 CHAPTER XIX There was less feuding at dinner that evening than at any previous meal Rand had eaten in the Fleming-home. In the first place everybody seemed a little odd in the presence of the new butler, who flitted in and out of the room like a ghost and, when spoken to, answered in a heavy BBC accent. Then the women who carried on most of the hostilities had re-erected their front populari, and were sharing a common pleasure in the recovery of the stolen pistols. And finally there was a distant possibility that the swift and dramatic justice that had overtaken Walters and Gwynedd at Rand's hand was having a sobering effect upon somebody at the table. Dunmore, Nelda, Varsic, Geraldine and Gladys had been intending to go to a party that evening, but at the last minute Gladys had pleaded in disposition and telephoned regrets. The meal over Rand had gone up to the gun room, Gladys drifted into the small drawing room off the dining room, and the others had gone to their rooms to dress. Rand was taking down the junk with which Walters had infiltrated the collection and was listing and hanging up the recovered items when Fred Dunmore, wearing a dressing gown, trolled in. I can't get over the idea of Walters being a thief, he sorrowed. I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen his signed confession. Well, it just goes to show you. He took his medicine standing up, Rand said, and he helped us recover the pistols. If I were you, I'd go easy with him. Dunmore shook his head. I'm not a revengeful man, Colonel Rand, he said, but if there's one thing I can't forgive, it's a disloyal employee. His mouth closed sternly around his cigar. He'll have to take what's coming to him. He stood by the desk for a moment, looking down at the recovered items and the pile of junk on the floor. When did you first suspect him? Almost from the first moment I saw this collection. Rand explained the reasoning which had led him to suspect Walters. The real clincher, to my mind, was the fact that he knew this collection almost as well as Lane Fleming did, and wouldn't be likely to be deceived by these substitutions any more than Fleming would. Yet, he said nothing to anybody, neither to Mrs. Fleming nor good, nor myself. If he weren't guilty himself, I wanted to know his reason for keeping silent. So I put the pressure on him and he cracked open. Well, I want you to know how grateful we all are, Dunmore said, feelingly. I'm kicking hell out of myself now, about the way I objected when Gladys brought you in here. My God, suppose we tried to sell the collection ourselves. Anybody who would have been interested in buying would have seen what you saw. And then they'd have claimed that we were trying to hold out on them. He hesitated. You've seen how things are here, he continued ruefully, and that's something else I have to thank you for. I mean keeping your mouth shut till you got the pistols back. There'd have been a hell of a row. Everybody would have blamed everybody else. How did you get him to confess, though? Rand told him about the subterfuge of the trumped-up murder charge. Dunmore had evidently never thought of that horrid device. He chuckled appreciatively. Say, that was smart. No wonder he was so willing to admit everything and help you get them back. He looked at the pistols on the desk and moved one or two of them. Did you get the one the coroner had? Good said something. Oh yes, I got that yesterday. Rand turned and went to the workbench, bringing back the leech and riggedon which he handed to Dunmore. That's it. I fired out the other five charges and cleaned it at the state police substation. He watched Dunmore closely, but there seemed to be no reaction. So that's it. Dunmore looked at it with a show of interest and honest sorrow and handed it back. Then shifted his cigar across his mouth. Look here, Colonel. I've been wanting to ask you something. Did Gladys just get you to come here to appraise and sell the collection, or are you investigating Lane's death, too? Well, now you're asking me to be disloyal to my employer, Rand objected? Why don't you ask her that? If she wants you to know, she'll tell you. Damn it, I can't. Suppose she's satisfied that it really was an accident. Would I want to start her worrying and imagining things? No, I suppose you wouldn't, Rand conceded. You're not at all satisfied on that point yourself, are you? Well, are you, Dunmore parried? That sort of fencing could go on indefinitely. Rand determined to stop it. After all, if Dunmore was the murderer of Lane Fleming, he would already know how little Rand was deceived by the fake accident. The leech and riggedon had told him that already. If he weren't, telling him would do no harm at this point, and might even do some good. Why, I think Fleming was murdered, Rand told him, as casually as though he were expressing an opinion on tomorrow's weather. And I further believe that whoever killed Fleming also killed Arnold Rivers. That, by the way, is where I come in. Stephen Gresham has retained me to find the river's murderer. To do that, I must first learn who killed Lane Fleming. However, I was not retained to investigate the Fleming murder, and as far as I know from anything she has told me, Gladys Fleming is quite satisfied that her husband shot himself accidentally. In a universe of ordered abstractions and multi-ordinal meanings, the literal truth, on one order of abstraction, was often a black lie on another. Does that answer your question, he asked, with open-faced innocence? Dunmore nodded. Yes, I get it now. Look here, do you think Anton Varsit could have done it? I know it's a horrible idea, and I want you to understand that I'm not making any accusations, but we always took it for granted that he'd been up in his lab, and had come downstairs when he heard the shot. But suppose he came down and shot Fleming, and then went out in the hall, and made that rumpus outside after locking the door behind him? That's possible, Rand agreed. You were taking a bath when you heard the shot, weren't you? Dunmore shook his head. I suppose so, I didn't hear any shot to tell the truth. All I heard was Anton pounding on the door and yelling. I suppose I had my head under the shower, and the noise of the water kept me from hearing the shot. He stopped short, taking a cigar from his mouth, and pointing it at Rand. And by God, that would have been about five minutes before he started hammering on the door, he exclaimed. Time enough for him to have fixed things to look like an accident, set the dead latch, and have gone out in the hall, and started making a noise. And