd finished dinner about seven, or a little after. At about half-past,
+Nelda went out somewhere in the coupe. Anton had gone up to his
+laboratory, in the attic--he's one of these fortunates whose work is also
+his hobby; he's a biochemist and dietitian--and Lane was in the gunroom,
+on the second floor, working on his new revolver. Fred Dunmore was having
+a bath, and Geraldine and I had taken our coffee into the east parlor.
+Geraldine put on the radio, and we were listening to it.
+
+"It must have been about 7:47 or 7:48, because the program had changed
+and the first commercial was just over, when we heard a loud noise from
+somewhere upstairs. Neither of us thought of a shot; my own first idea
+was of a door slamming. Then, about five minutes later, we heard Anton,
+in the upstairs hall, pounding on a door, and shouting: 'Lane! Lane! Are
+you all right?' We ran up the front stairway, and found Anton, in his
+rubber lab-apron, and Fred, in a bathrobe, and barefooted, standing
+outside the gunroom door. The door was locked, and that in itself was
+unusual; there's a Yale lock on it, but nobody ever used it.
+
+"For a minute or so, we just stood there. Anton was explaining that he
+had heard a shot and that nobody in the gunroom answered. Geraldine told
+him, rather impatiently, to go down to the library and up the spiral. You
+see," she explained, "the library is directly under the gunroom, and
+there's a spiral stairway connecting the two rooms. So Anton went
+downstairs and we stood waiting in the hall. Fred was shivering in his
+bathrobe; he said he'd just jumped out of the bathtub, and he had
+nothing on under it. After a while, Anton opened the gunroom door from
+the inside, and stood in the doorway, blocking it. He said: 'You'd better
+not come in. There's been an accident, but it's too late to do anything.
+Lane's shot himself with one of those damned pistols; I always knew
+something like this would happen.'
+
+"Well, I simply elbowed him out of the way and went in, and the others
+followed me. By this time, the uproar had penetrated to the rear of the
+house, and the servants--Walters, the butler, and Mrs. Horder, the
+cook--had joined us. We found Lane inside, lying on the floor, shot
+through the forehead. Of course, he was dead. He'd been sitting on one of
+these old cobblers' benches of the sort that used to be all the thing for
+cocktail-tables; he had his tools and polish and oil and rags on it. He'd
+fallen off it to one side and was lying beside it. He had a revolver in
+his right hand, and an oily rag in his left."
+
+"Was it the revolver he'd brought home with him?" Rand asked.
+
+"I don't know," she replied. "He showed me this Confederate revolver when
+he came home, but it was dirty and dusty, and I didn't touch it. And I
+didn't look closely at the one he had in his hand when he was ... on the
+floor. It was about the same size and design; that's all I could swear
+to." She continued: "We had something of an argument about what to do.
+Walters, the butler, offered to call the police. He's English, and his
+mind seems to run naturally to due process of law. Fred and Anton both
+howled that proposal down; they wanted no part of the police. At the
+same time, Geraldine was going into hysterics, and I was trying to get
+her quieted down. I took her to her room and gave her a couple of
+sleeping-pills, and then went back to the gunroom. While I was gone, it
+seems that Anton had called our family doctor, Dr. Yardman, and then Fred
+called Humphrey Goode, our lawyer. Goode lives next door to us, about two
+hundred yards away, so he arrived almost at once. When the doctor came,
+he called the coroner, and when he arrived, about an hour later, they all
+went into a huddle and decided that it was an obvious accident and that
+no inquest would be necessary. Then somebody, I'm not sure who, called an
+undertaker. It was past eleven when he arrived, and for once, Nelda got
+home early. She was just coming in while they were carrying Lane out in a
+basket. You can imagine how horrible that was for her; it was days before
+she was over the shock. So she'll be just as glad as anybody to see the
+last of the pistol-collection."
+
+Through the recital, Rand had sat silently, toying with the ivory-handled
+Italian Fascist dagger-of-honor that was doing duty as a letter-opener on
+his desk. Gladys Fleming wasn't, he was sure, indulging in any
+masochistic self-harrowing; neither, he thought, was she talking to
+relieve her mind. Once or twice there had been a small catch in her
+voice, but otherwise the narration had been a piece of straight
+reporting, neither callous nor emotional. Good reporting, too; carefully
+detailed. There had been one or two inclusions of inferential matter in
+the guise of description, but that was to be looked for and discounted.
+And she had remembered, at the end, to include her ostensible reason for
+telling the story.
+
+"Yes, it must have been dreadful," he sympathized. "Odd, though, that an
+old hand with guns like Mr. Fleming would have an accident like that. I
+met him, once or twice, and was at your home to see his collection, a
+couple of years ago. He impressed me as knowing firearms pretty
+thoroughly.... Well, you can look for me tomorrow, say around two. In
+the meantime, I'll see Goode, and also Gresham and Arnold Rivers."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 2
+
+
+After ushering his client out the hall door and closing it behind her,
+Rand turned and said:
+
+"All right, Kathie, or Dave; whoever's out there. Come on in."
+
+Then he went to his desk and reached under it, snapping off a switch.
+As he straightened, the door from the reception-office opened and
+his secretary, Kathie O'Grady, entered, loading a cigarette into an
+eight-inch amber holder. She was a handsome woman, built on the generous
+lines of a Renaissance goddess; none of the Renaissance masters, however,
+had ever employed a model so strikingly Hibernian. She had blue eyes, and
+a fair, highly-colored complexion; she wore green, which went well with
+her flaming red hair, and a good deal of gold costume-jewelry.
+
+Behind her came Dave Ritter. He was Rand's assistant, and also Kathie's
+lover. He was five or six years older than his employer, and slightly
+built. His hair, fighting a stubborn rearguard action against baldness,
+was an indeterminate mousy gray-brown. It was one of his professional
+assets that nobody ever noticed him, not even in a crowd of one; when he
+wanted it to, his thin face could assume the weary, baffled expression of
+a middle-aged book-keeper with a wife and four children on fifty dollars
+a week. Actually, he drew three times that much, had no wife, admitted to
+no children. During the war, he and Kathie had kept the Tri-State Agency
+in something better than a state of suspended animation while Rand had
+been in the Army.
+
+Ritter fumbled a Camel out of his shirt pocket and made a beeline for the
+desk, appropriating Rand's lighter and sharing the flame with Kathie.
+
+"You know, Jeff," he said, "one of the reasons why this agency never made
+any money while you were away was that I never had the unadulterated
+insolence to ask the kind of fees you do. I was listening in on the
+extension in the file-room; I could hear Kathie damn near faint when
+you said five grand."
+
+"Yes; five thousand dollars for appraising a collection they've been
+offered ten for, and she only has a third-interest," Kathie said,
+retracting herself into the chair lately vacated by Gladys Fleming.
+"If that makes sense, now ..."
+
+"Ah, don't you get it, Kathleen Mavourneen?" Ritter asked. "She doesn't
+care about the pistols; she wants Jeff to find out who fixed up that
+accident for Fleming. You heard that big, long shaggy-dog story about
+exactly what happened and where everybody was supposed to have been at
+the time. I hope you got all that recorded; it was all told for a
+purpose."
+
+Rand had picked up the outside phone and was dialing. In a moment, a
+girl's voice answered.
+
+"Carter Tipton's law-office; good afternoon."
+
+"Hello, Rheba; is Tip available?"
+
+"Oh, hello, Jeff. Just a sec; I'll see." She buzzed another phone. "Jeff
+Rand on the line," she announced.
+
+A clear, slightly Harvard-accented male voice took over.
+
+"Hello, Jeff. Now what sort of malfeasance have you committed?"
+
+"Nothing, so far--cross my fingers," Rand replied. "I just want a little
+information. Are you busy?... Okay, I'll be up directly."
+
+He replaced the phone and turned to his disciples.
+
+"Our client," he said, "wants two jobs done on one fee. Getting the
+pistol-collection sold is one job. Exploring the whys and wherefores of
+that quote accident unquote is the other. She has a hunch, and probably
+nothing much better, that there's something sour about the accident. She
+expects me to find evidence to that effect while I'm at Rosemont, going
+over the collection. I'm not excluding other possibilities, but I'll work
+on that line until and unless I find out differently. Five thousand
+should cover both jobs."
+
+"You think that's how it is?" Kathie asked.
+
+"Look, Kathie. I got just as far in Arithmetic, at school, as you did,
+and I suspect that Mrs. Fleming got at least as far as long division,
+herself. For reasons I stated, I simply couldn't have handled that
+collection business for anything like a reasonable fee, so I told her
+five thousand, thinking that would stop her. When it didn't, I knew she
+had something else in mind, and when she went into all that detail about
+the death of her husband, she as good as told me that was what it was.
+Now I'm sorry I didn't say ten thousand; I think she'd have bought it at
+that price just as cheerfully. She thinks Lane Fleming was murdered.
+Well, on the face of what she told me, so do I."
+
+"All right, Professor; expound," Ritter said.
+
+"You heard what he was supposed to have shot himself with," Rand began.
+"A Colt-type percussion revolver. You know what they're like. And I know
+enough about Lane Fleming to know how much experience he had with old
+arms. I can't believe that he'd buy a pistol without carefully examining
+it, and I can't believe that he'd bring that thing home and start working
+on it without seeing the caps on the nipples and the charges in the
+chambers, if it had been loaded. And if it had been, he would have first
+taken off the caps, and then taken it apart and drawn the charges. And
+she says he started working on it as soon as he got home--presumably
+around five--and then took time out for dinner, and then went back to
+work on it, and more than half an hour later, there was a shot and he was
+killed." Rand blew a Bronx cheer. "If that accident had been the McCoy,
+it would have happened in the first five minutes after he started working
+on that pistol. No, in the first thirty seconds. And then, when they
+found him, he had the revolver in his right hand, and an oily rag in his
+left. I hope both of you noticed that little touch."
+
+"Yeah. When I clean a gat, I generally have it in my left hand, and clean
+with my right," Ritter said.
+
+"Exactly. And why do you use an oily rag?" Rand inquired.
+
+Ritter looked at him blankly for a half-second, then grinned ruefully.
+
+"Damn, I never thought of that," he admitted. "Okay, he was bumped off,
+all right."
+
+"But you use oily rags on guns," Kathie objected. "I've seen both of you,
+often enough."
+
+"When we're all through, honey," Ritter told her.
+
+"Yes. When he brought home that revolver, it was in neglected condition,"
+Rand said. "Either surface-rusted, or filthy with gummed oil and dirt.
+Even if Mrs. Fleming hadn't mentioned that point, the length of time he
+spent cleaning it would justify such an inference. He would have taken it
+apart, down to the smallest screw, and cleaned everything carefully, and
+then put it together again, and then, when he had finished, he would have
+gone over the surface with an oiled rag, before hanging it on the wall.
+He would certainly not have surface-oiled it before removing the charges,
+if there ever were any. I assume the revolver he was found holding,
+presumably the one with which he was killed, was another one. And I would
+further assume that the killer wasn't particularly familiar with the
+subject of firearms, antique, care and maintenance of."
+
+"And with all the hollering and whooping and hysterics-throwing, nobody
+noticed the switch," Ritter finished. "Wonder what happened to the one he
+was really cleaning."
+
+"That I may possibly find out," Rand said. "The general incompetence with
+which this murder was committed gives me plenty of room to hope that it
+may still be lying around somewhere."
+
+"Well, have you thought that it might just be suicide?" Kathie asked.
+
+"I have, very briefly; I dismissed the thought, almost at once," Rand
+told her. "For two reasons. One, that if it had been suicide, Mrs.
+Fleming wouldn't want it poked into; she'd be more than willing to let it
+ride as an accident. And, two, I doubt if a man who prided himself on his
+gun-knowledge, as Fleming did, would want his self-shooting to be taken
+for an accident. I'm damn sure I wouldn't want my friends to go around
+saying: 'What a dope; didn't know it was loaded!' I doubt if he'd even
+expect people to believe that it had been an accident." He shook his
+head. "No, the only inference I can draw is that somebody murdered
+Fleming, and then faked evidence intended to indicate an accident." He
+rose. "I'll be back, in a little; think it over, while I'm gone."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Carter Tipton had his law-office on the floor above the Tri-State
+Detective Agency. He handled all Rand's not infrequent legal
+involvements, and Rand did all his investigating and witness-chasing;
+annually, they compared books to see who owed whom how much. Tipton was
+about five years Rand's junior, and had been in the Navy during the war.
+He was frequently described as New Belfast's leading younger attorney and
+most eligible bachelor. His dark, conservatively cut clothes fitted him
+as though they had been sprayed on, he wore gold-rimmed glasses, and he
+was so freshly barbered, manicured, valeted and scrubbed as to give the
+impression that he had been born in cellophane and just unwrapped. He
+leaned back in his chair and waved his visitor to a seat.
+
+"Tip, do you know anything about this Fleming family, out at Rosemont?"
+Rand began, getting out his pipe and tobacco.
+
+"The Premix-Foods Flemings?" Tipton asked. "Yes, a little. Which one of
+them wants you to frame what on which other one?"
+
+"That'll do for a good, simplified description, to start with," Rand
+commented. "Why, my client is Mrs. Gladys Fleming. As to what she
+wants...."
+
+He told the young lawyer about his recent interview and subsequent
+conclusions.
+
+"So you see," he finished, "she won't commit herself, even with me. Maybe
+she thinks I have more official status, and more obligations to the
+police, than I have. Maybe she isn't sure in her own mind, and wants me
+to see, independently, if there's any smell of something dead in the
+woodpile. Or, she may think that having a private detective called in may
+throw a scare into somebody. Or maybe she thinks somebody may be fixing
+up an accident for her, next, and she wants a pistol-totin' gent in the
+house for a while. Or any combination thereof. Personally, I deplore
+these clients who hire you to do one thing and expect you to do another,
+but with five grand for sweetening, I can take them."
+
+"Yes. You know, I've heard rumors of suicide, but this is the first whiff
+of murder I've caught." He hesitated slightly. "I must say, I'm not
+greatly surprised. Lane Fleming's death was very convenient to a number
+of people. You know about this Premix Company, don't you?"
+
+"Vaguely. They manufacture ready-mixed pancake flour, and ready-mixed
+ice-cream and pudding powders, and this dehydrated vegetable soup--pour
+on hot water, stir, and serve--don't they? My colored boy, Buck, got some
+of the soup, once, for an experiment. We unanimously voted not to try it
+again."
+
+"They put out quite a line of such godsends to the neophyte in the
+kitchen, the popularity of which is reflected in a steadily rising
+divorce-rate," Tipton said. "They advertise very extensively, including
+half an hour of tear-jerking drama on a national hookup during soap-opera
+time. Your client, the former Gladys Farrand, was on the air for Premix
+for a couple of years; that's how Lane Fleming first met her."
+
+"So you think some irate and dyspeptic husband went to the source of his
+woes?" Rand inquired.
+
+"Well, not exactly. You see, Premix is only Little Business, as the foods
+industry goes, but they have something very sweet. So sweet, in fact,
+that one of the really big fellows, National Milling & Packaging, has
+been going to rather extreme lengths to effect a merger. Mill-Pack, par
+100, is quoted at around 145, and Premix, par 50, is at 75 now, and
+Mill-Pack is offering a two-for-one-share exchange, which would be a
+little less than four-for-one in value. I might add, for what it's worth,
+that this Stephen Gresham you mentioned is Mill-Pack's attorney,
+negotiator, and general Mr. Fixit; he has been trying to put over
+this merger for Mill-Pack."
+
+"I'll bear that in mind, too," Rand said.
+
+"Naturally, all this is not being shouted from the housetops," Tipton
+continued. "Fact is, it's a minor infraction of ethics for me to mention
+it to you."
+
+"I'll file it in the burn-box," Rand promised. "What was the matter;
+didn't Premix want to merge?"
+
+"Lane Fleming didn't. And since he held fifty-two per cent of the common
+stock himself, try and do anything about it."
+
+"Anything short of retiring Fleming to the graveyard, that is," Rand
+amended. "That would do for a murder-motive, very nicely.... What were
+Fleming's objections to the merger?"
+
+"Mainly sentimental. Premix was his baby, or, at least, his kid brother.
+His father started mixing pancake flour back before the First World War,
+and Lane Fleming peddled it off a spring wagon. They worked up a nice
+little local trade, and finally a state-wide wholesale business. They
+incorporated in the early twenties, and then, after the old man died,
+Lane Fleming hired an advertising agency to promote his products, and
+built up a national distribution, and took on some sidelines. Then,
+during the late Mr. Chamberlain's 'Peace in our time,' he picked up a
+refugee Czech chemist and foods-expert named Anton Varcek, who whipped
+up a lot of new products. So business got better and better, and they
+made more money to spend on advertising to get more money to buy more
+advertising to make more money, like Bill Nye's Puritans digging clams
+in the winter to get strength to hoe corn in the summer to get strength
+to dig clams in the winter.
+
+"So Premix became a sort of symbol of achievement to Fleming. Then, he
+was one of these old-model paternalistic employers, and he was afraid
+that if he relinquished control, a lot of his old retainers would be
+turned out to grass. And finally, he was opposed in principle to
+concentration of business ownership. He claimed it made business more
+vulnerable to government control and eventual socialization."
+
+"I'm not sure he didn't have something there," Rand considered. "We get
+all our corporate eggs in a few baskets, and they're that much easier for
+the planned-economy boys to grab.... Just who, on the Premix side, was in
+favor of this merger?"
+
+"Just about everybody but Fleming," Tipton replied. "His two sons-in-law,
+Fred Dunmore and Varcek, who are first and second vice presidents.
+Humphrey Goode, the company attorney, who doubles as board chairman.
+All the directors. All the New York banking crowd who are interested
+in Premix. And all the two-share tinymites. I don't know who inherits
+Fleming's voting interest, but I can find out for you by this time
+tomorrow."
+
+"Do that, Tip, and bill me for what you think finding out is worth," Rand
+said. "It'll be a novel reversal of order for you to be billing me for an
+investigation.... Now, how about the family, as distinct from the
+company?"
+
+"Well, there's your client, Gladys Fleming. She married Lane Fleming
+about ten years ago, when she was twenty-five and he was fifty-five. In
+spite of the age difference, I understand it was a fairly happy marriage.
+Then, there are two daughters by a previous marriage, Nelda Dunmore and
+Geraldine Varcek, and their respective husbands. They all live together,
+in a big house at Rosemont. In the company, Dunmore is Sales, and Varcek
+is Production. They each have a corner of the mantle of Lane Fleming in
+one hand and a dirk in the other. Nelda and Geraldine hate each other
+like Greeks and Trojans. Nelda is the nymphomaniac sister, and Geraldine
+is the dipsomaniac. From time to time, temporary alliances get formed,
+mainly against Gladys; all of them resent the way she married herself
+into a third-interest in the estate. You're going to have yourself a
+nice, pleasant little stay in the country."
+
+"I'm looking forward to it." Rand grimaced. "You mentioned suicide
+rumors. Such as, and who's been spreading them?"
+
+"Oh, they are the usual bodyless voices that float about," Tipton told
+him. "Emanating, I suspect, from sources interested in shaking out the
+less sophisticated small shareholders before the merger. The story is
+always approximately the same: That Lane Fleming saw his company drifting
+reefward, was unwilling to survive the shipwreck, and performed
+_seppuku_. The family are supposed to have faked up the accident
+afterward. I dismiss the whole thing as a rather less than subtle bit of
+market-manipulation chicanery."
+
+"Or a smoke screen, to cover the defects in camouflaging a murder as an
+accident," Rand added.
+
+Tipton nodded. "That could be so, too," he agreed. "Say somebody dislikes
+the looks of that accident, and starts investigating. Then he runs into
+all this miasma of suicide rumors, and promptly shrugs the whole thing
+off. Fleming killed himself, and the family made a few alterations and
+are passing it off as an accident. The families of suicides have been
+known to do that."
+
+"Yes. Regular defense-in-depth system; if the accident line is
+penetrated, the suicide line is back of it," Rand said. "Well, in the
+last few years, we've seen defenses in depth penetrated with monotonous
+regularity. I've jeeped through a couple, myself, to interrogate the
+surviving ex-defenders. It's all in having the guns and armor to smash
+through with."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 3
+
+
+Humphrey Goode was sixty-ish, short and chunky, with a fringe of
+white hair around a bald crown. His brow was corrugated with wrinkles,
+and he peered suspiciously at Rand through a pair of thick-lensed,
+black-ribboned glasses. His wide mouth curved downward at the corners
+in an expression that was probably intended to be stern and succeeded
+only in being pompous. His office was dark, and smelled of dusty books.
+
+"Mr. Rand," he began accusingly, "when your secretary called to make this
+appointment, she informed me that you had been retained by Mrs. Gladys
+Fleming."
+
+"That's correct." Rand slowly packed tobacco into his pipe and lit it.
+"Mrs. Fleming wants me to look after some interests of hers, and as
+you're executor of her late husband's estate, I thought I ought to talk
+to you, first of all."
+
+Goode's eyes narrowed behind the thick glasses.
+
+"Mr. Rand, if you're investigating the death of Lane Fleming, you're
+wasting your time and Mrs. Fleming's money," he lectured. "There is
+nothing whatever for you to find out that is not already public
+knowledge. Mr. Fleming was accidentally killed by the discharge of an old
+revolver he was cleaning. I don't know what foolish feminine impulse led
+Mrs. Fleming to employ you, but you'll do nobody any good in this matter,
+and you may do a great deal of harm."
+
+"Did my secretary tell you I was making an investigation?" Rand demanded
+incredulously. "She doesn't usually make mistakes of that sort."
+
+The wrinkles moved up Goode's brow like a battalion advancing in platoon
+front. He looked even more narrowly at Rand, his suspicion compounded
+with bewilderment.
+
+"Why should I investigate the death of Lane Fleming?" Rand continued.
+"As far as I know, Mrs. Fleming is satisfied that it was an accident. She
+never expressed any other belief to me. Do you think it was anything
+else?"
+
+"Why, of course not!" Goode exclaimed. "That's just what I was telling
+you. I--" He took a fresh start. "There have been rumors--utterly without
+foundation, of course--that Mr. Fleming committed suicide. They are, I
+may say, nothing but malicious fabrications, circulated for the purpose
+of undermining public confidence in Premix Foods, Incorporated. I had
+thought that perhaps Mrs. Fleming might have heard them, and decided, on
+her own responsibility, to bring you in to scotch them; I was afraid that
+such a step might, by giving these rumors fresh currency, defeat its
+intended purpose."
+
+"Oh, nothing of the sort!" Rand told him. "I'm not in the least
+interested in how Mr. Fleming was killed, and the question is simply
+not involved in what Mrs. Fleming wants me to do."
+
+He stopped there. Goode was looking at him sideways, sucking in one
+corner of his mouth and pushing out the other. It was not a facial
+contortion that impressed Rand favorably; it was too reminiscent of
+a high-school principal under whom he had suffered, years ago, in
+Vicksburg, Mississippi. Rand began to suspect that Goode might be just
+another such self-righteous, opinionated, egotistical windbag. Such men
+could be dangerous, were usually quite unscrupulous, and were almost
+always unpleasant to deal with.
+
+"Then why," the lawyer demanded, "did Mrs. Fleming employ you?"
+
+"Well, as you know," Rand began, "the Fleming pistol-collection, now the
+joint property of Mrs. Fleming and her two stepdaughters, is an extremely
+valuable asset. Mr. Fleming spent the better part of his life gathering
+it. At one time or another, he must have owned between four and five
+thousand different pistols and revolvers. The twenty-five hundred left to
+his heirs represent the result of a systematic policy of discriminating
+purchase, replacement of inferior items, and general improvement. It's
+one of the largest and most famous collections of its kind in the
+country."
+
+"Well?" Goode was completely out of his depth by now. "Surely Mrs.
+Fleming doesn't think...?"
+
+"Mrs. Fleming thinks that expert advice is urgently needed in disposing
+of that collection," Rand replied, carefully picking his words to fit
+what he estimated to be Goode's probable semantic reactions. "She has
+the utmost confidence in your ability and integrity, as an attorney;
+however, she realized that you could hardly describe yourself as an
+antique-arms expert. It happens that I am an expert in antique firearms,
+particularly pistols. I have a collection of my own, I am the author of
+a number of articles on the subject, and I am recognized as something
+of an authority. I know arms-values, and understand market conditions.
+Furthermore, not being a dealer, or connected with any museum, I have no
+mercenary motive for undervaluing the collection. That's all there is to
+it; Mrs. Fleming has retained me as a firearms-expert, in connection with
+the collection."
+
+Goode was looking at Rand as though the latter had just torn off a mask,
+revealing another and entirely different set of features underneath. The
+change seemed to be a welcome one, but he was evidently having trouble
+adjusting to it. Rand grinned inwardly; now he was going to have to find
+himself a new set of verbal labels and identifications.
+
+"Well, Mr. Rand, that alters the situation considerably," he said, with
+noticeably less hostility. He was still a bit resentful; people had no
+right to confuse him by jumping about from one category to another, like
+that. "Now understand, I'm not trying to be offensive, but it seems a
+little unusual for a private detective also to be an authority on antique
+firearms."
+
+"Mr. Fleming was an authority on antique firearms, and he was a
+manufacturer of foodstuffs," Rand parried, carefully staying inside
+Goode's Aristotelian system of categories and verbal identifications. "My
+own business does not occupy all my time, any more than his did, and I
+doubt if an interest in the history and development of deadly weapons is
+any more incongruous in a criminologist than in an industrialist. But if
+there's any doubt in your mind as to my qualifications, you can check
+with Colonel Taylor, at the State Museum, or with the editor of the
+_American Rifleman_."
+
+"I see." Goode nodded. "And as you point out, being a sort of
+non-professional expert, you should be free from mercenary bias." He
+nodded again, taking off his glasses and polishing them on an outsize
+white handkerchief. "Frankly, now that I understand your purpose, Mr.
+Rand, I must say that I am quite glad that Mrs. Fleming took this step.
+I was perplexed about how to deal with that collection. I realized that
+it was worth a great deal of money, but I haven't the vaguest idea how
+much, or how it could be sold to the best advantage.... At a rough guess,
+Mr. Rand, how much do you think it ought to bring?"
+
+Rand shook his head. "I only saw it twice, the last time two years ago.
+Ask me that after I've spent a day or so going over it, and I'll be able
+to give you an estimate. I will say this, though: It's probably worth a
+lot more than the ten thousand dollars Arnold Rivers has offered for it."
+
+That produced an unexpected effect. Goode straightened in his chair,
+gobbling in surprised indignation.
+
+"Arnold Rivers? Has he had the impudence to try to buy the collection?"
+he demanded. "Where did you hear that?"
+
+"From Mrs. Fleming. I understand he made the offer to Fred Dunmore.
+That's his business, isn't it?"
+
+"I believe the colloquial term is 'racket,'" Goode said. "Why, that man
+is a notorious swindler! Mr. Rand, do you know that only a week before
+his death, Mr. Fleming instructed me to bring suit against him, and also
+to secure his indictment on criminal charges of fraud?"
+
+"I didn't know that, but I'm not surprised," Rand answered. "What did he
+burn Fleming with?"
+
+"Here; I'll show you." Goode rose from his seat and went to a rank of
+steel filing-cabinets behind the desk. In a moment, he was back, with a
+large manila envelope under his arm, and a huge pistol in either hand.
+"Here, Mr. Rand," he chuckled. "We'll just test your firearms knowledge.
+What do you make of these?"
+
+Rand took the pistols and looked at them. They were wheel locks,
+apparently sixteenth-century South German; they were a good two feet in
+over-all length, with ball-pommels the size of oranges, and long steel
+belt-hooks. The stocks were so covered with ivory inlay that the wood
+showed only in tiny interstices; the metal-work was lavishly engraved and
+gold-inlaid. To the trigger-guards were attached tags marked _Fleming vs.
+Rivers_.
+
+Rand examined each pistol separately, then compared them. Finally, he
+took a six-inch rule from his pocket and made measurements, first with
+one edge and then with the other.
+
+"Well, I'm damned," he said, laying them on the desk. "These things are
+the most complete fakes I ever saw--locks, stocks, barrels and mountings.
+They're supposed to be late sixteenth-century; I doubt if they were made
+before 1920. As far as I can see or measure, there isn't the slightest
+difference between them, except on some of the decorative inlay. The
+whole job must have been miked in ten-thousandths, and what's more,
+whoever made them used metric measurements. You'll find pairs of English
+dueling pistols as early as 1775 that are almost indistinguishable, but
+in 1575, when these things were supposed to have been made, a gunsmith
+was working fine when he was working in sixteenth-inches. They just
+didn't have the measuring instruments, at that time, to do closer work.
+I won't bother taking these things apart, but if I did, I'd bet all
+Wall Street to Junior's piggy-bank that I'd find that the screws were
+machine-threaded and the working-parts interchanged. I've heard about
+fakes like these,"--he named a famous, recently liquidated West Coast
+collection--"but I'd never hoped to see an example like this."
+
+Goode gave a hacking chuckle. "You'll do as an arms-expert, Mr. Rand," he
+said. "And you'd win the piggy-bank. It seems that after Mr. Fleming
+bought them, he took them apart, and found, just as you say, that the
+screw-threads had been machine-cut, and that the working-parts were
+interchangeable from one pistol to the other. There were a lot of papers
+accompanying them--I have them here--purporting to show that they had
+been sold by some Austrian nobleman, an anti-Nazi refugee, in whose
+family they had been since the reign of Maximilian II. They are, of
+course, fabrications. I looked up the family in the _Almanach de Gotha_;
+it simply never existed. At first, Mr. Fleming had been inclined to take
+the view that Rivers had been equally victimized with himself. However,
+when Rivers refused to take back the pistols and refund the purchase
+price, he altered his opinion. He placed them in my hands, instructing me
+to bring suit and also start criminal action; he was in a fearful rage
+about it, and swore that he'd drive Rivers out of business. However,
+before I could start action, Mr. Fleming was killed in that accident, and
+as he was the sole witness to the fact of the sale, and as none of the
+heirs was interested, I did nothing about it. In fact, I advised them
+that action against Rivers would cost the estate more than they could
+hope to recover in damages." He picked up one of the pistols and examined
+it. "Now, I don't know what to do about these."
+
+"Take them home and hang them over the mantel," Rand advised. "If I'm
+going to have anything to do with selling the collection, I don't want
+anything to do with them."
+
+Goode was peering at the ivory inlay on the underbelly of the stock.
+
+"They are beautiful, and I don't care when they were made," he said. "I
+think, if nobody else wants them, I'll do just that.... Now, Mr. Rand,
+what had you intended doing about the collection?"
+
+"Well, that's what I came to see you about, Mr. Goode. As I understand
+it, it is you who are officially responsible for selling the collection,
+and the proceeds would be turned over to you for distribution to Mrs.
+Fleming, Mrs. Dunmore and Mrs. Varcek. Is that correct?"
+
+"Yes. The collection, although in the physical possession of Mrs.
+Fleming, is still an undistributed asset."
+
+"I thought so." Rand got out Gladys Fleming's letter of authorization and
+handed it to Goode. "As you'll see by that, I was retained by, and only
+by, Mrs. Fleming," he said. "I am assuming that her interests are
+identical with those of the other heirs, but I realize that this is true
+only to a very limited extent. It's my understanding that relations
+between the three ladies are not the most pleasant."
+
+Goode produced a short, croaking laugh. "Now there's a cautious
+understatement," he commented. "Mr. Rand, I feel that you should know
+that all three hate each other poisonously."
+
+"That was rather my impression. Now, I expect some trouble, from Mrs.
+Dunmore and/or Mrs. Varcek, either or both of whom are sure to accuse me
+of having been brought into this by Mrs. Fleming to help her defraud the
+others. That, of course, is not the case; they will all profit equally by
+my participation in this. But I'm going to have trouble convincing them
+of that."
+
+"Yes. You will," Goode agreed. "Would you rather carry my authorization
+than Mrs. Fleming's?"
+
+"Yes, indeed, Mr. Goode. To tell the truth, that was why I came here,
+for one reason. You will not be obligated in any way by authorizing me
+to act as your agent--I'm getting my fee from Mrs. Fleming--but I would
+be obligated to represent her only as far as her interests did not
+improperly conflict with those of the other heirs, and that's what I
+want made clear."
+
+Goode favored the detective with a saurian smile. "You're not a lawyer,
+too, Mr. Rand?" he asked.
+
+"Well, I am a member of the Bar in the State of Mississippi, though I
+never practiced," Rand admitted. "Instead of opening a law-office, I went
+into the F.B.I., in 1935, and then opened a private agency a couple of
+years later. But if I had to, which God forbid, I could go home tomorrow
+and hang out my shingle."
+
+"You seem to have had quite an eventful career," Goode remarked, with a
+queer combination of envy and disapproval. "I understand that, until
+recently, you were an officer in the Army Intelligence, too.... I'll have
+your authorization to act for me made out immediately; to list and
+appraise the collection, and to negotiate with prospective purchasers.
+And by the way," he continued, "did I understand you to say that you had
+heard some of these silly rumors to the effect that Lane Fleming had
+committed suicide?"
+
+"Oh, that's what's always heard, under the circumstances," Rand shrugged.
+"A certain type of sensation-loving mind..."
+
+"Mr. Rand, there is not one scintilla of truth in any of these scurrilous
+stories!" Goode declared, pumping up a fine show of indignation. "The
+Premix Company is in the best possible financial condition; a glance at
+its books, or at its last financial statement, would show that. I ought
+to know, I'm chairman of the board of directors. Just because there was
+some talk of retrenchment, shortly before Mr. Fleming's death ..."
+
+"Oh, no responsible person pays any attention to that sort of talk," Rand
+comforted him. "My armed-guard and armored-car service brings me into
+contact with a lot of the local financial crowd. None of them is taking
+these rumors seriously."
+
+"Well, of course, nobody wants the responsibility of starting a panic,
+even a minor one, but people are talking, and it's hurting Premix on the
+market," Goode gloomed. "And now, people will hear of Mrs. Fleming's
+having retained you, and will assume, just as I did at first, that you
+are making some kind of an investigation. I hope you will make a prompt
+denial, if you hear any talk like that." He pressed a button on his desk.
+"And now, I'll get a letter of authorization made out for you, Mr.
+Rand ..."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 4
+
+
+Stephen Gresham was in his early sixties, but he could have still worn
+his World War I uniform without anything giving at the seams, and buckled
+the old Sam Browne at the same hole. As Rand entered, he rose from behind
+his desk and advanced, smiling cordially.
+
+"Why, hello, Jeff!" he greeted the detective, grasping his hand heartily.
+"You haven't been around for months. What have you been doing, and why
+don't you come out to Rosemont to see us? Dot and Irene were wondering
+what had become of you."
+
+"I'm afraid I've been neglecting too many of my old friends lately,"
+Rand admitted, sitting down and getting his pipe out. "Been busy as the
+devil. Fact is, it was business that finally brought me around here. I
+understand that you and some others are forming a pool to buy the Lane
+Fleming collection."
+
+"Yes!" Gresham became enthusiastic. "Want in on it? I'm sure the others
+would be glad to have you in with us. We're going to need all the money
+we can scrape together, with this damned Rivers bidding against us."
+
+"I'm afraid you will, at that, Stephen," Rand told him. "And not
+necessarily on account of Rivers. You see, the Fleming estate has just
+employed me to expertize the collection and handle the sale for them."
+Rand got his pipe lit and drawing properly. "I hate doing this to you,
+but you know how it is."
+
+"Oh, of course. I should have known they'd get somebody like you in
+to sell the collection for them. Humphrey Goode isn't competent to
+handle that. What we were all afraid of was a public auction at some
+sales-gallery."
+
+Rand shook his head. "Worst thing they could do; a collection like
+that would go for peanuts at auction. Remember the big sales in the
+twenties?... Why, here; I'm going to be in Rosemont, staying at the
+Fleming place, working on the collection, for the next week or so. I
+suppose your crowd wouldn't want to make an offer until I have everything
+listed, but I'd like to talk to your associates, in a group, as soon as
+possible."
+
+"Well, we all know pretty much what's in the collection," Gresham said.
+"We were neighbors of his, and collectors are a gregarious lot. But we
+aren't anxious to make any premature offers. We don't want to offer more
+than we have to, and at the same time, we don't want to underbid and see
+the collection sold elsewhere."
+
+"No, of course not." Rand thought for a moment. "Tell you what; I'll give
+you and your friends the best break I can in fairness to my clients. I'm
+not obliged to call for sealed bids, or anything like that, so when I've
+heard from everybody, I'll give you a chance to bid against the highest
+offer in hand. If you want to top it, you can have the collection for any
+kind of an overbid that doesn't look too suspiciously nominal."
+
+"Why, Jeff, I appreciate that," Gresham said. "I think you're entirely
+within your rights, but naturally, we won't mention this outside. I can
+imagine Arnold Rivers, for instance, taking a very righteous view of such
+an arrangement."
+
+"Yes, so can I. Of course, if he'd call me a crook, I'd take that as
+a compliment," Rand said. "I wonder if I could meet your group, say
+tomorrow evening? I want to be in a position to assure the Fleming family
+and Humphrey Goode that you're all serious and responsible."
+
+"Well, we're very serious about it," Gresham replied, "and I think we're
+all responsible. You can look us up, if you wish. Besides myself, there
+is Philip Cabot, of Cabot, Joyner & Teale, whom you know, and Adam
+Trehearne, who's worth about a half-million in industrial shares, and
+Colin MacBride, who's vice president in charge of construction and
+maintenance for Edison-Public Power & Light, at about twenty thousand a
+year, and Pierre Jarrett and his fiancee, Karen Lawrence. Pierre was a
+Marine captain, invalided home after being wounded on Peleliu; he writes
+science-fiction for the pulps. Karen has a little general-antique
+business in Rosemont. They intend using their share of the collection,
+plus such culls and duplicates as the rest of us can consign to them, to
+go into the arms business, with a general-antique sideline, which Karen
+can manage while Pierre's writing.... Tell you what; I'll call a meeting
+at my place tomorrow evening, say at eight thirty. That suit you?"
+
+That, Rand agreed, would be all right. Gresham asked him how recently he
+had seen the Fleming collection.
+
+"About two years ago; right after I got back from Germany. You remember,
+we went there together, one evening in March."
+
+"Yes, that's right. We didn't have time to see everything," Gresham said.
+"My God, Jeff! Twenty-five wheel locks! Ten snaphaunces. And every
+imaginable kind of flintlock--over a hundred U.S. Martials, including the
+1818 Springfield, all the S. North types, a couple of Virginia
+Manufactory models, and--he got this since the last time you saw the
+collection--a real Rappahannock Forge flintlock. And about a hundred and
+fifty Colts, all models and most variants. Remember that big Whitneyville
+Walker, in original condition? He got that one in 1924, at the Fred Hines
+sale, at the old Walpole Galleries. And seven Paterson Colts, including
+a couple of cased sets. And anything else you can think of. A Hall
+flintlock breech-loader; an Elisha Collier flintlock revolver; a pair
+of Forsythe detonator-lock pistols.... Oh, that's a collection to end
+collections."
+
+"By the way, Humphrey Goode showed me a pair of big ball-butt wheel
+locks, all covered with ivory inlay," Rand mentioned.
+
+Gresham laughed heartily. "Aren't they the damnedest ever seen, though?"
+he asked. "Made in Germany, about 1870 or '80, about the time
+arms-collecting was just getting out of the family-heirloom stage,
+wouldn't you say?"
+
+"I'd say made in Japan, about 1920," Rand replied. "Remember, there were
+a couple of small human figures on each pistol, a knight and a huntsman?
+Did you notice that they had slant eyes?" He stopped laughing, and looked
+at Gresham seriously. "Just how much more of that sort of thing do you
+think I'm going to have to weed out of the collection, before I can offer
+it for sale?" he asked.
+
+Gresham shook his head. "They're all. They were Lane Fleming's one false
+step. Ordinarily, Lane was a careful buyer; he must have let himself get
+hypnotized by all that ivory and gold, and all that documentation on
+crested notepaper. You know, Fleming's death was an undeserved stroke of
+luck for Arnold Rivers. If he hadn't been killed just when he was, he'd
+have run Rivers out of the old-arms business."
+
+"I notice that Rivers isn't advertising in the _American Rifleman_ any
+more," Rand observed.
+
+"No; the National Rifle Association stopped his ad, and lifted his
+membership card for good measure," Gresham said. "Rivers sold a rifle to
+a collector down in Virginia, about three years ago, while you were still
+occupying Germany. A fine, early flintlock Kentuck, that had been made
+out of a fine, late percussion Kentuck by sawing off the breech-end of
+the barrel, rethreading it for the breech-plug, drilling a new vent, and
+fitting the lock with a flint hammer and a pan-and-frizzen assembly, and
+shortening the fore-end to fit. Rivers has a gunsmith over at Kingsville,
+one Elmer Umholtz, who does all his fraudulent conversions for him. I
+have an example of Umholtz's craftsmanship, myself. The collector who
+bought this spurious flintlock spotted what had been done, and squawked
+to the Rifle Association, and to the postal authorities."
+
+"Rivers claimed, I suppose, that he had gotten it from a family that had
+owned it ever since it was made, and showed letters signed 'D. Boone' and
+'Davy Crockett' to prove it?"
+
+"No, he claimed to have gotten it in trade from some wayfaring
+collector," Gresham replied. "He convinced Uncle Whiskers, but the
+N.R.A. took a slightly dimmer view of the transaction, so Rivers doesn't
+advertise in the _Rifleman_ any more."
+
+"Wasn't there some talk about Whitneyville Walker Colts that had been
+made out of 1848 Model Colt Dragoons?" Rand asked.
+
+"Oh Lord, yes! This fellow Umholtz was practically turning them out on
+an assembly-line, for a while. Rivers must have sold about ten of them.
+You know, Umholtz is a really fine gunsmith; I had him build a deer-rifle
+for Dot, a couple of years ago--Mexican-Mauser action, Johnson
+barrel, chambered for .300 Savage; Umholtz made the stock and fitted a
+scope-sight--it's a beautiful little rifle. I hate to see him prostitute
+his talents the way he does by making these fake antiques for Rivers. You
+know, he made one of these mythical heavy .44 six-shooters of the sort
+Colt was supposed to have turned out at Paterson in 1839 for Colonel
+Walker's Texas Rangers--you know, the model he couldn't find any of in
+1847, when he made the real Walker Colt. That story you find in Sawyer's
+book."
+
+"Why, that story's been absolutely disproved," Rand said. "There never
+was any such revolver."
+
+"Not till Umholtz made one," Gresham replied. "Rivers sold it to,"--he
+named a moving-picture bigshot--"for twenty-five hundred dollars. His
+story was that he picked it up in Mexico, in 1938; traded a .38-special
+to some halfbreed goat-herder for it."
+
+"This fellow who bought it, now; did he see Belden and Haven's Colt book,
+when it came out in 1940?"
