Parking in the drive, Rand entered the Fleming house by the front door.
The butler must have been busy with his pre-dinner tasks in the rear; it
was Gladys herself who admitted him.
"Stay out of there," she warned him, taking his arm and guiding him away
from the parlor doorway. "Nelda and Geraldine are in there, ignoring each
other. If you go in, they'll start talking to you, and then they'll start
talking at each other through you, and the air will be full of tomahawks
in a jiffy. Let's go up in the gunroom; that's out of the battle zone."
"What started the hostilities this time?" Rand asked, going up the
stairway with her.
"Oh, Geraldine lost Nelda's place-marker out of the Kinsey Report, or
something." She shrugged. "Mainly reaction to Rivers's death. That was a
great blow to all of us; twenty-five thousand dollars' worth of blow. It
was a blow to me, too, but I'm not letting it throw me.... What were you
doing all afternoon?"
"Trying to keep the rest of our prospects out of jail. This
sixteenth-witted District Attorney you have in this county had the idea
he could charge Stephen Gresham with the killing. I had a time talking
him out of it, and I'm still not sure how far I succeeded. And I was
trying to get a line on where those pistols got to."
"Ssssh!" They reached the top of the stairs, and Rand saw Walters
approaching down the hall. "It was Colonel Rand, Walters; I let him in
myself. Are Mr. Varcek and Mr. Dunmore here, yet?"
"Mr. Dunmore is in the library, ma'am, and Mr. Varcek is upstairs, in his
laboratory. Dinner will be ready in three-quarters of an hour."
"Have you mixed the cocktails? You'd better do that. Serve them in about
twenty minutes. And you'd better go up and warn Mr. Varcek not to become
involved in anything messy before dinner."
Walters yes-ma'am'd her and started toward the attic stairway. Rand and
Gladys went into the gunroom; Rand turned to the left, picked a pistol
from the wall, and carried it with him as he guided Gladys toward the
desk in the corner.
"You think Walters stole them?" she asked.
"So far, I'm inclined to. Have you told any of the others, yet?"
"Oh, Lord, no! They'd all be sure that I stole them myself. I'm counting
on you to get them back with as little fuss as possible. Do you think
that was why Rivers was killed? After all, when a lot of valuable pistols
disappear, and a crooked dealer is murdered, I'd expect there to be a
connection."
"There could be. Did you ever hear any stories about Mrs. Rivers and this
young fellow Gillis who works in Rivers's shop?"
Gladys laughed. "Is that rearing its ugly head in public, now?" she
asked. "Well, there's nothing like a good murder to shake the skeletons
out of the closets. Not that this particular skeleton was ever exactly
hidden. The stories are numerous, and somewhat repetitious; Cecil and
Mrs. Rivers would be seen together, at roadhouses and so on, at what they
imagined was a safe distance from Rosemont, and it was said that when
Rivers was away over night, Cecil was never seen to leave the Rivers
place in the evenings. Might this be relevant to Rivers's sudden demise?"
"It could be." Rand was keeping one eye on the hall door and the other on
the head of the spiral stairway. "Don't mention outside what I told you
about Farnsworth having this brainstorm about Stephen Gresham. If it got
out, it might hurt Gresham professionally. The fact is, Gresham has just
retained me to investigate the Rivers murder for him. That won't
interfere to any great extent with the work I'm doing here; if necessary,
I'll bring a couple of my men in from New Belfast to help me on the
Rivers operation." He broke off abruptly, catching a movement at the head
of the spiral, and lifted the pistol in his hand, as though showing it to
Gladys. "See," he went on, "it has two hammers and two nipples, but only
one barrel. It was loaded with two charges, one on top of the other; the
bullet of the rear charge acted as the breech-plug for the front
charge.... Oh, Walters!" He affected to catch sight of the butler for the
first time. "Bring me that .36 Walch revolver, will you?"
"Yes, sir." Walters, crossing the room, veered to the right and went
to the middle wall, bringing a revolver over to the desk. It was a
percussion weapon with an abnormally long cylinder. "The cocktails are
served," he announced.
"We'll be down in a moment; you can put these back where they belong when
you find time," Rand told him. "Now, here," he said to Gladys. "This is
the same idea, in a revolver. Six chambers, two charges in each. In
theory, it was a good idea, but in actual practice ..."
Walters went out the hall door, presumably to call Varcek. Rand continued
talking about the superposed-load principle, as used in the Lindsay
pistol and the Walch revolver, until he was sure the butler was out
of hearing. Gladys was looking at him in appreciative if slightly
punch-drunk delight.
"I wondered why you brought that thing over here with you," she said.
"Brother, was that a quick shift!... You're really sure he's the one?"