another thing, you say that whoever killed Lane also killed this fellow Rivers. Well, on Thursday night, when Rivers was killed, Anton didn't get home till around twelve. Yes, I thought of that. You know, though, that the murderer doesn't have to be Varsik, or anybody else who was in the house at the time. The garage doors were open. I'm told that your wife was out at the time, and anybody could have sneaked in the back way, up through the library, and out the same way. There are one or two possibilities besides you and Anton Varsik. Dunmore's eyes widened. Yes, and I can think of one without half trying, too. He nodded once or twice. For instance, the man who was afraid you were investigating Fleming's death. The man who started that suicide story. He looked at Rand interrogatively. Well, I got to go. Now they'll be out of the bathroom by now. I want to talk to you about this some more, Colonel. After Dunmore had gone out, Rand moped his face. The room seemed insufferably hot. He found an electric fan over the workbench and plugged it in. But it made enough noise to cover any sounds of stealthy approach, and he shut it off. He had finished revising his list to include the recovered pistols for as far as it was completed, and was hanging them back on the wall when Ritter came in. House is clear now, his assistant said, stepping out of his PG, Wode House character. Both pairs left in the Packard, Dunmore driving. Man, what a cat and dog show this place is. It's a wonder our client isn't nuts. You haven't seen anything. You ought to have been here last night. Where is our client, by the way? Downstairs. Ritter fished the cigarette out of his livery and appropriated Rand's lighter. If we hear her coming, you can grab this. He brushed a couple of patterns and cults to one side and sat down on the edge of the desk, taking a deep drag on the cigarette. What's the regular law doing now that young Jared is out? I had a long talk with Mick McKenna, Rand said. Fortunately, Mick and I have worked together before. I was able to tell him the facts of life, and he'll be a good boy now. When last heard from, Farnsworth was beginning to blow his hot breath on the back of Cecil Gillis's neck. Ritter picked up the big forty-four cult walker and tried the balance. Man, this even makes that cult magnum of mine feel light, he said. Say, Jeff, if Farnsworth's going after Gillis, it's probably on account of those stories about him and Mrs. Rivers. At least all that stuff would come out if he arrested him. Maybe we could get a fee out of Mrs. Rivers. I'd thought of that. Unfortunately, Mrs. Rivers had a very convenient breakdown when she heard the news. She is now in a hospital in New York and won't be back until after the funeral, prostrated with grief, or something. And this case is due to blow up like Hiroshima before then. Well, we can't get fees from everybody. That of course was one of the sad things of life to which one must reconcile oneself. I got a call from Pierre Gérée, tips staying at the Gérée place tonight. I thought it would be a good idea to have him within reach for a while. The private outside phone rang shrilly. Riddler let it go for several rings, then picked it up. This is the Fleming residence, he stated, putting on his character again. Oh, yes indeed, sir, Colonel Rand is right here, sir. I'll tell him you're calling. He put a hand over the mouthpiece, Humphrey Good. Rand took the phone and named himself into it. I would like to talk to you privately, Colonel Rand, the lawyer said. On a subject of considerable importance to our, shall I say, mutual clients, could you find time to drop over sometime this evening? Well, I'm very busy at the moment, Mr. Good, Rand regretted. There have been some rather deplorable developments here lately. The butler Walters has been arrested for larceny. It seems that since Mr. Fleming's death, he has been systematically looting the pistol collection. I'm trying to get things straightened out now. Good heavens! Good was considerably shaken. When did you discover this, Colonel Rand? And why wasn't I notified before? Are there many valuable items missing? I discovered it as soon as I saw the collection. Rand began answering his questions in order. Neither you nor anybody else was notified, because I wanted to get evidence to justify an arrest first. And nothing is missing. Everything has been recovered, he finished. That's what I'm so busy about now. Getting my list revised and straightening out the collection. Oh, fine. Good was delighted. I hope everything was handled quietly without any unnecessary publicity. But this other matter, I don't care to go into it over the phone, and it's imperative that we discuss it privately, at once. Well, suppose you come over here, Mr. Good, Rand suggested. That way I won't have to interrupt my work so much. There's nobody at home now, but Mrs. Fleming, and she's indisposed. We'll be quite alone. Ah, very well. I think that's really a good idea, much better than you coming over here. I'll see you directly. Ritter was grinning as Rand hung up. That's the stuff, he approved. The old Hitler technique. Make them come to you, and then you can pound the table and yell at them all you want. You go let him in, Rand directed. Show him up here and then take a plant on that spiral stairway out of the library, just out of sight. I don't think this is it, but there's no use taking chances. He mopped his face again. Damn it's hot in here. Ten minutes later, Ritter ushered in Humphrey Good and inquired if there would be anything further, sir. When Rand said there wouldn't, he went down the spiral. Just as Rand had expected, Good began peddling the same line as Varsig and done more before him. They all came to see him in the gun room with a common purpose. After easing himself into a chair and going through some prefatory huffing and puffing, Good came out with it. Did Rand believe that Lane Fleming had really been murdered, and was he investigating Fleming's death after all? I have always believed that Lane Fleming was murdered, Rand replied. I also believe that this murderer killed Arnold Rivers as well. I am investigating the river's murder, and the Fleming murder may be considered as a part thereof. But what brings you around to discuss that now? Did you learn something since last evening that leads you to suspect the same thing? Well, not exactly, but this afternoon Fred Dunmore and Anton Varsig came to my office, separately of course, and each of them wanted to know if I had any reason to suspect that the, uh, tragedy was actually a case of murder. Arnold had the impression