+
+"Yes, and he was plenty burned up, but what could he do? Rivers was dug
+in behind this innocent-purchase-and-sale-in-good-faith Maginot Line of
+his. You know, that bastard took me, once, just one-tenth as badly, with
+a fake U.S. North & Cheney Navy flintlock 1799 Model that had been made
+out of a French 1777 Model." The lawyer muttered obscenely.
+
+"Why didn't you sue hell out of him?" Rand asked. "You might not have
+gotten anything, but you'd have given him a lot of dirty publicity.
+That's all Fleming was expecting to do about those wheel locks."
+
+"I'm not Fleming. He could afford litigation like that; I can't. I want
+my money, and if I don't get it in cash, I'm going to beat it out of that
+dirty little swindler's hide," Gresham replied, an ugly look appearing on
+his face.
+
+"I wouldn't blame you. You could find plenty of other collectors who'd
+hold your coat while you were doing it," Rand told him. Then he inquired,
+idly: "What sort of a pistol was it that Lane Fleming is supposed to have
+shot himself with?"
+
+Gresham frowned. "I really don't know; I didn't see it. It's supposed
+to have been a Confederate Leech & Rigdon .36; you know, one of those
+imitation Colt Navy Models that were made in the South during the Civil
+War."
+
+Rand nodded. He was familiar with the type.
+
+"The story is that Fleming found it hanging back of the counter at some
+roadside lunch-stand, along with a lot of other old pistols, and talked
+the proprietor into letting it go for a few dollars," Gresham continued.
+"It was supposed to have been loaded at the time, and went off while
+Fleming was working on it, at home." He shook his head. "I can't believe
+that, Jeff. Lane Fleming would know a loaded revolver when he saw one. I
+believe he deliberately shot himself, and the family faked the accident
+and fixed the authorities. The police never made any investigation; it
+was handled by the coroner alone. And our coroner, out in Scott County,
+is eminently fixable, if you go about it right; a pitiful little
+nonentity with a tremendous inferiority complex."
+
+"But good Lord, why?" Rand demanded. "I never heard of Fleming having any
+troubles worth killing himself over."
+
+Gresham lowered his voice. "Jeff, I'm not supposed to talk about this,
+but the fact is that I believe Fleming was about to lose control of the
+Premix Company," he said. "I have, well, sources of inside information.
+This is in confidence, so don't quote me, but certain influences were at
+work, inside the company, toward that end." He inspected the tip of his
+cigar and knocked off the ash into the tray at his elbow. "Lane Fleming's
+death is on record as accidental, Jeff. It's been written off as such. It
+would be a great deal better for all concerned if it were left at that."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 5
+
+
+Rand drove slowly through Rosemont, the next day, refreshing his memory
+of the place. It was one of the many commuters' villages strung out for
+fifty miles along the railroad lines radiating from New Belfast, and
+depended for its support upon a population scattered over a five-mile
+radius at estates and country homes. Obviously a planned community, it
+was dominated by a gray-walled, green-roofed railroad station which stood
+on its passenger-platform like a captain in front of four platoons of
+gray-walled, green-roofed houses and stores aligned along as many
+converging roads. There was a post office, uniform with the rest of the
+buildings; an excessive quantity of aluminum trimming dated it somewhere
+in the middle Andrew W. Mellon period. There were four gas stations, a
+movie theater, and a Woolworth store with a red front that made it look
+like some painted hussy who had wandered into a Quaker Meeting.
+
+Over the door of one of the smaller stores, Rand saw a black-lettered
+white sign: _Antiques_. There was a smoke-gray Plymouth coupe parked in
+front of it.
+
+Instead of turning onto the road to the Fleming estate, he continued
+along Route 19 for a mile or so beyond the village, until he came to a
+red brick pseudo-Colonial house on the right. He pulled to the side of
+the road and got out, turning up the collar of his trench coat. The air
+was raw and damp, doubly unpleasant after the recent unseasonable warmth.
+An apathetically persistent rain sogged the seedling-dotted old fields on
+either side, and the pine-woods beyond, and a high ceiling of unbroken
+dirty gray gave no promise of clearing. The mournful hoot of a distant
+locomotive whistle was the only sound to pierce the silence. For a
+moment, Rand stood with his back to the car, looking at the gallows-like
+sign that proclaimed this to be the business-place of Arnold Rivers,
+Fine Antique and Modern Firearms for the Discriminating Collector.
+
+The house faced the road with a long side; at the left, a porch formed
+a continuation under a deck roof, and on the right, an ell had been
+built at right angles, extending thirty feet toward the road. Although
+connected to the house by a shed roof, which acquired a double pitch and
+became a gable roof where the ell projected forward, it was, in effect,
+a separate building, with its own front door and its own door-path. Its
+floor-level was about four feet lower than that of the parent structure.
+
+A Fibber McGee door-chime clanged as Rand entered. Closing the door
+behind him, he looked around. The room, some twenty feet wide and fifty
+long, was lighted by an almost continuous row of casement windows on the
+right, and another on the left for as far as the ell extended beyond the
+house. They were set high, a good five feet from lower sill to floor, and
+there was no ceiling; the sloping roof was supported by bare timber
+rafters. Racks lined the walls, under the windows, holding long-guns
+and swords; the pistols and daggers and other small items were displayed
+on a number of long tables. In the middle of the room, glaring at the
+front door, was a brass four-pounder on a ship's carriage; a Philippine
+_latanka_, muzzle tilted upward, stood beside it. Where the ell joined
+the house under the shed roof, there was a fireplace, and a short flight
+of steps to a landing and a door out of the dwelling, and some
+furniture--a davenport, three or four deep chairs facing the fire, a low
+cocktail-table, a cellarette, and, in the far corner, a big desk.
+
+As Rand went toward the rear, a young man rose from one of the chairs,
+laid aside a magazine, and advanced to meet him. He didn't exactly
+harmonize with all the lethal array around him; he would have looked more
+at home presiding over an establishment devoted to ladies' items. His
+costume ran to pastel shades, he had large and soulful blue eyes and
+prettily dimpled cheeks, and his longish blond hair was carefully
+disordered into a windblown effect.
+
+"Oh, good afternoon," he greeted. "Is there anything in particular you're
+interested in, or would you like to just look about?"
+
+"Mostly look about," Rand said. "Is Mr. Rivers in?"
+
+"Mr. Rivers is having luncheon. He'll be finished before long, if you
+care to wait.... Have you ever been here before?"
+
+"Not for some time," Rand said. "When I was here last, there was a young
+fellow named Jordan, or Gordon, or something like that."
+
+"Oh. He was before my time." The present functionary introduced himself
+as Cecil Gillis. Rand gave his name and shook hands with him. Young
+Gillis wanted to know if Rand was a collector.
+
+"In a small way. General-pistol collector," Rand told him. "Have you many
+Colts, now?"
+
+There was a whole table devoted to Colts. No spurious Whitneyville
+Walkers; after all, a dealer can sell just so many of such top-drawer
+rarities before the finger of suspicion begins leveling itself in his
+direction, and Arnold Rivers had long ago passed that point. There were
+several of the commoner percussion models, however, with lovely, perfect
+bluing that was considerably darker than that applied at the Colt factory
+during the 'fifties and 'sixties of the last century. The silver plating
+on backstraps and trigger-guards was perfect, too, but the naval-battle
+and stagecoach-holdup engravings on the cylinders were far from clear--in
+one case, completely obliterated. The cylinder of one 1851 Navy bore
+serial numbers that looked as though they had been altered to conform to
+the numbers on other parts of the weapon. Many of the Colts, however,
+were entirely correct, and all were in reasonably good condition.
+
+Rand saw something that interested him, and picked it up.
+
+"That isn't a real Colt," the exquisite Mr. Gillis told him. "It's a
+Confederate copy; a Leech & Rigdon."
+
+"So I see. I have a Griswold & Grier, but no Leech & Rigdon."
+
+"The Griswold & Grier; that's the one with the brass frame," Cecil Gillis
+said. "Surprising how many collectors think all Confederate revolvers
+had brass frames, because of the Griswold & Grier, and the Spiller &
+Burr.... That's an unusually fine specimen, Mr. Rand. Mr. Rivers got
+it sometime in late December or early January; from a gentleman in
+Charleston, I understand. I believe it had been carried during the Civil
+War by a member of the former owner's family."
+
+Rand looked at the tag tied to the trigger-guard; it was marked, in
+letter-code, with three different prices. That was characteristic of
+Arnold Rivers's business methods.
+
+"How much does Mr. Rivers want for this?" he asked, handing the revolver
+to young Gillis.
+
+The clerk mentally decoded the three prices and vacillated for a moment
+over them. He had already appraised Rand, from his twenty-dollar Stetson
+past his Burberry trench coat to his English hand-sewn shoes, and placed
+him in the pay-dirt bracket; however, from some remarks Rand had let
+drop, he decided that this customer knew pistols, and probably knew
+values.
+
+"Why, that is sixty dollars, Mr. Rand," he said, with the air of one
+conferring a benefaction. Maybe he was, at that, Rand decided; prices had
+jumped like the very devil since the war.
+
+"I'll take it." He dug out his billfold and extracted three twenties.
+"Nice clean condition; clean it up yourself?"
+
+"Why, no. Mr. Rivers got it like this. As I said, it's supposed to have
+been a family heirloom, but from the way it's been cared for, I would
+have thought it had been in a collection," the clerk replied. "Shall I
+wrap it for you?"
+
+"Yes, if you please." Rand followed him to the rear, laying aside his
+coat and hat. Gillis got some heavy paper out of a closet and packaged
+it, then hunted through a card-file in the top drawer of the desk, until
+he found the card he wanted. He made a few notes on it, and was still
+holding it and the sixty dollars when he rejoined Rand by the fire.
+
+In spite of his effeminate appearance and over-refined manner, the young
+fellow really knew arms. The conversation passed from Confederate
+revolvers to the arms of the Civil War in general, and they were
+discussing the changes in tactics occasioned by the introduction of the
+revolver and the repeating carbine when the door from the house opened
+and Arnold Rivers appeared on the landing.
+
+He looked older than when Rand had last seen him. His hair was thinner on
+top and grayer at the temples. Never particularly robust, he had lost
+weight, and his face was thinner and more hollow-cheeked. His mouth still
+had the old curve of supercilious insolence, and he was still smoking
+with the six-inch carved ivory cigarette-holder which Rand remembered.
+
+He looked his visitor over carefully from the doorway, decided that he
+was not soliciting magazine subscriptions or selling Fuller brushes, and
+came down the steps. As he did, he must have recognized Rand; he shifted
+the cigarette-holder to his left hand and extended his right.
+
+"Mr. Rand, isn't it?" he asked. "I thought I knew you. It's been some
+years since you've been around here."
+
+"I've been a lot of places in the meantime," Rand said.
+
+"You were here last in October, '41, weren't you?" Rivers thought for a
+moment. "You bought a Highlander, then. By Alexander Murdoch, of Doune,
+wasn't it?"
+
+"No; Andrew Strahan, of Edzel," Rand replied.
+
+Rivers snapped his fingers. "That's right! I sold both of those pistols
+at about the same time; a gentleman in Chicago got the Murdoch. The
+Strahan had a star-pierced lobe on the hammer. Did you ever get anybody
+to translate the Gaelic inscription on the barrel?"
+
+"You've a memory like Jim Farley," Rand flattered. "The inscription was
+the clan slogan of the Camerons; something like: _Sons of the hound, come
+and get flesh!_ I won't attempt the original."
+
+"Mr. Rand just bought 6524, the Leech & Rigdon .36," Gillis interjected,
+handing Rivers the card and the money. Rivers looked at both, saw how
+much Rand had been taken for, and nodded.
+
+"A nice item," he faintly praised, as though anything selling for less
+than a hundred dollars was so much garbage. "Considering the condition in
+which Confederate arms are usually found, it's really first-rate. I think
+you'll like it, Mr. Rand."
+
+The telephone rang, Cecil Gillis answered it, listened for a moment, and
+then said: "For you, Mr. Rivers; long distance from Milwaukee."
+
+Rivers's face lit with the beatific smile of a cat at a promising
+mouse-hole. "Ah, excuse me, Mr. Rand." He crossed to the desk, picked
+up the phone and spoke into it. "This is Arnold Rivers," he said, much
+as Edward Murrow used to say, _This--is London!_ The telephone sputtered
+for a moment. "Ah, yes indeed, Mr. Verral. Quite well, I thank you. And
+you?... No, it hasn't been sold yet. Do you wish me to ship it to
+you?... On approval; certainly.... Of course it's an original flintlock;
+I didn't list it as re-altered, did I?... No, not at all; the only
+replacement is the small spring inside the patchbox.... Yes, the rifling
+is excellent.... Of course; I'll ship it at once.... Good-by, Mr.
+Verral."
+
+He hung up and turned to his hireling, fairly licking his chops.
+
+"Cecil, Mr. Verral, in Milwaukee, whose address we have, has just ordered
+6288, the F. Zorger flintlock Kentuck. Will you please attend to it?"
+
+"Right away, Mr. Rivers." Gillis went to one of the racks under the
+windows and selected a long flintlock rifle, carrying it out the door at
+the rear.
+
+"I issued a list, a few days ago," Rivers told Rand. "When Cecil comes
+back, I'll have him get you a copy. I've been receiving calls ever since;
+this is the twelfth long-distance call since Tuesday."
+
+"Business must be good," Rand commented. "I understand you've offered to
+buy the Lane Fleming collection. For ten thousand dollars."
+
+"Where did you hear that?" Rivers demanded, looking up from the drawer in
+which he was filing the card on the Leech & Rigdon.
+
+"From Mrs. Fleming." Rand released a puff of pipe smoke and watched it
+draw downward into the fireplace. "I've been retained to handle the sale
+of that collection; naturally, I'd know who was offering how much."
+
+Rivers's eyes narrowed. He came around the desk, loading another
+cigarette into his holder.
+
+"And just why, might I ask, did Mrs. Fleming think it in order to employ
+a detective in a matter like that?" he wanted to know.
+
+Rand let out more smoke. "She didn't. She employed an arms-expert, a
+Colonel Jefferson Davis Rand, U.S.A., O.R.C., who is a well-known
+contributor to the _American Rifleman_ and the _Infantry Journal_ and
+_Antiques_ and the old _Gun Report_. You've read some of his articles,
+I believe?"
+
+"Then you're not making an investigation?"
+
+"What in the world is there to investigate?" Rand asked. "I'm just
+selling a lot of old pistols for the Fleming estate."
+
+"I thought Fred Dunmore was doing that."
+
+"So did Fred. You're both wrong, though. I am." He got out Goode's letter
+of authorization and handed it to Rivers, who read it through twice
+before handing it back. "You see anything in that about Fred Dunmore,
+or any of the other relatives-in-law?" he asked.
+
+"Well, I didn't understand; I'm glad to know what the situation really
+is." Rivers frowned. "I thought you were making some kind of an
+investigation, and as I'm the only party making any serious offer to buy
+those pistols, I wanted to know what there was to investigate."
+
+"Do you consider ten thousand dollars to be a serious offer?" Rand asked.
+"And aren't you forgetting Stephen Gresham and his friends?"
+
+"Oh, those people!" Rivers scoffed. "Mr. Rand, you certainly don't expect
+them to be able to handle anything like this, do you?"
+
+"Well, the banks speak well of them," Rand replied. "Some of them have
+good listings in Dun & Bradstreet's, too."
+
+"Well, so do I," Rivers reported. "I can top any offer that crowd makes.
+What do you expect to get out of them, anyhow?"
+
+"I haven't talked price with them, yet. A lot more than ten thousand
+dollars, anyhow."
+
+Rivers forced a laugh. "Now, Mr. Rand! That was just an opening offer. I
+thought Fred Dunmore was handling the collection." He grimaced. "What do
+you think it's really worth?"
+
+Rand shrugged. "It probably has a dealer's piece-by-piece list-value
+of around seventy thousand. I'm not nuts enough to expect anything like
+that in a lump sum, but please, let's not mention ten thousand dollars in
+this connection any more. That's on the order of Lawyer Marks bidding
+seventy-five cents for Uncle Tom; it's only good for laughs."
+
+"Well, how much more than that do you think Gresham and his crowd will
+offer?"
+
+"I haven't talked price with them, yet," Rand repeated. "I mean to, as
+soon as I can."
+
+"Well, you get their offer, and I'll top it," Rivers declared. "I'm
+willing to go as high as twenty-five thousand for that collection; they
+won't go that high."
+
+Although he just managed not to show it, Rand was really surprised. Even
+a consciousness of abstracting had not prepared him for the shock of
+hearing Arnold Rivers raise his own offer to something resembling an
+acceptable figure. A good case, he reflected, could be made of that
+for the actuality of miracles.
+
+He rose, picking up his trench coat.
+
+"Well! That's something like it, now," he said. "I'll see you later; I
+don't know how long it's going to take me to get a list prepared, and
+circularize the old-arms trade. I should hear from everybody who's
+interested in a few weeks. You can be sure I'll keep your offer in mind."
+
+He slipped into the coat and put on his hat, and then picked up the
+package containing the Confederate revolver. Rivers had risen, too; he
+was watching Rand nervously. When Rand tucked the package under his arm
+and began drawing on his gloves, Rivers cleared his throat.
+
+"Mr. Rand, I'm dreadfully sorry," he began, "but I'll have to return your
+money and take back that revolver. It should not have been sold." He got
+Rand's sixty dollars out of his pocket as though he expected it to catch
+fire, and held it out.
+
+Rand favored him with a display of pained surprise.
+
+"Why, I can't do that," he replied. "I bought this revolver in good
+faith, and you accepted payment and were satisfied with the transaction.
+The sale's been made, now."
+
+Rivers seemed distressed. It was probably the first time he had ever been
+on the receiving end of that routine, and he didn't like it.
+
+"Now you're being unreasonable, Mr. Rand," he protested. "Look here; I'll
+give you seventy-five dollars' credit on anything else in the shop. You
+certainly can't find fault with an offer like that."
+
+"I don't want anything else in the shop; I want this revolver you sold
+me." Rand gave him a look of supercilious insolence that was at least a
+two hundred per cent improvement on Rivers at his most insolent. "You
+know, I'll begin to acquire a poor idea of your business methods before
+long," he added.
+
+Rivers laughed ruefully. "Well, to tell the truth, I just remembered a
+customer of mine who specializes in Confederate arms, who would pay me at
+least eighty for that item," he admitted. "I thought..."
+
+Rand shook his head. "I have a special fondness for Confederate arms,
+myself. One of my grandfathers was in Mosby's Rangers, and the other was
+with Barksdale, to say nothing of about a dozen great-uncles and so on."
+
+"Well, you're entirely within your rights, Mr. Rand," Rivers conceded. "I
+should apologize for trying to renege on a sale, but.... Well, I hope to
+see you again, soon." He followed Rand to the door, shaking hands with
+him. "Don't forget; I'm willing to pay anything up to twenty-five
+thousand for the Fleming collection."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 6
+
+
+The Fleming butler--Walters, Rand remembered Gladys Fleming having called
+him--became apologetic upon learning who the visitor was.
+
+"Forgive me, Colonel Rand, but I'm afraid I must put you to some
+inconvenience, sir," he said. "You see, we have no chauffeur, at present,
+and I don't drive very well, myself. Would you object to putting up your
+own car, sir? The garage is under the house, at the rear; just follow the
+driveway around. I'll go through the house and meet you there for the
+luggage. I'm dreadfully sorry to put you to the trouble, but...."
+
+"Oh, that's all right," Rand comforted him. "Just as soon do it, myself,
+now, anyhow. I expect to be in and out with the car while I'm here, and
+I'd better learn the layout of the garage now."
+
+"You may back in, sir, or drive straight in and back out," the butler
+told him. "One way's about as easy as the other."
+
+Rand returned to his car, driving around the house. A row of doors opened
+out of the basement garage; Walters, who must have gone through the house
+on the double, was waiting for him. Having what amounted to a conditioned
+reflex to park his car so that he could get it out as fast as possible,
+he cut over to the right, jockeyed a little, and backed in. There were
+already two cars in the garage; a big maroon Packard sedan, and a
+sand-colored Packard station-wagon, standing side by side. Rand put
+his Lincoln in on the left of the sedan.
+
+"Bags in the luggage-compartment; it isn't locked," he told the butler,
+making sure that the glove-compartment, where he had placed the Leech &
+Rigdon revolver, was locked. As he got out, the servant went to the rear
+of the car and took out the Gladstone and the B-4 bag Rand had brought
+with him.
+
+"If you don't mind entering the house from the rear, sir, we can go up
+those steps, there, and through the rear hall," the butler suggested,
+almost as though he were making some indecent and criminal proposal.
+
+Rand told him to forget the protocol and lead the way. The butler picked
+up the bags and conducted him up a short flight of concrete steps to a
+landing and a door opening into a short hall above. An open door from
+this gave access to a longer hall, stretching to the front of the house,
+and there was a third door, closed, which probably led to the servants'
+domain.
+
+Rand followed his guide through the open door and into the long hall,
+which passed under an arch to extend to the front door. There was a door
+on either side, about midway to the arch under the front stairway; the
+one on the right was the dining-room, Walters explained, and the one on
+the left was the library. He seemed to be still suffering from the
+ignominy of admitting a house-guest through any but the main portal.
+
+Emerging into the front hallway, he put down the bags, took Rand's hat
+and coat and laid them on top of the luggage, and then went to an open
+doorway on the right, standing in it and coughing delicately, before
+announcing that Colonel Rand was here.
+
+Gladys Fleming, wearing a pale blue frock, came forward as Rand entered
+the parlor, her hand extended. The two other women in the big parlor
+remained motionless. They would be the sisters, Geraldine Varcek and
+Nelda Dunmore. Rand didn't wonder that they resented Gladys so bitterly;
+economic considerations aside, girls seldom enthuse over a stepmother so
+near their own age who is so much more beautiful.
+
+"Good afternoon, Colonel Rand," Gladys said. "This is Mrs. Varcek." She
+indicated a very pale blonde who sat slumped in a deep chair beside a low
+cocktail-table, a highball in her hand. "And Mrs. Dunmore." She was the
+brunette with the full bust and hips, in the short black skirt and the
+tight white sweater, who was standing by the fireplace.
+
+"H'lo." The blonde--Geraldine--smiled shyly at him. She had big blue
+eyes, and delicately tinted rose-petal lips that seemed to be trying not
+to laugh at some private joke. She wasn't exactly blotto, but she had
+evidently laid a good foundation for a first-class jag. After all, it was
+only two thirty in the afternoon.
+
+The other sister--Nelda--didn't say anything. She merely stood and stared
+at Rand distrustfully. Rand doubted that she ordinarily gave men the
+hostile eye. The full, dark-red lips; the lush figure; the way she draped
+it against the side of the fireplace, to catch the ruddy light on her
+more interesting curves and bulges--there was a bimbo just made to be
+leered at, and she probably resented it like hell if she weren't.
+
+Rand gave them a general good-afternoon, then turned to Gladys. "I had a
+talk with Goode, yesterday afternoon," he said. "I have his authorization
+to handle all the details. As soon as I get an itemized list, I'll
+circularize dealers and other possible buyers and ask for offers."
+
+"Is that all?" Nelda demanded angrily of Gladys. "Why Fred's done all
+that already!"
+
+"Is that correct, Mrs. Fleming?" Rand asked, for the record.
+
+"I told you, yesterday, what's been done," Gladys replied. "Fred has
+talked to one dealer, Arnold Rivers. There has been no inventory of any
+sort made."
+
+"Mr. Rivers is offering us ten thousand dollars," Nelda retorted. "I
+don't see why you had to bring this Colonel What's-his-name into it, at
+all. You think he can get us a better offer? If you do, you're crazy!"
+
+"Ten thousand dollars, for a collection that ought to sell for five times
+that, in Macy's basement!" Geraldine hooted. "How much is Rivers slipping
+Fred, on the side?"
+
+"Oh, go back to your bottle!" Nelda cried. "You're too drunk to know what
+you're talking about!"
+
+"They tell me Colonel Rand is a detective, too," Geraldine continued.
+"Maybe he can find out why Fred never talked to Stephen Gresham, or Carl
+Gwinnett, or anybody else except this Rivers. How much _is_ Fred getting
+out of Rivers, anyhow?"
+
+"My God, Geraldine, shut up!" Nelda howled. Then she decided to take
+direct notice of Rand's presence. "Colonel Rand, I'm sorry to say that,
+in her present condition, my sister doesn't know what she's saying. It's
+bad enough for my stepmother to bring an outsider into what's obviously
+a family matter, but when my sister begins making these ridiculous
+accusations ..."
+
+"What's ridiculous about them?" Geraldine demanded, dumping another two
+ounces of whiskey into her glass and freshening it with the siphon. "I
+think Rivers's offering ten thousand dollars for the collection, and
+Fred's thinking we'd accept it, are the only ridiculous things about it."
+
+"That's rather what I told Rivers, this afternoon," Rand put in. "He
+seemed a bit upset about my being brought into this, too, but he finally
+admitted that he was willing to pay up to twenty-five thousand dollars
+for the collection, and if he buys it, that's exactly what it's going to
+cost him."
+
+"_What?_" Nelda fairly screamed. Her hands opened and closed
+spasmodically: she was using a dark-red nail-tint that made Rand think
+of blood-dripping talons.
+
+"Mr. Arnold Rivers told me, this afternoon, and I quote: I'm willing to
+pay up to twenty-five thousand dollars for that collection, unquote,"
+Rand said. "And I can tell you now that twenty-five thousand dollars is
+just what he will pay for it, unless I can find somebody who's willing to
+pay more, which is not at all improbable."
+
+"H'ray!" Geraldine waved her glass and toasted Rand with it. "And
+twenty-five G ain't hay, brother!"
+
+Gladys smiled quickly at Rand, then turned to Nelda. "Now I hope you see
+why I thought it wise to bring in somebody who knows something about old
+arms," she said.
+
+Nelda evidently saw; there was apparently nothing stupid about her. "And
+Fred was going to take a miserable ten thousand dollars!" The way she
+said it, ten thousand sounded like a fairly generous headwaiter's tip.
+"Did Rivers actually tell you he'd pay twenty-five?"
+
+Rand gave, as nearly verbatim as possible, his conversation with the
+dealer. "And he can afford it, too," he finished. "He can make a nice
+profit on the collection, at that figure."
+
+"My God, do you mean the pistols are worth more than that, even?" she
+wanted to know, aghast.
+
+"Certainly, if you're a dealer with an established business, and
+customers all over the country, and want to take five or six years to
+make your profit," Rand replied. "If you aren't, and want your money in
+a hurry, no."
+
+"That's why I was against turning the collection over to Gwinnett on a
+commission basis," Gladys said. "It would take him five years to get
+everything sold."
+
+Nelda left the fireplace and advanced toward Rand. "Colonel, I owe you an
+apology," she said. "I had no idea Father's pistols were worth anywhere
+near that much. I don't suppose Fred did, either." She frowned. Wait till
+she gets Fred alone, Rand thought; I'd hate to be in his spot.... "You
+say you're acting on Humphrey Goode's authority?"
+
+"That's right. I'll negotiate the sale, but the money will be paid
+directly to him, for distribution according to the terms of your father's
+will." Rand got out Goode's letter and handed it to Nelda.
+
+She read it carefully. "I see." She seemed greatly relieved; she was
+looking at Rand, now, as she was accustomed to look at men, particularly
+handsome six-footers who were broad across the shoulders and narrow at
+the hips and resembled King Charles II. She was probably wondering if
+Rand was equal to Old Rowley in another important respect. "I didn't
+understand ... I thought...." A dirty look, aimed at Gladys, explained
+what she had thought. Then her glance fell on the bottle and siphon on
+the table beside Geraldine's chair, and she changed the subject by
+inquiring if Colonel Rand mightn't like a drink.
+
+"Well, let's go up to the gunroom," Gladys suggested. "We can have our
+drink up there, while Colonel Rand's looking at the pistols.... Coming
+with us, Geraldine?"
+
+Geraldine rose, not too steadily, her glass still in her hand, and took
+Rand's left arm. Gladys, seeing Nelda moving in on the detective's right,
+took his other arm. Nelda was barely successful in suppressing a look of
+murderous anger. The double doorway into the hall was just wide enough
+for Rand and his two flankers to pass through; Nelda had to fall in a
+couple of paces rear of center, and wasn't able to come up into line
+until they were in the hall upstairs.
+
+"There's the gunroom." Gladys pointed. "And that's your room, over
+there." As she spoke, Walters came out of the doorway she had indicated.
+
+"Your bags are unpacked, sir," he reported. Then he told Rand where he
+would find his things, and where the bath was.
+
+There was a brief discussion of drinks. The butler received his
+instructions and went down the stairway; Rand broke up the feminine
+formation around him and ushered the ladies ahead of him into the
+gunroom.
+
+It was much as he remembered it from his visit of two years before.
+There was a desk in one corner, and back of it a short workbench and
+tool-cabinet. There was a long table in the middle of the room, its top
+covered with green baize, upon which many flat rectangular boxes of
+hardwood rested--some walnut, some rosewood, some quartered oak. Each
+would contain a pistol or pair of pistols, with cleaning and loading
+tools. In the corner farthest from the desk, he saw the head of the
+spiral stairway from the library below, mentioned by Gladys Fleming.
+There were ashstands and a couple of cocktail-tables, and a number of
+chairs, and the old maple cobbler's bench on which Lane Fleming had died.
+The only books in the room were in a small case over the workbench; they
+were all arms-books.
+
+Then he looked at the walls. On both ends, and on the long inside wall,
+the pistols hung, hundreds and hundreds of them, the cream of a
+lifetime's collecting. Horizontal white-painted boards had been fixed to
+the walls about four feet from the floor, and similar boards had been
+placed five feet above them. Between, narrow vertical strips, as wide
+as a lath but twice as thick, were set. Rows of pistols were hung, the
+barrels horizontal, on pairs of these strips, with screwhooks at grip
+and muzzle. There were about a hundred such vertical rows of pistols.
+
+Rand was still looking at them when the butler brought in the drinks;
+when Gladys told the servant that that would be all, he went out, rather
+reluctantly, by the spiral stairs to the library.
+
+"Well, what do you think of them, Colonel Rand?" Gladys asked.
+
+Rand tasted his whiskey and looked around. "It's one of the finest
+collections in the country," he said. "I may even be able to find
+somebody who'll top Rivers's offer, but don't be disappointed if I
+don't.... By the way, did anybody help Mr. Fleming keep this stuff clean?
+The room seems dry, but even so, they'd need an occasional wiping-off."
+
+"Oh, Walters was always in here, going over the pistols," Nelda said.
+"He's been in here every day, lately."
+
+"I wonder if you could spare him to help me a little? I'll need somebody
+who knows his way around here, at first."
+
+"Why, of course," Gladys agreed. "He isn't very busy in the mornings, or
+in the afternoons till close to dinner-time. Are you going to start work
+today?"
+
+"I'll have to. I'm going to see Stephen Gresham and his associates this
+evening, and I'll want to know what I'm talking about."
+
+They spent about fifteen minutes over their drinks, talking about the
+collection. Rand and Gladys did most of the talking, in spite of Nelda's
+best efforts to monopolize the conversation. Geraldine, after a few
+minutes, retired into her private world and only roused herself when her
+sister and stepmother were about to leave. When they went out, Gladys
+promised to send Walters up directly; Rand heard her speaking to him at
+the foot of the main stairway.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 7
+
+
+When Walters entered, Rand had his pipe lit and was walking slowly around
+the room, laying out the work ahead of him. Roughly, the earliest pieces
+were on the extreme left, on the short north wall of the room, and the
+most recent ones on the right, at the south end. This was, of course,
+only relatively true; the pistols seemed to have been classified by type
+in vertical rows, and chronologically from top to bottom in each row. The
+collection seemed to consist of a number of intensely specialized small
+groups, with a large number of pistols of general types added. For
+instance, about midway on the long east wall, there were some thirty-odd
+all-metal pistols, from wheel lock to percussion. There was a collection
+of U.S. Martials, with two rows of the regulation pistols, flintlock and
+percussion, of foreign governments, placed on the left, and the
+collection of Colts on the right. After them came the other types of
+percussion revolvers, and the later metallic-cartridge types.
+
+It was an arrangement which made sense, from the arms student's point
+of view, and Rand decided that it would make sense to the dealers and
+museums to whom he intended sending lists. He would save time by
+listing them as they were hung on the walls. Then, there were the cases
+between the windows on the west wall, containing the ammunition
+collection--examples of every type of fixed-pistol ammunition--and the
+collection of bullet-molds and powder flasks and wheel lock spanners and
+assorted cleaning and loading accessories. All that stuff would have to
+be listed, too.
+
+"I beg your pardon, sir," Walters broke in, behind him. "Mrs. Fleming
+said that you wanted me."
+
+"Oh, yes." Rand turned. "Is this the whole thing? What's on the walls,
+here?"
+
+"Yes, sir. There is also a wall-case containing a number of modern
+pistols and revolvers, and several rifles and shotguns, in the room
+formerly occupied by Mr. Fleming, but they are not part of the
+collection, and they are now the personal property of Mrs. Fleming.
+I understand that she intends selling at least some of them, on her
+own account. Then, there is a quantity of ammunition and
+ammunition-components in that closet under the workbench--cartridges,
+primed cartridge-shells, black and smokeless powder, cartridge-primers,
+percussion caps--but they are not part of the collection, either. I
+believe Mrs. Fleming wants to sell most of that, too."
+
+"Well, I'll talk to her about it. I may want to buy some of the
+ammunition for myself," Rand said. "So I only need to bother with what's
+on the walls, in this room?... By the way, did Mr. Fleming keep any sort
+of record of his collection? A book, or a card-index, or anything like
+that?"
+
+"Why no, sir." Walters was positive. Then he hedged. "If he did, I never
+saw or heard of anything of the sort. Mr. Fleming knew everything in this
+room. I've seen him, downstairs, when somebody would ask him about
+something, close his eyes as though trying to visualize and then give a
+perfect description of any pistol in the collection. Or else, he could
+enumerate all the pistols of a certain type; say, all the Philadelphia
+Deringers, or all the Allen pepperboxes, or all the rim-fire Smith &
+Wesson tip-back types. He had a remarkable memory for his pistols,
+although it was not out of the ordinary otherwise, sir."
+
+Rand nodded. Any collector--at least, any collector who was a serious
+arms-student--could do that, particularly if he were a good visualizer
+and kept his stuff in some systematic order. At the moment, he could have
+named and described any or all of his own modest collection of two
+hundred-odd pistols and revolvers.
+
+"I was hoping he'd kept a record," he said. "A great many collectors do,
+and it would have helped me quite a bit." He made up his mind to compile
+such a record, himself, when he got back to New Belfast. It would be a
+big help to Carter Tipton, when it came time to settle his own estate,
+and a man on whom the Reaper has scored as many near-misses as on Jeff
+Rand should begin to think of such things. "And how about writing
+materials? And is there a typewriter available?"
+
+There was: a cased portable was on the floor beside the workbench.
+Walters showed him which desk drawers contained paper and other things.
+There was, Rand noticed, a loaded .38 Colt Detective Special, in the
+upper right-hand desk drawer.
+
+"And these phones," the butler continued, indicating them. "This one is
+a private outside phone; it doesn't connect with any other in the house.
+The other is an extension. It has a buzzer; the outside phone has a
+regular bell."
+
+Rand thanked him for the information. Then, picking up a note-pad and
+pencil, he started on the left of the collection, meaning to make a
+general list and rough approximation of value for use in talking to
+Gresham's friends that evening. Tomorrow he would begin on the detailed
+list for use in soliciting outside offers.
+
+Twenty-five wheel locks: four heavy South German dags, two singles
+and a pair; three Saxon pistols, with sharply dropped grips, a pair
+and one single; five French and Italian sixteenth-century pistols;
+a pair of small pocket or sash pistols; a pair of French petronels,
+and an extremely long seventeenth-century Dutch pistol with an
+ivory-covered stock and a carved ivory Venus-head for a pommel; eight
+seventeenth-century French, Italian and Flemish pistols. Rand noted them
+down, and was about to pass on; then he looked sharply at one of them.
+
+It was nothing out of the ordinary, as wheel locks go; a long Flemish
+weapon of about 1640, the type used by the Royalist cavalry in the
+English Civil War. There were two others almost like it, but this one was
+in simply appalling condition. The metal was rough with rust, and
+apparently no attempt had been made to clean it in a couple of centuries.
+There was a piece cracked out of the fore-end, the ramrod was missing, as
+was the front ramrod-thimble, both the trigger-guard and the butt-cap
+were loose, and when Rand touched the wheel, it revolved freely if
+sluggishly, betraying a broken spring or chain.
+
+The vertical row next to it seemed to be all snaphaunces, but among them
+Rand saw a pair of Turkish flintlocks. Not even good Turkish flintlocks;
+a pair of the sort of weapons hastily thrown together by native craftsmen
+or imported ready-made from Belgium for bazaar sale to gullible tourists.
+Among the fine examples of seventeenth-century Brescian gunmaking above
+and below it, these things looked like a pair of Dogpatchers in the
+Waldorf's Starlight Room. Rand contemplated them with distaste, then
+shrugged. After all, they might have had some sentimental significance;
+say souvenirs of a pleasantly remembered trip to the Levant.
+
+A few rows farther on, among some exceptionally fine flintlocks, all
+of which pre-dated 1700, he saw one of those big Belgian navy pistols,
+_circa_ 1800, of the sort once advertised far and wide by a certain
+old-army-goods dealer for $6.95. This was a particularly repulsive
+specimen of its breed; grimy with hardened dust and gummed oil, maculated
+with yellow-surface-rust, the brasswork green with corrosion. It was
+impossible to shrug off a thing like that. From then on, Rand kept his
+eyes open for similar incongruities.
+
+They weren't hard to find. There was a big army pistol, of Central
+European origin and in abominable condition, among a row of fine
+multi-shot flintlocks. Multi-shot ... Stephen Gresham had mentioned an
+Elisha Collier flintlock revolver. It wasn't there. It should be hanging
+about where this post-Napoleonic German thing was.
+
+There was no Hall breech-loader, either, but there was a dilapidated old
+Ketland. There were many such interlopers among the U.S. Martials: an
+English ounce-ball cavalry pistol, a French 1777 and a French 1773, a
+couple more $6.95 bargain-counter specials, a miserable altered S. North
+1816. Among the Colts, there was some awful junk, including a big Spanish
+hinge-frame .44 and a Belgian imitation of a Webley R.I.C. Model. There
+weren't as many Paterson Colts as Gresham had spoken of, and the
+Whitneyville Walker was absent. It went on like that; about a dozen of
+the best pistols which Rand remembered having seen from two years ago
+were gone, and he spotted at least twenty items which the late Lane
+Fleming wouldn't have hung in his backyard privy, if he'd had one.
+
+Well, that was to be expected. The way these pistols were arranged, the
+absence of one from its hooks would have been instantly obvious. So, as
+the good stuff had moved out, these disreputable changelings had moved
+in.
+
+"You had rather a shocking experience here, in Mr. Fleming's death," Rand
+said, over his shoulder, to the butler.
+
+"Oh, yes indeed, sir!" Walters seemed relieved that Rand had broken the
+silence. "A great loss to all of us, sir. And so unexpected."
+
+He didn't seem averse to talking about it, and went on at some length.
+His story closely paralleled that of Gladys Fleming.
+
+"Mr. Varcek called the doctor immediately," he said. "Then Mr. Dunmore
+pointed out that the doctor would be obliged to notify either the coroner
+or the police, so he called Mr. Goode, the family solicitor. That was
+about twenty minutes after the shot. Mr. Goode arrived directly; he was
+here in about ten minutes. I must say, sir, I was glad to see him; to
+tell the truth, I had been afraid that the authorities might claim that
+Mr. Fleming had shot himself deliberately."
+
+Somebody else doesn't like the smell of that accident, Rand thought.
+Aloud, he said:
+
+"Mr. Goode lives nearby, then, I take it?"
+
+"Oh, yes, sir. You can see his house from these windows. Over here, sir."
+
+Rand looked out the window. The rain-soaked lawn of the Fleming residence
+ended about a hundred yards to the west; beyond it, an orchard was
+beginning to break into leaf, and beyond the orchard and another lawn
+stood a half-timbered Tudor-style house, somewhat smaller than the
+Fleming place. A path led down from it to the orchard, and another led
+from the orchard to the rear of the house from which Rand looked.
+
+"Must be comforting to know your lawyer's so handy," he commented. "And
+what do you think, Walters? Are you satisfied, in your own mind, that Mr.
+Fleming was killed accidentally?"
+
+The servant looked at him seriously. "No, sir; I'm not," he replied.
+"I've thought about it a great deal, since it happened, sir, and I just
+can't believe that Mr. Fleming would have that revolver, and start
+working on it, without knowing that it was loaded. That just isn't
+possible, if you'll pardon me, sir. And I can't understand how he would
+have shot himself while removing the charges. The fact is, when I came up
+here at quarter of seven, to call him for cocktails, he had the whole
+thing apart and spread out in front of him." The butler thought for a
+moment. "I believe Mr. Dunmore had something like that in mind when he
+called Mr. Goode."
+
+"Well, what happened?" Rand asked. "Did the coroner or the doctor choke
+on calling it an accident?"
+
+"Oh no, sir; there was no trouble of any sort about that. You see, Dr.
+Yardman called the coroner, as soon as he arrived, but Mr. Goode was here
+already. He'd come over by that path you saw, to the rear of the house,
+and in through the garage, which was open, since Mrs. Dunmore was out
+with the coupe. They all talked it over for a while, and the coroner
+decided that there would be no need for any inquest, and the doctor wrote
+out the certificate. That was all there was to it."
+
+Rand looked at the section of pistol-rack devoted to Colts.
+
+"Which one was it?" he asked.
+
+"Oh it's not here, sir," Walters replied. "The coroner took it away with
+him."
+
+"And hasn't returned it yet? Well, he has no business keeping it. It's
+part of the collection, and belongs to the estate."
+
+"Yes, sir. If I may say so, I thought it was a bit high-handed of him,
+taking it away, myself, but it wasn't my place to say anything about it."
+
+"Well, I'll make it mine. If that revolver's what I'm told it is, it's
+too valuable to let some damned county-seat politician walk off with." A
+thought occurred to him. "And if I find that he's disposed of it, this
+county's going to need a new coroner, at least till the present incumbent
+gets out of jail."
+
+The buzzer of the extension phone went off like an annoyed rattlesnake.
+Walters scooped it up, spoke into it, listened for a moment, and handed
+it to Rand.
+
+"For you, sir; Mrs. Fleming."
+
+"Colonel Rand, Carl Gwinnett, the commission-dealer I told you about is
+here," Gladys told him. "Do you want to talk to him?"
+
+"Why, yes. Do I understand, now, that you and the other ladies want cash,
+and don't want the collection peddled off piecemeal?... All right, send
+him up. I'll talk to him."
