Preface to Murder in the Gun Room. The Lane Fleming collection of early pistols and revolvers was one of the best in the country. When Fleming was found dead on the floor of his locked gun room, a Confederate-made cult-type percussion, 36 revolver in his hand, the coroner's verdict was death by accident. But Gladys Fleming had her doubts. Enough at any rate to engage Colonel Jefferson Davis Rand, better known just as Jeff, private detective and a pistol collector himself, to catalog a praise and negotiate the sale of her late husband's collection. There were a number of people who had wanted the collection.  And if so, how had he done it? Here's a mystery told against the fascinating background of old guns and gun collecting, which is rapid fire without being hysterical, exciting without losing its contact with reason and which introduces a personable and intelligent new private detective.  CHAPTER I It was hard to judge Jeff Rand's age from his appearance. He was certainly over thirty and considerably under fifty. He looked hard and fit like a man who could be a serviceable friend or a particularly unpleasant enemy. Women instinctively suspected that he would make a most satisfying lover. One might have taken him for a successful lawyer, he had studied law years ago, or a military officer in Mufti. He still had a reserve colonelcy and used the title occasionally to impress people who he thought needed impressing, or a prosperous businessman as he usually thought of himself. First of all, he looked like King Charles II of England, anachronistically clad in a Brooks Brothers suit. At the moment he was looking rather like King Charles II, being bothered by one of his mistresses who wanted a peerage for her husband. But Mrs. Fleming, he was expostulating, there surely must be somebody else, after all you'll have to admit that this isn't the sort of work this agency handles. The would-be clad released a series of smoke rings and watched them float up toward the air outlet at the office ceiling. It spoke well for Rand's ability to subordinate aesthetic to business considerations that he was trying to give her a courteous and humane brush-off. She made even the petty and varga girl seem credible. Her color scheme was blue and gold, blue eyes and a blue-tailored outfit that would have looked severe on a less curvature figure, and a charmingly absurd little blue hat perched on a mass of golden hair. If Rand had been Charles II she could have walked out of there with a duchess's coronet, and Nell Gwynn would have been back-selling oranges. Why isn't it, she countered. Your door's marked tri-state detective agency, Jefferson Davis Rand, investigation and protection. Well, I want to know how much the collection's worth and who'll pay the closest to it. That's investigation, isn't it? And I want protection from being swindled, and don't tell me you can't do it.  I've read some of your articles in The Rifleman. If you can't handle this, I don't know who can." Rand's frown deepened. He wondered how much Gladys Fleming knew about the principles of general semantics. Even if she didn't know anything she was still edging him into an untenable position. He hastily shifted from the attempt to identify his business with the label Private Detective Agency. Well, here Mrs. Fleming, he explained, my business, including armed guard and protected delivery service and general investigation and protection work, requires some personal supervision, but none of it demands my exclusive attention. Now if you wanted some routine investigation made, I could turn it over to my staff, maybe put two or three men to work on it, but there's nothing about this business of yours that I could delegate to anybody. I'd have to do it all myself at the expense of neglecting the rest of my business. Now I could do what you want done, but it would cost you three or four times what you'd gain by retaining me. Well, let me decide that, Colonel, she replied. How much would you have to have? Well, this collection of your late husbands consists of some twenty-five hundred pistols and revolvers, all types of periods, Rand said. You want me to catalog it, appraise each item, issue lists, and negotiate with prospective buyers. The cataloging and appraisal alone would take from a week to ten days, and it would be a couple more weeks until a satisfactory sale could be arranged, why, say, five thousand dollars, a thousand as a retainer and the rest on completion. That, he thought, would settle that. He was expecting an indignant outcry and hardened his heart like pharaoh. Instead Gladys Fleming nodded equably. That seems reasonable enough, Colonel Rand, considering that you'd have to be staying with us at Rosemont away from your office, she agreed. I'll give you a check for the thousand now with a letter of authorization. Rand nodded in return, being thoroughly conscious of the fact that he could only know a thin film of the events on the surface of any situation, he was not easily surprised. Very well, he said. You've hired an arms expert. I'll be in Rosemont sometime tomorrow afternoon. Now who are these prospective purchasers you mentioned, and just how prospective in terms of United States currency are they? Well, for one, there's Arnold Rivers. He's offering ten thousand for the collection. I suppose you know of him. He has an antique arms business at Rosemont. I've done some business with him, Rand admitted. Who else? There's a commission dealer named Carl Gwynett, who wants to handle the collection for us for twenty percent. I'm told that that isn't an unusually exorbitant commission, but I'm not exactly crazy about the idea. You shouldn't be if you want your money in a hurry, Rand told her. He'd take at least five years to get everything sold. He wouldn't dump the whole collection on the market at once, upset prices, and spoil his future business. You know, two thousand five hundred pistols of the sort Mr. Fleming had, coming on the market in a lot, could do just that. The old arms market isn't so large that it couldn't be easily saturated. That's what I'd been thinking. And then there are some private collectors, mostly friends of Lane's, Mr. Fleming's, who are talking about forming a pool to buy the collection for distribution among themselves, she continued. That's more like it, Rand approved. If they can raise enough money among them, that is, they won't want the stuff for resale, and they may pay something resembling a decent price. Who are they? Well, Stephen Gresham appears to be the leading spirit, she said. The corporation lawyer, you know. Then there is a Mr. Treehearn and a Mr. McRide and Philip Cabot and one or two others. I know Gresham and Cabot, Rand said. They're both friends of mine, and I have an account with Cabot, Joyner, and Teal, Cabot's brokerage firm. I've corresponded with McBride. He specializes in cults. You're the sole owner, I take it. Well, no, she paused, picking her words carefully. We may just run into a little trouble there. You see, the collection is part of the residue of the estate, left equally to myself and my two stepdaughters, Nelda Dunmore and Geraldine Barsik. You understand, Mr. Fleming and I were married in 1941. His first wife died fifteen years before. Well, you're 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 are just as interested in selling the collection for the best possible price, but beyond that there may be a slight divergence of opinion. For instance, Nelda's husband, Fred Dunmore, has been insisting that we let him handle the sale of the pistols on the grounds that he is something he calls a businessman. Nelda supports him in this. It was Fred who got this ten thousand dollar offer from Rivers. Personally I think Rivers is playing him for a sucker. Outside his own line Fred is an awful innocent, and I have never trusted this man, Rivers. Lane had trouble with him just before. Arnold Rivers, Rand said, when it was evident that she was not going to continue, has the reputation among collectors of being the biggest crook in the old gun racket, a reputation he seems determined to live up to or down to. But here, if your stepdaughters are co-owners, what's my status? What authority, if any, have I to do in negotiating? Gladys Fleming laughed musically, that, my dear Colonel, is where you earn your fee, she told him. Actually it won't be as hard as it looks. If Nelda gives you any argument, you can count on Geraldine to take up your side as a matter of principle. If Geraldine objects first, Nelda will help you steamroll her into line. Fred Dunmore is accustomed to dealing with a lot of yes men at the plant, you shouldn't have any trouble shouting him down. Anton Varsik won't be interested, one way or another. He has what amounts to a pathological phobia about firearms of any sort, and Humphrey Good, our attorney, who's executor of the estate, will welcome you with open arms once he finds out what you want to do. That collection has him talking to himself already. Look, if you can come out to our happy home in the early afternoon before Fred and Anton get back from the plant, we ought to ram through some sort of agreement with Geraldine and Nelda. You and whoever else sides with me will be a majority, ran considered. Of course the other one may pull a gromaco on us, but I think I'll talk to Good first. Yes, that would be smart, Gladys Fleming agreed. After all, he's responsible for selling the collection. She crossed to the desk and sat down in Rand's chair while she wrote out the cheque and a short letter of authorization, then she returned to her own seat. There's another thing, she continued, lighting a fresh cigarette. Because of the manner of Mr. Fleming's death, the girls have a horror of the collection, almost but not quite as strong as their desire to get the best possible price for it. Yes, I'd heard that Mr. Fleming had been killed in a firearms accident last November, Rand mentioned. It was with one of his collection pieces, the widow replied. One he'd bought just that day, a Confederate-made cult-type percussion, thirty-six revolver. He'd brought it home with him, simply delighted with it, and started cleaning it at once. He could hardly wait until dinner was over to get back to work on it. We'd finished dinner about seven or a little after. At about half past Nelda went out somewhere in the coop. John had gone up to his laboratory in the attic. He's one of these fortune-its whose work is also his hobby. He's a biochemist and dietician, and Lane was in the gun-room on the second floor, working on his new revolver. Fred Dunmore was having a bath, and Geraldine and I had taken our coffee into the East Parlor. Geraldine put on the radio, and we were listening to it. It must have been about seven-forty-seven or seven-forty-eight because the program had changed, and the first commercial was just over, when we heard a loud noise from somewhere upstairs. Neither of us thought of a shot. My own first idea was of a door slamming. Then about five minutes later we heard Anton in the upstairs hall, pounding on a door and shouting, Lane, Lane, are you all right? We ran up the front stairway, and found Anton in his rubber lab apron, and Fred in a bathrobe and barefooted standing outside the gun-room door. The door was locked, and that in itself was unusual. There's a yell lock on it, but nobody ever used it. For a minute or so we just stood there. Anton was explaining that he had heard a shot and that nobody in the gun-room answered. Geraldine told him, rather impatiently, to go down to the library and up the spiral. You see, she explained, the library is directly under the gun-room, and there's a spiral stairway connecting the two rooms. So Anton went downstairs, and we stood waiting in the hall. Fred was shivering in his bathrobe. He said he'd just jumped out of the bathtub and he had nothing on under it. After a while Anton opened the gun-room door from the inside and stood in the doorway, blocking it. He said, you'd better not come in, there's been an accident, but it's too late to do anything. Lane shot himself with one of those damned pistols. I always knew something like this would happen. Well I simply elbowed him out of the way and went in, and the others followed me. By this time the uproar had penetrated to the rear of the house, and the servants, Walters, the butler, and Mrs. Horder, the cook, had joined us. We found Lane inside lying on the floor shot through the forehead. Of course he was dead. He'd been sitting on one of these old cobbler's benches of the sort that used to be all the thing for cocktail tables. He had his tools and polish and oil and rags on it. He'd fallen off it to one side and was lying beside it. He had a revolver in his right hand and an oily rag in his left. Was it the revolver he'd brought home with him, Rand asked? I don't know, she replied. He showed me