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 waspromised 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 ofthe best in the country. When Fleming was found dead on the floor ofhis locked gunroom, a Confederate-made Colt-type percussion . 36 revolverin his hand, the coroner's verdict was "death by accident. " But GladysFleming had her doubts. Enough at any rate to engage Colonel JeffersonDavis Rand--better known just as Jeff--private detective and apistol-collector himself, to catalogue, appraise, and negotiate thesale of her late husband's collection. 

There were a number of people who had wanted the collection. Thequestion was: had anyone wanted it badly enough to kill Fleming? And ifso, how had he done it? Here is a mystery, told against the fascinatingbackground of old guns and gun-collecting, which is rapid-fire withoutbeing hysterical, exciting without losing its contact with reason, andwhich introduces a personable and intelligent new private detective. Itis a story that will keep your nerves on a hair trigger even if you don'tknow 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 wascertainly over thirty and considerably under fifty. He looked hard andfit, like a man who could be a serviceable friend or a particularlyunpleasant enemy. Women instinctively suspected that he would make amost satisfying lover. One might have taken him for a successful lawyer(he had studied law, years ago), or a military officer in mufti (he stillhad a Reserve colonelcy, and used the title occasionally, to impresspeople who he thought needed impressing), or a prosperous businessman, as he usually thought of himself. Most of all, he looked like KingCharles II of England anachronistically clad in a Brooks Brothers suit. 

At the moment, he was looking rather like King Charles II being botheredby one of his mistresses who wanted a peerage for her husband. 

"But, Mrs. Fleming, " he was expostulating. "There surely must be somebodyelse. .. . After all, you'll have to admit that this isn't the sort of workthis agency handles. "

The would-be client released a series of smoke-rings and watched themfloat up toward the air-outlet at the office ceiling. It spoke well forRand's ability to subordinate esthetic to business considerations that hewas trying to give her a courteous and humane brush-off. She made eventhe Petty and Varga girls seem credible. Her color-scheme was blue andgold; blue eyes, and a blue tailored outfit that would have looked severeon a less curvate figure, and a charmingly absurd little blue hat perchedon a mass of golden hair. If Rand had been Charles II, she could havewalked out of there with a duchess's coronet, and Nell Gwyn would havebeen back selling oranges. 

"Why isn't it?" she countered. "Your door's marked _Tri-State DetectiveAgency, Jefferson Davis Rand, Investigation and Protection_. Well, I wantto know how much the collection's worth, and who'll pay the closest toit. That's investigation, isn't it? And I want protection from beingswindled. 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. Andyou're a recognized authority on early pistols; I've read some of yourarticles in the _Rifleman_. If you can't handle this, I don't know whocan. "

Rand's frown deepened. He wondered how much Gladys Fleming knew about theprinciples of General Semantics. Even if she didn't know anything, shewas still edging him into an untenable position. He hastily shifted fromthe attempt to identify his business with the label, "private detectiveagency. "

"Well, here, Mrs. Fleming, " he explained. "My business, includingarmed-guard and protected-delivery service, and general investigationand protection work, requires some personal supervision, but none ofit demands my exclusive attention. Now, if you wanted some routineinvestigation made, I could turn it over to my staff, maybe put two orthree men to work on it. But there's nothing about this business of yoursthat I could delegate to anybody; I'd have to do it all myself, at theexpense of neglecting the rest of my business. Now, I could do what youwant done, but it would cost you three or four times what you'd gain byretaining me. "

"Well, let me decide that, Colonel, " she replied. "How much would youhave to have?"

"Well, this collection of your late husband's consists of sometwenty-five hundred pistols and revolvers, all types and periods, " Randsaid. "You want me to catalogue it, appraise each item, issue lists, andnegotiate with prospective buyers. The cataloguing and appraisal alonewould take from a week to ten days, and it would be a couple more weeksuntil a satisfactory sale could be arranged. Why, say five thousanddollars; a thousand as a retainer and the rest on completion. "

That, he thought, would settle that. He was expecting an indignantoutcry, and hardened his heart, like Pharaoh. Instead, Gladys Flemingnodded equably. 

"That seems reasonable enough, Colonel Rand, considering that you'd haveto 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 ofauthorization. "

Rand nodded in return. Being thoroughly conscious of the fact thathe could only know a thin film of the events on the surface of anysituation, he was not easily surprised. 

"Very well, " he said. "You've hired an arms-expert. I'll be in Rosemontsome time tomorrow afternoon. Now, who are these prospective purchasersyou mentioned, and just how prospective, in terms of United Statescurrency, are they?"

"Well, for one, there's Arnold Rivers; he's offering ten thousand for thecollection. I suppose you know of him; he has an antique-arms business atRosemont. "

"I've done some business with him, " Rand admitted. "Who else?"

"There's a commission-dealer named Carl Gwinnett, who wants to handlethe collection for us, for twenty per cent. I'm told that that isn't anunusually exorbitant commission, but I'm not exactly crazy about theidea. "

"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 dumpthe whole collection on the market at once, upset prices, and spoil hisfuture business. You know, two thousand five hundred pistols of the sortMr. Fleming had, coming on the market in a lot, could do just that. Theold-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 privatecollectors, mostly friends of Lane's--Mr. Fleming's--who are talkingabout forming a pool to buy the collection for distribution amongthemselves, " she continued. 

"That's more like it, " Rand approved. "If they can raise enough moneyamong them, that is. They won't want the stuff for resale, and they maypay something resembling a decent price. Who are they?"

"Well, Stephen Gresham appears to be the leading spirit, " she said. "Thecorporation 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, andI have an account with Cabot, Joyner & Teale, Cabot's brokerage firm. I've corresponded with MacBride; he specializes in Colts. .. . You're thesole owner, I take it?"

"Well, no. " She paused, picking her words carefully. "We may just runinto a little trouble, there. You see, the collection is part of theresidue of the estate, left equally to myself and my two stepdaughters, Nelda Dunmore and Geraldine Varcek. You understand, Mr. Fleming and Iwere 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 thecollection for the best possible price, but beyond that, there may be aslight divergence of opinion. For instance, Nelda's husband, FredDunmore, has been insisting that we let him handle the sale of thepistols, on the grounds that he is something he calls a businessman. Nelda supports him in this. It was Fred who got this ten-thousand-dollaroffer from Rivers. Personally, I think Rivers is playing him for asucker. Outside his own line, Fred is an awful innocent, and I've nevertrusted this man Rivers. Lane had some trouble with him, just before . .. "

"Arnold Rivers, " Rand said, when it was evident that she was not goingto continue, "has the reputation, among collectors, of being the biggestcrook in the old-gun racket, a reputation he seems determined to liveup--or down--to. But here; if your stepdaughters are co-owners, what'smy status? What authority, if any, have I to do any negotiating?"

Gladys Fleming laughed musically. "That, my dear Colonel, is where youearn 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 yourside as a matter of principle; if Geraldine objects first, Nelda willhelp you steam-roll her into line. Fred Dunmore is accustomed to dealingwith a lot of yes-men at the plant; you shouldn't have any troubleshouting 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, willwelcome you with open arms, once he finds out what you want to do. Thatcollection has him talking to himself, already. Look; if you come outto our happy home in the early afternoon, before Fred and Anton get backfrom the plant, we ought to ram through some sort of agreement withGeraldine 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'lltalk to Goode, first. "

"Yes. That would be smart, " Gladys Fleming agreed. "After all, he'sresponsible for selling the collection. " She crossed to the desk and satdown in Rand's chair while she wrote out the check and a short letter ofauthorization, 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 ofthe collection almost--but not quite--as strong as their desire to getthe 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. "Onehe'd bought just that day; a Confederate-made Colt-type percussion . 36revolver. He'd brought it home with him, simply delighted with it, andstarted cleaning it at once. He could hardly wait until dinner was overto 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 hislaboratory, in the attic--he's one of these fortunates whose work is alsohis 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 havinga 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 changedand the first commercial was just over, when we heard a loud noise fromsomewhere upstairs. Neither of us thought of a shot; my own first ideawas of a door slamming. Then, about five minutes later, we heard Anton, in the upstairs hall, pounding on a door, and shouting: 'Lane! Lane! Areyou all right?' We ran up the front stairway, and found Anton, in hisrubber lab-apron, and Fred, in a bathrobe, and barefooted, standingoutside the gunroom door. The door was locked, and that in itself wasunusual; 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 hehad heard a shot and that nobody in the gunroom answered. Geraldine toldhim, rather impatiently, to go down to the library and up the spiral. Yousee, " she explained, "the library is directly under the gunroom, andthere's a spiral stairway connecting the two rooms. So Anton wentdownstairs and we stood waiting in the hall. Fred was shivering in hisbathrobe; he said he'd just jumped out of the bathtub, and he hadnothing on under it. After a while, Anton opened the gunroom door fromthe inside, and stood in the doorway, blocking it. He said: 'You'd betternot 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 knewsomething like this would happen. '

"Well, I simply elbowed him out of the way and went in, and the othersfollowed me. By this time, the uproar had penetrated to the rear of thehouse, and the servants--Walters, the butler, and Mrs. Horder, thecook--had joined us. We found Lane inside, lying on the floor, shotthrough the forehead. Of course, he was dead. He'd been sitting on one ofthese old cobblers' benches of the sort that used to be all the thing forcocktail-tables; he had his tools and polish and oil and rags on it. He'dfallen off it to one side and was lying beside it. He had a revolver inhis 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 whenhe came home, but it was dirty and dusty, and I didn't touch it. And Ididn't look closely at the one he had in his hand when he was . .. On thefloor. It was about the same size and design; that's all I could swearto. " She continued: "We had something of an argument about what to do. Walters, the butler, offered to call the police. He's English, and hismind seems to run naturally to due process of law. Fred and Anton bothhowled that proposal down; they wanted no part of the police. At thesame time, Geraldine was going into hysterics, and I was trying to gether quieted down. I took her to her room and gave her a couple ofsleeping-pills, and then went back to the gunroom. While I was gone, itseems that Anton had called our family doctor, Dr. Yardman, and then Fredcalled Humphrey Goode, our lawyer. Goode lives next door to us, about twohundred 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 allwent into a huddle and decided that it was an obvious accident and thatno inquest would be necessary. Then somebody, I'm not sure who, called anundertaker. It was past eleven when he arrived, and for once, Nelda gothome early. She was just coming in while they were carrying Lane out in abasket. You can imagine how horrible that was for her; it was days beforeshe was over the shock. So she'll be just as glad as anybody to see thelast of the pistol-collection. "

Through the recital, Rand had sat silently, toying with the ivory-handledItalian Fascist dagger-of-honor that was doing duty as a letter-opener onhis desk. Gladys Fleming wasn't, he was sure, indulging in anymasochistic self-harrowing; neither, he thought, was she talking torelieve her mind. Once or twice there had been a small catch in hervoice, but otherwise the narration had been a piece of straightreporting, neither callous nor emotional. Good reporting, too; carefullydetailed. There had been one or two inclusions of inferential matter inthe guise of description, but that was to be looked for and discounted. And she had remembered, at the end, to include her ostensible reason fortelling the story. 

"Yes, it must have been dreadful, " he sympathized. "Odd, though, that anold hand with guns like Mr. Fleming would have an accident like that. Imet him, once or twice, and was at your home to see his collection, acouple of years ago. He impressed me as knowing firearms prettythoroughly. .. . Well, you can look for me tomorrow, say around two. Inthe 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 andhis secretary, Kathie O'Grady, entered, loading a cigarette into aneight-inch amber holder. She was a handsome woman, built on the generouslines of a Renaissance goddess; none of the Renaissance masters, however, had ever employed a model so strikingly Hibernian. She had blue eyes, anda fair, highly-colored complexion; she wore green, which went well withher flaming red hair, and a good deal of gold costume-jewelry. 

Behind her came Dave Ritter. He was Rand's assistant, and also Kathie'slover. He was five or six years older than his employer, and slightlybuilt. His hair, fighting a stubborn rearguard action against baldness, was an indeterminate mousy gray-brown. It was one of his professionalassets that nobody ever noticed him, not even in a crowd of one; when hewanted it to, his thin face could assume the weary, baffled expression ofa middle-aged book-keeper with a wife and four children on fifty dollarsa week. Actually, he drew three times that much, had no wife, admitted tono children. During the war, he and Kathie had kept the Tri-State Agencyin something better than a state of suspended animation while Rand hadbeen in the Army. 

Ritter fumbled a Camel out of his shirt pocket and made a beeline for thedesk, appropriating Rand's lighter and sharing the flame with Kathie. 

"You know, Jeff, " he said, "one of the reasons why this agency never madeany money while you were away was that I never had the unadulteratedinsolence to ask the kind of fees you do. I was listening in on theextension in the file-room; I could hear Kathie damn near faint whenyou said five grand. "

"Yes; five thousand dollars for appraising a collection they've beenoffered 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'tcare about the pistols; she wants Jeff to find out who fixed up thataccident for Fleming. You heard that big, long shaggy-dog story aboutexactly what happened and where everybody was supposed to have been atthe time. I hope you got all that recorded; it was all told for apurpose. "

Rand had picked up the outside phone and was dialing. In a moment, agirl'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. "JeffRand 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 littleinformation. 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 thepistol-collection sold is one job. Exploring the whys and wherefores ofthat quote accident unquote is the other. She has a hunch, and probablynothing much better, that there's something sour about the accident. Sheexpects me to find evidence to that effect while I'm at Rosemont, goingover the collection. I'm not excluding other possibilities, but I'll workon that line until and unless I find out differently. Five thousandshould 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 thatcollection business for anything like a reasonable fee, so I told herfive thousand, thinking that would stop her. When it didn't, I knew shehad something else in mind, and when she went into all that detail aboutthe 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 atthat 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 knowenough about Lane Fleming to know how much experience he had with oldarms. I can't believe that he'd buy a pistol without carefully examiningit, and I can't believe that he'd bring that thing home and start workingon it without seeing the caps on the nipples and the charges in thechambers, if it had been loaded. And if it had been, he would have firsttaken off the caps, and then taken it apart and drawn the charges. Andshe says he started working on it as soon as he got home--presumablyaround five--and then took time out for dinner, and then went back towork on it, and more than half an hour later, there was a shot and he waskilled. " Rand blew a Bronx cheer. "If that accident had been the McCoy, it would have happened in the first five minutes after he started workingon that pistol. No, in the first thirty seconds. And then, when theyfound him, he had the revolver in his right hand, and an oily rag in hisleft. I hope both of you noticed that little touch. "

"Yeah. When I clean a gat, I generally have it in my left hand, and cleanwith 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 hespent cleaning it would justify such an inference. He would have taken itapart, down to the smallest screw, and cleaned everything carefully, andthen put it together again, and then, when he had finished, he would havegone 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 wouldfurther assume that the killer wasn't particularly familiar with thesubject of firearms, antique, care and maintenance of. "

"And with all the hollering and whooping and hysterics-throwing, nobodynoticed the switch, " Ritter finished. "Wonder what happened to the one hewas really cleaning. "

"That I may possibly find out, " Rand said. "The general incompetence withwhich this murder was committed gives me plenty of room to hope that itmay 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, " Randtold 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 itride as an accident. And, two, I doubt if a man who prided himself on hisgun-knowledge, as Fleming did, would want his self-shooting to be takenfor an accident. I'm damn sure I wouldn't want my friends to go aroundsaying: 'What a dope; didn't know it was loaded!' I doubt if he'd evenexpect people to believe that it had been an accident. " He shook hishead. "No, the only inference I can draw is that somebody murderedFleming, and then faked evidence intended to indicate an accident. " Herose. "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-StateDetective Agency. He handled all Rand's not infrequent legalinvolvements, and Rand did all his investigating and witness-chasing;annually, they compared books to see who owed whom how much. Tipton wasabout 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 andmost eligible bachelor. His dark, conservatively cut clothes fitted himas though they had been sprayed on, he wore gold-rimmed glasses, and hewas so freshly barbered, manicured, valeted and scrubbed as to give theimpression that he had been born in cellophane and just unwrapped. Heleaned 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 ofthem wants you to frame what on which other one?"

"That'll do for a good, simplified description, to start with, " Randcommented. "Why, my client is Mrs. Gladys Fleming. As to what shewants. .. . "

He told the young lawyer about his recent interview and subsequentconclusions. 

"So you see, " he finished, "she won't commit herself, even with me. Maybeshe thinks I have more official status, and more obligations to thepolice, than I have. Maybe she isn't sure in her own mind, and wants meto see, independently, if there's any smell of something dead in thewoodpile. Or, she may think that having a private detective called in maythrow a scare into somebody. Or maybe she thinks somebody may be fixingup an accident for her, next, and she wants a pistol-totin' gent in thehouse for a while. Or any combination thereof. Personally, I deplorethese 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 whiffof murder I've caught. " He hesitated slightly. "I must say, I'm notgreatly surprised. Lane Fleming's death was very convenient to a numberof people. You know about this Premix Company, don't you?"

"Vaguely. They manufacture ready-mixed pancake flour, and ready-mixedice-cream and pudding powders, and this dehydrated vegetable soup--pouron hot water, stir, and serve--don't they? My colored boy, Buck, got someof the soup, once, for an experiment. We unanimously voted not to try itagain. "

"They put out quite a line of such godsends to the neophyte in thekitchen, the popularity of which is reflected in a steadily risingdivorce-rate, " Tipton said. "They advertise very extensively, includinghalf an hour of tear-jerking drama on a national hookup during soap-operatime. Your client, the former Gladys Farrand, was on the air for Premixfor 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 hiswoes?" Rand inquired. 

"Well, not exactly. You see, Premix is only Little Business, as the foodsindustry goes, but they have something very sweet. So sweet, in fact, that one of the really big fellows, National Milling & Packaging, hasbeen going to rather extreme lengths to effect a merger. Mill-Pack, par100, is quoted at around 145, and Premix, par 50, is at 75 now, andMill-Pack is offering a two-for-one-share exchange, which would be alittle 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 overthis merger for Mill-Pack. "

"I'll bear that in mind, too, " Rand said. 

"Naturally, all this is not being shouted from the housetops, " Tiptoncontinued. "Fact is, it's a minor infraction of ethics for me to mentionit 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 commonstock himself, try and do anything about it. "

"Anything short of retiring Fleming to the graveyard, that is, " Randamended. "That would do for a murder-motive, very nicely. .. . What wereFleming'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 nicelittle local trade, and finally a state-wide wholesale business. Theyincorporated in the early twenties, and then, after the old man died, Lane Fleming hired an advertising agency to promote his products, andbuilt up a national distribution, and took on some sidelines. Then, during the late Mr. Chamberlain's 'Peace in our time, ' he picked up arefugee Czech chemist and foods-expert named Anton Varcek, who whippedup a lot of new products. So business got better and better, and theymade more money to spend on advertising to get more money to buy moreadvertising to make more money, like Bill Nye's Puritans digging clamsin the winter to get strength to hoe corn in the summer to get strengthto dig clams in the winter. 

"So Premix became a sort of symbol of achievement to Fleming. Then, hewas one of these old-model paternalistic employers, and he was afraidthat if he relinquished control, a lot of his old retainers would beturned out to grass. And finally, he was opposed in principle toconcentration of business ownership. He claimed it made business morevulnerable to government control and eventual socialization. "

"I'm not sure he didn't have something there, " Rand considered. "We getall our corporate eggs in a few baskets, and they're that much easier forthe planned-economy boys to grab. .. . Just who, on the Premix side, was infavor 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 interestedin Premix. And all the two-share tinymites. I don't know who inheritsFleming's voting interest, but I can find out for you by this timetomorrow. "

"Do that, Tip, and bill me for what you think finding out is worth, " Randsaid. "It'll be a novel reversal of order for you to be billing me for aninvestigation. .. . Now, how about the family, as distinct from thecompany?"

"Well, there's your client, Gladys Fleming. She married Lane Flemingabout ten years ago, when she was twenty-five and he was fifty-five. Inspite of the age difference, I understand it was a fairly happy marriage. Then, there are two daughters by a previous marriage, Nelda Dunmore andGeraldine Varcek, and their respective husbands. They all live together, in a big house at Rosemont. In the company, Dunmore is Sales, and Varcekis Production. They each have a corner of the mantle of Lane Fleming inone hand and a dirk in the other. Nelda and Geraldine hate each otherlike Greeks and Trojans. Nelda is the nymphomaniac sister, and Geraldineis the dipsomaniac. From time to time, temporary alliances get formed, mainly against Gladys; all of them resent the way she married herselfinto a third-interest in the estate. You're going to have yourself anice, pleasant little stay in the country. "

"I'm looking forward to it. " Rand grimaced. "You mentioned suiciderumors. Such as, and who's been spreading them?"

"Oh, they are the usual bodyless voices that float about, " Tipton toldhim. "Emanating, I suspect, from sources interested in shaking out theless sophisticated small shareholders before the merger. The story isalways approximately the same: That Lane Fleming saw his company driftingreefward, was unwilling to survive the shipwreck, and performed_seppuku_. The family are supposed to have faked up the accidentafterward. I dismiss the whole thing as a rather less than subtle bit ofmarket-manipulation chicanery. "

"Or a smoke screen, to cover the defects in camouflaging a murder as anaccident, " Rand added. 

Tipton nodded. "That could be so, too, " he agreed. "Say somebody dislikesthe looks of that accident, and starts investigating. Then he runs intoall this miasma of suicide rumors, and promptly shrugs the whole thingoff. Fleming killed himself, and the family made a few alterations andare passing it off as an accident. The families of suicides have beenknown to do that. "

"Yes. Regular defense-in-depth system; if the accident line ispenetrated, the suicide line is back of it, " Rand said. "Well, in thelast few years, we've seen defenses in depth penetrated with monotonousregularity. I've jeeped through a couple, myself, to interrogate thesurviving ex-defenders. It's all in having the guns and armor to smashthrough with. "

CHAPTER 3

Humphrey Goode was sixty-ish, short and chunky, with a fringe ofwhite 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 cornersin an expression that was probably intended to be stern and succeededonly in being pompous. His office was dark, and smelled of dusty books. 

"Mr. Rand, " he began accusingly, "when your secretary called to make thisappointment, she informed me that you had been retained by Mrs. GladysFleming. "

"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 asyou're executor of her late husband's estate, I thought I ought to talkto you, first of all. "

Goode's eyes narrowed behind the thick glasses. 

"Mr. Rand, if you're investigating the death of Lane Fleming, you'rewasting your time and Mrs. Fleming's money, " he lectured. "There isnothing whatever for you to find out that is not already publicknowledge. Mr. Fleming was accidentally killed by the discharge of an oldrevolver he was cleaning. I don't know what foolish feminine impulse ledMrs. 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 demandedincredulously. "She doesn't usually make mistakes of that sort. "

The wrinkles moved up Goode's brow like a battalion advancing in platoonfront. He looked even more narrowly at Rand, his suspicion compoundedwith 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. Shenever expressed any other belief to me. Do you think it was anythingelse?"

"Why, of course not!" Goode exclaimed. "That's just what I was tellingyou. I--" He took a fresh start. "There have been rumors--utterly withoutfoundation, of course--that Mr. Fleming committed suicide. They are, Imay say, nothing but malicious fabrications, circulated for the purposeof undermining public confidence in Premix Foods, Incorporated. I hadthought that perhaps Mrs. Fleming might have heard them, and decided, onher own responsibility, to bring you in to scotch them; I was afraid thatsuch a step might, by giving these rumors fresh currency, defeat itsintended purpose. "

"Oh, nothing of the sort!" Rand told him. "I'm not in the leastinterested in how Mr. Fleming was killed, and the question is simplynot involved in what Mrs. Fleming wants me to do. "

He stopped there. Goode was looking at him sideways, sucking in onecorner of his mouth and pushing out the other. It was not a facialcontortion that impressed Rand favorably; it was too reminiscent ofa high-school principal under whom he had suffered, years ago, inVicksburg, Mississippi. Rand began to suspect that Goode might be justanother such self-righteous, opinionated, egotistical windbag. Such mencould be dangerous, were usually quite unscrupulous, and were almostalways 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 thejoint property of Mrs. Fleming and her two stepdaughters, is an extremelyvaluable asset. Mr. Fleming spent the better part of his life gatheringit. At one time or another, he must have owned between four and fivethousand different pistols and revolvers. The twenty-five hundred left tohis heirs represent the result of a systematic policy of discriminatingpurchase, replacement of inferior items, and general improvement. It'sone of the largest and most famous collections of its kind in thecountry. "

"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 disposingof that collection, " Rand replied, carefully picking his words to fitwhat he estimated to be Goode's probable semantic reactions. "She hasthe utmost confidence in your ability and integrity, as an attorney;however, she realized that you could hardly describe yourself as anantique-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 ofa number of articles on the subject, and I am recognized as somethingof an authority. I know arms-values, and understand market conditions. Furthermore, not being a dealer, or connected with any museum, I have nomercenary motive for undervaluing the collection. That's all there is toit; Mrs. Fleming has retained me as a firearms-expert, in connection withthe 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. Thechange seemed to be a welcome one, but he was evidently having troubleadjusting to it. Rand grinned inwardly; now he was going to have to findhimself a new set of verbal labels and identifications. 

"Well, Mr. Rand, that alters the situation considerably, " he said, withnoticeably less hostility. He was still a bit resentful; people had noright to confuse him by jumping about from one category to another, likethat. "Now understand, I'm not trying to be offensive, but it seems alittle unusual for a private detective also to be an authority on antiquefirearms. "

"Mr. Fleming was an authority on antique firearms, and he was amanufacturer of foodstuffs, " Rand parried, carefully staying insideGoode's Aristotelian system of categories and verbal identifications. "Myown business does not occupy all my time, any more than his did, and Idoubt if an interest in the history and development of deadly weapons isany more incongruous in a criminologist than in an industrialist. But ifthere's any doubt in your mind as to my qualifications, you can checkwith 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 ofnon-professional expert, you should be free from mercenary bias. " Henodded again, taking off his glasses and polishing them on an outsizewhite 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 thatit was worth a great deal of money, but I haven't the vaguest idea howmuch, 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 ableto give you an estimate. I will say this, though: It's probably worth alot 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 manis a notorious swindler! Mr. Rand, do you know that only a week beforehis death, Mr. Fleming instructed me to bring suit against him, and alsoto secure his indictment on criminal charges of fraud?"

"I didn't know that, but I'm not surprised, " Rand answered. "What did heburn Fleming with?"

"Here; I'll show you. " Goode rose from his seat and went to a rank ofsteel filing-cabinets behind the desk. In a moment, he was back, with alarge 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 inover-all length, with ball-pommels the size of oranges, and long steelbelt-hooks. The stocks were so covered with ivory inlay that the woodshowed only in tiny interstices; the metal-work was lavishly engraved andgold-inlaid. To the trigger-guards were attached tags marked _Fleming vs. Rivers_. 

Rand examined each pistol separately, then compared them. Finally, hetook a six-inch rule from his pocket and made measurements, first withone edge and then with the other. 

"Well, I'm damned, " he said, laying them on the desk. "These things arethe most complete fakes I ever saw--locks, stocks, barrels and mountings. They're supposed to be late sixteenth-century; I doubt if they were madebefore 1920. As far as I can see or measure, there isn't the slightestdifference between them, except on some of the decorative inlay. Thewhole job must have been miked in ten-thousandths, and what's more, whoever made them used metric measurements. You'll find pairs of Englishdueling pistols as early as 1775 that are almost indistinguishable, butin 1575, when these things were supposed to have been made, a gunsmithwas working fine when he was working in sixteenth-inches. They justdidn'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 allWall Street to Junior's piggy-bank that I'd find that the screws weremachine-threaded and the working-parts interchanged. I've heard aboutfakes like these, "--he named a famous, recently liquidated West Coastcollection--"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, " hesaid. "And you'd win the piggy-bank. It seems that after Mr. Flemingbought them, he took them apart, and found, just as you say, that thescrew-threads had been machine-cut, and that the working-parts wereinterchangeable from one pistol to the other. There were a lot of papersaccompanying them--I have them here--purporting to show that they hadbeen sold by some Austrian nobleman, an anti-Nazi refugee, in whosefamily they had been since the reign of Maximilian II. They are, ofcourse, fabrications. I looked up the family in the _Almanach de Gotha_;it simply never existed. At first, Mr. Fleming had been inclined to takethe view that Rivers had been equally victimized with himself. However, when Rivers refused to take back the pistols and refund the purchaseprice, he altered his opinion. He placed them in my hands, instructing meto bring suit and also start criminal action; he was in a fearful rageabout it, and swore that he'd drive Rivers out of business. However, before I could start action, Mr. Fleming was killed in that accident, andas he was the sole witness to the fact of the sale, and as none of theheirs was interested, I did nothing about it. In fact, I advised themthat action against Rivers would cost the estate more than they couldhope to recover in damages. " He picked up one of the pistols and examinedit. "Now, I don't know what to do about these. "

"Take them home and hang them over the mantel, " Rand advised. "If I'mgoing to have anything to do with selling the collection, I don't wantanything 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. "Ithink, 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 understandit, 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 andhanded it to Goode. "As you'll see by that, I was retained by, and onlyby, Mrs. Fleming, " he said. "I am assuming that her interests areidentical with those of the other heirs, but I realize that this is trueonly to a very limited extent. It's my understanding that relationsbetween the three ladies are not the most pleasant. "

Goode produced a short, croaking laugh. "Now there's a cautiousunderstatement, " he commented. "Mr. Rand, I feel that you should knowthat 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 meof having been brought into this by Mrs. Fleming to help her defraud theothers. That, of course, is not the case; they will all profit equally bymy participation in this. But I'm going to have trouble convincing themof that. "

"Yes. You will, " Goode agreed. "Would you rather carry my authorizationthan 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 meto act as your agent--I'm getting my fee from Mrs. Fleming--but I wouldbe obligated to represent her only as far as her interests did notimproperly conflict with those of the other heirs, and that's what Iwant 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 Inever practiced, " Rand admitted. "Instead of opening a law-office, I wentinto the F. B. I. , in 1935, and then opened a private agency a couple ofyears later. But if I had to, which God forbid, I could go home tomorrowand hang out my shingle. "

"You seem to have had quite an eventful career, " Goode remarked, with aqueer combination of envy and disapproval. "I understand that, untilrecently, you were an officer in the Army Intelligence, too. .. . I'll haveyour authorization to act for me made out immediately; to list andappraise the collection, and to negotiate with prospective purchasers. And by the way, " he continued, "did I understand you to say that you hadheard some of these silly rumors to the effect that Lane Fleming hadcommitted 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 scurrilousstories!" Goode declared, pumping up a fine show of indignation. "ThePremix Company is in the best possible financial condition; a glance atits books, or at its last financial statement, would show that. I oughtto know, I'm chairman of the board of directors. Just because there wassome talk of retrenchment, shortly before Mr. Fleming's death . .. "

"Oh, no responsible person pays any attention to that sort of talk, " Randcomforted him. "My armed-guard and armored-car service brings me intocontact with a lot of the local financial crowd. None of them is takingthese 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 themarket, " Goode gloomed. "And now, people will hear of Mrs. Fleming'shaving retained you, and will assume, just as I did at first, that youare making some kind of an investigation. I hope you will make a promptdenial, 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 wornhis World War I uniform without anything giving at the seams, and buckledthe old Sam Browne at the same hole. As Rand entered, he rose from behindhis 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 whydon't you come out to Rosemont to see us? Dot and Irene were wonderingwhat 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 thedevil. Fact is, it was business that finally brought me around here. Iunderstand that you and some others are forming a pool to buy the LaneFleming collection. "

"Yes!" Gresham became enthusiastic. "Want in on it? I'm sure the otherswould be glad to have you in with us. We're going to need all the moneywe can scrape together, with this damned Rivers bidding against us. "

"I'm afraid you will, at that, Stephen, " Rand told him. "And notnecessarily on account of Rivers. You see, the Fleming estate has justemployed 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 into sell the collection for them. Humphrey Goode isn't competent tohandle that. What we were all afraid of was a public auction at somesales-gallery. "

Rand shook his head. "Worst thing they could do; a collection likethat would go for peanuts at auction. Remember the big sales in thetwenties?. .. Why, here; I'm going to be in Rosemont, staying at theFleming place, working on the collection, for the next week or so. Isuppose your crowd wouldn't want to make an offer until I have everythinglisted, but I'd like to talk to your associates, in a group, as soon aspossible. "

"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 wearen't anxious to make any premature offers. We don't want to offer morethan we have to, and at the same time, we don't want to underbid and seethe collection sold elsewhere. "

"No, of course not. " Rand thought for a moment. "Tell you what; I'll giveyou and your friends the best break I can in fairness to my clients. I'mnot obliged to call for sealed bids, or anything like that, so when I'veheard from everybody, I'll give you a chance to bid against the highestoffer in hand. If you want to top it, you can have the collection for anykind of an overbid that doesn't look too suspiciously nominal. "

"Why, Jeff, I appreciate that, " Gresham said. "I think you're entirelywithin your rights, but naturally, we won't mention this outside. I canimagine Arnold Rivers, for instance, taking a very righteous view of suchan arrangement. "

"Yes, so can I. Of course, if he'd call me a crook, I'd take that asa compliment, " Rand said. "I wonder if I could meet your group, saytomorrow evening? I want to be in a position to assure the Fleming familyand Humphrey Goode that you're all serious and responsible. "

"Well, we're very serious about it, " Gresham replied, "and I think we'reall responsible. You can look us up, if you wish. Besides myself, thereis Philip Cabot, of Cabot, Joyner & Teale, whom you know, and AdamTrehearne, who's worth about a half-million in industrial shares, andColin MacBride, who's vice president in charge of construction andmaintenance for Edison-Public Power & Light, at about twenty thousand ayear, and Pierre Jarrett and his fiancée, Karen Lawrence. Pierre was aMarine captain, invalided home after being wounded on Peleliu; he writesscience-fiction for the pulps. Karen has a little general-antiquebusiness in Rosemont. They intend using their share of the collection, plus such culls and duplicates as the rest of us can consign to them, togo into the arms business, with a general-antique sideline, which Karencan manage while Pierre's writing. .. . Tell you what; I'll call a meetingat my place tomorrow evening, say at eight thirty. That suit you?"