+
+A few minutes later, a short, compact-looking man of forty-odd entered
+the gunroom, shifting a brief case to his left hand and extending his
+right. Rand advanced to meet him and shook hands with him.
+
+"You're Colonel Rand? Enjoyed your articles in the _Rifleman_," he said.
+"Mrs. Fleming tells me you're handling the sale of the collection for the
+estate."
+
+"That's right, Mr. Gwinnett. Mrs. Fleming tells me you're interested."
+
+"Yes. Originally, I offered to sell the collection for her on a
+commission basis, but she didn't seem to care for the idea, and neither
+do the other ladies. They all want spot cash, in a lump sum."
+
+"Yes. Mrs. Fleming herself might have been interested in your
+proposition, if she'd been sole owner. You could probably get more for
+the collection, even after deducting your commission, than I'll be able
+to, but the collection belongs to the estate, and has to be sold before
+any division can be made."
+
+"Yes, I see that. Well, how much would the estate, or you, consider a
+reasonable offer?"
+
+"Sit down, Mr. Gwinnett," Rand invited. "What would you consider a
+reasonable offer, yourself? We're not asking any specific price; we're
+just taking bids, as it were."
+
+"Well, how much have you been offered, to date?"
+
+"Well, we haven't heard from everybody. In fact, we haven't put out a
+list, or solicited offers, except locally, as yet. But one gentleman has
+expressed a willingness to pay up to twenty-five thousand dollars."
+
+Gwinnett's face expressed polite skepticism. "Colonel Rand!" he
+protested. "You certainly don't take an offer like that seriously?"
+
+"I think it was made seriously," Rand replied. "A respectable profit
+could be made on the collection, even at that price."
+
+Gwinnett's eyes shifted over the rows of horizontal barrels on the walls.
+He was almost visibly wrestling with mental arithmetic, and at the same
+time trying to keep any hint of his notion of the collection's real value
+out of his face.
+
+"Well, I doubt if I could raise that much," he said. "Might I ask who's
+making this offer?"
+
+"You might; I'm afraid I couldn't tell you. You wouldn't want me to
+publish your own offer broadcast, would you?"
+
+"I think I can guess. If I'm right, don't hold your head in a tub of
+water till you get it," Gwinnett advised. "Making a big offer to scare
+away competition is one thing, and paying off on it is another. I've seen
+that happen before, you know. Fact is, there's one dealer, not far from
+here, who makes a regular habit of it. He'll make some fantastic offer,
+and then, when everybody's been bluffed out, he'll start making
+objections and finding faults, and before long he'll be down to about
+a quarter of his original price."
+
+"The practice isn't unknown," Rand admitted.
+
+"I'll bet you don't have this twenty-five thousand dollar offer on paper,
+over a signature," Gwinnett pursued. "Well, here." He opened his brief
+case and extracted a sheet of paper, handing it to Rand. "You can file
+this; I'll stand back of it."
+
+Rand looked at the typed and signed statement to the effect that Carl
+Gwinnett agreed to pay the sum of fifteen thousand dollars for the Lane
+Fleming pistol-collection, in its entirety, within thirty days of date.
+That was an average of six dollars a pistol. There had been a time, not
+too long ago, when a pistol-collection with an average value of six
+dollars, particularly one as large as the Fleming collection, had been
+something unusual. For one thing, arms values had increased sharply in
+the meantime. For another, Lane Fleming had kept his collection clean of
+the two-dollar items which dragged down so many collectors' average
+values. Except for the two-dozen-odd mysterious interlopers, there wasn't
+a pistol in the Fleming collection that wasn't worth at least twenty
+dollars, and quite a few had values expressible in three figures.
+
+"Well, your offer is duly received and filed, Mr. Gwinnett," Rand told
+him, folding the sheet and putting it in his pocket. "This is better
+than an unwitnessed verbal statement that somebody is willing to pay
+twenty-five thousand. I'll certainly bear you in mind."
+
+"You can show that to Arnold Rivers, if you want to," Gwinnett said. "See
+how much he's willing to commit himself to, over his signature."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 8
+
+
+Pre-dinner cocktails in the library seemed to be a sort of household
+rite--a self-imposed Truce of Bacchus before the resumption of
+hostilities in the dining-room. It lasted from six forty-five to seven;
+everybody sipped Manhattans and kept quiet and listened to the radio
+newscast. The only new face, to Rand, was Fred Dunmore's.
+
+It was a smooth, pinkly-shaven face, decorated with octagonal rimless
+glasses; an entirely unremarkable face; the face of the type that used to
+be labeled "Babbitt." The corner of Rand's mind that handled such data
+subconsciously filed his description: forty-five to fifty, one-eighty,
+five feet eight, hair brown and thinning, eyes blue. To this he added the
+Rotarian button on the lapel, and the small gold globule on the watch
+chain that testified that, when his age and weight had been considerably
+less, Dunmore had played on somebody's basketball team. At that time he
+had probably belonged to the Y.M.C.A., and had thought that Mussolini was
+doing a splendid job in Italy, that H. L. Mencken ought to be deported to
+Russia, and that Prohibition was here to stay. At company sales meetings,
+he probably radiated an aura of synthetic good-fellowship.
+
+As Rand followed Walters down the spiral from the gunroom, the radio
+commercial was just starting, and Geraldine was asking Dunmore where
+Anton was.
+
+"Oh, you know," Dunmore told her, impatiently. "He had to go to
+Louisburg, to that Medical Association meeting; he's reading a paper
+about the new diabetic ration."
+
+He broke off as Rand approached and was introduced by Gladys, who handed
+both men their cocktails. Then the news commentator greeted them out of
+the radio, and everybody absorbed the day's news along with their
+Manhattans. After the broadcast, they all crossed the hall to the
+dining-room, where hostilities began almost before the soup was cool
+enough to taste.
+
+"I don't see why you women had to do this," Dunmore huffed. "Rivers has
+made us a fair offer. Bringing in an outsider will only give him the
+impression that we lack confidence in him."
+
+"Well, won't that be just too, too bad!" Geraldine slashed at him. "We
+mustn't ever hurt dear Mr. Rivers's feelings like that. Let him have the
+collection for half what it's worth, but never, never let him think we
+know what a God-damned crook he is!"
+
+Dunmore evidently didn't think that worth dignifying with an answer.
+Doubtless he expected Nelda to launch a counter-offensive, as a matter of
+principle. If he did, he was disappointed.
+
+"Well?" Nelda demanded. "What did you want us to do; give the collection
+away?"
+
+"You don't understand," Dunmore told her. "You've probably heard somebody
+say what the collection's worth, and you never stopped to realize that
+it's only worth that to a dealer, who can sell it item by item. You can't
+expect ..."
+
+"We can expect a lot more than ten thousand dollars," Nelda retorted. "In
+fact, we can expect more than that from Rivers. Colonel Rand was talking
+to Rivers, this afternoon. Colonel Rand doesn't have any confidence in
+Rivers at all, and he doesn't care who knows it."
+
+"You were talking to Arnold Rivers, this afternoon, about the
+collection?" Dunmore demanded of Rand.
+
+"That's right," Rand confirmed. "I told him his ten thousand dollar offer
+was a joke. Stephen Gresham and his friends can top that out of one
+pocket. Finally, he got around to admitting that he's willing to pay up
+to twenty-five thousand."
+
+"I don't believe it!" Dunmore exclaimed angrily. "Rivers told me
+personally, that neither he nor any other dealer could hope to handle
+that collection profitably at more than ten thousand."
+
+"And you believed that?" Nelda demanded. "And you're a business man? _My
+God!_"
+
+"He's probably a good one, as long as he sticks to pancake flour,"
+Geraldine was generous enough to concede. "But about guns, he barely
+knows which end the bullet comes out at. Ten thousand was probably his
+idea of what we'd think the pistols were worth."
+
+Dunmore ignored that and turned to Rand. "Did Arnold Rivers actually tell
+you he'd pay twenty-five thousand dollars for the collection?" he asked.
+"I can't believe that he'd raise his own offer like that."
+
+"He didn't raise his offer; I threw it out and told him to make one that
+could be taken seriously." Rand repeated, as closely as he could, his
+conversation with the arms-dealer. When he had finished, Dunmore was
+frowning in puzzled displeasure.
+
+"And you think he's actually willing to pay that much?"
+
+"Yes, I do. If he handles them right, he can double his money on the
+pistols inside of five years. I doubt if you realize how valuable those
+pistols are. You probably defined Mr. Fleming's collection as a 'hobby'
+and therefore something not to be taken seriously. And, aside from the
+actual profit, the prestige of handling this collection would be worth
+a good deal to Rivers, as advertising. I haven't the least doubt that he
+can raise the money, or that he's willing to pay it."
+
+Dunmore was still frowning. Maybe he hated being proved wrong in front of
+the women of the family.
+
+"And you think Gresham and his friends will offer enough to force him to
+pay the full amount?"
+
+Rand laughed and told him to stop being naive. "He's done that, himself,
+and what's more, he knows it. When he told me he was willing to go as
+high as twenty-five thousand, he fixed the price. Unless somebody offers
+more, which isn't impossible."
+
+"But maybe he's just bluffing." Dunmore seemed to be following Gwinnett's
+line of thought. "After he's bluffed Gresham's crowd out, maybe he'll go
+back to his original ten thousand offer."
+
+"Fred, please stop talking about that ten thousand dollars!" Geraldine
+interrupted. "How much did Rivers actually tell you he'd pay? Twenty-five
+thousand, like he did Colonel Rand?"
+
+Dunmore turned in his chair angrily. "Now, look here!" he shouted.
+"There's a limit to what I've got to take from you...."
+
+He stopped short, as Nelda, beside him, moved slightly, and his words
+ended in something that sounded like a smothered moan. Rand suspected
+that she had kicked her husband painfully under the table. Then Walters
+came in with the meat course, and firing ceased until the butler had
+retired.
+
+"By the way," Rand tossed into the conversational vacuum that followed
+his exit, "does anybody know anything about a record Mr. Fleming kept of
+his collection?"
+
+"Why, no; can't say I do," Dunmore replied promptly, evidently grateful
+for the change of subject. "You mean, like an inventory?"
+
+"Oh, Fred, you do!" Nelda told him impatiently. "You know that big gray
+book Father kept all his pistols entered in."
+
+"It was a gray ledger, with a black leather back," Gladys said. "He kept
+it in the little bookcase over the workbench in the gunroom."
+
+"I'll look for it," Rand said. "Sure it's still there? It would be a big
+help to me."
+
+The rest of the dinner passed in relative tranquillity. The conversation
+proceeded in fairly safe channels. Dunmore was anxious to avoid any
+further reference to the sum of ten thousand dollars; when Gladys induced
+Rand to talk about his military experiences, he lapsed into preoccupied
+silence. Several times, Geraldine and Nelda aimed halfhearted feline
+swipes at one another, more out of custom than present and active
+rancor. The women seemed to have erected a temporary tri-partite
+_Entente_-more-or-less-_Cordiale_.
+
+Finally, the meal ended, and the diners drifted away from the table. Rand
+went to his room for a few moments, then went to the gunroom to get the
+notes he had made. Fred Dunmore was using the private phone as he
+entered.
+
+"Well, never mind about that, now," he was saying. "We'll talk about
+it when I see you.... Yes, of course; so am I.... Well, say about
+eleven.... Be seeing you."
+
+He hung up and turned to Rand. "More God-damned union trouble," he said.
+"It's enough to make a saint lose his religion! Our factory-hands are
+organized in the C.I.O., and our warehouse, sales, and shipping personnel
+are in the A.F. of L., and if they aren't fighting the company, they're
+fighting each other. Now they have some damn kind of a jurisdictional
+dispute.... I don't know what this country's coming to!" He glared
+angrily through his octagonal glasses for a moment. Then his voice took
+on an ingratiating note. "Look here, Colonel; I just didn't understand
+the situation, until you explained it. I hope you aren't taking anything
+that sister-in-law of mine said seriously. She just blurts out the first
+thing that comes into her so-called mind; why, only yesterday she was
+accusing Gladys of bringing you into this to help her gyp the rest of us.
+And before that ..."
+
+"Oh, forget it." Rand dismissed Geraldine with a shrug. "I know she was
+talking through a highball glass. As far as selling the collection is
+concerned, you just let Rivers sell you a bill of something you hadn't
+gotten a good look at. He's a smart operator, and he's crooked as a
+wagon-load of blacksnakes. Maybe you never realized just how much money
+Fleming put into this collection; naturally you wouldn't realize how much
+could be gotten out of it again. A lot of this stuff has been here for
+quite a while, and antiques of any kind tend to increase in value."
+
+"Well, I want you to know that I'm just as glad as anybody if you can get
+a better price out of him than I could." Dunmore smiled ruefully. "I
+guess he's just a better poker player than I am."
+
+"Not necessarily. He could see your hand, and you couldn't see his," Rand
+told him.
+
+"You going to see Gresham and his friends, this evening?" Dunmore asked.
+"Well, when you get back, if you find four cars in the garage, counting
+the station-wagon, lock up after you've put your own car away. If you
+find only three, then you'll know that Anton Varcek's still out, so leave
+it open for him. That's the way we do here; last one in locks up."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 9
+
+
+Rand found another car, a smoke-gray Plymouth coupe, standing on the
+left of his Lincoln when he went down to the garage. Running his car
+outside and down to the highway, he settled down to his regular style of
+driving--a barely legal fifty m.p.h., punctuated by bursts of absolutely
+felonious speed whenever he found an unobstructed straightaway. Entering
+Rosemont, he slowed and went through the underpass at the railroad
+tracks, speeding again when he was clear of the village. A few minutes
+later, he was turning into the crushed-limestone drive that led up to the
+buff-brick Gresham house.
+
+A girl met him at the door, a cute little redhead in a red-striped dress,
+who gave him a smile that seemed to start on the bridge of her nose and
+lift her whole face up after it. She held out her hand to him.
+
+"Colonel Rand!" she exclaimed. "I'll bet you don't remember me."
+
+"Sure I do. You're Dot," Rand said. "At least, I think you are; the last
+time I saw you, you were in pigtails. And you were only about so high."
+He measured with his hand. "The last time I was here, you were away at
+school. You must be old enough to vote, by now."
+
+"I will, this fall," she replied. "Come on in; you're the first one
+here. Daddy hasn't gotten back from town yet. He called and said he'd
+be delayed till about nine." In the hall she took his hat and coat and
+guided him toward the parlor on the right.
+
+"Oh, Mother!" she called. "Here's Colonel Rand!"
+
+Rand remembered Irene Gresham, too; an over-age dizzy blonde who was
+still living in the Flaming Youth era of the twenties. She was an
+extremely good egg; he liked her very much. After all, insisting upon
+remaining an F. Scott Fitzgerald character was a harmless and amusing
+foible, and it was no more than right that somebody should try to keep
+the bright banner of Jazz Age innocence flying in a grim and sullen
+world. He accepted a cigarette, shared the flame of his lighter with
+mother and daughter, and submitted to being gushed over.
+
+"... and, honestly, Jeff, you get handsomer every year," Irene Gresham
+rattled on. "Dot, doesn't he look just like Clark Gable in _Gone with the
+Wind_? But then, of course, Jeff really _is_ a Southerner, so ..."
+
+The doorbell interrupted this slight _non sequitur_. She broke off,
+rising.
+
+"Sit still, Jeff; I'm just going to see who it is. You know, we're down
+to only one servant now, and it seems as if it's always her night off, or
+something. I don't know, honestly, what I'm going to do...."
+
+She hurried out of the room. Voices sounded in the hall; a man's and a
+girl's.
+
+"That's Pierre and Karen," Dot said. "Let's all go up in the gunroom, and
+wait for the others there."
+
+They went out to meet the newcomers. The man was a few inches shorter
+than Rand, with gray eyes that looked startlingly light against the dark
+brown of his face. He wasn't using a cane, but he walked with a slight
+limp. Beside him was a slender girl, almost as tall as he was, with dark
+brown hair and brown eyes. She wore a rust-brown sweater and a brown
+skirt, and low-heeled walking-shoes.
+
+Irene Gresham went into the introductions, the newcomers shook hands with
+Rand and were advised that the style of address was "Jeff," rather than
+"Colonel Rand," and then Dot suggested going up to the gunroom. Irene
+Gresham said she'd stay downstairs; she'd have to let the others in.
+
+"Have you seen this collection before?" Pierre Jarrett inquired as he and
+Rand went upstairs together.
+
+"About two years ago," Rand said. "Stephen had just gotten a cased
+dueling set by Wilkinson, then. From the Far West Hobby Shop, I think."
+
+"Oh, he's gotten a lot of new stuff since then, and sold off about a
+dozen culls and duplicates," the former Marine said. "I'll show you
+what's new, till the others come."
+
+They reached the head of the stairs and started down the hall to the
+gunroom, in the wing that projected out over the garage. Along the way,
+the girls detached themselves for nose-powdering.
+
+Unlike the room at the Fleming home, Stephen Gresham's gunroom had
+originally been something else--a nursery, or play-room, or party-room.
+There were windows on both long sides, which considerably reduced the
+available wall-space, and the situation wasn't helped any by the fact
+that the collection was about thirty per cent long-arms. Things were
+pretty badly crowded; most of the rifles and muskets were in circular
+barracks-racks, away from the walls.
+
+"Here, this one's new since you were here," Pierre said, picking a long
+musket from one of the racks and handing it to Rand. "How do you like
+this one?"
+
+Rand took it and whistled appreciatively. "Real European matchlock; no,
+I never saw that. Looks like North Italian, say 1575 to about 1600."
+
+"That musket," Pierre informed him, "came over on the _Mayflower_."
+
+"Really, or just a gag?" Rand asked. "It easily could have. The
+_Mayflower_ Company bought their muskets in Holland, from some
+seventeenth-century forerunner of Bannerman's, and Europe was full of
+muskets like this then, left over from the wars of the Holy Roman Empire
+and the French religious wars."
+
+"Yes; I suppose all their muskets were obsolete types for the period,"
+Pierre agreed. "Well, that's a real _Mayflower_ arm. Stephen has the
+documentation for it. It came from the Charles Winthrop Sawyer
+collection, and there were only three ownership changes between the last
+owner and the _Mayflower_ Company. Stephen only paid a hundred dollars
+for it, too."
+
+"That was practically stealing," Rand said. He carried the musket to the
+light and examined it closely. "Nice condition, too; I wouldn't be afraid
+to fire this with a full charge, right now." He handed the weapon back.
+"He didn't lose a thing on that deal."
+
+"I should say not! I'd give him two hundred for it, any time. Even
+without the history, it's worth that."
+
+"Who buys history, anyhow?" Rand wanted to know. "The fact that it came
+from the Sawyer collection adds more value to it than this _Mayflower_
+business. Past ownership by a recognized authority like Sawyer is a real
+guarantee of quality and authenticity. But history, documented or
+otherwise--hell, only yesterday I saw a pair of pistols with a wonderful
+three-hundred-and-fifty-year documented history. Only not a word of it
+was true; the pistols were made about twenty years ago."
+
+"Those wheel locks Fleming bought from Arnold Rivers?" Pierre asked.
+"God, wasn't that a crime! I'll bet Rivers bought himself a big drink
+when Lane Fleming was killed. Fleming was all set to hang Rivers's scalp
+in his wigwam.... But with Stephen, the history does count for
+something. As you probably know, he collects arms-types that figured in
+American history. Well, he can prove that this individual musket was
+brought over by the Pilgrims, so he can be sure it's an example of the
+type they used. But he'd sooner have a typical Pilgrim musket that never
+was within five thousand miles of Plymouth Rock than a non-typical arm
+brought over as a personal weapon by one of the _Mayflower_ Company."
+
+"Oh, none of us are really interested in the individual history of
+collection weapons," Rand said. "You show me a collection that's full of
+known-history arms, and I'll show you a collection that's either full of
+junk or else cost three times what it's worth. And you show me a
+collector who blows money on history, and nine times out of ten I'll show
+you a collector who doesn't know guns. I saw one such collection, once;
+every item had its history neatly written out on a tag and hung onto the
+trigger-guard. The owner thought that the patent-dates on Colts were
+model-dates, and the model-dates on French military arms were dates of
+fabrication."
+
+Pierre wrinkled his nose disgustedly. "God, I hate to see a collection
+all fouled up with tags hung on things!" he said. "Or stuck over with
+gummed labels; that's even worse. Once in a while I get something with a
+label pasted on it, usually on the stock, and after I get it off, there's
+a job getting the wood under it rubbed up to the same color as the rest
+of the stock."
+
+"Yes. I picked up a lovely little rifled flintlock pistol, once," Rand
+said. "American; full-length curly-maple stock; really a Kentucky rifle
+in pistol form. Whoever had owned it before me had pasted a slip of paper
+on the underside of the stock, between the trigger-guard and the lower
+ramrod thimble, with a lot of crap, mostly erroneous, typed on it. It
+took me six months to remove the last traces of where that thing had been
+stuck on."
+
+"What do you collect, or don't you specialize?"
+
+"Pistols; I try to get the best possible specimens of the most important
+types, special emphasis on British arms after 1700 and American arms
+after 1800. What I'm interested in is the evolution of the pistol. I have
+a couple of wheel locks, to start with, and three miguelet-locks and an
+Italian snaphaunce. Then I have a few early flintlocks, and a number of
+mid-eighteenth-century types, and some late flintlocks and percussion
+types. And about twenty Colts, and so on through percussion revolvers and
+early cartridge types to some modern arms, including a few World War II
+arms."
+
+"I see; about the same idea Lane Fleming had," Pierre said. "I collect
+personal combat-arms, firearms and edge-weapons. Arms that either
+influenced fighting techniques, or were developed to meet special combat
+conditions. From what you say, you're mainly interested in the way
+firearms were designed and made; I'm interested in the conditions under
+which they were used. And Adam Trehearne, who'll be here shortly,
+collects pistols and a few long-arms in wheel lock, proto-flintlock and
+early flintlock, to 1700. And Philip Cabot collects U.S. Martials,
+flintlock to automatic, and also enemy and Allied Army weapons from all
+our wars. And Colin MacBride collects nothing but Colts. Odd how a Scot,
+who's only been in this country twenty years, should become interested
+in so distinctively American a type."
+
+"And I collect anything I can sell at a profit, from Chinese matchlocks
+to tommy-guns," Karen Lawrence interjected, coming into the room with Dot
+Gresham.
+
+Pierre grinned. "Karen is practically a unique specimen herself; the only
+general-antique dealer I've ever seen who doesn't hate the sight of a
+gun-collector."
+
+"That's only because I'm crazy enough to want to marry one," the
+girl dealer replied. "Of all the miserly, unscrupulous, grasping
+characters ..." She expressed a doubt that the average gun-collector
+would pay more than ten cents to see his Lord and Savior riding to hounds
+on a Bren-carrier. "They don't give a hoot whose grandfather owned what,
+and if anything's battered up a little, they don't think it looks quaint,
+they think it looks lousy. And they've never heard of inflation; they
+think arms ought still to sell for the sort of prices they brought at the
+old Mark Field sale, back in 1911."
+
+"What were you looking at?" Dot asked Rand, then glanced at the musket in
+Pierre's hands. "Oh, Priscilla."
+
+Karen laughed. "Dot not only knows everything in the collection; she
+knows it by name. Dot, show Colonel Rand Hester Prynne."
+
+"Hester coming up," Gresham's daughter said, catching another musket out
+of the same rack from which Pierre had gotten the matchlock and passing
+it over to Rand. He grasped the heavy piece, approving of the easy,
+instinctive way in which the girl had handled it. "Look on the barrel,"
+she told him. "On top, right at the breech."
+
+The gun was a flintlock, or rather, a dog-lock; sure enough, stamped on
+the breech was the big "A" of the Company of Workmen Armorers of London,
+the seventeenth-century gunmakers' guild.
+
+"That's right," he nodded. "That's Hester Prynne, all right; the first
+American girl to make her letter."
+
+There were footsteps in the hall outside, and male voices.
+
+"Adam and Colin," Pierre recognized them before they entered.
+
+Both men were past fifty. Colin MacBride was a six-foot black Highlander;
+black eyes, black hair, and a black weeping-willow mustache, from under
+which a stubby pipe jutted. Except when he emptied it of ashes and
+refilled it, it was a permanent fixture of his weather-beaten face.
+Trehearne was somewhat shorter, and fair; his sandy mustache, beginning
+to turn gray at the edges, was clipped to micrometric exactness.
+
+They shook hands with Rand, who set Hester back in her place. Trehearne
+took the matchlock out of Pierre's hands and looked at it wistfully.
+
+"Some chaps have all the luck," he commented. "What do you think of it,
+Mr. Rand?" Pierre, who had made the introductions, had respected the
+detective's present civilian status. "Or don't you collect long-arms?"
+
+"I don't collect them, but I'm interested in anything that'll shoot.
+That's a good one. Those things are scarce, too."
+
+"Yes. You'll find a hundred wheel locks for every matchlock, and yet
+there must have been a hundred matchlocks made for every wheel lock."
+
+"Matchlocks were cheap, and wheel locks were expensive," MacBride
+suggested. He spoke with the faintest trace of Highland accent.
+"Naturally, they got better care."
+
+"It would take a Scot to think of that," Karen said. "Now, you take a
+Scot who collects guns, and you have something!"
+
+"That's only part of it," Rand said. "I believe that by the last quarter
+of the seventeenth century, most of the matchlocks that were lying around
+had been scrapped, and the barrels used in making flintlocks. Hester
+Prynne, over there, could easily have started her career as a matchlock.
+And then, a great many matchlocks went into the West African slave and
+ivory trade, and were promptly ruined by the natives."
+
+"Yes, and I seem to recall having seen Spanish and French miguelet
+muskets that looked as though they had been altered directly from
+matchlock, retaining the original stock and even the original
+lock-plate," Trehearne added.
+
+"So have I, come to think of it." Rand stole a glance at his wrist-watch.
+It was nine five; he was wishing Stephen Gresham would put in an
+appearance.
+
+MacBride and Trehearne joined Pierre and the girls in showing him
+Gresham's collection; evidently they all knew it almost as well as their
+own. After a while, Irene Gresham ushered in Philip Cabot. He, too, was
+past middle age, with prematurely white hair and a thin, scholarly face.
+According to Hollywood type-casting, he might have been a professor, or a
+judge, or a Boston Brahmin, but never a stockbroker.
+
+Irene Gresham wanted to know what everybody wanted to drink. Rand wanted
+Bourbon and plain water; MacBride voted for Jamaica rum; Trehearne and
+Cabot favored brandy and soda, and Pierre and the girls wanted Bacardi
+and Coca-Cola.
+
+"And Stephen'll want rye and soda, when he gets here," Irene said. "Come
+on, girls; let's rustle up the drinks."
+
+Before they returned, Stephen Gresham came in, lighting a cigar. It was
+just nine twenty-two.
+
+"Well, I see everybody's here," he said. "No; where's Karen?"
+
+Pierre told him. A few minutes later the women returned, carrying bottles
+and glasses; when the flurry of drink-mixing had subsided, they all sat
+down.
+
+"Let's get the business over first," Gresham suggested. "I suppose you've
+gone over the collection already, Jeff?"
+
+"Yes, and first of all, I want to know something. When was the last that
+any of you saw it?"
+
+Gresham and Pierre had been in Fleming's gunroom just two days before the
+fatal "accident."
+
+"And can you tell me if the big Whitneyville Colt was still there, then?"
+Rand asked. "Or the Rappahannock Forge, or the Collier flintlock, or the
+Hall?"
+
+"Why, of course ... My God, aren't they there now?" Gresham demanded.
+
+Rand shook his head. "And if Fleming still had them two days before he
+was killed, then somebody's been weeding out the collection since. Doing
+it very cleverly, too," he added. "You know how that stuff's arranged,
+and how conspicuous a missing pistol would be. Well, when I was going
+over the collection, I found about two dozen pieces of the most utter
+trash, things Lane Fleming wouldn't have allowed in the house, all
+hanging where some really good item ought to have been." He took a paper
+from his pocket and read off a list of the dubious items, interpolating
+comments on the condition, and a list of the real rarities which Gresham
+had mentioned the day before, which were now missing.
+
+"All that good stuff was there the last time I saw the collection,"
+Gresham said. "What do you say, Pierre?"
+
+"I had the Hall pistol in my hands," Pierre said. "And I remember looking
+at the Rappahannock Forge."
+
+Trehearne broke in to ask how many English dog-locks there were, and if
+the snaphaunce Highlander and the big all-steel wheel lock were still
+there. At the same time, Cabot was inquiring about the Springfield 1818
+and the Virginia Manufactory pistols.
+
+"I'll have a complete, itemized list in a few days," Rand said. "In the
+meantime, I'd like a couple of you to look at the collection and help me
+decide what's missing. I'm going to try to catch the thief, and then get
+at the fence through him."
+
+"Think Rivers might have gotten the pistols?" Gresham asked. "He's the
+crookedest dealer I know of."
+
+"He's the crookedest dealer anybody knows of," Rand amended. "The only
+thing, he's a little too anxious to buy the collection, for somebody
+who's just skimmed off the cream."
+
+"Ten thousand dollars isn't much in the way of anxiety," Cabot said. "I'd
+call that a nominal bid, to avoid suspicion."
+
+"The dope's changed a little on that." Rand brought him up to date.
+"Rivers's offer is now twenty-five thousand."
+
+There was a stunned hush, followed by a gust of exclamations.
+
+"Guid Lorrd!" The Scots accent fairly curdled on Colin MacBride's tongue.
+"We canna go over that!"
+
+"I'm afraid not; twenty would be about our limit," Gresham agreed. "And
+with the best items gone ..." He shrugged.
+
+Pierre and Karen were looking at each other in blank misery; their dream
+of establishing themselves in the arms business had blown up in their
+faces.
+
+"Oh, he's talking through his hat!" Cabot declared. "He just hopes we'll
+lose interest, and then he'll buy what's left of the collection for a
+song."
+
+"Maybe he knows the collection's been robbed," Trehearne suggested. "That
+would let him out, later. He'd accuse you or the Fleming estate of
+holding out the best pieces, and then offer to take what's left for about
+five thousand."
+
+"Well, that would be presuming that he knows the collection has been
+robbed," Cabot pointed out. "And the only way he'd know that would be if
+he, himself, had bought the stolen pistols."
+
+"Well, does anybody need a chaser to swallow that?" Trehearne countered.
+"I'm bloody sure I don't."
+
+Karen Lawrence shook her head. "No, he'd pay twenty-five thousand for the
+collection, just as it stands, to keep Pierre and me out of the arms
+business. This end of the state couldn't support another arms-dealer, and
+with the reputation he's made for himself, he'd be the one to go under."
+She stubbed out her cigarette and finished her drink. "If you don't mind,
+Pierre, I think I'll go home."
+
+"I'm not feeling very festive, myself, right now." The ex-Marine rose and
+held out his hand to Rand. "Don't get the idea, Jeff, that anybody here
+holds this against you. You have your clients' interests to look out
+for."
+
+"Well, if this be treason make the most of it," Rand said, "but I hope
+Rivers doesn't go through with it. I'd like to see you people get the
+collection, and I'd hate to see a lot of nice pistols like that get into
+the hands of a damned swindler like Rivers.... Maybe I can catch him with
+the hot-goods on him, and send him up for about three-to-five."
+
+"Oh, he's too smart for that," Karen despaired. "He can get away with
+faking, but the dumbest jury in the world would know what receiving
+stolen goods was, and he knows it."
+
+Dorothy and Irene Gresham accompanied Pierre and Karen downstairs. After
+they had gone, Gresham tried, not very successfully, to inject more life
+into the party with another round of drinks. For a while they discussed
+the personal and commercial iniquities of Arnold Rivers. Trehearne and
+MacBride, who had come together in the latter's car, left shortly, and
+half an hour later, Philip Cabot rose and announced that he, too, was
+leaving.
+
+"You haven't seen my collection since before the war, Jeff," he said. "If
+you're not sleepy, why don't you stop at my place and see what's new?
+You're staying at the Flemings'; my house is along your way, about a mile
+on the other side of the railroad."
+
+They went out and got into their cars. Rand kept Cabot's taillight in
+sight until the broker swung into his drive and put his car in the
+garage. Rand parked beside the road, took the Leech & Rigdon out of the
+glove-box, and got out, slipping the Confederate revolver under his
+trouser-band. He was pulling down his vest to cover the butt as he went
+up the walk and joined his friend at the front door.
+
+Cabot's combination library and gunroom was on the first floor. Like
+Rand's own, his collection was hung on racks over low bookcases on either
+side of the room. It was strictly a collector's collection, intensely
+specialized. There were all but a few of the U.S. regulation single-shot
+pistols, a fair representation of secondary types, most of the revolvers
+of the Civil War, and all the later revolvers and automatics. In
+addition, there were British pistols of the Revolution and 1812,
+Confederate revolvers, a couple of Spanish revolvers of 1898, the Lugers
+and Mausers and Steyers of the first World War, and the pistols of all
+our allies, beginning with the French weapons of the Revolution.
+
+"I'm having the devil's own time filling in for this last war," Cabot
+said. "I have a want-ad running in the _Rifleman_, and I've gotten a few:
+that Nambu, and that Japanese Model-14, and the Polish Radom, and the
+Italian Glisenti, and that Tokarev, and, of course, the P-'38 and the
+Canadian Browning; but it's going to take the devil's own time. I hope
+nobody starts another war, for a few years, till I can get caught up on
+the last one."
+
+Rand was looking at the Confederate revolvers. Griswold & Grier, Haiman
+Brothers, Tucker & Sherrod, Dance Brothers & Park, Spiller & Burr--there
+it was: Leech & Rigdon. He tapped it on the cylinder with a finger.
+
+"Wasn't it one of those things that killed Lane Fleming?" he asked.
+
+"Leech & Rigdon? So I'm told." Cabot hesitated. "Jeff, I saw that
+revolver, not four hours before Fleming was shot. Had it in my hands;
+looked it over carefully." He shook his head. "It absolutely was not
+loaded. It was empty, and there was rust in the chambers."
+
+"Then how the hell did he get shot?" Rand wanted to know.
+
+"That I couldn't say; I'm only telling you how he didn't get shot. Here,
+this is how it was. It was a Thursday, and I'd come halfway out from town
+before I remembered that I hadn't bought a copy of _Time_, so I stopped
+at Biddle's drugstore, in the village, for one. Just as I was getting
+into my car, outside, Lane Fleming drove up and saw me. He blew his horn
+at me, and then waved to me with this revolver in his hand. I went over
+and looked at it, and he told me he'd found it hanging back of the
+counter at a barbecue-stand, where the road from Rosemont joins Route 22.
+There had been some other pistols with it, and I went to see them later,
+but they were all trash. The Leech & Rigdon had been the only decent
+thing there, and Fleming had talked it out of this fellow for ten
+dollars. He was disgustingly gleeful about it, particularly as it was
+a better specimen than mine."
+
+"Would you know it, if you saw it again?" Rand asked.
+
+"Yes. I remember the serials. I always look at serials on Confederate
+arms. The highest known serial number for a Leech & Rigdon is 1393; this
+one was 1234."
+
+Rand pulled the .36 revolver from his pants-leg and gave it a quick
+glance; the number was 1234. He handed it to Cabot.
+
+"Is this it?" he asked.
+
+Cabot checked the number. "Yes. And I remember this bruise on the left
+grip; Fleming was saying that he was glad it would be on the inside, so
+it wouldn't show when he hung it on the wall." He carried the revolver to
+the desk and held it under the light. "Why, this thing wasn't fired at
+all!" he exclaimed. "I thought that Fleming might have loaded it, meaning
+to target it--he had a pistol range back of his house--but the chambers
+are clean." He sniffed at it. "Hoppe's Number Nine," he said. "And I can
+see traces of partly dissolved rust, and no traces of fouling. What the
+devil, Jeff?"
+
+"It probably hasn't been fired since Appomattox," Rand agreed. "Philip,
+do you think all this didn't-know-it-was-loaded routine might be an
+elaborate suicide build-up, either before or after the fact?"
+
+"Absolutely not!" There was a trace of impatience in Cabot's voice. "Lane
+Fleming wasn't the man to commit suicide. I knew him too well ever to
+believe that."
+
+"I heard a rumor that he was about to lose control of his company," Rand
+mentioned. "You know how much Premix meant to him."
+
+"That's idiotic!" Cabot's voice was openly scornful, now, and he seemed
+a little angry that Rand should believe such a story, as though his
+confidence in his friend's intelligence had been betrayed. "Good Lord,
+Jeff, where did you ever hear a yarn like that?"
+
+"Quote, usually well-informed sources, unquote."
+
+"Well, they were unusually ill-informed, that time," Cabot replied. "Take
+my word for it, there's absolutely nothing in it."
+
+"So it wasn't an accident, and it wasn't suicide," Rand considered.
+"Philip, what is the prognosis on this merger of Premix and National
+Milling & Packaging, now that Lane Fleming's opposition has been, shall
+we say, liquidated?"
+
+Cabot's head jerked up; he looked at Rand in shocked surprise.
+
+"My God, you don't think...?" he began. "Jeff, are you investigating Lane
+Fleming's death?"
+
+"I was retained to sell the collection," Rand stated. "Now, I suppose,
+I'll have to find out who's been stealing those pistols, and recover
+them, and jail the thief and the fence. But I was not retained to
+investigate the death of Lane Fleming. And I do not do work for which
+I am not paid," he added, with mendacious literalness.
+
+"I see. Well, the merger's going through. It won't be official until the
+sixteenth of May, when the Premix stockholders meet, but that's just a
+formality. It's all cut and dried and in the bag now. Better let me pick
+you up a little Premix; there's still some lying around. You'll make a
+little less than four-for-one on it."
+
+"I'd had that in mind when I asked you about the merger," Rand said. "I
+have about two thousand with you, haven't I?" He did a moment's mental
+arithmetic, then got out his checkbook. "Pick me up about a hundred
+shares," he told the broker. "I've been meaning to get in on this ever
+since I heard about it."
+
+"I don't see how you did hear about it," Cabot said. "For obvious
+reasons, it's being kept pretty well under the hat."
+
+Rand grinned. "Quote, usually well-informed sources, unquote. Not the
+sources mentioned above."
+
+"Jeff, you know, this damned thing's worrying me," Cabot told him,
+writing a receipt and exchanging it for Rand's check. "I've been trying
+to ignore it, but I simply can't. Do you really think Lane Fleming was
+murdered by somebody who wanted to see this merger consummated and who
+knew that that was an impossibility as long as Fleming was alive?"
+
+"Philip, I don't know. And furthermore, I don't give a damn," Rand lied.
+"If somebody wants me to look into it, and pays me my possibly
+exaggerated idea of what constitutes fair compensation, I will. And I'll
+probably come up with Fleming's murderer, dead or alive. But until then,
+it is simply no epidermis off my scrotum. And I advise you to adopt a
+similar attitude."
+
+They changed the subject, then, to the variety of pistols developed and
+used by the opposing nations in World War II, and the difficulties ahead
+of Cabot in assembling even a fairly representative group of them. Rand
+promised to mail Cabot a duplicate copy of his list of the letter-code
+symbols used by the Nazis to indicate the factories manufacturing arms
+for them, as well as copies of some old wartime Intelligence dope on
+enemy small-arms. At a little past one, he left Cabot's home and returned
+to the Fleming residence.
+
+There were four cars in the garage. The Packard sedan had not been moved,
+but the station-wagon was facing in the opposite direction. The gray
+Plymouth was in the space from which Rand had driven earlier in the
+evening, and a black Chrysler Imperial had been run in on the left of the
+Plymouth. He put his own car in on the right of the station-wagon, made
+sure that the Leech & Rigdon was locked in his glove-box, and closed and
+locked the garage doors. Then he went up into the house, through the
+library, and by the spiral stairway to the gunroom.
+
+The garage had been open, he recalled, at the time of Lane Fleming's
+death. The availability of such an easy means of undetected ingress and
+egress threw the suspect field wide open. Anybody who knew the habits of
+the Fleming household could have slipped up to the gunroom, while Varcek
+was in his lab, Dunmore was in the bathroom, and Gladys and Geraldine
+were in the parlor. As he crossed the hall to his own room, Rand was
+thinking of how narrowly Arnold Rivers had escaped a disastrous lawsuit
+and criminal action by the death of Lane Fleming.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 10
+
+
+When Rand came down to breakfast the next morning, he found Gladys,
+Nelda, and a man whom he decided, by elimination, must be Anton Varcek,
+already at the table. The latter rose as Rand entered, and bowed jerkily
+as Gladys verified the guess with an introduction.
+
+He was about Rand's own age and height; he had a smooth-shaven,
+tight-mouthed face, adorned with bushy eyebrows, each of which was almost
+as heavy as Rand's mustache. It was a face that seemed tantalizingly
+familiar, and Rand puzzled for a moment, then nodded mentally. Of course
+he had seen a face like that hundreds of times, in newsreels and
+news-photos, and, once in pre-war Berlin, its living double. Rudolf Hess.
+He wondered how much deeper the resemblance went, and tried not to let it
+prejudice him.
+
+Nelda greeted him with a trowelful of sweetness and a dash of
+bedroom-bait. Gladys waved him to a vacant seat at her right and summoned
+the maid who had been serving breakfast. After Rand had indicated his
+preference of fruit and found out what else there was to eat, he inquired
+where the others were.
+
+"Oh, Fred's still dressing; he'll be down in a minute," Nelda told him.
+"And Geraldine won't; she never eats with her breakfast."
+
+Varcek winced slightly at this, and shifted the subject by inquiring if
+Rand were a professional antiques-expert.
+
+"No, I'm a lily-pure amateur," Rand told him. "Or was until I took this
+job. I have a collection of my own, and I'm supposed to be something of
+an authority. My business is operating a private detective agency."
+
+"But you are here only as an arms-expert?" Varcek inquired. "You are not
+making any sort of detective investigation?"
+
+"That's right," Rand assured him. "This is practically a paid vacation,
+for me. First time I ever handled anything like this; it's a real
+pleasure to be working at something I really enjoy, for a change."
+
+Varcek nodded. "Yes, I can understand that. My own work, for instance. I
+would continue with my research even if I were independently wealthy and
+any sort of work were unnecessary."
+
+"Tell Colonel Rand what you're working on now," Nelda urged.
+
+Varcek gave a small mirthless laugh. "Oh, Colonel Rand would be no more
+interested than I would be in his pistols," he objected, then turned to
+Rand. "It is a series of experiments having to do with the chemical
+nature of life," he said. Another perfunctory chuckle. "No, I am not
+trying to re-create Frankenstein's monster. The fact is, I am working
+with fruit flies."
+
+"Something about heredity?" Rand wanted to know.
+
+Varcek laughed again, with more amusement. "So! One says: 'Fruit flies,'
+and immediately another thinks: 'Heredity.' It is practically a standard
+response. Only, in this case, I am investigating the effect of diet
+changes. I use fruit flies because of their extreme adaptability. If
+I find that I am on the right track, I shall work with mice, next."