this confederate revolver when he came home, but it was dirty and dusty and I didn't touch it, and I didn't look closely at it once he had it in his hand when he was on the floor. It was about the same size and design that's all I could swear to. Gee continued. We had something of an argument about what to do. There's the butler offered to call the police. He's English and his mind seems to run naturally to due process of law. Fred and Anton both howled that proposal down. They wanted no part of the police. At the same time Geraldine was going into hysterics, and I was trying to get her quite a down. I took her to her room and gave her a couple of sleeping pills and then went back to the gun room. While I was gone it seems that Anton had called our family doctor, Dr. Yardman, and then Fred called Humphrey Good, our lawyer. Fred lives next door to us about two hundred yards away so he arrived almost at once. When the doctor came he called the coroner, and when he arrived about an hour later they all went into a huddle and decided that it was an obvious accident and that no inquest would be necessary. Then somebody, I'm not sure who, called an undertaker. It was past eleven when he arrived and for once Nelda got home early. She was just coming in while they were carrying Lane out in a basket. You can imagine how horrible that was for her. It was days before she was over the shock, so she'll be just as glad as anybody to see the last of the pistol collection. Through the recital, Rand sat silently toying with the ivory handled Italian fascist dagger of honor that was doing duty as a letter opener on his desk. Gladys Fleming wasn't, he was sure, indulging in any masochistic self-howering. Neither, he thought, was she talking to relieve her mind. Once or twice there had been a small catch in her voice, but otherwise the narration had been a piece of straight reporting, neither callous nor emotional. Good reporting, too, carefully detailed. There had been one or two inclusions of inferential matter in the guise of description, but that was to be looked for and discounted, and she had remembered at the end to include her ostensible reason for telling the story. Yes, it must have been dreadful, he sympathized. Odd, though, that an old hand with guns, like Mr. Fleming, would have an accident like that. I met him once or twice and was at your home to see his collection a couple of years ago. He impressed me as knowing firearms pretty thoroughly. Well, you can look for me to-morrow, say, around two. In the meantime I'll see good and also Gresham and Arnold Rivers. CHAPTER II After ushering his client out the hall door and closing it behind her, Rand turned and said, All right, Kathy, or Dave, whoever's out there, come on in. Then he went back to his desk and reached under it, snapping off a switch. As he straightened, the door from the reception office opened and his secretary, Cathy O'Grady, entered, loading a cigarette into an eight-inch amber holder. She was a handsome woman built on the generous lines of a renaissance goddess. None of the renaissance masters, however, had ever employed a model so strikingly hibernian. She had blue eyes and a fair, highly colored complexion. She wore green, which went well with her flaming red hair, and a good deal of gold costume jewelry. And her came Dave Ritter. He was Rand's assistant and also Kathy's lover. He was five or six years older than his employer and slightly built. His hair, fighting a stubborn, rear-guard action against baldness, was an indeterminate, mousy-grave round. It was one of his professional assets that nobody ever noticed him, not even in a crowd of one. When he wanted it to, his thin face could assume the weary, baffled expression of a middle-aged bookkeeper with a wife and four children on fifty dollars a week. Actually he drew three times that much, had no wife, admitted to no children. During the war he and Kathy had kept the tri-state agency in something better than a state of suspended animation while Rand had been in the army. Ritter fumbled a camel out of his shirt pocket and made a beeline for the desk, appropriating Rand's lighter and sharing the flame with Kathy. You know, Jeff, he said, one of the reasons why this agency never made any money while you were away was that I never had the unadulterated insolence to ask the kind of fees you do. I was listening in on the extension in the file-room. I could hear Kathy damn near faint when you said five grand. Yes, five thousand dollars for appraising a collection they've been offered ten for, and she only has a third interest, Kathy said, retracting herself into the chair, lately vacated by a glottis-flemming. If that makes sense, now, uh, don't you get it, Kathleen Movernine, Ritter asked. She doesn't care about the pistols, she wants Jeff to find out who fixed up that accident for Fleming. You heard that big, long shaggy dog story about exactly what happened and where everybody was supposed to have been at the time. I hope you got all that recorded, it was all told for a purpose. Rand had picked up the outside phone and was dialing. In a moment a girl's voice answered. Carter Tipton's law office, good afternoon. Hello, Riva, is Tip available? Oh, hello, Jeff. Just a sec, I'll see. She buzzed another phone. Jeff ran down the line, she announced.  Hello, Jeff. Now what sort of malfeasance have you committed? Nothing so far, across my fingers, Rand replied. I just want a little information. Are you busy? OK, I'll be up directly. She replaced the phone and turned to his disciples. Our client, he said, wants two jobs done on one fee. Getting the pistol collection sold is one job. Exploring the wise and wherefores of that quote accident unquote is the other. She has a hunch, and probably nothing much better, that there's something sour about the accident. She expects me to find evidence to that effect while I'm at Rosemont, going over the collection. I'm not excluding other possibilities, but I'll work on that line until and unless I find out differently. Five thousand should cover both jobs. You think that's how it is? Kathy asked. Look, Kathy, I got just as far on arithmetic at school as you did, and I suspect that Mrs. Fleming got at least as far as long division herself. For reasons I stated, I simply couldn't have handled that collection business for anything like a reasonable fee. So I told her five thousand, thinking that would stop her. When it didn't, I knew she had something else in mind, and when she went into all that detail about the death of her husband, she as good as told me that was what it was. Now, I'm sorry, I didn't say ten thousand. I think she'd have bought it at that price just as cheerfully. She thinks Lane Fleming was murdered. Well, on the face of what she told me, so do I. All right, Professor, expound, Ritter said. You heard what he was supposed to have shot himself with, ran began. A colt-type percussion revolver. You know what they're like, and I know enough about Lane Fleming to know how much experience he had with old arms. I can't believe that he'd buy a pistol without carefully examining it, and I can't believe that he'd bring that thing home and start working on it without seeing the caps on the nipples and the charges in the chambers if it had been loaded. And if it had been, he would have first taken off the caps and then taken it apart and drawn the charges. Then she says he started working on it as soon as he got home, presumably around five, and then took time out for dinner and then went back to work on it, and more than half an hour later there was a shot and he was killed. Ran blew a bronx cheer. If that accident had been the McCoy, it would have happened in the first five minutes after he started working on that pistol. No in the first thirty seconds. And then, when they found him, he had the revolver in his right hand and an oily rag in his left. I hope both of you noticed that little touch. Yeah, when I clean again, I generally have it in my left hand and clean with my right, Ritter said. Exactly, and why do you use an oily rag, ran inquired. Ritter looked at him blankly for half a second, then grinned ruefully. Damn, I never thought of that, he admitted. OK, he was bumped off, all right. But you use oily rags on guns, cat, the 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 a neglected condition, ran said. Either surface rusted or filthy with gummed oil and dirt. Even if Mrs. Fleming hadn't mentioned that point, the length of time he spent cleaning it would justify such an inference. He would have taken it apart down to the smallest screw and cleaned everything carefully and then put it together again.  He would certainly not have surfaced the oiled it before removing the charges if there ever were any. I assume the revolver he was found holding, presumably the one which he was killed, was another one. And I would further assume that the killer wasn't particularly familiar with the subject of firearms, antique, care, and maintenance of. And with all the hollering and hooping and hysterics throwing nobody noticed the switch, Ritter finished, wonder what happened to the one he was really cleaning. That, I may possibly find out, ran said. The general incompetence with which this murder was committed gives me plenty of room to hope that it may still be lying around somewhere. Well, have you thought that it might just be suicide, Cathy asked? I have, very briefly. I dismissed the thought almost at once, ran told her, for two reasons. One, that if it had been suicide Mrs. Fleming wouldn't want it poked into. She'd be more than willing to let her ride as an accident. And two, I doubt if a man who prided himself on his gun knowledge, as Fleming did, would want his self-shooting to be taken for an accident. I'm damn sure I wouldn't want my friends to go around saying, What a dope! Didn't know it was loaded. I doubt if he'd even expect people to believe that it had been an accident. He shook his head. No, the only inference I can draw is that somebody murdered Fleming and then faked evidence intended to indicate an accident. He rose. I'll be back in a little. Think it over while I'm gone. Carter Tipton had his law office on the floor above the Tri-State Detective Agency. He handled all ran's not-infrequent legal involvements and ran did all his investigating and witness-chasing. Annually, they compared books to see who owed whom, how much. Captain was about five years round's junior and had been in the Navy during the war. He was frequently described as New Belfast's leading younger attorney and most eligible bachelor. His dark conservatively cut clothes fitted him as though they had been sprayed on. He wore gold-rimmed glasses and he was so freshly barbed, manicured, valade, and scrubbed as to give the impression that he had been born in cellophane and just unwrapped. He leaned back in his chair and waved his visitor to a seat. Tip, do you know anything about this Fleming family out at Rosemont? Ran began getting out his pipe and tobacco. The premixed food's Fleming's? Tipton asked. Yes, a little. Which one of them wants you to frame what on which other one? That'll do for a good simplified description to start with, ran commented. Why, my client is Mrs. Gladys Fleming. As to what she wants. He told the young lawyer about his recent interview and subsequent conclusions. So you see, he finished, she won't commit herself even with me. Maybe she thinks I have more official status and more obligations to the police than I have. Maybe she isn't sure in her own mind and wants me to see independently, if there is any smell of something dead in the woodpile. Or she may think that having a private detective called in may throw a scare into somebody. Or maybe she thinks somebody may be fixing up an accident for her next, and she wants a pistol toad and gent in the house for a while. Or any combination thereof. Personally, I deplore these clients who hire you to do one thing and expect you to do another. But, with five grand for sweetening, I can take them. Yes, you know I've heard rumors of suicide, but this is the first whiff of murder I've caught. He hesitated slightly. I must say I'm not greatly surprised. I mean Fleming's death was very convenient to a number of people. You know about this premixed company, don't you? Bagley. They manufacture ready-mixed pancake flour and ready-mixed ice cream and pudding powders. And this dehydrated vegetable soup. Pour on hot water, stir and serve, don't they? My colored boy, Buck, got some of the soup once for an experiment. We unanimously voted not to try it again. They'd put out quite a line of such godsend to the neophyte in the kitchen. The popularity of which is reflected in a steadily rising divorce rate, Tipton said. They advertised very extensively, including half an hour of tear-jerking drama on a national hookup during soap opera time. Your client, the former Gladys Farrand, was on the air for premix for a couple of years. That's how Lane Fleming first met her. So you think some irate and dyspeptic husband went to the source of his woes, Rand inquired? Well, not exactly. You see, premix is only little business, as the food industry goes, but they have something very sweet. So sweet, in fact, that one of the really big fellows, national milling and packaging, has been going to rather extreme lengths to affect a merger. Millpack, par 100, is quoted at around 145, and premixed, par 50, is at 75 now. Millpack is offering a two-for-one share exchange, which would be a little less than four-for-one in value. I might add, for what it's worth, that this Stephen Gresham you mentioned is Millpack's attorney, negotiator, and general Mr. Fixit. He has been trying to put over this merger for Millpack. I'll bear that in mind, too, Rand said. Naturally, all this is not being shouted from the housetops. Tipton continued. Fact is, it's a minor infraction of ethics for me to mention it to you. I'll file it in the burn box, Rand promised. What was the matter? Didn't premix want to merge? Lane Fleming didn't, and since he held 52% of the common stock himself, try and do anything about it. Anything short of retiring Fleming to the graveyard, that is, Rand amended, that would do for a murder motive very nicely. What were Fleming's objections to the merger? In least 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 pelled it off a spring wagon.  