That, Rand agreed, would be all right. Gresham asked him how recently hehad 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 everyimaginable kind of flintlock--over a hundred U. S. Martials, including the1818 Springfield, all the S. North types, a couple of VirginiaManufactory models, and--he got this since the last time you saw thecollection--a real Rappahannock Forge flintlock. And about a hundred andfifty Colts, all models and most variants. Remember that big WhitneyvilleWalker, in original condition? He got that one in 1924, at the Fred Hinessale, at the old Walpole Galleries. And seven Paterson Colts, includinga couple of cased sets. And anything else you can think of. A Hallflintlock breech-loader; an Elisha Collier flintlock revolver; a pairof Forsythe detonator-lock pistols. .. . Oh, that's a collection to endcollections. "

"By the way, Humphrey Goode showed me a pair of big ball-butt wheellocks, 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 timearms-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 werea 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 lookedat Gresham seriously. "Just how much more of that sort of thing do youthink I'm going to have to weed out of the collection, before I can offerit for sale?" he asked. 

Gresham shook his head. "They're all. They were Lane Fleming's one falsestep. Ordinarily, Lane was a careful buyer; he must have let himself gethypnotized by all that ivory and gold, and all that documentation oncrested notepaper. You know, Fleming's death was an undeserved stroke ofluck for Arnold Rivers. If he hadn't been killed just when he was, he'dhave run Rivers out of the old-arms business. "

"I notice that Rivers isn't advertising in the _American Rifleman_ anymore, " Rand observed. 

"No; the National Rifle Association stopped his ad, and lifted hismembership card for good measure, " Gresham said. "Rivers sold a rifle toa collector down in Virginia, about three years ago, while you were stilloccupying Germany. A fine, early flintlock Kentuck, that had been madeout of a fine, late percussion Kentuck by sawing off the breech-end ofthe barrel, rethreading it for the breech-plug, drilling a new vent, andfitting the lock with a flint hammer and a pan-and-frizzen assembly, andshortening the fore-end to fit. Rivers has a gunsmith over at Kingsville, one Elmer Umholtz, who does all his fraudulent conversions for him. Ihave an example of Umholtz's craftsmanship, myself. The collector whobought this spurious flintlock spotted what had been done, and squawkedto the Rifle Association, and to the postal authorities. "

"Rivers claimed, I suppose, that he had gotten it from a family that hadowned 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 wayfaringcollector, " Gresham replied. "He convinced Uncle Whiskers, but theN. R. A. Took a slightly dimmer view of the transaction, so Rivers doesn'tadvertise in the _Rifleman_ any more. "

"Wasn't there some talk about Whitneyville Walker Colts that had beenmade out of 1848 Model Colt Dragoons?" Rand asked. 

"Oh Lord, yes! This fellow Umholtz was practically turning them out onan 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-riflefor Dot, a couple of years ago--Mexican-Mauser action, Johnsonbarrel, chambered for . 300 Savage; Umholtz made the stock and fitted ascope-sight--it's a beautiful little rifle. I hate to see him prostitutehis talents the way he does by making these fake antiques for Rivers. Youknow, he made one of these mythical heavy . 44 six-shooters of the sortColt was supposed to have turned out at Paterson in 1839 for ColonelWalker's Texas Rangers--you know, the model he couldn't find any of in1847, when he made the real Walker Colt. That story you find in Sawyer'sbook. "

"Why, that story's been absolutely disproved, " Rand said. "There neverwas any such revolver. "

"Not till Umholtz made one, " Gresham replied. "Rivers sold it to, "--henamed a moving-picture bigshot--"for twenty-five hundred dollars. Hisstory was that he picked it up in Mexico, in 1938; traded a . 38-specialto 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 dugin behind this innocent-purchase-and-sale-in-good-faith Maginot Line ofhis. You know, that bastard took me, once, just one-tenth as badly, witha fake U. S. North & Cheney Navy flintlock 1799 Model that had been madeout of a French 1777 Model. " The lawyer muttered obscenely. 

"Why didn't you sue hell out of him?" Rand asked. "You might not havegotten 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 wantmy money, and if I don't get it in cash, I'm going to beat it out of thatdirty little swindler's hide, " Gresham replied, an ugly look appearing onhis face. 

"I wouldn't blame you. You could find plenty of other collectors who'dhold 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 haveshot himself with?"

Gresham frowned. "I really don't know; I didn't see it. It's supposedto have been a Confederate Leech & Rigdon . 36; you know, one of thoseimitation Colt Navy Models that were made in the South during the CivilWar. "

Rand nodded. He was familiar with the type. 

"The story is that Fleming found it hanging back of the counter at someroadside lunch-stand, along with a lot of other old pistols, and talkedthe proprietor into letting it go for a few dollars, " Gresham continued. "It was supposed to have been loaded at the time, and went off whileFleming was working on it, at home. " He shook his head. "I can't believethat, Jeff. Lane Fleming would know a loaded revolver when he saw one. Ibelieve he deliberately shot himself, and the family faked the accidentand fixed the authorities. The police never made any investigation; itwas handled by the coroner alone. And our coroner, out in Scott County, is eminently fixable, if you go about it right; a pitiful littlenonentity with a tremendous inferiority complex. "

"But good Lord, why?" Rand demanded. "I never heard of Fleming having anytroubles 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 thePremix Company, " he said. "I have, well, sources of inside information. This is in confidence, so don't quote me, but certain influences were atwork, inside the company, toward that end. " He inspected the tip of hiscigar and knocked off the ash into the tray at his elbow. "Lane Fleming'sdeath is on record as accidental, Jeff. It's been written off as such. Itwould 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 memoryof the place. It was one of the many commuters' villages strung out forfifty miles along the railroad lines radiating from New Belfast, anddepended for its support upon a population scattered over a five-mileradius at estates and country homes. Obviously a planned community, itwas dominated by a gray-walled, green-roofed railroad station which stoodon its passenger-platform like a captain in front of four platoons ofgray-walled, green-roofed houses and stores aligned along as manyconverging roads. There was a post office, uniform with the rest of thebuildings; an excessive quantity of aluminum trimming dated it somewherein the middle Andrew W. Mellon period. There were four gas stations, amovie theater, and a Woolworth store with a red front that made it looklike some painted hussy who had wandered into a Quaker Meeting. 

Over the door of one of the smaller stores, Rand saw a black-letteredwhite sign: _Antiques_. There was a smoke-gray Plymouth coupé parked infront of it. 

Instead of turning onto the road to the Fleming estate, he continuedalong Route 19 for a mile or so beyond the village, until he came to ared brick pseudo-Colonial house on the right. He pulled to the side ofthe road and got out, turning up the collar of his trench coat. The airwas raw and damp, doubly unpleasant after the recent unseasonable warmth. An apathetically persistent rain sogged the seedling-dotted old fields oneither side, and the pine-woods beyond, and a high ceiling of unbrokendirty gray gave no promise of clearing. The mournful hoot of a distantlocomotive whistle was the only sound to pierce the silence. For amoment, Rand stood with his back to the car, looking at the gallows-likesign 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 formeda continuation under a deck roof, and on the right, an ell had beenbuilt at right angles, extending thirty feet toward the road. Althoughconnected to the house by a shed roof, which acquired a double pitch andbecame 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. Itsfloor-level was about four feet lower than that of the parent structure. 

A Fibber McGee door-chime clanged as Rand entered. Closing the doorbehind him, he looked around. The room, some twenty feet wide and fiftylong, was lighted by an almost continuous row of casement windows on theright, and another on the left for as far as the ell extended beyond thehouse. They were set high, a good five feet from lower sill to floor, andthere was no ceiling; the sloping roof was supported by bare timberrafters. Racks lined the walls, under the windows, holding long-gunsand swords; the pistols and daggers and other small items were displayedon a number of long tables. In the middle of the room, glaring at thefront door, was a brass four-pounder on a ship's carriage; a Philippine_latanka_, muzzle tilted upward, stood beside it. Where the ell joinedthe house under the shed roof, there was a fireplace, and a short flightof steps to a landing and a door out of the dwelling, and somefurniture--a davenport, three or four deep chairs facing the fire, a lowcocktail-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 exactlyharmonize with all the lethal array around him; he would have looked moreat home presiding over an establishment devoted to ladies' items. Hiscostume ran to pastel shades, he had large and soulful blue eyes andprettily dimpled cheeks, and his longish blond hair was carefullydisordered into a windblown effect. 

"Oh, good afternoon, " he greeted. "Is there anything in particular you'reinterested 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 youcare to wait. .. . Have you ever been here before?"

"Not for some time, " Rand said. "When I was here last, there was a youngfellow named Jordan, or Gordon, or something like that. "

"Oh. He was before my time. " The present functionary introduced himselfas Cecil Gillis. Rand gave his name and shook hands with him. YoungGillis wanted to know if Rand was a collector. 

"In a small way. General-pistol collector, " Rand told him. "Have you manyColts, now?"

There was a whole table devoted to Colts. No spurious WhitneyvilleWalkers; after all, a dealer can sell just so many of such top-drawerrarities before the finger of suspicion begins leveling itself in hisdirection, and Arnold Rivers had long ago passed that point. There wereseveral of the commoner percussion models, however, with lovely, perfectbluing that was considerably darker than that applied at the Colt factoryduring the 'fifties and 'sixties of the last century. The silver platingon backstraps and trigger-guards was perfect, too, but the naval-battleand stagecoach-holdup engravings on the cylinders were far from clear--inone case, completely obliterated. The cylinder of one 1851 Navy boreserial numbers that looked as though they had been altered to conform tothe 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 aConfederate 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 Gillissaid. "Surprising how many collectors think all Confederate revolvershad brass frames, because of the Griswold & Grier, and the Spiller &Burr. .. . That's an unusually fine specimen, Mr. Rand. Mr. Rivers gotit sometime in late December or early January; from a gentleman inCharleston, I understand. I believe it had been carried during the CivilWar by a member of the former owner's family. "

Rand looked at the tag tied to the trigger-guard; it was marked, inletter-code, with three different prices. That was characteristic ofArnold Rivers's business methods. 

"How much does Mr. Rivers want for this?" he asked, handing the revolverto young Gillis. 

The clerk mentally decoded the three prices and vacillated for a momentover them. He had already appraised Rand, from his twenty-dollar Stetsonpast his Burberry trench coat to his English hand-sewn shoes, and placedhim in the pay-dirt bracket; however, from some remarks Rand had letdrop, he decided that this customer knew pistols, and probably knewvalues. 

"Why, that is sixty dollars, Mr. Rand, " he said, with the air of oneconferring a benefaction. Maybe he was, at that, Rand decided; prices hadjumped 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 havebeen a family heirloom, but from the way it's been cared for, I wouldhave thought it had been in a collection, " the clerk replied. "Shall Iwrap it for you?"

"Yes, if you please. " Rand followed him to the rear, laying aside hiscoat and hat. Gillis got some heavy paper out of a closet and packagedit, then hunted through a card-file in the top drawer of the desk, untilhe found the card he wanted. He made a few notes on it, and was stillholding it and the sixty dollars when he rejoined Rand by the fire. 

In spite of his effeminate appearance and over-refined manner, the youngfellow really knew arms. The conversation passed from Confederaterevolvers to the arms of the Civil War in general, and they werediscussing the changes in tactics occasioned by the introduction of therevolver and the repeating carbine when the door from the house openedand Arnold Rivers appeared on the landing. 

He looked older than when Rand had last seen him. His hair was thinner ontop and grayer at the temples. Never particularly robust, he had lostweight, and his face was thinner and more hollow-cheeked. His mouth stillhad the old curve of supercilious insolence, and he was still smokingwith the six-inch carved ivory cigarette-holder which Rand remembered. 

He looked his visitor over carefully from the doorway, decided that hewas not soliciting magazine subscriptions or selling Fuller brushes, andcame down the steps. As he did, he must have recognized Rand; he shiftedthe 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 someyears 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 amoment. "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 pistolsat about the same time; a gentleman in Chicago got the Murdoch. TheStrahan had a star-pierced lobe on the hammer. Did you ever get anybodyto translate the Gaelic inscription on the barrel?"

"You've a memory like Jim Farley, " Rand flattered. "The inscription wasthe clan slogan of the Camerons; something like: _Sons of the hound, comeand 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 howmuch Rand had been taken for, and nodded. 

"A nice item, " he faintly praised, as though anything selling for lessthan a hundred dollars was so much garbage. "Considering the condition inwhich Confederate arms are usually found, it's really first-rate. I thinkyou'll like it, Mr. Rand. "

The telephone rang, Cecil Gillis answered it, listened for a moment, andthen said: "For you, Mr. Rivers; long distance from Milwaukee. "

Rivers's face lit with the beatific smile of a cat at a promisingmouse-hole. "Ah, excuse me, Mr. Rand. " He crossed to the desk, pickedup the phone and spoke into it. "This is Arnold Rivers, " he said, muchas Edward Murrow used to say, _This--is London!_ The telephone sputteredfor a moment. "Ah, yes indeed, Mr. Verral. Quite well, I thank you. Andyou?. .. No, it hasn't been sold yet. Do you wish me to ship it toyou?. .. 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 onlyreplacement is the small spring inside the patchbox. .. . Yes, the riflingis 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 ordered6288, the F. Zorger flintlock Kentuck. Will you please attend to it?"

"Right away, Mr. Rivers. " Gillis went to one of the racks under thewindows and selected a long flintlock rifle, carrying it out the door atthe rear. 

"I issued a list, a few days ago, " Rivers told Rand. "When Cecil comesback, 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 tobuy the Lane Fleming collection. For ten thousand dollars. "

"Where did you hear that?" Rivers demanded, looking up from the drawer inwhich he was filing the card on the Leech & Rigdon. 

"From Mrs. Fleming. " Rand released a puff of pipe smoke and watched itdraw downward into the fireplace. "I've been retained to handle the saleof that collection; naturally, I'd know who was offering how much. "

Rivers's eyes narrowed. He came around the desk, loading anothercigarette into his holder. 

"And just why, might I ask, did Mrs. Fleming think it in order to employa detective in a matter like that?" he wanted to know. 

Rand let out more smoke. "She didn't. She employed an arms-expert, aColonel Jefferson Davis Rand, U. S. A. , O. R. C. , who is a well-knowncontributor 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 justselling 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 letterof authorization and handed it to Rivers, who read it through twicebefore 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 reallyis. " Rivers frowned. "I thought you were making some kind of aninvestigation, and as I'm the only party making any serious offer to buythose 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 expectthem to be able to handle anything like this, do you?"

"Well, the banks speak well of them, " Rand replied. "Some of them havegood 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 thousanddollars, anyhow. "

Rivers forced a laugh. "Now, Mr. Rand! That was just an opening offer. Ithought Fred Dunmore was handling the collection. " He grimaced. "What doyou think it's really worth?"

Rand shrugged. "It probably has a dealer's piece-by-piece list-valueof around seventy thousand. I'm not nuts enough to expect anything likethat in a lump sum, but please, let's not mention ten thousand dollars inthis connection any more. That's on the order of Lawyer Marks biddingseventy-five cents for Uncle Tom; it's only good for laughs. "

"Well, how much more than that do you think Gresham and his crowd willoffer?"

"I haven't talked price with them, yet, " Rand repeated. "I mean to, assoon as I can. "

"Well, you get their offer, and I'll top it, " Rivers declared. "I'mwilling to go as high as twenty-five thousand for that collection; theywon't go that high. "

Although he just managed not to show it, Rand was really surprised. Evena consciousness of abstracting had not prepared him for the shock ofhearing Arnold Rivers raise his own offer to something resembling anacceptable figure. A good case, he reflected, could be made of thatfor 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; Idon't know how long it's going to take me to get a list prepared, andcircularize the old-arms trade. I should hear from everybody who'sinterested 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 thepackage containing the Confederate revolver. Rivers had risen, too; hewas watching Rand nervously. When Rand tucked the package under his armand began drawing on his gloves, Rivers cleared his throat. 

"Mr. Rand, I'm dreadfully sorry, " he began, "but I'll have to return yourmoney and take back that revolver. It should not have been sold. " He gotRand's sixty dollars out of his pocket as though he expected it to catchfire, 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 goodfaith, 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 beenon the receiving end of that routine, and he didn't like it. 

"Now you're being unreasonable, Mr. Rand, " he protested. "Look here; I'llgive you seventy-five dollars' credit on anything else in the shop. Youcertainly can't find fault with an offer like that. "

"I don't want anything else in the shop; I want this revolver you soldme. " Rand gave him a look of supercilious insolence that was at least atwo hundred per cent improvement on Rivers at his most insolent. "Youknow, I'll begin to acquire a poor idea of your business methods beforelong, " he added. 

Rivers laughed ruefully. "Well, to tell the truth, I just remembered acustomer of mine who specializes in Confederate arms, who would pay me atleast 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 waswith Barksdale, to say nothing of about a dozen great-uncles and so on. "

"Well, you're entirely within your rights, Mr. Rand, " Rivers conceded. "Ishould apologize for trying to renege on a sale, but. .. . Well, I hope tosee you again, soon. " He followed Rand to the door, shaking hands withhim. "Don't forget; I'm willing to pay anything up to twenty-fivethousand for the Fleming collection. "

CHAPTER 6

The Fleming butler--Walters, Rand remembered Gladys Fleming having calledhim--became apologetic upon learning who the visitor was. 

"Forgive me, Colonel Rand, but I'm afraid I must put you to someinconvenience, 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 yourown car, sir? The garage is under the house, at the rear; just follow thedriveway around. I'll go through the house and meet you there for theluggage. 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, andI'd better learn the layout of the garage now. "

"You may back in, sir, or drive straight in and back out, " the butlertold him. "One way's about as easy as the other. "

Rand returned to his car, driving around the house. A row of doors openedout of the basement garage; Walters, who must have gone through the houseon the double, was waiting for him. Having what amounted to a conditionedreflex 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 werealready two cars in the garage; a big maroon Packard sedan, and asand-colored Packard station-wagon, standing side by side. Rand puthis 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 rearof the car and took out the Gladstone and the B-4 bag Rand had broughtwith him. 

"If you don't mind entering the house from the rear, sir, we can go upthose 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 pickedup the bags and conducted him up a short flight of concrete steps to alanding and a door opening into a short hall above. An open door fromthis 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 dooron either side, about midway to the arch under the front stairway; theone on the right was the dining-room, Walters explained, and the one onthe left was the library. He seemed to be still suffering from theignominy of admitting a house-guest through any but the main portal. 

Emerging into the front hallway, he put down the bags, took Rand's hatand coat and laid them on top of the luggage, and then went to an opendoorway on the right, standing in it and coughing delicately, beforeannouncing that Colonel Rand was here. 

Gladys Fleming, wearing a pale blue frock, came forward as Rand enteredthe parlor, her hand extended. The two other women in the big parlorremained motionless. They would be the sisters, Geraldine Varcek andNelda Dunmore. Rand didn't wonder that they resented Gladys so bitterly;economic considerations aside, girls seldom enthuse over a stepmother sonear their own age who is so much more beautiful. 

"Good afternoon, Colonel Rand, " Gladys said. "This is Mrs. Varcek. " Sheindicated a very pale blonde who sat slumped in a deep chair beside a lowcocktail-table, a highball in her hand. "And Mrs. Dunmore. " She was thebrunette with the full bust and hips, in the short black skirt and thetight white sweater, who was standing by the fireplace. 

"H'lo. " The blonde--Geraldine--smiled shyly at him. She had big blueeyes, and delicately tinted rose-petal lips that seemed to be trying notto laugh at some private joke. She wasn't exactly blotto, but she hadevidently laid a good foundation for a first-class jag. After all, it wasonly two thirty in the afternoon. 

The other sister--Nelda--didn't say anything. She merely stood and staredat Rand distrustfully. Rand doubted that she ordinarily gave men thehostile eye. The full, dark-red lips; the lush figure; the way she drapedit against the side of the fireplace, to catch the ruddy light on hermore interesting curves and bulges--there was a bimbo just made to beleered 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 atalk with Goode, yesterday afternoon, " he said. "I have his authorizationto handle all the details. As soon as I get an itemized list, I'llcircularize dealers and other possible buyers and ask for offers. "

"Is that all?" Nelda demanded angrily of Gladys. "Why Fred's done allthat already!"

"Is that correct, Mrs. Fleming?" Rand asked, for the record. 

"I told you, yesterday, what's been done, " Gladys replied. "Fred hastalked to one dealer, Arnold Rivers. There has been no inventory of anysort made. "

"Mr. Rivers is offering us ten thousand dollars, " Nelda retorted. "Idon't see why you had to bring this Colonel What's-his-name into it, atall. 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 timesthat, in Macy's basement!" Geraldine hooted. "How much is Rivers slippingFred, on the side?"

"Oh, go back to your bottle!" Nelda cried. "You're too drunk to know whatyou'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 CarlGwinnett, or anybody else except this Rivers. How much _is_ Fred gettingout of Rivers, anyhow?"

"My God, Geraldine, shut up!" Nelda howled. Then she decided to takedirect 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'sbad enough for my stepmother to bring an outsider into what's obviouslya family matter, but when my sister begins making these ridiculousaccusations . .. "

"What's ridiculous about them?" Geraldine demanded, dumping another twoounces of whiskey into her glass and freshening it with the siphon. "Ithink Rivers's offering ten thousand dollars for the collection, andFred'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. "Heseemed a bit upset about my being brought into this, too, but he finallyadmitted that he was willing to pay up to twenty-five thousand dollarsfor the collection, and if he buys it, that's exactly what it's going tocost him. "

"_What?_" Nelda fairly screamed. Her hands opened and closedspasmodically: she was using a dark-red nail-tint that made Rand thinkof blood-dripping talons. 

"Mr. Arnold Rivers told me, this afternoon, and I quote: I'm willing topay up to twenty-five thousand dollars for that collection, unquote, "Rand said. "And I can tell you now that twenty-five thousand dollars isjust what he will pay for it, unless I can find somebody who's willing topay more, which is not at all improbable. "

"H'ray!" Geraldine waved her glass and toasted Rand with it. "Andtwenty-five G ain't hay, brother!"

Gladys smiled quickly at Rand, then turned to Nelda. "Now I hope you seewhy I thought it wise to bring in somebody who knows something about oldarms, " she said. 

Nelda evidently saw; there was apparently nothing stupid about her. "AndFred was going to take a miserable ten thousand dollars!" The way shesaid 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 thedealer. "And he can afford it, too, " he finished. "He can make a niceprofit on the collection, at that figure. "

"My God, do you mean the pistols are worth more than that, even?" shewanted to know, aghast. 

"Certainly, if you're a dealer with an established business, andcustomers all over the country, and want to take five or six years tomake your profit, " Rand replied. "If you aren't, and want your money ina hurry, no. "

"That's why I was against turning the collection over to Gwinnett on acommission basis, " Gladys said. "It would take him five years to geteverything sold. "

Nelda left the fireplace and advanced toward Rand. "Colonel, I owe you anapology, " she said. "I had no idea Father's pistols were worth anywherenear that much. I don't suppose Fred did, either. " She frowned. Wait tillshe gets Fred alone, Rand thought; I'd hate to be in his spot. .. . "Yousay you're acting on Humphrey Goode's authority?"

"That's right. I'll negotiate the sale, but the money will be paiddirectly to him, for distribution according to the terms of your father'swill. " Rand got out Goode's letter and handed it to Nelda. 

She read it carefully. "I see. " She seemed greatly relieved; she waslooking at Rand, now, as she was accustomed to look at men, particularlyhandsome six-footers who were broad across the shoulders and narrow atthe hips and resembled King Charles II. She was probably wondering ifRand was equal to Old Rowley in another important respect. "I didn'tunderstand . .. I thought. .. . " A dirty look, aimed at Gladys, explainedwhat she had thought. Then her glance fell on the bottle and siphon onthe table beside Geraldine's chair, and she changed the subject byinquiring if Colonel Rand mightn't like a drink. 

"Well, let's go up to the gunroom, " Gladys suggested. "We can have ourdrink up there, while Colonel Rand's looking at the pistols. .. . Comingwith us, Geraldine?"

Geraldine rose, not too steadily, her glass still in her hand, and tookRand'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 ofmurderous anger. The double doorway into the hall was just wide enoughfor Rand and his two flankers to pass through; Nelda had to fall in acouple of paces rear of center, and wasn't able to come up into lineuntil they were in the hall upstairs. 

"There's the gunroom. " Gladys pointed. "And that's your room, overthere. " As she spoke, Walters came out of the doorway she had indicated. 

"Your bags are unpacked, sir, " he reported. Then he told Rand where hewould find his things, and where the bath was. 

There was a brief discussion of drinks. The butler received hisinstructions and went down the stairway; Rand broke up the feminineformation around him and ushered the ladies ahead of him into thegunroom. 

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 andtool-cabinet. There was a long table in the middle of the room, its topcovered with green baize, upon which many flat rectangular boxes ofhardwood rested--some walnut, some rosewood, some quartered oak. Eachwould contain a pistol or pair of pistols, with cleaning and loadingtools. In the corner farthest from the desk, he saw the head of thespiral stairway from the library below, mentioned by Gladys Fleming. There were ashstands and a couple of cocktail-tables, and a number ofchairs, 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; theywere 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 alifetime's collecting. Horizontal white-painted boards had been fixed tothe walls about four feet from the floor, and similar boards had beenplaced five feet above them. Between, narrow vertical strips, as wideas a lath but twice as thick, were set. Rows of pistols were hung, thebarrels horizontal, on pairs of these strips, with screwhooks at gripand 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, ratherreluctantly, 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 finestcollections in the country, " he said. "I may even be able to findsomebody who'll top Rivers's offer, but don't be disappointed if Idon'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 somebodywho knows his way around here, at first. "

"Why, of course, " Gladys agreed. "He isn't very busy in the mornings, orin the afternoons till close to dinner-time. Are you going to start worktoday?"

"I'll have to. I'm going to see Stephen Gresham and his associates thisevening, and I'll want to know what I'm talking about. "

They spent about fifteen minutes over their drinks, talking about thecollection. Rand and Gladys did most of the talking, in spite of Nelda'sbest efforts to monopolize the conversation. Geraldine, after a fewminutes, retired into her private world and only roused herself when hersister and stepmother were about to leave. When they went out, Gladyspromised to send Walters up directly; Rand heard her speaking to him atthe foot of the main stairway. 

CHAPTER 7

When Walters entered, Rand had his pipe lit and was walking slowly aroundthe room, laying out the work ahead of him. Roughly, the earliest pieceswere on the extreme left, on the short north wall of the room, and themost recent ones on the right, at the south end. This was, of course, only relatively true; the pistols seemed to have been classified by typein vertical rows, and chronologically from top to bottom in each row. Thecollection seemed to consist of a number of intensely specialized smallgroups, with a large number of pistols of general types added. Forinstance, about midway on the long east wall, there were some thirty-oddall-metal pistols, from wheel lock to percussion. There was a collectionof U. S. Martials, with two rows of the regulation pistols, flintlock andpercussion, of foreign governments, placed on the left, and thecollection of Colts on the right. After them came the other types ofpercussion revolvers, and the later metallic-cartridge types. 

It was an arrangement which made sense, from the arms student's pointof view, and Rand decided that it would make sense to the dealers andmuseums to whom he intended sending lists. He would save time bylisting them as they were hung on the walls. Then, there were the casesbetween the windows on the west wall, containing the ammunitioncollection--examples of every type of fixed-pistol ammunition--and thecollection of bullet-molds and powder flasks and wheel lock spanners andassorted cleaning and loading accessories. All that stuff would have tobe listed, too. 

"I beg your pardon, sir, " Walters broke in, behind him. "Mrs. Flemingsaid 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 modernpistols and revolvers, and several rifles and shotguns, in the roomformerly occupied by Mr. Fleming, but they are not part of thecollection, and they are now the personal property of Mrs. Fleming. I understand that she intends selling at least some of them, on herown account. Then, there is a quantity of ammunition andammunition-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. Ibelieve Mrs. Fleming wants to sell most of that, too. "

"Well, I'll talk to her about it. I may want to buy some of theammunition for myself, " Rand said. "So I only need to bother with what'son the walls, in this room?. .. By the way, did Mr. Fleming keep any sortof record of his collection? A book, or a card-index, or anything likethat?"