that you were conducting an investigation under cover of your work on the pistol collection, and wanted to know whether Mrs. Fleming or I had employed you to do so. And you denied it, giving them the impression that Mrs. Fleming had, Rand asked. I hope you haven't put her in any more danger than she is now, by doing so. Good looks startled. Colonel Rand, you actually mean that, he began. You were Lane Fleming's attorney and board chairman of his company, Rand said. You can probably imagine why he was killed. You can ask yourself just how safe his principal error is now. Without giving good a chance to gather his wits, he pressed on. Well, what's your opinion about Fleming's death? After all, you did go out of your way to create a false impression that he had committed suicide. Rand had still bewildered by Rand's deliberately cryptic hints and a little frightened, had the grace to blush at that. I admit it, it was entirely unethical, and I'll admit that, too, he said. But, well, I'm buying all the premixed stock that's out in small blocks, and so are Mr. Dunmore and Mr. Varsak. We all felt that such rumors would reduce the market quotation to our advantage. Rand nodded. I picked up a hundred shares the other day myself. Your shenanigans probably chipped a little off the price I had to pay, so I ought to be grateful to you. But we're talking about murder, not market manipulation. Did either Varsak or Dunmore express any opinion as to who might have killed Fleming? The outside telephone rang before good could answer. Rand scooped it up at the end of the first ring and named himself into it. It was Mick McKenna calling. Well, we checked up on that cap-and-ball six-shooter you left with me, he said. This gunsmith, Umholtz, refinished it for Rivers last summer. He showed the man who was to see him. The entry in his job book, make, model, serials and all. Oh, fine! And did you get anything out of young Gillis, Rand asked. The gun was in Rivers' shop from the time Umholtz rejuvenated it till around the first of November. Mckenna was sold, but he doesn't know who to. He didn't sell it himself, Rivers must have. I assumed that, that's why he's still alive. Well, thanks, Mick. The case is getting tighter every minute. You haven't had any trouble yet? Mckenna asked anxiously. How's the Hoosies doing? About as you might expect, Rand told him, mopping his face again. Thanks for that, too. He hung up and turned back to good. Pardon the interruption, he said, Sergeant Mckenna of the State Police. The officer who made the arrest on Walters and Gwyneth. Well, I suppose Dunmore and Varsic are each trying to blame each other, he said. Well, yes, I rather got that impression, good admitted. And which one do you like for the murderer, or haven't you picked yours yet? You mean... Yes, of course, good said slowly. It must have been one or the other, but I can't think. It's horrible to have to suspect either of them. For a moment he stared unseeingly at the litter of high-priced pistols on the desk. Then... Colonel Rand, lame-flemming is dead, and nothing either of us can do will bring him back. To expose his murderer certainly won't. But it would cause a scandal that would rock the premix company to its very foundations. You might even disastrously affect the market as a whole. Oh, come, Rand reproved. It's like talking about starting a hurricane with a palm leaf fan. But you will admit that it would have a dreadful effect on premix foods, good argued. It would probably prevent this merger from being consummated. Look here, he said urgently. I don't know how much gladdice-flemming is paying you to rake all this up, but I'll gladly double her fee if you drop it and confine yourself to the matter of the collection. Even in his colossal avarice, that was one kind of money Geoffrand had never been tempted to take. An offer of that sort invariably made him furious. At the moment he managed to choke down his anger, but he rejected Good's offer in a manner which left no room for further discussion. Good rose, shaking his head sadly. I suppose you realize, he said, sorrowfully, that you're wrecking a ten-million-dollar corporation, one in which you, yourself, are a stockholder. Man brightened. And the biggest wrecking jobs I ever did before were a couple of petrol dumps and railroad bridge. He got to his feet along with the lawyer. No need to call the butler, I'll let you out myself. He accompanied Good down the front stairway to the door. Good was still gloomy. I made a mistake in trying to bribe you, he said, but can't I appeal to your sense of fairness? Do you want to inflict serious losses on innocent investors merely to avenge one crime? I don't approve of murder, ran told them. Least of all, to paraphrase Clauswitz, as an extension of business by other means. You know, if we let Lane Fleming's killer get away with it, somebody might take that as a precedent and bump you off to win a lawsuit sometime. Ever think of that? When he returned to the gun room, he found Gladys Fleming occupying the chair, lately vacated by the family attorney. She blew a smoke ring at him in greeting as he entered. Now, what was Hump Good up to, she wanted to know. I'm taking too much on myself, ran duvated. Maybe I should have turned Walters over for trial by family court-martial. How do you like Davies, by the way? Oh, he's cute, Gladys told him. One of your operatives, isn't he? Now, what in the world gave you an idea like that, he asked, as though humoring the vagaries of a child? Well, I suspected something of the sort from the alacrity with which you produced him before Walters was out of the house, she said, and nobody could be as perfect a stage-butler as he is. But what really convinced me was coming into the library a little while ago and finding him squatting on the top of the spiral, covering Humphrey Good with a small but particularly evil-looking automatic. Oh, I climbed up and squatted beside him, she replied. I got there just as you were telling Good what he could do with his bride. You know, with one thing and another, Good's beginning to become unamusing. She smoked in silence for a moment. I ought to be indignant with you, filling my house with spies, she said. But under the circumstances, I'm afraid I'm thankful instead. Your opp's a good egg, by the way. He's on his way to bring us some drinks. I ought to be sore at you, retaining me into a mess like this, and telling me nothing, ran told her. What was the idea, anyhow? You wanted me to investigate your husband's murder all along, didn't you? I—I hadn't a thing to go on, she replied. I was afraid, if