They incorporated in the early 20s, and then after the old man died, Lane Fleming hired an advertising agency to promote his products, and built up a national distribution, and took on some sidelines. Then, during the late Mr. Chamberlain's piece an hour time, he picked up a refuge Czech chemist and foods expert named Anton Varsak, who whipped up a lot of new products. So business got better and better, and they made more money to spend on advertising, to get more money to buy more advertising to make more money. Like Bill Nye's Puritans digging clams in the winter to get strength to hoe corn in the summer to get strength to dig clams in the winter. So premix became a sort of symbol of achievement to Fleming. Then he was one of these old model paternalistic employers, and he was afraid that if he relinquished control, a lot of his old retainers would be turned out to grass. And finally he was opposed in principle to concentration of business ownership. He claimed it made business more vulnerable to government control and eventual socialization. I'm not sure he didn't have something there, Rand considered. We get all our corporate eggs and a few baskets, and they're that much easier for the planned economy boys to grab. Just two on the premix side was in favor of this merger. Just about everybody but Fleming, tipped and replied. His two sons-in-laws, Fred Dunmore and Varsak, who are first and second vice presidents, Humphrey Good, the company attorney who doubles as board chairman, all the directors, all the New York banking crowd who are interested in premix, and all the two-shared tiny mites. I don't know who inherits Fleming's voting interest, but I can find out for you by this time tomorrow. Do that, tipped, and bill me for what you think finding out is worth, Rand said. It'll be a novel reversal of order for you to be billing me for an investigation. Now how about the family? As distinct from the company? Well, there's your client, Gladys Fleming. She married Lane Fleming about ten years ago when she was twenty-five and he was fifty-five. In spite of the age difference I understand it was a fairly happy marriage. Then there are two daughters by a previous marriage, Nelda Dunmore and Geraldine Varsak, and their respective husbands. They all live together in a big house at Rosemont. In the company, Dunmore is sales and Varsak is production. They each have a corner of the mantle of Lane Fleming in one hand and a dirk in the other. Nelda and Geraldine hate each other like Greeks and Trojans. Nelda is the nymphomaniac sister and Geraldine is the dipsomaniac. From time to time temporary alliances get formed, mainly against Gladys. All of them present the way she married herself into a third interest into the estate.  I'm looking forward to it, Rand grimaced. You mentioned suicide rumors, such as and who's been spreading them. Oh, they're the usual bodiless voices that float about, tipped in told them. Emanating, I suspect, from sources interested in shaking out the less sophisticated small shareholders before the merger. The story is always approximately the same. That Lane Fleming saw his company drifting reefward, was unwilling to survive the shipwreck, and performed seppuku. The family are supposed to have faked up the accident afterwards. I dismiss the whole thing as a rather less than subtle bit of marketing manipulation chicanery. Or a smoke screen to cover the defects and camouflaging a murder as an accident, Rand added, tipped and nodded. That could be so too, he agreed. Say somebody dislikes the looks of that accident and starts investigating. Then he runs into all this miasma of suicide rumors and promptly shrugs the whole thing off. Fleming killed himself and the family made a few alterations and are passing it off as an accident. The families of suicides have been known to do that. Yes. Regular defense in-depth system. If the accident line is penetrated, the suicide line is back of it, Rand said. Well, in the last few years we've seen defenses in-depth penetrated with monotonous regularity. I've jeeped through a couple myself to interrogate the surviving ex-defenders. It's all in having the guns and armor to smash through with. CHAPTER III HUMPRY GOOD was sixty-ish, short and chunky, with a fringe of white hair, round a bald crown. His brow was corrugated with wrinkles, and he peered suspiciously around through a pair of thick-lensed, black-riven glasses. His wide-mouth curved downward at the corners in an expression that was probably intended to be stern, and succeeded only in being pompous. His office was dark and smelled of dusty books. Mr. Rand, he began accusingly, when your secretary called to make this appointment, she informed me that you had been retained by Mrs. Gladys Fleming. That's correct. Rand slowly packed tobacco into his pipe and lit it. Mrs. Fleming wants me to look after some interests of hers, and as your executor of her late husband's estate, I thought I ought to talk to you, first of all.  Mr. Rand, if you're investigating the death of Lane Fleming, you're wasting your time and Mrs. Fleming's money, he lectured. There is nothing whatever for you to find out that is not already public knowledge. Mr. Fleming was accidentally killed by the discharge of an old revolver he was cleaning. I don't know what foolish feminine impulse led Mrs. Fleming to employ you, but you'll do nobody any good in this matter, and you may do a great deal of harm. Did my secretary tell you I was making an investigation? Rand demanded incredulously. She doesn't usually make mistakes of that sort. The wrinkles moved up Good's brow like a battalion advancing in platoon front. He looked even more narrowly at Rand, his suspicion compounded with bewilderment. Why should I investigate the death of Lane Fleming? Rand continued. As far as I know Mrs. Fleming is satisfied that it was an accident. She never expressed any other belief to me. Do you think it was anything else? Why, of course not, Good exclaimed. That's just what I was telling you, I—he took a fresh start. There have been rumors, utterly without foundation, of course, that Mr. Fleming committed suicide. They are, I may say, nothing but malicious fabrications circulated for the purpose of undermining public confidence in premixed foods incorporated. I had thought that perhaps Mrs. Fleming might have heard them and decided, on her own responsibility, to bring you in to scotch them. I was afraid that such a step might, by giving these rumors fresh currency, defeat its intended purpose. Oh, nothing of the sort, Rand told him. I'm not in the least interested in how Mr. Fleming was killed, and the question is simply not involved in what Mrs. Fleming wants me to do. He stopped there. Good was looking at him sideways, sucking in one corner of his mouth and pushing out the other. It was not a facial contortion that impressed Rand favorably. It was too reminiscent of a high school principal under whom he had suffered years ago in Vicksburg, Mississippi. Rand began to suspect that Good might be just another self-righteous, opinionated, egotistical windbag. Such men could be dangerous, were usually quite unscrupulous, and were almost always unpleasant to deal with. Then why, the lawyer demanded, did Mrs. Fleming employ you? Well, as you know, Rand began, the Fleming pistol collection. Now the joint property of Mrs. Fleming and her two stepdaughters is an extremely valuable asset. Mr. Fleming spent the better part of his life gathering it. At one time or another he must have owned between four and five thousand different pistols and revolvers. Since twenty-five hundred left to his heirs represent the result of a systematic policy of discriminating purchase, replacement of inferior items, and general improvement. It's one of the largest and most famous collections of its kind in the country. Well, Good was completely out of his depth by now. Surely Mrs. Fleming doesn't think, Mrs. Fleming thinks that an expert advice is urgently needed in disposing of that collection, Rand replied, carefully picking his words to fit what he estimated to be Good's probable semantic reactions. She has the utmost confidence in your ability and integrity as an attorney, however she realized that you could hardly describe yourself as an antique arms expert. It happens that I am an expert in antique firearms, particularly pistols. I have a collection of my own. I am the author of a number of articles on the subject, and I am recognized as something of an authority. I know arms values and understand market conditions. Furthermore, not being a dealer or connected with any museum, I have no mercenary motive for undervaluing the collection. That's all there is to it. Mrs. Fleming has retained me as a firearms expert in connection with the collection. Good was looking at Rand as though the latter had just torn off a mask, revealing another and entirely different set of features underneath. The change seemed to be a welcome one, but he was evidently having trouble adjusting to it. Rand grinned inwardly. Now he was going to have to find himself a new set of verbal labels and identifications. Well, Mr. Rand, that alters the situation considerably, he said, with noticeably less hostility. He was still a bit resentful. People had no right to confuse him by jumping about from one category to another like that. Now understand I'm not trying to be offensive, but it seems a little unusual for a private detective also to be an authority on antique firearms. Mr. Fleming was an authority on antique firearms, and he was a manufacturer of foodstuffs, Rand parried. Carefully staying inside, Good's Aristotleian system of categories and verbal identifications. My own business does not occupy all my time any more than his did, and I doubt if an interest in the history and development of deadly weapons is any more incongruous in a criminologist than in an industrialist. But if there's any doubt in your mind as to my qualifications, you can check with Colonel Taylor at the State Museum, or with the editor of American Rifleman. I see, good-notted. And as you point out, being a sort of non-professional expert, you should be free from mercenary bias. He nodded again, taking off his glasses and polishing them on an outsized white handkerchief. Frankly, now that I understand your purpose, Mr. Rand, I must say that I am quite glad that Mrs. Fleming took this step. I was perplexed about how to deal with that collection. I realized that it was worth a great deal of money, but I haven't the vaguest idea how much or how it could be sold to the best advantage. At a rough guess, Mr. Rand, how much do you think it ought to bring? Rand shook his head. I only saw it twice. The last time was two years ago. Ask me that after I spent a day or so going over it, and I'll be able to give you an estimate. I will say this, though. It's probably worth a lot more than the $10,000 Arnold Rivers has offered for it. That produced an unexpected effect, good straightened in his chair, gobbling in surprised indignation. Arnold Rivers? Has he had the impudence to try and 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, good said. Why that man is a notorious swindler, Mr. Rand. Do you know that only a week before his death Mr. Fleming instructed me to bring suit against him, and also to secure his indictment on criminal