"Why no, sir. " Walters was positive. Then he hedged. "If he did, I neversaw or heard of anything of the sort. Mr. Fleming knew everything in thisroom. I've seen him, downstairs, when somebody would ask him aboutsomething, close his eyes as though trying to visualize and then give aperfect description of any pistol in the collection. Or else, he couldenumerate all the pistols of a certain type; say, all the PhiladelphiaDeringers, 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 seriousarms-student--could do that, particularly if he were a good visualizerand kept his stuff in some systematic order. At the moment, he could havenamed and described any or all of his own modest collection of twohundred-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 compilesuch a record, himself, when he got back to New Belfast. It would be abig 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 JeffRand should begin to think of such things. "And how about writingmaterials? 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 theupper right-hand desk drawer. 

"And these phones, " the butler continued, indicating them. "This one isa 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 aregular bell. "

Rand thanked him for the information. Then, picking up a note-pad andpencil, he started on the left of the collection, meaning to make ageneral list and rough approximation of value for use in talking toGresham's friends that evening. Tomorrow he would begin on the detailedlist for use in soliciting outside offers. 

Twenty-five wheel locks: four heavy South German dags, two singlesand a pair; three Saxon pistols, with sharply dropped grips, a pairand 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 anivory-covered stock and a carved ivory Venus-head for a pommel; eightseventeenth-century French, Italian and Flemish pistols. Rand noted themdown, 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 Flemishweapon of about 1640, the type used by the Royalist cavalry in theEnglish Civil War. There were two others almost like it, but this one wasin simply appalling condition. The metal was rough with rust, andapparently 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, aswas the front ramrod-thimble, both the trigger-guard and the butt-capwere loose, and when Rand touched the wheel, it revolved freely ifsluggishly, betraying a broken spring or chain. 

The vertical row next to it seemed to be all snaphaunces, but among themRand saw a pair of Turkish flintlocks. Not even good Turkish flintlocks;a pair of the sort of weapons hastily thrown together by native craftsmenor imported ready-made from Belgium for bazaar sale to gullible tourists. Among the fine examples of seventeenth-century Brescian gunmaking aboveand below it, these things looked like a pair of Dogpatchers in theWaldorf's Starlight Room. Rand contemplated them with distaste, thenshrugged. 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, allof 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 certainold-army-goods dealer for $6. 95. This was a particularly repulsivespecimen of its breed; grimy with hardened dust and gummed oil, maculatedwith yellow-surface-rust, the brasswork green with corrosion. It wasimpossible to shrug off a thing like that. From then on, Rand kept hiseyes open for similar incongruities. 

They weren't hard to find. There was a big army pistol, of CentralEuropean origin and in abominable condition, among a row of finemulti-shot flintlocks. Multi-shot . .. Stephen Gresham had mentioned anElisha Collier flintlock revolver. It wasn't there. It should be hangingabout where this post-Napoleonic German thing was. 

There was no Hall breech-loader, either, but there was a dilapidated oldKetland. There were many such interlopers among the U. S. Martials: anEnglish ounce-ball cavalry pistol, a French 1777 and a French 1773, acouple more $6. 95 bargain-counter specials, a miserable altered S. North1816. Among the Colts, there was some awful junk, including a big Spanishhinge-frame . 44 and a Belgian imitation of a Webley R. I. C. Model. Thereweren't as many Paterson Colts as Gresham had spoken of, and theWhitneyville Walker was absent. It went on like that; about a dozen ofthe best pistols which Rand remembered having seen from two years agowere gone, and he spotted at least twenty items which the late LaneFleming 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, theabsence of one from its hooks would have been instantly obvious. So, asthe good stuff had moved out, these disreputable changelings had movedin. 

"You had rather a shocking experience here, in Mr. Fleming's death, " Randsaid, over his shoulder, to the butler. 

"Oh, yes indeed, sir!" Walters seemed relieved that Rand had broken thesilence. "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. Dunmorepointed out that the doctor would be obliged to notify either the coroneror the police, so he called Mr. Goode, the family solicitor. That wasabout twenty minutes after the shot. Mr. Goode arrived directly; he washere in about ten minutes. I must say, sir, I was glad to see him; totell the truth, I had been afraid that the authorities might claim thatMr. 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 residenceended about a hundred yards to the west; beyond it, an orchard wasbeginning to break into leaf, and beyond the orchard and another lawnstood a half-timbered Tudor-style house, somewhat smaller than theFleming place. A path led down from it to the orchard, and another ledfrom the orchard to the rear of the house from which Rand looked. 

"Must be comforting to know your lawyer's so handy, " he commented. "Andwhat 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 justcan't believe that Mr. Fleming would have that revolver, and startworking on it, without knowing that it was loaded. That just isn'tpossible, if you'll pardon me, sir. And I can't understand how he wouldhave shot himself while removing the charges. The fact is, when I came uphere at quarter of seven, to call him for cocktails, he had the wholething apart and spread out in front of him. " The butler thought for amoment. "I believe Mr. Dunmore had something like that in mind when hecalled Mr. Goode. "

"Well, what happened?" Rand asked. "Did the coroner or the doctor chokeon 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 herealready. 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 outwith the coupé. They all talked it over for a while, and the coronerdecided that there would be no need for any inquest, and the doctor wroteout 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 withhim. "

"And hasn't returned it yet? Well, he has no business keeping it. It'spart 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'stoo valuable to let some damned county-seat politician walk off with. " Athought occurred to him. "And if I find that he's disposed of it, thiscounty's going to need a new coroner, at least till the present incumbentgets 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 handedit to Rand. 

"For you, sir; Mrs. Fleming. "

"Colonel Rand, Carl Gwinnett, the commission-dealer I told you about ishere, " 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, sendhim up. I'll talk to him. "

A few minutes later, a short, compact-looking man of forty-odd enteredthe gunroom, shifting a brief case to his left hand and extending hisright. 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 theestate. "

"That's right, Mr. Gwinnett. Mrs. Fleming tells me you're interested. "

"Yes. Originally, I offered to sell the collection for her on acommission basis, but she didn't seem to care for the idea, and neitherdo the other ladies. They all want spot cash, in a lump sum. "

"Yes. Mrs. Fleming herself might have been interested in yourproposition, if she'd been sole owner. You could probably get more forthe collection, even after deducting your commission, than I'll be ableto, but the collection belongs to the estate, and has to be sold beforeany division can be made. "

"Yes, I see that. Well, how much would the estate, or you, consider areasonable offer?"

"Sit down, Mr. Gwinnett, " Rand invited. "What would you consider areasonable offer, yourself? We're not asking any specific price; we'rejust 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 alist, or solicited offers, except locally, as yet. But one gentleman hasexpressed a willingness to pay up to twenty-five thousand dollars. "

Gwinnett's face expressed polite skepticism. "Colonel Rand!" heprotested. "You certainly don't take an offer like that seriously?"

"I think it was made seriously, " Rand replied. "A respectable profitcould 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 sametime trying to keep any hint of his notion of the collection's real valueout of his face. 

"Well, I doubt if I could raise that much, " he said. "Might I ask who'smaking this offer?"

"You might; I'm afraid I couldn't tell you. You wouldn't want me topublish your own offer broadcast, would you?"

"I think I can guess. If I'm right, don't hold your head in a tub ofwater till you get it, " Gwinnett advised. "Making a big offer to scareaway competition is one thing, and paying off on it is another. I've seenthat happen before, you know. Fact is, there's one dealer, not far fromhere, who makes a regular habit of it. He'll make some fantastic offer, and then, when everybody's been bluffed out, he'll start makingobjections and finding faults, and before long he'll be down to abouta 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 briefcase and extracted a sheet of paper, handing it to Rand. "You can filethis; I'll stand back of it. "

Rand looked at the typed and signed statement to the effect that CarlGwinnett agreed to pay the sum of fifteen thousand dollars for the LaneFleming pistol-collection, in its entirety, within thirty days of date. That was an average of six dollars a pistol. There had been a time, nottoo long ago, when a pistol-collection with an average value of sixdollars, particularly one as large as the Fleming collection, had beensomething unusual. For one thing, arms values had increased sharply inthe meantime. For another, Lane Fleming had kept his collection clean ofthe two-dollar items which dragged down so many collectors' averagevalues. Except for the two-dozen-odd mysterious interlopers, there wasn'ta pistol in the Fleming collection that wasn't worth at least twentydollars, and quite a few had values expressible in three figures. 

"Well, your offer is duly received and filed, Mr. Gwinnett, " Rand toldhim, folding the sheet and putting it in his pocket. "This is betterthan an unwitnessed verbal statement that somebody is willing to paytwenty-five thousand. I'll certainly bear you in mind. "

"You can show that to Arnold Rivers, if you want to, " Gwinnett said. "Seehow 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 householdrite--a self-imposed Truce of Bacchus before the resumption ofhostilities in the dining-room. It lasted from six forty-five to seven;everybody sipped Manhattans and kept quiet and listened to the radionewscast. The only new face, to Rand, was Fred Dunmore's. 

It was a smooth, pinkly-shaven face, decorated with octagonal rimlessglasses; an entirely unremarkable face; the face of the type that used tobe labeled "Babbitt. " The corner of Rand's mind that handled such datasubconsciously filed his description: forty-five to fifty, one-eighty, five feet eight, hair brown and thinning, eyes blue. To this he added theRotarian button on the lapel, and the small gold globule on the watchchain that testified that, when his age and weight had been considerablyless, Dunmore had played on somebody's basketball team. At that time hehad probably belonged to the Y. M. C. A. , and had thought that Mussolini wasdoing a splendid job in Italy, that H. L. Mencken ought to be deported toRussia, 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 radiocommercial was just starting, and Geraldine was asking Dunmore whereAnton was. 

"Oh, you know, " Dunmore told her, impatiently. "He had to go toLouisburg, to that Medical Association meeting; he's reading a paperabout the new diabetic ration. "

He broke off as Rand approached and was introduced by Gladys, who handedboth men their cocktails. Then the news commentator greeted them out ofthe radio, and everybody absorbed the day's news along with theirManhattans. After the broadcast, they all crossed the hall to thedining-room, where hostilities began almost before the soup was coolenough to taste. 

"I don't see why you women had to do this, " Dunmore huffed. "Rivers hasmade us a fair offer. Bringing in an outsider will only give him theimpression that we lack confidence in him. "

"Well, won't that be just too, too bad!" Geraldine slashed at him. "Wemustn't ever hurt dear Mr. Rivers's feelings like that. Let him have thecollection for half what it's worth, but never, never let him think weknow 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 ofprinciple. If he did, he was disappointed. 

"Well?" Nelda demanded. "What did you want us to do; give the collectionaway?"

"You don't understand, " Dunmore told her. "You've probably heard somebodysay what the collection's worth, and you never stopped to realize thatit's only worth that to a dealer, who can sell it item by item. You can'texpect . .. "

"We can expect a lot more than ten thousand dollars, " Nelda retorted. "Infact, we can expect more than that from Rivers. Colonel Rand was talkingto Rivers, this afternoon. Colonel Rand doesn't have any confidence inRivers at all, and he doesn't care who knows it. "

"You were talking to Arnold Rivers, this afternoon, about thecollection?" Dunmore demanded of Rand. 

"That's right, " Rand confirmed. "I told him his ten thousand dollar offerwas a joke. Stephen Gresham and his friends can top that out of onepocket. Finally, he got around to admitting that he's willing to pay upto twenty-five thousand. "

"I don't believe it!" Dunmore exclaimed angrily. "Rivers told mepersonally, that neither he nor any other dealer could hope to handlethat collection profitably at more than ten thousand. "

"And you believed that?" Nelda demanded. "And you're a business man? _MyGod!_"

"He's probably a good one, as long as he sticks to pancake flour, "Geraldine was generous enough to concede. "But about guns, he barelyknows which end the bullet comes out at. Ten thousand was probably hisidea of what we'd think the pistols were worth. "

Dunmore ignored that and turned to Rand. "Did Arnold Rivers actually tellyou 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 thatcould be taken seriously. " Rand repeated, as closely as he could, hisconversation with the arms-dealer. When he had finished, Dunmore wasfrowning 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 thepistols inside of five years. I doubt if you realize how valuable thosepistols are. You probably defined Mr. Fleming's collection as a 'hobby'and therefore something not to be taken seriously. And, aside from theactual profit, the prestige of handling this collection would be wortha good deal to Rivers, as advertising. I haven't the least doubt that hecan raise the money, or that he's willing to pay it. "

Dunmore was still frowning. Maybe he hated being proved wrong in front ofthe women of the family. 

"And you think Gresham and his friends will offer enough to force him topay 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 ashigh as twenty-five thousand, he fixed the price. Unless somebody offersmore, which isn't impossible. "

"But maybe he's just bluffing. " Dunmore seemed to be following Gwinnett'sline of thought. "After he's bluffed Gresham's crowd out, maybe he'll goback to his original ten thousand offer. "

"Fred, please stop talking about that ten thousand dollars!" Geraldineinterrupted. "How much did Rivers actually tell you he'd pay? Twenty-fivethousand, 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 wordsended in something that sounded like a smothered moan. Rand suspectedthat she had kicked her husband painfully under the table. Then Walterscame in with the meat course, and firing ceased until the butler hadretired. 

"By the way, " Rand tossed into the conversational vacuum that followedhis exit, "does anybody know anything about a record Mr. Fleming kept ofhis collection?"

"Why, no; can't say I do, " Dunmore replied promptly, evidently gratefulfor the change of subject. "You mean, like an inventory?"

"Oh, Fred, you do!" Nelda told him impatiently. "You know that big graybook Father kept all his pistols entered in. "

"It was a gray ledger, with a black leather back, " Gladys said. "He keptit 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 bighelp to me. "

The rest of the dinner passed in relative tranquillity. The conversationproceeded in fairly safe channels. Dunmore was anxious to avoid anyfurther reference to the sum of ten thousand dollars; when Gladys inducedRand to talk about his military experiences, he lapsed into preoccupiedsilence. Several times, Geraldine and Nelda aimed halfhearted felineswipes at one another, more out of custom than present and activerancor. 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. Randwent to his room for a few moments, then went to the gunroom to get thenotes he had made. Fred Dunmore was using the private phone as heentered. 

"Well, never mind about that, now, " he was saying. "We'll talk aboutit when I see you. .. . Yes, of course; so am I. .. . Well, say abouteleven. .. . 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 areorganized in the C. I. O. , and our warehouse, sales, and shipping personnelare in the A. F. Of L. , and if they aren't fighting the company, they'refighting each other. Now they have some damn kind of a jurisdictionaldispute. .. . I don't know what this country's coming to!" He glaredangrily through his octagonal glasses for a moment. Then his voice tookon an ingratiating note. "Look here, Colonel; I just didn't understandthe situation, until you explained it. I hope you aren't taking anythingthat sister-in-law of mine said seriously. She just blurts out the firstthing that comes into her so-called mind; why, only yesterday she wasaccusing 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 wastalking through a highball glass. As far as selling the collection isconcerned, you just let Rivers sell you a bill of something you hadn'tgotten a good look at. He's a smart operator, and he's crooked as awagon-load of blacksnakes. Maybe you never realized just how much moneyFleming put into this collection; naturally you wouldn't realize how muchcould be gotten out of it again. A lot of this stuff has been here forquite 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 geta better price out of him than I could. " Dunmore smiled ruefully. "Iguess he's just a better poker player than I am. "

"Not necessarily. He could see your hand, and you couldn't see his, " Randtold 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, countingthe station-wagon, lock up after you've put your own car away. If youfind only three, then you'll know that Anton Varcek's still out, so leaveit 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 theleft of his Lincoln when he went down to the garage. Running his caroutside and down to the highway, he settled down to his regular style ofdriving--a barely legal fifty m. P. H. , punctuated by bursts of absolutelyfelonious speed whenever he found an unobstructed straightaway. EnteringRosemont, he slowed and went through the underpass at the railroadtracks, speeding again when he was clear of the village. A few minuteslater, he was turning into the crushed-limestone drive that led up to thebuff-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 andlift 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 lasttime 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 atschool. You must be old enough to vote, by now. "

"I will, this fall, " she replied. "Come on in; you're the first onehere. Daddy hasn't gotten back from town yet. He called and said he'dbe delayed till about nine. " In the hall she took his hat and coat andguided 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 wasstill living in the Flaming Youth era of the twenties. She was anextremely good egg; he liked her very much. After all, insisting uponremaining an F. Scott Fitzgerald character was a harmless and amusingfoible, and it was no more than right that somebody should try to keepthe bright banner of Jazz Age innocence flying in a grim and sullenworld. He accepted a cigarette, shared the flame of his lighter withmother and daughter, and submitted to being gushed over. 

". .. And, honestly, Jeff, you get handsomer every year, " Irene Greshamrattled on. "Dot, doesn't he look just like Clark Gable in _Gone with theWind_? 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 downto only one servant now, and it seems as if it's always her night off, orsomething. 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 agirl's. 

"That's Pierre and Karen, " Dot said. "Let's all go up in the gunroom, andwait for the others there. "

They went out to meet the newcomers. The man was a few inches shorterthan Rand, with gray eyes that looked startlingly light against the darkbrown of his face. He wasn't using a cane, but he walked with a slightlimp. Beside him was a slender girl, almost as tall as he was, with darkbrown hair and brown eyes. She wore a rust-brown sweater and a brownskirt, and low-heeled walking-shoes. 

Irene Gresham went into the introductions, the newcomers shook hands withRand and were advised that the style of address was "Jeff, " rather than"Colonel Rand, " and then Dot suggested going up to the gunroom. IreneGresham said she'd stay downstairs; she'd have to let the others in. 

"Have you seen this collection before?" Pierre Jarrett inquired as he andRand went upstairs together. 

"About two years ago, " Rand said. "Stephen had just gotten a caseddueling 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 adozen culls and duplicates, " the former Marine said. "I'll show youwhat's new, till the others come. "

They reached the head of the stairs and started down the hall to thegunroom, 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 hadoriginally been something else--a nursery, or play-room, or party-room. There were windows on both long sides, which considerably reduced theavailable wall-space, and the situation wasn't helped any by the factthat the collection was about thirty per cent long-arms. Things werepretty badly crowded; most of the rifles and muskets were in circularbarracks-racks, away from the walls. 

"Here, this one's new since you were here, " Pierre said, picking a longmusket from one of the racks and handing it to Rand. "How do you likethis 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 someseventeenth-century forerunner of Bannerman's, and Europe was full ofmuskets like this then, left over from the wars of the Holy Roman Empireand 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 thedocumentation for it. It came from the Charles Winthrop Sawyercollection, and there were only three ownership changes between the lastowner and the _Mayflower_ Company. Stephen only paid a hundred dollarsfor it, too. "

"That was practically stealing, " Rand said. He carried the musket to thelight and examined it closely. "Nice condition, too; I wouldn't be afraidto 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. Evenwithout the history, it's worth that. "

"Who buys history, anyhow?" Rand wanted to know. "The fact that it camefrom the Sawyer collection adds more value to it than this _Mayflower_business. Past ownership by a recognized authority like Sawyer is a realguarantee of quality and authenticity. But history, documented orotherwise--hell, only yesterday I saw a pair of pistols with a wonderfulthree-hundred-and-fifty-year documented history. Only not a word of itwas 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 drinkwhen Lane Fleming was killed. Fleming was all set to hang Rivers's scalpin his wigwam. .. . But with Stephen, the history does count forsomething. As you probably know, he collects arms-types that figured inAmerican history. Well, he can prove that this individual musket wasbrought over by the Pilgrims, so he can be sure it's an example of thetype they used. But he'd sooner have a typical Pilgrim musket that neverwas within five thousand miles of Plymouth Rock than a non-typical armbrought over as a personal weapon by one of the _Mayflower_ Company. "

"Oh, none of us are really interested in the individual history ofcollection weapons, " Rand said. "You show me a collection that's full ofknown-history arms, and I'll show you a collection that's either full ofjunk or else cost three times what it's worth. And you show me acollector who blows money on history, and nine times out of ten I'll showyou 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 thetrigger-guard. The owner thought that the patent-dates on Colts weremodel-dates, and the model-dates on French military arms were dates offabrication. "

Pierre wrinkled his nose disgustedly. "God, I hate to see a collectionall fouled up with tags hung on things!" he said. "Or stuck over withgummed labels; that's even worse. Once in a while I get something with alabel pasted on it, usually on the stock, and after I get it off, there'sa job getting the wood under it rubbed up to the same color as the restof the stock. "

"Yes. I picked up a lovely little rifled flintlock pistol, once, " Randsaid. "American; full-length curly-maple stock; really a Kentucky riflein pistol form. Whoever had owned it before me had pasted a slip of paperon the underside of the stock, between the trigger-guard and the lowerramrod thimble, with a lot of crap, mostly erroneous, typed on it. Ittook me six months to remove the last traces of where that thing had beenstuck on. "

"What do you collect, or don't you specialize?"

"Pistols; I try to get the best possible specimens of the most importanttypes, special emphasis on British arms after 1700 and American armsafter 1800. What I'm interested in is the evolution of the pistol. I havea couple of wheel locks, to start with, and three miguelet-locks and anItalian snaphaunce. Then I have a few early flintlocks, and a number ofmid-eighteenth-century types, and some late flintlocks and percussiontypes. And about twenty Colts, and so on through percussion revolvers andearly cartridge types to some modern arms, including a few World War IIarms. "

"I see; about the same idea Lane Fleming had, " Pierre said. "I collectpersonal combat-arms, firearms and edge-weapons. Arms that eitherinfluenced fighting techniques, or were developed to meet special combatconditions. From what you say, you're mainly interested in the wayfirearms were designed and made; I'm interested in the conditions underwhich they were used. And Adam Trehearne, who'll be here shortly, collects pistols and a few long-arms in wheel lock, proto-flintlock andearly flintlock, to 1700. And Philip Cabot collects U. S. Martials, flintlock to automatic, and also enemy and Allied Army weapons from allour wars. And Colin MacBride collects nothing but Colts. Odd how a Scot, who's only been in this country twenty years, should become interestedin so distinctively American a type. "

"And I collect anything I can sell at a profit, from Chinese matchlocksto tommy-guns, " Karen Lawrence interjected, coming into the room with DotGresham. 

Pierre grinned. "Karen is practically a unique specimen herself; the onlygeneral-antique dealer I've ever seen who doesn't hate the sight of agun-collector. "

"That's only because I'm crazy enough to want to marry one, " thegirl dealer replied. "Of all the miserly, unscrupulous, graspingcharacters . .. " She expressed a doubt that the average gun-collectorwould pay more than ten cents to see his Lord and Savior riding to houndson 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; theythink arms ought still to sell for the sort of prices they brought at theold Mark Field sale, back in 1911. "

"What were you looking at?" Dot asked Rand, then glanced at the musket inPierre's hands. "Oh, Priscilla. "

Karen laughed. "Dot not only knows everything in the collection; sheknows it by name. Dot, show Colonel Rand Hester Prynne. "

"Hester coming up, " Gresham's daughter said, catching another musket outof the same rack from which Pierre had gotten the matchlock and passingit 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 onthe 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 firstAmerican 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 underwhich a stubby pipe jutted. Except when he emptied it of ashes andrefilled it, it was a permanent fixture of his weather-beaten face. Trehearne was somewhat shorter, and fair; his sandy mustache, beginningto turn gray at the edges, was clipped to micrometric exactness. 

They shook hands with Rand, who set Hester back in her place. Trehearnetook 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 thedetective'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 yetthere must have been a hundred matchlocks made for every wheel lock. "

"Matchlocks were cheap, and wheel locks were expensive, " MacBridesuggested. 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 aScot who collects guns, and you have something!"

"That's only part of it, " Rand said. "I believe that by the last quarterof the seventeenth century, most of the matchlocks that were lying aroundhad been scrapped, and the barrels used in making flintlocks. HesterPrynne, over there, could easily have started her career as a matchlock. And then, a great many matchlocks went into the West African slave andivory trade, and were promptly ruined by the natives. "

"Yes, and I seem to recall having seen Spanish and French migueletmuskets that looked as though they had been altered directly frommatchlock, retaining the original stock and even the originallock-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 anappearance. 

MacBride and Trehearne joined Pierre and the girls in showing himGresham's collection; evidently they all knew it almost as well as theirown. After a while, Irene Gresham ushered in Philip Cabot. He, too, waspast middle age, with prematurely white hair and a thin, scholarly face. According to Hollywood type-casting, he might have been a professor, or ajudge, or a Boston Brahmin, but never a stockbroker. 

Irene Gresham wanted to know what everybody wanted to drink. Rand wantedBourbon and plain water; MacBride voted for Jamaica rum; Trehearne andCabot favored brandy and soda, and Pierre and the girls wanted Bacardiand Coca-Cola. 

"And Stephen'll want rye and soda, when he gets here, " Irene said. "Comeon, girls; let's rustle up the drinks. "

Before they returned, Stephen Gresham came in, lighting a cigar. It wasjust 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 bottlesand glasses; when the flurry of drink-mixing had subsided, they all satdown. 

"Let's get the business over first, " Gresham suggested. "I suppose you'vegone over the collection already, Jeff?"

"Yes, and first of all, I want to know something. When was the last thatany of you saw it?"

Gresham and Pierre had been in Fleming's gunroom just two days before thefatal "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 theHall?"

"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 hewas killed, then somebody's been weeding out the collection since. Doingit very cleverly, too, " he added. "You know how that stuff's arranged, and how conspicuous a missing pistol would be. Well, when I was goingover the collection, I found about two dozen pieces of the most uttertrash, things Lane Fleming wouldn't have allowed in the house, allhanging where some really good item ought to have been. " He took a paperfrom his pocket and read off a list of the dubious items, interpolatingcomments on the condition, and a list of the real rarities which Greshamhad 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 lookingat the Rappahannock Forge. "

Trehearne broke in to ask how many English dog-locks there were, and ifthe snaphaunce Highlander and the big all-steel wheel lock were stillthere. At the same time, Cabot was inquiring about the Springfield 1818and the Virginia Manufactory pistols. 

"I'll have a complete, itemized list in a few days, " Rand said. "In themeantime, I'd like a couple of you to look at the collection and help medecide what's missing. I'm going to try to catch the thief, and then getat the fence through him. "

"Think Rivers might have gotten the pistols?" Gresham asked. "He's thecrookedest dealer I know of. "

"He's the crookedest dealer anybody knows of, " Rand amended. "The onlything, he's a little too anxious to buy the collection, for somebodywho's just skimmed off the cream. "

"Ten thousand dollars isn't much in the way of anxiety, " Cabot said. "I'dcall 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. "Andwith the best items gone . .. " He shrugged. 

Pierre and Karen were looking at each other in blank misery; their dreamof establishing themselves in the arms business had blown up in theirfaces. 

"Oh, he's talking through his hat!" Cabot declared. "He just hopes we'lllose interest, and then he'll buy what's left of the collection for asong. "

"Maybe he knows the collection's been robbed, " Trehearne suggested. "Thatwould let him out, later. He'd accuse you or the Fleming estate ofholding out the best pieces, and then offer to take what's left for aboutfive thousand. "

"Well, that would be presuming that he knows the collection has beenrobbed, " Cabot pointed out. "And the only way he'd know that would be ifhe, 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 thecollection, just as it stands, to keep Pierre and me out of the armsbusiness. This end of the state couldn't support another arms-dealer, andwith 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 andheld out his hand to Rand. "Don't get the idea, Jeff, that anybody hereholds this against you. You have your clients' interests to look outfor. "

"Well, if this be treason make the most of it, " Rand said, "but I hopeRivers doesn't go through with it. I'd like to see you people get thecollection, and I'd hate to see a lot of nice pistols like that get intothe hands of a damned swindler like Rivers. .. . Maybe I can catch him withthe 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 withfaking, but the dumbest jury in the world would know what receivingstolen goods was, and he knows it. "

Dorothy and Irene Gresham accompanied Pierre and Karen downstairs. Afterthey had gone, Gresham tried, not very successfully, to inject more lifeinto the party with another round of drinks. For a while they discussedthe personal and commercial iniquities of Arnold Rivers. Trehearne andMacBride, who had come together in the latter's car, left shortly, andhalf an hour later, Philip Cabot rose and announced that he, too, wasleaving. 

"You haven't seen my collection since before the war, Jeff, " he said. "Ifyou'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 mileon the other side of the railroad. "

They went out and got into their cars. Rand kept Cabot's taillight insight until the broker swung into his drive and put his car in thegarage. Rand parked beside the road, took the Leech & Rigdon out of theglove-box, and got out, slipping the Confederate revolver under histrouser-band. He was pulling down his vest to cover the butt as he wentup the walk and joined his friend at the front door. 

Cabot's combination library and gunroom was on the first floor. LikeRand's own, his collection was hung on racks over low bookcases on eitherside of the room. It was strictly a collector's collection, intenselyspecialized. There were all but a few of the U. S. Regulation single-shotpistols, a fair representation of secondary types, most of the revolversof the Civil War, and all the later revolvers and automatics. Inaddition, there were British pistols of the Revolution and 1812, Confederate revolvers, a couple of Spanish revolvers of 1898, the Lugersand Mausers and Steyers of the first World War, and the pistols of allour allies, beginning with the French weapons of the Revolution. 

"I'm having the devil's own time filling in for this last war, " Cabotsaid. "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 theItalian Glisenti, and that Tokarev, and, of course, the P-'38 and theCanadian Browning; but it's going to take the devil's own time. I hopenobody starts another war, for a few years, till I can get caught up onthe last one. "

Rand was looking at the Confederate revolvers. Griswold & Grier, HaimanBrothers, Tucker & Sherrod, Dance Brothers & Park, Spiller & Burr--thereit 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 thatrevolver, not four hours before Fleming was shot. Had it in my hands;looked it over carefully. " He shook his head. "It absolutely was notloaded. 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 townbefore I remembered that I hadn't bought a copy of _Time_, so I stoppedat Biddle's drugstore, in the village, for one. Just as I was gettinginto my car, outside, Lane Fleming drove up and saw me. He blew his hornat me, and then waved to me with this revolver in his hand. I went overand looked at it, and he told me he'd found it hanging back of thecounter 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 decentthing there, and Fleming had talked it out of this fellow for tendollars. He was disgustingly gleeful about it, particularly as it wasa 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 Confederatearms. The highest known serial number for a Leech & Rigdon is 1393; thisone was 1234. "

Rand pulled the . 36 revolver from his pants-leg and gave it a quickglance; 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 leftgrip; Fleming was saying that he was glad it would be on the inside, soit wouldn't show when he hung it on the wall. " He carried the revolver tothe desk and held it under the light. "Why, this thing wasn't fired atall!" he exclaimed. "I thought that Fleming might have loaded it, meaningto target it--he had a pistol range back of his house--but the chambersare clean. " He sniffed at it. "Hoppe's Number Nine, " he said. "And I cansee traces of partly dissolved rust, and no traces of fouling. What thedevil, 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 anelaborate suicide build-up, either before or after the fact?"

"Absolutely not!" There was a trace of impatience in Cabot's voice. "LaneFleming wasn't the man to commit suicide. I knew him too well ever tobelieve that. "

"I heard a rumor that he was about to lose control of his company, " Randmentioned. "You know how much Premix meant to him. "

"That's idiotic!" Cabot's voice was openly scornful, now, and he seemeda little angry that Rand should believe such a story, as though hisconfidence 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. "Takemy 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 NationalMilling & Packaging, now that Lane Fleming's opposition has been, shallwe 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 LaneFleming'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 recoverthem, and jail the thief and the fence. But I was not retained toinvestigate the death of Lane Fleming. And I do not do work for whichI am not paid, " he added, with mendacious literalness. 