I came out and told you what I suspected, that you think it was just another case of feminine, damned foolishness, and dismisses as such. I knew it wasn't an accident. Lane didn't have accidents with guns, and if he'd wanted to kill himself, he'd have done it and left the note explaining why he had to. But I didn't have a single fact to give you. I thought that if you came here and started working on the collection, you'd find something. You should have taken a chance and told me what you suspected, ran said. I've taken a lot of cases on flimsier grounds than this. The fact is you practically told me it was murder when you were talking to me in my office. Jeff, I never was what the soap-roppers call being in love with Lane, she continued. But he was wonderful to me. He gave me everything a girl who grew up in a sixteen-dollar apartment over a fruit store could want, just as you'd step on a cockroach, because you got in the way of a business deal. I'm glad to be able to spend money to help catch whoever did it. It won't help him, but it'll make me feel a lot better. You will catch him, won't you? Rand nodded. I don't know whether he'll ever go to trial and be convicted, he said. I don't think he will, but you can take my word for it, he won't get away with it. Tomorrow I think the lid's going to blow off. Maybe you'd better be away from home when it does. Take Nelda and Geraldine with you and go somewhere. There's likely to be some uproar. Well, Nelda and Geraldine and I are going to church in the morning, Gladys said. It's a question of face. We have a rented pew, Lane was quite active in church work, and none of us are willing to let ourselves get squeezed out of it. We all go. Then Geraldine manages to drag herself to the Lord's house through an alcoholic fog, and we'll have to be back in time for dinner. It would look funny if we weren't. Well, if nothing's happened by the time you get back I want you to talk the girls into going somewhere with you in the afternoon, and stay away till evening. And don't get the idea that you could help me here, he added, stopping an objection. I know what I'm talking about. The presence of any of you here would only delay matters and make it harder for me. Then Ritter came in, a cigarette in one corner of his mouth, carrying a tray on which there were a bottle of bourbon, a bottle of scotch, a siphon, and a couple of bottles of beer. CHAPTER XX The dining-room was empty when Rand came down to breakfast the next morning. Taking the seat he had occupied the evening before, he waited until Ritter came out of the kitchen through the pantry. Good morning, Colonel Rand. The perfect butler greeted him unctuously. If I may say so, sir, you're a bit of an early riser. None of the family is up yet, sir. Rand jerked a thumb toward the kitchen. Who's out there, he hissed. Just the cook frying sausage and flipping pancakes, premixed pancakes, of course. The maid sleeps out. She hasn't gotten here yet. How'd it go last night? He put a dummy under the covers and slept on the floor. No, last night I was safe. The blow-off isn't due till this morning when the women are at church, and he'll have to catch me and the fall guy together. What do you want me to do, Ritter asked, giving an unbutler-like hitch at his shoulder holster. I can stand at my official dignity and get out of any clean-up work till after dinner, and I won't have any butling to do till the women get home from church. At least Varsik and Dunmore, when they come in. See if either of them is rod heavy. Find anything last night? Ritter shook his head. I searched Varsik's lab after everybody was in bed, and I searched the cars in the garage, and a lot of other places. I didn't find them. Whoever he is, the chances are he has them in his room. Did you look back at the books in the library, Rand asked? When Ritter shook his head, he continued. That's probably where they are, not that it makes a whole lot of difference. If I'd found them, it'd have given me something to watch. Then I'd know when this fun was going to start. Ritter broke off suddenly. Yes, sir, will you have your coffee now or later, sir? Gladys entered, wearing the blue-tailored outfit she had worn to Rand's office on Wednesday. At ease, at ease, she laughed, dropping into her chair. Anything new? Ritter shook his head. We'll have to wait. I'm expecting some action this morning. I hope it'll be over before you're home from church. She looked at him seriously. Jeff, you're using yourself as murder bait, she said, aren't you? More or less. He knows I'm on to him. He's pretty sure I haven't any real proof yet, but he doesn't know how soon I will have. He realizes that I'm cat and mousing him the way I did Walters. So he'll try to kill me before I pounce, and when he does, he'll convict himself. What he doesn't realize is that as long as he sits tight, he's perfectly safe. Neither of them mentioned the obvious corollary. That conviction and execution would be almost simultaneous. It must have been uppermost in Gladys's mind. She leaned over and put her hand on Rand's arm. Jeff, would it help any if I stayed home instead of going to church? He asked. I'm a pretty fair pistol shot, Lane taught me. I can stay over ninety at slow fire, and in the eighties at timed and rapid. If I hit somewhere with a target pistol, absolutely not, Rand vetoed emphatically. I'm not saying that because I'm afraid you might stop a slug yourself. You're a big girl now, you can take your own chances. But if you stayed home, he wouldn't make a move. You and Geraldine and Nelda have to be out of the house before he'll feel safe coming out of the grass. Watch it, Ritter warned. Yes, ma'am, at once, ma'am. Nelda came in and sat down. Ritter held her chair and fussed over her, finding out what she wanted to eat. He was bringing in her fruit when Varsik and Geraldine entered. Nelda was inquiring if Rand wanted to come to church with him. No, I'm one of the boys the chaplain couldn't find in the foxholes, Rand said. I'm going to put in a quiet morning on the collection, if nobody gets murdered or arrested in the meantime, that is. Geraldine looked wobby gone, her hands were trembling. My God, do I have a hangover, she moaned. Walter's for heaven's sake, fix me up something quick. Then she saw Ritter. Who the devil are you, she demanded. Where's Walter's? Out on bail, Rand told her. Don't you remember? Oh, you did this to me, she accused. Walter's could always fix me up in the morning. Now what am I going to do? You might stop drinking, her husband suggested mildly. Oh, just stop breathing, that would be better all