charges of fraud? I didn't know that, but I'm not surprised, Rand answered. What did he burn Fleming with? Here I'll show you. He'd rose from his seat and went to a rank of steel filing cabinets behind the desk. In a moment he was back with a large manila envelope under his arm and a huge pistol in either hand. Here, Mr. Rand, he chuckled, we'll just test your firearms knowledge, what do you make of these? Rand took the pistols and looked at them. They were wheel locks, apparently sixteenth century south German. They were a good two feet in overall length, with ball pommels the size of oranges and long steel belt hooks. The stocks were so covered with ivory inlay that the wood showed only in tiny interstices. The metalwork was lavishly engraved and gold inlayed. To the trigger guards were attached tags marked Fleming vs. Rivers. Rand examined each pistol separately then compared them. Finally he took a six inch rule from his pocket and made measurements, first with one edge and then with the other. Well, I'm damned, he said, laying them on the desk. These things are the most complete fakes I ever saw, locks, stocks, barrels, and mountings. They're supposed to be late sixteenth century. I doubt if they were made before nineteen twenty. As far as I can see or measure there isn't the slightest difference between them except on some of the decorative inlay. The whole job must have been miked in ten thousandths, and what's more whoever made them used metric measurements. You'll find pairs of English dueling pistols as early as seventeen seventy-five that are almost indistinguishable. But in fifteen seventy-five when these things were supposed to have been made, a gunsmith was working fine when he was working in sixteenth inches. They just didn't have the measuring instruments at that time to do closer work. I won't bother taking these things apart, but if I did I'd bet all Wall Street to Junior's piggy bank that I'd find that the screws were machine threaded and the working parts interchanged. I've heard about fakes like these. He named a famous recently liquidated West Coast collector. But I'd never hoped to see an example like this. Good gave a hacking chuckle. You'll do as an arms expert Mr. Rand, he said, and you'd win the piggy bank. It seems that after Mr. Fleming bought them he took them apart and found, just as you say, that the screw threads had been machine cut, and that the working parts were interchangeable from one pistol to the other. There were a lot of papers accompanying them. I had them here, purporting to show that they had been sold by some Austrian nobleman, an anti-Nazi refugee in whose family they had been since the reign of Maximilian II. They are, of course, fabrications. I looked up the family in the Almanac de Gotha. It simply never existed. At first Mr. Fleming had been inclined to take the view that Rivers had been equally victimized with himself. However, when Rivers refused to take back the pistols and refund the purchase price, he altered his opinion. He placed them in my hands instructing me to bring suit and also start criminal action. He was in a fearful rage about it and swore that he'd drive Rivers out of business. However, before I could start the action Mr. Fleming was killed in that accident, and as he was the sole witness to the fact of the sale, and as none of the heirs was interested I did nothing about it. In fact I advised them that action against Rivers would cost the estate more than they could hope to recover in damages. He picked up one of the pistols and examined it. Now, I don't know what to do about these. Take them home and hang them over the mantle, Rand advised. If I'm going to have anything to do with selling the collection I don't want anything to do with them. Mr. Good was peering at the ivory inlay on the underbelly of the stock. They are beautiful and I don't care when they were made, he said. I think if nobody else wants them I'll do just that. Now Mr. Rand, what had you intended doing about the collection? Well, that's what I came to see you about Mr. Good. As I understand it, it is you who are officially responsible for selling the collection, and the proceeds would be turned over to you for distribution to Mrs. Fleming, Mrs. Dunmore, and Mrs. Varsak. Is that correct? Yes, the collection, although in the physical possession of Mrs. Fleming, is still an undistributed asset. I thought so. Rand got out Gladys Fleming's letter of authorization and handed it to Good. As you'll see by that I was retained by and only by Mrs. Fleming, he said. I am assuming that her interests are identical with those of the other heirs, but I realize that this is true only to a very limited extent. It's my understanding that relations between the three ladies are not the most pleasant. Good produced a short, croaking laugh. Now there's a cautious understatement, he commented. Mr. Rand, I feel that you should know that all three hate each other poisonously. That was rather my impression. Now I expect some trouble from Mrs. Dunmore and or Mrs. Varsak, either or both of whom are sure to accuse me of having been brought into this by Mrs. Fleming to help her defraud the others. That of course is not the case. They will all profit equally by my participation in this. But I'm going to have trouble convincing them of that. Yes, you will, good agreed. Would you rather carry my authorization than Mrs. Fleming's? Yes, indeed, Mr. Good. To tell you the truth, that was why I came here, for one reason. You would not be obligated in any way by authorizing me to act as your agent. I'm getting my fee from Mrs. Fleming. But I would be obligated to represent her only as far as her interests did not improperly conflict with those of the other heirs, and that's what I want made clear. Good favored the detective with a sorry and smile. You're not a lawyer too, Mr. Rand? He asked. Well, I am a member of the bar in the state of Mississippi, though I never practiced, but admitted. Instead of opening a law office, I went to the FBI in 1935, and then opened a private agency a couple of years later. What if I had to, which God forbid, I could go home tomorrow and hang out my shingle. You seem to have had quite an eventful career, good remarked, with a queer combination of envy and disapproval. I understand that until recently you were an officer in the Army Intelligence too. I'll have your authorization to act for me made out immediately, to list and appraise the collection, and to negotiate with prospective purchasers. And by the way, he continued, did I understand you to say that you had heard some of these silly rumors to the effect that Lane Fleming had committed suicide? Oh, that's what's always heard under the circumstances, Rand shrugged, a certain type of sensation-loving mind. Mr. Rand, there is not one scintilla of truth in any of these scurrilous stories, good declared, pumping up a fine show of indignation. The premixed company is in the best possible financial condition. A glance at its books or at its last financial statement would show that. I ought to know, I'm chairman of the board of directors. Just because there was some talk of retrenchment, shortly before Mr. Fleming's death. Oh, no responsible person pays any attention to that sort of talk, Rand comforted him. My armed guard and armored car service brings me into contact with a lot of the local financial crowd. None of them is taking these rumors seriously. Well, of course, nobody wants the responsibility of starting a panic, even a minor one, but people are talking and it's hurting premix on the market, good gloomed. And now people will hear Mrs. Fleming's having retained you and will assume, just as I did at first, that you are making some kind of an investigation. I hope you will make a prompt denial if you hear any talk like that. He pressed the button on his desk. And now I'll get a letter of authorization made out for you, Mr. Rand. CHAPTER IV Stephen Gresham was in his early sixties, but he could have still worn his World War I uniform without anything giving at the seams, and buckled the old Sam Brown at the same hole. As Rand entered, he rose from behind his desk and advanced, smiling cordially. Why, hello, Jeff! he greeted the detective, grasping his hand heartily. You haven't been around for months. What have you been doing and why don't you come out to Rosemont to see us? Dot and Irene were wondering what had become of you. I'm afraid I've been neglecting too many of my old friends lately, Rand admitted, sitting down and getting his pipe out. Been busy as the devil. Fact is, it was business that finally brought me around here. I understand that you and some others are forming a pool to buy the Lane Fleming collection. Yes, Gresham became enthusiastic. Want in on it? I'm sure the others would be glad to have you in with us. We're going to need all the money we can scrape together, with this damned rivers bidding against us. I'm afraid you will at that, Stephen, Rand told him, and not necessarily on account of rivers. You see, the Fleming estate has just employed me to expertise the collection and handle the sale for them. Rand got his pipe lit and drawing properly.  Oh, of course, I should have known they'd get somebody like you in to sell the collection for them. Humphrey Good isn't competent to handle that. What we were all afraid of was a public auction at some sales gallery. Rand shook his head. Worse thing they could do, a collection like that would go for peanuts at auction. Remember the big sales in the 20s? Why here? I'm going to be in Rosemont staying at the Fleming place, working on the collection for the next week or so. I suppose your crowd wouldn't want to make an offer until I have everything listed, but I'd like to talk to your associates in a group as soon as possible. Well, we all know pretty much what's in the collection, Gresham said. We were neighbors of his and collectors are gregarious lot, but we aren't anxious to make any premature offers. We don't want to offer more than we have to, and at the same time we don't want to underbid and see the collection sold elsewhere. No, of course not. Rand thought for a moment. Tell you what, I'll give you and your friends the best break I can in fairness to my clients. I'm not obliged to call for sealed bids or anything like that, so when I've heard from everybody I'll give you a chance to bid against the highest offer in hand. If you want to top it, you can have the collection for any kind of overbid that doesn't look too suspiciously nominal. Why, Jeff, I appreciate that, Gresham said. I think you're entirely within your rights, but naturally we won't mention this outside. I can imagine Arnold Rivers, for instance, taking a very righteous view of such an arrangement. Yes, so can I. Of course, if he'd call me a crook, I'd take that as a compliment, Rand said. I wonder if I could meet your group, say, tomorrow evening? I want to be in a position to assure the Fleming family and Humphrey good that you're all serious and responsible. Well, we're very serious about it, Gresham replied, and I think we're all responsible. You can look us up, if you wish. Besides myself, there's Philip Cabot of Cabot Joiner and Teal, whom you know, and Adam Treehearn, who's worth about a half million in industrial shares, and Colin McBride, who's vice president in charge of construction and maintenance for Edison public power and light at about 20,000 a year, and Pierre Jarre and his fiancee, Karen Lawrence. Pierre was a marine captain, invalided home after being wounded on Peleleu. He writes science fiction for the pulps. Karen has a little general antique business in Rosemont. They intend using their share of the collection, plus such culls and duplicates as the rest of us can consign to them, to go into the arms business with a general antique sideline which Karen can manage while Pierre is riding.  That suit you? That, Rand agreed, would be all right. Gresham asked him how recently he had seen the Fleming collection. About two years ago, right after I got back from Germany, you remember, we went there together one evening in March. Yes, that's right. We didn't have time to see everything Gresham said. My god, Jeff, 25 wheel locks, 10 snap ounces, and every imaginable kind of flintlock, over 100 US Marshals, including the 1818 Springfield, all the S North types, a couple of Virginia manufacturing models, and he got this since the last time you saw the collection, a real wrap-in-handcock forged flintlock, and about 150 culls, all models and most variants. Remember that big Whitneyville walker in original condition? He got that one in 1924 at the Fred Hines sale at the old Walpole Galleries, and seven Patterson Colts, including a couple of cased sets, and anything else you can think of.  