"I see. Well, the merger's going through. It won't be official until thesixteenth of May, when the Premix stockholders meet, but that's just aformality. It's all cut and dried and in the bag now. Better let me pickyou up a little Premix; there's still some lying around. You'll make alittle less than four-for-one on it. "

"I'd had that in mind when I asked you about the merger, " Rand said. "Ihave about two thousand with you, haven't I?" He did a moment's mentalarithmetic, then got out his checkbook. "Pick me up about a hundredshares, " he told the broker. "I've been meaning to get in on this eversince I heard about it. "

"I don't see how you did hear about it, " Cabot said. "For obviousreasons, it's being kept pretty well under the hat. "

Rand grinned. "Quote, usually well-informed sources, unquote. Not thesources 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 tryingto ignore it, but I simply can't. Do you really think Lane Fleming wasmurdered by somebody who wanted to see this merger consummated and whoknew 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 possiblyexaggerated idea of what constitutes fair compensation, I will. And I'llprobably 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 asimilar attitude. "

They changed the subject, then, to the variety of pistols developed andused by the opposing nations in World War II, and the difficulties aheadof Cabot in assembling even a fairly representative group of them. Randpromised to mail Cabot a duplicate copy of his list of the letter-codesymbols used by the Nazis to indicate the factories manufacturing armsfor them, as well as copies of some old wartime Intelligence dope onenemy small-arms. At a little past one, he left Cabot's home and returnedto 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 grayPlymouth was in the space from which Rand had driven earlier in theevening, and a black Chrysler Imperial had been run in on the left of thePlymouth. He put his own car in on the right of the station-wagon, madesure that the Leech & Rigdon was locked in his glove-box, and closed andlocked the garage doors. Then he went up into the house, through thelibrary, and by the spiral stairway to the gunroom. 

The garage had been open, he recalled, at the time of Lane Fleming'sdeath. The availability of such an easy means of undetected ingress andegress threw the suspect field wide open. Anybody who knew the habits ofthe Fleming household could have slipped up to the gunroom, while Varcekwas in his lab, Dunmore was in the bathroom, and Gladys and Geraldinewere in the parlor. As he crossed the hall to his own room, Rand wasthinking of how narrowly Arnold Rivers had escaped a disastrous lawsuitand 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 jerkilyas 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 almostas heavy as Rand's mustache. It was a face that seemed tantalizinglyfamiliar, and Rand puzzled for a moment, then nodded mentally. Of coursehe had seen a face like that hundreds of times, in newsreels andnews-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 itprejudice him. 

Nelda greeted him with a trowelful of sweetness and a dash ofbedroom-bait. Gladys waved him to a vacant seat at her right and summonedthe maid who had been serving breakfast. After Rand had indicated hispreference of fruit and found out what else there was to eat, he inquiredwhere 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 ifRand were a professional antiques-expert. 

"No, I'm a lily-pure amateur, " Rand told him. "Or was until I took thisjob. I have a collection of my own, and I'm supposed to be something ofan authority. My business is operating a private detective agency. "

"But you are here only as an arms-expert?" Varcek inquired. "You are notmaking 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 realpleasure to be working at something I really enjoy, for a change. "

Varcek nodded. "Yes, I can understand that. My own work, for instance. Iwould continue with my research even if I were independently wealthy andany 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 moreinterested than I would be in his pistols, " he objected, then turned toRand. "It is a series of experiments having to do with the chemicalnature of life, " he said. Another perfunctory chuckle. "No, I am nottrying to re-create Frankenstein's monster. The fact is, I am workingwith 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 standardresponse. Only, in this case, I am investigating the effect of dietchanges. I use fruit flies because of their extreme adaptability. IfI find that I am on the right track, I shall work with mice, next. "

"Fred Dunmore mentioned a packaged diabetic ration you'd developed, " Randmentioned. 

"Oh, yes. " Varcek shrugged. "Yes. Something like an Army field-ration, for diabetics to carry when traveling, or wherever proper food may beunobtainable. That is for the company; soon we put it on the market, andmake lots of money. But this other, that is my own private work. "

Dunmore had come in while Varcek was speaking and had seated himselfbeside his wife. 

"Don't let him kid you, Colonel, " he said. "Anton's just as keenabout that dollar as the rest of us. I don't know what he's cookingup, up there in the attic, but I'll give ten-to-one we'll be sellingit in twenty-five-cent packages inside a year, and selling plenty ofthem. .. . Oh, and speaking about that dollar; how did you make out withGresham and his friends?"

"I didn't. They'd expected to pay about twenty thousand for thecollection; Rivers's offer has them stopped. And even if they could goover twenty-five, I think Rivers would raise them. He's afraid to letthem get the collection; Pierre Jarrett and Karen Lawrence intendedusing their share of it to go into the old-arms business, in competitionwith him. "

"Uh-huh, that's smart, " Dunmore approved. "It's always better to take asmall loss stopping competition than to let it get too big for you. Yousave 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 explainwhat 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 Premixplant. Rand debated for a moment the wisdom of speaking to Gladys aboutthe missing pistols, then decided to wait until his suspicions werebetter verified. After a few minutes in the gunroom, going over LaneFleming's arms-books on the shelf over the workbench without finding anytrace of the book in which he had catalogued his collection, he got hishat and coat, went down to the garage, and took out his car. 

It had stopped raining for the time being; the dingy sky showed brokenspots like bits of bluing on a badly-rusted piece of steel. As he got outof his car in front of Arnold Rivers's red-brick house, he was wonderingjust 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 thedoor-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 everybodywas. 

Then, in the path of light that fell inward from the open door, he sawtwo feet in tan shoes, toes up, at the end of tweed-trousered legs, onthe floor. An instant later he stepped inside, pulled the door shut afterhim, and was using his pen-light to find the electric switch. 

For a second or so after he snapped it nothing happened, and then thedarkness was broken by the flickering of fluorescent tubes. When theyfinally lit, he saw the shape on the floor, arms outflung, the invertedrifle above it. For a seemingly long time he stood and stared at thegrotesquely transfixed body of Arnold Rivers. 

The dead man lay on his back, not three feet beyond the radius of thedoor, in a pool of blood that was almost dried and gave the room asickly-sweet butchershop odor. Under the back of Rand's hand, Rivers'scheek was cold; his muscles had already begun to stiffen in _rigormortis_. Rand examined the dead man's wounds. His coat was stained withblood and gashed in several places; driven into his chest by a downwardblow, the bayonet of a short German service Mauser pinned him to thefloor like a specimen on a naturalist's card. Beside the one in whichthe weapon remained, there were three stab-wounds in the chest, and thelower 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 onRivers'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 theeagle and encircled swastika of the Third Reich and the code-letters_lza_--the symbol of the Mauserwerke A. G. Plant at Karlsruhe. It haddoubtless been sold to Rivers by some returned soldier. In a rack besidethe door were a number of other bolt-action military rifles--a Krag, acouple 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 Arisakasthere was a vacancy. 

Rivers's carved ivory cigarette-holder was lying beside the body, crushedat the end as though it had been stepped on. A half-smoked cigarette hadbeen in it; it, too, was crushed. There was no evidence of any greatstruggle, however; the attack which had ended the arms-dealer's life musthave come as a complete surprise. He had probably been holding thecigarette-holder in his hand when the butt-blow had been delivered, andhad dropped it and flung up his arms instinctively. Thereupon, hisassailant 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 thethree stabs in the chest--but the killer had given him two more, probablywhile he was on the floor. Then, grasping the rifle in both hands, he hadstood over his victim and pinned the body to the floor. That last blowcould have only been inspired by pure anger and hatred. 

Yet, apparently, Rivers had been unaware of his visitor's murderousintentions, even while the rifle was being taken from the rack. Randstrolled back through the shop, looking about. Someone had been here withRivers 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, asiphon, two glasses, a glass bowl containing water that had evidentlymelted from ice-cubes, and an ashtray. In the ashtray were a number ofRiver's cigarette butts, all holder-crimped, and a quantity of ash, someof it cigar-ash. There was no cigar-butt, and no band or cellophanewrapper. 

The fire on the hearth had burned out and the ashes were cold. They werenot all wood-ashes; a considerable amount of paper--no, cardboard--hadbeen burned there also. Poking gently with the point of a sword he tookfrom a rack, Rand discovered that what had been burned had been a numberof cards, about six inches by four, one of which had, somehow, managed toescape the flames with nothing more than a charred edge. Improvisingtweezers from a pipe-cleaner, he picked this up and looked at it. It hadbeen typewritten:

4850:

English Screw-Barrel F/L Pocket Pistol. _Queen Anne type, sidehammer 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, fromV. 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 drinkingequipment. At least, he knew what had gone into the fire: Arnold Rivers'scard-index purchase and sales record. He doubted very strongly if thatwould have been burned while its owner was still alive. Going over to thedesk, he checked; the drawer from which he had seen Cecil Gillis get thecard for the Leech & Rigdon had been cleaned out. 

Picking up the phone in an awkward, unnatural manner, he used a pencilfrom his pocket to dial a number with which he was familiar, a numberthat meant the same thing on any telephone exchange in the state. 

"State Police, Corporal Kavaalen, " a voice singsonged out of thereceiver. 

"My name is Rand, " he identified himself. "I am calling from ArnoldRivers's antique-arms shop on Route 19, about a mile and a half east ofRosemont. I am reporting a homicide. "

"Yeah, go ahead--Hey! Did you say homicide?" the other voice askedsharply. "Who?"

"Rivers himself. I called at his shop a few minutes ago, found the frontdoor open, and walked in. I found Rivers lying dead on the floor, justinside the door. He had been killed with a Mauser rifle--not shot;clubbed with the butt, and bayoneted. The body is cold, beginning tostiffen; 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 himselfseven 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 upat the end of the walk. 

Sergeant Ignatius Loyola McKenna--customarily known and addressed asMick--piled out almost before it had stopped. The driver, a stocky, blue-eyed Finn with a corporal's chevrons, followed him, and two privatesgot out from behind, dragging after them a box about the size and shapeof an Army footlocker. McKenna was halfway up the drive before herecognized 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 hehad heard on the phone. "You know him?"

"Know him?" McKenna stepped aside quickly, to avoid being overrun by thetwo privates with the equipment-box. He sighed resignedly. "Aarvo, thisis 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'sjust inside the doorway. "

McKenna and the corporal entered; the two privates set down their boxoutside and followed. They all drew up in a semicircle around the lateArnold Rivers and looked at him critically. 

"Jesus!" Kavaalen pronounced the _J_-sound as though it were _Zh_; hegave all his syllables an equally-accented intonation. "Say, somebodygave him a good job!"

"Somebody's been seeing too many war-movies. " McKenna got a cigarette outof 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 atRand. Rand laughed. 

"Now, Mick!" he reproved. "You know I never kill anybody unless I havea clear case of self-defense, and a flock of witnesses to back it up. "

McKenna nodded and reassured his corporal. "That's right, Aarvo; whenJeff Rand kills anybody, it's always self-defense. And he doesn'tgenerally make messes like this. " He gave the body a brief scrutiny, thenturned 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 anddrinking. The shades were all drawn. I don't know whether that wasstandard 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 comehere later, been admitted, and killed Rivers. That's a possibility, " Randsaid, "but it's also an assumption without anything to support it. Irather like the idea that the man who sat back there drinking and smokingwith Rivers was the killer. If so, Rivers must have gone with him to thedoor 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 withthe butt. Then he gave him the point three times, the second and thirdprobably while Rivers was down. Then he swung it up and slammed down withit, 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 offwhen he left, but the deadlatch on the door wasn't set, and he doesn'tseem 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'dfinished Rivers, he went back to that desk and got all the cards Riversused to record his transactions on--an individual card for every item. Hedestroyed 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 inwhich he had some interest, and then dumped the rest in the fire toprevent anybody from being able to determine which ones he was interestedin. I am further guessing that the cards which the killer wanted tosuppress were in the 'sold' file. But I am not guessing about thedestruction of the record-file; I found the fireplace full of ashes, found one card that had escaped unburned--you can be sure that onewasn't important--and found the drawer where the record-system was keptempty. "

"Think he might have stolen something, and covered up by burning thecards?" McKenna asked. 

Rand shook his head again. "I was here yesterday; bought a pistol fromRivers. That's how I noticed this card-index system. Of course, I didn'tlook at everything, while I was here, but I can't see where any quantityof arms have been removed, and Rivers didn't have any single item thatwas worth a murder. Fact is, no old firearm is. There are only a very fewold arms that are worth over a thousand dollars, and most of them arewell-known, unique specimens that would be unsaleable because everycollector 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 atthe rear . .. Aarvo, you and the boys start taking pictures, " he toldthe 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 twoglasses. 

"I see one of them's been emptied out, " he commented. "Want to bet ithasn't been wiped clean, too?"

"Huh-unh. " Rand smiled slightly. "Even the tiny tots wipe off thecookie-jar, after they've raided it, " he said. 

A flash-bulb lit the front of the shop briefly. Corporal Kavaalen saidsomething to the others. McKenna picked up the card Rand had found by theedges 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 flintlockpocket-pistol; I can show you one almost like it, up front. He'd gottenit and three others, back in 1938, in trade for a Kentucky rifle. Thenumbers are reference-numbers; the letters are Rivers's privateprice-code. Those three at the end are, respectively, what he absolutelyhad to get for it, what he thought was a reasonable price, and the mosthe thought the traffic would stand. He sold it in 1942 for his middleprice. "

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 thebayonet for a close-up of his chest?"

"Sure. Better chalkline it, first; you'll move things jerking thatbayonet out. " He turned back to Rand. "You think, then, that maybe somecard in that file would have gotten somebody in trouble, and he had tocroak Rivers to get it, and then burned the rest of the cards for acover-up?"

"That's the way it looks to me, " Rand agreed. "Just because I can't thinkof any other possibility, though, doesn't mean that there aren't anyothers. "

"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 littlethat I would put past that fellow. But I wouldn't think he'd be stupidenough to carry a record of such sales in his own file, though. "

McKenna rubbed the butt of his . 38 reflectively; that seemed to be hissubstitute for head-scratching, as an aid to cerebration. 

"You said you were here yesterday, and bought a pistol, " he began. "Allright; I know about that collection of yours. But why were you back herebright 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 Flemingcollection. That was the reason I saw him yesterday. But the reason Icame here, this morning, is that I find that somebody has stolen abouttwo dozen of the best pistols out of the collection since Fleming'sdeath, and tried to cover up by replacing them with some junk that LaneFleming wouldn't have allowed inside his house. For my money, it's thebutler. Now that Fleming's dead, he's the only one in the house who knowsenough about arms to know what was worth stealing. He has constant accessto the gunroom. I caught him in a lie about a book Fleming kept a recordof his collection in, and now the book has vanished. And furthermore, andmost important, if he'd been on the level, he would have spotted what wasgoing on, long ago, and squawked about it. "

"That's a damn good circumstantial case, Jeff, " McKenna nodded. "Nothingyou could take to a jury, of course, but mighty good grounds forsuspicion. .. . You think Rivers could have been the fence?"

"He could have been. Whoever was higrading the collection had to have anoutlet for his stuff, and he had to have a source of supply for the junkhe was infiltrating into the collection as replacements. A crooked dealeris 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 thisshop that have been altered to increase their value. I don't meanlegitimate restorations; I mean fraudulent alterations. " He went on totell McKenna about Rivers's expulsion from membership in the NationalRifle Association. "And I know that he sold a pair of pistols to LaneFleming, about a week before Fleming was killed, that were outrightfakes. Fleming was going to sue the ears off Rivers about that; the factis, until this morning, I'd been wondering if that mightn't have beenwhy Fleming had that sour-looking accident. If he'd lived, he'd have runRivers out of business. "

"Hell, I didn't know that!" McKenna seemed worried. "Fleming used totarget-shoot with our gang, and he knew too much about gats to pull aRuss Columbo on himself. I didn't like that accident, at the time, but Ifigured he'd pulled the Dutch, and the family were making out it was anaccident. We never were called in; the whole thing was handled throughthe coroner's office. You really think Fleming could have been bumped?"

"Yes. I think he could have been bumped, " Rand understated. "I haven'tfound any positive proof, but--" He told McKenna about his purchase, fromRivers, of the revolver that had been later identified as the one broughthome by Fleming on the day of his death. "I still don't know how Riversgot hold of it, " he continued. "Until I walked in here not half an hourago and found Rivers dead on the floor, I'd had a suspicion that Riversmight have sneaked into the Fleming house, shot Fleming with anotherrevolver, left it in Fleming's hand and carried away the one Fleming hadbeen working on. The motive, of course, would have been to stop a lawsuitthat would have put Rivers out of business and, not inconceivably, injail. But now . .. " He looked toward the front of the shop, where anotherphoto-flash glared for an instant. "And don't suggest that Rivers gotconscience-stricken and killed himself. Aside from the technicaldifficulties of pinning himself to the floor after he was dead, thatexplanation's out. Rivers had no conscience to be stricken with. "

"Well, let's skip Fleming, for a minute, " McKenna suggested. "You thinkthis butler, at the Fleming place, was robbing the collection. And yousay he could've sold the stuff he stole to Rivers. Well, when the familygets 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 willprobably suspect him. He knows you're no ordinary arms-expert; you're anagency dick. So he gets scared. If you catch up with Rivers, Rivers'lltalk. So he comes over here, last night, and kills Rivers off before youcan get to him. And while Rivers may not keep a record of the stuff hegot from Jeeves, or whatever his name is--"

"Walters, " Rand supplied. 

"Walters, then. While he may not keep a record of what he bought fromWalters, the chances are he does keep a record of the stuff Walters gotfrom 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 thewalls. 

"That would hang together, now, " Rand agreed. "Of course, I haven't foundanything here, except the revolver I bought yesterday, that came from theFleming place, but I'll add this: As soon as Rivers found out I wasworking for the Fleming family, he tried to get that revolver back fromme. Offered me seventy-five dollars' worth of credit on anything else inthe shop if I'd give it back to him, not twenty minutes after I'd paidhim sixty for it. "

"See!" McKenna pounced. "Look; suppose you had a lot of hot stuff, in aplace like this. You might take a chance on selling something that hadgotten mixed in with your legitimate stuff, but would you want to sellit right back to where it had been stolen from?"

"No, I wouldn't. And if I were a butler who'd been robbing a valuablecollection, and an agency man moved in and started poking around, I mightget in a panic and do something extreme. That all hangs together, too. "

While Rand was talking to McKenna, Private Jameson wandered back throughthe shop. 

"Hey, Sarge, is there any way into the house from here?" he asked. "Theoutside doors are all locked, and I can't raise anybody. "

Rand pointed out the flight of steps beside the fireplace. "I saw Riverscome out of the house that way, yesterday, " he said. 

The State Policeman went up the steps and tried the door; it opened, andhe went through. 

"Chances are Mrs. Rivers is away, " McKenna said. "She's away a lot. Theyhave a colored girl who comes in by the day, but she doesn't generallyget here before noon. And the clerk doesn't get here till about the sametime. "

"You seem to know a lot about this household, " Rand said. 

"Yeah. We have this place marked up as a bad burglary- and stick-uphazard; we keep an eye on it. Rivers has all these guns, he does a bigcash business, he always has a couple of hundred to a thousand onhim--it's a wonder somebody hasn't made a try at this place longago. .. . Tell you what, Jeff; say you check up on this butler at theFleming place for us, and we'll check up here and see if we can find anyof the stuff that was stolen. We can get together and compare notes. Maybe one or another of us may run across something about that accidentof Fleming's, too. "

"Suits me. I'll be glad to help you, and I'll be glad for any help youcan give me on recovering those pistols. I haven't made any formal reporton that, yet, because I'm not sure exactly what's missing, and I don'twant any of that kind of publicity while I'm trying to sell thecollection. It may be that the two matters are related; there are somepoints 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 interestedin this killing, while I'm at it. "

McKenna chuckled. "That must hurt hell out of you, Jeff, " he said. "Anice 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 beingswallowed by a shark. "

"You want to stick around till this clerk of Rivers's gets here?" McKennaasked. "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 thisright now. Fact is, I'd just as soon not have my name mentioned at all inconnection with this. You can charge the discovery of the body up to ourold friend, Anonymous Tip, can't you?"

"Sure. " McKenna accompanied Rand to the front door, past the whitechalked outline that marked the original position of the body. The bodyitself, with ink-blackened fingertips, lay to one side, out of the way. Corporal Kavaalen was going through the dead man's pockets, and Skinnerwas working on the rifle with an insufflator. 

"Well, we can't say it was robbery, anyhow, " Kavaalen said. "He had eightC's in his billfold. "

"Migawd, Sarge, is this damn rifle ever lousy with prints, " Skinnercomplained. "A lot of Rivers's, and everybody else's who's been foolingwith it around here, and half the _Wehrmacht_. "

"Swell, swell!" McKenna enthused. "Maybe we can pass the case off on theWar Crimes Commission. "

CHAPTER 11

Mick McKenna had put his finger right on the sore spot. It did hurtRand like hell; a nice, sensational murder and no money in it for theTri-State Agency. Obviously, somebody would have to be persuaded tofinance an investigation. Preferably some innocent victim of unjustsuspicion; somebody who could best clear himself by unmasking the realvillain. .. . 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 "KarenLawrence" 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 thejangling of a spring-mounted cowbell. 

The girl dealer was inside, with a visitor, a sallow-faced, untidy-looking man of indeterminate age who was openingnewspaper-wrapped packages on a table-top. Karen greeted Rand by name andmilitary 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 himto 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 thinkthis-here is real quaint! Just look, now!" He displayed some long, narrow, dark object, holding it out to her. "Ain't this-here aninterestin' 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 thatscabbard, now; made out of real crocodile-skin. A whole young crocodile, head, feet, an' all. I tell you, Miss Lawrence, that-there item isunique!"

"It's revolting! It's the most repulsive object that's ever been broughtinto this shop, which is saying quite a lot. Colonel Rand! If you don'thave a hangover this morning, will you please come here and look at thisthing?"

Rand laid down the Merril carbine he had been examining and walked overbeside Karen. The man--whom Rand judged to be some rural free-lanceantique-prospector--extended the object of the girl's repugnance. It wasan African sword, all right, with a plain iron hilt and cross-guard. Thedesign looked Berber, but the workmanship was low-grade, and probablyattributable to some even more barbarous people. The scabbard was whatwas really surprising, if you liked that kind of surprises. It was aninfant crocodile, rather indifferently smoke-cured; the sword simply wentin between the creature's jaws and extended the length of the body andinto the tail. Either end of a moldy-green leather thong had beenfastened to the two front paws for a shoulder-baldric. When new, Randthought, it must have given its wearer a really distinctive aroma, evenfor Africa. He drew the blade gingerly, looked at it, and sheathed itwith 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 themonth-old haircut inquired eagerly. "See, Miss Lawrence? What I told you;a real African native sword. I got that-there from Hen Sourbaw, over atFeltonville; his uncle, the Reverend Sourbaw, that used to preach atHemlock 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 anawful good price on that-there item, Miss Lawrence. "

"God forbid!" she exclaimed. "All my customers are heavy drinkers; Iwouldn't want to answer for what might happen if some of them saw thatthing, 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 theknife-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 forherself. 

"Well, now you see why girls leave home and start antique shops, " shesaid. "Never a dull moment. .. . Wasn't that sword the awfullest thing youever saw, though?"

"Well, one of the ten awfullest, " Rand conceded. "I just stopped in togive you some good news. You won't need to consider that offer of ArnoldRivers's, any more. He is no longer interested in the Flemingcollection. "

"He isn't?" An eager, happy light danced up in her eyes. "You saw himagain this morning? What did he say?"

"He didn't say anything. He isn't talking any more, either. Fact is, heisn't even breathing any more. "

"He. .. . You mean he's dead?" She was surprised, even shocked. The shockwas 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 daysago, and he looked all right. Of course, he's been having trouble withhis lungs, but--"

"It was very sudden. Some time last night, some person or persons unknowngave him a butt-and-bayonet job with a German Mauser out of a rack in hisshop. A most unpleasantly thorough job. I went to see him this morning, hoping to badger something out of him about those pistols that aremissing from the Fleming collection, and found the body. I notified theState Police, and just came from there. "

"For God's sake!" The shock was genuine, too, now. "Have the police anyidea--?"

"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, theyhaven't. I gave the shop a once-over-lightly before the cops arrived, andcouldn't find anything. "

She tried to take a puff from her cigarette and found that she had brokenit 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. Theymight be able to fix a no-earlier time. " An idea occurred to him, and hesmiled. 

"But that's dreadful!" She really meant that. "It's a terrible thing tohappen to anybody, being killed like that. " She stopped just short ofadding: "even Rivers. " Instead, she continued: "But I can't say I'mreally very sorry he's dead, Colonel. "

"Outside of maybe his wife, and the gunsmith who made his fake WalkerColts and North & Cheney flintlocks, who is?" he countered. "Oh, yes;Cecil Gillis. He's about due for induction into the Army of theUnemployed, 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 seeyoung Gillis doing a messy job like this was, or going to all that manuallabor when he could have used something neat, like a pistol or a dagger. "

"Well, Cecil isn't quite the languishing flower he looks, " Karen toldhim. "He does a lot of swimming, and he's one of the few people aroundhere 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, " sheeuphemized. "Well, he isn't. He takes a perfectly normal, and evenslightly wolfish, interest in the female of his species. And while ArnoldRivers may have been a good provider from a financial standpoint, hewasn'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'ssmoke, 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 somecircumstances, " Rand admitted. "And the other?"

"Cecil might have been doing funny things with the books, and Riversmight 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'llmention it to Mick McKenna; he's hard up for a good usable suspect. Andby the way, the news of this killing will be out before evening, but inthe meantime I wish you wouldn't mention it to anybody, or mention thatI was in here to tell you about it. "

"I won't. I'm glad you told me, though. .. . Do you think there may be achance that we can get the collection, now?"

"I wouldn't know why not. Rivers's offer was pretty high; there aren'tmany other dealers who would be able to duplicate it. .. . Well, don't takeany Czechoslovakian Stiegel. "

He moved his car down the street to the Rosemont Inn, where he went intothe 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-boothand 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 thelawyer answered. "There's been a new development in the Flemingbusiness. " 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 Mauserbayonet, sometime last night. I found the body this morning, when I wentto see him, and notified the State Police. They call it murder, but ofcourse, they're just prejudiced. I'd call it a nuisance-abatementproject. "

"Look here, are you kidding?" Gresham demanded. 

"I never kid about Those Who Have Passed On, " Rand denied piously. Thenhe recited the already hackneyed description of what had happened toRivers, with careful attention to all the gruesome details. "So I calledcopper, directly. Sergeant McKenna's up a stump about it, and looking inall 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 silentfor a moment. "Look here, can you see me, at my home, about two thirtythis afternoon? I want to talk to you about this. "

Rand smiled happily. This looked like what he had been angling for. MaybeArnold 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 goodappetite. After finishing, he had another drink, and sat sipping itslowly and smoking his pipe; going over the story Gladys Fleming had toldhim, and the gossip he had gotten from Carter Tipton, and the otherstatements which had been made to him by different people about the deathof Lane Fleming, and the conclusions he had reached about the theft ofthe pistols, and the killing of Arnold Rivers; sorting out the inferencesfrom the descriptions, and the descriptive statements of others from thethings he himself had observed. When his glass was empty and his pipeburned out, he left a tip beside the ashtray, paid his check and wentout. 

He had two hours until his meeting with Stephen Gresham; he knew exactlywhere to spend them. The county seat was a normal twenty minutes' drivefrom Rosemont, but with the road relatively free from traffic he was ableto cut that to fifteen. Parking his car in front of the courthouse, hewent inside. 

The coroner, one Jason Kirchner, was an inoffensive-looking little fellowwith a Caspar Milquetoast mustache and an underslung jaw. He wore an Elkswatchcharm, an Odd Fellows ring, and a Knights of Pythias lapel-pin. Helooked at Rand's credentials, including the letter Humphrey Goode hadgiven 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. Thatmust be interesting work, Mr. Rand. Now, what can I do for you?"

"Why, I understand you have an item from that collection, here in youroffice, " Rand said. "The pistol with which Mr. Fleming shot himself. Regardless of its unpleasant associations, that pistol is a valuablecollector's item, and one of the assets of the estate. If I'm to get fullvalue for the collection, for the heirs, I'll have to have that, to sellwith the rest of the weapons. "

"Well, now, look here, Mr. Rand, " Kirchner started to argue, "thatrevolver's a dangerous weapon. It's killed one man, already. I don't knowas I ought to let it get out, where it might kill somebody else. "

Rand estimated that this situation called for a modified version of hishard-boiled act. 

"You think you can show cause why that revolver shouldn't be turnedover 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 rightto impound that revolver, in the first place; you removed it from theFleming home illegally in the second place, since you had no intentionof holding any formal inquest, and you're holding it illegally now. Acourt order might not be all we could get, either, " he added menacingly. "Now, if you have any reason to suspect that Mr. Fleming committedsuicide . .. 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 toinadvertence of the deceased. "

"Well, then, " Rand said, "you have no right to hold that revolver, andI want it, right now. As Mr. Goode's agent, I'm responsible for thatcollection, of which the revolver you're holding is a part. That revolveris 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 againstMr. Goode's wishes. " Humphrey Goode must pull considerable weight aroundthe courthouse, Rand surmised. "But you realize, that revolver's stillloaded. .. . "

"Oh, that's not your worry. I'll draw the charges, or, better, fire themout. 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 arevolver in both hands. Evidently Goode had given him the green light. He approached, handling the weapon with a caution that would have beenexcessive for a Mills grenade; after warning Rand again that it wasloaded, he laid it gently on his desk. 

It was a . 36 Colt, one of the 1860 series, with the round barrel and theso-called "creeping" ramming-lever. Somebody had wound a piece of wirearound it, back of the hammer and through the loading-aperture in frontof the cylinder; as the hammer was down on a fired chamber, there was noway in God's world, short of throwing the thing into a furnace, in whichit could be discharged, but Kirchner was shrinking away from it as thoughit might jump at his throat. 

"I put the wire on, " the coroner said. "I thought it might be safer thatway. "

"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 forthe 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 knewit was all right, but . .. You see, I've been bothered a lot about thatpistol, lately. "

"Yes?" Rand succeeded in being negligent about it. 

"Oh my, yes! The newspaper people wanted to take pictures of me holdingit, 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 ofRosemont; he doesn't sell anything but guns and swords and that sort ofthing, " Kirchner said. "He was here, making inquiries about it, and myclerk showed it to him, and then he started making offers for it--firstten dollars, and then fifteen, and then twenty; he got up as high assixty dollars. I suppose it's worth a couple of hundred. "

It was probably worth about thirty-five. Rand was intrigued by thissecond instance of an un-Rivers-like willingness to spare no expense toget 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 geta lot of money for it, because of the accident, and Mr. Fleming beingsuch 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'msupposed 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 pistolMr. Fleming killed himself with? Put in how you found it in his hand, andmention the serial numbers, so that whoever buys it will know it's thesame revolver. " He picked up the Colt and showed Kirchner the serials, onthe 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 typedout the letter himself, looked twice at the revolver to make sure of thenumber, took Rand's word for the make, model, and caliber, signed it, andeven slammed his seal down on it. Rand thanked him profusely, put theletter in his pocket, and stuck the Colt down his pants-leg. 

