Gresham must have been waiting inside the door; as soon as Rand came up
onto the porch, he opened it, and motioned the detective inside. Beyond a
hasty greeting as Rand passed the threshold, he did not speak until they
were seated in the gunroom upstairs. Then he came straight to the point.
"Jeff, can you spare the time from this work you're doing at the
Flemings' to investigate this Rivers business?" he asked. "And how much
would an investigation cost me? It's got to be a blitz job. I'm not
interested in getting anybody convicted in court; I just want the case
cleared up in a hurry."
"Well--" Rand puffed at the cigar Gresham had given him, watching the ash
form on the end. "I don't work by the day, Stephen. I take a lump-sum
fee, and, of course, it's to my interest to get a case cleared up as soon
as I can. But I can't set any time limit on a job like this. This Rivers
killing has more angles than _Nude Descending a Staircase_; I don't know
how much work I'll have to do, or even what kind."
"Well, it'll have to be fast," Gresham told him urgently. "Look. I didn't
kill Arnold Rivers. I hated his guts, and I think whoever did it ought to
get a medal and a testimonial dinner, but I did not kill him. You believe
me?"
"I'm inclined to," Rand replied. "In your law practice, you know what a
lying client is letting himself in for. As my client, you wouldn't lie to
me. You seem to think you may be suspected of purging Rivers. But why? Is
there any reason, aside from that homemade North & Cheney he sold you,
why anybody would think you'd killed him?"
"Great God, yes!" Gresham exclaimed. "Now look. I'm not worried about
being railroaded for this. I didn't do it, and I can beat any case that
half-assed ex-ambulance-chaser, Farnsworth, could dream up against me.
But I can't afford even to be mentioned in connection with this. You know
what that would do to me, in town. I just can't get mixed up in this, at
all. I want you to see to it that I don't."
"That sounds like a large order." The ash was growing on Rand's cigar;
he took another heavy drag at it. "But why necessarily you? Rivers had
plenty of other enemies."
"Yes, but, dammit, they weren't all in his shop, last evening. Just me.
And one other. The one who killed him."
"On your way out from town?" Rand inquired.
"Yes. I stopped at his place, about a quarter to nine. I was sore as hell
about the hooking he gave me on that North & Cheney, falsely so-called,
and I decided to stop and have it out with him. We had words, most of
them unpleasant. I told him, for one thing, that Lane Fleming's death
hadn't pulled his bacon off the fire, that I was going to start the same
sort of action against him on my own account. But that isn't the point.
The point is that when I was going in, this la-de-da clerk of his, Cecil
Gillis, was coming out. He got into his car and drove away, leaving me
alone with Rivers. He'll be the first one the police talk to, and he'll
tell them all about it."
"That does put you back of the eight ball." Rand dropped the ash into a
tray and looked at it curiously. It looked like the sort of ash he had
seen at Rivers's shop, but he couldn't be sure. "But if it can be proved
that Rivers was alive after nine twenty, when you got here, you'll be in
the clear."
"I don't want to have to clear myself," Gresham insisted. "I don't want
anything to do with it, at all. Here; I'll pay you a thousand down, and
two more when you have the case completed; I want you to get the murder
cleared up before I can be publicly involved in it. I say publicly,
because this damned Gillis has probably involved me with the police
already."
"Well, Gillis isn't exactly in a state of pure sanctity, himself," Rand
commented. "As a suspect, the smart handicappers are figuring him to run
well inside the money. For instance, you know, there have been stories
about him and Mrs. Rivers."
Gresham snapped his fingers. "Damned if there haven't, now!" he said.
"You talk to Adam Trehearne. He did business with Rivers--there wasn't
much in his line Rivers and Umholtz were able to fake--and different
times he's gone to Rivers's shop and there'd be nobody around, and then
Gillis would come in from the house, smelling of Chanel Number Five.
Mrs. Rivers uses Chanel Number Five. Maybe you have something there.
If Cecil thought he could marry the business, with Rivers out of the
way.... You'll take the case, won't you, Jeff?"