around, Nelda interposed. Walter coughed delicately. Begging your pardon, ma'am, but I've always rather fauncied myself for an expert on mourning off through tonics. If you'll wait a moment. He departed on his errand of mercy, returning shortly with a highball-glass filled with some dark, evil-looking potion. He set it on the table in front of the sufferer and poured her a cup of coffee. Now, ma'am, just try this. Take it gradually, if I may suggest. Don't attempt to gulp it. It's quite strong, ma'am. Geraldine tasted it and pulled a gorgon face. Encouraged by ridder, she managed to down about half of the mixture. Splendid, ma'am, splendid, he cheered her on. Now, drink your coffee, ma'am, and then finish it. That's right, ma'am. And now more coffee. Geraldine struggled through with the black draft and drank the second cup of coffee. As she set down the empty cup, she even managed to smile. Why, that's wonderful! She lit a cigarette. What is it? I feel as though I might live, after all. A recipe of my own, a variant on the old prairie oyster, but without the raw egg, which I consider a needless embellishment, ma'am. I learned it in the household of a former employer, a New York stockbroker. Poor man, he did himself in in the autumn of 1929. Well, it's too bad you won't be with us permanently, Davies, Nelda said. Your recipe seems to be just what Geraldine needs. With a dash of prusik acid added, of course. That got the bush-fighting off to a good start. When Dunmore came in a few minutes later, the two sisters were stalking one another through the jungle, blow gunning poison darts back and forth. The newcomer sat down without a word. Throughout the meal, he and Varsik treated one another with silent and hostile suspicion. Finally, Gladys looked at her watch and called a truce to the skirmishing by announcing that it was time to start for church. Rand left the room with the ladies. In the hall, Gladys brushed against him quickly and gripped his left arm. Do be careful, Jeff, she whispered. Don't worry, I will, Rand assured her. Then he turned into the library and went up the spiral to the gunroom, while the three women went down to the garage. He was standing at the window as the big packard moved out onto the drive. Nelda was at the wheel and Gladys, beside her on the front seat, raised a white-gloved hand in the thumbs-up salute. Rand gave it back and watched the car swing around the house. Then he mottled his face with a wad of Kleenex and went over to the room temperature thermostat, turning it down to 60. Sitting down at the desk, he dialed Humphrey Good's number on the private outside line. A mate answered. A moment later, he was talking to the Fleming lawyer. Rand here, he identified himself. Mr. Good, I've been thinking over our conversation of last evening. There's a great deal to be said for the position you're taking in the matter. As you've reminded me, I'm a small, if purely speculative, stockholder in premix myself, and even if I weren't, I should hate to be responsible for undeserved losses by innocent investors. Yes? Good's voice fairly shook. Then you're going to drop the investigation? No, Mr. Good, I can't do that. But I believe a formula could be evolved which would keep the premix company and its affairs out of it. In fact, I think that the whole question of the death of Lane Fleming might possibly be kept in the background. Would that satisfy you? It would require some very careful manipulation on my part and your cooperation. But, see here, if you're investigating the death of Mr. Fleming, how can that be kept in the background? Good wanted to know. The murder of Lane Fleming is also guilty of the murder of Arnold Rivers, Rand stated. I know that positively now. Murder is punished capitalally, and one of the peculiarities of capital punishment is that it can be inflicted only once, on no matter how many counts. If our man goes to the chair for the death of Rivers, the death of Fleming might even remain an accident. I can hardly guarantee then. I have my agency license to think of, among other things. But I feel reasonably safe in saying that I could keep the premix company from figuring in the case. Would that satisfy you? It most certainly would, Colonel Rand. Good's voice shook even more. Are you sure? I'm not sure of anything. It'll cost the premix company some money to get this done. I'll have certain expenses for one thing which could not very gracefully be itemized. And I will have to have your cooperation. Now I want you to remain at home where I can reach you at any moment, for the rest of the day. I'll call you later. He listened to good babble his gratitude for a while, then terminated the call and hung up. Then he transferred the Colt 38 to the side pocket of his coat, picked up one of the sheets on which he had been listing the collection, and sat for almost 15 minutes pretending to study it, keeping his eyes shifting from the hall door to the spiral stairway and back again. Finally the hall door opened and Anton Varsak came in. Rand half rose covering the check from his side pocket. Varsak came over and sat down in an armchair near the desk. It was looking more than ever like Rudolph Hess. Rudolph Hess on the morning of the beer hall putch. Colonel Rand, he began, there has within the last half hour been a most important development. I'm at a loss to define its significance, but its importance is inescapable. Rand nodded. He had been expecting somebody to give birth to an important development. The steps toward gunfire were progressing in logical series. Well, he smiled encouragingly. What happened? After you and the ladies left the dining room, Varsak said, Fred Dunmore turned to me and apologized for harboring unjust suspicions of me in the matter of Lane Fleming's death. He said that he had been unable to understand who else could have murdered Lane, until you had pointed out to him that the house could have been entered from the garage and the gun room from the library. Then, he said, he had had a conversation with some unnamed gentleman at the party last evening, and had learned that Lane had discovered that Humford Good was deceiving him, and had been about to have him dismissed from his position with the company, and to sever his personal connections with him. The devil now, Rand gave a good imitation of surprise. What sort of jiggery pokery was good up to? Fred said that his informant told him that Lane had proof that Good had accepted a bribe from Arnold Rivers to misconduct the suit which Lane was bringing against Rivers about a pair of pistols he had bought from Rivers. It seems