About two miles from the county seat Rand stopped his car on a desertedstretch of road and got out. Unwinding the wire Kirchner had wrappedaround the revolver, he picked up an empty beer-can from the ditch, set it against an embankment, stepped back about thirty feet and beganfiring. The first shot kicked up dirt a little over the can--Rand nevercould be sure just how high any percussion Colt was sighted--and theother four hit the can. He carried the revolver back to the car and putit into the glove-box with the Leech & Rigdon. 

After starting the car, he snapped on the radio, in time for the twofifteen news-broadcast from the New Belfast station. As he had expected, the murder was out; the daily budget of strikes and Congressionalinvestigations and international turmoil was enlivened by a more or lessimaginative account of what had already been christened the "RosemontBayonet Murder. " Rand resigned himself to the inevitable influx ofreporters. Then he swore, as the newscaster continued:

"District Attorney Charles P. Farnsworth, of Scott County, who has takencharge of the investigation, says, and we quote: 'There is strongevidence implicating certain prominent persons, whom we are not, as yet, prepared to name, and if the investigation, now under way and makingexcellent progress, justifies, they will be apprehended and formallycharged. No effort will be spared, and no consideration of personalprominence will be allowed to deter us from clearing up this dastardlycrime. .. . '"

Rand swore again, with weary bitterness, wondering how much trouble hewas going to have with District Attorney Charles P. Farnsworth, as hepulled to a stop in Stephen Gresham's driveway. 

CHAPTER 12

Gresham must have been waiting inside the door; as soon as Rand came uponto the porch, he opened it, and motioned the detective inside. Beyond ahasty greeting as Rand passed the threshold, he did not speak until theywere 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 theFlemings' to investigate this Rivers business?" he asked. "And how muchwould an investigation cost me? It's got to be a blitz job. I'm notinterested in getting anybody convicted in court; I just want the casecleared up in a hurry. "

"Well--" Rand puffed at the cigar Gresham had given him, watching the ashform on the end. "I don't work by the day, Stephen. I take a lump-sumfee, and, of course, it's to my interest to get a case cleared up as soonas I can. But I can't set any time limit on a job like this. This Riverskilling has more angles than _Nude Descending a Staircase_; I don't knowhow 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'tkill Arnold Rivers. I hated his guts, and I think whoever did it ought toget a medal and a testimonial dinner, but I did not kill him. You believeme?"

"I'm inclined to, " Rand replied. "In your law practice, you know what alying client is letting himself in for. As my client, you wouldn't lie tome. You seem to think you may be suspected of purging Rivers. But why? Isthere 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 aboutbeing railroaded for this. I didn't do it, and I can beat any case thathalf-assed ex-ambulance-chaser, Farnsworth, could dream up against me. But I can't afford even to be mentioned in connection with this. You knowwhat that would do to me, in town. I just can't get mixed up in this, atall. 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 hadplenty 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 hellabout 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 ofthem unpleasant. I told him, for one thing, that Lane Fleming's deathhadn't pulled his bacon off the fire, that I was going to start the samesort 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, CecilGillis, was coming out. He got into his car and drove away, leaving mealone with Rivers. He'll be the first one the police talk to, and he'lltell them all about it. "

"That does put you back of the eight ball. " Rand dropped the ash into atray and looked at it curiously. It looked like the sort of ash he hadseen at Rivers's shop, but he couldn't be sure. "But if it can be provedthat Rivers was alive after nine twenty, when you got here, you'll be inthe clear. "

"I don't want to have to clear myself, " Gresham insisted. "I don't wantanything to do with it, at all. Here; I'll pay you a thousand down, andtwo more when you have the case completed; I want you to get the murdercleared up before I can be publicly involved in it. I say publicly, because this damned Gillis has probably involved me with the policealready. "

"Well, Gillis isn't exactly in a state of pure sanctity, himself, " Randcommented. "As a suspect, the smart handicappers are figuring him to runwell inside the money. For instance, you know, there have been storiesabout 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'tmuch in his line Rivers and Umholtz were able to fake--and differenttimes he's gone to Rivers's shop and there'd be nobody around, and thenGillis 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 theway. .. . You'll take the case, won't you, Jeff?"

"Oh, certainly, " Rand assured him. "Now, all they have on you is thatthere 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 worstpart of it is the way Rivers was killed. See, back in Kaiser Willie'swar, before I was assigned a company of my own, I was regimentalbayonet-instruction officer. And after we got to France, I alwayscarried a rifle and bayonet at the front; hell, I must have killedclose to a dozen Krauts just the way Rivers was killed. And duringSchicklgruber's war, I volunteered as bayonet instructor for the localHome Guard. "

"My God!" Rand made a wry face. "There must be close to a hundred peoplearound here who'd know that, and all of them are probably convinced thatyou killed Rivers, and are expressing that opinion at the top of theirvoices 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 circulargun-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 statetyped and estimated, but since I got back--"

Gresham slandered the county prosecutor's legitimacy. "God-damnheadline-hunting little egotist! He's running for re-election thisyear, too. "

"One way, that could be bad. On the other hand, it might be easy to throwa scare into him. .. . Stephen, when you were at Rivers's, were you smokinga cigar?"

Gresham shook his head. "No. I threw my cigar away when I got out of thecar, and I didn't light another one till I got home. If you remember, Iwas lighting it when I came in here. "

"Yes; so you were. Well, I don't suppose, in view of the state ofrelations 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 hewouldn'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 fifthof Haig & Haig Pinchbottle, and a couple of glasses, and a siphon, and soon, on it?"

"I saw the table. There was an ashtray on it, and a book--I think it wasGluckman'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'srecord-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 caughthim at it. "

"I'd thought of that, " Rand admitted. "But I doubt if Rivers would sitdown and drink with him, while accusing him of theft. And I can't seem tofind anything around Rivers's place that looks as though it might havebeen stolen from the Fleming collection, either. .. . Oh, and that remindsme: If you have time this afternoon, I wonder if you'd come along with meto the Flemings' and see just what's missing. I'll have to know that, inany case, and there's a good possibility that the thefts from thecollection and the killing of Rivers are related. "

"Yes, of course, " Gresham agreed. "And suppose we take Pierre Jarrettalong with us. He knows that collection as well as I do; he'll spotanything I miss. He works at home; I'll call him now. We can pick him upbefore we go to the Flemings'. "

They went into Gresham's bedroom, where there was a phone, and Greshamtalked to Pierre Jarrett. It was arranged that he should pick Jarrett upwith 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 toDave Ritter, explaining the situation to date. 

"I'm going to need some help, " he continued. "I want you to come here andget a room at the Rosemont Inn, under your own name. I'll see you thereabout five thirty. And bring with you a suit of butler's livery, orreasonable facsimile. I believe there will be a vacancy in the Fleminghousehold 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 . 380Beretta in the top right-hand drawer of my office desk, with a box ofammunition and a couple of spare clips. "

"Right. I'll be at Rosemont Inn at five thirty, " Ritter promised. "Andsay, 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 seeyou?"

"You have notes? Bring them along; I'll be seeing you in a couple ofhours. "

He parted from Gresham, going out and getting in his car. As Gresham gothis own car out of the garage and drove off toward Pierre Jarrett'shouse, Rand started in the opposite direction, toward Rosemont. 

About a half-mile from Gresham's he caught an advancing gleam of white onthe highway ahead of him and pulled to the side of the road, waitinguntil 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 cameacross 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 sergeantsurmised. "Was Gresham at home?"

"He was; he's gone now, " Rand said. "He and another man are going to helpme check up on what's missing from the Fleming collection. "

"Hey!" Olsen exploded. "What I told you, now; he run ahead of us with atip-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 hecould 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 tosay 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'sin it together. I bet that was why he come around, the first thing in themorning, 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 Finnscan speak Swedish, and Rand was wishing he could understand it. Thecorporal's remarks ran to about a paragraph, and must have been downrightincendiary. At least, Olsen seemed to catch fire from them. He rose inhis seat, waving his arms and howling back in the same language. 

"Shut up, goddammit, _shut up_!" McKenna bellowed into his face. "Shut upbefore I sling your ass to hell out of this car! I'm talking, and I don'twant 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, whatabout 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 intothe shop. I wanted to talk to him, myself; I thought he might account forthe cigar-ashes, and the drink-fixings on that table. But when Farnsworthheard about the killing, he sent Olsen around, and when Olsen heard thatGresham 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'tsmoking a cigar in the shop, and he left a little after nine. He got homeat nine twenty-two. I can testify to that, myself; I was there at thetime, and so were seven other people. " Rand named them. "They dribbledaway at different times during the evening, but Philip Cabot and I stayedtill around eleven. " He mentioned the approximate time at which theothers had left. "What time was Rivers killed, or hasn't the time beenfixed?"

"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!" heproduced triumphantly. 

McKenna used a dirty word. "So what? Anybody who's ever had infantrytraining knows that butt-stroke-and-lunge, " he retorted. "I learned itmyself, when I was a kid, in '24 and '25, in C. M. T. C. Hell, anybody who'sever seen a war-movie. .. . If you hadn't lammed out of Sweden when youwere sixteen, to duck conscription, you'd of known it, too. "

"Well, maybe Olsen, or his boss, can explain why Gresham threw thoserecord-cards in the fire, " Rand contributed. "You know why Olsen saysGresham had it in for Rivers? Rivers sold Gresham a fake antique, a flintlock navy pistol that had been worked over into something else. Greshamwas going to subpoena those records, when he brought suit againstRivers, " Rand lied. "But I can explain why Cecil Gillis might havedestroyed them, after killing Rivers, if he'd been cheating Rivers andRivers caught him at it. "

"Yeah, and that might explain why Gillis was in such a hurry to sic usonto Gresham, too, " McKenna added. "I thought of something like that. Andthis 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. "Iheard, on the radio . .. "

"You're liable to hear anything on the radio, including slanders onBing Crosby's horses. But for the record, I am in charge of thisinvestigation. And don't anybody forget it, either, " he added, inthe direction of the rear seat. 

"That's what I thought. Well, Stephen Gresham has just retained me tomake an independent investigation, " Rand said. "It is not that he lacksconfidence in the State Police, or in you; he was afraid that otherparties might get into the act and try to make political capital outof it. Which appears to have happened. "

"Well, if Gresham retained you, I'm satisfied, " McKenna said. "You cantake 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 asnot 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 wasguilty 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 lotof 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 outof myself. And what happened to this guy who'd hired Jeff was somethingthat oughtn't to happen even to Molotov, and it happened because Jefffixed 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 thehell 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 themlive in the West, where there's a couple of hours' time-difference. Oneof them, calling at, say, eight o'clock, local time, would get his callin at ten, Eastern Standard. If you checked the long-distance calls toRivers's number last night, now, you might get something. "

"Yeah. And if he took a call after nine twenty-two, that would letGresham out. Even Farnsworth could figure that out. Sure. I'll checkright away. "

"Who's at Rivers's now?"

"Skinner and Jameson, of our gang. And Farnsworth, and some of hisoutfit. 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 Yorkday before yesterday. "

"I'll probably be around at Rivers's, later in the day. I want to checkon that Fleming angle. "

"Uh-huh; I'll be there, in half an hour, " Corporal Kavaalen said. "Beseeing you. "

They exchanged so-longs, and Kavaalen backed, and made a U-turn, movingoff in the direction of Rosemont. Olsen's voluble protests drifted backas 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 cameclose to her, gesturing for silence with finger on lips. 

"There's a perfect hell of a mess, " he whispered. "Somebody murderedArnold 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. "StephenGresham and Pierre Jarrett are on their way here, and I'd like you tokeep the servants, and particularly Walters, out of earshot of thegunroom while they're here. It seems that a number of the best pistolshave been stolen from the collection, sometime between the death of Mr. Fleming and the time I saw the collection yesterday. Stephen and Pierreare going to help me find out just what's been taken. I have an idea theymight have been sold to Rivers. That may have been why he was killed--toprevent 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 alltaken at once; it must have been moved out a piece at a time, andworthless pistols moved in and hung on the racks to replace valuablepistols taken. " He had left the library door purposely open; when thedoorbell rang, he heard it. "I'll let them in, " he said. "You go and headWalters off. "

Rand hurried to the front door and admitted Gresham and Pierre, hustlingthem 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 opengunroom door, Rand could hear her speaking to Walters, as though sendinghim on some errand to the rear of the house. He closed the door andturned to the others. 

"We'll have to make it fast, " he said. "Mrs. Fleming can't hold thebutler 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 fingerimmediately on the shabby and disreputable specimen Rand had firstnoticed. 

"Phew! Is that one a stinker!" he said. "What used to be there was anice late sixteenth- or early seventeenth-century North Italian pistol, all covered with steel filigree-work. A real beauty; much better thanaverage. "

"Those Turkish atrocities, " Gresham pointed out. "They're filling in fora pair of Lazarino Cominazo snaphaunces that Lane Fleming paid sevenhundred for, back in the mid-thirties, and didn't pay a cent too muchfor, even then. Worth an easy thousand, now. Remember the pair ofCominazo 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 anythingyou find missing. " He handed them a pad of paper and a pencil from thedesk. "I have something else to do, for a few minutes. "

With that he left them scrutinizing the pistols on the wall, and went tothe workbench in the corner, drawing the . 36 Colt from under hiswaistband. Working rapidly, he dismounted it, taking off the barrel andcylinder, and cleaned it thoroughly before putting it together again. Pierre and Gresham had just started on the Colts when he slipped therevolver out of sight and rejoined them. 

It took over a half-hour to finish; when they had gotten completelyaround the collection, Rand had a list of twenty-six missing items, including four cased sets. At a conservative estimate, the missingpistols 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 oftwo or three hundred, but no serious collector would buy any of it at anyprice. There had been no attempt to replace the cased items; the caseshad been merely rearranged on the table to avoid any conspicuousvacancies. 

"See that thing?" Pierre asked, tapping a small . 25 Webley & Scottautomatic with his finger. Rand looked at it; it had been fitted with anEnglish-made silencer. "That thing, " Pierre said, "is the one illustratedin Pollard's book. The identical pistol; it used to be in the Pollardcollection. "

"Lane had a lot of stuff from some famous collections, " Gresham said. "Pollard collection, Sawyer collection, Fred Hines collection, Meekscollection, even the old Mark Field collection, that was sold at LibbieGalleries in 1911. His own could rank with any of them. Think you can getany of this stuff back?"

"I hope so. By the way, where does this fellow Umholtz, the fabricator ofspurious Whitneyville Walker Colts, hang out? I believe he ought to belooked into. "

"Say, that's an idea!" Pierre ejaculated. "He might have bought thepistols, instead of Rivers. Why, he has a gunshop at Kingsville, on Route22, about fifteen miles west of here, just this side of the village. Hehad a big sign along the road, and his shop's in the barn, behind thehouse. "

"I'll have to check up on him. But first, I want to see if any of thisstuff's at Rivers's shop. I won't ask you to come along, " he toldGresham. "No use you sticking your head into the lion's mouth. I'vetalked the State Police temporarily off your trail, but I still haveFarnsworth to worry about. "

"He'd like to prosecute a big corporation lawyer, if he thought he hadany chance of getting a conviction, " Pierre said. "Make a nice impressionon the proletarian vote in the south end of the county. "

"You're a member of the Mohawk Club in New Belfast, aren't you?" Randasked Gresham. "Well, go there and stay there for a couple of days, tillthe heat's off. Pierre, you can come with me to Rivers's; I'll run youhome in my car when we're through. "

Gresham let himself out the front door; Pierre and Rand went out throughthe garage and got into Rand's car. 

"You have any idea, so far, about who could have killed Rivers?" theex-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 overwhat he knew, or at least those items which were likely to become publicknowledge soon. "From what I've observed at the shop, and from what Iknow of Rivers's character, I'd think that he'd been in some kind of acrooked deal with somebody, and got double-crossed, or else the other mancaught Rivers double-crossing him. Or else, Rivers and somebody else hadsome secret in common, and the other man wanted a monopoly on it andkilled 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 turnup anywhere in Rivers's former possession. Personally, I've about decidedthat the man who was drinking with Rivers killed him. There aren't anyindications that anybody else was in the shop afterward. If that's thecase, I doubt if the killer was Walters. You know what a snobbish guyRivers was. And from what I know of him, he seems to have had athoroughly Aristotelian outlook; he identified individuals withclass-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 hisequals, that is, people whom he identified with class-labels of equalsocial importance to his own labels of 'antiquarian' and 'businessman. '"

"That sounds like Korzybski, " Pierre said, as they turned onto Route 19in 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 ofGeneral Semantics come in very handy in my business, especially incriminal-investigation work, like this. A consciousness of abstracting, a realization that we can only know something about a thin film of eventson the surface of any given situation, and a habit of thinkingstructurally and of individual things, instead of verbally and ofcategories, saves a lot of blind-alley chasing. And they suggest agreat many more avenues of investigation than would be evident to onewhose thinking is limited by intensional, verbal, categories. "

"Yes. I find General Semantics helpful in my work, too, " Pierre said. "Ican use it in plotting a story. .. . Oh-oh!"

"The Gentlemen of the Press, " Rand said, looking ahead as the carapproached 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 ofthe New Belfast _Mercury_, cars from a couple of papers at Louisburg, thestate capital, and cars from papers as far distant as Pittsburgh, Buffalo, and Cincinnati. In front of the shop, a motley assemblage ofjournalists was interviewing and photographing an undersized runt ina tan Chesterfield topcoat and a gray Homburg hat, whom they wereaddressing as Mr. Farnsworth. The District Attorney of Scott County hada mustache which failed miserably to make him look like Tom Dewey; heimpressed Rand as the sort of offensive little squirt who compensatesfor his general insignificance by bad manners and loud-mouthedself-assertion. Corporal Kavaalen, standing in the doorway of the shop, caught sight of Rand and his companion as they got out of the car andcame to meet them, hustling them around the crowd and into the shopbefore anybody could notice and recognize them. 

"That was a good tip, about the telephone, " he said softly. "Mick checkedat the Rosemont exchange. Rivers got a long-distance call from Topekalast night; ten fifteen to ten seventeen. We got the night long distanceoperator 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 hisvoice. " He corrected himself, shifting to the past tense and glancing, ashe did, at the chalk outline on the floor, now scuffed by many feet, andthe 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 findanything except what's here in the shop?"

"Only Rivers's own . 38 Smith & Wesson, in his room, and a lot of pistolsout in the garage, that look like junk to me, " Kavaalen said. "I'll showthem to you. "

Rand nodded. "Pierre, you look around the shop; I'll see what this otherstuff is. "

He followed Kavaalen through a door at the rear of the shop; the same onethrough which Cecil Gillis had carried the Kentucky rifle the afternoonbefore. Beside Rivers's car, there was a long workbench in the garage, and piles of wood and cardboard cartons, and stacks of newspapers, anda barrel full of excelsior, all evidently used in preparing arms forshipment. There was also a large pile of old pistols, and a number oflong-arms. 

Rand pawed among the pistols; they were, as the State Police corporal hadsaid, all junk. The sort of things a dealer has to buy, at times, inorder to get something really good. Many of them had been partiallydismantled for parts. When he was certain that the heap of junk-weaponsdidn't conceal anything of value, he returned to the shop. Pierre waswaiting for him by Rivers's desk. 

He shook his head. "Not a thing, " he reported. "I found a couple ofout-and-out fakes, and about ten or fifteen that had been altered in oneway or another, and a lot of reblued stuff, but nothing from Fleming'scollection. What did you find?"

Rand laughed. "I found Rivers's scrap-heap, and some pistols thatprobably contributed parts to some of the stuff you found, " he said. "Ofcourse, all we can say is that the stuff isn't here; Rivers could havebought it, and stored it outside somewhere. But even so, I'm not takingthe Fleming butler too seriously as a suspect for the murder. "

"What's this about Fleming's butler?" a voice broke in. "Have you beenwithholding information from me?"

Rand turned, to find that Farnsworth had left the press conference infront 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, " headded. "Sergeant McKenna instructed us to give him every consideration. "

"It seems that a number of valuable pistols were stolen from thecollection of the late Lane Fleming, " Rand said. "We suspected thatthe butler had stolen them and sold them to Rivers; I thought itpossible that he might also have killed Rivers to silence him about thetransaction. " 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 respectedcitizen like Mr. Rivers of receiving stolen goods?" Farnsworth demanded, aghast. 

"Who respects him?" Rand hooted. "Rivers was a notorious swindler; hehad that reputation among arms-collectors all over the country. He wasexpelled from membership in the National Rifle Association formisrepresentation and fraud. Why, he even swindled Lane Fleming on a pairof fake pistols, a week or so before Fleming's death. And the very reasonwhy your man Olsen was inclined to suspect Stephen Gresham was that hehad had trouble with Rivers about a crooked deal Rivers had put over onhim. 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 beencleared. 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 furnishedStephen Gresham's alibi. 

"And Gresham was at home from nine twenty-two on, " Rand added. "There areeight witnesses to that: His wife and daughter; myself; Captain Jarrett, here; and his fiancée, Miss Lawrence; Philip Cabot; Adam Trehearne; ColinMacBride. "

Farnsworth looked bewildered. "Why wasn't I told about that?" he demandedsulkily. 

"Sergeant McKenna's been too busy, and I didn't think of it, " Kavaalensaid insolently. "I'm not supposed to report to you, anyhow. Why didn'tyour man Olsen tell you; he was with us when we checked with thetelephone company. "

Farnsworth tried to ignore that by questioning Pierre about the time ofGresham's arrival home, then turned to Rand and wanted to know what thelatter'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 seemedimpressed in about the same way as the coroner, Kirchner, but he wasstill puzzled. 

"But I understood that you had been retained by Stephen Gresham, toinvestigate this murder, " he said. 

"So you did talk to Olsen, after I saw him, " Rand pounced. "Odd he didn'tmention this telephone thing. .. . Why, yes; that's true. My agency handlesall sorts of business. The two operations aren't mutually exclusive; fora while, I even thought they might be related, but now--" He shrugged. 

"Well, you believe, now, that Rivers had nothing to do with the pistolsyou say were stolen from the Fleming collection?" Farnsworth asked. Randshook his head ambiguously; Farnsworth took that for a negative answerto his question, as he was intended to. "And you say Mr. Gresham has beencompletely cleared of any suspicion of complicity in this murder?"

"Mr. Rand's helping us; we want him to stick around till the case isclosed, " Corporal Kavaalen threw in, perceiving the drift of Farnsworth'squestions. "He and Sergeant McKenna have worked together before; he'sgiven us a lot of good tips. "

"You understand, " Rand took over, "Mr. Gresham didn't retain me merelyto help him clear himself. I don't accept that kind of retainers. I wasretained to find the murderer of Arnold Rivers, and I intend to continueworking on this case until I do. I hope that the same friendly spirit ofmutual cooperation will exist between your office and my agency as existsbetween me and the State Police. I certainly don't want to have to workat cross purposes with any of the regular law-enforcement agencies. "

"Oh, certainly; of course. " Farnsworth didn't seem to like the idea, butthere was no apparent opening for objection. He and Rand exchangedmendacious compliments, pledged close cooperation, and did practicallyeverything but draw up and sign a treaty of alliance. Then Farnsworth andCorporal Kavaalen accompanied Rand and Pierre Jarrett to the front door. 

Some of the reporters who were ravening outside must have spotted Rand ashe had entered; they were all waiting for him to come out, and set up amonstrous ululation when he appeared in the doorway. With Farnsworthbeaming approval, Rand assured the Press that he was no more than a merespectator, that the State Police and the efficient District Attorney ofScott County had the situation well in hand, and that an arrest wasexpected within a matter of hours. Then he and Pierre hurried to his carand drove away. 

CHAPTER 14

Neither of them spoke for a moment or two. Then, after they had left thecriminological-journalistic uproar at the Rivers place behind and wereapproaching the village of Rosemont, Pierre turned to Rand. 

"You know, " he said, "for a disciple of Korzybski, you came pretty closeto confusing orders of abstraction, a couple of times, back there. Youshowed 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'safter you and Philip Cabot left the Gresham place?"

Rand eased the foot-pressure on the gas and spared young Jarrett aside-glance before returning his attention to the road ahead. 

"Understand, " Pierre hastened to add, "I don't believe that Stephen wasfool enough to kill Rivers over that fake North & Cheney, but weren't youproducing inferences that hadn't been abstracted from any descriptivedata?"

"Pierre, when I'm working on a case like this, any resemblance betweenmy opinions and the statements I may make is purely due to consciousconsiderations of policy, " Rand told him. "I don't want Farnsworth orMick McKenna going around bitching this operation up for me. If theyfeel justified in eliminating Gresham on the strength of that phonecall, I'm satisfied, regardless of the semantics involved. Right now, thething that's worrying me is the ease with which I seem to have talkedFarnsworth into laying off Gresham. He and Olsen both have single-trackminds. They may just dismiss that telephone alibi, such as it is, as mereerror of the mortal mind, and go right ahead building some kind of aramshackle 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 ofwhere Walters could have sold those pistols!"

"Well, if Rivers wasn't involved somehow, why was he killed?" Pierrewondered. "Hey! Maybe Walters sold the pistols to Umholtz! He's just asbig a crook as Rivers was, only not quite so smart. "

Rand nodded thoughtfully. "Maybe so. And suppose Rivers found out aboutit, and tried to declare himself in on it. That stuff would be worth atleast ten thousand; I doubt if whoever bought it paid Walters more thantwo. In the Umholtz-Rivers income bracket, the difference might be worthkilling for. "

"That's right. And Umholtz was in the infantry, in the other war; heserved 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 balanceas a 1903 Springfield. "

"Well, you know, the killer wouldn't need to have been trained to use abayonet, " Rand pointed out. "Mick McKenna made that point, thisafternoon. There have been a lot of war-movies that showed bayonetfighting; pretty nearly everybody knows about the technique that wasused. And against an unarmed and probably unsuspecting victim likeRivers, a great deal of proficiency wouldn't be needed. " He slowed thecar. "Up this road?" he asked. 

"Yes. That's my place, over there. "

Pierre pointed to a white-walled, red-roofed house that lay against ahillside, about a mile ahead, making a vivid spot in the dull grays andgreens of the early April landscape. It consisted of a square two-storyblock, 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, asRand pulled to a stop in the driveway. "I think I told you what Icollect--personal combat arms, both firearms and edge-weapons. "

They entered the front door, which opened directly into a large parlor, abrightly colored, cheerful room. A woman rose from a chair where she hadbeen reading. She was somewhere between forty-five and fifty, but herfigure was still trim, and she retained much of what, in her youth, musthave 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 asmile of real pleasure. 

"Pierre has been telling me about you, Colonel, " she said. There was afaint trace of French accent in her voice. "I suppose he brought you hereto show you his treasures?"

"Yes; I collect arms too. Pistols, " Rand said. 

She laughed. "You gun-collectors; you're like women looking at somebody'snew 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'mexpected 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 thewings of the house. 

"This is my workshop, too, " he said. "Here's where I do my writing. " Heopened a door and showed Rand into a large room. 

On one side, the wall was blank; on the other, it was pierced by twosmall casement windows. The far end was of windows for its entire width, from within three feet of the floor almost to the ceiling. There werebookcases on either long side, and on the rear end, and over them hungPierre's weapons. Rand went slowly around the room, taking everything in. Very few of the arms were of issue military type, and most of theseshowed alterations to suit individual requirements. As Pierre had toldhim the evening before, the emphasis was upon weapons which illustratedtechniques of combat. 

At the end of the room, lighted by the wide windows, was a longdesk which was really a writer's assembly line, with typewriter, reference-books, stacks of notes and manuscripts, and a big dictionaryon 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 likethat. Most of it's standardized formula-stuff; what's known to the tradeas space-operas. My best stuff goes to _Astonishing_. Parenthetically, you mustn't judge any of these magazines by their names. It seems to bea convention to use hyperbolic names for science-fiction magazines; aheritage from what might be called an earlier and ruder day. What I dofor _Astonishing_ is really hard work, and I enjoy it. I'm working now onone for them, based on J. W. Dunne's time-theories, if you know what theyare. "

"I think so, " Rand said. "Polydimensional time, isn't it? Based on aneffect Dunne observed and described--dreams obviously related to somewaking event, but preceding rather than following the event to which theyare related. I read Dunne's _Experiment with Time_ some years before thewar, and once, when I had nothing better to do, I recorded dreams forabout a month. I got a few doubtful-to-fair examples, and twounmistakable Dunne-Effect dreams. I never got anything that would helpme 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 ofhearing a radio narration of the English Derby of 1933, including theannouncement that Hyperion had won, which he did, " Pierre said. "Thedream was six hours before the race, and tallied very closely with thephraseology used by the radio narrator. Here. " He picked up a copy ofTyrrell'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 handedthe 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 anybodypassing up a chance like that to enrich himself literally smote him tothe vitals. "I see the British Society for Psychical Research checkedthat 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 thetoughest-minded gang of confirmed skeptics anywhere in Christendom. Theytake an attitude toward evidence that might be advantageously copied bymost of the district attorneys I've met, the one in this county being noexception. .. . What's this story you're working on?"

"Oh, it's based on Dunne's precognition theories, plus a few ideas of myown, plus a theory of alternate lines of time-sequence for alternateprobabilities, " Pierre said. "See, here's the situation . .. "

Half an hour later, they were still arguing about a multidimensionaluniverse when Rand remembered Dave Ritter, who should be at the RosemontInn by now. He looked at his watch, saw that it was five forty-five, andinquired about a telephone. 

"Yes, of course; out here. " Pierre took him back to the parlor, where hedialed the Inn and inquired if a Mr. Ritter, from New Belfast, wereregistered there yet. 

He was. A moment later he was speaking to Ritter. 

"Jeff, for Gawdsake, don't come here, " Ritter advised. "This place issix-deep with reporters; the bar sounds like the second act of _The FrontPage_. 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 anotherHall-Mills case! Look, meet me at that beer joint, about two miles on theNew Belfast side of Rosemont, on Route 19; the white-with-red-trimmingsplace with the big Pabst sign out in front. I'll try to get there withoutletting 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 andhis mother, and went out to his car. Trust Dave Ritter, he thought, topick 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 andshoved them under his trench coat, one on either side, pulling up thebelt to hold them in place. As he went into the roadhouse, he felt likeDamon Runyon's Twelve-Gun Tweeney. He found Ritter in the last booth, engaged in finishing a bottle of beer. Rand ordered Bourbon and plainwater, and Ritter ordered another beer. 

"I have the stuff Tip left with Kathie, " Ritter said, taking out a coupleof closely typed sheets and handing them across the table. "He said thiswas the whole business. "

Rand glanced over them. Tipton had neatly and concisely summarized theprovisions of Lane Fleming's will, and had also listed all Fleming's lifeinsurance policies, with beneficiaries, including a partnership policy onthe lives of Fleming, Dunmore, and Anton Varcek, paying each of thesurvivors $25, 000. 

"I see Gladys and Geraldine and Nelda each get a third of Fleming'sPremix stock, " Rand commented. "But before they can have the certificatestransferred to them, they have to sign over their voting-power to theboard of directors. Evidently Fleming didn't approve of the femininetouch in business. "

"Yeah, isn't that a dandy?" Ritter asked. "The directors are elected bymajority vote of the stockholders. They now have the voting-power of amajority 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 NationalMilling & Packaging. We'll have to suppose Fleming knew that; there musthave been considerable intramural acrimony on the subject while he wasstill alive. Now, since he opposed the merger, if he had intendedcommitting suicide, he would have made some other arrangement, wouldn'the? At least, one would suppose so. Well, then, " Rand asked, "why, sincehe is so worried about these suicide rumors, doesn't Goode use the oneargument which would utterly disprove them? Or is there some reasonwhy he doesn't want to call attention to the fact that Fleming's deathis what makes the merger possible?"

"Well, that would be calling attention to the fact that the merger madeFleming's death necessary, " Ritter pointed out. He poured more beer intohis glass. "While we're on it, what's the angle on this butler's liveryI was supposed to bring? I brought my tux, and I borrowed a striped vestfrom the Theatrical Property Exchange, and I brought that Dago . 380 ofyours. But what makes you think the Flemings are going to be needing anew butler? You going to poison the one they have?"

"The one they have has been exceeding his duties, " Rand said. "He wassupposed to clean the pistol-collection. Not content with that, he'sbeen cleaning it out. I know it was the butler. " He went, at length, into his reasons for thinking so, and described the _modus operandi_ ofthe thefts. "Now, all this is just theory, so far, but when I'm able toprove it, I'm going to put the arm on this Walters, if it's right in themiddle of dinner and he only has the roast half served. And I want youready to step into the vacancy thus created. I'm going to be busy as apup in a fireplug factory with this Rivers thing, and I'll need somechecking-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 laidthem on the table. "I want you to take these and show them to thisbarbecue man. Get from him a positive statement, preferably in writing, as to which, if either, he sold to Lane Fleming. You might show yourAgency card and claim to be checking up on some stolen pistols thathave been recovered. Then, if he identifies the Leech & Rigdon, take theColt and show it to Elmer Umholtz. You want to be careful how you handlehim; we may want him for puncturing Rivers, though I'm inclined to doubtthat, as of now. Get him to tell you, yes or no, whether he reblued itand replated the back-strap and trigger-guard, and if he did it forRivers; and if so, when. I know that's been done; the bluing is too darkfor a Civil War period job; the frame, which ought to be case-hardenedin colors, has been blued like the barrel and cylinder, thecylinder-engraving is almost obliterated, and you can see a few rust-pitsthat have been blued over. But I want to know if this gun was ever inRivers's shop; that's the important thing. "

"Uh-huh. Got the addresses?"

Rand furnished them, and Ritter noted them down. The waitress wanderedback to see if they wanted anything else; she gave a small squeak ofsurprise when she saw the two big six-shooters on the table. Rand andRitter repeated their orders, and when she brought back the drinks, theColt and the Leech & Rigdon were out of sight. 

"The way I see it, everybody who's within a light-year of this Riverskilling is trying to pin the medal on somebody else, " Ritter was saying. "The Lawrence girl was afraid young Jarrett had done it; right away, shesicced you onto Gillis. Gillis didn't lose any time putting McKenna andFarnsworth onto Gresham. Gresham's the only one who didn't have a patsyready; you're supposed to dig one up for him. And Jarrett, the firstchance he gets, introduces Umholtz. " He stared into his beer, as thoughhe thought Ultimate Verity might be lurking somewhere under the suds. "Doyou think it might be possible that Rivers bumped Fleming off, in spiteof his getting killed later?" he asked. 

"Anything's possible, " Rand replied, "except where some structuralcontradiction is involved, like scoring thirteen with one throw of a pairof dice. Yes, he could have. The way the Flemings leave their garage openas long as any of the cars are out, anybody could have sneaked into thehouse from the garage, and gone up from the library to the gunroom. Theonly question in my mind is whether Rivers would have known about that. That lawsuit and criminal action that Fleming was going to start--andthat's been verified from sources independent of Goode--was a good soundmotive. And say he took the Leech & Rigdon away, after leaving the Coltin Fleming's hand; selling it to some collector who'd put it in with ahundred or so other pistols would be a good way of disposing of it. And Ican 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 whokilled Rivers, and why. "

"Well, because Fleming is dead--and it doesn't matter whether he wasmurdered or died of old age--Walters starts robbing the collection. Hesells the pistols to Rivers, " Ritter reconstructed. "And, as Riversdoesn't want them around his shop till they've had time to cool off, hestores them with this Umholtz character, who seems to have been in plentyof crooked deals with Rivers in the past. The pistols are worth about tengrand, and nobody knows where they are but Rivers and Umholtz, and ifRivers drops dead all of a sudden, nobody will know where they are exceptUmholtz, and in a couple of years he can get them sold off and have themoney all to himself. "

"Yes, Dave; that's good sound murder, too. And Rivers would sit down anddrink with Umholtz, and Umholtz could take that Mauser out of the rackright in front of Rivers and Rivers wouldn't suspect a thing till it wastoo late. Of course, it depends upon two unverified assumptions: One, that the pistols were sold to Rivers, and, two, that Rivers stored themwith Umholtz. "

"And, three, that Walters stole the pistols in the first place, " Ritteradded. "You know, it's possible that somebody else in that house mighthave stolen them. "

"Yes. As I said, anything's possible, within structural limits, butpossibilities exist on different orders of probability. We can't try toconsider all the possibilities in any case, because they are indefinitelynumerous; the best we can do is screen out all the low-orderprobabilities, list the high-order probabilities, and revise our listwhen and as new data comes to light. Well, I've told you why I thinkWalters is a good suspect. From what I've seen of that household, I thinkWalters was personally loyal to Lane Fleming, and I don't believe hefeels any loyalty to anybody else there, with the exception of GladysFleming. He might keep quiet about the missing pistols if she were thethief; if Dunmore, or Varcek, or either of the girls had done thestealing, he'd tell Gladys, and she'd pass it on to me. She would beglad 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 havewanted me poking around, and wouldn't have brought me in, at least notto handle the collection. " Rand looked regretfully at his empty glass anddecided against ordering another. "Dave, I just thought of something, " hesaid. "How do you think this would work?"

He told Ritter what he had thought of. Ritter drank beer slowly andmeditatively. 

"It just might work, " he considered. "I've seen that gag work a hundredtimes: 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 withdick-practice to see what you were doing. But if it turns out thatWalters didn't sell the pistols to Rivers at all, what then?"

"Well, if he sold them to Umholtz, Pierre Jarrett's theory is still validuntil disproved, " Rand said. "And if he didn't sell them either to Riversor Umholtz, we'll have to conclude that Rivers and Fleming were killed bythe same person, the Rivers killing being a security measure. That is, unless we find that Rivers was killed by Pierre Jarrett, which is a sortof medium-high-order probability. Jarrett and the girl left Gresham'searly enough for him to have killed Rivers; they were both pretty hardhit by that twenty-five-grand blockbuster Rivers had dropped onthem. .. . Give me back that Colt, Dave. All you have to do is get anidentification on the Leech & Rigdon from the barbecue man. I'm goingto let Mick McKenna handle Umholtz, one way or another, after we'veconcluded the Walters experiment. Until then, we don't want to stirUmholtz 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; itwas Gladys herself who admitted him. 

"Stay out of there, " she warned him, taking his arm and guiding him awayfrom the parlor doorway. "Nelda and Geraldine are in there, ignoring eachother. If you go in, they'll start talking to you, and then they'll starttalking at each other through you, and the air will be full of tomahawksin 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 thestairway with her. 

"Oh, Geraldine lost Nelda's place-marker out of the Kinsey Report, orsomething. " She shrugged. "Mainly reaction to Rivers's death. That was agreat blow to all of us; twenty-five thousand dollars' worth of blow. Itwas a blow to me, too, but I'm not letting it throw me. .. . What were youdoing all afternoon?"

"Trying to keep the rest of our prospects out of jail. Thissixteenth-witted District Attorney you have in this county had the ideahe could charge Stephen Gresham with the killing. I had a time talkinghim out of it, and I'm still not sure how far I succeeded. And I wastrying to get a line on where those pistols got to. "

"Ssssh!" They reached the top of the stairs, and Rand saw Waltersapproaching down the hall. "It was Colonel Rand, Walters; I let him inmyself. Are Mr. Varcek and Mr. Dunmore here, yet?"

"Mr. Dunmore is in the library, ma'am, and Mr. Varcek is upstairs, in hislaboratory. Dinner will be ready in three-quarters of an hour. "

"Have you mixed the cocktails? You'd better do that. Serve them in abouttwenty minutes. And you'd better go up and warn Mr. Varcek not to becomeinvolved in anything messy before dinner. "

Walters yes-ma'am'd her and started toward the attic stairway. Rand andGladys went into the gunroom; Rand turned to the left, picked a pistolfrom the wall, and carried it with him as he guided Gladys toward thedesk 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 countingon you to get them back with as little fuss as possible. Do you thinkthat was why Rivers was killed? After all, when a lot of valuable pistolsdisappear, and a crooked dealer is murdered, I'd expect there to be aconnection. "

"There could be. Did you ever hear any stories about Mrs. Rivers and thisyoung fellow Gillis who works in Rivers's shop?"

Gladys laughed. "Is that rearing its ugly head in public, now?" sheasked. "Well, there's nothing like a good murder to shake the skeletonsout of the closets. Not that this particular skeleton was ever exactlyhidden. The stories are numerous, and somewhat repetitious; Cecil andMrs. Rivers would be seen together, at roadhouses and so on, at what theyimagined was a safe distance from Rosemont, and it was said that whenRivers was away over night, Cecil was never seen to leave the Riversplace 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 onthe head of the spiral stairway. "Don't mention outside what I told youabout Farnsworth having this brainstorm about Stephen Gresham. If it gotout, it might hurt Gresham professionally. The fact is, Gresham has justretained me to investigate the Rivers murder for him. That won'tinterfere 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 theRivers operation. " He broke off abruptly, catching a movement at the headof the spiral, and lifted the pistol in his hand, as though showing it toGladys. "See, " he went on, "it has two hammers and two nipples, but onlyone barrel. It was loaded with two charges, one on top of the other; thebullet of the rear charge acted as the breech-plug for the frontcharge. .. . Oh, Walters!" He affected to catch sight of the butler for thefirst time. "Bring me that . 36 Walch revolver, will you?"

"Yes, sir. " Walters, crossing the room, veered to the right and wentto the middle wall, bringing a revolver over to the desk. It was apercussion weapon with an abnormally long cylinder. "The cocktails areserved, " he announced. 

"We'll be down in a moment; you can put these back where they belong whenyou find time, " Rand told him. "Now, here, " he said to Gladys. "This isthe same idea, in a revolver. Six chambers, two charges in each. Intheory, it was a good idea, but in actual practice . .. "

Walters went out the hall door, presumably to call Varcek. Rand continuedtalking about the superposed-load principle, as used in the Lindsaypistol and the Walch revolver, until he was sure the butler was outof hearing. Gladys was looking at him in appreciative if slightlypunch-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 eventualextinction, " Rand told her. "It pretty nearly has to be somebody insidethis house. I don't think anybody else here, yourself included, wouldknow enough about arms to rob this collection as selectively as it hasbeen robbed. Did you see what just happened, here? I asked him for one ofthe most uncommon arms here, and he went straight and got it. He knowsthis collection as well as your husband did, and I assume he knows valuesalmost as well. .. . And, of course, there was a musket, too; Mr. Flemingdidn't collect long-arms, or he'd have had one. It embodied the sameprinciple as the pistol. The legend is that this man Lindsay's brotherwas a soldier; he was supposed to have been killed by Indians who drewthe fire of the detail he was with and then charged them when theirmuskets were empty. " Rand shrugged. "Actually, the superposed-loadprinciple is ancient; there's a sixteenth-century wheel lock pistol inthe Metropolitan Museum, in New York, firing two shots from the samebarrel. "

Varcek and the butler, who had entered by the hall door, went across thegunroom and down the spiral. Rand laid down the pistol and escortedGladys 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 wasstill radiating his synthetic cheerfulness. 

"Get many of the pistols listed, Colonel?" he hailed Rand, with jovialcondescension. 

"No. " Rand poured two cocktails, handing one to Gladys. "I went to ArnoldRivers's place this morning, on a little unfinished business, and damnnear tripped over Rivers's corpse. I spent the rest of the day gettingmyself disinvolved from the ensuing uproar, " he told Dunmore. "You heardabout it, of course. "

"Yes, of course. Horrible business. I hope you didn't get mixed up in itany more than you had to. After all, you're working for us, and if thepolice knew that, we'd be bothered, too. .. . Look here, you don't thinksome of these other people who were after the collection might havekilled 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! Maybethey 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 knowenough 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 mostpart, they talked about the remaining chances of selling the collection, about which nobody was optimistic. Rand tried to build up morale withpictures of large museums and important dealers, all fairly slavering toget their fangs into the Fleming collection, but to little avail. A pallof gloom had settled, and he was forced to concede that he had at lastfound somebody who had a valid reason to mourn the sudden and violent endof 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 getover-all and barrel lengths, and used a pair of inside calipers and adecimal-inch rule from the workbench to get calibers. Sticking a sheet ofpaper into the portable, he began on the wheel locks, leaving spaces toinsert the description of the stolen pistols, when recovered. When he hadfinished the wheel locks, he began on the snaphaunces, then did themiguelet-locks. He had begun on the true flintlocks when Walters, who hadfinished his own dinner, came up to help him. Rand put the butler to workfetching pistols from the racks, and replacing those he had alreadylisted. 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 Icalled at his shop this morning. I found him lying dead inside. " He wenton to describe the manner in which Rivers had met his death. "The radioand newspaper accounts were accurate enough, in the main; there were afew details omitted, at the request of the police, of course. "

"Well, you didn't get involved in it, though?" Dunmore inquiredanxiously. "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 matterof Rivers's offer to buy this collection with anybody outside, " Rand toldhim. "So far, the police and the District Attorney's office both seem tothink that Rivers was killed by somebody whom he'd swindled in a businessdeal. Of course, they know about the collection being for sale, andRivers'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, thismorning, " Rand replied. "I don't know if the idea has occurred to themthat somebody might have killed Rivers to eliminate a rival bidder forthe collection or not; I wouldn't say anything, if I were you, that mightgive 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?" Hehanded 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-shopgirl demanded of him:

"Colonel Rand, you must tell me the truth. Did you have anything to dowith Pierre Jarrett's being arrested?"

"_What?_" Rand barked. Then he softened his voice. "No; on my honor, MissLawrence. 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, " shereplied. "He and another State Policeman came to the Jarrett house abouthalf an hour ago, charged Pierre with the murder of Arnold Rivers, andtook him away. His mother phoned me about it a few minutes ago. "

"That God-damned two-faced Jesuitical bastard!" Rand exploded. "Where areyou now?"

"Here at my shop. Mrs. Jarrett is coming here. She's afraid the reporterswill be coming out to the house as soon as they hear about it, and shedoesn't want to talk to them. "

"All right. I'll be there as soon as I can. If there's anything I can doto 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 somethingto 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 beencompetition for the collection. Next thing, Farnsworth will think he hasa case against Carl Gwinnett, and he'll land in the jug, too. I hope yourealize that every time something like this happens, it peels a thousandor so off the price I'll be able to get for you people for thesepistols. "

Dunmore didn't try to ask how that would happen, for which Rand was dulythankful; he accepted the statement uncritically. Walters was staring atRand in horror, saying nothing. Rand picked up the outside phone anddialed the same number he had called from the Rivers place that morning. 

"Is Sergeant McKenna about?. .. He is? Fine; I'd like to speak tohim. .. . 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 wereat Gresham's, last evening, and they all agreed that young Jarrett andthe Lawrence girl had left the party about ten. So I had a talk with MissLawrence, and she tried to tell me that Jarrett was with her at herapartment, over the antique shop, from about ten fifteen until abouttwelve, when another girl she rooms with got home from a date. I'd oftook that, too, only right across the street from the antique shop thereis one of these old hens like you find in every neighborhood, the kindthat keeps their nose flattened on the window between the curtains, checking up on the neighbors. I spotted her when I came out of theantique shop, so I slipped around to see her, and she told me that youngJarrett went into the apartment with the girl at about quarter past ten, stayed inside for about twenty minutes, then came out and drove away. Shesays Jarrett came back in about half an hour, and stayed till this girlwho shares the Lawrence girl's apartment--a Miss Dupont, who teachessixth grade at Thaddeus Stevens School--got home, about twelve. So thereyou are. "

"Uh-huh. Dave Ritter said this was going to turn into another Hall-Millscase; well, now you have your Pig Woman, " Rand said. "Miss Lawrenceshouldn't have lied to you, Mick. I suppose she got worried when youstarted asking questions, and there's nothing like a good murder in theneighborhood to make liars out of people. "

"And damn well I know that!" McKenna agreed. "But that isn't all. Itseems our cruise-car crew spotted Jarrett's car standing in Rivers'sdrive, about eleven. Just when he was away from the antique-shop, andabout when the M. E. Figures Rivers was getting the business. "

"Did they get the number?" Rand asked. "Or how did they identify thecar?"

"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, differenttimes, " McKenna said. "A gray 1947 Plymouth coupé. Like I say, they knewthe car, and they knew Jarrett collects guns, and the lights were oninside the shop and the shades were drawn, so they didn't think anythingof it, at the time. See, they went to bed about ten this morning, anddidn't get up till after five, so I didn't find out about it till aftersupper. "

Rand shrugged, and managed to get some of the shrug into his voice. "Canbe, at that, " he said. "I hope you're not making a mistake, Mick; if youare, 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. Theyall told me about that, " McKenna said. "And he and the girl were planningto use their end of the collection to go into the arms business, afterthey got married. Rivers got in the way. " McKenna, at the other end ofthe line, must have shrugged, too. "After all, for about four years, they'd been training Jarrett to overcome resistance with the bayonet, sohe did just that. "

"Maybe so. You find out anything about that other matter I was interestedin?"

"You mean the pistols? Huh-unh; we went over Rivers's place with afine-tooth comb, and questioned young Gillis about it, and we didn't geta 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 withyou. "

"Sure. I'll be around all evening, " McKenna assured him. "If we don'thave another murder. "

Rand hung up. He pulled the sheet out of the typewriter, laid itface down on the other sheets he had finished, and laid a longseventeenth-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 severalhe had laid aside after listing. "Leave the others there; I'm notfinished with them yet. I'll be back before too long. If I don't find anymore bodies. "

CHAPTER 16

It was raining again as Rand parked his car about a hundred yards up thestreet from Karen Lawrence's antique-shop. The windows were dark, butKaren was waiting inside the door for him. He entered quickly, mindful ofthe All-Seeing Eye across the street, and followed her to a back room, where Mrs. Jarrett and Dorothy Gresham were. All three women regarded himintently, as though trying to decide whether he was friend or enemy. There was a long silence before Mrs. Jarrett spoke, and when she did, herwords were almost the same as Karen's when she had spoken over the phone. 

"Colonel Rand, " she began, obviously struggling with herself, "you musttell me the truth. Did you have anything to do with my son's beingarrested?"

Rand shook his head. "Absolutely nothing, Mrs. Jarrett, " he told her, unbuckling the belt of his raincoat and taking it off. "I have neverseriously suspected your son of the Rivers murder, I had no idea thatMcKenna was contemplating arresting him, and if I had, I would haveadvised 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 todo. " He turned to Karen Lawrence. "I talked to McKenna after you calledme; 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 Jeffwouldn't stoop to anything as contemptible as pretending to be Pierre'sfriend and then getting him arrested!"

Rand permitted himself a wry inward smile. He hoped she would not have anopportunity to observe his stooping capabilities before he had finishedhis 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 havebetrayed him. Are you working on the Rivers case, too?"

Rand nodded again, turning to Dot Gresham. "Your father retained me tomake an investigation, " he said. "After that trouble he had with Riversabout that spurious North & Cheney, he wanted the murderer caught beforesomebody 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 andMrs. Jarrett. Getting ready to toss Pierre to the wolves if her fatherwere in danger, Rand suspected. He hastened to reassure her. 

"Rivers was still alive when your father reached home, last evening, " hetold her. "That's been established. "

She breathed her obvious relief. If Gresham had left home after Rand'sdeparture 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 ahat. 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 alittle 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 wasseen parked in Rivers's drive about the time Pierre was away from here. "

Mrs. Jarrett moaned softly; her face, already haggard, became positivelyghastly. Karen gasped in fright. 

"They only identified it as to model and make; they didn't get thelicense number . .. Where did Pierre go, while he was away from here?"

"He went out for cigarettes, " Karen said. "When we came here fromGreshams', we made some coffee, and then sat and talked for a while, andthen we found out that we were both out of cigarettes and there weren'tany here. So Pierre said he'd go out and get some. He was gone about halfan hour; when he came back, he had a carton, and some hot porksandwiches. He'd gotten them at the same place as the cigarettes--ArtIgoe's lunch-stand. "

"Could Igoe verify that?"

"It wouldn't help if he did. Igoe's place isn't a five-minute drive fromRivers'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 criminallawyer--"

"Carter Tipton, in New Belfast, " Rand told them. "He's my lawyer; he'sgotten me out of more jams than you could shake a stick at. Where's thetelephone? I'll call him now. "

"You think he'd defend Pierre?"

"Unless I'm badly mistaken, Pierre isn't going to need any trialdefense, " Rand told them. "He will need somebody to look after hisinterests, 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 saywhere Carter Tipton would be at the moment; his manservant would probablyknow. Karen showed him the phone and he started to put through aperson-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 werein, but Rand left the garage doors open. He also left his hat and coat inthe car. 

After locating and talking to Tipton and arranging for him to meet DaveRitter 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 totell the State Police sergeant a number of things he had intended keepingto himself. When he was through, McKenna went so far as to admit that hehad been a trifle hasty in arresting Pierre Jarrett. Rand suspected thathe was mentally kicking himself with hobnailed boots for his prematureact. He also submitted, for McKenna's approval, the scheme he hadoutlined to Dave Ritter, and obtained a promise of cooperation. 

When he entered the Fleming library, en route to the gunroom, he foundthe entire family assembled there; with them was Humphrey Goode. As hecame in, they broke off what had evidently been an acrimonious disputeand gave him their undivided attention. Geraldine, relaxed in a chair, was smoking; for once, she didn't have a glass in her hand. Gladysoccupied another chair; she was smoking, too. Nelda had been pacing backand 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 ofbeef. Goode and Dunmore sat together on the sofa, forming what lookedlike a bilateral offensive and defensive alliance, and Varcek, lookingmore than ever like Rudolf Hess, stood with folded arms in one corner. 

"Now, see here, Rand, " Dunmore began, as soon as the detective was insidethe room, "we want to know just exactly for whom you're working, aroundhere. And I demand to know where you've been since you left here thisevening. "

"And I, " Goode piped up, "must protest most strongly against yourinvolvement in this local murder case. I am informed that, while in theemploy of this family, you accepted a retainer from another party toinvestigate the death of Arnold Rivers. "

"That's correct, " Rand informed him. Then he turned to Gladys. "Just forthe record, Mrs. Fleming, do you recall any stipulation to the effectthat the business of handling this pistol-collection should have theexclusive attention of my agency? I certainly don't recall anything ofthe sort. "

"No, of course not, " she replied. "As long as the collection is sold tothe best advantage, I haven't any interest in any other business of youragency, and have no right to have. " She turned to the others. "I thoughtI 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 havea right to know what's being done. "

"As far as the collection's concerned, yes. As for the Rivers murder, ormy armored-car service, or any other business of the Tri-State Agency, no. "

"Well, you made use of my authorization to get that revolver fromKirchner--" 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 noobjection to his giving me that revolver. What changed your mind foryou? Didn't you know that Rivers was dead, then?" Rand watched Goodetrying to assimilate that. "Or didn't you think I knew?"

Goode cleared his throat noisily, twisting his mouth. The others werelooking back and forth from him to Rand, in obvious bewilderment; theyrealized that Rand had pulled some kind of a rabbit out of a hat, butthey couldn't understand how he'd done it. 

"What I mean is that since then you have allowed yourself to becomeinvolved in this murder case. You have let it be publicly known that youare a private detective, working for the Fleming family, " Goode orated. "How long, then, will it be before it will be said, by all sorts ofirresponsible persons, that you are also investigating the death of LaneFleming?"

"Well?" Rand asked patiently. "Are you afraid people will start callingthat a murder, too?"

Gladys was looking at him apprehensively, as though she were watching himjuggle 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, theywill. "

"You know perfectly well, " Goode exploded, "that I am alluding to theseunfounded and mischievous rumors of suicide, which are doing the PremixCompany so much harm. My God, Mr. Rand, can't you realize--"

"Oh, come off it, Goode, " Varcek broke in amusedly. "We all--Colonel Randincluded--know that you started those rumors yourself. Very clever--tostart a rumor by denying it. But scarcely original. Doctor Goebbels wasdoing it almost twenty years ago. "

"My God, is that true?" Nelda demanded. "You mean, he's been going aroundstarting all these stories about Father committing suicide?" She turnedon 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 explainedto her. "He's buying every share he can get his hands on. We all are. " Heturned to Rand. "I'd advise you to buy some, if you can find any, ColonelRand. 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 sureof what Goode's been doing?"

"Of course, " Gladys put in contemptuously. "I always wondered about thissuicide talk; I couldn't see why Humphrey was so perturbed about it. Anything that lowered the market price of Premix, at this time, would beto his advantage. " She looked at Goode as though he had six legs and ahard shell. "You know, Humphrey, I can't say I exactly thank you forthis. "

"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 thatmightn't be what Rivers died of? Raising the price and leaving Fred outin the cold!"

Dunmore simply stared at her, making a noise like a chicken choking ona 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 spiralstairway 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 thebedlam below; sometimes it would be Fred Dunmore, roaring like a bull. Now and then, Humphrey Goode would rumble something, and, once in awhile, he could hear Gladys's trained and modulated voice. Usually, anyremark she made would be followed by outraged shouts from Goode andDunmore, like the crash of falling masonry after the whip-crack of atank-gun. 

At first Rand eavesdropped shamelessly, but there was nothing of morethan comic interest; it was just a routine parade and guard-mount of theolder and more dependable family skeletons, with special emphasis onHumphrey Goode's business and professional ethics. When he was satisfiedthat he would hear nothing having any bearing on the death of LaneFleming, Rand went back to his work. 

After a while, the tumult gradually died out. Rand was still typing whenGladys came up the spiral and perched on the corner of the desk, pickingup a long brass-barreled English flintlock and hefting it. 

"You know, I sometimes wonder why we don't all come up here, break outthe ammunition, pick our weapons, and settle things, " she said. "It neverwas like this when Lane was around. Oh, Nelda and Geraldine would baretheir teeth at each other, once in a while, but now this place has turnedinto a miniature Iwo Jima. I don't know how much longer I'm going to beable 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 asthey live, " she replied. "Terms of the will. Oh, well, Geraldine'lldrink herself to death in a few years, and Nelda will elope with aprize-fighter, sometime. "

"Why don't you have the house haunted? The Tri-State Agency has anexcellent 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 priceof two. "

"It wouldn't work. Geraldine is so used to polka-dotted dinosaurs andLittle Green Men from Mars that she wouldn't mind an ordinary ghost, andNelda'd probably try to drag it into bed with her. " She laid down thepistol and slid off the desk. "Well, pleasant dreams; I'll see you in themorning. "

After she had left the gunroom, Rand looked at his watch. It was avery precise instrument; a Swiss military watch, with a sweep secondhand, and two timing dials. It had formerly been the property of an_Obergruppenführer_ of the S. S. , and Rand had appropriated it toreplace his own, broken while choking the _Obergruppenführer_ to deathin an alley in Palermo. He zeroed the timing dials and pressed thestart-button. Then he stood for a time over the old cobbler's bench, mentally reconstructing what had been done after Lane Fleming hadbeen shot, after which he hurried down the spiral and along the rear hallto the garage, where he snatched his hat and coat from the car. He threwthe coat over his shoulders like a cloak, and went on outside. He madehis way across the lawn to the orchard, through the orchard to the lawnof Humphrey Goode's house, and across this to Goode's side door. He stoodthere for a few seconds, imagining himself opening the door and goinginside. Then he stopped the timing hands and returned to the Fleminghouse, locking the garage doors behind him. In the garage, he looked atthe watch. 

It had taken exactly six minutes and twenty-two seconds. He knew that hecould move more rapidly than the dumpy lawyer, but to balance that, hehad been moving over more or less unfamiliar ground. He left his hat andtrench coat in the car and went upstairs. 

Undressing, he went into the bathroom in his dressing-gown, spent abouttwenty minutes shaving and taking a shower, and then returned to his ownroom. 

CHAPTER 17

When he rose, the next morning, Rand noticed something which had escapedhis eye when he had gone to bed the night before. His . 38-special, in itsshoulder-holster, was lying on the dresser; he had not bothered puttingit on when he had gone to see Rivers the morning before, and it had lainthere all the previous day. He distinctly remembered having moved it, shortly after dinner, when he had gone to his room for some notes he hadmade on the collection. 

However, between that time and the present it had managed to flop itselfover; the holster was now lying back-up. Intrigued by such a remarkableaccomplishment in an inanimate object, Rand crossed the room in thedress-of-nature in which he slept and looked more closely at it, receiving a second and considerably more severe surprise. The revolverin the holster was not his own. 

It was, to be sure, a . 38 Colt Detective Special, and it was in hisholster, but it was not the Detective Special he had brought with himfrom New Belfast. His own gun was of the second type, with the cornersrounded off the grip; this one was of the original issue, with the squarePolice Positive grip. His own gun had seen hard service; this one was inpractically new condition. There was a discrepancy of about thirtythousand in the serial numbers. His gun had been loaded in six chamberswith the standard 158-grain loads; this one was loaded in only five, with148-grain mid-range wad-cutter loads. 

Rand stood for some time looking at the revolver. The worst of it wasthat he couldn't be exactly sure when the substitution had been made. Itmight have happened at any time between eight o'clock and twelve, when hehad gone to bed. He rather suspected that it had been accomplished whilehe had been in the bathroom, however. 

Dumping out the five rounds in the cylinder, he inspected the changelingcarefully. It was, he thought, the revolver Lane Fleming had kept in thedrawer of the gunroom desk. There was no obstruction in the two-inchbarrel, the weapon had not been either fired or cleaned recently, thefiring-pin had not been shortened, the mainspring showed the properamount of tension, and the mechanism functioned as it should. There was achance that somebody had made up five special hand-loads for him, usingnitroglycerin instead of powder, but that didn't seem likely, as it wouldnot necessitate a switch of revolvers. There were four or five otherpossibilities, all of them disquieting; he would have been a great dealless alarmed if somebody had taken a shot at him. 

Getting a box of cartridges out of his Gladstone, he filled thecylinder with 158-grain loads. When he went to the bathroom, he tookthe revolver in his dressing-gown pocket; when he dressed, he put onthe shoulder-holster, and pocketed a handful of spare rounds. 

Anton Varcek was loitering in the hall when he came out; he gave Randgood-morning, and fell into step with him as they went toward thestairway. 

"Colonel Rand, I wish you wouldn't mention this to anybody, but I wouldlike a private talk with you, " the Czech said. "After Fred Dunmore hasleft for the plant. Would that be possible?"

"Yes, Mr. Varcek; I'll be in the gunroom all morning, working. " Theyreached the bottom of the stairway, where Gladys was waiting. "Understand, " Rand continued, "I never really studied biology. I wasexposed to it, in school, but at that time I was preoccupied with theso-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, Ibelieve 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, eatingin silence. Both of them seemed self-conscious, after the pitched battleof the evening before. Rand broke the tension by offering Humphrey Goodein the role of whipping-boy; he had no sooner made a remark in derogationof the lawyer than Nelda and her husband broke into a duet ofvituperation. In the end, everybody affected to agree that the wholeunpleasant scene had been entirely Goode's fault, and a pleasant spiritof 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 savegas and both use my car. Coming, Anton?"

"I'm sorry, Fred; I can't leave, yet. I have some notes upstairs I haveto get in order. I was working on this new egg-powder, last evening, andI want to continue the experiments at the plant laboratory. I think Iknow how we'll be able to cut production costs on it, about five percent. "

"And boy, can we stand that!" Dunmore grunted. "Well, be seeing you atthe plant. "

Rand waited until Dunmore had left, then went across to the library andup to the gunroom. As soon as he entered the room above, he saw what waswrong. The previous thefts had been masked by substitutions, but whoeverhad helped himself to one of the more recent metallic-cartridgespecimens, the night before, hadn't bothered with any such precaution, and a pair of vacant screwhooks disclosed the removal. A second look toldRand what had been taken: the little . 25 Webley & Scott from the Pollardcollection, 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 inmind--noiseless and stealthy murder. Very probably with one ColonelJefferson Davis Rand in mind as the prospective corpse. 

He sat down at the desk and started typing, at the same time trying tokeep the hall door and the head of the spiral stairway under observation. It was an attempt which was responsible for quite a number oftypographical 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 aremark you made, last evening. Were you serious when you alluded to thepossibility that Lane Fleming had been murdered?"

"Well, the idea had occurred to me, " Rand understated, keeping his righthand close to his left coat lapel. "I take it you have begun to doubtthat it was an accident?"

"I would doubt a theory that a skilled chemist would accidentally poisonhimself in his own laboratory, " Varcek replied. "I would not, forinstance, pour myself a drink from a bottle labeled HNO_3 in the beliefthat it contained vodka. I believe that Lane Fleming should be creditedwith equal caution about firearms. "

"Yet you were the first to advance the theory that the shooting had beenan accident, " Rand pointed out. 

"I have a strong dislike for firearms. " Varcek looked at the pistols onthe desk as though they were so many rattlesnakes. "I have always fearedan accident, with so many in the house. When I saw him lying dead, with arevolver in his hand, that was my first thought. First thoughts are sooften illogical, emotional. "

"And you didn't consider the possibility of suicide?"

"No! Absolutely not!" The Czech was emphatic. "The idea never occurred tome, then or since. Lane Fleming was not the man to do that. He was deeplyreligious, much interested in church work. And, aside from that, he hadno reason to wish to die. His health was excellent; much better than thatof many men twenty years his junior. He had no business worries. Thecompany is doing well, we had large Government contracts during the warand no reconversion problems afterward, we now have more orders than wehave plant capacity to fill, and Mr. Fleming was consulting witharchitects about plant expansion. We have been spared any serious labortroubles. And Mr. Fleming's wife was devoted to him, and he to her. Hehad no family troubles. "

Rand raised an eyebrow over that last. "No?" he inquired. 

Varcek flushed. "Please, Colonel Rand, you must not judge by what youhave seen since you came here. When Lane Fleming was alive, such scenesas 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 orinadvertently, there remains the alternative that he was shot by somebodyelse, either deliberately or, very improbably, by inadvertence, " Randsaid. "I think the latter can be safely disregarded. Let's agree that itwas 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 himwearily. "I am curious about who killed Fleming, of course; for my ownprotection I like to know the background of situations in which I aminvolved. But do you think Humphrey Goode would bring me here to stir upa 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 aprearranged 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 aspossible, " Rand said. "To reopen the question of her husband's death andstart a murder investigation wouldn't exactly expedite things. I'm just amore or less innocent bystander, who wants to know whether there is goingto be any trouble or not. .. . Now, you came here to tell me what happenedon the night of Lane Fleming's death, didn't you?"

"Yes. We had finished dinner at about seven, " Varcek said. "Lane had beenup here for about an hour before dinner, working on his new revolver; hecame back here immediately after he was through eating. A little later, when I had finished my coffee, I came upstairs, by the main stairway. Thedoor of this room was open, and Lane was inside, sitting on that oldshoemaker's-bench, working on the revolver. He had it apart, and he wascleaning a part of it. The round part, where the loads go; the drum, isit?"

"Cylinder. How was he cleaning it?" Rand asked. 

"He was using a small brush, like a test-tube brush; he was scrubbing outthe holes. The chambers. He was using a solvent that smelled somethinglike banana-oil. "

Rand nodded. He could visualize the progress Fleming had made. If Varcekwas telling the truth, and he remembered what Walters had told him, thelast flicker of possibility that Lane Fleming's death had been accidentalvanished. 

"I talked with him for some ten minutes or so, " Varcek continued, "aboutsome technical problems at the plant. All the while, he kept on workingon this revolver, and finished cleaning out the cylinder, and also thebarrel. He was beginning to put the revolver together when I left him andwent up to my laboratory. 

"About fifteen minutes later I heard the shot. For a moment, I debatedwith 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 beenheating it, and take the temperature of it, and then wash my hands, because I had been working with poisonous materials. I should say allthis took me about five minutes. 

"When I got down here, the door of this room was closed and locked. Thatwas most unusual, and I became really worried. I pounded on the door, andcalled out, but I got no answer. Then Fred Dunmore came out of thebathroom attached to his room, with nothing on but a bathrobe. His hairwas 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 heardfrom Gladys and from Walters. Everybody's story tallied, where it couldbe checked up on. 

"You think the murderer locked the door behind him, when he came out ofhere?" Varcek asked. 

"I think somebody locked the door, sometime. It might have been themurderer, or it might have been Fleming at the murderer's suggestion. Butwhy couldn't the murderer have left the gunroom by that stairway?"

Varcek looked around furtively and lowered his voice. Now he looked likeRudolf Hess discussing what to do about Ernst Roehm. 

"Colonel Rand; don't you think that Fred Dunmore could have shot LaneFleming, and then have gone to his room and waited until I camedownstairs?" he asked. 

Here we go again! Rand thought. Just like the Rivers case; everybodyputting 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, leaveit in Fleming's hand, put that oily rag in his other hand, set thedeadlatch, cross the hall, undress, get into the bathtub and startbathing. That's pretty fast work. "

"But who else could have done it?"

"Well, you, for one. You could have come down from your lab, shotFleming, faked the suicide, and then gone out, locking the door behindyou, and made a demonstration in the hall until you were joined byDunmore and the ladies. Then, with your innocence well established, youcould have waited until your wife prompted you, as she or somebody elsewas 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 yourtheory about Dunmore. "

Varcek agreed sadly. "And I cannot prove otherwise, can I?"

"You can advance your Dunmore theory to establish reasonable doubt, " Randtold him. "And if Dunmore's accused, he can do the same with the theoryI've just outlined. And as long as reasonable doubt exists, neither ofyou 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 beennegotiated while Fleming lived. One or the other of you may be guilty; onthe other hand, both of you may be innocent. "

"Then who. .. ?" Varcek had evidently bet his roll on Dunmore. "There is noone else who could have done it. "

"The garage doors were open, if I recall, " Rand pointed out. "Anybodycould have slipped in that way, come through the rear hall to the libraryand up the spiral, and have gone out the same way. Some of the FrenchMaquis I worked with, during the war, could have wiped out the wholefamily, one after the other, that way. "

A look of intense concentration settled upon Varcek's face. He noddedseveral times. 

"Yes. Of course, " he said, his thought-chain complete. "And you spoke ofmotive. From what you must have heard, last evening, Humphrey Goode wasno less interested in the merger than Fred Dunmore or myself. And thenthere is your friend Gresham; he is quite familiar with the interior ofthis house, and who knows what terms National Milling & Packaging mayhave made with him, contingent upon his success in negotiating themerger?"

"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 usjust 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 situationhere seems to be very delicate, and rather explosive. .. . Oh, as you goout, I'd be obliged to you for sending Walters up here. I still have thiswork here, and I'll need his help. "

After Varcek had left him, Rand looked in the desk drawer, verifying hisassumption that the . 38 he had seen there was gone. He wondered where hisown 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. Allthe 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 apeak-crowned gray felt hat between the spindles of the railing. He easedthe 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 materializedin Rand's hand, and at the two men who were emerging from the spiral. Hewas even more startled, it seemed, when he realized that they wore theuniform 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, wonderingif 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, apolice-officer doesn't have to recite any incantation before he makes anarrest, any more than he needs to read any Riot Act before he can startshooting, but it won't hurt to warn you that anything you say can be usedagainst you. "

"At least, I must insist upon knowing why I am being arrested, " Walterssaid icily. 

"Oh! Don't you know?" McKenna asked. "Why, you're being arrested for themurder of Arnold Rivers. "

For a moment the butler retained his professional glacial disdain, andthen the bottom seemed to drop suddenly out of him. Rand suppressed asmile at this minor verification of his theory. Walters had beenexpecting to be accused of larceny, and was prepared to treat the chargewith contempt. Then he had realized, after a second or so, what the StatePolice sergeant had really said. 

"Good God, gentlemen!" He looked from Mick McKenna to Corporal Kavaalento 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 pistolsfrom this collection, after Mr. Fleming died, and sold them to ArnoldRivers. Then, when I came here and started checking up on thecollection, you knew the game was up. So, last evening, you took out thestation-wagon and went to see Rivers, and you killed him to keep him fromturning state's evidence and incriminating you. Or maybe you killed himin a quarrel over the division of the loot. I hope, for your sake, thatit 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 forthe electric chair. "

"But . .. But I didn't kill Mr. Rivers, " Walters stammered. "I barely knewthe 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, andgot a like number of junk pistols from him, for replacements. " He tookthe list Pierre Jarrett and Stephen Gresham had compiled out of hispocket and began reading: "Italian wheel lock pistol, late sixteenth- orearly seventeenth-century; pair Italian snaphaunce pistols, by LazarinoCominazo. .. . " He finished the list and put it away. "I think we've missedone or two, but that'll do, for the time. "

"But I didn't sell those pistols to Mr. Rivers, " Walters expostulated. "Isold them to Mr. Carl Gwinnett. I can prove it!"

That Rand had not expected. "Go on!" he jeered. "I suppose you havereceipts 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 youget a search warrant, and show you where he has them hidden in thegarret. He was afraid to offer them for sale until after this collectionhad 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 sellRivers the pistols, but maybe he did kill him. "

"Dope!" McKenna abused his subordinate. "If he didn't sell Rivers thepistols, why would he kill him?"

"He's only said he sold them to Gwinnett, " Rand pointed out. Then heturned to Walters. "Look here; if we find those pistols in Gwinnett'spossession, you're clear on this murder charge. There's still a slightmatter of larceny, but that doesn't involve the electric chair. You takemy advice and make a confession now, and then accompany these officers toGwinnett's place and show them the pistols. If you do that, you mayexpect clemency on the theft charge, too. "

"Oh, I will, sir! I'll sign a full confession, and take thesepolice-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 Jarretthad found missing, and a cased presentation pair of . 44 Colt 1860's thatnobody had missed. He signed the triplicate copies willingly; he didn'tseem to mind signing himself into jail, as long as he thought he wassigning himself out of the electric chair. 

The book in which Fleming had recorded his pistols he still had; he hadremoved it from the gunroom and was keeping it in his room. He said hewould get it, along with the things he would need to take to jail withhim. When it was finished, they all went down the spiral stairway intothe library. 

Nelda was standing at the foot of it. Evidently she had been listening towhat had been going on upstairs. 

"You dirty sneak!" she yelled, catching sight of Walters. "After allwe've done for you, you turn around and rob us! I hope they give youtwenty years!"

Walters turned to McKenna. "Sergeant, I am willing to accept the penaltyof the law for what I have done, but I don't believe, sir, that itincludes being yapped at by this vulgar bitch. "

Nelda let out an inarticulate howl of fury and sprang at him, nailsraking. Corporal Kavaalen caught her wrist before she could claw theprisoner. 

"That's enough, you!" he told her. "You stop that, or you'll spend anight in jail yourself. "

She jerked her arm loose from his grasp and flung out of the library. Asshe 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 hecame across. Sold the pistols to Carl Gwinnett. We're going, now, to pickup Gwinnett and the pistols. "

"I'm glad you found the pistols, " she told him. "But what're we going todo, over the week-end, for a butler. .. . "

Rand snapped his fingers. "Dammit, I never thought of that!" He allowedhis brow to furrow with thought. "I won't promise anything, but I may beable to dig up somebody for you, for a day or so. Some of my friends arevisiting their son, in a Naval hospital on the West Coast, and theirbutler may be glad for a chance to pick up a little extra money. ShallI 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 StatePolice car ahead. Rand, who had come away from the Fleming home in thewhite car, had called Ritter from the office of the Justice of the Peacewhile waiting for Walters to put up bail, after his hearing. Now, enroute to Gwinnett's, he was briefing his assistant on what had happened. 

"So everything's set, " he concluded. "Mrs. Fleming jumped at it; sheknows you're coming in your own car, which you may keep in the garagethere. 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 onthat in case I suffer a _lapsus linguæ_ and call you Dave in front ofsomebody. "

"Yeah. I'll have to watch and not call you Jeff, Colonel Rand, sir. " Henodded toward the glove-box. "That Leech & Rigdon's in there; you'dbetter get it out before I go to the Flemings'. The guy at the drive-inmade a positive identification; it's the one he sold Fleming. I saw therest of the pistols he has there; don't waste time looking him up aboutthem. They stink. And I saw Tip this morning. He got young Jarrett sprungon a writ. " He thought for a moment. "What does this do to the Rivers andFleming murders?"

"We can look for one man for both jobs, now, " Rand said. "Probably themotive for Fleming was that merger he was so violently opposed to, andthe 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 framehouse with faded and discolored paint and jigsaw scrollwork around thecornices, standing among a clump of trees beside the road. McKenna andKavaalen got out, with Walters between them, and started up the path tothe front steps. Ritter stopped behind the white sedan, and he and Randgot out. By that time, Walters and the two policemen were on the frontporch. 

Suddenly Ritter turned and sprinted around the right side of the house. Rand stood looking after him for a moment, then started to follow moreslowly; 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 boardwalkbetween the house and the stable-garage behind, with his hands raised. There was a fresh bullet-scar on the boardwalk at his feet. Ritter wascovering him from the corner of the house with the . 380 Beretta. 

Rand strolled over to Gwinnett, frisked him, and told him to put hishands down. 

"Nice, Dave, " he complimented. "I thought of that, too, about a minutetoo 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 houseand let them in. "

Gwinnett's eyes darted from side to side, like the eyes of a trappedanimal. "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 thekitchen, where a Negro girl, her arms white with flour, was dithering infright, and into the front hall. A woman in a faded housedress had justadmitted 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 worsethan they are. Keep quiet!"

"All right, Gwinnett, " McKenna said. "We're arresting you: receivingstolen goods, and accessory to larceny. We have a search warrant. Want tosee 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 mylawyer. "

"That's your right, " McKenna told him. "Aarvo, take him to a phone; lethim 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 theex-butler dig into a pile of pistols. 

"This is one, gentlemen, " Walters said, producing a Springfield 1818Model flintlock. "And here is the Walker Colt, and the . 40-caliber ColtPaterson, 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 theother, while Walters piled the five flat hardwood cases into his armslike cordwood. Still saying nothing, her eyes stony with hatred, thewoman followed them downstairs. 

The rest of the afternoon was consumed with formalities. Gwinnett wasgiven a hearing, at which he was represented by a lawyer straight outof a B-grade gangster picture. Rand had a heated argument with anover-zealous Justice of the Peace, who wanted to impound the pistols andjackknife-mark them for identification, but after hurling bloodthirstythreats of a damage suit for an astronomical figure, he managed to retainpossession of the recovered weapons. 

Ritter left at a little past three, to report for duty in the Fleminghousehold. Rand rode with McKenna and Kavaalen to the State Policesubstation, 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 thecorporal everything he felt they ought to know. 

"When we get to the Flemings', I'll give you that revolver I got from thecoroner, " he finished. "One of your boys can take it to this fellowUmholtz, and get him to identify it. You might also show it to youngGillis, and see what he knows about it. Gillis might even give you a namefor who got it from Rivers. I'm not building any hopes on that, and thereason I'm not is that Gillis is still alive. If he knew, I don't thinkhe 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 theidea 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 willbe used on me, and the . 38 will be used on the other fellow, and we'll befound dead about five feet apart, and I'll be holding my own gun, and theother fellow will be holding the . 25, and it will look as though we shotit out and scored a double knockout. That way, my mouth will be shutabout what I've learned since I came here, and the man who's supposed tohave killed me will take the rap for Fleming and Rivers both. Nothing tostop an investigation like a couple of corpses who can't tell their ownstory 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 tohappen to Joe Doakes and Oscar Zilch. " He looked at Rand intently. "Youwant us to keep an eye on you?"

Rand leaned over and spat into the brass cuspidor, a gesture ofbraggadocio he had picked up among the French maquis. 

"Hell, no! That's the last thing I do want!" he said. "I want him to tryit. 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 couldgo and pick this fellow up, and he's one of three men, so we could graball three of them, and even if we found the . 25 Webley & Scott and my . 38in his pockets, we couldn't charge him with anything. Fact is, right nowwe can't even prove that Lane Fleming's death was anything but theaccident 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. " McKennafrowned. "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 rememberall of them. "

"One thing, " Kavaalen said solemnly, "you never hear of any lawyersspringing people out of cemeteries on writs. "

"Look, Jeff, " McKenna said, at length. "If it's the way you think, thisguy won't dare kill you instantly, will he? Seems to me, the way thescript 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 notinstantly fatal wound, and that means he'll have to take time to pick hisspot. The reason I've managed to survive these people against whom I'vehad to defend myself has been that I just don't give a damn where I shoota man. A lot of good police officers have gotten themselves killedbecause they tried to wing somebody and took a second or so longer aboutshooting than they should have. "

"Something in that, too, " McKenna agreed. "But what I'm getting at isthis: I think I know a way to give you a little more percentage. " Herose. "Wait a minute; I'll be right back. "

CHAPTER 19

There was less feuding at dinner that evening than at any previous mealRand had eaten in the Fleming home. In the first place, everybody seemeda little awed in the presence of the new butler, who flitted in and outof 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, hadre-erected their _front populaire_ and were sharing a common pleasure inthe recovery of the stolen pistols. And finally, there was a distinctpossibility that the swift and dramatic justice that had overtakenWalters and Gwinnett at Rand's hands was having a sobering effect uponsomebody at that table. 

Dunmore, Nelda, Varcek, Geraldine and Gladys had been intending togo to a party that evening, but at the last minute Gladys had pleadedindisposition and telephoned regrets. The meal over, Rand had goneup to the gunroom, Gladys drifted into the small drawing-room off thedining-room, and the others had gone to their rooms to dress. 

Rand was taking down the junk with which Walters had infiltrated thecollection and was listing and hanging up the recovered items when FredDunmore, 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 signedconfession. .. . Well, it just goes to show you. .. . "

"He took his medicine standing up, " Rand said. "And he helped us recoverthe pistols. If I were you, I'd go easy with him. "

Dunmore shook his head. "I'm not a revengeful man, Colonel Rand, " hesaid, "but if there's one thing I can't forgive, it's a disloyalemployee. " His mouth closed sternly around his cigar. "He'll have to takewhat's coming to him. " He stood by the desk for a moment, looking down atthe recovered items and the pile of junk on the floor. "When did youfirst suspect him?"

"Almost from the first moment I saw this collection. " Rand explained thereasoning which had led him to suspect Walters. "The real clincher, to mymind, was the fact that he knew this collection almost as well as LaneFleming did, and wouldn't be likely to be deceived by these substitutionsany more than Fleming would. Yet he said nothing to anybody; neither toMrs. Fleming, nor Goode, nor myself. If he weren't guilty himself, Iwanted to know his reason for keeping silent. So I put the pressure onhim, and he cracked open. "

"Well, I want you to know how grateful we all are, " Dunmore saidfeelingly. "I'm kicking hell out of myself, now, about the way I objectedwhen Gladys brought you in here. My God, suppose we'd tried to sell thecollection ourselves! Anybody who'd have been interested in buying wouldhave seen what you saw, and then they'd have claimed that we were tryingto hold out on them. " He hesitated. "You've seen how things are here, " hecontinued ruefully. "And that's something else I have to thank you for; Imean, keeping your mouth shut till you got the pistols back. There'd havebeen a hell of a row; everybody would have blamed everybody else. .. . Howdid 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 chuckledappreciatively. 

"Say, that _was_ smart! No wonder he was so willing to admit everythingand help you get them back. " He looked at the pistols on the desk andmoved one or two of them. "Did you get the one the coroner had? Goodesaid 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 Policesubstation. " He watched Dunmore closely, but there seemed to be noreaction. 

"So that's it. " Dunmore looked at it with a show of interest and honestsorrow, and handed it back, then shifted his cigar across his mouth. "Look here, Colonel; I've been wanting to ask you something. Did Gladysjust get you to come here to appraise and sell the collection, or are youinvestigating Lane's death, too?"

"Well, now, you're asking me to be disloyal to my employer, " Randobjected. "Why don't you ask her that? If she wants you to know, she'lltell 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 satisfiedon that point yourself, are you?"

"Well, are you?" Dunmore parried. 

That sort of fencing could go on indefinitely. Rand determined to stopit. After all, if Dunmore was the murderer of Lane Fleming, he wouldalready 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 dono harm at this point, and might even do some good. 

"Why, I think Fleming was murdered, " Rand told him, as casually as thoughhe were expressing an opinion on tomorrow's weather. "And I furtherbelieve that whoever killed Fleming also killed Arnold Rivers. That, bythe way, is where I come in. Stephen Gresham has retained me to find theRivers murderer; to do that, I must first learn who killed Lane Fleming. However, I was not retained to investigate the Fleming murder, and as faras I know from anything she has told me, Gladys Fleming is quitesatisfied that her husband shot himself accidentally. " In a universe ofordered abstractions and multiordinal meanings, the literal truth, on oneorder of abstraction, was often a black lie on another. "Does that answeryour question?" he asked, with open-faced innocence. 

Dunmore nodded. "Yes, I get it, now. Look here, do you think Anton Varcekcould have done it? I know it's a horrible idea, and I want you tounderstand that I'm not making any accusations, but we always took it forgranted that he'd been up in his lab, and had come downstairs when heheard the shot. But suppose he came down and shot Fleming, and then wentout in the hall, and made that rumpus outside after locking the doorbehind him?"

"That's possible, " Rand agreed. "You were taking a bath when you heardthe shot, weren't you?"

Dunmore shook his head. "I suppose so. I didn't hear any shot, to tellthe truth. All I heard was Anton pounding on the door and yelling. Isuppose I had my head under the shower, and the noise of the water keptme from hearing the shot. " He stopped short, taking his cigar from hismouth and pointing it at Rand. "And, by God, that would have been aboutfive minutes before he started hammering on the door!" he exclaimed. "Time enough for him to have fixed things to look like an accident, setthe deadlatch, and have gone out in the hall, and started making a noise. And another thing. You say that whoever killed Lane also killed thisfellow Rivers. Well, on Thursday night, when Rivers was killed, Antondidn't get home till around twelve. "

"Yes, I'd thought of that. You know, though, that the murderer doesn'thave to be Varcek, or anybody else who was in the house at the time. Thegarage doors were open--I'm told that your wife was out at the time--andanybody could have sneaked in the back way, up through the library, andout the same way. There are one or two possibilities besides you andAnton Varcek. "

Dunmore's eyes widened. "Yes, and I can think of one, without halftrying, too!" He nodded once or twice. "For instance, the man who wasafraid you were investigating Fleming's death; the man who started thatsuicide 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 thissome more, Colonel. "

After Dunmore had gone out, Rand mopped his face. The room seemedinsufferably hot. He found an electric fan over the workbench and pluggedit 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 therecovered pistols for as far as it was completed, and was hanging themback 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 clientisn't nuts. "

"You haven't seen anything; you ought to have been here lastnight . .. Where is our client, by the way?"

"Downstairs. " Ritter fished a cigarette out of his livery andappropriated 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 theedge of the desk, taking a deep drag on the cigarette. "What's theregular law doing, now that young Jarrett is out?"

"I had a long talk with Mick McKenna, " Rand said. "Fortunately, Mick andI 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 wasbeginning 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 ofthose stories about him and Mrs. Rivers. At least, all that stuff wouldcome 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 convenientbreakdown, 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. Orsomething. 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 thesad things of life to which one must reconcile oneself. "I got a callfrom Pierre Jarrett; Tip's staying at the Jarrett place tonight. Ithought 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 severalrings, then picked it up. 

"This is the Fleming residence, " he stated, putting on his characteragain. "Oh, yes indeed, sir. Colonel Rand is right here, sir; I'll tellhim 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, mutualclients. Could you find time to drop over, sometime this evening?"

"Well, I'm very busy, at the moment, Mr. Goode, " Rand regretted. "Therehave been some rather deplorable developments here, lately. The butler, Walters, has been arrested for larceny. It seems that since Mr. Fleming'sdeath, he has been systematically looting the pistol-collection. I'mtrying to get things straightened out, now. "

"Good heavens!" Goode was considerably shaken. "When did you discoverthis, Colonel Rand? And why wasn't I notified before? And are there manyvaluable items missing?"

"I discovered it as soon as I saw the collection, " Rand began answeringhis questions in order. "Neither you, nor anybody else was notified, because I wanted to get evidence to justify an arrest first. And nothingis missing; everything has been recovered, " he finished. "That's what I'mso busy about, now; getting my list revised, and straightening out thecollection. "

"Oh, fine!" Goode was delighted. "I hope everything was handled quietly, without any unnecessary publicity? But this other matter; I don't care togo into it over the phone, and it's imperative that we discuss itprivately, 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 butMrs. 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 yourcoming 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 poundthe table and yell at them all you want to. "

"You go let him in, " Rand directed. "Show him up here, and then take aplant on that spiral stairway out of the library, just out of sight. Idon't think this it, but there's no use taking chances. " He mopped hisface again. "Damn, it's hot in here!"

Ten minutes later, Ritter ushered in Humphrey Goode, and inquired ifthere would be anything further, sir? When Rand said there wouldn't, hewent down the spiral. Just as Rand had expected, Goode began peddlingthe same line as Varcek and Dunmore before him. They all came to see himin the gunroom with a common purpose. After easing himself into a chair, and going through some prefatory huffing and puffing, Goode came out withit. Did Rand believe that Lane Fleming had really been murdered, and washe 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 aminvestigating the Rivers murder, and the Fleming murder may be consideredas a part thereof. But what brings you around to discuss that, now? Didyou learn something, since last evening, that leads you to suspect thesame thing?"

"Well, not exactly. But this afternoon, Fred Dunmore and Anton Varcekcame to my office, separately, of course, and each of them wanted to knowif I had any reason to suspect that the, uh, tragedy, was actually a caseof murder. Both had the impression that you were conducting aninvestigation under cover of your work on the pistol collection, andwanted 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 isnow, by doing so. "

Goode looked startled. "Colonel Rand! Do you actually mean that. .. ?" hebegan. 

"You were Lane Fleming's attorney, and board chairman of his company, "Rand said. "You can probably imagine why he was killed. You can askyourself just how safe his principal heir is now. " Without giving Goodea chance to gather his wits, he pressed on: "Well, what's your opinionabout Fleming's death? After all, you did go out of your way to createa false impression that he had committed suicide. "

Goode, still bewildered by Rand's deliberately cryptic hints and a littlefrightened, had the grace to blush at that. 

"I admit it; it was entirely unethical, and I'll admit that, too, " hesaid. "But. .. . Well, I'm buying all the Premix stock that's out in smallblocks, and so are Mr. Dunmore and Mr. Varcek. We all felt that suchrumors would reduce the market quotation, to our advantage. "

Rand nodded. "I picked up a hundred shares, the other day, myself. Yourshenanigans probably chipped a little off the price I had to pay, so Iought to be grateful to you. But we're talking about murder, not marketmanipulation. Did either Varcek or Dunmore express any opinion as to whomight have killed Fleming?"

The outside telephone rang before Goode could answer. Rand scooped it upat the end of the first ring and named himself into it. It was MickMcKenna 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 tillaround the first of November. Then it was sold, but he doesn't know whoto. He didn't sell it himself; Rivers must have. "

"I assumed that; that's why he's still alive. Well, thanks, Mick. Thecase is getting tighter every minute. "

"You haven't had any trouble yet?" McKenna asked anxiously. "How's thewhoozis 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 arreston Walters and Gwinnett. Well, I suppose Dunmore and Varcek are eachtrying 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 oneor the other. But I can't think. .. . It's horrible to have to suspecteither of them. " For a moment, he stared unseeingly at the litter ofhigh-priced pistols on the desk. Then:

"Colonel Rand, Lane Fleming is dead, and nothing either of us can dowill bring him back. To expose his murderer certainly won't. But itwould cause a scandal that would rock the Premix Company to its veryfoundations. It might even disastrously affect the market as a whole. "

"Oh, come!" Rand reproved. "That's like talking about starting ahurricane with a palm-leaf fan. "

"But you will admit that it would have a dreadful effect on PremixFoods, " Goode argued. "It would probably prevent this merger from beingconsummated. Look here, " he said urgently. "I don't know how much GladysFleming is paying you to rake all this up, but I'll gladly double her feeif 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 hadnever been tempted to take. An offer of that sort invariably made himfurious. At the moment, he managed to choke down his anger, but herejected Goode's offer in a manner which left no room for furtherdiscussion. Goode rose, shaking his head sadly. 

"I suppose you realize, " he said, sorrowfully, "that you're wreckinga ten-million-dollar corporation. One in which you, yourself, are astockholder. "

Rand brightened. "And the biggest wrecking jobs I ever did before were acouple of petrol dumps and a railroad bridge. " He got to his feet alongwith 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 stillgloomy. 

"I made a mistake in trying to bribe you, " he said. "But can't I appealto your sense of fairness? Do you want to inflict serious losses oninnocent investors merely to avenge one crime?"

"I don't approve of murder, " Rand told him. "Least of all, to paraphraseClausewitz, as an extension of business by other means. You know, if welet Lane Fleming's killer get away with it, somebody might take that as aprecedent and bump you off to win a lawsuit, sometime. Ever think ofthat?"

When he returned to the gunroom, he found Gladys Fleming occupying thechair lately vacated by the family attorney. She blew a smoke-ring at himin 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 turnedWalters 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 thoughhumoring the vagaries of a child. 

"Well, I suspected something of the sort from the alacrity with which youproduced him, before Walters was out of the house, " she said. "And nobodycould be as perfect a stage butler as he is. But what really convinced mewas coming into the library, a little while ago, and finding himsquatting on the top of the spiral, covering Humphrey Goode with a smallbut particularly evil-looking automatic. "

Rand chuckled. "What did you do?"