"Oh, certainly," Rand assured him. "Now, all they have on you is that
there was ill-feeling between you and Rivers about that fake North &
Cheney, and that you were in Rivers's shop yesterday evening?"
Rand's new client grimaced. "I wish that were all!" he said. "The worst
part of it is the way Rivers was killed. See, back in Kaiser Willie's
war, before I was assigned a company of my own, I was regimental
bayonet-instruction officer. And after we got to France, I always
carried a rifle and bayonet at the front; hell, I must have killed
close to a dozen Krauts just the way Rivers was killed. And during
Schicklgruber's war, I volunteered as bayonet instructor for the local
Home Guard."
"My God!" Rand made a wry face. "There must be close to a hundred people
around here who'd know that, and all of them are probably convinced that
you killed Rivers, and are expressing that opinion at the top of their
voices to all comers. You don't want a detective, you want a magician!"
He took another drag at the cigar, and blew smoke through a circular
gun-rack beside him. "What sort of a character is this Farnsworth,
anyhow?" he asked. "Before the war, I had all the D.A.'s in the state
typed and estimated, but since I got back--"
Gresham slandered the county prosecutor's legitimacy. "God-damn
headline-hunting little egotist! He's running for re-election this
year, too."
"One way, that could be bad. On the other hand, it might be easy to throw
a scare into him.... Stephen, when you were at Rivers's, were you smoking
a cigar?"
Gresham shook his head. "No. I threw my cigar away when I got out of the
car, and I didn't light another one till I got home. If you remember, I
was lighting it when I came in here."
"Yes; so you were. Well, I don't suppose, in view of the state of
relations between you and Rivers, that you had a drink with him, either?"
"I wouldn't drink that guy's liquor if I were dying of snakebite, and he
wouldn't offer me a drink if he knew I was," Gresham declared.
"Well, did you notice, back near the fireplace, a low table with a fifth
of Haig & Haig Pinchbottle, and a couple of glasses, and a siphon, and so
on, on it?"
"I saw the table. There was an ashtray on it, and a book--I think it was
Gluckman's _United States Martial Pistols and Revolvers_--but no bottle,
or siphon, or glasses."
"All right, then; it was the killer." Rand explained about the drinks,
and the cigar-ashes. He went on to tell about the destruction of Rivers's
record-cards.
"I don't get that." Gresham was puzzled. "Unless it was young Gillis,
after all. He could have been knocking down on Rivers, and Rivers caught
him at it."
"I'd thought of that," Rand admitted. "But I doubt if Rivers would sit
down and drink with him, while accusing him of theft. And I can't seem to
find anything around Rivers's place that looks as though it might have
been stolen from the Fleming collection, either.... Oh, and that reminds
me: If you have time this afternoon, I wonder if you'd come along with me
to the Flemings' and see just what's missing. I'll have to know that, in
any case, and there's a good possibility that the thefts from the
collection and the killing of Rivers are related."
"Yes, of course," Gresham agreed. "And suppose we take Pierre Jarrett
along with us. He knows that collection as well as I do; he'll spot
anything I miss. He works at home; I'll call him now. We can pick him up
before we go to the Flemings'."
They went into Gresham's bedroom, where there was a phone, and Gresham
talked to Pierre Jarrett. It was arranged that he should pick Jarrett up
with his car and come to the Flemings', while Rand went there directly.
Then Rand used the phone to call his office in New Belfast. He talked to
Dave Ritter, explaining the situation to date.
"I'm going to need some help," he continued. "I want you to come here and
get a room at the Rosemont Inn, under your own name. I'll see you there
about five thirty. And bring with you a suit of butler's livery, or
reasonable facsimile. I believe there will be a vacancy in the Fleming
household tomorrow or the next day, and I want you ready to take over.
And bring a small gun with you; something you can wear under said livery.
That .357 Colt of yours is a little too conspicuous. You'll find a .380
Beretta in the top right-hand drawer of my office desk, with a box of
ammunition and a couple of spare clips."
"Right. I'll be at Rosemont Inn at five thirty," Ritter promised. "And
say, Tip was in, this morning, with a lot of dope on the Fleming estate.