that Good was Rivers' attorney also, and had been involved with him in a number of dishonest transactions, although the connection had been kept secret. That's a new angle now, Rand said. I suppose that he killed Rivers in order to prevent the latter from incriminating him. Why didn't Fred come to me with this, he asked. Eh? Evidently, Varsuk hadn't thought of that. Why, I suppose he was concerned about the possibility of repercussions in the business world. After all, Good is our board chairman, and maybe he thought that people might begin thinking that the murder had some connection with the fares of the company. That's possible, of course, Rand agreed. And what's your own attitude? Colonel Rand, I cannot allow these facts to be suppressed, the cheque said. My own position is too vulnerable. You've showed me that. Except for the fact that somebody could have entered the house through the garage, the burden of suspicion would lie on me and Fred Dunmore. Well, do you want me to help with it? Rand asked. Yes, if you will. It would be helping yourself also, I believe, Varsuk replied. Fred is downstairs now, in the library. I suggest that you and I go down and have a talk with him. Maybe you could show him the folly of trying to suppress any facts concerning Lane's death. Yes, that would be both foolish and dangerous. Rand got to his feet, keeping his hand on the 38 Colt. Let's go down and talk to him now. They walked side by side toward the spiral, Rand keeping on the right and lagging behind a little, lifting the stubby revolver clear of its pocket. Yet, in spite of his vigilance, it happened before he could prevent it. A lance of yellow fire jumped out of the shadows of the stairway and there was a soft cough of a silenced pistol, almost lost in the click-click of the breech action. Rand felt something sledgehammer him in the chest, almost knocking him down. He staggered, then swung up the Colt he had drawn from his pocket and blazed two shots into the stairway. There was a clatter and the sound of feet descending into the library. He rushed forward, revolver poised, and then a shot boomed from below, followed by three more in quick succession. Okay, Jeff, Ritter's voice called out, war's over! He managed somehow to get down the steep spiral. The little 25 Webley in Scott was lying on the bottom step. He pushed it aside with his foot and cautioned Varsak, who was following, to avoid it. Ritter, still looking like the perfect butler in spite of the 380 Beretta in his hand, was standing in the hall doorway. On the floor, midway between the stairway and the door lay Fred Dunmore. His tan coat and vest were turning dark in several places, and Rand's own detective, Special, was lying a few inches from his left hand. He came in here and shut the door, Ritter reported. I couldn't follow him in, so I took a plant in the hall. When I heard you blasting upstairs, I came in just in time to see him coming down. You winged him in the right shoulder. He dropped the 25, and he had your gat in his left hand. When he saw mine, he threw one at me and missed. I gave him three back for it. She result on floor. Uh-huh. If gotten away if you hadn't been on the job, he told Ritter. Then he picked up his own revolver and holstered it. After a glance, which assured him that Fred Dunmore was beyond any further action of any sort, he laid the square butt Detective Special on the floor beside him. You did all right, Dave, he said. Now nobody's going to have a chance to bamboozle a jury into acquitting him. He thought of his recent conversation with Humphrey Good. You did just all right, he repeated. So it was Fred then, he heard Varsic behind him say. Then he was lying about this evidence against Good. The check came over and stood beside Rand, looking down at the body of his late brother-in-law. But why did he tell me that story, and why did he shoot at us when we were together? Both for the same general reason. Rand explained about the two pistols and the planned double killing. With both of us dead, you'd be the murderer, and I'd be a martyr to law and order, and he'd be in the clear. Varsic regarded the dead man with more distaste than surprised. Evidently, his experiences in Hitler's Europe had left him with few illusions about the sanctity of human life, or the extent of human perfidy. Ritter holstered the Beretta and got out a cigarette. I hope you didn't leave your lighter upstairs, he told Rand. Rand produced and snapped it, holding the flame out to his assistant. Dave, he lectured. The perfect butler always has a lighter in good working order. Lighting up the monster is part of his duties. Remember that the next time you have a butling job. Ritter leaned forward for the light. Dunmore was a better shot with his right hand than he was with his left, he commented. He didn't come within a yard of me, and he scored a twelve o'clock center on you, right through the necktie. Rand glanced down, then he burst into a roar of obscene blasphemy. Seven dollars and fifty cents I'd pay for that tie not three weeks ago, he concluded. Does your grandmother make patchwork quilts? If she does, she can have it. My God! Varsic stared at Rand unbelievingly. Why, he hits you, you're wounded. Only in the necktie Rand reassured him. I have a hole in my shirt too. He reached under the ladder garment and rummaged, as though to evict a small trespasser. When he brought out his hand he was holding a battered twenty-five caliber bullet. He held it out to show Varsic and Ritter. Sure, Ritter grinned at Varsic. Didn't you know, Superman? I'm wearing a bulletproof vest. Nick McKenna loaned it to me yesterday, ran enlightened Varsic. I never wore one of the damn things before, and if I can help it I'll never wear one again. I'm damn near stewed alive in it. Think how hot you'd be right now if you hadn't been wearing it, Ritter reminded him. Then you knew since yesterday that he would do this, Varsic asked. I knew one or the other of you would, Rand replied. I had quite a few reasons for thinking it might be done more and one good one for not suspecting you. You mean my dislike for firearms? That could have been feigned, or it could have been overcome, Rand replied. I mean your knowledge of biology and biochemistry. If you'd killed Lane Fleming there'd have been no clumsy business of fake accidents. Not as long as both of you ate at the same table. You'd have just died, an unimpeachably natural death. He turned to Ritter. Dave, I'm going upstairs. I want to get out of this damn coat of mail I'm wearing. I want you to call Carter Tipton at the Jarrett Place, and Humphrey Good, and Nick McKenna in that order. Tell Good to get over here as fast as he can and come up to my room. Tell him we have to consider ways and means of implementing my suggestion to him. End of Chapter 20. Chapter 21 of Murder in the Gun Room. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Murder in the Gun Room by H. Beam Piper. Chapter 21. In the month which followed, events transpired through a thickening miasma of rumors, official communiqués, journalistic conjectures, and outright fabrications, fitfully lit by the glare of newsmen's photo bulbs, bulking with strange shapes and emitting stranger noises. There were the portentous rumblings of prepared statements and the hollow thumbs of denials. There were soft murmurs of, now this is strictly off the record, followed by a sibilant whispers. The unseen screws of political pressure creaked and whitewash brushes slurped swavly. And there was an insistent yammering of bewildered and unanswered questions. Fred Dunmore really had killed Arnold Rivers, hadn't he? Or had he? Arnold Rivers had been double-crossing Dunmore. Or had Dunmore been double-crossing Rivers? Somebody had stolen ten, or was it twenty-five thousand dollars worth of old pistols? Or was it just twenty-five thousand dollars? Or what if anything had been stolen? Was somebody being framed for something? Or was somebody covering up for somebody? Or what? And wasn't there something funny about the way Laine Fleming got killed last December? The surviving members of the Fleming family issued a few non-committal statements through their attorney Humphrey Good, and then the Iron Curtain slimed down. Mick McKenna gave an outraged squawk or so, then subsided. There was a series of pronunciamentos from the office of District Attorney Charles P. Farnsworth, all full of high-order abstractions and empty of meaning. The reporters converging on the Fleming House found it occupied by the state police, who kept them at bay. Harry Bentz of the New Belfast Evening Mercury, using a thirty-power spotting scope from the road, observed Dave Ritter, whom he recognized, wearing a suit of butler's livery and standing in the doorway of the garage, talking to Sergeant McKenna, Carter Tipton, and Farnsworth. The Mercury exploited this scoop for all it was worth. On the whole, the Rosemont Bayonet murder was, from a journalistic standpoint, an almost complete bust. There had been no arrest, no hearing, no protracted trial, no sensational revelations. Only one monolithic fact, officially tested and indisputable, loomed out of the Merc. And the said Frederick Parker Dunmore, deceased, did receive the aforesaid gunshot wounds, here and before enumerated at the hands of the said Jefferson Davis Rand, and at the hands of the said David Abercrombie Ritter. And the said Jefferson Davis Rand and the said David Abercrombie Ritter, being in moral fear for their several lives, did so act in defense of their several persons. And finally, the said Frederick Parker Dunmore did die. The evening Mercury, which the said Jefferson Davis Rand had once cost the loss of an expensive libel suit and exposed in certain journalistic malpractices, verging upon blackmail, promptly burst into print with an indignant editorial entitled Trial by Pistol. The terms legalized slaughter and flagrant whitewash were used, and mention was made of the well-known preference of a certain notorious private detective for the procedure of habeas cadaver. The principal result of this outcry was to persuade an important new Belfast manufacturer, who had hitherto resisted Rand's sales pressure, to contract with the Tri-State Agency for the protection of his payroll deliveries. Then, at the other end of the state, the professor of moral science at his small theological seminary caught his wife in flagrante delicto with one of the fourth-year students and opened fire upon them at a range of ten feet with a twelve-gauge pump gun. The Rosemont bayonet murder, already pretty well withered on the vine, passed quietly into limbo. Summer, almost a month before its official opening, was already a fado complet. The trees were in full leaf and invaded by nesting birds. The air was fragrant with flower scents, and the mercury column of the thermometer was stretching itself up toward the 90 mark. They were all outside, where the long shadow of the Fleming House fell across the lawn and driveway, gathered about the five-park cars. The new Fleming Butler, a short and somewhat globular negro with a gingerbread crust complexion, and an air of affable dignity was helping Pierre Gérée and Karen Lawrence put a couple of cartons and a tall peach basket into Pierre's Plymouth. Colin McBride, a streamer of pipe smoke floating back over his shoulder, was peering into his luggage compartment to check the stowage of his own cargo, while his 12-year-old son, Malcolm, another black highlander like his father, was helping Philip Cabot carry a big laundry hamper full of newspaper-wrapped pistols to his Cadillac. Pierre's mother and the stylish stout Mrs. Treehearn and Gladys Fleming, obviously detached from the bustle of pre-departure preparations, were standing to one side, talking, and Rand had finished helping Adam Treehearn pack the last container of his share of the Fleming collection into his car. I see Colin's about ready to leave, and I'm in his way, Treehearn said. He extended his hand to Rand. No need hashing over how we all feel about this. If it hadn't been for you, that offer of kendles would have had a stout as dead as rivers had. Five hundred dollars deader, in fact. Stephen Gresham, carrying a package-filled orange crate, joined him, setting down his burden. His wife and daughter, with another crate between them, halted beside him. Haven't you got your stuff packed yet, Jeff? Gresham asked. Jeff's been helping everybody else. Irene Gresham burst out. Come on, everybody, let's go help Jeff pack. You're going to have dinner with us, aren't you, Jeff? Oh, sorry. I have some more details to clear up. I'm having dinner here with Mrs. Fleming, Rand regretted. I'll pack my stuff later. Mrs. Jarre, Mrs. Treehearn, and Gladys came over. One by one, the rest of the group converged upon them. Then, when the goodbyes had been said, and the promises to meet again had been given, they parted. One by one, the cars moved slowly down the driveway to the road. Only Gladys and Rand, standing at the foot of the front steps, and the gingerbread brown butler would left. My, my, that was some party, the Negro checkled, gathering up three empty pasteboard cartons and telescoping them together. Dinner'll be ready in about