+
+"Fred Dunmore mentioned a packaged diabetic ration you'd developed," Rand
+mentioned.
+
+"Oh, yes." Varcek shrugged. "Yes. Something like an Army field-ration,
+for diabetics to carry when traveling, or wherever proper food may be
+unobtainable. That is for the company; soon we put it on the market, and
+make lots of money. But this other, that is my own private work."
+
+Dunmore had come in while Varcek was speaking and had seated himself
+beside his wife.
+
+"Don't let him kid you, Colonel," he said. "Anton's just as keen
+about that dollar as the rest of us. I don't know what he's cooking
+up, up there in the attic, but I'll give ten-to-one we'll be selling
+it in twenty-five-cent packages inside a year, and selling plenty of
+them.... Oh, and speaking about that dollar; how did you make out with
+Gresham and his friends?"
+
+"I didn't. They'd expected to pay about twenty thousand for the
+collection; Rivers's offer has them stopped. And even if they could go
+over twenty-five, I think Rivers would raise them. He's afraid to let
+them get the collection; Pierre Jarrett and Karen Lawrence intended
+using their share of it to go into the old-arms business, in competition
+with him."
+
+"Uh-huh, that's smart," Dunmore approved. "It's always better to take a
+small loss stopping competition than to let it get too big for you. You
+save a damn-sight bigger loss later."
+
+"How soon do you think the pistols will be sold?" Gladys asked.
+
+"Oh, in about a month, at the outside," Rand said, continuing to explain
+what had to be done first.
+
+"Well, I'm glad of that," Varcek commented. "I never liked those things,
+and after what happened ... The sooner they can be sold, the better."
+
+Breakfast finally ended, and Varcek and Dunmore left for the Premix
+plant. Rand debated for a moment the wisdom of speaking to Gladys about
+the missing pistols, then decided to wait until his suspicions were
+better verified. After a few minutes in the gunroom, going over Lane
+Fleming's arms-books on the shelf over the workbench without finding any
+trace of the book in which he had catalogued his collection, he got his
+hat and coat, went down to the garage, and took out his car.
+
+It had stopped raining for the time being; the dingy sky showed broken
+spots like bits of bluing on a badly-rusted piece of steel. As he got out
+of his car in front of Arnold Rivers's red-brick house, he was wondering
+just how he was going to go about what he wanted to do. After all ...
+
+The door of the shop was unlocked, and opened with a slow clanging of the
+door-chime, but the interior was dark. All the shades had been pulled,
+and the lights were out. For a moment Rand stood in the doorway,
+adjusting his eyes to the darkness within and wondering where everybody
+was.
+
+Then, in the path of light that fell inward from the open door, he saw
+two feet in tan shoes, toes up, at the end of tweed-trousered legs, on
+the floor. An instant later he stepped inside, pulled the door shut after
+him, and was using his pen-light to find the electric switch.
+
+For a second or so after he snapped it nothing happened, and then the
+darkness was broken by the flickering of fluorescent tubes. When they
+finally lit, he saw the shape on the floor, arms outflung, the inverted
+rifle above it. For a seemingly long time he stood and stared at the
+grotesquely transfixed body of Arnold Rivers.
+
+The dead man lay on his back, not three feet beyond the radius of the
+door, in a pool of blood that was almost dried and gave the room a
+sickly-sweet butchershop odor. Under the back of Rand's hand, Rivers's
+cheek was cold; his muscles had already begun to stiffen in _rigor
+mortis_. Rand examined the dead man's wounds. His coat was stained with
+blood and gashed in several places; driven into his chest by a downward
+blow, the bayonet of a short German service Mauser pinned him to the
+floor like a specimen on a naturalist's card. Beside the one in which
+the weapon remained, there were three stab-wounds in the chest, and the
+lower part of the face was disfigured by what looked like a butt-blow.
+Bending over, Rand could see the imprint of the Mauser butt-plate on
+Rivers's jaw; on the butt-plate itself were traces of blood.
+
+The rifle, a regulation German infantry weapon, the long-familiar _Gewehr
+'98_ in its most recent modification, was a Nazi product, bearing the
+eagle and encircled swastika of the Third Reich and the code-letters
+_lza_--the symbol of the Mauserwerke A.G. plant at Karlsruhe. It had
+doubtless been sold to Rivers by some returned soldier. In a rack beside
+the door were a number of other bolt-action military rifles--a Krag, a
+couple of Arisakas, a long German infantry rifle of the first World War,
+a Greek Mannlicher, a Mexican Mauser, a British short model Lee-Enfield.
+All had fixed bayonets; between the Lee-Enfield and one of the Arisakas
+there was a vacancy.
+
+Rivers's carved ivory cigarette-holder was lying beside the body, crushed
+at the end as though it had been stepped on. A half-smoked cigarette had
+been in it; it, too, was crushed. There was no evidence of any great
+struggle, however; the attack which had ended the arms-dealer's life must
+have come as a complete surprise. He had probably been holding the
+cigarette-holder in his hand when the butt-blow had been delivered, and
+had dropped it and flung up his arms instinctively. Thereupon, his
+assailant had reversed his weapon and driven the bayonet into his chest.
+The first blow, no doubt, had been fatal--it could have been any of the
+three stabs in the chest--but the killer had given him two more, probably
+while he was on the floor. Then, grasping the rifle in both hands, he had
+stood over his victim and pinned the body to the floor. That last blow
+could have only been inspired by pure anger and hatred.
+
+Yet, apparently, Rivers had been unaware of his visitor's murderous
+intentions, even while the rifle was being taken from the rack. Rand
+strolled back through the shop, looking about. Someone had been here with
+Rivers for some time; the dealer and another man had sat by the fire,
+drinking and smoking. On the low table was a fifth of Haig & Haig, a
+siphon, two glasses, a glass bowl containing water that had evidently
+melted from ice-cubes, and an ashtray. In the ashtray were a number of
+River's cigarette butts, all holder-crimped, and a quantity of ash, some
+of it cigar-ash. There was no cigar-butt, and no band or cellophane
+wrapper.
+
+The fire on the hearth had burned out and the ashes were cold. They were
+not all wood-ashes; a considerable amount of paper--no, cardboard--had
+been burned there also. Poking gently with the point of a sword he took
+from a rack, Rand discovered that what had been burned had been a number
+of cards, about six inches by four, one of which had, somehow, managed to
+escape the flames with nothing more than a charred edge. Improvising
+tweezers from a pipe-cleaner, he picked this up and looked at it. It had
+been typewritten:
+
+4850:
+
+English Screw-Barrel F/L Pocket Pistol. _Queen Anne type, side
+hammer with pan attached to barrel, steel barrel and frame. Marked:
+Wilson, Minories, London. Silver masque butt-cap, hallmarked for 1723.
+4-1/2" barrel; 9-1/4" O.A.; cal. abt .44. Taken in trade, 3/21/'38, from
+V. Sparling, for Kentuck #2538, along with 4851, 4852, 4853. App. cost,
+RLss; Replacement, do. NLss, OSss, LSss._
+
+To this had been added, in pen:
+
+_Sold, R. Kingsley, St. Louis, Mo., Mail order, 12/20/'42, OSss._
+
+Rand laid the card on the cocktail-table, along with the drinking
+equipment. At least, he knew what had gone into the fire: Arnold Rivers's
+card-index purchase and sales record. He doubted very strongly if that
+would have been burned while its owner was still alive. Going over to the
+desk, he checked; the drawer from which he had seen Cecil Gillis get the
+card for the Leech & Rigdon had been cleaned out.
+
+Picking up the phone in an awkward, unnatural manner, he used a pencil
+from his pocket to dial a number with which he was familiar, a number
+that meant the same thing on any telephone exchange in the state.
+
+"State Police, Corporal Kavaalen," a voice singsonged out of the
+receiver.
+
+"My name is Rand," he identified himself. "I am calling from Arnold
+Rivers's antique-arms shop on Route 19, about a mile and a half east of
+Rosemont. I am reporting a homicide."
+
+"Yeah, go ahead--Hey! Did you say homicide?" the other voice asked
+sharply. "Who?"
+
+"Rivers himself. I called at his shop a few minutes ago, found the front
+door open, and walked in. I found Rivers lying dead on the floor, just
+inside the door. He had been killed with a Mauser rifle--not shot;
+clubbed with the butt, and bayoneted. The body is cold, beginning to
+stiffen; a pool of blood on the floor is almost completely dried."
+
+"That's a good report, mister," the corporal approved. "You stick around;
+we'll be right along. You haven't touched anything, have you?"
+
+"Not around the body. How long will it take you to get here?"
+
+"About ten minutes. I'll tell Sergeant McKenna right away."
+
+Rand hung up and glanced at his watch. Ten twenty-two; he gave himself
+seven minutes and went around the room rapidly, looking only at pistols.
+He saw nothing that might have come from the Fleming collection. Finally,
+he opened the front door, just as a white State Police car was pulling up
+at the end of the walk.
+
+Sergeant Ignatius Loyola McKenna--customarily known and addressed as
+Mick--piled out almost before it had stopped. The driver, a stocky,
+blue-eyed Finn with a corporal's chevrons, followed him, and two privates
+got out from behind, dragging after them a box about the size and shape
+of an Army footlocker. McKenna was halfway up the drive before he
+recognized Rand. Then he stopped short.
+
+"Well, Jaysus-me-beads!" He turned suddenly to the corporal. "My God,
+Aarvo; you said his name was Grant!"
+
+"That's what I thought he said." Rand recognized the singsong accent he
+had heard on the phone. "You know him?"
+
+"Know him?" McKenna stepped aside quickly, to avoid being overrun by the
+two privates with the equipment-box. He sighed resignedly. "Aarvo, this
+is the notorious Jefferson Davis Rand. Tri-State Agency, in New Belfast."
+He gestured toward the Finn. "Corporal Aarvo Kavaalen," he introduced.
+"And Privates Skinner and Jameson.... Well, where is it?"
+
+"Right inside." Rand stepped backward, gesturing them in. "Careful; it's
+just inside the doorway."
+
+McKenna and the corporal entered; the two privates set down their box
+outside and followed. They all drew up in a semicircle around the late
+Arnold Rivers and looked at him critically.
+
+"Jesus!" Kavaalen pronounced the _J_-sound as though it were _Zh_; he
+gave all his syllables an equally-accented intonation. "Say, somebody
+gave him a good job!"
+
+"Somebody's been seeing too many war-movies." McKenna got a cigarette out
+of his tunic pocket and lit it in Rand's pipe-bowl. "Want to confess now,
+or do you insist on a third degree with all the trimmings?"
+
+Kavaalen looked wide-eyed at Rand, then at McKenna, and then back at
+Rand. Rand laughed.
+
+"Now, Mick!" he reproved. "You know I never kill anybody unless I have
+a clear case of self-defense, and a flock of witnesses to back it up."
+
+McKenna nodded and reassured his corporal. "That's right, Aarvo; when
+Jeff Rand kills anybody, it's always self-defense. And he doesn't
+generally make messes like this." He gave the body a brief scrutiny, then
+turned to Rand. "You looked around, of course; what do you make of it?"
+
+"Last night, sometime," Rand reconstructed, "Rivers had a visitor. A man,
+who smoked cigars. He and Rivers were on friendly, or at least sociable,
+terms. They sat back there by the fire for some time, smoking and
+drinking. The shades were all drawn. I don't know whether that was
+standard procedure, or because this conference was something clandestine.
+Finally, Rivers's visitor got up to leave.
+
+"Now, of course, he could have left, and somebody else could have come
+here later, been admitted, and killed Rivers. That's a possibility," Rand
+said, "but it's also an assumption without anything to support it. I
+rather like the idea that the man who sat back there drinking and smoking
+with Rivers was the killer. If so, Rivers must have gone with him to the
+door and was about to open it when this fellow picked up that rifle,
+probably from that rack, over there, and clipped him on the jaw with
+the butt. Then he gave him the point three times, the second and third
+probably while Rivers was down. Then he swung it up and slammed down with
+it, and left it sticking through Rivers and in the floor."
+
+McKenna nodded. "Lights on when you got here?" he asked.
+
+"No; I put them on when I came in. The killer must have turned them off
+when he left, but the deadlatch on the door wasn't set, and he doesn't
+seem to have bothered checking on that."
+
+"Think he left right after he killed Rivers?"
+
+Rand shook his head. "No, that was just the first part of it. After he'd
+finished Rivers, he went back to that desk and got all the cards Rivers
+used to record his transactions on--an individual card for every item. He
+destroyed the lot of them, or at least most of them, in the fireplace.
+Now, I'm only guessing, here, but I think he took out a card or cards in
+which he had some interest, and then dumped the rest in the fire to
+prevent anybody from being able to determine which ones he was interested
+in. I am further guessing that the cards which the killer wanted to
+suppress were in the 'sold' file. But I am not guessing about the
+destruction of the record-file; I found the fireplace full of ashes,
+found one card that had escaped unburned--you can be sure that one
+wasn't important--and found the drawer where the record-system was kept
+empty."
+
+"Think he might have stolen something, and covered up by burning the
+cards?" McKenna asked.
+
+Rand shook his head again. "I was here yesterday; bought a pistol from
+Rivers. That's how I noticed this card-index system. Of course, I didn't
+look at everything, while I was here, but I can't see where any quantity
+of arms have been removed, and Rivers didn't have any single item that
+was worth a murder. Fact is, no old firearm is. There are only a very few
+old arms that are worth over a thousand dollars, and most of them are
+well-known, unique specimens that would be unsaleable because every
+collector would know where it came from."
+
+"We can check possible thefts with Rivers's clerk, when he gets here,"
+McKenna said. "Now, suppose you show me these things you found, back at
+the rear ... Aarvo, you and the boys start taking pictures," he told
+the corporal, then he followed Rand back through the shop.
+
+He tested the temperature of the water in the ice-bowl with his finger.
+He looked at the ashtray, and bent over and sniffed at each of the two
+glasses.
+
+"I see one of them's been emptied out," he commented. "Want to bet it
+hasn't been wiped clean, too?"
+
+"Huh-unh." Rand smiled slightly. "Even the tiny tots wipe off the
+cookie-jar, after they've raided it," he said.
+
+A flash-bulb lit the front of the shop briefly. Corporal Kavaalen said
+something to the others. McKenna picked up the card Rand had found by the
+edges and looked at it.
+
+"What in hell's this all about, Jeff?" he asked.
+
+"Rivers made it out for one of his pistols. An English flintlock
+pocket-pistol; I can show you one almost like it, up front. He'd gotten
+it and three others, back in 1938, in trade for a Kentucky rifle. The
+numbers are reference-numbers; the letters are Rivers's private
+price-code. Those three at the end are, respectively, what he absolutely
+had to get for it, what he thought was a reasonable price, and the most
+he thought the traffic would stand. He sold it in 1942 for his middle
+price."
+
+There was another flash by the door, then Kavaalen called out:
+
+"Hey, Mick; we got two of the stiffs, now. All right if we pull out the
+bayonet for a close-up of his chest?"
+
+"Sure. Better chalkline it, first; you'll move things jerking that
+bayonet out." He turned back to Rand. "You think, then, that maybe some
+card in that file would have gotten somebody in trouble, and he had to
+croak Rivers to get it, and then burned the rest of the cards for a
+cover-up?"
+
+"That's the way it looks to me," Rand agreed. "Just because I can't think
+of any other possibility, though, doesn't mean that there aren't any
+others."
+
+"Hey! You think he might have been selling modern arms to criminals,
+without reporting the sale?" McKenna asked.
+
+"I wouldn't put it past him," Rand considered. "There was very little
+that I would put past that fellow. But I wouldn't think he'd be stupid
+enough to carry a record of such sales in his own file, though."
+
+McKenna rubbed the butt of his .38 reflectively; that seemed to be his
+substitute for head-scratching, as an aid to cerebration.
+
+"You said you were here yesterday, and bought a pistol," he began. "All
+right; I know about that collection of yours. But why were you back here
+bright and early this morning? You working on Rivers for somebody? If so,
+give."
+
+Rand told him what he was working on. "Rivers wants to buy the Fleming
+collection. That was the reason I saw him yesterday. But the reason I
+came here, this morning, is that I find that somebody has stolen about
+two dozen of the best pistols out of the collection since Fleming's
+death, and tried to cover up by replacing them with some junk that Lane
+Fleming wouldn't have allowed inside his house. For my money, it's the
+butler. Now that Fleming's dead, he's the only one in the house who knows
+enough about arms to know what was worth stealing. He has constant access
+to the gunroom. I caught him in a lie about a book Fleming kept a record
+of his collection in, and now the book has vanished. And furthermore, and
+most important, if he'd been on the level, he would have spotted what was
+going on, long ago, and squawked about it."
+
+"That's a damn good circumstantial case, Jeff," McKenna nodded. "Nothing
+you could take to a jury, of course, but mighty good grounds for
+suspicion.... You think Rivers could have been the fence?"
+
+"He could have been. Whoever was higrading the collection had to have an
+outlet for his stuff, and he had to have a source of supply for the junk
+he was infiltrating into the collection as replacements. A crooked dealer
+is the answer to both, and Arnold Rivers was definitely crooked."
+
+"You know that?" McKenna inquired. "For sure?"
+
+Another flash lit the front of the shop. Rand nodded.
+
+"For damn good and sure. I can show you half a dozen firearms in this
+shop that have been altered to increase their value. I don't mean
+legitimate restorations; I mean fraudulent alterations." He went on to
+tell McKenna about Rivers's expulsion from membership in the National
+Rifle Association. "And I know that he sold a pair of pistols to Lane
+Fleming, about a week before Fleming was killed, that were outright
+fakes. Fleming was going to sue the ears off Rivers about that; the fact
+is, until this morning, I'd been wondering if that mightn't have been
+why Fleming had that sour-looking accident. If he'd lived, he'd have run
+Rivers out of business."
+
+"Hell, I didn't know that!" McKenna seemed worried. "Fleming used to
+target-shoot with our gang, and he knew too much about gats to pull a
+Russ Columbo on himself. I didn't like that accident, at the time, but I
+figured he'd pulled the Dutch, and the family were making out it was an
+accident. We never were called in; the whole thing was handled through
+the coroner's office. You really think Fleming could have been bumped?"
+
+"Yes. I think he could have been bumped," Rand understated. "I haven't
+found any positive proof, but--" He told McKenna about his purchase, from
+Rivers, of the revolver that had been later identified as the one brought
+home by Fleming on the day of his death. "I still don't know how Rivers
+got hold of it," he continued. "Until I walked in here not half an hour
+ago and found Rivers dead on the floor, I'd had a suspicion that Rivers
+might have sneaked into the Fleming house, shot Fleming with another
+revolver, left it in Fleming's hand and carried away the one Fleming had
+been working on. The motive, of course, would have been to stop a lawsuit
+that would have put Rivers out of business and, not inconceivably, in
+jail. But now ..." He looked toward the front of the shop, where another
+photo-flash glared for an instant. "And don't suggest that Rivers got
+conscience-stricken and killed himself. Aside from the technical
+difficulties of pinning himself to the floor after he was dead, that
+explanation's out. Rivers had no conscience to be stricken with."
+
+"Well, let's skip Fleming, for a minute," McKenna suggested. "You think
+this butler, at the Fleming place, was robbing the collection. And you
+say he could've sold the stuff he stole to Rivers. Well, when the family
+gets you in to work on the collection, Jeeves, or whatever his name is,
+realizes that you're going to spot what's been going on, and will
+probably suspect him. He knows you're no ordinary arms-expert; you're an
+agency dick. So he gets scared. If you catch up with Rivers, Rivers'll
+talk. So he comes over here, last night, and kills Rivers off before you
+can get to him. And while Rivers may not keep a record of the stuff he
+got from Jeeves, or whatever his name is--"
+
+"Walters," Rand supplied.
+
+"Walters, then. While he may not keep a record of what he bought from
+Walters, the chances are he does keep a record of the stuff Walters got
+from him, to use for replacements, so the card-file goes into the fire.
+How's that?"
+
+The flare of another flash-bulb made distorted shadows dance over the
+walls.
+
+"That would hang together, now," Rand agreed. "Of course, I haven't found
+anything here, except the revolver I bought yesterday, that came from the
+Fleming place, but I'll add this: As soon as Rivers found out I was
+working for the Fleming family, he tried to get that revolver back from
+me. Offered me seventy-five dollars' worth of credit on anything else in
+the shop if I'd give it back to him, not twenty minutes after I'd paid
+him sixty for it."
+
+"See!" McKenna pounced. "Look; suppose you had a lot of hot stuff, in a
+place like this. You might take a chance on selling something that had
+gotten mixed in with your legitimate stuff, but would you want to sell
+it right back to where it had been stolen from?"
+
+"No, I wouldn't. And if I were a butler who'd been robbing a valuable
+collection, and an agency man moved in and started poking around, I might
+get in a panic and do something extreme. That all hangs together, too."
+
+While Rand was talking to McKenna, Private Jameson wandered back through
+the shop.
+
+"Hey, Sarge, is there any way into the house from here?" he asked. "The
+outside doors are all locked, and I can't raise anybody."
+
+Rand pointed out the flight of steps beside the fireplace. "I saw Rivers
+come out of the house that way, yesterday," he said.
+
+The State Policeman went up the steps and tried the door; it opened, and
+he went through.
+
+"Chances are Mrs. Rivers is away," McKenna said. "She's away a lot. They
+have a colored girl who comes in by the day, but she doesn't generally
+get here before noon. And the clerk doesn't get here till about the same
+time."
+
+"You seem to know a lot about this household," Rand said.
+
+"Yeah. We have this place marked up as a bad burglary- and stick-up
+hazard; we keep an eye on it. Rivers has all these guns, he does a big
+cash business, he always has a couple of hundred to a thousand on
+him--it's a wonder somebody hasn't made a try at this place long
+ago.... Tell you what, Jeff; say you check up on this butler at the
+Fleming place for us, and we'll check up here and see if we can find any
+of the stuff that was stolen. We can get together and compare notes.
+Maybe one or another of us may run across something about that accident
+of Fleming's, too."
+
+"Suits me. I'll be glad to help you, and I'll be glad for any help you
+can give me on recovering those pistols. I haven't made any formal report
+on that, yet, because I'm not sure exactly what's missing, and I don't
+want any of that kind of publicity while I'm trying to sell the
+collection. It may be that the two matters are related; there are some
+points of similarity, which may or may not mean anything. And, of course,
+I just may find somebody who'll make it worth my time to get interested
+in this killing, while I'm at it."
+
+McKenna chuckled. "That must hurt hell out of you, Jeff," he said. "A
+nice classy murder like this, and nobody to pay you to work on it."
+
+"It does," Rand admitted. "I feel like an undertaker watching a man being
+swallowed by a shark."
+
+"You want to stick around till this clerk of Rivers's gets here?" McKenna
+asked. "He should be here in about an hour and a half."
+
+"No. I'd just as soon not be seen taking too much of an interest in this
+right now. Fact is, I'd just as soon not have my name mentioned at all in
+connection with this. You can charge the discovery of the body up to our
+old friend, Anonymous Tip, can't you?"
+
+"Sure." McKenna accompanied Rand to the front door, past the white
+chalked outline that marked the original position of the body. The body
+itself, with ink-blackened fingertips, lay to one side, out of the way.
+Corporal Kavaalen was going through the dead man's pockets, and Skinner
+was working on the rifle with an insufflator.
+
+"Well, we can't say it was robbery, anyhow," Kavaalen said. "He had eight
+C's in his billfold."
+
+"Migawd, Sarge, is this damn rifle ever lousy with prints," Skinner
+complained. "A lot of Rivers's, and everybody else's who's been fooling
+with it around here, and half the _Wehrmacht_."
+
+"Swell, swell!" McKenna enthused. "Maybe we can pass the case off on the
+War Crimes Commission."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 11
+
+
+Mick McKenna had put his finger right on the sore spot. It did hurt
+Rand like hell; a nice, sensational murder and no money in it for the
+Tri-State Agency. Obviously, somebody would have to be persuaded to
+finance an investigation. Preferably some innocent victim of unjust
+suspicion; somebody who could best clear himself by unmasking the real
+villain.... For "villain," Rand mentally substituted "public benefactor."
+
+He was running over a list of possible suspects as he entered Rosemont.
+Passing the little antique shop he slowed, backed, read the name "Karen
+Lawrence" on the window, and then pulled over to the curb and got out.
+Crossing the sidewalk, he went up the steps to the door, entering to the
+jangling of a spring-mounted cowbell.
+
+The girl dealer was inside, with a visitor, a sallow-faced,
+untidy-looking man of indeterminate age who was opening
+newspaper-wrapped packages on a table-top. Karen greeted Rand by name and
+military rank; Rand told her he'd just look around till she was through.
+She tossed him a look of comic reproach, as though she had counted on him
+to rid her of the man with the packages.
+
+"Now, just you look at this-here, Miss Lawrence," the man was enthusing,
+undoing another package. "Here's something I know you'll want; I think
+this-here is real quaint! Just look, now!" He displayed some long,
+narrow, dark object, holding it out to her. "Ain't this-here an
+interestin' item, now, Miss Lawrence?"
+
+"_Ooooooh!_ What in heaven's name is that thing?" she demanded.
+
+"That-there's a sword. A real African native sword. Look at that
+scabbard, now; made out of real crocodile-skin. A whole young crocodile,
+head, feet, an' all. I tell you, Miss Lawrence, that-there item is
+unique!"
+
+"It's revolting! It's the most repulsive object that's ever been brought
+into this shop, which is saying quite a lot. Colonel Rand! If you don't
+have a hangover this morning, will you please come here and look at this
+thing?"
+
+Rand laid down the Merril carbine he had been examining and walked over
+beside Karen. The man--whom Rand judged to be some rural free-lance
+antique-prospector--extended the object of the girl's repugnance. It was
+an African sword, all right, with a plain iron hilt and cross-guard. The
+design looked Berber, but the workmanship was low-grade, and probably
+attributable to some even more barbarous people. The scabbard was what
+was really surprising, if you liked that kind of surprises. It was an
+infant crocodile, rather indifferently smoke-cured; the sword simply went
+in between the creature's jaws and extended the length of the body and
+into the tail. Either end of a moldy-green leather thong had been
+fastened to the two front paws for a shoulder-baldric. When new, Rand
+thought, it must have given its wearer a really distinctive aroma, even
+for Africa. He drew the blade gingerly, looked at it, and sheathed it
+with caution.
+
+"East African; Danakil, or Somali, or something like that," he commented.
+"Be damn good and careful not to scratch yourself on that; if you do,
+you'll need about a gallon of anti-tetanus shots."
+
+"Y'think it might be poisoned?" the man with the dirty neck and the
+month-old haircut inquired eagerly. "See, Miss Lawrence? What I told you;
+a real African native sword. I got that-there from Hen Sourbaw, over at
+Feltonville; his uncle, the Reverend Sourbaw, that used to preach at
+Hemlock Gap Church, brung it from Africa, himself, about fifty years ago.
+He used to be a missionary, in his younger days.... I can make you an
+awful good price on that-there item, Miss Lawrence."
+
+"God forbid!" she exclaimed. "All my customers are heavy drinkers; I
+wouldn't want to answer for what might happen if some of them saw that
+thing, suddenly."
+
+"Oh, well.... How about that-there little amethyst bottle, then?"
+
+"Well ... I would give you seven dollars for that," she grudged.
+
+"Y'would? Well, it's yours, then. An' how about them-there salt-cellars,
+an' that-there knife-box?"
+
+Rand wandered back to examining firearms. Eventually, after buying the
+knife-box, Karen got rid of the man with the antiques. When he had gone,
+she found a pack of cigarettes, offered it to Rand and lit one for
+herself.
+
+"Well, now you see why girls leave home and start antique shops," she
+said. "Never a dull moment.... Wasn't that sword the awfullest thing you
+ever saw, though?"
+
+"Well, one of the ten awfullest," Rand conceded. "I just stopped in to
+give you some good news. You won't need to consider that offer of Arnold
+Rivers's, any more. He is no longer interested in the Fleming
+collection."
+
+"He isn't?" An eager, happy light danced up in her eyes. "You saw him
+again this morning? What did he say?"
+
+"He didn't say anything. He isn't talking any more, either. Fact is, he
+isn't even breathing any more."
+
+"He.... You mean he's dead?" She was surprised, even shocked. The shock
+was probably a concession to good taste, but the surprise looked genuine.
+"When did he die? It must have been very sudden; I saw him a few days
+ago, and he looked all right. Of course, he's been having trouble with
+his lungs, but--"
+
+"It was very sudden. Some time last night, some person or persons unknown
+gave him a butt-and-bayonet job with a German Mauser out of a rack in his
+shop. A most unpleasantly thorough job. I went to see him this morning,
+hoping to badger something out of him about those pistols that are
+missing from the Fleming collection, and found the body. I notified the
+State Police, and just came from there."
+
+"For God's sake!" The shock was genuine, too, now. "Have the police any
+idea--?"
+
+"Not the foggiest. If some of the Fleming pistols turn up at his place,
+I might think that had something to do with it. So far, though, they
+haven't. I gave the shop a once-over-lightly before the cops arrived, and
+couldn't find anything."
+
+She tried to take a puff from her cigarette and found that she had broken
+it in her fingers. She lit a new one from the mangled butt.
+
+"When did it happen?" She tried to make the question sound casual.
+
+"That I couldn't say, either. Around midnight, would be my guess. They
+might be able to fix a no-earlier time." An idea occurred to him, and he
+smiled.
+
+"But that's dreadful!" She really meant that. "It's a terrible thing to
+happen to anybody, being killed like that." She stopped just short of
+adding: "even Rivers." Instead, she continued: "But I can't say I'm
+really very sorry he's dead, Colonel."
+
+"Outside of maybe his wife, and the gunsmith who made his fake Walker
+Colts and North & Cheney flintlocks, who is?" he countered. "Oh, yes;
+Cecil Gillis. He's about due for induction into the Army of the
+Unemployed, unless Mrs. Rivers intends carrying on the business."
+
+Karen's eyes widened. "Cecil Gillis!" she exclaimed softly. "I wonder,
+now, if he has an alibi for last night!"
+
+"Think he might need one?" Rand asked. "Of course I only saw him once,
+but he didn't strike me as a possible candidate. I can't seem to see
+young Gillis doing a messy job like this was, or going to all that manual
+labor when he could have used something neat, like a pistol or a dagger."
+
+"Well, Cecil isn't quite the languishing flower he looks," Karen told
+him. "He does a lot of swimming, and he's one of the few people around
+here who can beat me at tennis. And he has a motive. Maybe two motives."
+
+"Such as?" Rand prompted.
+
+"Maybe you think Cecil is a--you know--one of those boys," she
+euphemized. "Well, he isn't. He takes a perfectly normal, and even
+slightly wolfish, interest in the female of his species. And while Arnold
+Rivers may have been a good provider from a financial standpoint, he
+wasn't quite up to his wife's requirements in another important respect.
+And Rivers was away a lot, on buying trips and so on, and when he was,
+nobody ever saw Cecil leave the Rivers place in the evenings. At least,
+that's the story; personally, I wouldn't know. Of course, where there's
+smoke, there may be nothing more than somebody with a stogie, but, then,
+there may be a regular conflagration."
+
+"That would be a perfectly satisfactory motive, under some
+circumstances," Rand admitted. "And the other?"
+
+"Cecil might have been doing funny things with the books, and Rivers
+might have caught him."
+
+"That would also be a good enough motive." It would also, Rand thought,
+furnish an explanation for the burning of Rivers's record-cards. "I'll
+mention it to Mick McKenna; he's hard up for a good usable suspect. And
+by the way, the news of this killing will be out before evening, but in
+the meantime I wish you wouldn't mention it to anybody, or mention that
+I was in here to tell you about it."
+
+"I won't. I'm glad you told me, though.... Do you think there may be a
+chance that we can get the collection, now?"
+
+"I wouldn't know why not. Rivers's offer was pretty high; there aren't
+many other dealers who would be able to duplicate it.... Well, don't take
+any Czechoslovakian Stiegel."
+
+He moved his car down the street to the Rosemont Inn, where he went into
+the combination bar and grill and had a Bourbon-and-water at the bar.
+Then he ordered lunch, and, while waiting for it, went into a phone-booth
+and dialed the number of Stephen Gresham's office in New Belfast.
+
+"I'd hoped to catch you before you left for lunch," he said, when the
+lawyer answered. "There's been a new development in the Fleming
+business." He had decided to follow the same line as with Karen Lawrence.
+"You needn't worry about Arnold Rivers's offer, any more."
+
+"Ha! So he backed out?"
+
+"He was shoved out," Rand corrected. "On the sharp end of a Mauser
+bayonet, sometime last night. I found the body this morning, when I went
+to see him, and notified the State Police. They call it murder, but of
+course, they're just prejudiced. I'd call it a nuisance-abatement
+project."
+
+"Look here, are you kidding?" Gresham demanded.
+
+"I never kid about Those Who Have Passed On," Rand denied piously. Then
+he recited the already hackneyed description of what had happened to
+Rivers, with careful attention to all the gruesome details. "So I called
+copper, directly. Sergeant McKenna's up a stump about it, and looking in
+all directions for a suspect."
+
+Gresham was silent for a moment, then swore softly.
+
+"My God, Jeff! This is going to raise all kinds of hell!" He was silent
+for a moment. "Look here, can you see me, at my home, about two thirty
+this afternoon? I want to talk to you about this."
+
+Rand smiled happily. This looked like what he had been angling for. Maybe
+Arnold Rivers hadn't died in vain, after all.
+
+"Why, yes; I can make it," he replied.
+
+"Good. See you there, then."
+
+Rand assured him that he would be on hand. When he returned to his table,
+he found his lunch waiting for him. He sat down and ate with a good
+appetite. After finishing, he had another drink, and sat sipping it
+slowly and smoking his pipe; going over the story Gladys Fleming had told
+him, and the gossip he had gotten from Carter Tipton, and the other
+statements which had been made to him by different people about the death
+of Lane Fleming, and the conclusions he had reached about the theft of
+the pistols, and the killing of Arnold Rivers; sorting out the inferences
+from the descriptions, and the descriptive statements of others from the
+things he himself had observed. When his glass was empty and his pipe
+burned out, he left a tip beside the ashtray, paid his check and went
+out.
+
+He had two hours until his meeting with Stephen Gresham; he knew exactly
+where to spend them. The county seat was a normal twenty minutes' drive
+from Rosemont, but with the road relatively free from traffic he was able
+to cut that to fifteen. Parking his car in front of the courthouse, he
+went inside.
+
+The coroner, one Jason Kirchner, was an inoffensive-looking little fellow
+with a Caspar Milquetoast mustache and an underslung jaw. He wore an Elks
+watchcharm, an Odd Fellows ring, and a Knights of Pythias lapel-pin. He
+looked at Rand's credentials, including the letter Humphrey Goode had
+given him, with some bewilderment.
+
+"You're working for Mr. Goode?" he asked, rather needlessly. "Yes, I see;
+handling the sale of Mr. Fleming's pistols, for the estate. Yes. That
+must be interesting work, Mr. Rand. Now, what can I do for you?"
+
+"Why, I understand you have an item from that collection, here in your
+office," Rand said. "The pistol with which Mr. Fleming shot himself.
+Regardless of its unpleasant associations, that pistol is a valuable
+collector's item, and one of the assets of the estate. If I'm to get full
+value for the collection, for the heirs, I'll have to have that, to sell
+with the rest of the weapons."
+
+"Well, now, look here, Mr. Rand," Kirchner started to argue, "that
+revolver's a dangerous weapon. It's killed one man, already. I don't know
+as I ought to let it get out, where it might kill somebody else."
+
+Rand estimated that this situation called for a modified version of his
+hard-boiled act.
+
+"You think you can show cause why that revolver shouldn't be turned
+over to the Fleming estate?" he demanded. "Well, if I don't get it,
+right away, Mr. Goode will get a court order for it. You had no right
+to impound that revolver, in the first place; you removed it from the
+Fleming home illegally in the second place, since you had no intention
+of holding any formal inquest, and you're holding it illegally now. A
+court order might not be all we could get, either," he added menacingly.
+"Now, if you have any reason to suspect that Mr. Fleming committed
+suicide ... or was murdered, for instance ..."
+
+"Oh, my heavens, no!" Kirchner cried, horrified. "It was an accident,
+pure and simple; I so certified it. Death by accident, due to
+inadvertence of the deceased."
+
+"Well, then," Rand said, "you have no right to hold that revolver, and
+I want it, right now. As Mr. Goode's agent, I'm responsible for that
+collection, of which the revolver you're holding is a part. That revolver
+is too valuable an asset to ignore. You certainly realize that."
+
+"Well, I don't have any intention of exceeding my authority, of course,"
+Kirchner disclaimed hastily. "And I certainly wouldn't want to go against
+Mr. Goode's wishes." Humphrey Goode must pull considerable weight around
+the courthouse, Rand surmised. "But you realize, that revolver's still
+loaded...."
+
+"Oh, that's not your worry. I'll draw the charges, or, better, fire them
+out. It stood one shot, it can stand the other five."
+
+"Well, would you mind if I called Mr. Goode on the phone?"
+
+Rand did, decidedly. However, he shook his head negligently.
+
+"Certainly not; go ahead and call him, by all means."
+
+The coroner went away. In a few minutes he was back, carrying a
+revolver in both hands. Evidently Goode had given him the green light.
+He approached, handling the weapon with a caution that would have been
+excessive for a Mills grenade; after warning Rand again that it was
+loaded, he laid it gently on his desk.
+
+It was a .36 Colt, one of the 1860 series, with the round barrel and the
+so-called "creeping" ramming-lever. Somebody had wound a piece of wire
+around it, back of the hammer and through the loading-aperture in front
+of the cylinder; as the hammer was down on a fired chamber, there was no
+way in God's world, short of throwing the thing into a furnace, in which
+it could be discharged, but Kirchner was shrinking away from it as though
+it might jump at his throat.
+
+"I put the wire on," the coroner said. "I thought it might be safer that
+way."
+
+"It'll be a lot safer after I've emptied it into the first claybank,
+outside town," Rand told him. "Sorry I had to be a little short with you,
+Mr. Kirchner, but you know how it is. I'm responsible to Mr. Goode for
+the collection, and this gun's part of it."
+
+"Oh, that's all right; I really shouldn't have taken the attitude I did,"
+Kirchner met him halfway. "After I talked to Mr. Goode, of course, I knew
+it was all right, but ... You see, I've been bothered a lot about that
+pistol, lately."
+
+"Yes?" Rand succeeded in being negligent about it.
+
+"Oh my, yes! The newspaper people wanted to take pictures of me holding
+it, and then, there was an antique-dealer who was here trying to buy it."
+
+"Who was that--Arnold Rivers?"
+
+"Why yes! Do you know him? He has an antique-shop on the other side of
+Rosemont; he doesn't sell anything but guns and swords and that sort of
+thing," Kirchner said. "He was here, making inquiries about it, and my
+clerk showed it to him, and then he started making offers for it--first
+ten dollars, and then fifteen, and then twenty; he got up as high as
+sixty dollars. I suppose it's worth a couple of hundred."
+
+It was probably worth about thirty-five. Rand was intrigued by this
+second instance of an un-Rivers-like willingness to spare no expense to
+get possession of a .36-caliber percussion revolver.
+
+"Did he have it in his hands?" he asked.
+
+"Oh, yes; he looked it over carefully. I suppose he thought he could get
+a lot of money for it, because of the accident, and Mr. Fleming being
+such a prominent man," Kirchner suggested.
+
+Rand allowed himself to be struck by an idea.
+
+"Say, you know, that _would_ make it worth more, at that!" he exclaimed.
+"What do you know! I never thought of that.... Look, Mr. Kirchner; I'm
+supposed to get as much money for these pistols, for the heirs, as I can.
+How would you like to give me a letter, vouching for this as the pistol
+Mr. Fleming killed himself with? Put in how you found it in his hand, and
+mention the serial numbers, so that whoever buys it will know it's the
+same revolver." He picked up the Colt and showed Kirchner the serials, on
+the butt, and in front of the trigger-guard. "See, here it is: 2444."
+
+Kirchner would be more than willing to oblige Mr. Goode's agent; he typed
+out the letter himself, looked twice at the revolver to make sure of the
+number, took Rand's word for the make, model, and caliber, signed it, and
+even slammed his seal down on it. Rand thanked him profusely, put the
+letter in his pocket, and stuck the Colt down his pants-leg.
+
+About two miles from the county seat Rand stopped his car on a deserted
+stretch of road and got out. Unwinding the wire Kirchner had wrapped
+around the revolver, he picked up an empty beer-can from the ditch,
+set it against an embankment, stepped back about thirty feet and began
+firing. The first shot kicked up dirt a little over the can--Rand never
+could be sure just how high any percussion Colt was sighted--and the
+other four hit the can. He carried the revolver back to the car and put
+it into the glove-box with the Leech & Rigdon.
+
+After starting the car, he snapped on the radio, in time for the two
+fifteen news-broadcast from the New Belfast station. As he had expected,
+the murder was out; the daily budget of strikes and Congressional
+investigations and international turmoil was enlivened by a more or less
+imaginative account of what had already been christened the "Rosemont
+Bayonet Murder." Rand resigned himself to the inevitable influx of
+reporters. Then he swore, as the newscaster continued:
+
+"District Attorney Charles P. Farnsworth, of Scott County, who has taken
+charge of the investigation, says, and we quote: 'There is strong
+evidence implicating certain prominent persons, whom we are not, as yet,
+prepared to name, and if the investigation, now under way and making
+excellent progress, justifies, they will be apprehended and formally
+charged. No effort will be spared, and no consideration of personal
+prominence will be allowed to deter us from clearing up this dastardly
+crime....'"
+
+Rand swore again, with weary bitterness, wondering how much trouble he
+was going to have with District Attorney Charles P. Farnsworth, as he
+pulled to a stop in Stephen Gresham's driveway.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 12
+
+
+Gresham must have been waiting inside the door; as soon as Rand came up
+onto the porch, he opened it, and motioned the detective inside. Beyond a
+hasty greeting as Rand passed the threshold, he did not speak until they
+were seated in the gunroom upstairs. Then he came straight to the point.
+
+"Jeff, can you spare the time from this work you're doing at the
+Flemings' to investigate this Rivers business?" he asked. "And how much
+would an investigation cost me? It's got to be a blitz job. I'm not
+interested in getting anybody convicted in court; I just want the case
+cleared up in a hurry."
+
+"Well--" Rand puffed at the cigar Gresham had given him, watching the ash
+form on the end. "I don't work by the day, Stephen. I take a lump-sum
+fee, and, of course, it's to my interest to get a case cleared up as soon
+as I can. But I can't set any time limit on a job like this. This Rivers
+killing has more angles than _Nude Descending a Staircase_; I don't know
+how much work I'll have to do, or even what kind."