Want me to let you have it now, or shall I give it to you when I see
you?"
"You have notes? Bring them along; I'll be seeing you in a couple of
hours."
He parted from Gresham, going out and getting in his car. As Gresham got
his own car out of the garage and drove off toward Pierre Jarrett's
house, Rand started in the opposite direction, toward Rosemont.
About a half-mile from Gresham's he caught an advancing gleam of white on
the highway ahead of him and pulled to the side of the road, waiting
until the State Police car drew up and stopped. In it were Mick McKenna,
Aarvo Kavaalen, and a third man, a Nordic type, in an untidy brown suit.
"Hi, Jeff," McKenna greeted him, as Rand got out of his car and came
across the road. "This is Gus Olsen, investigator for the D.A.'s office.
Jeff Rand; Tri-State Agency," he introduced.
"Hey!" Olsen yelled. "We been lookin' for you! Where you been?"
Rand raised an eyebrow at McKenna.
"You just came from where we're going," the State Police sergeant
surmised. "Was Gresham at home?"
"He was; he's gone now," Rand said. "He and another man are going to help
me check up on what's missing from the Fleming collection."
"Hey!" Olsen exploded. "What I told you, now; he run ahead of us with a
tip-off! Gresham's skipped out, now!"
"What is all this?" Rand wanted to know. "What's he screaming about,
Mick?"
"Like he don't know!" Olsen vociferated. "He tipped off Gresham so's he
could skip out; I'll bet he's in it with Gresham!"
"Pay no attention," McKenna advised. "He doesn't know what the score is;
hell, he doesn't even know what teams are playing."
"Now you look here!" Olsen bawled. "We'll see what Mr. Farnsworth has to
say about this. You're supposed to cooperate with us, not go fraternizin'
with a lot of suspects. Why, it's plain as anything; him and Gresham's
in it together. I bet that was why he come around, the first thing in the
morning, to find the body!"
Kavaalen, behind the wheel, turned around and began jabbering at Olsen,
in the back seat, in something that sounded like Swedish. Most Finns
can speak Swedish, and Rand was wishing he could understand it. The
corporal's remarks ran to about a paragraph, and must have been downright
incendiary. At least, Olsen seemed to catch fire from them. He rose in
his seat, waving his arms and howling back in the same language.
"Shut up, goddammit, _shut up_!" McKenna bellowed into his face. "Shut up
before I sling your ass to hell out of this car! I'm talking, and I don't
want any goddam jaw from you, Olsen. You either," he barked at Kavaalen,
winking at him at the same time.
Silence fell with a heavy thump in the car.
"Well, now that the international crisis seems to have been averted,
how's about letting me in on it, too?" Rand asked. "For instance, what
about Gresham? What's he supposed to be a suspect for?"
"Ah, Olsen suspects him of chopping Rivers up," McKenna replied wearily.
"See, we questioned this Cecil Gillis, and he told us that last evening,
as he was leaving Rivers's, he saw Stephen Gresham drive up and go into
the shop. I wanted to talk to him, myself; I thought he might account for
the cigar-ashes, and the drink-fixings on that table. But when Farnsworth
heard about the killing, he sent Olsen around, and when Olsen heard that
Gresham had been there, he tried him and convicted him on the spot."
"Oh, obscenity! Is that what it's about?" Rand exclaimed in disgust.
"Yes, Gresham told me about that. He didn't have the drink, and he wasn't
smoking a cigar in the shop, and he left a little after nine. He got home
at nine twenty-two. I can testify to that, myself; I was there at the
time, and so were seven other people." Rand named them. "They dribbled
away at different times during the evening, but Philip Cabot and I stayed
till around eleven." He mentioned the approximate time at which the
others had left. "What time was Rivers killed, or hasn't the time been
fixed?"
"The M.E. says around ten to two," McKenna said.
"He could be wrong; them guys only guess, half the time," Olsen argued.
"And besides, Gresham had it in for Rivers. And that ain't all, neither;
he knew how to use a bayonet, too. I seen him, myself, during the war,
showin' the Home Guard how to do it, just the way Rivers was killed!" he
produced triumphantly.
McKenna used a dirty word. "So what? Anybody who's ever had infantry
training knows that butt-stroke-and-lunge," he retorted. "I learned it
myself, when I was a kid, in '24 and '25, in C.M.T.C. Hell, anybody who's
ever seen a war-movie.... If you hadn't lammed out of Sweden when you
were sixteen, to duck conscription, you'd of known it, too."
"Well, maybe Olsen, or his boss, can explain why Gresham threw those
record-cards in the fire," Rand contributed. "You know why Olsen says
Gresham had it in for Rivers? Rivers sold Gresham a fake antique, a flint
lock navy pistol that had been worked over into something else. Gresham
was going to subpoena those records, when he brought suit against
Rivers," Rand lied. "But I can explain why Cecil Gillis might have
destroyed them, after killing Rivers, if he'd been cheating Rivers and
Rivers caught him at it."
"Yeah, and that might explain why Gillis was in such a hurry to sic us
onto Gresham, too," McKenna added. "I thought of something like that. And
this high-brown girl that works for Rivers says that Gillis and Mrs.
Rivers played all kinds of games together, when Rivers was away."
"Well, who's in charge of the investigation?" Rand wanted to know. "I
heard, on the radio ..."
"You're liable to hear anything on the radio, including slanders on
Bing Crosby's horses. But for the record, I am in charge of this
investigation. And don't anybody forget it, either," he added, in
the direction of the rear seat.
"That's what I thought. Well, Stephen Gresham has just retained me to
make an independent investigation," Rand said. "It is not that he lacks
confidence in the State Police, or in you; he was afraid that other
parties might get into the act and try to make political capital out
of it. Which appears to have happened."
"Well, if Gresham retained you, I'm satisfied," McKenna said. "You can
take care of that end of it. Glad you're in with us."
"Well, I ain't satisfied!" Olsen began yelling, again. "And Mr.
Farnsworth won't be, neither. Why, this here private dick is like as
not workin' for the very man that killed Rivers!"
McKenna turned slowly in his seat, to face Olsen.
"One time, ten years ago," he began, "Jeff Rand had a client who was
guilty of the crime he hired Jeff to investigate. It was an arson case;
this guy set fire to his own factory, and then got Jeff to run down a lot
of fake clues he'd planted. I know about that; I was on the case, myself.
That's where I first met Jeff, and he saved me from making a jackass out
of myself. And what happened to this guy who'd hired Jeff was something
that oughtn't to happen even to Molotov, and it happened because Jeff
fixed it to happen. If anybody hires Jeff Rand, he's one of two things.
He's either innocent, or else he's out of luck.... I don't know why the
hell I bother telling you this."
"Ten to two, you say," Rand considered. "Look. A couple of days ago,
Rivers put out a new price-list to his regular customers. A lot of them,
in different parts of the country, order by telephone, and some of them
live in the West, where there's a couple of hours' time-difference. One
of them, calling at, say, eight o'clock, local time, would get his call
in at ten, Eastern Standard. If you checked the long-distance calls to
Rivers's number last night, now, you might get something."
"Yeah. And if he took a call after nine twenty-two, that would let
Gresham out. Even Farnsworth could figure that out. Sure. I'll check
right away."
"Who's at Rivers's now?"
"Skinner and Jameson, of our gang. And Farnsworth, and some of his
outfit. And the hell's own slew of reporters, of course," McKenna said.
"Aarvo's going back there, in a little. We're still trying to locate Mrs.
Rivers; we haven't been able to, yet. The maid says she went to New York
day before yesterday."
"I'll probably be around at Rivers's, later in the day. I want to check
on that Fleming angle."
"Uh-huh; I'll be there, in half an hour," Corporal Kavaalen said. "Be
seeing you."
They exchanged so-longs, and Kavaalen backed, and made a U-turn, moving
off in the direction of Rosemont. Olsen's voluble protests drifted back
as the car receded. Rand returned to his own car and followed.