"I'm not really sure of anything, except of my own existence and eventual
extinction," Rand told her. "It pretty nearly has to be somebody inside
this house. I don't think anybody else here, yourself included, would
know enough about arms to rob this collection as selectively as it has
been robbed. Did you see what just happened, here? I asked him for one of
the most uncommon arms here, and he went straight and got it. He knows
this collection as well as your husband did, and I assume he knows values
almost as well.... And, of course, there was a musket, too; Mr. Fleming
didn't collect long-arms, or he'd have had one. It embodied the same
principle as the pistol. The legend is that this man Lindsay's brother
was a soldier; he was supposed to have been killed by Indians who drew
the fire of the detail he was with and then charged them when their
muskets were empty." Rand shrugged. "Actually, the superposed-load
principle is ancient; there's a sixteenth-century wheel lock pistol in
the Metropolitan Museum, in New York, firing two shots from the same
barrel."
Varcek and the butler, who had entered by the hall door, went across the
gunroom and down the spiral. Rand laid down the pistol and escorted
Gladys after them.
Dunmore and Geraldine were in the library when they went down. Geraldine,
mildly potted, was reclining in a chair, sipping her drink. Dunmore was
still radiating his synthetic cheerfulness.
"Get many of the pistols listed, Colonel?" he hailed Rand, with jovial
condescension.
"No." Rand poured two cocktails, handing one to Gladys. "I went to Arnold
Rivers's place this morning, on a little unfinished business, and damn
near tripped over Rivers's corpse. I spent the rest of the day getting
myself disinvolved from the ensuing uproar," he told Dunmore. "You heard
about it, of course."
"Yes, of course. Horrible business. I hope you didn't get mixed up in it
any more than you had to. After all, you're working for us, and if the
police knew that, we'd be bothered, too.... Look here, you don't think
some of these other people who were after the collection might have
killed Rivers, to keep him from outbidding them?"
Nelda, entering from the hallway, caught the last part of that.
"Good God, Fred!" she shrieked at him. "Don't say things like that! Maybe
they did, but wait till they've bought the collection and paid for it,
before you start accusing them!"
"I'm not accusing anybody," Dunmore growled back at her. "I don't know
enough about it to make any accusations. All I'm saying is--"
"Well, don't say it, then, if you don't know what you're talking about,"
his wife retorted.
In spite of this start, dinner passed in relative quiet. For the most
part, they talked about the remaining chances of selling the collection,
about which nobody was optimistic. Rand tried to build up morale with
pictures of large museums and important dealers, all fairly slavering to
get their fangs into the Fleming collection, but to little avail. A pall
of gloom had settled, and he was forced to concede that he had at last
found somebody who had a valid reason to mourn the sudden and violent end
of Arnold Rivers.
Dinner finished, he went up to the gunroom and began compiling his list.
He found a yardstick, and thumbtacked it to the edge of the desk to get
over-all and barrel lengths, and used a pair of inside calipers and a
decimal-inch rule from the workbench to get calibers. Sticking a sheet of
paper into the portable, he began on the wheel locks, leaving spaces to
insert the description of the stolen pistols, when recovered. When he had
finished the wheel locks, he began on the snaphaunces, then did the
miguelet-locks. He had begun on the true flintlocks when Walters, who had
finished his own dinner, came up to help him. Rand put the butler to work
fetching pistols from the racks, and replacing those he had already
listed. After a while, Dunmore strolled in.
"You say you found Rivers's body yourself, Colonel Rand?" he asked.
Rand nodded, finished what he was typing, and looked up.
"Why, yes. There were a few details I wanted to clear up with him, and I
called at his shop this morning. I found him lying dead inside." He went
on to describe the manner in which Rivers had met his death. "The radio
and newspaper accounts were accurate enough, in the main; there were a
few details omitted, at the request of the police, of course."
"Well, you didn't get involved in it, though?" Dunmore inquired
anxiously. "I mean, you're not taking any part in the investigation?
After all, we don't want to be mixed up in anything like this."
"In that case, Mr. Dunmore, let me advise you not to discuss the matter
of Rivers's offer to buy this collection with anybody outside," Rand told
him. "So far, the police and the District Attorney's office both seem to
think that Rivers was killed by somebody whom he'd swindled in a business
deal. Of course, they know about the collection being for sale, and
Rivers's offering to buy it."
"They do?" Dunmore asked sharply. "Did you tell them that?"
"Naturally. I had to account for my presence at Rivers's shop, this
morning," Rand replied. "I don't know if the idea has occurred to them
that somebody might have killed Rivers to eliminate a rival bidder for
the collection or not; I wouldn't say anything, if I were you, that might
give them the idea."
The extension phone rang shrilly. Walters picked it up, spoke into it,
and listened for a moment.
"Yes, Miss Lawrence; he's right here. You wish to speak to him?" He
handed the phone across the desk to Rand. "Miss Karen Lawrence, for you,
Colonel Rand."
Rand took the phone. Before he had time to say "hello," the antique-shop
girl demanded of him:
"Colonel Rand, you must tell me the truth. Did you have anything to do
with Pierre Jarrett's being arrested?"
"_What?_" Rand barked. Then he softened his voice. "No; on my honor, Miss
Lawrence. I knew nothing about it until this moment. Who did it? Olsen?"
"I don't know what his name was. He was a State Police sergeant," she
replied. "He and another State Policeman came to the Jarrett house about
half an hour ago, charged Pierre with the murder of Arnold Rivers, and
took him away. His mother phoned me about it a few minutes ago."