By the way, Humphrey Good showed me a pair of big ball butt wheel locks all covered with ivory inlay, Rand mentioned. Gresham laughed heartily. Aren't they the dentist ever seen, though? He asked. Made in Germany about 1870 or 80, about the time arms collecting was just getting out of the family heirloom stage, wouldn't you say? I'd say made in Japan about 1920, Rand replied. Remember, there were a couple of small human figurines on each pistol, a knight and a huntsman? Did you notice that they had slant eyes? He stopped laughing and looked at Gresham seriously. Just how much more of that sort of thing do you think I'm going to have to weed out of the collection before I can offer it for sale, he asked. Gresham shook his head. They're all. They were Lane Fleming's one false step. Ordinarily, Lane was a careful buyer. He must have let himself get hypnotized by all that ivory and gold, and all that documentation on crusted note paper. You know, Fleming's death was an undeserved stroke of luck for Arnold Rivers. If he hadn't been killed just when he was, he'd have run Rivers out of the old arms business. I noticed that Rivers isn't advertising in the American Rifleman anymore, Rand observed. No, the National Rifle Association stopped his ad and lifted his membership card for good measure, Gresham said. Rivers sold the rifle to a collector down in Virginia about three years ago while you were still occupying Germany. A fine early flintlock Kentuck that had been made out of a fine late percussion Kentuck by sawing off the breech end of the barrel, rethreading it for the breech plug, drilling a new vent and fitting the lock with a flint hammer and a pan and frism assembly, and shortening the fore end to fit. Rivers has a gunsmith over at Kingsville, one Elmer Umholtz, who does all his fraudulent conversions for him. I have an example of Umholtz's craftsmanship myself. The collector who bought this various flintlock spotted what had been done and squawked to the Rifle Association and to the postal authorities. Rivers claimed, I suppose, that he had gotten it from a family that had owned it ever since it was made and showed letters signed D. Boone and David Crockett to prove it. No, he claimed to have gotten it in trade from some wayfaring collector, Gresham replied. He convinced Uncle Whiskers, but the NRA took a slightly dimmer view of the transaction, so Rivers doesn't advertise in the Rifleman anymore. Wasn't there some talk about Whitneyville Walker Colts that had been made out of 1848 model Colt Dragoons? Rand asked. Oh Lord, yes. This fellow Umholtz was practically turning them out on an assembly line for a while. Rivers must have sold about 10 of them. You know, Umholtz is a really fine gunsmith. I had him build a deer rifle for Dodd a couple of years ago. Mexican Mauser action, Johnson Barrel chambered for 300 Savage. Umholtz made the stock and fitted a scope sight. It's a beautiful little rifle. I hate to see him prostitute his talents the way he does by making these fake antiques for Rivers. You know, he made one of these mythical heavy 44-6 shooters of the sort Colt was supposed to have turned out at Patterson in 1839 for Colonel Walker's Texas Rangers. You know, the model he couldn't find any of in 1847 when he made the real Walker Colt. That story you find in Sawyer's book. Why, that story's been absolutely disproved, Rand said. There never was any such revolver. Not till Umholtz made one, Gresham replied. Rivers sold it to, he named a moving picture big shot, for $2,500. His story was that he picked it up in Mexico in 1938, traded at 38 Specials to some half-breed goat herder for it. This fellow who bought it now, did he see Belden and Haven's Colt book when it came out in 1940? Yes, and he was plenty burned up, but what could he do? Rivers was dug in behind this innocent purchase and sale in good faith Magano line of his.  The lawyer muttered it seemingly.  You might not have gotten anything, but you'd have given him a lot of dirty publicity. That's all Fleming was expecting to do about those wheel-locks. I'm not Fleming. He could afford litigation like that. I can't.  I wouldn't blame you. You could find plenty of other collectors who'd hold your code while you were doing it, Rand told them. Then he inquired idly. What sort of pistol was it that Lane Fleming is supposed to have shot himself with? Gresham frowned. I really don't know. I didn't see it. It's supposed to have been a Confederate leech in Rigdon 36, you know, one of those imitation Colt Navy models that were made in the South during the Civil War. Rand nodded. He was familiar with the type. The story is that Fleming found it hanging back of the counter at some roadside lunch stand along with a lot of other old pistols, and talked the proprietor into letting it go for a few dollars, Gresham continued. It was supposed to have been loaded at the time and went off while Fleming was working on it at home. He shook his head. I can't believe that, Jeff. Lane Fleming would know a loaded revolver when he saw one. I believe he deliberately shot himself and the family faked the accident and fixed the authorities. The police never made any investigation. It was handled by the coroner alone.  But good Lord, why, Rand demanded, I never heard of Fleming having any troubles worth killing himself over. Gresham lowered his voice. Jeff, I'm not supposed to talk about this, but the fact is that I believe Fleming was about to lose control of the premix company, he said. I have, well, sources of inside information. This is in confidence, so don't quote me. But certain influences were at work inside the company toward that end. He inspected the tip of his cigar and knocked off the ash into the tray at his elbow. Lane Fleming's death is on record as accidental, Jeff. It's been written off as such. It would be a great deal better for all concerned if it were left at that. End of Chapter 4 Chapter 5 of Murder in the Gunroom This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Murder in the Gunroom by H. Beam Piper Chapter 5 Rand drove slowly through Rosemont the next day, refreshing his memory of the place. It was one of the many commuters villages strung out for fifty miles along the railroad lines radiating from New Belfast, and depended for its support upon a population scattered over a five-mile radius at estates and country homes. Obviously a planned community, it was dominated by a gray-walled green-roofed railroad station which stood on its passenger platform like a captain in front of four platoons of gray-walled green-roofed houses and stores aligned along as many converging roads. There was a post office, uniform with the rest of the buildings. An excessive quantity of aluminum trimming dated it somewhere in the middle Andrew W. Mellon period. There were four gas stations, a movie theater, and a Woolworth's store with a red front that made it look like some painted hussy who had wandered into a Quaker meeting. Over the door of one of the smaller stores, Rand saw a black-lettered white sign and teaks. There was a smoke-gray Plymouth Coupe parked in front of it. Instead of turning on to the road to the Fleming estate, he continued along Route 19 for a mile or so beyond the village until he came to a red-brick pseudo-colonial house on the right. He pulled to the side of the road and got out, turning up the collar of his trench coat. The air was raw and damp, doubly unpleasant after the recent unseasonable warmth. An apathetically persistent rain sogged the seedling dotted old fields on either side and the pine woods beyond, and a high ceiling of unbroken dirty gray gave no promise of clearing. The mournful hoot of a distant locomotive whistle was the only sound to pierce the silence. For a moment Rand stood with his back to the car, looking at the gallows-like sign that proclaimed this to be the business place of Arnold Rivers, fine antique and modern firearms for the discriminating collector. The house faced the road with a long side. At the left, the porch formed a continuation under a deck roof, and on the right an L had been built at right angles, extending thirty feet toward the road. Although connected to the house by a shed roof, which acquired a double pitch and became a gable roof, where the L projected forward, it was in effect a separate building with its own front door and its own door-path. Its floor level was about four feet lower than that of the parent structure. A fiver McGee door chime clanged as Rand entered. Closing the door behind him he looked around. The room, some twenty feet wide and fifty feet long, was lighted by an almost continuous row of casement windows on the right, and another on the left for as far as the L extended beyond the house. They were said high, a good five feet from lower sill to floor, and there was no ceiling. The sloping roof was supported by bare timber rafters. Racks lined the walls under the windows, holding long guns and swords, the pistols and daggers, and other small items were displayed on a number of long tables. In the middle of the room glaring at the front door was a brass four pounder on a ship's carriage. A Philippine latanka, muzzle tilted upwards, stood beside it. Where the L joined the house under the shed roof, there was a fireplace and a short flight of steps to a landing and a door out of the dwelling and some furniture. A Davenport, three or four deep chairs facing the fire, a low cocktail table, a cellarette, and in the far corner a big desk. As Rand went toward the rear a young man rose from one of the chairs, laid aside a magazine and advanced to meet him. He didn't exactly harmonize with all the lethal array around him. He would have looked more at home presiding over an establishment devoted to ladies' items. His costume ran to pastel shades, he had large and soulful blue eyes and prettily dimpled cheeks, and his longish blonde hair was carefully disordered into a windblown effect. Oh, good afternoon, he greeted. Is there anything in particular you're interested in or would you like to just look about? Mostly look about, Rand said. Is Mr. Rivers in? Mr. Rivers is having luncheon. He'll be finished before long if you cared to wait. Have you been here before? Not for some time, Rand said. When I was here last there was a young fellow named Jordan or Gordon or something like that. Oh, he was before my time. The present functionary introduced himself as Cecil Gillis. Rand gave his name and shook hands with him. Young Gillis wanted to know if Rand was a collector. In a small way, General Pistol Collector, Rand told him, have you many cults now? There was a whole table devoted to cults, no spurious Whitneyville walkers. After all, a dealer can sell just so many of such top drawer rarities before the finger of suspicion begins leveling itself in his direction, and Arnold Rivers had long ago past that point. There were several of the commoner percussion models, however, with lovely perfect blowing that was considerably darker than that applied at the cult factory during the 50s and 60s of the last century. The silver plating on backstraps and trigger guards was perfect too, but the naval battle and stagecoach holdup engravings on the cylinders were far from clear, in one case completely obliterated. The cylinder of one 1851 navy bore serial numbers that looked as though they had been altered to conform to the numbers on other parts of the weapon. Many of the cults, 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 cult, the exquisite Mr. Gillis told him. It's a confederate copy, a leech in Rigdon. So I see. I have a Griswold in Greer, but no leech in Rigdon. The Griswold in Greer, that's the one with the brass frame, Cecil Gillis said. Surprising how many collectors think all confederate revolvers had brass frames, because the Griswold in Greer and the Spiller in Burr, that's an unusually fine specimen, Mr. Rand, Mr. Rivers got it sometime in late December or early January, from a gentleman in Charleston, I understand. I believe it had been carried during the Civil War by a member of the former owner's family. Rand looked at the tag tied to the trigger guard, it was marked in letter code with three different prices. That was characteristic of Arnold Rivers business methods. How much does Mr. Rivers want for this, he asked, handing the revolver to young Gillis. The clerk mentally decoded the three prices and vacillated for a moment over them. He had already appraised Rand from his $20 Stetson past his Burberry trench coat to his English hand-sewn shoes, and placed him in the pay-dirt bracket. However, from some remarks Rand had let drop, he decided that this customer knew pistols and probably knew values. Why, that is $60, Mr. Rand, he said, with the error of one conferring a benefaction. Maybe he was at that, Rand decided. Prices had jumped like the very devil since the war. I'll take it. He dug out his billfold and extracted $3.20. Nice clean condition. Clean it