a half an hour, Mrs. Fleming. Shall I go mix the cocktails now? Yes, do that, Ruben. In the drawing room. She watched the servant carry the discarded containers around the house, then turn to Rand. You know, not the least of your capabilities is your lack of fighting servant replacements on short notice, she told him. My general factotum, Buck Pendexter, is a prominent personage in new Belfast colored lodge circles, Rand said. When your cook and maid quit on you the day of the blow-up, all I had to do was phone him, and he did the rest. He got out his cigarettes, offered them, and snapped his lighter. I noticed you're having cocktails in the drawing room now. Yes, I suppose in time I'll stop imagining I see Fred Dunmore's blood on the library floor. I got used to what had happened in the gun room last December. Shall we go in? She asked, taking Rand's arm. The cocktails were waiting when they entered the drawing room off the dining room. The butler poured for them and put the glasses and the shaker on the load table by a lounge. I'm afraid dinner's going to be a little later than I said, Mrs. Fleming, he apologized. Things were kind of stirred up today with all those people here. That's all right, we can wait, she replied. We won't need anything more, Reuben. Motioning Rand down on the lounge beside her, she handed him a glass and lifted her own. Now, she began. Just what sort of skull delgery has been going on? As of Friday the top offer for the collection was 25,500, from some dealer up in Massachusetts. And then on Saturday you came bounding in with Stephen Gresham's certified check for 26,000. And I seem to recall that the late Unlemented Rivers offer of 25,000 straight had them stopped. Not that I'm inclined to look a scant at an extra 500, I could buy a new hat with my share of that, even after taxes. But I would like to know what happened, and I might add that's only one of many things I'd like to know. The client is entitled to a full report, Rand said, tasting his cocktail. It was a vodka martini, and very good. You know, none of that crowd are millionaires. Adam Treehearn, who's the plutocrat of the bunch, isn't so filthy rich he doesn't know what to do with all his money. What the tax collectors leave of it, and the rest of them have to figure pretty closely. The most they could possibly scratch together was 22,000. So I put 4,000 into the pot myself, bringing the total to 500 over the candle offer, and hastily declared the collection sold. Of course, my getting into him meant that much less for everybody else, but five-sixth of a collection is better than no pistols at all. I imagine Colin McBride is honing up his ski endu for me because I got that big Whitneyville Walker colt. But what the hell? He got the cased pair of Patterson 34s and the Texas 40 with a ramming lever. Why, I think the division was fair enough, Glatter said. They'd agreed that the collection was a little bit better than the collection. To take your valuation, hadn't they? And all that slide rule and comptometer business. But Jeff, four thousand dollars, she queried. You only got five from me, and you can't run a detective agency on old pistols. Rand Grind has he set down his empty glass. Gladys refilled it from the shaker. My dear lady, that five thousand I unblushingly accepted from you was only part of it, he confessed. There was also a fee of three thousand from Steven Gresham for pulling the bloodhounds of the DA's office off his back in the matter of Arnold Rivers. And there was five thousand from Humphrey Good, which I suppose he'll get the premix company to repay him, for engineering the suppression of a lot of facts he wanted suppressed. And finally, my connection with this business brought that merger to my attention. And I picked up a hundred shares of premix at seventy-three and a quarter. And now I have two hundred shares of mill-pack worth about twenty-nine thousand, which I can report for my income taxes as capital gains. I'd say I could afford to treat myself to a few old pistols for my collection. Well, she raised both eyebrows over that. Don't anybody tell me crime doesn't pay? Yes, in my ghoulish way I generally manage to bear myself in mind. On an operation like this, I make no secret of my affection for money. He lifted his glass and sit slowly. Look here, Gladys. Are you satisfied with the way this was handled? She shrugged. I should be. When I started out as Lane's blood avenger, I suppose I expected things to end somewhere out of sight in a nice antiseptic death chamber at the State Penitentiary. You must admit that that business in the library was really bringing it home. There's no question that you got the man who killed Lane, and if you hadn't, I'd never have been at peace with myself. And I suppose all that chicanery afterward was necessary too. It was, if you wanted that merger to go through, and unless you wanted to see the bottom drop out of your premix stock, ran to shorter. If the true facts of Mr. Fleming's death had gotten out, there'd have been a simply hideous stink. The Milpak people would have backed out of that merger like a bear out of an active bee tree. You know what the situation really was, don't you? She shook her head. I know Milpak wanted to get control of the premix company, and Lane refused to go in with them. I don't fully understand his reasons, though. They weren't important. They were mainly verbal. And unrelated to actuality, ran said. The important thing is that he did refuse, and Milpak wanted that merger so badly that it could be tasted in every ounce of food they sold. They got Stephen Gresham to negotiate it for them, and he was just on the point of reporting it to be an impossibility when Fred Dunmore came to him with a proposition. Dunmore said he thought he could persuade or force Mr. Fleming to consent, and he wanted a contract guaranteeing him a vice presidency with Milpak. At forty thousand a year, if and when the merger was accomplished. The contract was duly signed about the first of last November. Oh, good lord! Gladis Fleming's eyes widened. When did you hear about that? I got that out of Gresham a couple of days after the blow-up, when it was too late to be of any use to me, ran said. If I'd known it from the beginning, it might have saved me some work. Not much, though. Gresham was just as badly scared about the facts coming out as good was. I can't prove collusion between him and good, but Gresham was helping spread the suicide story too. Nice friends Lane had, but didn't anybody think there was something odd about that accident immediately after that contract was signed? