Humphrey Goode was sixty-ish, short and chunky, with a fringe of
white hair around a bald crown. His brow was corrugated with wrinkles,
and he peered suspiciously at Rand through a pair of thick-lensed,
black-ribboned glasses. His wide mouth curved downward at the corners
in an expression that was probably intended to be stern and succeeded
only in being pompous. His office was dark, and smelled of dusty books.
"Mr. Rand," he began accusingly, "when your secretary called to make this
appointment, she informed me that you had been retained by Mrs. Gladys
Fleming."
"That's correct." Rand slowly packed tobacco into his pipe and lit it.
"Mrs. Fleming wants me to look after some interests of hers, and as
you're executor of her late husband's estate, I thought I ought to talk
to you, first of all."
Goode's eyes narrowed behind the thick glasses.
"Mr. Rand, if you're investigating the death of Lane Fleming, you're
wasting your time and Mrs. Fleming's money," he lectured. "There is
nothing whatever for you to find out that is not already public
knowledge. Mr. Fleming was accidentally killed by the discharge of an old
revolver he was cleaning. I don't know what foolish feminine impulse led
Mrs. Fleming to employ you, but you'll do nobody any good in this matter,
and you may do a great deal of harm."
"Did my secretary tell you I was making an investigation?" Rand demanded
incredulously. "She doesn't usually make mistakes of that sort."
The wrinkles moved up Goode's brow like a battalion advancing in platoon
front. He looked even more narrowly at Rand, his suspicion compounded
with bewilderment.
"Why should I investigate the death of Lane Fleming?" Rand continued.
"As far as I know, Mrs. Fleming is satisfied that it was an accident. She
never expressed any other belief to me. Do you think it was anything
else?"
"Why, of course not!" Goode exclaimed. "That's just what I was telling
you. I--" He took a fresh start. "There have been rumors--utterly without
foundation, of course--that Mr. Fleming committed suicide. They are, I
may say, nothing but malicious fabrications, circulated for the purpose
of undermining public confidence in Premix Foods, Incorporated. I had
thought that perhaps Mrs. Fleming might have heard them, and decided, on
her own responsibility, to bring you in to scotch them; I was afraid that
such a step might, by giving these rumors fresh currency, defeat its
intended purpose."
"Oh, nothing of the sort!" Rand told him. "I'm not in the least
interested in how Mr. Fleming was killed, and the question is simply
not involved in what Mrs. Fleming wants me to do."
He stopped there. Goode was looking at him sideways, sucking in one
corner of his mouth and pushing out the other. It was not a facial
contortion that impressed Rand favorably; it was too reminiscent of
a high-school principal under whom he had suffered, years ago, in
Vicksburg, Mississippi. Rand began to suspect that Goode might be just
another such self-righteous, opinionated, egotistical windbag. Such men
could be dangerous, were usually quite unscrupulous, and were almost
always unpleasant to deal with.
"Then why," the lawyer demanded, "did Mrs. Fleming employ you?"
"Well, as you know," Rand began, "the Fleming pistol-collection, now the
joint property of Mrs. Fleming and her two stepdaughters, is an extremely
valuable asset. Mr. Fleming spent the better part of his life gathering
it. At one time or another, he must have owned between four and five
thousand different pistols and revolvers. The twenty-five hundred left to
his heirs represent the result of a systematic policy of discriminating
purchase, replacement of inferior items, and general improvement. It's
one of the largest and most famous collections of its kind in the
country."
"Well?" Goode was completely out of his depth by now. "Surely Mrs.
Fleming doesn't think...?"
"Mrs. Fleming thinks that expert advice is urgently needed in disposing
of that collection," Rand replied, carefully picking his words to fit
what he estimated to be Goode's probable semantic reactions. "She has
the utmost confidence in your ability and integrity, as an attorney;
however, she realized that you could hardly describe yourself as an
antique-arms expert. It happens that I am an expert in antique firearms,
particularly pistols. I have a collection of my own, I am the author of
a number of articles on the subject, and I am recognized as something
of an authority. I know arms-values, and understand market conditions.
Furthermore, not being a dealer, or connected with any museum, I have no
mercenary motive for undervaluing the collection. That's all there is to
it; Mrs. Fleming has retained me as a firearms-expert, in connection with
the collection."
Goode was looking at Rand as though the latter had just torn off a mask,
revealing another and entirely different set of features underneath. The
change seemed to be a welcome one, but he was evidently having trouble
adjusting to it. Rand grinned inwardly; now he was going to have to find
himself a new set of verbal labels and identifications.