"Oh, I climbed up and squatted beside him, " she replied. "I got therejust 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. " Shesmoked in silence for a moment. "I ought to be indignant with you, filling my house with spies, " she said. "But under the circumstances, I'mafraid I'm thankful, instead. Your op's a good egg, by the way; he's onhis way to bring us some drinks. "

"I ought to be sore at you, retaining me into a mess like this andtelling me nothing, " Rand told her. "What was the idea, anyhow? Youwanted 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 outand told you what I suspected, that you'd think it was just another caseof feminine dam-foolishness, and dismiss it as such. I knew it wasn't anaccident; Lane didn't have accidents with guns. And if he'd wanted tokill 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 camehere and started working on the collection, you'd find something. "

"You should have taken a chance and told me what you suspected, " Randsaid. "I've taken a lot of cases on flimsier grounds than this. The factis, you practically told me it was murder, when you were talking to me inmy 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 girlwho 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, becausehe got in the way of a business deal. I'm glad to be able to spend moneyto help catch whoever did it. It won't help him, but it'll make me feel alot better. .. . You will catch him, won't you?"

Rand nodded. "I don't know whether he'll ever go to trial and beconvicted, " he said. "I don't think he will. But you can take my word forit; he won't get away with it. Tomorrow, I think the lid's going to blowoff. Maybe you'd better be away from home when it does. Take Nelda andGeraldine 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 wasquite active in church work--and none of us are willing to let ourselvesget squeezed out of it. We all go; even Geraldine manages to drag herselfto the Lord's House through an alcoholic fog. And we'll have to be backin 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 talkthe girls into going somewhere with you in the afternoon, and stay awaytill evening. And don't get the idea that you could help me here, " headded, stopping an objection. "I know what I'm talking about. Thepresence of any of you here would only delay matters and make it harderfor me. "

Then Ritter came in, a cigarette in one corner of his mouth, carrying atray on which were a bottle of Bourbon, a bottle of Scotch, a siphon anda couple of bottles of beer. 

CHAPTER 20

The dining-room was empty, when Rand came down to breakfast the nextmorning. Taking the seat he had occupied the evening before, he waiteduntil 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 familyis 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, ofcourse. The maid sleeps out; she hasn't gotten here yet. How'd it go lastnight? 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-guytogether. "

"What do you want me to do?" Ritter asked, giving an un-butler-like hitchat his shoulder-holster. "I can stand on my official dignity, and get outof any cleaning-up work till after dinner, and I won't have any buttlingto do till the women get home from church. "

"Case Varcek and Dunmore, when they come in; see if either of them isrod-heavy. Find anything, last night?"

Ritter shook his head. "I searched Varcek's lab, after everybody was inbed, and I searched the cars in the garage, and a lot of other places. Ididn't find them. Whoever he is, the chances are he has them in hisroom. "

"Did you look back of the books in the library?" Rand asked. When Rittershook his head, he continued: "That's probably where they are. Not thatit makes a whole lot of difference. "

"If I'd found them, it'd of given me something to watch; then I'd knowwhen 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'soffice, 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 thismorning; I hope it'll be over before you're home from church. "

She looked at him seriously. "Jeff, you're using yourself asmurder-bait, " she said. "Aren't you?"

"More or less. He knows I'm onto him. He's pretty sure I haven't any realproof, yet, but he doesn't know how soon I will have. He realizes thatI'm cat-and-mousing him, the way I did Walters. So he'll try to kill mebefore I pounce, and when he does, he'll convict himself. What he doesn'trealize is that as long as he sits tight, he's perfectly safe. "

Neither of them mentioned the obvious corollary, that conviction andexecution would be almost simultaneous. It must have been uppermost inGladys'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 stayover ninety at slow fire, and in the eighties at timed-and-rapid. If Ihid somewhere with a target pistol--"

"Absolutely not!" Rand vetoed emphatically. "I'm not saying that becauseI'm afraid you might stop a slug yourself. You're a big girl, now; youcan take your own chances. But if you stayed home, he wouldn't make amove. You and Geraldine and Nelda have to be out of the house beforehe'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 whenVarcek and Geraldine entered. Nelda was inquiring if Rand wanted to cometo 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. Ifnobody gets murdered or arrested in the meantime, that is. "

Geraldine looked woebegone; her hands were trembling. "My God, do I havea hangover!" she moaned. "Walters, for heaven's sake, fix me upsomething, quick!" Then she saw Ritter. "Who the devil are you?" shedemanded. "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, " Neldainterposed. 

Ritter coughed delicately. "Begging your pardon, ma'am, but I've alwaysrawther fawncied myself for an expert on morning-awfter tonics. If you'llwait a moment--"

He departed on his errand of mercy, returning shortly with a highballglass filled with some dark, evil-looking potion. He set it on the tablein 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'tattempt to gulp it; it's quite strong, ma'am. "

Geraldine tasted it and pulled a Gorgon-face. Encouraged by Ritter, shemanaged 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 cupof 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 asthough I might live, after all. "

"A recipe of my own, a variant on the old Prairie Oyster, but without theraw egg, which I consider a needless embellishment, ma'am. I learned itin 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, " Neldasaid. "Your recipe seems to be just what Geraldine needs. With a dash ofprussic acid added, of course. "

That got the bush-fighting off to a good start. When Dunmore came in, afew minutes later, the two sisters were stalking one another through thejungle, blow-gunning poison darts back and forth. The newcomer sat downwithout a word; throughout the meal, he and Varcek treated one anotherwith silent and hostile suspicion. Finally Gladys looked at her watch andcalled a truce to the skirmishing by announcing that it was time to startfor church. Rand left the room with the ladies; in the hall, Gladysbrushed 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 libraryand went up the spiral to the gunroom, while the three women went down tothe garage. 

He was standing at the window as the big Packard moved out onto thedrive. 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 witha 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 theprivate outside line. A maid answered; a moment later he was talking tothe Fleming lawyer. 

"Rand, here, " he identified himself. "Mr. Goode, I've been thinking overour conversation of last evening. There is a great deal to be said forthe position you're taking in the matter. As you reminded me, I'm asmall, if purely speculative, stockholder in Premix, myself, and evenif I weren't, I should hate to be responsible for undeserved losses byinnocent investors. "

"Yes?" Goode's voice fairly shook. "Then you're going to drop theinvestigation?"

"No, Mr. Goode; I can't do that. But I believe a formula could be evolvedwhich would keep the Premix Company and its affairs out of it. In fact, Ithink that the whole question of the death of Lane Fleming might possiblybe kept in the background. Would that satisfy you? It would require somevery careful manipulation on my part, and your cooperation. "

"But. .. . See here, if you're investigating the death of Mr. Fleming, howcan that be kept in the background?" Goode wanted to know. 

"The murderer of Lane Fleming is also guilty of the murder of ArnoldRivers, " Rand stated. "I know that positively, now. Murder is punishedcapitally, and one of the peculiarities of capital punishment is that itcan be inflicted only once, on no matter how many counts. If our man goesto the chair for the death of Rivers, the death of Fleming might evenremain an accident. I can hardly guarantee that; I have my agency licenseto think of, among other things. But I feel reasonably safe in sayingthat I could keep the Premix Company from figuring in the case. Wouldthat 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 toget this done--I'll have certain expenses, for one thing, which could notvery 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 terminatedthe call and hung up. Then he transferred the Colt . 38 to the side pocketof his coat, picked up one of the sheets on which he had been listingthe collection, and sat for almost fifteen minutes pretending to studyit, keeping his eyes shifting from the hall door to the spiral stairwayand 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 inan armchair near the desk. He was looking more than ever like RudolfHess. Rudolf Hess on the morning of the Beer Hall Putsch. 

"Colonel Rand, " he began. "There has, within the last half hour, been amost 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 importantdevelopment; 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, "FredDunmore turned to me and apologized for harboring unjust suspicions of mein the matter of Lane Fleming's death. He said that he had been unableto understand who else could have murdered Lane, until you had pointedout to him that the house could have been entered from the garage, andthe gunroom from the library. Then, he said, he had had a conversationwith some unnamed gentleman at the party last evening, and had learnedthat Lane had discovered that Humphrey Goode was deceiving him, and hadbeen about to have him dismissed from his position with the company, andto sever his personal connections with him. "

"The devil, now!" Rand gave a good imitation of surprise. "What sort ofjiggery-pokery was Goode up to?"

"Fred said that his informant told him that Lane had proof that Goode hadaccepted a bribe from Arnold Rivers, to misconduct the suit which Lanewas bringing against Rivers about a pair of pistols he had bought fromRivers. It seems that Goode was Rivers's attorney, also, and had beeninvolved with him in a number of dishonest transactions, although theconnection had been kept secret. "

"That's a new angle, now, " Rand said. "I suppose that he killed Rivers inorder to prevent the latter from incriminating him. Why didn't Fred cometo me with this?" he asked. 

"Eh?" Evidently Varcek hadn't thought of that. "Why, I suppose he wasconcerned about the possibility of repercussions in the business world. After all, Goode is our board chairman, and maybe he thought that peoplemight begin thinking that the murder had some connection with the affairsof the company. "

"That's possible, of course, " Rand agreed. "And what's your ownattitude?"

"Colonel Rand, I cannot allow these facts to be suppressed, " the Czechsaid. "My own position is too vulnerable; you've showed me that. Exceptfor the fact that somebody could have entered the house through thegarage, 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, " Varcekreplied. "Fred is downstairs, now, in the library; I suggest that you andI go down and have a talk with him. Maybe you could show him the folly oftrying 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 andlagging 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 himin the chest, almost knocking him down. He staggered, then swung up theColt 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, stilllooking like the Perfect Butler in spite of the . 380 Beretta in his hand, was standing in the hall doorway. On the floor, midway between thestairway and the door, lay Fred Dunmore. His tan coat and vest wereturning dark in several places, and Rand's own Detective Special waslying a few inches from his left hand. 

"He came in here and shut the door, " Ritter reported. "I couldn't followhim in, so I took a plant in the hall. When I heard you blastingupstairs, I came in, just in time to see him coming down. You winged himin the right shoulder; he'd dropped the . 25, and he had your gat in hisleft hand. When he saw mine, he threw one at me and missed; I gave himthree back for it. See result on floor. "

"Uh-uh; he'd have gotten away, if you hadn't been on the job, " he toldRitter. Then he picked up his own revolver and holstered it. After aglance which assured him that Fred Dunmore was beyond any further actionof any sort, he laid the square-butt Detective Special on the floorbeside him. "You did all right, Dave, " he said. "Now, nobody's going tohave a chance to bamboozle a jury into acquitting him. " He thought of hisrecent conversation with Humphrey Goode. "You did just all right, " herepeated. 

"So it was Fred, then, " he heard Varcek, behind him, say. "Then he waslying about this evidence against Goode. " The Czech came over and stoodbeside Rand, looking down at the body of his late brother-in-law. "Butwhy did he tell me that story, and why did he shoot at us when we weretogether?"

"Both for the same general reason. " Rand explained about the two pistolsand the planned double-killing. "With both of us dead, you'd be themurderer, and I'd be a martyr to law-and-order, and he'd be in theclear. "

Varcek regarded the dead man with more distaste than surprise. Evidentlyhis experiences in Hitler's Europe had left him with few illusions aboutthe sanctity of human life or the extent of human perfidy. Ritterholstered 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 goodworking order; lighting up the mawster is part of his duties. Rememberthat, the next time you have a buttling job. "

Ritter leaned forward for the light. "Dunmore was a better shot with hisright hand than he was with his left, " he commented. "He didn't comewithin a yard of me, and he scored a twelve-o'clock center on you. Rightthrough 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'rewounded!"

"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 toevict a small trespasser. When he brought out his hand, he was holding abattered . 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, andif I can help it, I'll never wear one again. I'm damn near stewed alivein 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 fewreasons for thinking it might be Dunmore, and one good one for notsuspecting you. "

"You mean my dislike for firearms?"

"That could have been feigned, or it could have been overcome, " Randreplied. "I mean your knowledge of biology and biochemistry. If you'dkilled Lane Fleming, there'd have been no clumsy business of fakeaccidents; not as long as both of you ate at the same table. He'dhave 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 mailI'm wearing. While I'm doing it, I want you to call Carter Tipton, at theJarrett place, and Humphrey Goode, and Mick McKenna, in that order. TellGoode to get over here as fast as he can, and come up to my room; tellhim we have to consider ways and means of implementing my suggestion tohim. "

CHAPTER 21

In the month which followed, events transpired through a thickeningmiasma of rumors, official communiques, journalistic conjectures, and outright fabrications, fitfully lit by the glare of newsmen'sphoto-bulbs, bulking with strange shapes, and emitting stranger noises. There were the portentous rumblings of prepared statements, and thehollow thumps of denials. There were soft murmurs of, "Now, this isstrictly off the record . .. " followed by sibilant whispers. The unseenscrews of political pressure creaked, and whitewash brushes slurpedsuavely. And there was an insistent yammering of bewildered andunanswered questions. Fred Dunmore really had killed Arnold Rivers, hadn't he? Or had he? Arnold Rivers had been double-crossingDunmore . .. Or had Dunmore been double-crossing Rivers? Somebodyhad stolen ten--or was it twenty-five--thousand dollars' worthof old pistols? Or was it just twenty-five thousand dollars? Orwhat, if anything, had been stolen? Was somebody being framed forsomething . .. 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 noncommittalstatements through their attorney, Humphrey Goode, and then the IronCurtain slammed down. Mick McKenna gave an outraged squawk or so, thensubsided. There was a series of pronunciamentos from the office ofDistrict Attorney Charles P. Farnsworth, all full of high-orderabstractions and empty of meaning. The reporters, converging on theFleming house, found it occupied by the State Police, who kept them atbay. Harry Bentz, of the New Belfast _Evening Mercury_, using a 30-powerspotting-'scope from the road, observed Dave Ritter, whom he recognized, wearing a suit of butler's livery and standing in the doorway of thegarage, 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 journalisticstandpoint, an almost complete bust. There had been no arrest, nohearing, no protracted trial, no sensational revelations. Only onemonolithic fact, officially attested and indisputable, loomed out ofthe murk: ". .. And the said Frederick Parker Dunmore, deceased, didreceive the aforesaid gunshot-wounds, hereinbefore enumerated, at thehands of the said Jefferson Davis Rand and at the hands of the saidDavid Abercrombie Ritter . .. " and ". .. The said Jefferson Davis Randand the said David Abercrombie Ritter, being in mortal fear for theirseveral 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 hadonce cost the loss of an expensive libel-suit and exposed in certainjournalistic malpractices verging upon blackmail, promptly burst intoprint with an indignant editorial entitled _Trial by Pistol_. Theterms: "legalized slaughter, " and "flagrant whitewash, " were used, andmention was made of "the well known preference of a certain notoriousprivate detective for the procedure of _habeas_ cadaver. " The principalresult of this outcry was to persuade an important New Belfastmanufacturer, who had hitherto resisted Rand's sales pressure, tocontract with the Tri-State Agency for the protection of his payrolldeliveries. 

Then, at the other end of the state, the professor of Moral Science at asmall theological seminary caught his wife in _flagrante delicto_ withone of the fourth-year students and opened fire upon them, at a range often feet, with a 12-gauge pump-gun. The Rosemont Bayonet Murder, alreadypretty well withered on the vine, passed quietly into limbo. 

 * * * * *

Summer, almost a month before its official opening, was already a _faitaccompli_. The trees were in full leaf and invaded by nesting birds, theair was fragrant with flower scents, and the mercury column of thethermometer was stretching itself up toward the ninety mark. 

They were all outside, where the long shadow of the Fleming housefell across the lawn and driveway, gathered about the five parked cars. The new Fleming butler, a short and somewhat globular Negro with agingerbread-crust complexion and an air of affable dignity, was helpingPierre Jarrett and Karen Lawrence put a couple of cartons and a tallpeach-basket into Pierre's Plymouth. Colin MacBride, a streamer ofpipe-smoke floating back over his shoulder, was peering into hisluggage-compartment to check the stowage of his own cargo, while histwelve-year-old son, Malcolm, another black Highlander like hisfather, was helping Philip Cabot carry a big laundry hamper full ofnewspaper-wrapped pistols to his Cadillac. Pierre's mother, and thestylish-stout Mrs. Trehearne, and Gladys Fleming, obviously detached fromthe bustle of pre-departure preparations, were standing to one side, talking. And Rand had finished helping Adam Trehearne pack the lastcontainer 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 aboutthis. If it hadn't been for you, that offer of Kendall's would have hadus stopped as dead as Rivers's had. Five hundred dollars deader, infact. "

Stephen Gresham, carrying a package-filled orange crate, joined him, setting down his burden. His wife and daughter, with another cratebetween 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 restof 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 onethe cars moved slowly down the driveway to the road. Only Gladys andRand, standing at the foot of the front steps, and the gingerbread-brownbutler were left. 

"My, my; that was some party!" the Negro chuckled, gathering up threeempty pasteboard cartons and telescoping them together. "Dinner'll beready in about half an hour, Mrs. Fleming. Shall I go mix the cocktailsnow?"

"Yes; do that, Reuben. In the drawing-room. " She watched the servantcarry the discarded containers around the house, then turned to Rand. "You know, not the least of your capabilities is your knack of findingservant-replacements on short notice, " she told him. 

"My general factotum, Buck Pendexter, is a prominent personage in NewBelfast colored lodge circles, " Rand said. "When your cook and maid quiton you, the day of the blow-up, all I had to do was phone him, and he didthe rest. " He got out his cigarettes, offered them, and snapped hislighter. "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 bloodon the library floor. I got used to what had happened in the gunroom lastDecember. Shall we go in?" she asked, taking Rand's arm. 

The cocktails were waiting when they entered the drawing-room, off thedining-room. The butler poured for them and put the glasses and theshaker 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 allthose people here. "

"That's all right; we can wait, " she replied. "We won't need anythingmore, Reuben. "

Motioning Rand down on the lounge beside her, she handed him a glass andlifted her own. 

"Now, " she began. "Just what sort of skulduggery has been going on? As ofFriday, the top offer for the collection was twenty-five thousand fivehundred, from some dealer up in Massachusetts. And then, on Saturday, youcame bounding in with Stephen Gresham's certified check for twenty-sixthousand. And I seem to recall that the late unlamented Rivers's offer oftwenty-five thousand straight had them stopped. Not that I'm inclinedto look askance at an extra five hundred--I can buy a new hat with myshare 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 hiscocktail. It was a vodka Martini, and very good. "You know, none of thatcrowd 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--whatthe tax-collectors leave of it--and the rest of them have to figurepretty closely. The most they could possibly scratch together wastwenty-two thousand. So I put four thousand into the pot, myself, bringing the total to five hundred over the Kendall offer, and hastilydeclared the collection sold. Of course, my getting into it meant thatmuch less for everybody else, but five-sixths of a collection is betterthan no pistols at all. I imagine Colin MacBride is honing up his_sgian-dhu_ for me because I got that big Whitneyville Walker Colt, butwhat the hell; he got the cased pair of Paterson . 34's, and the Texas . 40with the ramming-lever. "

"Why, I think the division was fair enough, " Gladys said. "They'd agreedto take your valuation, hadn't they? And all that slide-rule andcomptometer business. .. . But Jeff--four thousand dollars?" she queried. "You only got five from me, and you can't run a detective agency on oldpistols. "

Rand grinned as he set down his empty glass. Gladys refilled it from theshaker. 

"My dear lady, that five thousand I unblushingly accepted from you wasonly part of it, " he confessed. 

"There was also a fee of three thousand from Stephen Gresham, for pullingthe bloodhounds of the D. A. 's office off his back in the matter of ArnoldRivers, and there was five thousand from Humphrey Goode, which I supposehe'll get the Premix Company to repay him, for engineering thesuppression of a lot of facts he wanted suppressed. And, finally, myconnection with this business brought that merger to my attention, and Ipicked up a hundred shares of Premix at 73-1/4, and now I have twohundred shares of Mill-Pack, worth about twenty-nine thousand, which Ican report for my income tax as capital gains. I'd say I could afford totreat myself to a few old pistols for my collection. "

"Well!" She raised both eyebrows over that. "Don't anybody tell me crimedoesn't pay. "

"Yes. In my ghoulish way, I generally manage to bear myself in mind, onan operation like this. I make no secret of my affection for money. " Helifted his glass and sipped slowly. "Look here, Gladys; are you satisfiedwith 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 thatthat business in the library was really bringing it home. There's noquestion that you got the man who killed Lane, and if you hadn't, I'dnever have been at peace with myself. And I suppose all that chicaneryafterward was necessary, too. "

"It was, if you wanted that merger to go through, and unless you wantedto see the bottom drop out of your Premix stock, " Rand assured her. "Ifthe true facts of Mr. Fleming's death had gotten out, there'd have beena simply hideous stink. The Mill-Pack people would have backed out ofthat merger like a bear out of an active bee-tree. .. . You know what thesituation really was, don't you?"

She shook her head. "I know Mill-Pack wanted to get control of the PremixCompany, and Lane refused to go in with them. I don't fully understandhis reasons, though. "

"They weren't important; they were mainly verbal, and unrelated toactuality, " Rand said. "The important thing is that he did refuse, andMill-Pack wanted that merger so badly that it could be tasted in everyounce of food they sold. They got Stephen Gresham to negotiate it forthem, and he was just on the point of reporting it to be an impossibilitywhen Fred Dunmore came to him with a proposition. Dunmore said he thoughthe could persuade or force Mr. Fleming to consent, and he wanted acontract guaranteeing him a vice-presidency with Mill-Pack, at fortythousand a year, if and when the merger was accomplished. The contractwas duly signed about the first of last November. "

"Well, good Lord!" Gladys Fleming's eyes widened. "When did you hearabout that?"

"I got that out of Gresham, a couple of days after the blow-up, when itwas too late to be of any use to me, " Rand said. "If I'd known it fromthe 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 helpingspread the suicide story, too. "

"Nice friends Lane had! But didn't anybody think there was something oddabout that accident, immediately after that contract was signed?"

"Of course they did, but try and get them to admit it, even tothemselves. Nobody likes to think that the new vice president of thecompany murdered his way into the position. So everybody assumed theattitudes of the three Japanese monkeys, and made respectable noisesabout what a great loss Mr. Fleming was to the business world, and howlucky Dunmore was that he had that contract. "

She looked at him inquiringly for a moment. "Jeff, I want you to tell meexactly how everything happened, " she said. "I think I have a right toknow. "

"Yes, you have, " he agreed. "I'll tell you the whole thing, what Iactually know, and what I was forced to guess at:

"When this merger idea first took shape, last summer, Dunmore saw howunalterably opposed to it Mr. Fleming was, and he began wishing him outof the way. Some time later, he decided to do something about it. Isuppose Anton Varcek gave him the idea, in the first place, with hisjabber about the danger of a firearms accident. Dunmore decided he'd fixone up for Mr. Fleming. First of all, he'd need a firearm, collector'stype and in good working order. It couldn't be one of the guns in thecollection. He'd have to keep it loaded all the time, waiting for anopportunity 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 upagain, 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. Hehad it refinished by a gunsmith named Umholtz. After Umholtz refinishedit, the gun was in Rivers's shop until November of last year, when it wassold by Rivers personally. And that was the revolver that was found inLane Fleming's hand, and the one I got from the coroner, with a lettervouching for the fact that it had been so found. "

He finished his cocktail. Gladys picked up the shaker mechanically andrefilled his glass. 

"Now we have Dunmore with this . 36 Colt, loaded with powder, caps andbullets from the ammunition supply in the gunroom, waiting for a chanceto use it. And also, he has this Mill-Pack contract in his safe depositbox at the bank. That takes care of the weapon and the motive; only theopportunity is needed, and that came on the 22nd of December, when Mr. Fleming brought home that Confederate Leech & Rigdon . 36 he had justbought. It was just a piece of luck that both revolvers were alike incaliber 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 sceneto 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 thatevening. Nelda had gone out. You and Geraldine were listening to theradio 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 FredDunmore said he was going to take a bath. What he did, of course, was todraw a tub full of water, undress, put on his bathrobe and slippers, hidethe . 36 Colt under the bathrobe, and then go across the hall to thegunroom, where he found Mr. Fleming sitting on that cobbler's bench, putting the finishing touches on the Leech & Rigdon. So he fired at closerange, wiped the prints off the Colt with an oily rag, put it in LaneFleming's right hand, put the rag in his left, grabbed up the Leech &Rigdon, and scuttled back to his bathroom, deadlatching and shutting thegunroom 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 werestrong, and three of them before dinner was leaning way over backwardmaintaining the tradition of the hard-drinking private eye, but Gladyswas 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, threwoff his robe, hid the Leech & Rigdon, probably in a space between the tuband the wall that I found while we were searching the house, the nightbefore the shooting of Dunmore, and jumped into the tub, there to awaitdevelopments. As soon as he heard Varcek's uproar in the hall, he couldemerge, dripping bathwater and innocence, to find out what the fuss wasall about. .. . Do you know anything about something called GeneralSemantics?" he asked suddenly. 

"Yes. Before I married Lane, I went around with a radio ad-writer, " shetold him. "He was a nice boy, but he'd get drunker than a boiled owlabout once a month, and weep about his crimes against sanity and meaning. He'd recite long excerpts from his professional creations, and show howhe had been deliberately objectifying words and identifying them with thethings for which they stood, and confusing orders of abstraction, andjuggling multiordinal meanings. He was going to lend me his Koran, a bookcalled _Science and Sanity_, and then he took a job with an ad agency inChicago, 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 signinghimself with the Cross. "Well, some considerable disregard of theseprinciples seems to have existed in this case. Dunmore is seen in abathrobe, 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 inthe tub, splashing soapsuds around, while Lane Fleming was being shot. And Anton Varcek, who can be taken as an example of what S. I. Hayakawawas talking about when he spoke of people behaving like scientistsinside but not outside their laboratories, saw Lane Fleming dead, withan object labeled 'revolver' in his hand, and, because of his verbalidentifications and semantic reactions, immediately included theinference of an accident in his description of what he had seen. That wasjust an extra dividend of luck for Dunmore; it got the whole crowd ofyou thinking in terms of accidental shooting. 

"Well, from there out, everything would have been a wonderful success forDunmore, except for one thing. Arnold Rivers must have heard, somehow, that Lane Fleming had been shot with a Confederate . 36 that he'd boughtsomewhere that day, and that the revolver was in the hands of thiscoroner of yours. So Arnold, with his big chisel well ground, went to seeif he could manage to get it out of the coroner for a few dollars. Andwhen he saw it, lo! it was the . 36 Colt that he'd sold to Dunmore abouta month before. "

Gladys set down her glass. "So!" she said. "Things begin to explainthemselves!"

"You may say so, indeed, " Rand told her. "And what do you suppose Riversdid with this little item of information? Why, as nearly as I canreconstruct it, he did a very foolish thing. He tried to blackmail a manwho had committed a murder. He told Fred Dunmore he'd keep his mouth shutabout the . 36 Colt, if Dunmore would get him the Fleming collection. Hewanted that instead of cash, because he could get more out of it, in afew years, than Dunmore could ever scrape, and in the meantime, theprestige of handling that collection would go a long way toward repairinghis rather dilapidated reputation. Fred should have bumped him off, rightthen; it would have been the cheapest and easiest way out, and he'dprobably be alive and uncaught today if he had. But he was willing to payten thousand dollars to save himself the trouble, and that's what he toldyou Rivers had offered for the collection. The ten thousand Dunmore toldyou Rivers was willing to pay was really the ten thousand he was willingto pay, himself, to keep Rivers quiet. 

"Then I was introduced into the picture, and, as you know, one of myfirst acts was to go to Rivers's shop and sneer scornfully at Rivers'ssupposed offer of ten thousand. And, right away, Rivers upped it totwenty-five thousand. You'll recall, no doubt, that Mr. Fleming had alife-insurance policy, one of these partnership mutual policies, whichgave both Dunmore and Varcek exactly twenty-five thousand apiece. Iassume that Rivers had found out about that. 

"I thought, at the time, that it was peculiar that Rivers would jump hisown offer up, without knowing what anybody else was offering for thecollection. I see, now, that it wasn't his own money he was being sogenerous with. And there was another incident, while I was at Rivers'sshop, 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 thattype that Mr. Fleming had brought home the evening he was killed. Ithought at the time that it was curious that two Confederate arms of thesame type and make should show up this far north, but my main idea inbuying it was the possibility that I might use it, in some way ascircumstances would permit, to throw a scare into somebody. Rivers wasquite willing to let me have it until he found out that I would bestaying at this house, and then he tried to back out of the sale andoffered me seventy-five dollars' credit on anything else in the shop, ifI'd return it to him. Well, I'd known that Mr. Fleming had been about tostart 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 asubstitution of revolvers. So I showed the gun I'd bought from Rivers toPhilip Cabot, who had seen the revolver Mr. Fleming had bought, and herecognized it. It hasn't been established just how Rivers got the Leech& Rigdon, and never will be; the only people who knew were Rivers andDunmore, and both are in the proverbial class of non-talebearers. Iassume that Dunmore gave it to Rivers as a sort of down payment onRivers's silence, and to get rid of it. 

"Well, you remember Dunmore's angry incredulity when I told him thatRivers was offering twenty-five thousand instead of ten thousand. Onewould 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 thecollection. But when you realize that Rivers was buying the collectionout of Dunmore's pocket, his reaction becomes quite understandable. Idaresay 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 hercheerfully. "But, right away, Dunmore decided to kill Rivers. He calledhim on the phone as soon as he left the table--here I'm speaking by thebook; 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 thatevening. Probably to devise ways and means of dealing with the Jeff Randmenace, for an ostensible reason. 

"So that night, Dunmore killed Rivers, with a bayonet. And here we havesome more Aristotelian confusion of orders of abstraction. The bayonetis defined, verbally, as a 'soldier's weapon, ' so Farnsworth and MickMcKenna and the rest of them bemused themselves with suspects likeStephen Gresham and Pierre Jarrett, and ignored Dunmore, who'd never hadan hour's military training in his life. I'd like to check up on whatpicture-shows Dunmore had been seeing in the week or so before thekilling. I'll bet anything he'd been to one of these South-Pacificbanzai-operas. And speaking of confusing orders of abstraction, MickMcKenna and his merry men pulled a classic in that line. They sawDunmore's automobile, verbally defined as a 'gray Plymouth coupé' inRivers's drive at the estimated time of the murder. Pierre Jarrett hasa car of that sort, so they included the inferential idea of PierreJarrett's ownership of the car so described. 

"Well, that's about all there is to it. Of course, I showed Fred Dunmorethe Leech & Rigdon, and told him it was the gun I'd gotten from thecoroner. 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 thatalready; that was after he'd assembled my . 38 and that . 25 automatic, andwas planning to double-kill me and Anton Varcek. At that, he'd haveprobably killed me, if I hadn't been wearing that bulletproof vest ofMcKenna'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 thatthe situation here had deteriorated rather abruptly after Mr. Fleming'sdeath. Walters was about fed up on the way things were here, and he wasgoing to hand in his notice. Then he decided that he ought to have astake to tide him over till he could get another buttling job, so hestarted higrading the collection. "

Gladys nodded. "I suppose he decided, after Lane's death, that he didn'towe anybody here anything. Too bad he didn't wait, though. The situationhas 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 financingthe major part of his research work, and he's well enough off to financethe rest himself. Geraldine went with him. Nelda is still recuperatingfrom the shock of her sudden bereavement at a high-priced sanatorium--Iunderstand there's a very good-looking young doctor there. And she'sbeen 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 arestraining influence, or a dangerous competitor, but she feels that herown life could be best led away from here. " She set down her glass andleaned 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 thedining-room.