up yourself? Why, no, Mr. Rivers got it like this. As I said, it's supposed to have been a family heirloom, but from the way it's been cared for, I would have thought it had been in a collection, the clerk replied. Shall I wrap it for you? Yes, if you please. Rand followed him to the rear, laying aside his coat and hat. Gilles got some heavy paper out of a closet and packaged it, then hunted through a card file in the top drawer of the desk until he found the card he wanted. He made a few notes on it and was still holding it and the $60 when he rejoined Rand by the fire. In spite of his effeminate appearance and over-refined manner, the young fellow really knew arms. The conversation passed from Confederate revolvers to the arms of the Civil War in general, and they were discussing the changes in tactics occasioned by the introduction of the revolver and the repeating carbine when the door from the house opened and Arnold Rivers appeared on the landing. He looked older than when Rand had last seen him, his hair was thinner on top and grayer at the temples. Never particularly robust, he had lost weight, and his face was thinner and more hollow-cheeked. His mouth still had the old curve of supercilious insolence, and he was still smoking with the six-inch carved ivory cigarette holder which Rand remembered. He looked his visitor over carefully from the doorway, decided that he was not soliciting magazine subscriptions or selling fuller brushes, and came down the steps. As he did, he must have recognized Rand. He shifted the cigarette holder to his left hand and extended his right. Mr. Rand, isn't it? he asked. I thought I knew you. It's been some years since you've been around here. I've been a lot of places in the meantime, Rand said. You were here last in October 1941, weren't you? Rivers thought for a moment, you bought a Highlander then, by Alexander Murdock of Downe, wasn't it? No, Andrew Strand of Edsel, Rand replied. Rivers snapped his fingers. That's right, I sold both of those pistols at about the same time. A gentleman in Chicago got the Murdock. The Strayan had a star-peaced lobe on the hammer. Did you ever get anybody to translate the Gaelic inscription on the barrel? You have a memory like Jim Farley, Rand flattered. The inscription was the clan slogan of the Cameroons, something like songs of the hound come and get flesh. I won't attempt the original. Mr. Rand just bought 65-24, the Leech and Rigdon 36, Gaelic interjected, handing Rivers the card and the money. Rivers looked at both, saw how much rent had been taken for, and nodded. A nice item, he faintly praised, as though anything selling for less than $100 was so much garbage. Considering the condition in which Confederate arms are usually found, it's really first rate. I think you'll like it, Mr. Rand. The telephone rang. Cecil Gillis answered it, listened for a moment, and then said, For you, Mr. Rivers, long distance from Milwaukee. Rivers' face lit with the beatific smile of a cat at a promising mousehole. Excuse me, Mr. Rand. He crossed to the desk, picked up the phone, and spoke into it. This is Arnold Rivers, he said, much as Edward Murrow used to say, This is London. The telephone sputtered for a moment. Ah, yes indeed, Mr. Varal. Quite well, I thank you, and you? No, it hasn't been sold yet. Do you wish me to ship it to you? On approval, certainly. Of course it's an original flintlock. I didn't list it as re-altered, did I? No, not at all. The only replacement is the small spring inside the patchbox. Yes, the rifling is excellent. Of course, I'll ship it at once. Goodbye, Mr. Varal.  Cecil, Mr. Varal in Milwaukee, whose address we have, has just ordered 6288. The F. Zorger flintlock can tuck. Will you please attend to it? Right away, Mr. Rivers. Gillis went to one of the ranks under the windows and selected a long flintlock rifle, carrying it out the door at the rear. I issued a list a few days ago, Rivers told Rand. When Cecil comes back, I'll have him get you a copy. I've been receiving calls ever since. This is the 12th long-distance call since Tuesday. Business must be good, Rand commented. I understand you've offered to buy the Lane Fleming collection, for ten thousand dollars. Where did you hear that, Rivers demanded, looking up from the drawer in which he was filing the card on the leech and riggedon, from Mrs. Fleming. Rand released a puff of pipe smoke and watched it draw downward into the fireplace. I've been retained to handle the sale of that collection. Naturally, I'd know who was offering how much. Rivers eyes narrowed. He came around the desk, loading another cigarette into his holder. And just why, might I ask, did Mrs. Fleming think it in order to employ a detective in a matter like that, he wanted to know? Rand let out more smoke. She didn't. She employed an arms expert, a Colonel Jefferson Davis Rand, USA, ORC who is a well-known contributor to the American rifleman and the infantry journal and antiques and the old gun report. You've read some of his articles, I believe? Then you're not making an investigation? What in the world is there to investigate, Rand asked? I'm just selling a lot of old pistols for the Fleming estate. I thought Fred Dunmore was doing that. So did Fred. You're both wrong, though. I am. He got out Good's letter of authorization and handed it to Rivers, who read it through twice before handing it back. You see anything in that about Fred Dunmore or any of the other relatives in law, he asked? Well, I didn't understand. I'm glad to know what the situation really is. Rivers frowned. I thought you were making some kind of an investigation, and as I'm the only party making any serious offer to buy those pistols, I wanted to know what there was to investigate. Do you consider ten thousand dollars to be a serious offer, Rand asked?  Oh, those people, Rivers Scott. Mr. Rand, you certainly don't expect them to be able to handle anything like this, do you? Well, the banks speak well of them, Rand replied. Some of them have good listings in Dun and Bradstreet's, too. Well, so do I, Rivers reported. I can top any offer that crowd makes. What do you expect to get out of them anyhow? I haven't talked price with them yet. A lot more than ten thousand dollars, anyhow. Rivers forced the laugh. Now, Mr. Rand, that was just an opening offer. I thought Fred Dunmore was handling the collection, he grimaced. What do you think it's really worth? Rand shrugged. It probably has a dealer's piece-by-piece list value of around seventy thousand. I'm not nuts enough to expect anything like that in a lump sum, but please, let's not mention ten thousand dollars in this connection anymore. That's on the order of lawyer Marks bidding seventy-five cents for Uncle Tom. It's only good for laughs. Well, how much more than that do you think Gresham and his crowd will offer? I haven't talked price with them yet, Rand repeated. I mean to as soon as I can. Well, you get their offer and I'll top it, Rivers declared. I'm willing to go as high as twenty-five thousand for that collection. They won't go that high. Although he just managed not to show it, Rand was really surprised. Even a consciousness of abstracting had not prepared him for the shock of hearing Arnold Rivers raise his own offer to something resembling an acceptable figure. A good case he reflected could be made of that for the actuality of miracles. He rose picking up his trench coat. Well, that's something like it now, he said. I'll see you later. I don't know how long it's going to take me to get a list prepared and circularize the old arm straight. I should hear from everybody who's interested in a few weeks. You can be sure I'll keep your offer in mind. He slipped into the coat and put on his hat and then picked up the package containing the Confederate revolver. Rivers had risen too. He was watching Rand nervously. When Rand tucked the package under his arm and began drawing on his gloves, Rivers cleared his throat. Mr. Rand, I'm dreadfully sorry he began, but I'll have to return your money and take back that revolver. It should not have been sold. He got Rand's sixty dollars out of his pocket as though he expected it to catch fire and held it out. Rand favored him with a display of pained surprise. Why, I can't do that, he replied. I bought this revolver in good faith and you accepted payment and were satisfied with the transaction. The sale's been made now. Rivers seemed distressed. It was probably the first time he had ever been on the receiving end of that routine and he didn't like it. Now you're being unreasonable, Mr. Rand, he protested. Look here. I'll give you seventy-five dollars credit on anything else in the shop. You certainly can't find fault with an offer like that. I don't want anything else in the shop. I want this revolver you sold me. Rand gave him a look of supercilious insolence that was at least a 200% improvement on Rivers at his most insolent. You know, I'll begin to acquire a poor idea of your business methods before long, he added. Rivers left ruefully. Well, to tell the truth, I just remembered a customer of mine who specializes in Confederate arms who would pay me at least eighty for that item, he admitted. I thought, Rand shook his head, I have a special fondness for Confederate arms myself. One of my grandfathers was in Mosby's Rangers and the other was Barksdale, to say nothing of about a dozen great uncles and so on. Well, you're entirely within your rights, Mr. Rand, Rivers conceded. I should apologize for trying to renege on a sale, but, well, I hope to see you again soon. He followed Rand to the door shaking hands with him. Don't forget, I'm willing to pay anything up to twenty-five thousand for the Fleming Collection. End of Chapter 5 Chapter 6 OF MURDER IN THE GUNROOM This LibriVox recording is in the public domain.  Forgive me, Colonel Rand, but I'm afraid I must put you to some inconvenience, sir, he said. You see, we have no chauffeur at present and I don't drive very well myself. Would you object to putting up your own car, sir? The garage is under the house, at the rear, just follow the driveway around. I'll go through the house and meet you there for the luggage. I'm dreadfully sorry to put you to the trouble, but... Oh, that's all right, Rand comforted him. Just as soon do it myself now, anyhow. I expect to be in and out with the car while I'm here and I'd better learn the layout of the garage now. You may back in, sir, or drive straight in and back out, the butler told him, one way is about as easy as the other. Rand returned to his car, driving around the house. A row of doors opened out of the basement garage. Walters, who must have gone through the house on the double, was waiting for him. Having what amounted to be a conditioned reflex to park his car so that he could get in and out as fast as possible, he cut over to the right, jockied a little, and backed in. There were already two cars in the garage, a big maroon Packard sedan and a sand-colored Packard station wagon, standing side by side. Rand put his Lincoln in on the left of the sedan. Bags in the luggage compartment. It isn't locked, he told the butler making sure that the glove compartment where he had placed the leech and rigged in revolver was locked. As he got out, the servant went to the rear of the car and took out the Gladstone, and the B-4 bag Rand had brought with him. If you don't mind entering the house from the rear, sir, we can go up those steps there and through the rear hall, the butler suggested, almost as though he were making some indecent and criminal proposal. Rand told him to forget the protocol and lead the way. The butler picked up the bags and conducted him up a short flight of concrete steps to a landing and a door opening in a short hall above. An open door from this gave access to a longer hall, stretching to the front of the house, and there was a third door closed which probably led to the servant's domain. Rand followed his guide through the open door and into the long hall which passed under an arch to extend to the front door. There was a door on either side about midway to the arch under the front stairway. The one on the right was the dining room, Walters explained, and the one on the left was the library. He seemed to be still suffering from the ignominy of admitting a house guest through any but the main portal. Emerging into the front hallway, he put down the bags, took Rand's hat and coat and laid them on top of the luggage, and then went to an open doorway on the right. Standing in it, I'm coughing delicately before announcing that Colonel Rand was here. Gladys Fleming, wearing a pale blue frock, came forward as Rand entered the parlor, her hands extended. The two other women in the big parlor remained motionless. They would be the sisters, Geraldine Varsik and Nelda Dunmore. Rand didn't wonder that they resented Gladys so bitterly. Economic considerations aside, girls seldom enthused over a stepmother so near their own age, who is so much more beautiful. Good afternoon, Colonel Rand, Gladys said. This is Mrs. Varsik.  