"Well, Mr. Rand, that alters the situation considerably," he said, with
noticeably less hostility. He was still a bit resentful; people had no
right to confuse him by jumping about from one category to another, like
that. "Now understand, I'm not trying to be offensive, but it seems a
little unusual for a private detective also to be an authority on antique
firearms."
"Mr. Fleming was an authority on antique firearms, and he was a
manufacturer of foodstuffs," Rand parried, carefully staying inside
Goode's Aristotelian system of categories and verbal identifications. "My
own business does not occupy all my time, any more than his did, and I
doubt if an interest in the history and development of deadly weapons is
any more incongruous in a criminologist than in an industrialist. But if
there's any doubt in your mind as to my qualifications, you can check
with Colonel Taylor, at the State Museum, or with the editor of the
_American Rifleman_."
"I see." Goode nodded. "And as you point out, being a sort of
non-professional expert, you should be free from mercenary bias." He
nodded again, taking off his glasses and polishing them on an outsize
white handkerchief. "Frankly, now that I understand your purpose, Mr.
Rand, I must say that I am quite glad that Mrs. Fleming took this step.
I was perplexed about how to deal with that collection. I realized that
it was worth a great deal of money, but I haven't the vaguest idea how
much, or how it could be sold to the best advantage.... At a rough guess,
Mr. Rand, how much do you think it ought to bring?"
Rand shook his head. "I only saw it twice, the last time two years ago.
Ask me that after I've spent a day or so going over it, and I'll be able
to give you an estimate. I will say this, though: It's probably worth a
lot more than the ten thousand dollars Arnold Rivers has offered for it."
That produced an unexpected effect. Goode straightened in his chair,
gobbling in surprised indignation.
"Arnold Rivers? Has he had the impudence to try to buy the collection?"
he demanded. "Where did you hear that?"
"From Mrs. Fleming. I understand he made the offer to Fred Dunmore.
That's his business, isn't it?"
"I believe the colloquial term is 'racket,'" Goode said. "Why, that man
is a notorious swindler! Mr. Rand, do you know that only a week before
his death, Mr. Fleming instructed me to bring suit against him, and also
to secure his indictment on criminal charges of fraud?"
"I didn't know that, but I'm not surprised," Rand answered. "What did he
burn Fleming with?"
"Here; I'll show you." Goode rose from his seat and went to a rank of
steel filing-cabinets behind the desk. In a moment, he was back, with a
large manila envelope under his arm, and a huge pistol in either hand.
"Here, Mr. Rand," he chuckled. "We'll just test your firearms knowledge.
What do you make of these?"
Rand took the pistols and looked at them. They were wheel locks,
apparently sixteenth-century South German; they were a good two feet in
over-all length, with ball-pommels the size of oranges, and long steel
belt-hooks. The stocks were so covered with ivory inlay that the wood
showed only in tiny interstices; the metal-work was lavishly engraved and
gold-inlaid. To the trigger-guards were attached tags marked _Fleming vs.
Rivers_.
Rand examined each pistol separately, then compared them. Finally, he
took a six-inch rule from his pocket and made measurements, first with
one edge and then with the other.
"Well, I'm damned," he said, laying them on the desk. "These things are
the most complete fakes I ever saw--locks, stocks, barrels and mountings.
They're supposed to be late sixteenth-century; I doubt if they were made
before 1920. As far as I can see or measure, there isn't the slightest
difference between them, except on some of the decorative inlay. The
whole job must have been miked in ten-thousandths, and what's more,
whoever made them used metric measurements. You'll find pairs of English
dueling pistols as early as 1775 that are almost indistinguishable, but
in 1575, when these things were supposed to have been made, a gunsmith
was working fine when he was working in sixteenth-inches. They just
didn't have the measuring instruments, at that time, to do closer work.
I won't bother taking these things apart, but if I did, I'd bet all
Wall Street to Junior's piggy-bank that I'd find that the screws were
machine-threaded and the working-parts interchanged. I've heard about
fakes like these,"--he named a famous, recently liquidated West Coast
collection--"but I'd never hoped to see an example like this."
Goode gave a hacking chuckle. "You'll do as an arms-expert, Mr. Rand," he
said. "And you'd win the piggy-bank. It seems that after Mr. Fleming
bought them, he took them apart, and found, just as you say, that the
screw-threads had been machine-cut, and that the working-parts were
interchangeable from one pistol to the other. There were a lot of papers
accompanying them--I have them here--purporting to show that they had
been sold by some Austrian nobleman, an anti-Nazi refugee, in whose
family they had been since the reign of Maximilian II. They are, of
course, fabrications. I looked up the family in the _Almanach de Gotha_;
it simply never existed. At first, Mr. Fleming had been inclined to take
the view that Rivers had been equally victimized with himself. However,
when Rivers refused to take back the pistols and refund the purchase
price, he altered his opinion. He placed them in my hands, instructing me
to bring suit and also start criminal action; he was in a fearful rage
about it, and swore that he'd drive Rivers out of business. However,
before I could start action, Mr. Fleming was killed in that accident, and
as he was the sole witness to the fact of the sale, and as none of the
heirs was interested, I did nothing about it. In fact, I advised them
that action against Rivers would cost the estate more than they could
hope to recover in damages." He picked up one of the pistols and examined
it. "Now, I don't know what to do about these."
"Take them home and hang them over the mantel," Rand advised. "If I'm
going to have anything to do with selling the collection, I don't want
anything to do with them."
Goode was peering at the ivory inlay on the underbelly of the stock.
"They are beautiful, and I don't care when they were made," he said. "I
think, if nobody else wants them, I'll do just that.... Now, Mr. Rand,
what had you intended doing about the collection?"
"Well, that's what I came to see you about, Mr. Goode. As I understand
it, it is you who are officially responsible for selling the collection,
and the proceeds would be turned over to you for distribution to Mrs.
Fleming, Mrs. Dunmore and Mrs. Varcek. Is that correct?"
"Yes. The collection, although in the physical possession of Mrs.
Fleming, is still an undistributed asset."
"I thought so." Rand got out Gladys Fleming's letter of authorization and
handed it to Goode. "As you'll see by that, I was retained by, and only
by, Mrs. Fleming," he said. "I am assuming that her interests are
identical with those of the other heirs, but I realize that this is true
only to a very limited extent. It's my understanding that relations
between the three ladies are not the most pleasant."
Goode produced a short, croaking laugh. "Now there's a cautious
understatement," he commented. "Mr. Rand, I feel that you should know
that all three hate each other poisonously."
"That was rather my impression. Now, I expect some trouble, from Mrs.
Dunmore and/or Mrs. Varcek, either or both of whom are sure to accuse me
of having been brought into this by Mrs. Fleming to help her defraud the
others. That, of course, is not the case; they will all profit equally by
my participation in this. But I'm going to have trouble convincing them
of that."
"Yes. You will," Goode agreed. "Would you rather carry my authorization
than Mrs. Fleming's?"
"Yes, indeed, Mr. Goode. To tell the truth, that was why I came here,
for one reason. You will not be obligated in any way by authorizing me
to act as your agent--I'm getting my fee from Mrs. Fleming--but I would
be obligated to represent her only as far as her interests did not
improperly conflict with those of the other heirs, and that's what I
want made clear."
Goode favored the detective with a saurian smile. "You're not a lawyer,
too, Mr. Rand?" he asked.
"Well, I am a member of the Bar in the State of Mississippi, though I
never practiced," Rand admitted. "Instead of opening a law-office, I went
into the F.B.I., in 1935, and then opened a private agency a couple of
years later. But if I had to, which God forbid, I could go home tomorrow
and hang out my shingle."
"You seem to have had quite an eventful career," Goode remarked, with a
queer combination of envy and disapproval. "I understand that, until
recently, you were an officer in the Army Intelligence, too.... I'll have
your authorization to act for me made out immediately; to list and
appraise the collection, and to negotiate with prospective purchasers.
And by the way," he continued, "did I understand you to say that you had
heard some of these silly rumors to the effect that Lane Fleming had
committed suicide?"
"Oh, that's what's always heard, under the circumstances," Rand shrugged.
"A certain type of sensation-loving mind..."
"Mr. Rand, there is not one scintilla of truth in any of these scurrilous
stories!" Goode declared, pumping up a fine show of indignation. "The
Premix Company is in the best possible financial condition; a glance at
its books, or at its last financial statement, would show that. I ought
to know, I'm chairman of the board of directors. Just because there was
some talk of retrenchment, shortly before Mr. Fleming's death ..."
"Oh, no responsible person pays any attention to that sort of talk," Rand
comforted him. "My armed-guard and armored-car service brings me into
contact with a lot of the local financial crowd. None of them is taking
these rumors seriously."
"Well, of course, nobody wants the responsibility of starting a panic,
even a minor one, but people are talking, and it's hurting Premix on the
market," Goode gloomed. "And now, people will hear of Mrs. Fleming's
having retained you, and will assume, just as I did at first, that you
are making some kind of an investigation. I hope you will make a prompt
denial, if you hear any talk like that." He pressed a button on his desk.
"And now, I'll get a letter of authorization made out for you, Mr.
Rand ..."