"That God-damned two-faced Jesuitical bastard!" Rand exploded. "Where are
you now?"
"Here at my shop. Mrs. Jarrett is coming here. She's afraid the reporters
will be coming out to the house as soon as they hear about it, and she
doesn't want to talk to them."
"All right. I'll be there as soon as I can. If there's anything I can do
to help you, you can count on me for it."
He hung up, and turned to Walters. "Is my car still out front?" he asked.
"It is? Good. I'll be gone for a while; tell the others I have something
to attend to."
"What's happened now?" Dunmore asked sourly.
"Just what I was speaking about. The Gestapo gathered up Pierre Jarrett;
they seem to have gotten the idea, now, that the motive may have been
competition for the collection. Next thing, Farnsworth will think he has
a case against Carl Gwinnett, and he'll land in the jug, too. I hope you
realize that every time something like this happens, it peels a thousand
or so off the price I'll be able to get for you people for these
pistols."
Dunmore didn't try to ask how that would happen, for which Rand was duly
thankful; he accepted the statement uncritically. Walters was staring at
Rand in horror, saying nothing. Rand picked up the outside phone and
dialed the same number he had called from the Rivers place that morning.
"Is Sergeant McKenna about?... He is? Fine; I'd like to speak to
him.... Oh, hello, Mick; Jeff Rand."
McKenna chuckled out of the receiver. "Sort of slipped one over on you,
didn't I?" he gloated. "Why, I was checking up on those people who were
at Gresham's, last evening, and they all agreed that young Jarrett and
the Lawrence girl had left the party about ten. So I had a talk with Miss
Lawrence, and she tried to tell me that Jarrett was with her at her
apartment, over the antique shop, from about ten fifteen until about
twelve, when another girl she rooms with got home from a date. I'd of
took that, too, only right across the street from the antique shop there
is one of these old hens like you find in every neighborhood, the kind
that keeps their nose flattened on the window between the curtains,
checking up on the neighbors. I spotted her when I came out of the
antique shop, so I slipped around to see her, and she told me that young
Jarrett went into the apartment with the girl at about quarter past ten,
stayed inside for about twenty minutes, then came out and drove away. She
says Jarrett came back in about half an hour, and stayed till this girl
who shares the Lawrence girl's apartment--a Miss Dupont, who teaches
sixth grade at Thaddeus Stevens School--got home, about twelve. So there
you are."
"Uh-huh. Dave Ritter said this was going to turn into another Hall-Mills
case; well, now you have your Pig Woman," Rand said. "Miss Lawrence
shouldn't have lied to you, Mick. I suppose she got worried when you
started asking questions, and there's nothing like a good murder in the
neighborhood to make liars out of people."
"And damn well I know that!" McKenna agreed. "But that isn't all. It
seems our cruise-car crew spotted Jarrett's car standing in Rivers's
drive, about eleven. Just when he was away from the antique-shop, and
about when the M.E. figures Rivers was getting the business."
"Did they get the number?" Rand asked. "Or how did they identify the
car?"
"Oh, they knew it; see, our boys shoot a lot with the Scott County Rifle
& Pistol Club, and they've all seen Jarrett's car at the range, different
times," McKenna said. "A gray 1947 Plymouth coupe. Like I say, they knew
the car, and they knew Jarrett collects guns, and the lights were on
inside the shop and the shades were drawn, so they didn't think anything
of it, at the time. See, they went to bed about ten this morning, and
didn't get up till after five, so I didn't find out about it till after
supper."
Rand shrugged, and managed to get some of the shrug into his voice. "Can
be, at that," he said. "I hope you're not making a mistake, Mick; if you
are, his lawyer's going to crucify you. What are you using for a motive?"
"Rivers was outbidding this crowd Jarrett and the girl were in with. They
all told me about that," McKenna said. "And he and the girl were planning
to use their end of the collection to go into the arms business, after
they got married. Rivers got in the way." McKenna, at the other end of
the line, must have shrugged, too. "After all, for about four years,
they'd been training Jarrett to overcome resistance with the bayonet, so
he did just that."
"Maybe so. You find out anything about that other matter I was interested
in?"
"You mean the pistols? Huh-unh; we went over Rivers's place with a
fine-tooth comb, and questioned young Gillis about it, and we didn't get
a thing. You sure those pistols went to Rivers?"
"I'm not sure of anything at all," Rand replied, looking at his watch.
"You going to be in, say in a couple of hours? I want to have a talk with
you."
"Sure. I'll be around all evening," McKenna assured him. "If we don't
have another murder."
Rand hung up. He pulled the sheet out of the typewriter, laid it
face down on the other sheets he had finished, and laid a long
seventeenth-century Flemish flintlock on top for a paperweight,
memorizing the position of the pistol relative to the paper under it.
"Put those pistols back on the wall," he told Walters, indicating several
he had laid aside after listing. "Leave the others there; I'm not
finished with them yet. I'll be back before too long. If I don't find any
more bodies."