And Mrs. Dunmore. She was the brunette with a full bust and hips, in the short black skirt and the tight white sweater who was standing by the fireplace. Hello! The blonde, Geraldine smiled shyly at him. She had big blue eyes and delicately tinted rose petal lips that seemed to be trying not to laugh at some private joke. She wasn't exactly blotto, but she had evidently laid a good foundation for a first-class jag. After all, it was only two-thirty in the afternoon. The other sister, Nelda, didn't say anything. She merely stood and stared at Rand distrustfully. Rand doubted that she ordinarily gave men the hostile eye, the full dark red lips, the lush figure, the way she draped it against the side of the fireplace, to catch the ruddy light on her more interesting curves and bulges. There was a bimbo just made to be leered at, and she probably resented it like hell if she weren't. Rand gave them a general good afternoon, then turned to Gladys. I had a good talk with good, yesterday afternoon, he said. I have his authorization to handle all the details. As soon as I get an itemized list, I'll circularize dealers and other possible buyers and ask for offers. Is that all, Nelda demanded angrily of Gladys? Why, Fred's done all that already. Is that correct, Mrs. Fleming? Rand asked for the record.  Fred has talked to one dealer, Arnold Rivers. There has been no inventory of any sword made. Mr. Rivers is offering us ten thousand dollars, Nelda retorted. I don't see why you had to bring this colonel, what's his name into it, at all. You think he can get us a better offer? If you do, you're crazy. Ten thousand dollars for a collection that ought to sell for five times that in Macy's basement, Geraldine hooded. How much is Rivers slipping Fred on the side? Oh, go back to your bottle, Nelda cried. You're too drunk to know what you're talking about. They tell me Colonel Rand is a detective, too, Geraldine continued. Maybe he can find out why Fred never talked to Stephen Gresham or Carl Gwynett, or anybody else, except this Rivers. How much is Fred getting out of Rivers anyhow?  Then she decided to take direct notice of Rand's presence. Colonel Rand, I'm sorry to say that in her present condition, my sister doesn't know what she's saying. It's bad enough for my stepmother to bring an outsider into what's obviously a family matter, but when my sister begins making these ridiculous accusations, what's ridiculous about them, Geraldine demanded, dumping another two ounces of whiskey into her glass and freshening it with a siphon. I think Rivers offering ten thousand dollars for the collection, and Fred's thinking we'd accepted are the only ridiculous things about it. That's rather what I told Rivers this afternoon, Rand put in. He seemed a bit upset about my being brought into this, too, but he finally admitted that he was willing to pay up to twenty five thousand dollars for the collection, and if he buys it, that's exactly what it's going to cost him. What? Nelda fairly screamed. Her hands opened and closed spasmanically. She was using a dark red nail tint that made Rand think of blood-dripping talons. Mr. Arnold Rivers told me this afternoon, and I quote, I'm willing to pay up to twenty five thousand dollars for that collection, unquote, Rand said, and I can tell you now that twenty five thousand dollars is just what he will pay for it, unless I can find somebody who's willing to pay more, which is not at all improbable. Hooray! Geraldine waved her glass and toasted Rand with it, and twenty five G ain't hey, brother. Gladys smiled quickly at Rand, then turned to Nelda. Now I hope you see why I thought it was wise to bring in somebody who knows something about old arms, she said. Nelda evidently saw.  The way she said it, ten thousand sounded like a fairly generous headwaiter's tip. Did Rivers actually tell you he'd pay twenty five? Rand gave, as nearly verbatim as possible, his conversation with the dealer, and he can afford it too, he finished. He can make a nice profit on the collection at that figure. My God, do you mean the pistols are worth more than that even? She wanted to know, aghast. Certainly, if you're a dealer with an established business, and customers all over the country, and want to take five or six years to make your profit, Rand replied. If you aren't, and want your money in a hurry, no. That's why I was against turning the collection over to Gwynedd on a commission basis, Gladys said. It would take him five years to get anything sold. Nelda left the fireplace, and advanced towards Rand. Colonel, I owe you an apology, she said. I had no idea father's pistols were worth anywhere near that much. I don't suppose Fred did either, she frowned. Wait till she gets Fred alone, Rand thought. I'd hate to be in his spot.  That's right. I'll negotiate the sale, but the money will be paid directly to him, for distribution according to the terms of your father's will. Rand got out Good's letter and handed it to Nelda. She read it carefully. I see. She seemed greatly relieved. She was looking at Rand now as she was accustomed to look at men, particularly handsome six-footers who were broad across the shoulders and narrow at the hips and resembled King Charles II. She was probably wondering if Rand was equal to old Rowley in another important respect. I didn't understand, I thought.  Then her glass fell on the bottle and siphon on the table beside Geraldine's chair, and she changed the subject by inquiring if Colonel Rand might like a drink. Well, let's go up to the gun room, Gladys suggested. We can have our drink up there while Colonel Rand's looking at the pistols. Coming with us, Geraldine?  Gladys, seeing Nelda moving in on the detective's right, took his other arm. Nelda was barely successful in suppressing a look of murderous anger. The double doorway into the hall was just wide enough for Rand and his two flankers to pass through. Nelda had to fall in a couple of paces rear of center, and wasn't able to come up into line until they were in the hall, upstairs. There's the gun room, Gladys pointed, and that's your room over there. As she spoke, Walters came out of the doorway she had indicated. Your bags are unpacked, sir, he reported. Then he told Rand where he would find his things and where the bath was. There was a brief discussion of drinks. The butler received his instructions and went down the stairway. Rand broke up the feminine formation around him and ushered the ladies ahead of him into the gun room. It was much as he remembered it from his visit of two years before. There was a desk in one corner, and back of it a short workbench and tool cabinet. There was a long table in the middle of the room, its top covered with green bays, upon which many flat rectangular boxes of hardwood rested. Some walnut, some rosewood, some quartered oak. Each would contain a pistol or a pair of pistols with cleaning and loading tools. In the corner, farthest from the desk, he saw the head of the spiral stairway from the library below mentioned by Gladys Fleining. There were ash stands and a couple of cocktail tables and a number of chairs, and the old Mabel Cobbler's bench, on which Lane Fleming had died. The only books in the room were in a small case over the workbench. They were all arms books. Then he looked at the walls. On both ends and on the long inside wall, the pistols hung, hundreds and hundreds of them. The cream of a lifetime's collecting. Horizontal white painted boards had been fixed to the walls, about four feet from the floor, and similar boards had been placed five feet above them. Between narrow vertical strips, as wide as a lath, but twice as thick, were set. Rose of pistols were hung, the barrels horizontal on pairs of these strips, with screw hooks at grip and muzzle. There were about a hundred such vertical rows of pistols. Rand was still looking at them when the butler brought in the drinks. When Gladys told the servant that that would be all, he went out rather reluctantly by the spiral stairs to the library. Well, what do you think of them, Colonel Rand? Gladys asked. Rand tasted his whiskey and looked around. It's one of the finest collections in the country, he said. I may even be able to find somebody who'll top rivers offer, but don't be disappointed if I don't. By the way, did anybody help Mr. Fleming keep this stuff clean? The room seems dry, but even so they'd need an occasional wiping off. Oh, Walters was always in here, going over the pistols and all that said. He's been in here every day lately. I wonder if you could spare him to help me a little. I'll need somebody who knows his way around here at first. Why, of course, Gladys agreed. He isn't very busy in the mornings or in the afternoons till close to dinner time. Are you going to start work today? I'll have to. I'm going to see Stephen Gresham and his associates this evening, and I'll want to know what I'm talking about. They spent about fifteen minutes over their drinks talking about the collection. Rand and Gladys did most of the talking in spite of Neltha's best efforts to monopolize the conversation. Geraldine, after a few minutes, retired into her private world and only rounds herself when her sister and stepmother were about to leave. When they went out, Gladys promised to send Walters up directly. Rand heard her speaking to him at the foot of the main stairway. End of Chapter 6 CHAPTER 7 When Walters entered, Rand had his pipelid and was walking slowly around the room, laying out the work ahead of him. Roughly, the earliest pieces were on the extreme left, on the short north wall of the room, and the most recent ones on the right, at the south end. This was, of course, only relatively true. The pistols seemed to have been classified by a type in vertical rows, and chronologically from top to bottom in each row. The collection seemed to consist of a number of intentionally specialized small groups, with a large number of pistols of general types added. For instance, about midway on the long east wall, there were some 30 odd, all-metal pistols, from the wheel lock to the percussion. There was a collection of U.S. marshals, with two rows of the regulation pistols, flintlock and percussion, of foreign governments placed on the left, and the collection of cults on the right. After them came the other types of percussion revolvers, and the latter, metallic cartridge types. It was an arrangement which made sense from the armed student's point of view, and Rand decided that it would make sense to the dealers and museums to whom he intended sending lists. He would save time by listing them as they were hung on the walls. Then there were the cases between the windows on the west wall containing the ammunition collection, examples of every type of fixed pistol ammunition, and the collection of bullet molds and powder flasks and wheel lock spanners, and assorted cleaning and loading accessories. All that stuff would have to be listed, too. I beg your pardon, sir. Walters broke in behind him. Mrs. Fleming said that you wanted me. Oh, yes, Rand turned. Is this the whole thing? What's on the walls here? Yes, sir. There is also a wall case containing a number of modern pistols and revolvers, and several rifles and shotguns in the room formally occupied by Mr. Fleming, but they are not part of the collection, and they are now the personal property of Mrs. Fleming. I understand that she intended selling at least some of them on her own account. Then there is a quantity of ammunition and ammunition components in that closet under the workbench. Cartridges, primed cartridge shells, black and smokeless powder, cartridge primers, percussion caps, but they are not part of the collection, either. I believe Mrs. Fleming wants to sell most of that, too. Well, I'll talk to her about it. I may want to buy some of the ammunition for myself, Rand said, so I only need to bother with what's on the walls in this room. By the way, did Mr. Fleming keep any sort of record of his collection? A book or a card index or anything like that? Why, no, sir. Walters was positive. Then he hedged. If he did, I never saw or heard anything of this sort. Mr. Fleming knew everything in this room. I've seen him downstairs when somebody would ask him about something, close his eyes as though trying to visualize, and then give a perfect description of any pistol in the collection. Or else he could enumerate all the pistols of a certain type, say all the Philadelphia Derringers, or all the Allen Pepperboxes, or all the Rimfire, Smith and Wesson tip-back types. He had a remarkable memory for his pistols, although it was not out of the ordinary, otherwise, sir. Rand