+
+"Well, it'll have to be fast," Gresham told him urgently. "Look. I didn't
+kill Arnold Rivers. I hated his guts, and I think whoever did it ought to
+get a medal and a testimonial dinner, but I did not kill him. You believe
+me?"
+
+"I'm inclined to," Rand replied. "In your law practice, you know what a
+lying client is letting himself in for. As my client, you wouldn't lie to
+me. You seem to think you may be suspected of purging Rivers. But why? Is
+there any reason, aside from that homemade North & Cheney he sold you,
+why anybody would think you'd killed him?"
+
+"Great God, yes!" Gresham exclaimed. "Now look. I'm not worried about
+being railroaded for this. I didn't do it, and I can beat any case that
+half-assed ex-ambulance-chaser, Farnsworth, could dream up against me.
+But I can't afford even to be mentioned in connection with this. You know
+what that would do to me, in town. I just can't get mixed up in this, at
+all. I want you to see to it that I don't."
+
+"That sounds like a large order." The ash was growing on Rand's cigar;
+he took another heavy drag at it. "But why necessarily you? Rivers had
+plenty of other enemies."
+
+"Yes, but, dammit, they weren't all in his shop, last evening. Just me.
+And one other. The one who killed him."
+
+"On your way out from town?" Rand inquired.
+
+"Yes. I stopped at his place, about a quarter to nine. I was sore as hell
+about the hooking he gave me on that North & Cheney, falsely so-called,
+and I decided to stop and have it out with him. We had words, most of
+them unpleasant. I told him, for one thing, that Lane Fleming's death
+hadn't pulled his bacon off the fire, that I was going to start the same
+sort of action against him on my own account. But that isn't the point.
+The point is that when I was going in, this la-de-da clerk of his, Cecil
+Gillis, was coming out. He got into his car and drove away, leaving me
+alone with Rivers. He'll be the first one the police talk to, and he'll
+tell them all about it."
+
+"That does put you back of the eight ball." Rand dropped the ash into a
+tray and looked at it curiously. It looked like the sort of ash he had
+seen at Rivers's shop, but he couldn't be sure. "But if it can be proved
+that Rivers was alive after nine twenty, when you got here, you'll be in
+the clear."
+
+"I don't want to have to clear myself," Gresham insisted. "I don't want
+anything to do with it, at all. Here; I'll pay you a thousand down, and
+two more when you have the case completed; I want you to get the murder
+cleared up before I can be publicly involved in it. I say publicly,
+because this damned Gillis has probably involved me with the police
+already."
+
+"Well, Gillis isn't exactly in a state of pure sanctity, himself," Rand
+commented. "As a suspect, the smart handicappers are figuring him to run
+well inside the money. For instance, you know, there have been stories
+about him and Mrs. Rivers."
+
+Gresham snapped his fingers. "Damned if there haven't, now!" he said.
+"You talk to Adam Trehearne. He did business with Rivers--there wasn't
+much in his line Rivers and Umholtz were able to fake--and different
+times he's gone to Rivers's shop and there'd be nobody around, and then
+Gillis would come in from the house, smelling of Chanel Number Five.
+Mrs. Rivers uses Chanel Number Five. Maybe you have something there.
+If Cecil thought he could marry the business, with Rivers out of the
+way.... You'll take the case, won't you, Jeff?"
+
+"Oh, certainly," Rand assured him. "Now, all they have on you is that
+there was ill-feeling between you and Rivers about that fake North &
+Cheney, and that you were in Rivers's shop yesterday evening?"
+
+Rand's new client grimaced. "I wish that were all!" he said. "The worst
+part of it is the way Rivers was killed. See, back in Kaiser Willie's
+war, before I was assigned a company of my own, I was regimental
+bayonet-instruction officer. And after we got to France, I always
+carried a rifle and bayonet at the front; hell, I must have killed
+close to a dozen Krauts just the way Rivers was killed. And during
+Schicklgruber's war, I volunteered as bayonet instructor for the local
+Home Guard."
+
+"My God!" Rand made a wry face. "There must be close to a hundred people
+around here who'd know that, and all of them are probably convinced that
+you killed Rivers, and are expressing that opinion at the top of their
+voices to all comers. You don't want a detective, you want a magician!"
+He took another drag at the cigar, and blew smoke through a circular
+gun-rack beside him. "What sort of a character is this Farnsworth,
+anyhow?" he asked. "Before the war, I had all the D.A.'s in the state
+typed and estimated, but since I got back--"
+
+Gresham slandered the county prosecutor's legitimacy. "God-damn
+headline-hunting little egotist! He's running for re-election this
+year, too."
+
+"One way, that could be bad. On the other hand, it might be easy to throw
+a scare into him.... Stephen, when you were at Rivers's, were you smoking
+a cigar?"
+
+Gresham shook his head. "No. I threw my cigar away when I got out of the
+car, and I didn't light another one till I got home. If you remember, I
+was lighting it when I came in here."
+
+"Yes; so you were. Well, I don't suppose, in view of the state of
+relations between you and Rivers, that you had a drink with him, either?"
+
+"I wouldn't drink that guy's liquor if I were dying of snakebite, and he
+wouldn't offer me a drink if he knew I was," Gresham declared.
+
+"Well, did you notice, back near the fireplace, a low table with a fifth
+of Haig & Haig Pinchbottle, and a couple of glasses, and a siphon, and so
+on, on it?"
+
+"I saw the table. There was an ashtray on it, and a book--I think it was
+Gluckman's _United States Martial Pistols and Revolvers_--but no bottle,
+or siphon, or glasses."
+
+"All right, then; it was the killer." Rand explained about the drinks,
+and the cigar-ashes. He went on to tell about the destruction of Rivers's
+record-cards.
+
+"I don't get that." Gresham was puzzled. "Unless it was young Gillis,
+after all. He could have been knocking down on Rivers, and Rivers caught
+him at it."
+
+"I'd thought of that," Rand admitted. "But I doubt if Rivers would sit
+down and drink with him, while accusing him of theft. And I can't seem to
+find anything around Rivers's place that looks as though it might have
+been stolen from the Fleming collection, either.... Oh, and that reminds
+me: If you have time this afternoon, I wonder if you'd come along with me
+to the Flemings' and see just what's missing. I'll have to know that, in
+any case, and there's a good possibility that the thefts from the
+collection and the killing of Rivers are related."
+
+"Yes, of course," Gresham agreed. "And suppose we take Pierre Jarrett
+along with us. He knows that collection as well as I do; he'll spot
+anything I miss. He works at home; I'll call him now. We can pick him up
+before we go to the Flemings'."
+
+They went into Gresham's bedroom, where there was a phone, and Gresham
+talked to Pierre Jarrett. It was arranged that he should pick Jarrett up
+with his car and come to the Flemings', while Rand went there directly.
+
+Then Rand used the phone to call his office in New Belfast. He talked to
+Dave Ritter, explaining the situation to date.
+
+"I'm going to need some help," he continued. "I want you to come here and
+get a room at the Rosemont Inn, under your own name. I'll see you there
+about five thirty. And bring with you a suit of butler's livery, or
+reasonable facsimile. I believe there will be a vacancy in the Fleming
+household tomorrow or the next day, and I want you ready to take over.
+And bring a small gun with you; something you can wear under said livery.
+That .357 Colt of yours is a little too conspicuous. You'll find a .380
+Beretta in the top right-hand drawer of my office desk, with a box of
+ammunition and a couple of spare clips."
+
+"Right. I'll be at Rosemont Inn at five thirty," Ritter promised. "And
+say, Tip was in, this morning, with a lot of dope on the Fleming estate.
+Want me to let you have it now, or shall I give it to you when I see
+you?"
+
+"You have notes? Bring them along; I'll be seeing you in a couple of
+hours."
+
+He parted from Gresham, going out and getting in his car. As Gresham got
+his own car out of the garage and drove off toward Pierre Jarrett's
+house, Rand started in the opposite direction, toward Rosemont.
+
+About a half-mile from Gresham's he caught an advancing gleam of white on
+the highway ahead of him and pulled to the side of the road, waiting
+until the State Police car drew up and stopped. In it were Mick McKenna,
+Aarvo Kavaalen, and a third man, a Nordic type, in an untidy brown suit.
+
+"Hi, Jeff," McKenna greeted him, as Rand got out of his car and came
+across the road. "This is Gus Olsen, investigator for the D.A.'s office.
+Jeff Rand; Tri-State Agency," he introduced.
+
+"Hey!" Olsen yelled. "We been lookin' for you! Where you been?"
+
+Rand raised an eyebrow at McKenna.
+
+"You just came from where we're going," the State Police sergeant
+surmised. "Was Gresham at home?"
+
+"He was; he's gone now," Rand said. "He and another man are going to help
+me check up on what's missing from the Fleming collection."
+
+"Hey!" Olsen exploded. "What I told you, now; he run ahead of us with a
+tip-off! Gresham's skipped out, now!"
+
+"What is all this?" Rand wanted to know. "What's he screaming about,
+Mick?"
+
+"Like he don't know!" Olsen vociferated. "He tipped off Gresham so's he
+could skip out; I'll bet he's in it with Gresham!"
+
+"Pay no attention," McKenna advised. "He doesn't know what the score is;
+hell, he doesn't even know what teams are playing."
+
+"Now you look here!" Olsen bawled. "We'll see what Mr. Farnsworth has to
+say about this. You're supposed to cooperate with us, not go fraternizin'
+with a lot of suspects. Why, it's plain as anything; him and Gresham's
+in it together. I bet that was why he come around, the first thing in the
+morning, to find the body!"
+
+Kavaalen, behind the wheel, turned around and began jabbering at Olsen,
+in the back seat, in something that sounded like Swedish. Most Finns
+can speak Swedish, and Rand was wishing he could understand it. The
+corporal's remarks ran to about a paragraph, and must have been downright
+incendiary. At least, Olsen seemed to catch fire from them. He rose in
+his seat, waving his arms and howling back in the same language.
+
+"Shut up, goddammit, _shut up_!" McKenna bellowed into his face. "Shut up
+before I sling your ass to hell out of this car! I'm talking, and I don't
+want any goddam jaw from you, Olsen. You either," he barked at Kavaalen,
+winking at him at the same time.
+
+Silence fell with a heavy thump in the car.
+
+"Well, now that the international crisis seems to have been averted,
+how's about letting me in on it, too?" Rand asked. "For instance, what
+about Gresham? What's he supposed to be a suspect for?"
+
+"Ah, Olsen suspects him of chopping Rivers up," McKenna replied wearily.
+"See, we questioned this Cecil Gillis, and he told us that last evening,
+as he was leaving Rivers's, he saw Stephen Gresham drive up and go into
+the shop. I wanted to talk to him, myself; I thought he might account for
+the cigar-ashes, and the drink-fixings on that table. But when Farnsworth
+heard about the killing, he sent Olsen around, and when Olsen heard that
+Gresham had been there, he tried him and convicted him on the spot."
+
+"Oh, obscenity! Is that what it's about?" Rand exclaimed in disgust.
+"Yes, Gresham told me about that. He didn't have the drink, and he wasn't
+smoking a cigar in the shop, and he left a little after nine. He got home
+at nine twenty-two. I can testify to that, myself; I was there at the
+time, and so were seven other people." Rand named them. "They dribbled
+away at different times during the evening, but Philip Cabot and I stayed
+till around eleven." He mentioned the approximate time at which the
+others had left. "What time was Rivers killed, or hasn't the time been
+fixed?"
+
+"The M.E. says around ten to two," McKenna said.
+
+"He could be wrong; them guys only guess, half the time," Olsen argued.
+"And besides, Gresham had it in for Rivers. And that ain't all, neither;
+he knew how to use a bayonet, too. I seen him, myself, during the war,
+showin' the Home Guard how to do it, just the way Rivers was killed!" he
+produced triumphantly.
+
+McKenna used a dirty word. "So what? Anybody who's ever had infantry
+training knows that butt-stroke-and-lunge," he retorted. "I learned it
+myself, when I was a kid, in '24 and '25, in C.M.T.C. Hell, anybody who's
+ever seen a war-movie.... If you hadn't lammed out of Sweden when you
+were sixteen, to duck conscription, you'd of known it, too."
+
+"Well, maybe Olsen, or his boss, can explain why Gresham threw those
+record-cards in the fire," Rand contributed. "You know why Olsen says
+Gresham had it in for Rivers? Rivers sold Gresham a fake antique, a flint
+lock navy pistol that had been worked over into something else. Gresham
+was going to subpoena those records, when he brought suit against
+Rivers," Rand lied. "But I can explain why Cecil Gillis might have
+destroyed them, after killing Rivers, if he'd been cheating Rivers and
+Rivers caught him at it."
+
+"Yeah, and that might explain why Gillis was in such a hurry to sic us
+onto Gresham, too," McKenna added. "I thought of something like that. And
+this high-brown girl that works for Rivers says that Gillis and Mrs.
+Rivers played all kinds of games together, when Rivers was away."
+
+"Well, who's in charge of the investigation?" Rand wanted to know. "I
+heard, on the radio ..."
+
+"You're liable to hear anything on the radio, including slanders on
+Bing Crosby's horses. But for the record, I am in charge of this
+investigation. And don't anybody forget it, either," he added, in
+the direction of the rear seat.
+
+"That's what I thought. Well, Stephen Gresham has just retained me to
+make an independent investigation," Rand said. "It is not that he lacks
+confidence in the State Police, or in you; he was afraid that other
+parties might get into the act and try to make political capital out
+of it. Which appears to have happened."
+
+"Well, if Gresham retained you, I'm satisfied," McKenna said. "You can
+take care of that end of it. Glad you're in with us."
+
+"Well, I ain't satisfied!" Olsen began yelling, again. "And Mr.
+Farnsworth won't be, neither. Why, this here private dick is like as
+not workin' for the very man that killed Rivers!"
+
+McKenna turned slowly in his seat, to face Olsen.
+
+"One time, ten years ago," he began, "Jeff Rand had a client who was
+guilty of the crime he hired Jeff to investigate. It was an arson case;
+this guy set fire to his own factory, and then got Jeff to run down a lot
+of fake clues he'd planted. I know about that; I was on the case, myself.
+That's where I first met Jeff, and he saved me from making a jackass out
+of myself. And what happened to this guy who'd hired Jeff was something
+that oughtn't to happen even to Molotov, and it happened because Jeff
+fixed it to happen. If anybody hires Jeff Rand, he's one of two things.
+He's either innocent, or else he's out of luck.... I don't know why the
+hell I bother telling you this."
+
+"Ten to two, you say," Rand considered. "Look. A couple of days ago,
+Rivers put out a new price-list to his regular customers. A lot of them,
+in different parts of the country, order by telephone, and some of them
+live in the West, where there's a couple of hours' time-difference. One
+of them, calling at, say, eight o'clock, local time, would get his call
+in at ten, Eastern Standard. If you checked the long-distance calls to
+Rivers's number last night, now, you might get something."
+
+"Yeah. And if he took a call after nine twenty-two, that would let
+Gresham out. Even Farnsworth could figure that out. Sure. I'll check
+right away."
+
+"Who's at Rivers's now?"
+
+"Skinner and Jameson, of our gang. And Farnsworth, and some of his
+outfit. And the hell's own slew of reporters, of course," McKenna said.
+"Aarvo's going back there, in a little. We're still trying to locate Mrs.
+Rivers; we haven't been able to, yet. The maid says she went to New York
+day before yesterday."
+
+"I'll probably be around at Rivers's, later in the day. I want to check
+on that Fleming angle."
+
+"Uh-huh; I'll be there, in half an hour," Corporal Kavaalen said. "Be
+seeing you."
+
+They exchanged so-longs, and Kavaalen backed, and made a U-turn, moving
+off in the direction of Rosemont. Olsen's voluble protests drifted back
+as the car receded. Rand returned to his own car and followed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 13
+
+
+Rand found Gladys alone in the library. As she rose to greet him, he came
+close to her, gesturing for silence with finger on lips.
+
+"There's a perfect hell of a mess," he whispered. "Somebody murdered
+Arnold Rivers last night."
+
+She looked at him in horror. "Murdered? Who was it? How did it...?"
+
+"I haven't time to talk about that right now," he told her. "Stephen
+Gresham and Pierre Jarrett are on their way here, and I'd like you to
+keep the servants, and particularly Walters, out of earshot of the
+gunroom while they're here. It seems that a number of the best pistols
+have been stolen from the collection, sometime between the death of Mr.
+Fleming and the time I saw the collection yesterday. Stephen and Pierre
+are going to help me find out just what's been taken. I have an idea they
+might have been sold to Rivers. That may have been why he was killed--to
+prevent him from implicating the thief."
+
+"You think somebody here--the servants?" she asked.
+
+"I can't see how it could have been an outsider. The stuff wasn't all
+taken at once; it must have been moved out a piece at a time, and
+worthless pistols moved in and hung on the racks to replace valuable
+pistols taken." He had left the library door purposely open; when the
+doorbell rang, he heard it. "I'll let them in," he said. "You go and head
+Walters off."
+
+Rand hurried to the front door and admitted Gresham and Pierre, hustling
+them down the hall, into the library, and up the spiral to the gunroom,
+while Gladys went to the foot of the front stairs. Through the open
+gunroom door, Rand could hear her speaking to Walters, as though sending
+him on some errand to the rear of the house. He closed the door and
+turned to the others.
+
+"We'll have to make it fast," he said. "Mrs. Fleming can't hold the
+butler off all day. Let's start over here, and go around the racks."
+
+They began at the left, with the wheel locks. Pierre put his finger
+immediately on the shabby and disreputable specimen Rand had first
+noticed.
+
+"Phew! Is that one a stinker!" he said. "What used to be there was a
+nice late sixteenth- or early seventeenth-century North Italian pistol,
+all covered with steel filigree-work. A real beauty; much better than
+average."
+
+"Those Turkish atrocities," Gresham pointed out. "They're filling in for
+a pair of Lazarino Cominazo snaphaunces that Lane Fleming paid seven
+hundred for, back in the mid-thirties, and didn't pay a cent too much
+for, even then. Worth an easy thousand, now. Remember the pair of
+Cominazo flintlocks illustrated in Pollard's _Short History of Firearms_?
+These were even better, and snaphaunces."
+
+"Well, you go over the collection," Rand told them. "Note down anything
+you find missing." He handed them a pad of paper and a pencil from the
+desk. "I have something else to do, for a few minutes."
+
+With that he left them scrutinizing the pistols on the wall, and went to
+the workbench in the corner, drawing the .36 Colt from under his
+waistband. Working rapidly, he dismounted it, taking off the barrel and
+cylinder, and cleaned it thoroughly before putting it together again.
+Pierre and Gresham had just started on the Colts when he slipped the
+revolver out of sight and rejoined them.
+
+It took over a half-hour to finish; when they had gotten completely
+around the collection, Rand had a list of twenty-six missing items,
+including four cased sets. At a conservative estimate, the missing
+pistols were worth ten to twelve thousand dollars, dealer's list value;
+the stuff that had been moved in to replace them might have a value of
+two or three hundred, but no serious collector would buy any of it at any
+price. There had been no attempt to replace the cased items; the cases
+had been merely rearranged on the table to avoid any conspicuous
+vacancies.
+
+"See that thing?" Pierre asked, tapping a small .25 Webley & Scott
+automatic with his finger. Rand looked at it; it had been fitted with an
+English-made silencer. "That thing," Pierre said, "is the one illustrated
+in Pollard's book. The identical pistol; it used to be in the Pollard
+collection."
+
+"Lane had a lot of stuff from some famous collections," Gresham said.
+"Pollard collection, Sawyer collection, Fred Hines collection, Meeks
+collection, even the old Mark Field collection, that was sold at Libbie
+Galleries in 1911. His own could rank with any of them. Think you can get
+any of this stuff back?"
+
+"I hope so. By the way, where does this fellow Umholtz, the fabricator of
+spurious Whitneyville Walker Colts, hang out? I believe he ought to be
+looked into."
+
+"Say, that's an idea!" Pierre ejaculated. "He might have bought the
+pistols, instead of Rivers. Why, he has a gunshop at Kingsville, on Route
+22, about fifteen miles west of here, just this side of the village. He
+had a big sign along the road, and his shop's in the barn, behind the
+house."
+
+"I'll have to check up on him. But first, I want to see if any of this
+stuff's at Rivers's shop. I won't ask you to come along," he told
+Gresham. "No use you sticking your head into the lion's mouth. I've
+talked the State Police temporarily off your trail, but I still have
+Farnsworth to worry about."
+
+"He'd like to prosecute a big corporation lawyer, if he thought he had
+any chance of getting a conviction," Pierre said. "Make a nice impression
+on the proletarian vote in the south end of the county."
+
+"You're a member of the Mohawk Club in New Belfast, aren't you?" Rand
+asked Gresham. "Well, go there and stay there for a couple of days, till
+the heat's off. Pierre, you can come with me to Rivers's; I'll run you
+home in my car when we're through."
+
+Gresham let himself out the front door; Pierre and Rand went out through
+the garage and got into Rand's car.
+
+"You have any idea, so far, about who could have killed Rivers?" the
+ex-Marine asked, as they coasted down the drive to the highway.
+
+"I haven't even the start of an idea," Rand said. He ran briefly over
+what he knew, or at least those items which were likely to become public
+knowledge soon. "From what I've observed at the shop, and from what I
+know of Rivers's character, I'd think that he'd been in some kind of a
+crooked deal with somebody, and got double-crossed, or else the other man
+caught Rivers double-crossing him. Or else, Rivers and somebody else had
+some secret in common, and the other man wanted a monopoly on it and
+killed Rivers as a security measure."
+
+"Think it might be the Fleming pistols?"
+
+"That depends. I'll have to see whether any of the Fleming pistols turn
+up anywhere in Rivers's former possession. Personally, I've about decided
+that the man who was drinking with Rivers killed him. There aren't any
+indications that anybody else was in the shop afterward. If that's the
+case, I doubt if the killer was Walters. You know what a snobbish guy
+Rivers was. And from what I know of him, he seems to have had a
+thoroughly Aristotelian outlook; he identified individuals with
+class-labels. Walters, of course, would be identified with the label
+'butler,' and I can't imagine Rivers sitting down and drinking with a
+'butler.' He would only drink with people whom he thought of as his
+equals, that is, people whom he identified with class-labels of equal
+social importance to his own labels of 'antiquarian' and 'businessman.'"
+
+"That sounds like Korzybski," Pierre said, as they turned onto Route 19
+in the village and headed east. "You've read _Science and Sanity_?"
+
+Rand nodded. "Yes. I first read it in the 1933 edition, back about 1936;
+I've been rereading it every couple of years since. The principles of
+General Semantics come in very handy in my business, especially in
+criminal-investigation work, like this. A consciousness of abstracting,
+a realization that we can only know something about a thin film of events
+on the surface of any given situation, and a habit of thinking
+structurally and of individual things, instead of verbally and of
+categories, saves a lot of blind-alley chasing. And they suggest a
+great many more avenues of investigation than would be evident to one
+whose thinking is limited by intensional, verbal, categories."
+
+"Yes. I find General Semantics helpful in my work, too," Pierre said. "I
+can use it in plotting a story.... Oh-oh!"
+
+"The Gentlemen of the Press," Rand said, looking ahead as the car
+approached the Rivers house and shop. "There hasn't been a good,
+sensational, murder story for some time; this is a gift from the gods."
+
+A swarm of cars were parked in front and beside the red-brick house.
+Among them, Rand spotted a gold-lettered green sedan of the New Belfast
+_Dispatch_ and _Evening Express_, a black coupe bearing the blazonry of
+the New Belfast _Mercury_, cars from a couple of papers at Louisburg, the
+state capital, and cars from papers as far distant as Pittsburgh,
+Buffalo, and Cincinnati. In front of the shop, a motley assemblage of
+journalists was interviewing and photographing an undersized runt in
+a tan Chesterfield topcoat and a gray Homburg hat, whom they were
+addressing as Mr. Farnsworth. The District Attorney of Scott County had
+a mustache which failed miserably to make him look like Tom Dewey; he
+impressed Rand as the sort of offensive little squirt who compensates
+for his general insignificance by bad manners and loud-mouthed
+self-assertion. Corporal Kavaalen, standing in the doorway of the shop,
+caught sight of Rand and his companion as they got out of the car and
+came to meet them, hustling them around the crowd and into the shop
+before anybody could notice and recognize them.
+
+"That was a good tip, about the telephone," he said softly. "Mick checked
+at the Rosemont exchange. Rivers got a long-distance call from Topeka
+last night; ten fifteen to ten seventeen. We got the night long distance
+operator out of bed, and she confirmed it; Rivers took the call himself.
+He gets a lot of long distance calls in the evenings; she knew his
+voice." He corrected himself, shifting to the past tense and glancing, as
+he did, at the chalk outline on the floor, now scuffed by many feet, and
+the dried bloodstains. "You say this puts Gresham in the clear?"
+
+"Absolutely," Rand assured him. "He was at home from nine twenty-two on."
+He introduced Pierre Jarrett, and explained their mission. "You find
+anything except what's here in the shop?"
+
+"Only Rivers's own .38 Smith & Wesson, in his room, and a lot of pistols
+out in the garage, that look like junk to me," Kavaalen said. "I'll show
+them to you."
+
+Rand nodded. "Pierre, you look around the shop; I'll see what this other
+stuff is."
+
+He followed Kavaalen through a door at the rear of the shop; the same one
+through which Cecil Gillis had carried the Kentucky rifle the afternoon
+before. Beside Rivers's car, there was a long workbench in the garage,
+and piles of wood and cardboard cartons, and stacks of newspapers, and
+a barrel full of excelsior, all evidently used in preparing arms for
+shipment. There was also a large pile of old pistols, and a number of
+long-arms.
+
+Rand pawed among the pistols; they were, as the State Police corporal had
+said, all junk. The sort of things a dealer has to buy, at times, in
+order to get something really good. Many of them had been partially
+dismantled for parts. When he was certain that the heap of junk-weapons
+didn't conceal anything of value, he returned to the shop. Pierre was
+waiting for him by Rivers's desk.
+
+He shook his head. "Not a thing," he reported. "I found a couple of
+out-and-out fakes, and about ten or fifteen that had been altered in one
+way or another, and a lot of reblued stuff, but nothing from Fleming's
+collection. What did you find?"
+
+Rand laughed. "I found Rivers's scrap-heap, and some pistols that
+probably contributed parts to some of the stuff you found," he said. "Of
+course, all we can say is that the stuff isn't here; Rivers could have
+bought it, and stored it outside somewhere. But even so, I'm not taking
+the Fleming butler too seriously as a suspect for the murder."
+
+"What's this about Fleming's butler?" a voice broke in. "Have you been
+withholding information from me?"
+
+Rand turned, to find that Farnsworth had left the press conference in
+front and crepe-soled up on him from behind.
+
+"I withheld a theory, which seems to have come to nothing," he replied.
+
+Kavaalen told the D.A. who Rand was. "He's cooperating with us," he
+added. "Sergeant McKenna instructed us to give him every consideration."
+
+"It seems that a number of valuable pistols were stolen from the
+collection of the late Lane Fleming," Rand said. "We suspected that
+the butler had stolen them and sold them to Rivers; I thought it
+possible that he might also have killed Rivers to silence him about the
+transaction." He shrugged. "None of the stolen items have turned up here,
+so there's nothing to connect the thefts with the death of Rivers."
+
+"Good heavens, you certainly didn't suspect a prominent and respected
+citizen like Mr. Rivers of receiving stolen goods?" Farnsworth demanded,
+aghast.
+
+"Who respects him?" Rand hooted. "Rivers was a notorious swindler; he
+had that reputation among arms-collectors all over the country. He was
+expelled from membership in the National Rifle Association for
+misrepresentation and fraud. Why, he even swindled Lane Fleming on a pair
+of fake pistols, a week or so before Fleming's death. And the very reason
+why your man Olsen was inclined to suspect Stephen Gresham was that he
+had had trouble with Rivers about a crooked deal Rivers had put over on
+him. Fortunately, Mr. Gresham has since been cleared of any suspicion,
+but--"
+
+"Who says he's been cleared?" Farnsworth snapped. "He's still a suspect."
+
+"Sergeant McKenna says so," Corporal Kavaalen declared. "He has been
+cleared. I guess we just didn't get around to telling you about that."
+He went on to explain about the long distance call that had furnished
+Stephen Gresham's alibi.
+
+"And Gresham was at home from nine twenty-two on," Rand added. "There are
+eight witnesses to that: His wife and daughter; myself; Captain Jarrett,
+here; and his fiancee, Miss Lawrence; Philip Cabot; Adam Trehearne; Colin
+MacBride."
+
+Farnsworth looked bewildered. "Why wasn't I told about that?" he demanded
+sulkily.
+
+"Sergeant McKenna's been too busy, and I didn't think of it," Kavaalen
+said insolently. "I'm not supposed to report to you, anyhow. Why didn't
+your man Olsen tell you; he was with us when we checked with the
+telephone company."
+
+Farnsworth tried to ignore that by questioning Pierre about the time of
+Gresham's arrival home, then turned to Rand and wanted to know what the
+latter's interest in the case was.
+
+Rand told him about his work in connection with the Fleming collection,
+producing Humphrey Goode's letter of authorization. Farnsworth seemed
+impressed in about the same way as the coroner, Kirchner, but he was
+still puzzled.
+
+"But I understood that you had been retained by Stephen Gresham, to
+investigate this murder," he said.
+
+"So you did talk to Olsen, after I saw him," Rand pounced. "Odd he didn't
+mention this telephone thing.... Why, yes; that's true. My agency handles
+all sorts of business. The two operations aren't mutually exclusive; for
+a while, I even thought they might be related, but now--" He shrugged.
+
+"Well, you believe, now, that Rivers had nothing to do with the pistols
+you say were stolen from the Fleming collection?" Farnsworth asked. Rand
+shook his head ambiguously; Farnsworth took that for a negative answer
+to his question, as he was intended to. "And you say Mr. Gresham has been
+completely cleared of any suspicion of complicity in this murder?"
+
+"Mr. Rand's helping us; we want him to stick around till the case is
+closed," Corporal Kavaalen threw in, perceiving the drift of Farnsworth's
+questions. "He and Sergeant McKenna have worked together before; he's
+given us a lot of good tips."
+
+"You understand," Rand took over, "Mr. Gresham didn't retain me merely
+to help him clear himself. I don't accept that kind of retainers. I was
+retained to find the murderer of Arnold Rivers, and I intend to continue
+working on this case until I do. I hope that the same friendly spirit of
+mutual cooperation will exist between your office and my agency as exists
+between me and the State Police. I certainly don't want to have to work
+at cross purposes with any of the regular law-enforcement agencies."
+
+"Oh, certainly; of course." Farnsworth didn't seem to like the idea, but
+there was no apparent opening for objection. He and Rand exchanged
+mendacious compliments, pledged close cooperation, and did practically
+everything but draw up and sign a treaty of alliance. Then Farnsworth and
+Corporal Kavaalen accompanied Rand and Pierre Jarrett to the front door.
+
+Some of the reporters who were ravening outside must have spotted Rand as
+he had entered; they were all waiting for him to come out, and set up a
+monstrous ululation when he appeared in the doorway. With Farnsworth
+beaming approval, Rand assured the Press that he was no more than a mere
+spectator, that the State Police and the efficient District Attorney of
+Scott County had the situation well in hand, and that an arrest was
+expected within a matter of hours. Then he and Pierre hurried to his car
+and drove away.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 14
+
+
+Neither of them spoke for a moment or two. Then, after they had left the
+criminological-journalistic uproar at the Rivers place behind and were
+approaching the village of Rosemont, Pierre turned to Rand.
+
+"You know," he said, "for a disciple of Korzybski, you came pretty close
+to confusing orders of abstraction, a couple of times, back there. You
+showed that Stephen was at home while Rivers was taking that phone call,
+a little after ten. But when you talk about clearing him completely,
+aren't you overlooking the possibility that he came back to Rivers's
+after you and Philip Cabot left the Gresham place?"
+
+Rand eased the foot-pressure on the gas and spared young Jarrett a
+side-glance before returning his attention to the road ahead.
+
+"Understand," Pierre hastened to add, "I don't believe that Stephen was
+fool enough to kill Rivers over that fake North & Cheney, but weren't you
+producing inferences that hadn't been abstracted from any descriptive
+data?"
+
+"Pierre, when I'm working on a case like this, any resemblance between
+my opinions and the statements I may make is purely due to conscious
+considerations of policy," Rand told him. "I don't want Farnsworth or
+Mick McKenna going around bitching this operation up for me. If they
+feel justified in eliminating Gresham on the strength of that phone
+call, I'm satisfied, regardless of the semantics involved. Right now, the
+thing that's worrying me is the ease with which I seem to have talked
+Farnsworth into laying off Gresham. He and Olsen both have single-track
+minds. They may just dismiss that telephone alibi, such as it is, as mere
+error of the mortal mind, and go right ahead building some kind of a
+ramshackle case against Gresham. Since they picked him for their entry,
+they won't want to have to scratch him.... Damn, I wish I could think of
+where Walters could have sold those pistols!"
+
+"Well, if Rivers wasn't involved somehow, why was he killed?" Pierre
+wondered. "Hey! Maybe Walters sold the pistols to Umholtz! He's just as
+big a crook as Rivers was, only not quite so smart."
+
+Rand nodded thoughtfully. "Maybe so. And suppose Rivers found out about
+it, and tried to declare himself in on it. That stuff would be worth at
+least ten thousand; I doubt if whoever bought it paid Walters more than
+two. In the Umholtz-Rivers income bracket, the difference might be worth
+killing for."
+
+"That's right. And Umholtz was in the infantry, in the other war; he
+served in the Twenty-eighth Division. He was trained to use a bayonet.
+And he'd pick that short Mauser; it has about the same weight and balance
+as a 1903 Springfield."
+
+"Well, you know, the killer wouldn't need to have been trained to use a
+bayonet," Rand pointed out. "Mick McKenna made that point, this
+afternoon. There have been a lot of war-movies that showed bayonet
+fighting; pretty nearly everybody knows about the technique that was
+used. And against an unarmed and probably unsuspecting victim like
+Rivers, a great deal of proficiency wouldn't be needed." He slowed the
+car. "Up this road?" he asked.
+
+"Yes. That's my place, over there."
+
+Pierre pointed to a white-walled, red-roofed house that lay against a
+hillside, about a mile ahead, making a vivid spot in the dull grays and
+greens of the early April landscape. It consisted of a square two-story
+block, with one-story wings projecting to give it an L-shaped floorplan.
+It reminded Rand of farmhouses he had seen in Sicily during the War.
+
+"Come on in and see my stuff, if you have time," Pierre invited, as
+Rand pulled to a stop in the driveway. "I think I told you what I
+collect--personal combat arms, both firearms and edge-weapons."
+
+They entered the front door, which opened directly into a large parlor, a
+brightly colored, cheerful room. A woman rose from a chair where she had
+been reading. She was somewhere between forty-five and fifty, but her
+figure was still trim, and she retained much of what, in her youth, must
+have been great beauty.
+
+"Mother, this is Colonel Rand," Pierre said. "Jeff, my mother."
+
+Rand shook hands with her, and said something polite. She gave him a
+smile of real pleasure.
+
+"Pierre has been telling me about you, Colonel," she said. There was a
+faint trace of French accent in her voice. "I suppose he brought you here
+to show you his treasures?"
+
+"Yes; I collect arms too. Pistols," Rand said.
+
+She laughed. "You gun-collectors; you're like women looking at somebody's
+new hat.... Will you stay for dinner with us, Colonel Rand?"
+
+"Why, I'm sorry; I can't. I have a great many things to do, and I'm
+expected for dinner at the Flemings'. I really wish I could, Mrs.
+Jarrett. Maybe some other time."
+
+They chatted for a few minutes, then Pierre guided Rand into one of the
+wings of the house.
+
+"This is my workshop, too," he said. "Here's where I do my writing." He
+opened a door and showed Rand into a large room.
+
+On one side, the wall was blank; on the other, it was pierced by two
+small casement windows. The far end was of windows for its entire width,
+from within three feet of the floor almost to the ceiling. There were
+bookcases on either long side, and on the rear end, and over them hung
+Pierre's weapons. Rand went slowly around the room, taking everything in.
+Very few of the arms were of issue military type, and most of these
+showed alterations to suit individual requirements. As Pierre had told
+him the evening before, the emphasis was upon weapons which illustrated
+techniques of combat.
+
+At the end of the room, lighted by the wide windows, was a long
+desk which was really a writer's assembly line, with typewriter,
+reference-books, stacks of notes and manuscripts, and a big dictionary
+on a stand beside a comfortable swivel-chair.
+
+"What are you writing?" Rand asked.
+
+"Science-fiction. I do a lot of stories for the pulps," Pierre told him.
+"_Space-Trails_, and _Other Worlds_, and _Wonder-Stories_; mags like
+that. Most of it's standardized formula-stuff; what's known to the trade
+as space-operas. My best stuff goes to _Astonishing_. Parenthetically,
+you mustn't judge any of these magazines by their names. It seems to be
+a convention to use hyperbolic names for science-fiction magazines; a
+heritage from what might be called an earlier and ruder day. What I do
+for _Astonishing_ is really hard work, and I enjoy it. I'm working now on
+one for them, based on J. W. Dunne's time-theories, if you know what they
+are."
+
+"I think so," Rand said. "Polydimensional time, isn't it? Based on an
+effect Dunne observed and described--dreams obviously related to some
+waking event, but preceding rather than following the event to which they
+are related. I read Dunne's _Experiment with Time_ some years before the
+war, and once, when I had nothing better to do, I recorded dreams for
+about a month. I got a few doubtful-to-fair examples, and two
+unmistakable Dunne-Effect dreams. I never got anything that would help
+me pick a race-winner or spot a rise in the stock market, though."
+
+"Well, you know, there's a case on record of a man who had a dream of
+hearing a radio narration of the English Derby of 1933, including the
+announcement that Hyperion had won, which he did," Pierre said. "The
+dream was six hours before the race, and tallied very closely with the
+phraseology used by the radio narrator. Here." He picked up a copy of
+Tyrrell's _Science and Psychical Phenomena_ and leafed through it.
+
+"Did this fellow cash in on it?" Rand asked.
+
+"No. He was a Quaker, and violently opposed to betting. Here." He handed
+the book to Rand. "Case Twelve."
+
+Rand sat down on the edge of the desk, and read the section indicated,
+about three pages in length.
+
+"Well, I'll be damned!" he said, as he finished. The idea of anybody
+passing up a chance like that to enrich himself literally smote him to
+the vitals. "I see the British Society for Psychical Research checked
+that case, and got verification from a couple of independent witnesses.
+If the S.P.R. vouches for a story, it must be the McCoy; they're the
+toughest-minded gang of confirmed skeptics anywhere in Christendom. They
+take an attitude toward evidence that might be advantageously copied by
+most of the district attorneys I've met, the one in this county being no
+exception.... What's this story you're working on?"
+
+"Oh, it's based on Dunne's precognition theories, plus a few ideas of my
+own, plus a theory of alternate lines of time-sequence for alternate
+probabilities," Pierre said. "See, here's the situation ..."
+
+Half an hour later, they were still arguing about a multidimensional
+universe when Rand remembered Dave Ritter, who should be at the Rosemont
+Inn by now. He looked at his watch, saw that it was five forty-five, and
+inquired about a telephone.
+
+"Yes, of course; out here." Pierre took him back to the parlor, where he
+dialed the Inn and inquired if a Mr. Ritter, from New Belfast, were
+registered there yet.
+
+He was. A moment later he was speaking to Ritter.
+
+"Jeff, for Gawdsake, don't come here," Ritter advised. "This place is
+six-deep with reporters; the bar sounds like the second act of _The Front
+Page_. Tony Ashe and Steve Drake from the _Dispatch_ and _Express_;
+Harry Bentz, from the _Mercury_; Joe Rawlings, the AP man from Louisburg;
+Christ only knows who all. This damn thing's going to turn into another
+Hall-Mills case! Look, meet me at that beer joint, about two miles on the
+New Belfast side of Rosemont, on Route 19; the white-with-red-trimmings
+place with the big Pabst sign out in front. I'll try to get there without
+letting a couple of reporters hide in the luggage-trunk."
+
+"Okay; see you directly."
+
+Rand hung up, spent the next few minutes breaking away from Pierre and
+his mother, and went out to his car. Trust Dave Ritter, he thought, to
+pick some place where malt beverages were sold, for a rendezvous.
+
+Dave's coupe was parked inconspicuously beside the red-trimmed roadhouse.
+Opening his glove-box, Rand took out the two percussion revolvers and
+shoved them under his trench coat, one on either side, pulling up the
+belt to hold them in place. As he went into the roadhouse, he felt like
+Damon Runyon's Twelve-Gun Tweeney. He found Ritter in the last booth,
+engaged in finishing a bottle of beer. Rand ordered Bourbon and plain
+water, and Ritter ordered another beer.
+
+"I have the stuff Tip left with Kathie," Ritter said, taking out a couple
+of closely typed sheets and handing them across the table. "He said this
+was the whole business."
+
+Rand glanced over them. Tipton had neatly and concisely summarized the
+provisions of Lane Fleming's will, and had also listed all Fleming's life
+insurance policies, with beneficiaries, including a partnership policy on
+the lives of Fleming, Dunmore, and Anton Varcek, paying each of the
+survivors $25,000.
+
+"I see Gladys and Geraldine and Nelda each get a third of Fleming's
+Premix stock," Rand commented. "But before they can have the certificates
+transferred to them, they have to sign over their voting-power to the
+board of directors. Evidently Fleming didn't approve of the feminine
+touch in business."
+
+"Yeah, isn't that a dandy?" Ritter asked. "The directors are elected by
+majority vote of the stockholders. They now have the voting-power of a
+majority of the stock; that makes the present board self-perpetuating,
+and responsible only to each other."
+
+"So it does, but that wasn't what I was thinking of. According to Tip,
+the board is one hundred per cent in favor of the merger with National
+Milling & Packaging. We'll have to suppose Fleming knew that; there must
+have been considerable intramural acrimony on the subject while he was
+still alive. Now, since he opposed the merger, if he had intended
+committing suicide, he would have made some other arrangement, wouldn't
+he? At least, one would suppose so. Well, then," Rand asked, "why, since
+he is so worried about these suicide rumors, doesn't Goode use the one
+argument which would utterly disprove them? Or is there some reason
+why he doesn't want to call attention to the fact that Fleming's death
+is what makes the merger possible?"
+
+"Well, that would be calling attention to the fact that the merger made
+Fleming's death necessary," Ritter pointed out. He poured more beer into
+his glass. "While we're on it, what's the angle on this butler's livery
+I was supposed to bring? I brought my tux, and I borrowed a striped vest
+from the Theatrical Property Exchange, and I brought that Dago .380 of
+yours. But what makes you think the Flemings are going to be needing a
+new butler? You going to poison the one they have?"
+
+"The one they have has been exceeding his duties," Rand said. "He was
+supposed to clean the pistol-collection. Not content with that, he's
+been cleaning it out. I know it was the butler." He went, at length,
+into his reasons for thinking so, and described the _modus operandi_ of
+the thefts. "Now, all this is just theory, so far, but when I'm able to
+prove it, I'm going to put the arm on this Walters, if it's right in the
+middle of dinner and he only has the roast half served. And I want you
+ready to step into the vacancy thus created. I'm going to be busy as a
+pup in a fireplug factory with this Rivers thing, and I'll need some
+checking-upping done inside the Fleming household."
+
+He went on, in meticulous detail, to explain about the Rivers murder.
+"I'll have some work for you, before you're ready to start buttling,
+too." Disencumbering himself of the two percussion revolvers, he laid
+them on the table. "I want you to take these and show them to this
+barbecue man. Get from him a positive statement, preferably in writing,
+as to which, if either, he sold to Lane Fleming. You might show your
+Agency card and claim to be checking up on some stolen pistols that
+have been recovered. Then, if he identifies the Leech & Rigdon, take the
+Colt and show it to Elmer Umholtz. You want to be careful how you handle
+him; we may want him for puncturing Rivers, though I'm inclined to doubt
+that, as of now. Get him to tell you, yes or no, whether he reblued it
+and replated the back-strap and trigger-guard, and if he did it for
+Rivers; and if so, when. I know that's been done; the bluing is too dark
+for a Civil War period job; the frame, which ought to be case-hardened
+in colors, has been blued like the barrel and cylinder, the
+cylinder-engraving is almost obliterated, and you can see a few rust-pits
+that have been blued over. But I want to know if this gun was ever in
+Rivers's shop; that's the important thing."
+
+"Uh-huh. Got the addresses?"
+
+Rand furnished them, and Ritter noted them down. The waitress wandered
+back to see if they wanted anything else; she gave a small squeak of
+surprise when she saw the two big six-shooters on the table. Rand and
+Ritter repeated their orders, and when she brought back the drinks, the
+Colt and the Leech & Rigdon were out of sight.
+
+"The way I see it, everybody who's within a light-year of this Rivers
+killing is trying to pin the medal on somebody else," Ritter was saying.
+"The Lawrence girl was afraid young Jarrett had done it; right away, she
+sicced you onto Gillis. Gillis didn't lose any time putting McKenna and
+Farnsworth onto Gresham. Gresham's the only one who didn't have a patsy
+ready; you're supposed to dig one up for him. And Jarrett, the first
+chance he gets, introduces Umholtz." He stared into his beer, as though
+he thought Ultimate Verity might be lurking somewhere under the suds. "Do
+you think it might be possible that Rivers bumped Fleming off, in spite
+of his getting killed later?" he asked.
+
+"Anything's possible," Rand replied, "except where some structural
+contradiction is involved, like scoring thirteen with one throw of a pair
+of dice. Yes, he could have. The way the Flemings leave their garage open
+as long as any of the cars are out, anybody could have sneaked into the
+house from the garage, and gone up from the library to the gunroom. The
+only question in my mind is whether Rivers would have known about that.
+That lawsuit and criminal action that Fleming was going to start--and
+that's been verified from sources independent of Goode--was a good sound
+motive. And say he took the Leech & Rigdon away, after leaving the Colt
+in Fleming's hand; selling it to some collector who'd put it in with a
+hundred or so other pistols would be a good way of disposing of it. And I
+can understand his trying to buy the Colt, to get it out of circulation."
+Rand sipped his Bourbon. "But that leaves us with the question of who
+killed Rivers, and why."
+
+"Well, because Fleming is dead--and it doesn't matter whether he was
+murdered or died of old age--Walters starts robbing the collection. He
+sells the pistols to Rivers," Ritter reconstructed. "And, as Rivers
+doesn't want them around his shop till they've had time to cool off, he
+stores them with this Umholtz character, who seems to have been in plenty
+of crooked deals with Rivers in the past. The pistols are worth about ten
+grand, and nobody knows where they are but Rivers and Umholtz, and if
+Rivers drops dead all of a sudden, nobody will know where they are except
+Umholtz, and in a couple of years he can get them sold off and have the
+money all to himself."
+
+"Yes, Dave; that's good sound murder, too. And Rivers would sit down and
+drink with Umholtz, and Umholtz could take that Mauser out of the rack
+right in front of Rivers and Rivers wouldn't suspect a thing till it was
+too late. Of course, it depends upon two unverified assumptions: One,
+that the pistols were sold to Rivers, and, two, that Rivers stored them
+with Umholtz."
+
+"And, three, that Walters stole the pistols in the first place," Ritter
+added. "You know, it's possible that somebody else in that house might
+have stolen them."
+
+"Yes. As I said, anything's possible, within structural limits, but
+possibilities exist on different orders of probability. We can't try to
+consider all the possibilities in any case, because they are indefinitely
+numerous; the best we can do is screen out all the low-order
+probabilities, list the high-order probabilities, and revise our list
+when and as new data comes to light. Well, I've told you why I think
+Walters is a good suspect. From what I've seen of that household, I think
+Walters was personally loyal to Lane Fleming, and I don't believe he
+feels any loyalty to anybody else there, with the exception of Gladys
+Fleming. He might keep quiet about the missing pistols if she were the
+thief; if Dunmore, or Varcek, or either of the girls had done the
+stealing, he'd tell Gladys, and she'd pass it on to me. She would be
+glad of anything that could be used against any of the others. And if,
+on the other hand, she had stolen the pistols herself, she wouldn't have
+wanted me poking around, and wouldn't have brought me in, at least not
+to handle the collection." Rand looked regretfully at his empty glass and
+decided against ordering another. "Dave, I just thought of something," he
+said. "How do you think this would work?"
+
+He told Ritter what he had thought of. Ritter drank beer slowly and
+meditatively.
+
+"It just might work," he considered. "I've seen that gag work a hundred
+times: hell, I've used something like that, myself, at least fifty times,
+and so have you. And I don't think Walters would be familiar enough with
+dick-practice to see what you were doing. But if it turns out that
+Walters didn't sell the pistols to Rivers at all, what then?"
+
+"Well, if he sold them to Umholtz, Pierre Jarrett's theory is still valid
+until disproved," Rand said. "And if he didn't sell them either to Rivers
+or Umholtz, we'll have to conclude that Rivers and Fleming were killed by
+the same person, the Rivers killing being a security measure. That is,
+unless we find that Rivers was killed by Pierre Jarrett, which is a sort
+of medium-high-order probability. Jarrett and the girl left Gresham's
+early enough for him to have killed Rivers; they were both pretty hard
+hit by that twenty-five-grand blockbuster Rivers had dropped on
+them.... Give me back that Colt, Dave. All you have to do is get an
+identification on the Leech & Rigdon from the barbecue man. I'm going
+to let Mick McKenna handle Umholtz, one way or another, after we've
+concluded the Walters experiment. Until then, we don't want to stir
+Umholtz up, at all."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 15
+
+
+Parking in the drive, Rand entered the Fleming house by the front door.
+The butler must have been busy with his pre-dinner tasks in the rear; it
+was Gladys herself who admitted him.
+
+"Stay out of there," she warned him, taking his arm and guiding him away
+from the parlor doorway. "Nelda and Geraldine are in there, ignoring each
+other. If you go in, they'll start talking to you, and then they'll start
+talking at each other through you, and the air will be full of tomahawks
+in a jiffy. Let's go up in the gunroom; that's out of the battle zone."
+
+"What started the hostilities this time?" Rand asked, going up the
+stairway with her.
+
+"Oh, Geraldine lost Nelda's place-marker out of the Kinsey Report, or
+something." She shrugged. "Mainly reaction to Rivers's death. That was a
+great blow to all of us; twenty-five thousand dollars' worth of blow. It
+was a blow to me, too, but I'm not letting it throw me.... What were you
+doing all afternoon?"
+
+"Trying to keep the rest of our prospects out of jail. This
+sixteenth-witted District Attorney you have in this county had the idea
+he could charge Stephen Gresham with the killing. I had a time talking
+him out of it, and I'm still not sure how far I succeeded. And I was
+trying to get a line on where those pistols got to."
+
+"Ssssh!" They reached the top of the stairs, and Rand saw Walters
+approaching down the hall. "It was Colonel Rand, Walters; I let him in
+myself. Are Mr. Varcek and Mr. Dunmore here, yet?"
+
+"Mr. Dunmore is in the library, ma'am, and Mr. Varcek is upstairs, in his
+laboratory. Dinner will be ready in three-quarters of an hour."
+
+"Have you mixed the cocktails? You'd better do that. Serve them in about
+twenty minutes. And you'd better go up and warn Mr. Varcek not to become
+involved in anything messy before dinner."
+
+Walters yes-ma'am'd her and started toward the attic stairway. Rand and
+Gladys went into the gunroom; Rand turned to the left, picked a pistol
+from the wall, and carried it with him as he guided Gladys toward the
+desk in the corner.
+
+"You think Walters stole them?" she asked.
+
+"So far, I'm inclined to. Have you told any of the others, yet?"
+
+"Oh, Lord, no! They'd all be sure that I stole them myself. I'm counting
+on you to get them back with as little fuss as possible. Do you think
+that was why Rivers was killed? After all, when a lot of valuable pistols
+disappear, and a crooked dealer is murdered, I'd expect there to be a
+connection."
+
+"There could be. Did you ever hear any stories about Mrs. Rivers and this
+young fellow Gillis who works in Rivers's shop?"
+
+Gladys laughed. "Is that rearing its ugly head in public, now?" she
+asked. "Well, there's nothing like a good murder to shake the skeletons
+out of the closets. Not that this particular skeleton was ever exactly
+hidden. The stories are numerous, and somewhat repetitious; Cecil and
+Mrs. Rivers would be seen together, at roadhouses and so on, at what they
+imagined was a safe distance from Rosemont, and it was said that when
+Rivers was away over night, Cecil was never seen to leave the Rivers
+place in the evenings. Might this be relevant to Rivers's sudden demise?"
+
+"It could be." Rand was keeping one eye on the hall door and the other on
+the head of the spiral stairway. "Don't mention outside what I told you
+about Farnsworth having this brainstorm about Stephen Gresham. If it got
+out, it might hurt Gresham professionally. The fact is, Gresham has just
+retained me to investigate the Rivers murder for him. That won't
+interfere to any great extent with the work I'm doing here; if necessary,
+I'll bring a couple of my men in from New Belfast to help me on the
+Rivers operation." He broke off abruptly, catching a movement at the head
+of the spiral, and lifted the pistol in his hand, as though showing it to
+Gladys. "See," he went on, "it has two hammers and two nipples, but only
+one barrel. It was loaded with two charges, one on top of the other; the
+bullet of the rear charge acted as the breech-plug for the front
+charge.... Oh, Walters!" He affected to catch sight of the butler for the
+first time. "Bring me that .36 Walch revolver, will you?"
+
+"Yes, sir." Walters, crossing the room, veered to the right and went
+to the middle wall, bringing a revolver over to the desk. It was a
+percussion weapon with an abnormally long cylinder. "The cocktails are
+served," he announced.
+
+"We'll be down in a moment; you can put these back where they belong when
+you find time," Rand told him. "Now, here," he said to Gladys. "This is
+the same idea, in a revolver. Six chambers, two charges in each. In
+theory, it was a good idea, but in actual practice ..."
+
+Walters went out the hall door, presumably to call Varcek. Rand continued
+talking about the superposed-load principle, as used in the Lindsay
+pistol and the Walch revolver, until he was sure the butler was out
+of hearing. Gladys was looking at him in appreciative if slightly
+punch-drunk delight.
+
+"I wondered why you brought that thing over here with you," she said.
+"Brother, was that a quick shift!... You're really sure he's the one?"
+
+"I'm not really sure of anything, except of my own existence and eventual
+extinction," Rand told her. "It pretty nearly has to be somebody inside
+this house. I don't think anybody else here, yourself included, would
+know enough about arms to rob this collection as selectively as it has
+been robbed. Did you see what just happened, here? I asked him for one of
+the most uncommon arms here, and he went straight and got it. He knows
+this collection as well as your husband did, and I assume he knows values
+almost as well.... And, of course, there was a musket, too; Mr. Fleming
+didn't collect long-arms, or he'd have had one. It embodied the same
+principle as the pistol. The legend is that this man Lindsay's brother
+was a soldier; he was supposed to have been killed by Indians who drew
+the fire of the detail he was with and then charged them when their
+muskets were empty." Rand shrugged. "Actually, the superposed-load
+principle is ancient; there's a sixteenth-century wheel lock pistol in
+the Metropolitan Museum, in New York, firing two shots from the same
+barrel."
+
+Varcek and the butler, who had entered by the hall door, went across the
+gunroom and down the spiral. Rand laid down the pistol and escorted
+Gladys after them.
+
+Dunmore and Geraldine were in the library when they went down. Geraldine,
+mildly potted, was reclining in a chair, sipping her drink. Dunmore was
+still radiating his synthetic cheerfulness.
+
+"Get many of the pistols listed, Colonel?" he hailed Rand, with jovial
+condescension.
+
+"No." Rand poured two cocktails, handing one to Gladys. "I went to Arnold
+Rivers's place this morning, on a little unfinished business, and damn
+near tripped over Rivers's corpse. I spent the rest of the day getting
+myself disinvolved from the ensuing uproar," he told Dunmore. "You heard
+about it, of course."
+
+"Yes, of course. Horrible business. I hope you didn't get mixed up in it
+any more than you had to. After all, you're working for us, and if the
+police knew that, we'd be bothered, too.... Look here, you don't think
+some of these other people who were after the collection might have
+killed Rivers, to keep him from outbidding them?"
+
+Nelda, entering from the hallway, caught the last part of that.
+
+"Good God, Fred!" she shrieked at him. "Don't say things like that! Maybe
+they did, but wait till they've bought the collection and paid for it,
+before you start accusing them!"
+
+"I'm not accusing anybody," Dunmore growled back at her. "I don't know
+enough about it to make any accusations. All I'm saying is--"
+
+"Well, don't say it, then, if you don't know what you're talking about,"
+his wife retorted.
+
+In spite of this start, dinner passed in relative quiet. For the most
+part, they talked about the remaining chances of selling the collection,
+about which nobody was optimistic. Rand tried to build up morale with
+pictures of large museums and important dealers, all fairly slavering to
+get their fangs into the Fleming collection, but to little avail. A pall
+of gloom had settled, and he was forced to concede that he had at last
+found somebody who had a valid reason to mourn the sudden and violent end
+of Arnold Rivers.
+
+Dinner finished, he went up to the gunroom and began compiling his list.
+He found a yardstick, and thumbtacked it to the edge of the desk to get
+over-all and barrel lengths, and used a pair of inside calipers and a
+decimal-inch rule from the workbench to get calibers. Sticking a sheet of
+paper into the portable, he began on the wheel locks, leaving spaces to
+insert the description of the stolen pistols, when recovered. When he had
+finished the wheel locks, he began on the snaphaunces, then did the
+miguelet-locks. He had begun on the true flintlocks when Walters, who had
+finished his own dinner, came up to help him. Rand put the butler to work
+fetching pistols from the racks, and replacing those he had already
+listed. After a while, Dunmore strolled in.
+
+"You say you found Rivers's body yourself, Colonel Rand?" he asked.
+
+Rand nodded, finished what he was typing, and looked up.
+
+"Why, yes. There were a few details I wanted to clear up with him, and I
+called at his shop this morning. I found him lying dead inside." He went
+on to describe the manner in which Rivers had met his death. "The radio
+and newspaper accounts were accurate enough, in the main; there were a
+few details omitted, at the request of the police, of course."
+
+"Well, you didn't get involved in it, though?" Dunmore inquired
+anxiously. "I mean, you're not taking any part in the investigation?
+After all, we don't want to be mixed up in anything like this."
+
+"In that case, Mr. Dunmore, let me advise you not to discuss the matter
+of Rivers's offer to buy this collection with anybody outside," Rand told
+him. "So far, the police and the District Attorney's office both seem to
+think that Rivers was killed by somebody whom he'd swindled in a business
+deal. Of course, they know about the collection being for sale, and
+Rivers's offering to buy it."
+
+"They do?" Dunmore asked sharply. "Did you tell them that?"
+
+"Naturally. I had to account for my presence at Rivers's shop, this
+morning," Rand replied. "I don't know if the idea has occurred to them
+that somebody might have killed Rivers to eliminate a rival bidder for
+the collection or not; I wouldn't say anything, if I were you, that might
+give them the idea."
+
+The extension phone rang shrilly. Walters picked it up, spoke into it,
+and listened for a moment.
+
+"Yes, Miss Lawrence; he's right here. You wish to speak to him?" He
+handed the phone across the desk to Rand. "Miss Karen Lawrence, for you,
+Colonel Rand."
+
+Rand took the phone. Before he had time to say "hello," the antique-shop
+girl demanded of him:
+
+"Colonel Rand, you must tell me the truth. Did you have anything to do
+with Pierre Jarrett's being arrested?"
+
+"_What?_" Rand barked. Then he softened his voice. "No; on my honor, Miss
+Lawrence. I knew nothing about it until this moment. Who did it? Olsen?"
+
+"I don't know what his name was. He was a State Police sergeant," she
+replied. "He and another State Policeman came to the Jarrett house about
+half an hour ago, charged Pierre with the murder of Arnold Rivers, and
+took him away. His mother phoned me about it a few minutes ago."
+
+"That God-damned two-faced Jesuitical bastard!" Rand exploded. "Where are
+you now?"
+
+"Here at my shop. Mrs. Jarrett is coming here. She's afraid the reporters
+will be coming out to the house as soon as they hear about it, and she
+doesn't want to talk to them."
+
+"All right. I'll be there as soon as I can. If there's anything I can do
+to help you, you can count on me for it."
+
+He hung up, and turned to Walters. "Is my car still out front?" he asked.
+"It is? Good. I'll be gone for a while; tell the others I have something
+to attend to."
+
+"What's happened now?" Dunmore asked sourly.
+
+"Just what I was speaking about. The Gestapo gathered up Pierre Jarrett;
+they seem to have gotten the idea, now, that the motive may have been
+competition for the collection. Next thing, Farnsworth will think he has
+a case against Carl Gwinnett, and he'll land in the jug, too. I hope you
+realize that every time something like this happens, it peels a thousand
+or so off the price I'll be able to get for you people for these
+pistols."
+
+Dunmore didn't try to ask how that would happen, for which Rand was duly
+thankful; he accepted the statement uncritically. Walters was staring at
+Rand in horror, saying nothing. Rand picked up the outside phone and
+dialed the same number he had called from the Rivers place that morning.
+
+"Is Sergeant McKenna about?... He is? Fine; I'd like to speak to
+him.... Oh, hello, Mick; Jeff Rand."
+
+McKenna chuckled out of the receiver. "Sort of slipped one over on you,
+didn't I?" he gloated. "Why, I was checking up on those people who were
+at Gresham's, last evening, and they all agreed that young Jarrett and
+the Lawrence girl had left the party about ten. So I had a talk with Miss
+Lawrence, and she tried to tell me that Jarrett was with her at her
+apartment, over the antique shop, from about ten fifteen until about
+twelve, when another girl she rooms with got home from a date. I'd of
+took that, too, only right across the street from the antique shop there
+is one of these old hens like you find in every neighborhood, the kind
+that keeps their nose flattened on the window between the curtains,
+checking up on the neighbors. I spotted her when I came out of the
+antique shop, so I slipped around to see her, and she told me that young
+Jarrett went into the apartment with the girl at about quarter past ten,
+stayed inside for about twenty minutes, then came out and drove away. She
+says Jarrett came back in about half an hour, and stayed till this girl
+who shares the Lawrence girl's apartment--a Miss Dupont, who teaches
+sixth grade at Thaddeus Stevens School--got home, about twelve. So there
+you are."
+
+"Uh-huh. Dave Ritter said this was going to turn into another Hall-Mills
+case; well, now you have your Pig Woman," Rand said. "Miss Lawrence
+shouldn't have lied to you, Mick. I suppose she got worried when you
+started asking questions, and there's nothing like a good murder in the
+neighborhood to make liars out of people."
+
+"And damn well I know that!" McKenna agreed. "But that isn't all. It
+seems our cruise-car crew spotted Jarrett's car standing in Rivers's
+drive, about eleven. Just when he was away from the antique-shop, and
+about when the M.E. figures Rivers was getting the business."
+
+"Did they get the number?" Rand asked. "Or how did they identify the
+car?"
+
+"Oh, they knew it; see, our boys shoot a lot with the Scott County Rifle
+& Pistol Club, and they've all seen Jarrett's car at the range, different
+times," McKenna said. "A gray 1947 Plymouth coupe. Like I say, they knew
+the car, and they knew Jarrett collects guns, and the lights were on
+inside the shop and the shades were drawn, so they didn't think anything
+of it, at the time. See, they went to bed about ten this morning, and
+didn't get up till after five, so I didn't find out about it till after
+supper."
+
+Rand shrugged, and managed to get some of the shrug into his voice. "Can
+be, at that," he said. "I hope you're not making a mistake, Mick; if you
+are, his lawyer's going to crucify you. What are you using for a motive?"
+
+"Rivers was outbidding this crowd Jarrett and the girl were in with. They
+all told me about that," McKenna said. "And he and the girl were planning
+to use their end of the collection to go into the arms business, after
+they got married. Rivers got in the way." McKenna, at the other end of
+the line, must have shrugged, too. "After all, for about four years,
+they'd been training Jarrett to overcome resistance with the bayonet, so
+he did just that."
+
+"Maybe so. You find out anything about that other matter I was interested
+in?"
+
+"You mean the pistols? Huh-unh; we went over Rivers's place with a
+fine-tooth comb, and questioned young Gillis about it, and we didn't get
+a thing. You sure those pistols went to Rivers?"
+
+"I'm not sure of anything at all," Rand replied, looking at his watch.
+"You going to be in, say in a couple of hours? I want to have a talk with
+you."
+
+"Sure. I'll be around all evening," McKenna assured him. "If we don't
+have another murder."
+
+Rand hung up. He pulled the sheet out of the typewriter, laid it
+face down on the other sheets he had finished, and laid a long
+seventeenth-century Flemish flintlock on top for a paperweight,
+memorizing the position of the pistol relative to the paper under it.
+
+"Put those pistols back on the wall," he told Walters, indicating several
+he had laid aside after listing. "Leave the others there; I'm not
+finished with them yet. I'll be back before too long. If I don't find any
+more bodies."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 16
+
+
+It was raining again as Rand parked his car about a hundred yards up the
+street from Karen Lawrence's antique-shop. The windows were dark, but
+Karen was waiting inside the door for him. He entered quickly, mindful of
+the All-Seeing Eye across the street, and followed her to a back room,
+where Mrs. Jarrett and Dorothy Gresham were. All three women regarded him
+intently, as though trying to decide whether he was friend or enemy.
+There was a long silence before Mrs. Jarrett spoke, and when she did, her
+words were almost the same as Karen's when she had spoken over the phone.
+
+"Colonel Rand," she began, obviously struggling with herself, "you must
+tell me the truth. Did you have anything to do with my son's being
+arrested?"
+
+Rand shook his head. "Absolutely nothing, Mrs. Jarrett," he told her,
+unbuckling the belt of his raincoat and taking it off. "I have never
+seriously suspected your son of the Rivers murder, I had no idea that
+McKenna was contemplating arresting him, and if I had, I would have
+advised him against it. Besides causing annoyance to innocent people,
+McKenna's made a serious tactical error. He was misled by appearances,
+and he was afraid I'd break this case before he did, which I intend to
+do." He turned to Karen Lawrence. "I talked to McKenna after you called
+me; he as much as admitted making that arrest to get in ahead of me."
+
+"I told you," Dorothy Gresham flashed at the others. "I knew Jeff
+wouldn't stoop to anything as contemptible as pretending to be Pierre's
+friend and then getting him arrested!"
+
+Rand permitted himself a wry inward smile. He hoped she would not have an
+opportunity to observe his stooping capabilities before he had finished
+his various operations at Rosemont.
+
+"I certainly hoped not." Mrs. Jarrett relaxed, smiling faintly at Rand.
+"Pierre likes you, Colonel. I hated the thought that you might have
+betrayed him. Are you working on the Rivers case, too?"
+
+Rand nodded again, turning to Dot Gresham. "Your father retained me to
+make an investigation," he said. "After that trouble he had with Rivers
+about that spurious North & Cheney, he wanted the murderer caught before
+somebody got around to accusing him."
+
+"You mean there's a chance Dad might be suspected?" Dot was scared.
+
+Rand nodded. The girl was beginning to look suspiciously at Karen and
+Mrs. Jarrett. Getting ready to toss Pierre to the wolves if her father
+were in danger, Rand suspected. He hastened to reassure her.
+
+"Rivers was still alive when your father reached home, last evening," he
+told her. "That's been established."
+
+She breathed her obvious relief. If Gresham had left home after Rand's
+departure with Philip Cabot, she didn't know it.
+
+Karen, on the other hand, was growing more and more worried.
+
+"Look, Colonel," she began. "They didn't just pull Pierre's name out of a
+hat. They must have had something to suspect him about."
+
+"Yes. You shouldn't have lied to McKenna. He checked up on your story;
+the woman across the street told him about seeing Pierre leave here a
+little before eleven and come back about half an hour later."
+
+"I was afraid of that," Karen said. "I forgot all about that old hag.
+There's nothing that can go on around here that she doesn't know about;
+Pierre calls her Mrs. G2."
+
+"And then," Rand continued, "McKenna claims that a car like Pierre's was
+seen parked in Rivers's drive about the time Pierre was away from here."
+
+Mrs. Jarrett moaned softly; her face, already haggard, became positively
+ghastly. Karen gasped in fright.
+
+"They only identified it as to model and make; they didn't get the
+license number ... Where did Pierre go, while he was away from here?"
+
+"He went out for cigarettes," Karen said. "When we came here from
+Greshams', we made some coffee, and then sat and talked for a while, and
+then we found out that we were both out of cigarettes and there weren't
+any here. So Pierre said he'd go out and get some. He was gone about half
+an hour; when he came back, he had a carton, and some hot pork
+sandwiches. He'd gotten them at the same place as the cigarettes--Art
+Igoe's lunch-stand."
+
+"Could Igoe verify that?"
+
+"It wouldn't help if he did. Igoe's place isn't a five-minute drive from
+Rivers's, farther down the road."
+
+"Has Pierre a lawyer?" Rand asked.
+
+"No. Not yet. We were just talking about that."
+
+"Dad would defend him," Dot suggested. "Of course, he's not a criminal
+lawyer--"
+
+"Carter Tipton, in New Belfast," Rand told them. "He's my lawyer; he's
+gotten me out of more jams than you could shake a stick at. Where's the
+telephone? I'll call him now."
+
+"You think he'd defend Pierre?"
+
+"Unless I'm badly mistaken, Pierre isn't going to need any trial
+defense," Rand told them. "He will need somebody to look after his
+interests, and we'll try to get him out on a writ as soon as possible."
+
+He looked at his watch. It was ten minutes to nine. It was hard to say
+where Carter Tipton would be at the moment; his manservant would probably
+know. Karen showed him the phone and he started to put through a
+person-to-person call.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was eleven o'clock before he backed his car into the Fleming garage,
+and the rain had turned to a wet, sticky snow. All the Fleming cars were
+in, but Rand left the garage doors open. He also left his hat and coat in
+the car.
+
+After locating and talking to Tipton and arranging for him to meet Dave
+Ritter at the Rosemont Inn, he had gone to the State Police substation,
+where he had talked at length with Mick McKenna. He had been compelled to
+tell the State Police sergeant a number of things he had intended keeping
+to himself. When he was through, McKenna went so far as to admit that he
+had been a trifle hasty in arresting Pierre Jarrett. Rand suspected that
+he was mentally kicking himself with hobnailed boots for his premature
+act. He also submitted, for McKenna's approval, the scheme he had
+outlined to Dave Ritter, and obtained a promise of cooperation.
+
+When he entered the Fleming library, en route to the gunroom, he found
+the entire family assembled there; with them was Humphrey Goode. As he
+came in, they broke off what had evidently been an acrimonious dispute
+and gave him their undivided attention. Geraldine, relaxed in a chair,
+was smoking; for once, she didn't have a glass in her hand. Gladys
+occupied another chair; she was smoking, too. Nelda had been pacing back
+and forth like a caged tiger; at Rand's entrance, she turned to face him,
+and Rand wondered whether she thought he was Clyde Beatty or a side of
+beef. Goode and Dunmore sat together on the sofa, forming what looked
+like a bilateral offensive and defensive alliance, and Varcek, looking
+more than ever like Rudolf Hess, stood with folded arms in one corner.
+
+"Now, see here, Rand," Dunmore began, as soon as the detective was inside
+the room, "we want to know just exactly for whom you're working, around
+here. And I demand to know where you've been since you left here this
+evening."
+
+"And I," Goode piped up, "must protest most strongly against your
+involvement in this local murder case. I am informed that, while in the
+employ of this family, you accepted a retainer from another party to
+investigate the death of Arnold Rivers."
+
+"That's correct," Rand informed him. Then he turned to Gladys. "Just for
+the record, Mrs. Fleming, do you recall any stipulation to the effect
+that the business of handling this pistol-collection should have the
+exclusive attention of my agency? I certainly don't recall anything of
+the sort."
+
+"No, of course not," she replied. "As long as the collection is sold to
+the best advantage, I haven't any interest in any other business of your
+agency, and have no right to have." She turned to the others. "I thought
+I made that clear to all of you."
+
+"You didn't answer my question!" Dunmore yelled at him.
+
+"I don't intend to. You aren't my client, and I'm not answerable to you."
+
+"Well, you carry my authorization," Goode supported him. "I think I have
+a right to know what's being done."
+
+"As far as the collection's concerned, yes. As for the Rivers murder, or
+my armored-car service, or any other business of the Tri-State Agency,
+no."
+
+"Well, you made use of my authorization to get that revolver from
+Kirchner--" Goode began.
+
+"Aah!" Rand cried. "So that concerns the Rivers murder, does it? Well!
+When did you find that out, now? When Kirchner called you, you had no
+objection to his giving me that revolver. What changed your mind for
+you? Didn't you know that Rivers was dead, then?" Rand watched Goode
+trying to assimilate that. "Or didn't you think I knew?"
+
+Goode cleared his throat noisily, twisting his mouth. The others were
+looking back and forth from him to Rand, in obvious bewilderment; they
+realized that Rand had pulled some kind of a rabbit out of a hat, but
+they couldn't understand how he'd done it.
+
+"What I mean is that since then you have allowed yourself to become
+involved in this murder case. You have let it be publicly known that you
+are a private detective, working for the Fleming family," Goode orated.
+"How long, then, will it be before it will be said, by all sorts of
+irresponsible persons, that you are also investigating the death of Lane
+Fleming?"
+
+"Well?" Rand asked patiently. "Are you afraid people will start calling
+that a murder, too?"
+
+Gladys was looking at him apprehensively, as though she were watching him
+juggle four live hand grenades.
+
+"Is anybody saying that now?" Varcek asked sharply.
+
+"Not that I know of," Rand lied. "But if Goode keeps on denying it, they
+will."
+
+"You know perfectly well," Goode exploded, "that I am alluding to these
+unfounded and mischievous rumors of suicide, which are doing the Premix
+Company so much harm. My God, Mr. Rand, can't you realize--"
+
+"Oh, come off it, Goode," Varcek broke in amusedly. "We all--Colonel Rand
+included--know that you started those rumors yourself. Very clever--to
+start a rumor by denying it. But scarcely original. Doctor Goebbels was
+doing it almost twenty years ago."
+
+"My God, is that true?" Nelda demanded. "You mean, he's been going around
+starting all these stories about Father committing suicide?" She turned
+on Goode like an enraged panther. "Why, you lying old son of a bitch!"
+she screamed at him.
+
+"Of course. He wants to start a selling run on Premix," Varcek explained
+to her. "He's buying every share he can get his hands on. We all are." He
+turned to Rand. "I'd advise you to buy some, if you can find any, Colonel
+Rand. In a month or so, it's going to be a really good thing."
+
+"I know about the merger. I am buying," Rand told him. "But are you sure
+of what Goode's been doing?"
+
+"Of course," Gladys put in contemptuously. "I always wondered about this
+suicide talk; I couldn't see why Humphrey was so perturbed about it.
+Anything that lowered the market price of Premix, at this time, would be
+to his advantage." She looked at Goode as though he had six legs and a
+hard shell. "You know, Humphrey, I can't say I exactly thank you for
+this."
+
+"Did you know about it?" Nelda demanded of her husband. "You did! My God,
+Fred, you are a filthy specimen!"
+
+"Oh, you know; anything to turn a dishonest dollar," Geraldine piped up.
+"Like the late Arnold Rivers's ten-thousand offer. Say! I wonder if that
+mightn't be what Rivers died of? Raising the price and leaving Fred out
+in the cold!"
+
+Dunmore simply stared at her, making a noise like a chicken choking on
+a piece of string.
+
+"Well, all this isn't my pidgin," Rand said to Gladys. "I only work here,
+_Deo gratias_, and I still have some work to do."
+
+With that, he walked past Goode and Dunmore and ascended the spiral
+stairway to the gunroom. Even at the desk, in the far corner of the room,
+he could hear them going at it, hammer-and-tongs, in the library.
+Sometimes it would be Nelda's strident shrieks that would dominate the
+bedlam below; sometimes it would be Fred Dunmore, roaring like a bull.
+Now and then, Humphrey Goode would rumble something, and, once in a
+while, he could hear Gladys's trained and modulated voice. Usually, any
+remark she made would be followed by outraged shouts from Goode and
+Dunmore, like the crash of falling masonry after the whip-crack of a
+tank-gun.
+
+At first Rand eavesdropped shamelessly, but there was nothing of more
+than comic interest; it was just a routine parade and guard-mount of the
+older and more dependable family skeletons, with special emphasis on
+Humphrey Goode's business and professional ethics. When he was satisfied
+that he would hear nothing having any bearing on the death of Lane
+Fleming, Rand went back to his work.
+
+After a while, the tumult gradually died out. Rand was still typing when
+Gladys came up the spiral and perched on the corner of the desk, picking
+up a long brass-barreled English flintlock and hefting it.
+
+"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. "Well, pleasant dreams; I'll see you in the
+morning."
+
+After she had left the gunroom, Rand looked at his watch. It was a
+very precise instrument; a Swiss military watch, with a sweep second
+hand, and two timing dials. It had formerly been the property of an
+_Obergruppenfuehrer_ of the S.S., and Rand had appropriated it to
+replace his own, broken while choking the _Obergruppenfuehrer_ to death
+in an alley in Palermo. He zeroed the timing dials and pressed the
+start-button. Then he stood for a time over the old cobbler's bench,
+mentally reconstructing what had been done after Lane Fleming had
+been shot, after which he hurried down the spiral and along the rear hall
+to the garage, where he snatched his hat and coat from the car. He threw
+the coat over his shoulders like a cloak, and went on outside. He made
+his way across the lawn to the orchard, through the orchard to the lawn
+of Humphrey Goode's house, and across this to Goode's side door. He stood
+there for a few seconds, imagining himself opening the door and going
+inside. Then he stopped the timing hands and returned to the Fleming
+house, locking the garage doors behind him. In the garage, he looked at
+the watch.
+
+It had taken exactly six minutes and twenty-two seconds. He knew that he
+could move more rapidly than the dumpy lawyer, but to balance that, he
+had been moving over more or less unfamiliar ground. He left his hat and
+trench coat in the car and went upstairs.
+
+Undressing, he went into the bathroom in his dressing-gown, spent about
+twenty minutes shaving and taking a shower, and then returned to his own
+room.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 17
+
+
+When he rose, the next morning, Rand noticed something which had escaped
+his eye when he had gone to bed the night before. His .38-special, in its
+shoulder-holster, was lying on the dresser; he had not bothered putting
+it on when he had gone to see Rivers the morning before, and it had lain
+there all the previous day. He distinctly remembered having moved it,
+shortly after dinner, when he had gone to his room for some notes he had
+made on the collection.
+
+However, between that time and the present it had managed to flop itself
+over; the holster was now lying back-up. Intrigued by such a remarkable
+accomplishment in an inanimate object, Rand crossed the room in the
+dress-of-nature in which he slept and looked more closely at it,
+receiving a second and considerably more severe surprise. The revolver
+in the holster was not his own.
+
+It was, to be sure, a .38 Colt Detective Special, and it was in his
+holster, but it was not the Detective Special he had brought with him
+from New Belfast. His own gun was of the second type, with the corners
+rounded off the grip; this one was of the original issue, with the square
+Police Positive grip. His own gun had seen hard service; this one was in
+practically new condition. There was a discrepancy of about thirty
+thousand in the serial numbers. His gun had been loaded in six chambers
+with the standard 158-grain loads; this one was loaded in only five, with
+148-grain mid-range wad-cutter loads.
+
+Rand stood for some time looking at the revolver. The worst of it was
+that he couldn't be exactly sure when the substitution had been made. It
+might have happened at any time between eight o'clock and twelve, when he
+had gone to bed. He rather suspected that it had been accomplished while
+he had been in the bathroom, however.
+
+Dumping out the five rounds in the cylinder, he inspected the changeling
+carefully. It was, he thought, the revolver Lane Fleming had kept in the
+drawer of the gunroom desk. There was no obstruction in the two-inch
+barrel, the weapon had not been either fired or cleaned recently, the
+firing-pin had not been shortened, the mainspring showed the proper
+amount of tension, and the mechanism functioned as it should. There was a
+chance that somebody had made up five special hand-loads for him, using
+nitroglycerin instead of powder, but that didn't seem likely, as it would
+not necessitate a switch of revolvers. There were four or five other
+possibilities, all of them disquieting; he would have been a great deal
+less alarmed if somebody had taken a shot at him.
+
+Getting a box of cartridges out of his Gladstone, he filled the
+cylinder with 158-grain loads. When he went to the bathroom, he took
+the revolver in his dressing-gown pocket; when he dressed, he put on
+the shoulder-holster, and pocketed a handful of spare rounds.
+
+Anton Varcek was loitering in the hall when he came out; he gave Rand
+good-morning, and fell into step with him as they went toward the
+stairway.
+
+"Colonel Rand, I wish you wouldn't mention this to anybody, but I would
+like a private talk with you," the Czech said. "After Fred Dunmore has
+left for the plant. Would that be possible?"
+
+"Yes, Mr. Varcek; I'll be in the gunroom all morning, working." They
+reached the bottom of the stairway, where Gladys was waiting.
+"Understand," Rand continued, "I never really studied biology. I was
+exposed to it, in school, but at that time I was preoccupied with the
+so-called social sciences."
+
+Varcek took the conversational shift in stride. "Of course," he agreed.
+"But you are trained in the scientific method of thought. That, at least,
+is something. When I have opportunity to explain my ideas more fully, I
+believe you will be interested in my conclusions."
+
+They greeted Gladys, and walked with her to the dining-room. As usual,
+Geraldine was absent; Dunmore and Nelda were already at the table, eating
+in silence. Both of them seemed self-conscious, after the pitched battle
+of the evening before. Rand broke the tension by offering Humphrey Goode
+in the role of whipping-boy; he had no sooner made a remark in derogation
+of the lawyer than Nelda and her husband broke into a duet of
+vituperation. In the end, everybody affected to agree that the whole
+unpleasant scene had been entirely Goode's fault, and a pleasant spirit
+of mutual cordiality prevailed.
+
+Finally Dunmore got up, wiping his mouth on a napkin.
+
+"Well, it's about time to get to work," he said. "We might as well save
+gas and both use my car. Coming, Anton?"
+
+"I'm sorry, Fred; I can't leave, yet. I have some notes upstairs I have
+to get in order. I was working on this new egg-powder, last evening, and
+I want to continue the experiments at the plant laboratory. I think I
+know how we'll be able to cut production costs on it, about five per
+cent."
+
+"And boy, can we stand that!" Dunmore grunted. "Well, be seeing you at
+the plant."
+
+Rand waited until Dunmore had left, then went across to the library and
+up to the gunroom. As soon as he entered the room above, he saw what was
+wrong. The previous thefts had been masked by substitutions, but whoever
+had helped himself to one of the more recent metallic-cartridge
+specimens, the night before, hadn't bothered with any such precaution,
+and a pair of vacant screwhooks disclosed the removal. A second look told
+Rand what had been taken: the little .25 Webley & Scott from the Pollard
+collection, with the silencer.
+
+The pistol-trade which had been imposed on him had disquieted him; now,
+he had no hesitation in admitting to himself, he was badly scared.
+Whoever had taken that little automatic had had only one thought in
+mind--noiseless and stealthy murder. Very probably with one Colonel
+Jefferson Davis Rand in mind as the prospective corpse.
+
+He sat down at the desk and started typing, at the same time trying to
+keep the hall door and the head of the spiral stairway under observation.
+It was an attempt which was responsible for quite a number of
+typographical errors. Finally, Anton Varcek came in from the hallway,
+approached the desk, and sat down in an armchair.
+
+"Colonel Rand," he began, in a low voice, "I have been thinking over a
+remark you made, last evening. Were you serious when you alluded to the
+possibility that Lane Fleming had been murdered?"
+
+"Well, the idea had occurred to me," Rand understated, keeping his right
+hand close to his left coat lapel. "I take it you have begun to doubt
+that it was an accident?"
+
+"I would doubt a theory that a skilled chemist would accidentally poison
+himself in his own laboratory," Varcek replied. "I would not, for
+instance, pour myself a drink from a bottle labeled HNO_3 in the belief
+that it contained vodka. I believe that Lane Fleming should be credited
+with equal caution about firearms."
+
+"Yet you were the first to advance the theory that the shooting had been
+an accident," Rand pointed out.
+
+"I have a strong dislike for firearms." Varcek looked at the pistols on
+the desk as though they were so many rattlesnakes. "I have always feared
+an accident, with so many in the house. When I saw him lying dead, with a
+revolver in his hand, that was my first thought. First thoughts are so
+often illogical, emotional."
+
+"And you didn't consider the possibility of suicide?"
+
+"No! Absolutely not!" The Czech was emphatic. "The idea never occurred to
+me, then or since. Lane Fleming was not the man to do that. He was deeply
+religious, much interested in church work. And, aside from that, he had
+no reason to wish to die. His health was excellent; much better than that
+of many men twenty years his junior. He had no business worries. The
+company is doing well, we had large Government contracts during the war
+and no reconversion problems afterward, we now have more orders than we
+have plant capacity to fill, and Mr. Fleming was consulting with
+architects about plant expansion. We have been spared any serious labor
+troubles. And Mr. Fleming's wife was devoted to him, and he to her. He
+had no family troubles."
+
+Rand raised an eyebrow over that last. "No?" he inquired.
+
+Varcek flushed. "Please, Colonel Rand, you must not judge by what you
+have seen since you came here. When Lane Fleming was alive, such scenes
+as that in the library last evening would have been unthinkable. Now,
+this family is like a ship without a captain."
+
+"And since you do not think that he shot himself, either deliberately or
+inadvertently, there remains the alternative that he was shot by somebody
+else, either deliberately or, very improbably, by inadvertence," Rand
+said. "I think the latter can be safely disregarded. Let's agree that it
+was murder and go on from there."
+
+Varcek nodded. "You are investigating it as such?" he asked.
+
+"I am appraising and selling this pistol collection," Rand told him
+wearily. "I am curious about who killed Fleming, of course; for my own
+protection I like to know the background of situations in which I am
+involved. But do you think Humphrey Goode would bring me here to stir up
+a lot of sleeping dogs that might awake and grab him by the pants-seat?
+Or did you think that uproar in the library last evening was just a
+prearranged act?"
+
+"I had not thought of Humphrey Goode. It was my understanding that Mrs.
+Fleming brought you here."
+
+"Mrs. Fleming wants her money out of the collection, as soon as
+possible," Rand said. "To reopen the question of her husband's death and
+start a murder investigation wouldn't exactly expedite things. I'm just a
+more or less innocent bystander, who wants to know whether there is going
+to be any trouble or not.... Now, you came here to tell me what happened
+on the night of Lane Fleming's death, didn't you?"
+
+"Yes. We had finished dinner at about seven," Varcek said. "Lane had been
+up here for about an hour before dinner, working on his new revolver; he
+came back here immediately after he was through eating. A little later,
+when I had finished my coffee, I came upstairs, by the main stairway. The
+door of this room was open, and Lane was inside, sitting on that old
+shoemaker's-bench, working on the revolver. He had it apart, and he was
+cleaning a part of it. The round part, where the loads go; the drum, is
+it?"
+
+"Cylinder. How was he cleaning it?" Rand asked.
+
+"He was using a small brush, like a test-tube brush; he was scrubbing out
+the holes. The chambers. He was using a solvent that smelled something
+like banana-oil."
+
+Rand nodded. He could visualize the progress Fleming had made. If Varcek
+was telling the truth, and he remembered what Walters had told him, the
+last flicker of possibility that Lane Fleming's death had been accidental
+vanished.
+
+"I talked with him for some ten minutes or so," Varcek continued, "about
+some technical problems at the plant. All the while, he kept on working
+on this revolver, and finished cleaning out the cylinder, and also the
+barrel. He was beginning to put the revolver together when I left him and
+went up to my laboratory.
+
+"About fifteen minutes later I heard the shot. For a moment, I debated
+with myself as to what I had heard, and then I decided to come down here.
+But first I had to take a solution off a Bunsen burner, where I had been
+heating it, and take the temperature of it, and then wash my hands,
+because I had been working with poisonous materials. I should say all
+this took me about five minutes.
+
+"When I got down here, the door of this room was closed and locked. That
+was most unusual, and I became really worried. I pounded on the door, and
+called out, but I got no answer. Then Fred Dunmore came out of the
+bathroom attached to his room, with nothing on but a bathrobe. His hair
+was wet, and he was in his bare feet and making wet tracks on the floor."
+
+From there on, Varcek's story tallied closely with what Rand had heard
+from Gladys and from Walters. Everybody's story tallied, where it could
+be checked up on.
+
+"You think the murderer locked the door behind him, when he came out of
+here?" Varcek asked.
+
+"I think somebody locked the door, sometime. It might have been the
+murderer, or it might have been Fleming at the murderer's suggestion. But
+why couldn't the murderer have left the gunroom by that stairway?"
+
+Varcek looked around furtively and lowered his voice. Now he looked like
+Rudolf Hess discussing what to do about Ernst Roehm.
+
+"Colonel Rand; don't you think that Fred Dunmore could have shot Lane
+Fleming, and then have gone to his room and waited until I came
+downstairs?" he asked.
+
+Here we go again! Rand thought. Just like the Rivers case; everybody
+putting the finger on everybody else....
+
+"And have undressed and taken a bath, while he was waiting?" he inquired.
+"You came down here only five minutes after the shot. In that time,
+Dunmore would have had to wipe his fingerprints off the revolver, leave
+it in Fleming's hand, put that oily rag in his other hand, set the
+deadlatch, cross the hall, undress, get into the bathtub and start
+bathing. That's pretty fast work."
+
+"But who else could have done it?"
+
+"Well, you, for one. You could have come down from your lab, shot
+Fleming, faked the suicide, and then gone out, locking the door behind
+you, and made a demonstration in the hall until you were joined by
+Dunmore and the ladies. Then, with your innocence well established, you
+could have waited until your wife prompted you, as she or somebody else
+was sure to, and then have gone down to the library and up the spiral,"
+Rand said. "That's about as convincing, no more and no less, as your
+theory about Dunmore."
+
+Varcek agreed sadly. "And I cannot prove otherwise, can I?"
+
+"You can advance your Dunmore theory to establish reasonable doubt," Rand
+told him. "And if Dunmore's accused, he can do the same with the theory
+I've just outlined. And as long as reasonable doubt exists, neither of
+you could be convicted. This isn't the Third Reich or the Soviet Union;
+they wouldn't execute both of you to make sure of getting the right one.
+Both of you had a motive in this Mill-Pack merger that couldn't have been
+negotiated while Fleming lived. One or the other of you may be guilty; on
+the other hand, both of you may be innocent."
+
+"Then who...?" Varcek had evidently bet his roll on Dunmore. "There is no
+one else who could have done it."
+
+"The garage doors were open, if I recall," Rand pointed out. "Anybody
+could have slipped in that way, come through the rear hall to the library
+and up the spiral, and have gone out the same way. Some of the French
+Maquis I worked with, during the war, could have wiped out the whole
+family, one after the other, that way."
+
+A look of intense concentration settled upon Varcek's face. He nodded
+several times.
+
+"Yes. Of course," he said, his thought-chain complete. "And you spoke of
+motive. From what you must have heard, last evening, Humphrey Goode was
+no less interested in the merger than Fred Dunmore or myself. And then
+there is your friend Gresham; he is quite familiar with the interior of
+this house, and who knows what terms National Milling & Packaging may
+have made with him, contingent upon his success in negotiating the
+merger?"
+
+"I'm not forgetting either of them," Rand said. "Or Fred Dunmore, or you.
+If you did it, I'd advise you to confess now; it'll save everybody,
+yourself included, a lot of trouble."
+
+Varcek looked at him, fascinated. "Why, I believe you regard all of us
+just as I do my fruit flies!" he said at length. "You know, Colonel Rand,
+you are not a comfortable sort of man to have around." He rose slowly.
+"Naturally, I'll not mention this interview. I suppose you won't want to,
+either?"
+
+"I'd advise you not to talk about it, at that," Rand said. "The situation
+here seems to be very delicate, and rather explosive.... Oh, as you go
+out, I'd be obliged to you for sending Walters up here. I still have this
+work here, and I'll need his help."
+
+After Varcek had left him, Rand looked in the desk drawer, verifying his
+assumption that the .38 he had seen there was gone. He wondered where his
+own was, at the moment.
+
+When the butler arrived, he was put to work bringing pistols to the desk,
+carrying them back to the racks, taking measurements, and the like. All
+the while, Rand kept his eye on the head of the spiral stairway.
+
+Finally he caught a movement, and saw what looked like the top of a
+peak-crowned gray felt hat between the spindles of the railing. He eased
+the Detective Special out of its holster and got to his feet.
+
+"All right!" he sang out. "Come on up!"
+
+Walters looked, obviously startled, at the revolver that had materialized
+in Rand's hand, and at the two men who were emerging from the spiral. He
+was even more startled, it seemed, when he realized that they wore the
+uniform of the State Police.
+
+"What.... What's the meaning of this, sir?" he demanded of Rand.
+
+"You're being arrested," Rand told him. "Just stand still, now."
+
+He stepped around the desk and frisked the butler quickly, wondering
+if he were going to find a .25 Webley & Scott automatic or his own
+.38-Special. When he found neither, he holstered his temporary weapon.
+
+"If this is your idea of a joke, sir, permit me to say that it isn't...."
+
+"It's no joke, son," Sergeant McKenna told him. "In this country, a
+police-officer doesn't have to recite any incantation before he makes an
+arrest, any more than he needs to read any Riot Act before he can start
+shooting, but it won't hurt to warn you that anything you say can be used
+against you."
+
+"At least, I must insist upon knowing why I am being arrested," Walters
+said icily.
+
+"Oh! Don't you know?" McKenna asked. "Why, you're being arrested for the
+murder of Arnold Rivers."
+
+For a moment the butler retained his professional glacial disdain, and
+then the bottom seemed to drop suddenly out of him. Rand suppressed a
+smile at this minor verification of his theory. Walters had been
+expecting to be accused of larceny, and was prepared to treat the charge
+with contempt. Then he had realized, after a second or so, what the State
+Police sergeant had really said.
+
+"Good God, gentlemen!" He looked from Mick McKenna to Corporal Kavaalen
+to Rand and back again in bewilderment. "You surely can't mean that!"
+
+"We can and we do," Rand told him. "You stole about twenty-five pistols
+from this collection, after Mr. Fleming died, and sold them to Arnold
+Rivers. Then, when I came here and started checking up on the
+collection, you knew the game was up. So, last evening, you took out the
+station-wagon and went to see Rivers, and you killed him to keep him from
+turning state's evidence and incriminating you. Or maybe you killed him
+in a quarrel over the division of the loot. I hope, for your sake, that
+it was the latter; if it was, you may get off with second degree murder.
+But if you can't prove that there was no premeditation, you're tagged for
+the electric chair."
+
+"But ... But I didn't kill Mr. Rivers," Walters stammered. "I barely knew
+the gentleman. I saw him, once or twice, when he was here to see Mr.
+Fleming, but outside of that...."
+
+"Outside of that, you sold him about twenty-five of these pistols, and
+got a like number of junk pistols from him, for replacements." He took
+the list Pierre Jarrett and Stephen Gresham had compiled out of his
+pocket and began reading: "Italian wheel lock pistol, late sixteenth- or
+early seventeenth-century; pair Italian snaphaunce pistols, by Lazarino
+Cominazo...." He finished the list and put it away. "I think we've missed
+one or two, but that'll do, for the time."
+
+"But I didn't sell those pistols to Mr. Rivers," Walters expostulated. "I
+sold them to Mr. Carl Gwinnett. I can prove it!"
+
+That Rand had not expected. "Go on!" he jeered. "I suppose you have
+receipts for all of them. Fences always do that, of course."
+
+"But I did sell them to Mr. Gwinnett. I can take you to his house, if you
+get a search warrant, and show you where he has them hidden in the
+garret. He was afraid to offer them for sale until after this collection
+had been broken up and sold; he still has every one of them."
+
+McKenna spat out an obscenity. "Aren't we ever going to have any luck?"
+he demanded. "Jarrett out on a writ this morning, and now this!"
+
+"But he ain't in the clear," Kavaalen argued. "Maybe he didn't sell
+Rivers the pistols, but maybe he did kill him."
+
+"Dope!" McKenna abused his subordinate. "If he didn't sell Rivers the
+pistols, why would he kill him?"
+
+"He's only said he sold them to Gwinnett," Rand pointed out. Then he
+turned to Walters. "Look here; if we find those pistols in Gwinnett's
+possession, you're clear on this murder charge. There's still a slight
+matter of larceny, but that doesn't involve the electric chair. You take
+my advice and make a confession now, and then accompany these officers to
+Gwinnett's place and show them the pistols. If you do that, you may
+expect clemency on the theft charge, too."
+
+"Oh, I will, sir! I'll sign a full confession, and take these
+police-officers and show them every one of the pistols...."
+
+Rand put paper and carbon sheets in the typewriter. As Walters dictated,
+he typed; the butler listed every pistol which Gresham and Pierre Jarrett
+had found missing, and a cased presentation pair of .44 Colt 1860's that
+nobody had missed. He signed the triplicate copies willingly; he didn't
+seem to mind signing himself into jail, as long as he thought he was
+signing himself out of the electric chair.
+
+The book in which Fleming had recorded his pistols he still had; he had
+removed it from the gunroom and was keeping it in his room. He said he
+would get it, along with the things he would need to take to jail with
+him. When it was finished, they all went down the spiral stairway into
+the library.
+
+Nelda was standing at the foot of it. Evidently she had been listening to
+what had been going on upstairs.
+
+"You dirty sneak!" she yelled, catching sight of Walters. "After all
+we've done for you, you turn around and rob us! I hope they give you
+twenty years!"
+
+Walters turned to McKenna. "Sergeant, I am willing to accept the penalty
+of the law for what I have done, but I don't believe, sir, that it
+includes being yapped at by this vulgar bitch."
+
+Nelda let out an inarticulate howl of fury and sprang at him, nails
+raking. Corporal Kavaalen caught her wrist before she could claw the
+prisoner.
+
+"That's enough, you!" he told her. "You stop that, or you'll spend a
+night in jail yourself."
+
+She jerked her arm loose from his grasp and flung out of the library. As
+she went out, Gladys entered; Rand, who had been bringing up in the rear,
+stepped down from the stairway.
+
+"He confessed," he said softly. "We had to bluff it out of him, but he
+came across. Sold the pistols to Carl Gwinnett. We're going, now, to pick
+up Gwinnett and the pistols."
+
+"I'm glad you found the pistols," she told him. "But what're we going to
+do, over the week-end, for a butler...."
+
+Rand snapped his fingers. "Dammit, I never thought of that!" He allowed
+his brow to furrow with thought. "I won't promise anything, but I may be
+able to dig up somebody for you, for a day or so. Some of my friends are
+visiting their son, in a Naval hospital on the West Coast, and their
+butler may be glad for a chance to pick up a little extra money. Shall
+I call him and find out?"
+
+"Oh, Colonel Rand, would you? I'd be eternally grateful!"
+
+It was just as easy as that.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 18
+
+
+Dave Ritter, driving his small coupe, kept his eye on the white State
+Police car ahead. Rand, who had come away from the Fleming home in the
+white car, had called Ritter from the office of the Justice of the Peace
+while waiting for Walters to put up bail, after his hearing. Now, en
+route to Gwinnett's, he was briefing his assistant on what had happened.
+
+"So everything's set," he concluded. "Mrs. Fleming jumped at it; she
+knows you're coming in your own car, which you may keep in the garage
+there. You've left New Belfast about now; if you show up around three,
+you'll be safe on the driving time. Your name is Davies; I decided on
+that in case I suffer a _lapsus linguae_ and call you Dave in front of
+somebody."
+
+"Yeah. I'll have to watch and not call you Jeff, Colonel Rand, sir." He
+nodded toward the glove-box. "That Leech & Rigdon's in there; you'd
+better get it out before I go to the Flemings'. The guy at the drive-in
+made a positive identification; it's the one he sold Fleming. I saw the
+rest of the pistols he has there; don't waste time looking him up about
+them. They stink. And I saw Tip this morning. He got young Jarrett sprung
+on a writ." He thought for a moment. "What does this do to the Rivers and
+Fleming murders?"
+
+"We can look for one man for both jobs, now," Rand said. "Probably the
+motive for Fleming was that merger he was so violently opposed to, and
+the Rivers killing must have been a security measure of some sort. There;
+that must be Gwinnett's, now."
+
+The State Police car had pulled up in front of a large three-story frame
+house with faded and discolored paint and jigsaw scrollwork around the
+cornices, standing among a clump of trees beside the road. McKenna and
+Kavaalen got out, with Walters between them, and started up the path to
+the front steps. Ritter stopped behind the white sedan, and he and Rand
+got out. By that time, Walters and the two policemen were on the front
+porch.
+
+Suddenly Ritter turned and sprinted around the right side of the house.
+Rand stood looking after him for a moment, then started to follow more
+slowly; as he did, a shot slammed in the rear. Jerking out the changeling
+.38-special, he whirled and ran around the left side of the house,
+arriving at the rear in time to see Gwinnett standing on a boardwalk
+between the house and the stable-garage behind, with his hands raised.
+There was a fresh bullet-scar on the boardwalk at his feet. Ritter was
+covering him from the corner of the house with the .380 Beretta.
+
+Rand strolled over to Gwinnett, frisked him, and told him to put his
+hands down.
+
+"Nice, Dave," he complimented. "I thought of that, too, about a minute
+too late. As soon as he saw Walters coming up the walk with the police,
+he knew what had happened. Come on, Gwinnett; we'll go through the house
+and let them in."
+
+Gwinnett's eyes darted from side to side, like the eyes of a trapped
+animal. "I don't know what you're talking about," he said, stiff-lipped.
+"What is this, a stick-up?"
+
+Nobody bothered to tell him to stop kidding. They marched him through the
+kitchen, where a Negro girl, her arms white with flour, was dithering in
+fright, and into the front hall. A woman in a faded housedress had just
+admitted the two officers and the former Fleming butler.
+
+"You goddam rat!" Gwinnett yelled at Walters, as soon as he saw him.
+
+"For God's sake, Carl," the woman begged. "Don't make things any worse
+than they are. Keep quiet!"
+
+"All right, Gwinnett," McKenna said. "We're arresting you: receiving
+stolen goods, and accessory to larceny. We have a search warrant. Want to
+see it?"
+
+"So you have a search warrant," Gwinnett said. "So go ahead and search;
+if you don't find anything, you'll plant something. I want to call my
+lawyer."
+
+"That's your right," McKenna told him. "Aarvo, take him to a phone; let
+him call the White House if he wants to." He turned to Walters. "Now,
+where would he have this stuff stashed?"
+
+"In the garret, sir. I know the way."
+
+As Kavaalen accompanied Gwinnett to the phone, Walters started upstairs.
+Rand and McKenna followed, with Mrs. Gwinnett bringing up the rear.
+During the search of the attic, she stood to one side, watching the
+ex-butler dig into a pile of pistols.
+
+"This is one, gentlemen," Walters said, producing a Springfield 1818
+Model flintlock. "And here is the Walker Colt, and the .40-caliber Colt
+Paterson, and the Hall...."
+
+Eventually, he had them all assembled, including the five cased sets.
+Rand found a couple of empty bushel baskets and laid the pistols in them,
+between layers of old newspapers. He picked up one, and McKenna took the
+other, while Walters piled the five flat hardwood cases into his arms
+like cordwood. Still saying nothing, her eyes stony with hatred, the
+woman followed them downstairs.
+
+The rest of the afternoon was consumed with formalities. Gwinnett was
+given a hearing, at which he was represented by a lawyer straight out
+of a B-grade gangster picture. Rand had a heated argument with an
+over-zealous Justice of the Peace, who wanted to impound the pistols and
+jackknife-mark them for identification, but after hurling bloodthirsty
+threats of a damage suit for an astronomical figure, he managed to retain
+possession of the recovered weapons.
+
+Ritter left at a little past three, to report for duty in the Fleming
+household. Rand rode with McKenna and Kavaalen to the State Police
+substation, where the pistols were transferred to McKenna's personal car,
+in which they and Rand were to be transported back to the Fleming place.
+
+It was five o'clock before Rand had finished telling the sergeant and the
+corporal everything he felt they ought to know.
+
+"When we get to the Flemings', I'll give you that revolver I got from the
+coroner," he finished. "One of your boys can take it to this fellow
+Umholtz, and get him to identify it. You might also show it to young
+Gillis, and see what he knows about it. Gillis might even give you a name
+for who got it from Rivers. I'm not building any hopes on that, and the
+reason I'm not is that Gillis is still alive. If he knew, I don't think
+he would be."
+
+"Yeah. I can see that," McKenna nodded. "Fact is, I can see everything,
+now, except one thing. This pistol-switch somebody gave you; what's the
+idea of that?"
+
+"Why, that's because I'm on the spot," Rand told him. "I'm to be killed,
+and somebody else is to be killed along with me. The .25 automatic will
+be used on me, and the .38 will be used on the other fellow, and we'll be
+found dead about five feet apart, and I'll be holding my own gun, and the
+other fellow will be holding the .25, and it will look as though we shot
+it out and scored a double knockout. That way, my mouth will be shut
+about what I've learned since I came here, and the man who's supposed to
+have killed me will take the rap for Fleming and Rivers both. Nothing to
+stop an investigation like a couple of corpses who can't tell their own
+story and can take the blame for everything."
+
+"_Zhee-zus!_" Kavaalen's eyes widened. "That must be just it!"
+
+"Well, you got your nerve about you, I'll say that," McKenna commented.
+"You sit there and talk about it like it was something that was going to
+happen to Joe Doakes and Oscar Zilch." He looked at Rand intently. "You
+want us to keep an eye on you?"
+
+Rand leaned over and spat into the brass cuspidor, a gesture of
+braggadocio he had picked up among the French maquis.
+
+"Hell, no! That's the last thing I do want!" he said. "I want him to try
+it. You realize, don't you, that all this is pure assumption and theory?
+We don't have a single fact, as it stands, that proves anything. We could
+go and pick this fellow up, and he's one of three men, so we could grab
+all three of them, and even if we found the .25 Webley & Scott and my .38
+in his pockets, we couldn't charge him with anything. Fact is, right now
+we can't even prove that Lane Fleming's death was anything but the
+accident it's on the books as being. But let him take a shot at me...."
+
+"And then you'll have another nice, clear case of self-defense." McKenna
+frowned. "Goddammit, Jeff, you've had to defend yourself too many times,
+already. This'll be--well, how many will it be?"
+
+"Counting Germans?" Rand grinned. "Hell, I don't know; I can't remember
+all of them."
+
+"One thing," Kavaalen said solemnly, "you never hear of any lawyers
+springing people out of cemeteries on writs."
+
+"Look, Jeff," McKenna said, at length. "If it's the way you think, this
+guy won't dare kill you instantly, will he? Seems to me, the way the
+script reads, this other guy shoots you, and you shoot back and kill him,
+and then you die. Isn't that it?"
+
+Rand nodded. "I'm banking on that. He'll try to give me a fatal but not
+instantly fatal wound, and that means he'll have to take time to pick his
+spot. The reason I've managed to survive these people against whom I've
+had to defend myself has been that I just don't give a damn where I shoot
+a man. A lot of good police officers have gotten themselves killed
+because they tried to wing somebody and took a second or so longer about
+shooting than they should have."
+
+"Something in that, too," McKenna agreed. "But what I'm getting at is
+this: I think I know a way to give you a little more percentage." He
+rose. "Wait a minute; I'll be right back."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 19
+
+
+There was less feuding at dinner that evening than at any previous meal
+Rand had eaten in the Fleming home. In the first place, everybody seemed
+a little awed in the presence of the new butler, who flitted in and out
+of the room like a ghost and, when spoken to, answered in a heavy B.B.C.
+accent. Then, the women, who carried on most of the hostilities, had
+re-erected their _front populaire_ and were sharing a common pleasure in
+the recovery of the stolen pistols. And finally, there was a distinct
+possibility that the swift and dramatic justice that had overtaken
+Walters and Gwinnett at Rand's hands was having a sobering effect upon
+somebody at that table.
+
+Dunmore, Nelda, Varcek, Geraldine and Gladys had been intending to
+go to a party that evening, but at the last minute Gladys had pleaded
+indisposition and telephoned regrets. The meal over, Rand had gone
+up to the gunroom, Gladys drifted into the small drawing-room off the
+dining-room, and the others had gone to their rooms to dress.
+
+Rand was taking down the junk with which Walters had infiltrated the
+collection and was listing and hanging up the recovered items when Fred
+Dunmore, wearing a dressing-gown, strolled in.
+
+"I can't get over the idea of Walters being a thief," he sorrowed.
+"I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen his signed
+confession.... Well, it just goes to show you...."
+
+"He took his medicine standing up," Rand said. "And he helped us recover
+the pistols. If I were you, I'd go easy with him."
+
+Dunmore shook his head. "I'm not a revengeful man, Colonel Rand," he
+said, "but if there's one thing I can't forgive, it's a disloyal
+employee." His mouth closed sternly around his cigar. "He'll have to take
+what's coming to him." He stood by the desk for a moment, looking down at
+the recovered items and the pile of junk on the floor. "When did you
+first suspect him?"
+
+"Almost from the first moment I saw this collection." Rand explained the
+reasoning which had led him to suspect Walters. "The real clincher, to my
+mind, was the fact that he knew this collection almost as well as Lane
+Fleming did, and wouldn't be likely to be deceived by these substitutions
+any more than Fleming would. Yet he said nothing to anybody; neither to
+Mrs. Fleming, nor Goode, nor myself. If he weren't guilty himself, I
+wanted to know his reason for keeping silent. So I put the pressure on
+him, and he cracked open."
+
+"Well, I want you to know how grateful we all are," Dunmore said
+feelingly. "I'm kicking hell out of myself, now, about the way I objected
+when Gladys brought you in here. My God, suppose we'd tried to sell the
+collection ourselves! Anybody who'd have been interested in buying would
+have seen what you saw, and then they'd have claimed that we were trying
+to hold out on them." He hesitated. "You've seen how things are here," he
+continued ruefully. "And that's something else I have to thank you for; I
+mean, keeping your mouth shut till you got the pistols back. There'd have
+been a hell of a row; everybody would have blamed everybody else.... How
+did you get him to confess, though?"
+
+Rand told him about the subterfuge of the trumped-up murder charge.
+Dunmore had evidently never thought of that hoary device; he chuckled
+appreciatively.
+
+"Say, that _was_ smart! No wonder he was so willing to admit everything
+and help you get them back." He looked at the pistols on the desk and
+moved one or two of them. "Did you get the one the coroner had? Goode
+said something--"
+
+"Oh, yes; I got that yesterday." Rand turned and went to the workbench,
+bringing back the Leech & Rigdon, which he handed to Dunmore. "That's it.
+I fired out the other five charges, and cleaned it at the State Police
+substation." He watched Dunmore closely, but there seemed to be no
+reaction.
+
+"So that's it." Dunmore looked at it with a show of interest and honest
+sorrow, and handed it back, then shifted his cigar across his mouth.
+"Look here, Colonel; I've been wanting to ask you something. Did Gladys
+just get you to come here to appraise and sell the collection, or are you
+investigating Lane's death, too?"
+
+"Well, now, you're asking me to be disloyal to my employer," Rand
+objected. "Why don't you ask her that? If she wants you to know, she'll
+tell you."
+
+"Dammit, I can't! Suppose she's satisfied that it really was an accident;
+would I want to start her worrying and imagining things?"
+
+"No, I suppose you wouldn't," Rand conceded. "You're not at all satisfied
+on that point yourself, are you?"
+
+"Well, are you?" Dunmore parried.
+
+That sort of fencing could go on indefinitely. Rand determined to stop
+it. After all, if Dunmore was the murderer of Lane Fleming, he would
+already know how little Rand was deceived by the fake accident; the Leech
+& Rigdon had told him that already. If he weren't, telling him would do
+no harm at this point, and might even do some good.
+
+"Why, I think Fleming was murdered," Rand told him, as casually as though
+he were expressing an opinion on tomorrow's weather. "And I further
+believe that whoever killed Fleming also killed Arnold Rivers. That, by
+the way, is where I come in. Stephen Gresham has retained me to find the
+Rivers murderer; to do that, I must first learn who killed Lane Fleming.
+However, I was not retained to investigate the Fleming murder, and as far
+as I know from anything she has told me, Gladys Fleming is quite
+satisfied that her husband shot himself accidentally." In a universe of
+ordered abstractions and multiordinal meanings, the literal truth, on one
+order of abstraction, was often a black lie on another. "Does that answer
+your question?" he asked, with open-faced innocence.
+
+Dunmore nodded. "Yes, I get it, now. Look here, do you think Anton Varcek
+could have done it? I know it's a horrible idea, and I want you to
+understand that I'm not making any accusations, but we always took it for
+granted that he'd been up in his lab, and had come downstairs when he
+heard the shot. But suppose he came down and shot Fleming, and then went
+out in the hall, and made that rumpus outside after locking the door
+behind him?"
+
+"That's possible," Rand agreed. "You were taking a bath when you heard
+the shot, weren't you?"
+
+Dunmore shook his head. "I suppose so. I didn't hear any shot, to tell
+the truth. All I heard was Anton pounding on the door and yelling. I
+suppose I had my head under the shower, and the noise of the water kept
+me from hearing the shot." He stopped short, taking his cigar from his
+mouth and pointing it at Rand. "And, by God, that would have been about
+five minutes before he started hammering on the door!" he exclaimed.
+"Time enough for him to have fixed things to look like an accident, set
+the deadlatch, and have gone out in the hall, and started making a noise.
+And another thing. You say that whoever killed Lane also killed this
+fellow Rivers. Well, on Thursday night, when Rivers was killed, Anton
+didn't get home till around twelve."
+
+"Yes, I'd thought of that. You know, though, that the murderer doesn't
+have to be Varcek, or anybody else who was in the house at the time. The
+garage doors were open--I'm told that your wife was out at the time--and
+anybody could have sneaked in the back way, up through the library, and
+out the same way. There are one or two possibilities besides you and
+Anton Varcek."
+
+Dunmore's eyes widened. "Yes, and I can think of one, without half
+trying, too!" He nodded once or twice. "For instance, the man who was
+afraid you were investigating Fleming's death; the man who started that
+suicide story!" He looked at Rand interrogatively. "Well, I got to go;
+Nelda'll be out of the bathroom by now. I want to talk to you about this
+some more, Colonel."
+
+After Dunmore had gone out, Rand mopped his face. The room seemed
+insufferably hot. He found an electric fan over the workbench and plugged
+it in, but it made enough noise to cover any sounds of stealthy approach,
+and he shut it off. He had finished revising his list to include the
+recovered pistols for as far as it was completed, and was hanging them
+back on the wall when Ritter came in.
+
+"House is clear, now," his assistant said, stepping out of his P. G.
+Wodehouse character. "Both pairs left in the Packard, Dunmore driving.
+Man, what a cat-and-dog show this place is! It's a wonder our client
+isn't nuts."
+
+"You haven't seen anything; you ought to have been here last
+night ... Where is our client, by the way?"
+
+"Downstairs." Ritter fished a cigarette out of his livery and
+appropriated Rand's lighter. "If we hear her coming, you can grab this."
+He brushed a couple of Paterson Colts to one side and sat down on the
+edge of the desk, taking a deep drag on the cigarette. "What's the
+regular law doing, now that young Jarrett is out?"
+
+"I had a long talk with Mick McKenna," Rand said. "Fortunately, Mick and
+I have worked together before. I was able to tell him the facts of life,
+and he'll be a good boy now. When last heard from, Farnsworth was
+beginning to blow his hot breath on the back of Cecil Gillis's neck."
+
+Ritter picked up the big .44 Colt Walker and tried the balance. "Man,
+this even makes that Colt Magnum of mine feel light!" he said. "Say,
+Jeff, if Farnsworth's going after Gillis, it's probably on account of
+those stories about him and Mrs. Rivers. At least, all that stuff would
+come out if he arrested him. Maybe we could get a fee out of Mrs.
+Rivers."
+
+"I'd thought of that. Unfortunately, Mrs. Rivers had a very convenient
+breakdown, when she heard the news; she is now in a hospital in New York,
+and won't be back until after the funeral. Prostrated with grief. Or
+something. And this case is due to blow up like Hiroshima before then.
+Well, we can't get fees from everybody." That, of course, was one of the
+sad things of life to which one must reconcile oneself. "I got a call
+from Pierre Jarrett; Tip's staying at the Jarrett place tonight. I
+thought it would be a good idea to have him within reach for a while."
+
+The private outside phone rang shrilly. Ritter let it go for several
+rings, then picked it up.
+
+"This is the Fleming residence," he stated, putting on his character
+again. "Oh, yes indeed, sir. Colonel Rand is right here, sir; I'll tell
+him you're calling." He put a hand over the mouthpiece. "Humphrey Goode."
+
+Rand took the phone and named himself into it.
+
+"I would like to talk to you privately, Colonel Rand," the lawyer said.
+"On a subject of considerable importance to our, shall I say, mutual
+clients. Could you find time to drop over, sometime this evening?"
+
+"Well, I'm very busy, at the moment, Mr. Goode," Rand regretted. "There
+have been some rather deplorable developments here, lately. The butler,
+Walters, has been arrested for larceny. It seems that since Mr. Fleming's
+death, he has been systematically looting the pistol-collection. I'm
+trying to get things straightened out, now."
+
+"Good heavens!" Goode was considerably shaken. "When did you discover
+this, Colonel Rand? And why wasn't I notified before? And are there many
+valuable items missing?"
+
+"I discovered it as soon as I saw the collection," Rand began answering
+his questions in order. "Neither you, nor anybody else was notified,
+because I wanted to get evidence to justify an arrest first. And nothing
+is missing; everything has been recovered," he finished. "That's what I'm
+so busy about, now; getting my list revised, and straightening out the
+collection."
+
+"Oh, fine!" Goode was delighted. "I hope everything was handled quietly,
+without any unnecessary publicity? But this other matter; I don't care to
+go into it over the phone, and it's imperative that we discuss it
+privately, at once."
+
+"Well, suppose you come over here, Mr. Goode," Rand suggested. "That way,
+I won't have to interrupt my work so much. There's nobody at home now but
+Mrs. Fleming, and as she's indisposed, we'll be quite alone."
+
+"Oh; very well. I think that's really a good idea; much better than your
+coming over here. I'll see you directly."
+
+Ritter was grinning as Rand hung up. "That's the stuff," he approved.
+"The old Hitler technique; make them come to you, and then you can pound
+the table and yell at them all you want to."
+
+"You go let him in," Rand directed. "Show him up here, and then take a
+plant on that spiral stairway out of the library, just out of sight. I
+don't think this it, but there's no use taking chances." He mopped his
+face again. "Damn, it's hot in here!"
+
+Ten minutes later, Ritter ushered in Humphrey Goode, and inquired if
+there would be anything further, sir? When Rand said there wouldn't, he
+went down the spiral. Just as Rand had expected, Goode began peddling
+the same line as Varcek and Dunmore before him. They all came to see him
+in the gunroom with a common purpose. After easing himself into a chair,
+and going through some prefatory huffing and puffing, Goode came out with
+it. Did Rand believe that Lane Fleming had really been murdered, and was
+he investigating Fleming's death, after all?
+
+"I have always believed that Lane Fleming was murdered," Rand replied.
+"I also believe that his murderer killed Arnold Rivers, as well. I am
+investigating the Rivers murder, and the Fleming murder may be considered
+as a part thereof. But what brings you around to discuss that, now? Did
+you learn something, since last evening, that leads you to suspect the
+same thing?"
+
+"Well, not exactly. But this afternoon, Fred Dunmore and Anton Varcek
+came to my office, separately, of course, and each of them wanted to know
+if I had any reason to suspect that the, uh, tragedy, was actually a case
+of murder. Both had the impression that you were conducting an
+investigation under cover of your work on the pistol collection, and
+wanted to know whether Mrs. Fleming or I had employed you to do so."
+
+"And you denied it, giving them the impression that Mrs. Fleming had?"
+Rand asked. "I hope you haven't put her in any more danger than she is
+now, by doing so."
+
+Goode looked startled. "Colonel Rand! Do you actually mean that...?" he
+began.
+
+"You were Lane Fleming's attorney, and board chairman of his company,"
+Rand said. "You can probably imagine why he was killed. You can ask
+yourself just how safe his principal heir is now." Without giving Goode
+a chance to gather his wits, he pressed on: "Well, what's your opinion
+about Fleming's death? After all, you did go out of your way to create
+a false impression that he had committed suicide."
+
+Goode, still bewildered by Rand's deliberately cryptic hints and a little
+frightened, had the grace to blush at that.
+
+"I admit it; it was entirely unethical, and I'll admit that, too," he
+said. "But.... Well, I'm buying all the Premix stock that's out in small
+blocks, and so are Mr. Dunmore and Mr. Varcek. We all felt that such
+rumors would reduce the market quotation, to our advantage."
+
+Rand nodded. "I picked up a hundred shares, the other day, myself. Your
+shenanigans probably chipped a little off the price I had to pay, so I
+ought to be grateful to you. But we're talking about murder, not market
+manipulation. Did either Varcek or Dunmore express any opinion as to who
+might have killed Fleming?"
+
+The outside telephone rang before Goode could answer. Rand scooped it up
+at the end of the first ring and named himself into it. It was Mick
+McKenna calling.
+
+"Well, we checked up on that cap-and-ball six-shooter you left with me,"
+he said. "This gunsmith, Umholtz, refinished it for Rivers last summer.
+He showed the man who was to see him the entry in his job-book: make,
+model, serials and all."
+
+"Oh, fine! And did you get anything out of young Gillis?" Rand asked.
+
+"The gun was in Rivers's shop from the time Umholtz rejuvenated it till
+around the first of November. Then it was sold, but he doesn't know who
+to. He didn't sell it himself; Rivers must have."
+
+"I assumed that; that's why he's still alive. Well, thanks, Mick. The
+case is getting tighter every minute."
+
+"You haven't had any trouble yet?" McKenna asked anxiously. "How's the
+whoozis doing?"
+
+"About as you might expect," Rand told him, mopping his face again.
+"Thanks for that, too."
+
+He hung up and turned back to Goode. "Pardon the interruption," he said.
+"Sergeant McKenna, of the State Police. The officer who made the arrest
+on Walters and Gwinnett. Well, I suppose Dunmore and Varcek are each
+trying to blame the other," he said.
+
+"Well, yes; I rather got that impression," Goode admitted.
+
+"And which one do you like for the murderer? Or haven't you picked yours,
+yet?"
+
+"You mean.... Yes, of course," Goode said slowly. "It must have been one
+or the other. But I can't think.... It's horrible to have to suspect
+either of them." For a moment, he stared unseeingly at the litter of
+high-priced pistols on the desk. Then:
+
+"Colonel Rand, Lane Fleming is dead, and nothing either of us can do
+will bring him back. To expose his murderer certainly won't. But it
+would cause a scandal that would rock the Premix Company to its very
+foundations. It might even disastrously affect the market as a whole."
+
+"Oh, come!" Rand reproved. "That's like talking about starting a
+hurricane with a palm-leaf fan."
+
+"But you will admit that it would have a dreadful effect on Premix
+Foods," Goode argued. "It would probably prevent this merger from being
+consummated. Look here," he said urgently. "I don't know how much Gladys
+Fleming is paying you to rake all this up, but I'll gladly double her fee
+if you drop it and confine yourself to the matter of the collection."
+
+Even in his colossal avarice, that was one kind of money Jeff Rand had
+never been tempted to take. An offer of that sort invariably made him
+furious. At the moment, he managed to choke down his anger, but he
+rejected Goode's offer in a manner which left no room for further
+discussion. Goode rose, shaking his head sadly.
+
+"I suppose you realize," he said, sorrowfully, "that you're wrecking
+a ten-million-dollar corporation. One in which you, yourself, are a
+stockholder."
+
+Rand brightened. "And the biggest wrecking jobs I ever did before were a
+couple of petrol dumps and a railroad bridge." He got to his feet along
+with the lawyer. "No need to call the butler; I'll let you out myself."
+
+He accompanied Goode down the front stairway to the door. Goode was still
+gloomy.
+
+"I made a mistake in trying to bribe you," he said. "But can't I appeal
+to your sense of fairness? Do you want to inflict serious losses on
+innocent investors merely to avenge one crime?"
+
+"I don't approve of murder," Rand told him. "Least of all, to paraphrase
+Clausewitz, as an extension of business by other means. You know, if we
+let Lane Fleming's killer get away with it, somebody might take that as a
+precedent and bump you off to win a lawsuit, sometime. Ever think of
+that?"
+
+When he returned to the gunroom, he found Gladys Fleming occupying the
+chair lately vacated by the family attorney. She blew a smoke-ring at him
+in greeting as he entered.
+
+"Now what was Hump Goode up to?" she wanted to know.
+
+"I'm taking too much on myself," Rand evaded. "Maybe I should have turned
+Walters over for trial by family court-martial. How do you like Davies,
+by the way?"
+
+"Oh, he's cute," Gladys told him. "One of your operatives, isn't he?"
+
+"Now what in the world gave you an idea like that?" he asked, as though
+humoring the vagaries of a child.
+
+"Well, I suspected something of the sort from the alacrity with which you
+produced him, before Walters was out of the house," she said. "And nobody
+could be as perfect a stage butler as he is. But what really convinced me
+was coming into the library, a little while ago, and finding him
+squatting on the top of the spiral, covering Humphrey Goode with a small
+but particularly evil-looking automatic."
+
+Rand chuckled. "What did you do?"
+
+"Oh, I climbed up and squatted beside him," she replied. "I got there
+just as you were telling Goode what he could do with his bribe. You know,
+with one thing and another, Goode's beginning to become unamusing." She
+smoked in silence for a moment. "I ought to be indignant with you,
+filling my house with spies," she said. "But under the circumstances, I'm
+afraid I'm thankful, instead. Your op's a good egg, by the way; he's on
+his way to bring us some drinks."
+
+"I ought to be sore at you, retaining me into a mess like this and
+telling me nothing," Rand told her. "What was the idea, anyhow? You
+wanted me to investigate your husband's murder, all along, didn't you?"
+
+"I--I hadn't a thing to go on," she replied. "I was afraid, if I came out
+and told you what I suspected, that you'd think it was just another case
+of feminine dam-foolishness, and dismiss it as such. I knew it wasn't an
+accident; Lane didn't have accidents with guns. And if he'd wanted to
+kill himself, he'd have done it and left a note explaining why he had to.
+But I didn't have a single fact to give you. I thought that if you came
+here and started working on the collection, you'd find something."
+
+"You should have taken a chance and told me what you suspected," Rand
+said. "I've taken a lot of cases on flimsier grounds than this. The fact
+is, you practically told me it was murder, when you were talking to me in
+my office."
+
+"Jeff, I never was what the soap-operas call being 'in love' with Lane,"
+she continued. "But he was wonderful to me. He gave me everything a girl
+who grew up in a sixteen-dollar apartment over a fruit store could want.
+And then somebody killed him, just as you'd step on a cockroach, because
+he got in the way of a business deal. I'm glad to be able to spend money
+to help catch whoever did it. It won't help him, but it'll make me feel a
+lot better.... You will catch him, won't you?"
+
+Rand nodded. "I don't know whether he'll ever go to trial and be
+convicted," he said. "I don't think he will. But you can take my word for
+it; he won't get away with it. Tomorrow, I think the lid's going to blow
+off. Maybe you'd better be away from home when it does. Take Nelda and
+Geraldine with you, and go somewhere. There's likely to be some uproar."
+
+"Well, Nelda and Geraldine and I are going to church, in the morning,"
+Gladys said. "It's a question of face. We have a rented pew--Lane was
+quite active in church work--and none of us are willing to let ourselves
+get squeezed out of it. We all go; even Geraldine manages to drag herself
+to the Lord's House through an alcoholic fog. And we'll have to be back
+in time for dinner. It would look funny if we weren't."
+
+"Well, if nothing's happened by the time you get back, I want you to talk
+the girls into going somewhere with you in the afternoon, and stay away
+till evening. And don't get the idea that you could help me here," he
+added, stopping an objection. "I know what I'm talking about. The
+presence of any of you here would only delay matters and make it harder
+for me."
+
+Then Ritter came in, a cigarette in one corner of his mouth, carrying a
+tray on which were a bottle of Bourbon, a bottle of Scotch, a siphon and
+a couple of bottles of beer.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 20
+
+
+The dining-room was empty, when Rand came down to breakfast the next
+morning. Taking the seat he had occupied the evening before, he waited
+until Ritter came out of the kitchen through the pantry.
+
+"Good morning, Colonel Rand," the Perfect Butler greeted him unctuously.
+"If I may say so, sir, you're a bit of an early riser. None of the family
+is up yet, sir."
+
+Rand jerked a thumb toward the kitchen. "Who's out there?" he hissed.
+
+"Just the cook; frying sausage and flipping pancakes. Premix pancakes, of
+course. The maid sleeps out; she hasn't gotten here yet. How'd it go last
+night? You put a dummy under the covers and sleep on the floor?"
+
+"No, last night I was safe. The blow-off isn't due till this morning,
+when the women are at church, and he'll have to catch me and the fall-guy
+together."
+
+"What do you want me to do?" Ritter asked, giving an un-butler-like hitch
+at his shoulder-holster. "I can stand on my official dignity, and get out
+of any cleaning-up work till after dinner, and I won't have any buttling
+to do till the women get home from church."
+
+"Case Varcek and Dunmore, when they come in; see if either of them is
+rod-heavy. Find anything, last night?"
+
+Ritter shook his head. "I searched Varcek's lab, after everybody was in
+bed, and I searched the cars in the garage, and a lot of other places. I
+didn't find them. Whoever he is, the chances are he has them in his
+room."
+
+"Did you look back of the books in the library?" Rand asked. When Ritter
+shook his head, he continued: "That's probably where they are. Not that
+it makes a whole lot of difference."
+
+"If I'd found them, it'd of given me something to watch; then I'd know
+when the fun was going to start." Ritter broke off suddenly. "Yes, sir.
+Will you have your coffee now, or later, sir?"
+
+Gladys entered, wearing the blue tailored outfit she had worn to Rand's
+office, on Wednesday.
+
+"At ease, at ease," she laughed, dropping into her chair. "Anything new?"
+
+Rand shook his head. "We'll have to wait. I'm expecting some action this
+morning; I hope it'll be over before you're home from church."
+
+She looked at him seriously. "Jeff, you're using yourself as
+murder-bait," she said. "Aren't you?"
+
+"More or less. He knows I'm onto him. He's pretty sure I haven't any real
+proof, yet, but he doesn't know how soon I will have. He realizes that
+I'm cat-and-mousing him, the way I did Walters. So he'll try to kill me
+before I pounce, and when he does, he'll convict himself. What he doesn't
+realize is that as long as he sits tight, he's perfectly safe."
+
+Neither of them mentioned the obvious corollary, that conviction and
+execution would be almost simultaneous. It must have been uppermost in
+Gladys's mind; she leaned over and put her hand on Rand's arm.
+
+"Jeff, would it help any if I stayed home, instead of going to church?"
+she asked. "I'm a pretty fair pistol-shot. Lane taught me. I can stay
+over ninety at slow fire, and in the eighties at timed-and-rapid. If I
+hid somewhere with a target pistol--"
+
+"Absolutely not!" Rand vetoed emphatically. "I'm not saying that because
+I'm afraid you might stop a slug yourself. You're a big girl, now; you
+can take your own chances. But if you stayed home, he wouldn't make a
+move. You and Geraldine and Nelda have to be out of the house before
+he'll feel safe coming out of the grass."
+
+"Watch it!" Ritter warned. "Yes, ma'am; at once, ma'am."
+
+Nelda came in and sat down. Ritter held her chair and fussed over her,
+finding out what she wanted to eat. He was bringing in her fruit when
+Varcek and Geraldine entered. Nelda was inquiring if Rand wanted to come
+to church with them.
+
+"No; I'm one of the boys the chaplain couldn't find in the foxholes,"
+Rand said. "I'm going to put in a quiet morning on the collection. If
+nobody gets murdered or arrested in the meantime, that is."
+
+Geraldine looked woebegone; her hands were trembling. "My God, do I have
+a hangover!" she moaned. "Walters, for heaven's sake, fix me up
+something, quick!" Then she saw Ritter. "Who the devil are you?" she
+demanded. "Where's Walters?"
+
+"Out on bail," Rand told her. "Don't you remember?"
+
+"Oh, you did this to me!" she accused. "Walters could always fix me up,
+in the morning. Now what am I going to do?"
+
+"You might stop drinking," her husband suggested mildly.
+
+"Oh, just stop breathing; that would be better all around," Nelda
+interposed.
+
+Ritter coughed delicately. "Begging your pardon, ma'am, but I've always
+rawther fawncied myself for an expert on morning-awfter tonics. If you'll
+wait a moment--"
+
+He departed on his errand of mercy, returning shortly with a highball
+glass filled with some dark, evil-looking potion. He set it on the table
+in front of the sufferer and poured her a cup of coffee.
+
+"Now, ma'am; just try this. Take it gradually, if I may suggest. Don't
+attempt to gulp it; it's quite strong, ma'am."
+
+Geraldine tasted it and pulled a Gorgon-face. Encouraged by Ritter, she
+managed to down about half of the mixture.
+
+"Splendid, ma'am; splendid!" he cheered her on. "Now, drink your coffee,
+ma'am, and then finish it. That's right, ma'am. And now, more coffee."
+
+Geraldine struggled through with the black draft and drank the second cup
+of coffee. As she set down the empty cup, she even managed to smile.
+
+"Why, that's wonderful!" She lit a cigarette. "What is it? I feel as
+though I might live, after all."
+
+"A recipe of my own, a variant on the old Prairie Oyster, but without the
+raw egg, which I consider a needless embellishment, ma'am. I learned it
+in the household of a former employer, a New York stockbroker. Poor man:
+he did himself in in the autumn of 1929."
+
+"Well, it's too bad you won't be with us permanently, Davies," Nelda
+said. "Your recipe seems to be just what Geraldine needs. With a dash of
+prussic acid added, of course."
+
+That got the bush-fighting off to a good start. When Dunmore came in, a
+few minutes later, the two sisters were stalking one another through the
+jungle, blow-gunning poison darts back and forth. The newcomer sat down
+without a word; throughout the meal, he and Varcek treated one another
+with silent and hostile suspicion. Finally Gladys looked at her watch and
+called a truce to the skirmishing by announcing that it was time to start
+for church. Rand left the room with the ladies; in the hall, Gladys
+brushed against him quickly and gripped his left arm.
+
+"Do be careful, Jeff," she whispered.
+
+"Don't worry; I will," Rand assured her. Then he turned into the library
+and went up the spiral to the gunroom, while the three women went down to
+the garage.
+
+He was standing at the window as the big Packard moved out onto the
+drive. Nelda was at the wheel, and Gladys, beside her on the front seat,
+raised a white-gloved hand in the thumbs-up salute. Rand gave it back,
+and watched the car swing around the house. Then he mopped his face with
+a wad of Kleenex and went over to the room-temperature thermostat,
+turning it down to sixty.
+
+Sitting down at the desk, he dialed Humphrey Goode's number on the
+private outside line. A maid answered; a moment later he was talking to
+the Fleming lawyer.
+
+"Rand, here," he identified himself. "Mr. Goode, I've been thinking over
+our conversation of last evening. There is a great deal to be said for
+the position you're taking in the matter. As you reminded me, I'm a
+small, if purely speculative, stockholder in Premix, myself, and even
+if I weren't, I should hate to be responsible for undeserved losses by
+innocent investors."
+
+"Yes?" Goode's voice fairly shook. "Then you're going to drop the
+investigation?"
+
+"No, Mr. Goode; I can't do that. But I believe a formula could be evolved
+which would keep the Premix Company and its affairs out of it. In fact, I
+think that the whole question of the death of Lane Fleming might possibly
+be kept in the background. Would that satisfy you? It would require some
+very careful manipulation on my part, and your cooperation."
+
+"But.... See here, if you're investigating the death of Mr. Fleming, how
+can that be kept in the background?" Goode wanted to know.
+
+"The murderer of Lane Fleming is also guilty of the murder of Arnold
+Rivers," Rand stated. "I know that positively, now. Murder is punished
+capitally, and one of the peculiarities of capital punishment is that it
+can be inflicted only once, on no matter how many counts. If our man goes
+to the chair for the death of Rivers, the death of Fleming might even
+remain an accident. I can hardly guarantee that; I have my agency license
+to think of, among other things. But I feel reasonably safe in saying
+that I could keep the Premix Company from figuring in the case. Would
+that satisfy you?"
+
+"It most certainly would, Colonel Rand!" Goode's voice shook even more.
+"Are you sure?"
+
+"I'm not sure of anything. It'll cost the Premix Company some money to
+get this done--I'll have certain expenses, for one thing, which could not
+very gracefully be itemized--and I will have to have your cooperation.
+Now, I want you to remain at home, where I can reach you at any moment,
+for the rest of the day. I'll call you later."
+
+He listened to Goode babble his gratitude for a while, then terminated
+the call and hung up. Then he transferred the Colt .38 to the side pocket
+of his coat, picked up one of the sheets on which he had been listing
+the collection, and sat for almost fifteen minutes pretending to study
+it, keeping his eyes shifting from the hall door to the spiral stairway
+and back again.
+
+Finally, the hall door opened, and Anton Varcek came in. Rand half rose,
+covering the Czech from his side pocket; Varcek came over and sat down in
+an armchair near the desk. He was looking more than ever like Rudolf
+Hess. Rudolf Hess on the morning of the Beer Hall Putsch.
+
+"Colonel Rand," he began. "There has, within the last half hour, been a
+most important development. I am at a loss to define its significance,
+but its importance is inescapable."
+
+Rand nodded. He had been expecting somebody to give birth to an important
+development; the steps toward gunfire were progressing in logical series.
+
+"Well?" He smiled encouragingly. "What happened?"
+
+"After you and the ladies left the dining-room," Varcek said, "Fred
+Dunmore turned to me and apologized for harboring unjust suspicions of me
+in the matter of Lane Fleming's death. He said that he had been unable
+to understand who else could have murdered Lane, until you had pointed
+out to him that the house could have been entered from the garage, and
+the gunroom from the library. Then, he said, he had had a conversation
+with some unnamed gentleman at the party last evening, and had learned
+that Lane had discovered that Humphrey Goode was deceiving him, and had
+been about to have him dismissed from his position with the company, and
+to sever his personal connections with him."
+
+"The devil, now!" Rand gave a good imitation of surprise. "What sort of
+jiggery-pokery was Goode up to?"
+
+"Fred said that his informant told him that Lane had proof that Goode had
+accepted a bribe from Arnold Rivers, to misconduct the suit which Lane
+was bringing against Rivers about a pair of pistols he had bought from
+Rivers. It seems that Goode was Rivers's attorney, also, and had been
+involved with him in a number of dishonest transactions, although the
+connection had been kept secret."
+
+"That's a new angle, now," Rand said. "I suppose that he killed Rivers in
+order to prevent the latter from incriminating him. Why didn't Fred come
+to me with this?" he asked.
+
+"Eh?" Evidently Varcek hadn't thought of that. "Why, I suppose he was
+concerned about the possibility of repercussions in the business world.
+After all, Goode is our board chairman, and maybe he thought that people
+might begin thinking that the murder had some connection with the affairs
+of the company."
+
+"That's possible, of course," Rand agreed. "And what's your own
+attitude?"
+
+"Colonel Rand, I cannot allow these facts to be suppressed," the Czech
+said. "My own position is too vulnerable; you've showed me that. Except
+for the fact that somebody could have entered the house through the
+garage, the burden of suspicion would lie on me and Fred Dunmore."
+
+"Well, do you want me to help you with it?" Rand asked.
+
+"Yes, if you will. It would be helping yourself, also, I believe," Varcek
+replied. "Fred is downstairs, now, in the library; I suggest that you and
+I go down and have a talk with him. Maybe you could show him the folly of
+trying to suppress any facts concerning Lane's death."
+
+"Yes, that would be both foolish and dangerous." Rand got to his feet,
+keeping his hand on the .38 Colt. "Let's go down and talk to him now."
+
+They walked side by side toward the spiral, Rand keeping on the right and
+lagging behind a little, lifting the stubby revolver clear of his pocket.
+Yet, in spite of his vigilance, it happened before he could prevent it.
+
+A lance of yellow fire jumped out of the shadows of the stairway,
+and there was a soft cough of a silenced pistol, almost lost in the
+_click-click_ of the breech-action. Rand felt something sledge-hammer him
+in the chest, almost knocking him down. He staggered, then swung up the
+Colt he had drawn from his pocket and blazed two shots into the stairway.
+There was a clatter, and the sound of feet descending into the library.
+He rushed forward, revolver poised, and then a shot boomed from below,
+followed by three more in quick succession.
+
+"Okay, Jeff!" Ritter's voice called out. "War's over!"
+
+He managed, somehow, to get down the steep spiral. The little .25 Webley
+& Scott was lying on the bottom step; he pushed it aside with his foot,
+and cautioned Varcek, who was following, to avoid it. Ritter, still
+looking like the Perfect Butler in spite of the .380 Beretta in his hand,
+was standing in the hall doorway. On the floor, midway between the
+stairway and the door, lay Fred Dunmore. His tan coat and vest were
+turning dark in several places, and Rand's own Detective Special was
+lying a few inches from his left hand.
+
+"He came in here and shut the door," Ritter reported. "I couldn't follow
+him in, so I took a plant in the hall. When I heard you blasting
+upstairs, I came in, just in time to see him coming down. You winged him
+in the right shoulder; he'd dropped the .25, and he had your gat in his
+left hand. When he saw mine, he threw one at me and missed; I gave him
+three back for it. See result on floor."
+
+"Uh-uh; he'd have gotten away, if you hadn't been on the job," he told
+Ritter. Then he picked up his own revolver and holstered it. After a
+glance which assured him that Fred Dunmore was beyond any further action
+of any sort, he laid the square-butt Detective Special on the floor
+beside him. "You did all right, Dave," he said. "Now, nobody's going to
+have a chance to bamboozle a jury into acquitting him." He thought of his
+recent conversation with Humphrey Goode. "You did just all right," he
+repeated.
+
+"So it was Fred, then," he heard Varcek, behind him, say. "Then he was
+lying about this evidence against Goode." The Czech came over and stood
+beside Rand, looking down at the body of his late brother-in-law. "But
+why did he tell me that story, and why did he shoot at us when we were
+together?"
+
+"Both for the same general reason." Rand explained about the two pistols
+and the planned double-killing. "With both of us dead, you'd be the
+murderer, and I'd be a martyr to law-and-order, and he'd be in the
+clear."
+
+Varcek regarded the dead man with more distaste than surprise. Evidently
+his experiences in Hitler's Europe had left him with few illusions about
+the sanctity of human life or the extent of human perfidy. Ritter
+holstered the Beretta and got out a cigarette.
+
+"I hope you didn't leave your lighter upstairs," he told Rand.
+
+Rand produced and snapped it, holding the flame out to his assistant.
+"Dave," he lectured, "the Perfect Butler always has a lighter in good
+working order; lighting up the mawster is part of his duties. Remember
+that, the next time you have a buttling job."
+
+Ritter leaned forward for the light. "Dunmore was a better shot with his
+right hand than he was with his left," he commented. "He didn't come
+within a yard of me, and he scored a twelve-o'clock center on you. Right
+through the necktie."
+
+Rand glanced down. Then he burst into a roar of obscene blasphemy.
+
+"Seven dollars and fifty cents I paid for that tie, not three weeks ago,"
+he concluded. "Does your grandmother make patchwork quilts? If she does,
+she can have it."
+
+"My God!" Varcek stared at Rand unbelievingly. "Why, he hit you! You're
+wounded!"
+
+"Only in the necktie," Rand reassured him. "I have a hole in my shirt,
+too." He reached under the latter garment and rummaged, as though to
+evict a small trespasser. When he brought out his hand, he was holding a
+battered .25-caliber bullet. He held it out to show to Varcek and Ritter.
+
+"Sure," Ritter grinned at Varcek. "Didn't you know? Superman."
+
+"I'm wearing a bulletproof vest; Mick McKenna loaned it to me yesterday,"
+Rand enlightened Varcek. "I never wore one of the damn things before, and
+if I can help it, I'll never wear one again. I'm damn near stewed alive
+in it."
+
+"Think how hot you'd be, right now, if you hadn't been wearing it,"
+Ritter reminded him.
+
+"Then you knew, since yesterday, that he would do this?" Varcek asked.
+
+"I knew one or the other of you would," Rand replied. "I had quite a few
+reasons for thinking it might be Dunmore, and one good one for not
+suspecting you."
+
+"You mean my dislike for firearms?"
+
+"That could have been feigned, or it could have been overcome," Rand
+replied. "I mean your knowledge of biology and biochemistry. If you'd
+killed Lane Fleming, there'd have been no clumsy business of fake
+accidents; not as long as both of you ate at the same table. He'd
+have just died, an unimpeachably natural death." He turned to Ritter.
+"Dave, I'm going upstairs; I want to get out of this damned coat of mail
+I'm wearing. While I'm doing it, I want you to call Carter Tipton, at the
+Jarrett place, and Humphrey Goode, and Mick McKenna, in that order. Tell
+Goode to get over here as fast as he can, and come up to my room; tell
+him we have to consider ways and means of implementing my suggestion to
+him."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 21
+
+
+In the month which followed, events transpired through a thickening
+miasma of rumors, official communiques, journalistic conjectures,
+and outright fabrications, fitfully lit by the glare of newsmen's
+photo-bulbs, bulking with strange shapes, and emitting stranger noises.
+There were the portentous rumblings of prepared statements, and the
+hollow thumps of denials. There were soft murmurs of, "Now, this is
+strictly off the record ..." followed by sibilant whispers. The unseen
+screws of political pressure creaked, and whitewash brushes slurped
+suavely. And there was an insistent yammering of bewildered and
+unanswered questions. Fred Dunmore really had killed Arnold Rivers,
+hadn't he? Or had he? Arnold Rivers had been double-crossing
+Dunmore ... or had Dunmore been double-crossing Rivers? Somebody
+had stolen ten--or was it twenty-five--thousand dollars' worth
+of old pistols? Or was it just twenty-five thousand dollars? Or
+what, if anything, had been stolen? Was somebody being framed for
+something ... or was somebody covering up for somebody ... or what?
+And wasn't there something funny about the way Lane Fleming got killed,
+last December?
+
+The surviving members of the Fleming family issued a few noncommittal
+statements through their attorney, Humphrey Goode, and then the Iron
+Curtain slammed down. Mick McKenna gave an outraged squawk or so, then
+subsided. There was a series of pronunciamentos from the office of
+District Attorney Charles P. Farnsworth, all full of high-order
+abstractions and empty of meaning. The reporters, converging on the
+Fleming house, found it occupied by the State Police, who kept them at
+bay. Harry Bentz, of the New Belfast _Evening Mercury_, using a 30-power
+spotting-'scope from the road, observed Dave Ritter, whom he recognized,
+wearing a suit of butler's livery and standing in the doorway of the
+garage, talking to Sergeant McKenna, Carter Tipton and Farnsworth; the
+_Mercury_ exploited this scoop for all it was worth.
+
+On the whole, the Rosemont Bayonet Murder was, from a journalistic
+standpoint, an almost complete bust. There had been no arrest, no
+hearing, no protracted trial, no sensational revelations. Only one
+monolithic fact, officially attested and indisputable, loomed out of
+the murk: "... and the said Frederick Parker Dunmore, deceased, did
+receive the aforesaid gunshot-wounds, hereinbefore enumerated, at the
+hands of the said Jefferson Davis Rand and at the hands of the said
+David Abercrombie Ritter ..." and "... the said Jefferson Davis Rand
+and the said David Abercrombie Ritter, being in mortal fear for their
+several lives, did so act in defense of their several persons..." and,
+finally, "... the said Frederick Parker Dunmore did die."
+
+The _Evening Mercury_, which sheet the said Jefferson Davis Rand had
+once cost the loss of an expensive libel-suit and exposed in certain
+journalistic malpractices verging upon blackmail, promptly burst into
+print with an indignant editorial entitled _Trial by Pistol_. The
+terms: "legalized slaughter," and "flagrant whitewash," were used, and
+mention was made of "the well known preference of a certain notorious
+private detective for the procedure of _habeas_ cadaver." The principal
+result of this outcry was to persuade an important New Belfast
+manufacturer, who had hitherto resisted Rand's sales pressure, to
+contract with the Tri-State Agency for the protection of his payroll
+deliveries.
+
+Then, at the other end of the state, the professor of Moral Science at a
+small theological seminary caught his wife in _flagrante delicto_ with
+one of the fourth-year students and opened fire upon them, at a range of
+ten feet, with a 12-gauge pump-gun. The Rosemont Bayonet Murder, already
+pretty well withered on the vine, passed quietly into limbo.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Summer, almost a month before its official opening, was already a _fait
+accompli_. The trees were in full leaf and invaded by nesting birds, the
+air was fragrant with flower scents, and the mercury column of the
+thermometer was stretching itself up toward the ninety mark.
+
+They were all outside, where the long shadow of the Fleming house
+fell across the lawn and driveway, gathered about the five parked cars.
+The new Fleming butler, a short and somewhat globular Negro with a
+gingerbread-crust complexion and an air of affable dignity, was helping
+Pierre Jarrett and Karen Lawrence put a couple of cartons and a tall
+peach-basket into Pierre's Plymouth. Colin MacBride, a streamer of
+pipe-smoke floating back over his shoulder, was peering into his
+luggage-compartment to check the stowage of his own cargo, while his
+twelve-year-old son, Malcolm, another black Highlander like his
+father, was helping Philip Cabot carry a big laundry hamper full of
+newspaper-wrapped pistols to his Cadillac. Pierre's mother, and the
+stylish-stout Mrs. Trehearne, and Gladys Fleming, obviously detached from
+the bustle of pre-departure preparations, were standing to one side,
+talking. And Rand had finished helping Adam Trehearne pack the last
+container of his share of the Fleming collection into his car.
+
+"I see Colin's about ready to leave, and I'm in his way," Trehearne said.
+He extended his hand to Rand. "No need hashing over how we all feel about
+this. If it hadn't been for you, that offer of Kendall's would have had
+us stopped as dead as Rivers's had. Five hundred dollars deader, in
+fact."
+
+Stephen Gresham, carrying a package-filled orange crate, joined him,
+setting down his burden. His wife and daughter, with another crate
+between them, halted beside him.
+
+"Haven't you got your stuff packed yet, Jeff?" Gresham asked.
+
+"Jeff's been helping everybody else," Irene Gresham burst out. "Come on,
+everybody; let's go help Jeff pack! You're going to have dinner with us,
+aren't you, Jeff?"
+
+"Oh, sorry. I have some more details to clear up; I'm having dinner here,
+with Mrs. Fleming," Rand regretted. "I'll pack my stuff later."
+
+Mrs. Jarrett, Mrs. Trehearne, and Gladys came over; one by one the rest
+of the group converged upon them. Then, when the good-by's had been said,
+and the promises to meet again had been given, they parted. One by one
+the cars moved slowly down the driveway to the road. Only Gladys and
+Rand, standing at the foot of the front steps, and the gingerbread-brown
+butler were left.
+
+"My, my; that was some party!" the Negro chuckled, gathering up three
+empty pasteboard cartons and telescoping them together. "Dinner'll be
+ready in about half an hour, Mrs. Fleming. Shall I go mix the cocktails
+now?"
+
+"Yes; do that, Reuben. In the drawing-room." She watched the servant
+carry the discarded containers around the house, then turned to Rand.
+"You know, not the least of your capabilities is your knack of finding
+servant-replacements on short notice," she told him.
+
+"My general factotum, Buck Pendexter, is a prominent personage in New
+Belfast colored lodge circles," Rand said. "When your cook and maid quit
+on you, the day of the blow-up, all I had to do was phone him, and he did
+the rest." He got out his cigarettes, offered them, and snapped his
+lighter. "I notice you're having cocktails in the drawing-room now."
+
+"Yes. I suppose, in time, I'll stop imagining I see Fred Dunmore's blood
+on the library floor. I got used to what had happened in the gunroom last
+December. Shall we go in?" she asked, taking Rand's arm.
+
+The cocktails were waiting when they entered the drawing-room, off the
+dining-room. The butler poured for them and put the glasses and the
+shaker on a low table by a lounge.
+
+"I'm afraid dinner's going to be a little later than I said, Mrs.
+Fleming," he apologized. "Things were kind of stirred up, today, with all
+those people here."
+
+"That's all right; we can wait," she replied. "We won't need anything
+more, Reuben."
+
+Motioning Rand down on the lounge beside her, she handed him a glass and
+lifted her own.
+
+"Now," she began. "Just what sort of skulduggery has been going on? As of
+Friday, the top offer for the collection was twenty-five thousand five
+hundred, from some dealer up in Massachusetts. And then, on Saturday, you
+came bounding in with Stephen Gresham's certified check for twenty-six
+thousand. And I seem to recall that the late unlamented Rivers's offer of
+twenty-five thousand straight had them stopped. Not that I'm inclined
+to look askance at an extra five hundred--I can buy a new hat with my
+share of that, even after taxes--but I would like to know what happened.
+And I might add, that's only one of many things I'd like to know."
+
+"The client is entitled to a full report," Rand said, tasting his
+cocktail. It was a vodka Martini, and very good. "You know, none of that
+crowd are millionaires. Adam Trehearne, who's the plutocrat of the bunch,
+isn't so filthy rich he doesn't know what to do with all his money--what
+the tax-collectors leave of it--and the rest of them have to figure
+pretty closely. The most they could possibly scratch together was
+twenty-two thousand. So I put four thousand into the pot, myself,
+bringing the total to five hundred over the Kendall offer, and hastily
+declared the collection sold. Of course, my getting into it meant that
+much less for everybody else, but five-sixths of a collection is better
+than no pistols at all. I imagine Colin MacBride is honing up his
+_sgian-dhu_ for me because I got that big Whitneyville Walker Colt, but
+what the hell; he got the cased pair of Paterson .34's, and the Texas .40
+with the ramming-lever."
+
+"Why, I think the division was fair enough," Gladys said. "They'd agreed
+to take your valuation, hadn't they? And all that slide-rule and
+comptometer business.... But Jeff--four thousand dollars?" she queried.
+"You only got five from me, and you can't run a detective agency on old
+pistols."
+
+Rand grinned as he set down his empty glass. Gladys refilled it from the
+shaker.
+
+"My dear lady, that five thousand I unblushingly accepted from you was
+only part of it," he confessed.
+
+"There was also a fee of three thousand from Stephen Gresham, for pulling
+the bloodhounds of the D.A.'s office off his back in the matter of Arnold
+Rivers, and there was five thousand from Humphrey Goode, which I suppose
+he'll get the Premix Company to repay him, for engineering the
+suppression of a lot of facts he wanted suppressed. And, finally, my
+connection with this business brought that merger to my attention, and I
+picked up a hundred shares of Premix at 73-1/4, and now I have two
+hundred shares of Mill-Pack, worth about twenty-nine thousand, which I
+can report for my income tax as capital gains. I'd say I could afford to
+treat myself to a few old pistols for my collection."
+
+"Well!" She raised both eyebrows over that. "Don't anybody tell me crime
+doesn't pay."
+
+"Yes. In my ghoulish way, I generally manage to bear myself in mind, on
+an operation like this. I make no secret of my affection for money." He
+lifted his glass and sipped slowly. "Look here, Gladys; are you satisfied
+with the way this was handled?"
+
+She shrugged. "I should be. When I started out as Lane's blood-avenger,
+I suppose I expected things to end somewhere out of sight, in a nice,
+antiseptic death-chamber at the state penitentiary. You must admit that
+that business in the library was really bringing it home. There's no
+question that you got the man who killed Lane, and if you hadn't, I'd
+never have been at peace with myself. And I suppose all that chicanery
+afterward was necessary, too."
+
+"It was, if you wanted that merger to go through, and unless you wanted
+to see the bottom drop out of your Premix stock," Rand assured her. "If
+the true facts of Mr. Fleming's death had gotten out, there'd have been
+a simply hideous stink. The Mill-Pack people would have backed out of
+that merger like a bear out of an active bee-tree.... You know what the
+situation really was, don't you?"
+
+She shook her head. "I know Mill-Pack wanted to get control of the Premix
+Company, and Lane refused to go in with them. I don't fully understand
+his reasons, though."
+
+"They weren't important; they were mainly verbal, and unrelated to
+actuality," Rand said. "The important thing is that he did refuse, and
+Mill-Pack wanted that merger so badly that it could be tasted in every
+ounce of food they sold. They got Stephen Gresham to negotiate it for
+them, and he was just on the point of reporting it to be an impossibility
+when Fred Dunmore came to him with a proposition. Dunmore said he thought
+he could persuade or force Mr. Fleming to consent, and he wanted a
+contract guaranteeing him a vice-presidency with Mill-Pack, at forty
+thousand a year, if and when the merger was accomplished. The contract
+was duly signed about the first of last November."
+
+"Well, good Lord!" Gladys Fleming's eyes widened. "When did you hear
+about that?"
+
+"I got that out of Gresham, a couple of days after the blow-up, when it
+was too late to be of any use to me," Rand said. "If I'd known it from
+the beginning, it might have saved me some work. Not much, though.
+Gresham was just as badly scared about the facts coming out as Goode was.
+I can't prove collusion between him and Goode, but Gresham was helping
+spread the suicide story, too."
+
+"Nice friends Lane had! But didn't anybody think there was something odd
+about that accident, immediately after that contract was signed?"
+
+"Of course they did, but try and get them to admit it, even to
+themselves. Nobody likes to think that the new vice president of the
+company murdered his way into the position. So everybody assumed the
+attitudes of the three Japanese monkeys, and made respectable noises
+about what a great loss Mr. Fleming was to the business world, and how
+lucky Dunmore was that he had that contract."
+
+She looked at him inquiringly for a moment. "Jeff, I want you to tell me
+exactly how everything happened," she said. "I think I have a right to
+know."
+
+"Yes, you have," he agreed. "I'll tell you the whole thing, what I
+actually know, and what I was forced to guess at:
+
+"When this merger idea first took shape, last summer, Dunmore saw how
+unalterably opposed to it Mr. Fleming was, and he began wishing him out
+of the way. Some time later, he decided to do something about it. I
+suppose Anton Varcek gave him the idea, in the first place, with his
+jabber about the danger of a firearms accident. Dunmore decided he'd fix
+one up for Mr. Fleming. First of all, he'd need a firearm, collector's
+type and in good working order. It couldn't be one of the guns in the
+collection. He'd have to keep it loaded all the time, waiting for an
+opportunity to use it; he couldn't take a weapon out of the collection,
+because it would be missed, and he couldn't load one and hang it up
+again, because that would be discovered. So he had to get one of his own,
+and he got it from Arnold Rivers."
+
+"You know that? I mean, that's not just a guess?"
+
+"I know it. The gun he got from Rivers was a .36 Colt, 1860 Navy-model,
+serial number 2444," Rand told her. "Rivers had that gun last summer. He
+had it refinished by a gunsmith named Umholtz. After Umholtz refinished
+it, the gun was in Rivers's shop until November of last year, when it was
+sold by Rivers personally. And that was the revolver that was found in
+Lane Fleming's hand, and the one I got from the coroner, with a letter
+vouching for the fact that it had been so found."
+
+He finished his cocktail. Gladys picked up the shaker mechanically and
+refilled his glass.
+
+"Now we have Dunmore with this .36 Colt, loaded with powder, caps and
+bullets from the ammunition supply in the gunroom, waiting for a chance
+to use it. And also, he has this Mill-Pack contract in his safe deposit
+box at the bank. That takes care of the weapon and the motive; only the
+opportunity is needed, and that came on the 22nd of December, when Mr.
+Fleming brought home that Confederate Leech & Rigdon .36 he had just
+bought. It was just a piece of luck that both revolvers were alike in
+caliber and general type, but it wouldn't have made a lot of difference.
+Nobody was paying much attention to details, and Dunmore was on the scene
+to misdirect any attention anybody would pay to anything.
+
+"Now, we come to the mechanics of the thing; the _modus operandi_, or,
+as it is professionally known, the M.O. You remember what happened that
+evening. Nelda had gone out. You and Geraldine were listening to the
+radio in the parlor, over there. Varcek had gone up to his lab. Mr.
+Fleming was alone in the gunroom, working on his new revolver. And Fred
+Dunmore said he was going to take a bath. What he did, of course, was to
+draw a tub full of water, undress, put on his bathrobe and slippers, hide
+the .36 Colt under the bathrobe, and then go across the hall to the
+gunroom, where he found Mr. Fleming sitting on that cobbler's bench,
+putting the finishing touches on the Leech & Rigdon. So he fired at close
+range, wiped the prints off the Colt with an oily rag, put it in Lane
+Fleming's right hand, put the rag in his left, grabbed up the Leech &
+Rigdon, and scuttled back to his bathroom, deadlatching and shutting the
+gunroom door as he went out. This last, of course, was a delaying tactic,
+to give him time to establish his bathtub alibi."
+
+He lifted the cocktail glass to his lips. These vodka Martinis were
+strong, and three of them before dinner was leaning way over backward
+maintaining the tradition of the hard-drinking private eye, but Gladys
+was working on her third, and no client was going to drink him under.
+
+"So, in the privacy of his bathroom, he kicked out of his slippers, threw
+off his robe, hid the Leech & Rigdon, probably in a space between the tub
+and the wall that I found while we were searching the house, the night
+before the shooting of Dunmore, and jumped into the tub, there to await
+developments. As soon as he heard Varcek's uproar in the hall, he could
+emerge, dripping bathwater and innocence, to find out what the fuss was
+all about.... Do you know anything about something called General
+Semantics?" he asked suddenly.
+
+"Yes. Before I married Lane, I went around with a radio ad-writer," she
+told him. "He was a nice boy, but he'd get drunker than a boiled owl
+about once a month, and weep about his crimes against sanity and meaning.
+He'd recite long excerpts from his professional creations, and show how
+he had been deliberately objectifying words and identifying them with the
+things for which they stood, and confusing orders of abstraction, and
+juggling multiordinal meanings. He was going to lend me his Koran, a book
+called _Science and Sanity_, and then he took a job with an ad agency in
+Chicago, and I got married, and--"
+
+Rand nodded. "Then you realize that the word is not the thing spoken of,
+and that the inference is not the description, and that we cannot know
+'all' about anything. Etcetera," he added hastily, like a Papist signing
+himself with the Cross. "Well, some considerable disregard of these
+principles seems to have existed in this case. Dunmore is seen in a
+bathrobe, his feet bare and making wet tracks on the floor, his hair wet,
+etcetera. Straightaway, one and all appear to have assumed that he was in
+the tub, splashing soapsuds around, while Lane Fleming was being shot.
+And Anton Varcek, who can be taken as an example of what S. I. Hayakawa
+was talking about when he spoke of people behaving like scientists
+inside but not outside their laboratories, saw Lane Fleming dead, with
+an object labeled 'revolver' in his hand, and, because of his verbal
+identifications and semantic reactions, immediately included the
+inference of an accident in his description of what he had seen. That was
+just an extra dividend of luck for Dunmore; it got the whole crowd of
+you thinking in terms of accidental shooting.
+
+"Well, from there out, everything would have been a wonderful success for
+Dunmore, except for one thing. Arnold Rivers must have heard, somehow,
+that Lane Fleming had been shot with a Confederate .36 that he'd bought
+somewhere that day, and that the revolver was in the hands of this
+coroner of yours. So Arnold, with his big chisel well ground, went to see
+if he could manage to get it out of the coroner for a few dollars. And
+when he saw it, lo! it was the .36 Colt that he'd sold to Dunmore about
+a month before."
+
+Gladys set down her glass. "So!" she said. "Things begin to explain
+themselves!"
+
+"You may say so, indeed," Rand told her. "And what do you suppose Rivers
+did with this little item of information? Why, as nearly as I can
+reconstruct it, he did a very foolish thing. He tried to blackmail a man
+who had committed a murder. He told Fred Dunmore he'd keep his mouth shut
+about the .36 Colt, if Dunmore would get him the Fleming collection. He
+wanted that instead of cash, because he could get more out of it, in a
+few years, than Dunmore could ever scrape, and in the meantime, the
+prestige of handling that collection would go a long way toward repairing
+his rather dilapidated reputation. Fred should have bumped him off, right
+then; it would have been the cheapest and easiest way out, and he'd
+probably be alive and uncaught today if he had. But he was willing to pay
+ten thousand dollars to save himself the trouble, and that's what he told
+you Rivers had offered for the collection. The ten thousand Dunmore told
+you Rivers was willing to pay was really the ten thousand he was willing
+to pay, himself, to keep Rivers quiet.
+
+"Then I was introduced into the picture, and, as you know, one of my
+first acts was to go to Rivers's shop and sneer scornfully at Rivers's
+supposed offer of ten thousand. And, right away, Rivers upped it to
+twenty-five thousand. You'll recall, no doubt, that Mr. Fleming had a
+life-insurance policy, one of these partnership mutual policies, which
+gave both Dunmore and Varcek exactly twenty-five thousand apiece. I
+assume that Rivers had found out about that.
+
+"I thought, at the time, that it was peculiar that Rivers would jump his
+own offer up, without knowing what anybody else was offering for the
+collection. I see, now, that it wasn't his own money he was being so
+generous with. And there was another incident, while I was at Rivers's
+shop, that piqued my curiosity. Rivers had in his shop a .36 Leech &
+Rigdon revolver, and I had been informed that it was a revolver of that
+type that Mr. Fleming had brought home the evening he was killed. I
+thought at the time that it was curious that two Confederate arms of the
+same type and make should show up this far north, but my main idea in
+buying it was the possibility that I might use it, in some way as
+circumstances would permit, to throw a scare into somebody. Rivers was
+quite willing to let me have it until he found out that I would be
+staying at this house, and then he tried to back out of the sale and
+offered me seventy-five dollars' credit on anything else in the shop, if
+I'd return it to him. Well, I'd known that Mr. Fleming had been about to
+start suit against Rivers over a crooked deal Rivers had put over on him,
+and I knew that if Mr. Fleming's death had been murder, there had been a
+substitution of revolvers. So I showed the gun I'd bought from Rivers to
+Philip Cabot, who had seen the revolver Mr. Fleming had bought, and he
+recognized it. It hasn't been established just how Rivers got the Leech
+& Rigdon, and never will be; the only people who knew were Rivers and
+Dunmore, and both are in the proverbial class of non-talebearers. I
+assume that Dunmore gave it to Rivers as a sort of down payment on
+Rivers's silence, and to get rid of it.
+
+"Well, you remember Dunmore's angry incredulity when I told him that
+Rivers was offering twenty-five thousand instead of ten thousand. One
+would have thought, on the face of it, that he would have been glad;
+as Nelda's husband, he would share in the higher price being paid for the
+collection. But when you realize that Rivers was buying the collection
+out of Dunmore's pocket, his reaction becomes quite understandable. I
+daresay I signed Arnold Rivers's death-warrant, right there."
+
+"I'll bet your conscience bothers you about that," Gladys remarked.
+
+"Oh, sure; it's been gnawing hell out of me, ever since," Rand told her
+cheerfully. "But, right away, Dunmore decided to kill Rivers. He called
+him on the phone as soon as he left the table--here I'm speaking by the
+book; I walked in on him, in the gunroom, as he was completing the call,
+though I didn't know it at the time--and arranged to see him that
+evening. Probably to devise ways and means of dealing with the Jeff Rand
+menace, for an ostensible reason.
+
+"So that night, Dunmore killed Rivers, with a bayonet. And here we have
+some more Aristotelian confusion of orders of abstraction. The bayonet
+is defined, verbally, as a 'soldier's weapon,' so Farnsworth and Mick
+McKenna and the rest of them bemused themselves with suspects like
+Stephen Gresham and Pierre Jarrett, and ignored Dunmore, who'd never had
+an hour's military training in his life. I'd like to check up on what
+picture-shows Dunmore had been seeing in the week or so before the
+killing. I'll bet anything he'd been to one of these South-Pacific
+banzai-operas. And speaking of confusing orders of abstraction, Mick
+McKenna and his merry men pulled a classic in that line. They saw
+Dunmore's automobile, verbally defined as a 'gray Plymouth coupe' in
+Rivers's drive at the estimated time of the murder. Pierre Jarrett has
+a car of that sort, so they included the inferential idea of Pierre
+Jarrett's ownership of the car so described.
+
+"Well, that's about all there is to it. Of course, I showed Fred Dunmore
+the Leech & Rigdon, and told him it was the gun I'd gotten from the
+coroner. That was all he needed to tell him that I was onto the murder,
+and probably onto him as the murderer. But he had evidently assumed that
+already; that was after he'd assembled my .38 and that .25 automatic, and
+was planning to double-kill me and Anton Varcek. At that, he'd have
+probably killed me, if I hadn't been wearing that bulletproof vest of
+McKenna's. I owe Mick for my life; I'll have to buy him a drink,
+sometime, to square that."
+
+"Well, how about Walters, and the pistols he stole?" Gladys asked.
+"Didn't that have anything to do with it?"
+
+"No. It was a result of Mr. Fleming's death, of course. I understand that
+the situation here had deteriorated rather abruptly after Mr. Fleming's
+death. Walters was about fed up on the way things were here, and he was
+going to hand in his notice. Then he decided that he ought to have a
+stake to tide him over till he could get another buttling job, so he
+started higrading the collection."
+
+Gladys nodded. "I suppose he decided, after Lane's death, that he didn't
+owe anybody here anything. Too bad he didn't wait, though. The situation
+has remedied itself, and that's something else I owe you."
+
+"Yes? I noticed that there was nobody here but you," Rand mentioned.
+
+"Oh, Anton's gone to New York. The Rockefeller Foundation is financing
+the major part of his research work, and he's well enough off to finance
+the rest himself. Geraldine went with him. Nelda is still recuperating
+from the shock of her sudden bereavement at a high-priced sanatorium--I
+understand there's a very good-looking young doctor there. And she's
+been talking about going to New York herself, in order, as she puts it,
+to lead her own life. I don't know whether she was afraid I'd be a
+restraining influence, or a dangerous competitor, but she feels that her
+own life could be best led away from here." She set down her glass and
+leaned back comfortably. "Peace, it's wonderful!"
+
+Reuben, the gingerbread butler, appeared in the dining-room doorway.
+"Dinner's served now, Mrs. Fleming," he announced.
+
+Rand rose, and Gladys took his arm; together, they went into the
+dining-room.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Murder in the Gunroom, by Henry Beam Piper
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