nodded. Any collector, at least any collector, who was a serious armed student, could do that, particularly if he were a good visualizer, and kept his stuff in some systematic order. At the moment he could have named and described any or all of his own modest collection of two hundred odd pistols and revolvers. I was hoping he'd kept the record, he said. He great many collectors do, and it would have helped me quite a bit. He made up his mind to compile such a record himself when he got back to New Belfast. It would be a big help to Carter Tipton when it came time to settle his own estate, and a man on whom the reaper has scored as many near misses as on Jeff Rand should begin to think of such things. And how about writing materials? And is there a typewriter available? There was. A cased portable was on the floor beside the workbench. Walter showed him which desk drawers contained paper and other things. There was, Rand noticed, a loaded 38 Colt Detective Special in the upper right-hand desk drawer. And these phones, the butler continued, indicating them. This one is a private outside line. It doesn't connect with any other in the house. The other is an extension. It has a buzzer. The outside phones has a regular bell. Rand thanked him for the information. Then, picking up a notepad and pencil, he started on the left of the collection, meaning to make a general list and rough approximation of value for use in talking to Gresham's friends that evening. Tomorrow he would begin on the detailed list for use in soliciting outside offers. Twenty-five wheel locks, four heavy South German dags, two singles and a pair, three Saxon pistols, with sharply dropped grips, a pair and one single, five French and Italian 16th century pistols, a pair of small pocket or sash pistols, a pair of French Petronelles, and an extremely long 17th century Dutch pistol with an ivory-covered stock and a carved ivory Venus head for a pommel, eight 17th century French Italian and Flemish pistols. Rand noted them down and was about to pass on, then he looked sharply at one of them. It was nothing out of the ordinary as wheel locks go, a long Flemish weapon of about 1640, the type used by the royalist cavalry in the English Civil War. There were two others almost like it, but this one was in simply appalling condition. The metal was rough with rust, and apparently no attempt had been made to clean it in a couple of centuries. There was a piece cracked out of the forend. The ramrod was missing, as was the front ramrod thimble. Both the trigger guard and the butt cap were loose, and when Rand touched the wheel, it revolved freely if sluggishly, betraying a broken spring or chain. The vertical row next to it seemed to be all snap-hounces, but among them ran saw a pair of Turkish flint locks, not even good Turkish flint locks, a pair of the sort of weapons hastily thrown together by native craftsmen or imported ready-made from Belgium for bizarre sale to gullible tourists. Among the fine examples of 17th-century Breschen gun-making above and below it, these things looked like a pair of dog-patchers in the Waldorf Starlight Room. Rand contemplated them with distaste, then shrugged. After all, they might have had some sentimental significance, say souvenirs of a pleasantly remembered trip to the Levant. A few rows farther on, among some exceptionally fine flint locks, all of which predated 1700, he saw one of those big Belgian Navy pistols, circa 1800, of the sort once advertised far and wide by a certain old army goods dealer for $6.95. This was a particularly repulsive specimen of its breed. Grimy with hardened dust and gummed oil, mackillated with yellow surface rust, the brasswork green with corrosion. It was impossible to shrug off a thing like that. From then on Rand kept his eyes open for similar incongruities. They weren't hard to find. There was a big army pistol of Central European origin and in abominable condition, among a row of fine multi-shot flint locks, multi-shot. Stephen Gresham had mentioned an Elisha Collier flintlock revolver. It wasn't there. It should be hanging about where this post-Napoleonic German thing was. There was no haul breech loader either, but there was a dilapidated old Ketland. There were many such interlopers among the U.S. Marshals, an English ounce-ball cavalry pistol, a French 1777 and a French 1773, a couple more 6.95 bargain counter-specials, a miserable altered S. North 1816. Among the cults there were some awful junk, including a big Spanish hinge frame 44 and a Belgian imitation of a Webley RIC model. There weren't as many Patterson cults as Gresham had spoken of, and the Whitneyville walker was absent. It went on like that. About a dozen of the best pistols which Rand remembered having seen from two years ago were gone and he spotted at least 20 items which the late Lane Fleming wouldn't have hung in his backyard privy if he'd had one. All that was to be expected. The way these pistols were arranged, the absence of one from its hooks would have been instantly obvious. So, as the good stuff had moved out, these disreputable changelings had moved in. You had rather a shocking experience here in Mr. Fleming's death, Rand said over his shoulders to the butler. Oh, yes indeed, sir. Walters seemed relieved that Rand had broken the silence. A great loss to all of us, sir, and so unexpected. He didn't seem adverse to talking about it and went on at some length. His story closely paralleled that of Gladys Fleming. Mr. Varsic called the doctor immediately, he said. Then Mr. Dunmore pointed out that the doctor would be obliged to notify either the coroner or the police. So he called Mr. Good the family solicitor. That was about 20 minutes after the shot. Mr. Good arrived directly. He was here in about 10 minutes. I must say, sir, I was glad to see him. To tell the truth, I had been afraid that the authorities might claim that Mr. Fleming had shot himself deliberately. Somebody else doesn't like the smell of that accident, Rand thought. Allowed, he said. Mr. Good lived 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 residents ended about a hundred yards to the west. Beyond it, an orchard was beginning to break into leaf, and beyond the orchard, and another lawn stood a half-timbered, tutor-style house, somewhat smaller than the Fleming place. A path led down from it to the orchard, and another led from the orchard to the rear of the house, from which Rand looked. Must be comforting to know your lawyer so handy, he commented. And what do you think, Walters?  The servant looked at him seriously. No, sir, I'm not, he replied. I've thought about it a great deal since it happened, sir, and I just can't believe that Mr. Fleming would have that revolver and start working on it without knowing that it was loaded. That just isn't possible, if you'll pardon me, sir. And I can't understand how he would have shot himself while removing the charges. The fact is, when I came up here a quarter of seven to call him for cocktails, he had the whole thing apart and spread out in front of him. The butler thought for a moment. I believe Mr. Dunmore had something like that in mind when he called Mr. Gooden. Well, what happened, Rand asked. Did the coroner or the doctor choke on calling it an accident? Oh, no, sir, there was no trouble of any sort about that. You see, Dr. Yardman called the coroner as soon as he arrived, but Mr. Gooden was here already. He'd come over by that path you saw to the rear of the house, and in through the garage, which was open since Mrs. Dunmore was out with the coop. They all talked it over for a while, and the coroner decided that there would be no need for any inquest, and the doctor wrote out the certificate. That was all there was to it. Rand looked at the section of pistol rack devoted to cults. Which one was it, he asked. Oh, it's not here, sir, Walters replied. The coroner took it away with him. And hasn't returned it yet? Well, he has no business keeping it. It's part of the collection and belongs to the estate. Yes, sir, if I may say so, I thought it was a bit high-handed of him taking it away myself, but it wasn't my place to say anything about it. Well, I'll make it mine.  They thought it occurred to him. And if I find that he's disposed of it, this county's going to need a new coroner. At least till the president in coming gets out of jail. The buzzer of the extension phone went off like an annoyed rattlesnake. Walters scooped it up, spoke into it, listened for a moment and handed it to Rand. For you, sir, Mrs. Fleming. Colonel Rand, Carl Gwynett, the commission dealer I told you about is here. Gladys told him. Do you want to talk to him? Why, yes. Do I understand now that you and the other ladies want cash and don't want the collection peddled off piecemeal? All right, send him up. I'll talk to him. A few minutes later a short, compact-looking man of forty odd entered the gun room, shifting a briefcase to his left hand and extending his right. Rand advanced to meet him and shook hands with him. Your, Colonel Rand? Enjoyed your articles in The Rifleman, he said. Mrs. Fleming tells me you're handling the sale of the collection for the estate. That's right, Mr. Gwynett. Mrs. Fleming tells me you're interested. Yes, originally I offered to sell the collection for her on a commission basis, but she didn't seem to care for the idea and neither do the other ladies. They all want spot cash and a lump sum. Yes, Mrs. Fleming herself might have been interested in your proposition if she'd been sole owner. You could probably get more for the collection even after deducting your commission, then I'll be able to, but the collection belongs to the estate and has to be sold before any division can be made. Yes, I see that. Well, how much would the estate, or you, consider a reasonable offer? Sit down, Mr. Gwynett, Rand invited. What would you consider a reasonable offer yourself? We're not asking any specific price, we're just taking bids, as it were. Well, how much have you been offered to date? Well, we haven't heard from everybody. In fact, we haven't put out a list, or solicited offers, except locally as yet. But one gentleman has expressed a willingness to pay up to twenty-five thousand dollars. Gwynett's face expressed polite skepticism. Colonel Rand, you protested. You certainly don't take an offer like that seriously. I think it was made seriously, Rand replied. A respectable profit could be made on the collection, even at that price. Gwynett's eyes shifted over the rows of horizontal barrels on the walls. He was almost visibly wrestling with mental arithmetic, and at the same time, trying to keep any hint of his notion of the collection's real value out of his face. Well, I doubt if I could raise that much, he said. Might I ask who's making this offer? You might. I'm afraid I couldn't tell you. You wouldn't want me to publish your own offer broadcast, would you? I think I can guess. If I'm right, don't hold your head in a tub of water till you get it, Gwynett advised. Making a big offer to scare away competition is one thing, and paying off on it is another. I've seen that happen before, you know. Fact is, there's one dealer not far from here who makes a regular habit of it. Who makes some fantastic offer, and then, when everybody's been bluffed out, he'll start making objections and finding faults, and before long, he'll be down to about a quarter of his original price. The practice is an unknown, Rand admitted. I'll bet you don't have this $25,000 offer on paper over a signature, Gwynett pursued. Well, here. He opened his briefcase and extracted a sheet of paper handing it to Rand. You can file this. I'll stand back of it. Rand looked at the typed and signed statement to the effect that Carl Gwynett agreed to pay the sum of $15,000 for the Lane Fleming Pistol Collection in its entirety within 30 days of date. That was an average of $6 a pistol. There had been a time, not too long ago, when a pistol collection with an average value of $6, particularly one as large as the Fleming Collection, had been something unusual. For one thing, arm's values had increased sharply in the meantime. For another, Lane Fleming had kept his collection clean of the $2 items, which dragged down so many collector's average values. Except for the two dozen odd mysterious interlopers, there wasn't a pistol in the Fleming Collection that wasn't worth at least $20, and quite a few had values expressible in three figures. Well, your offer is duly received and filed, Mr. Gwynett, Rand told him. Folding the sheet and putting it in his pocket. This is better than an unwitnessed verbal statement that somebody is willing to pay $25,000. I'll certainly bear you in mind. You can show that to Arnold Rivers if you want to, Gwynett said. See how much he's willing to commit himself to, over his signature. End of Chapter 7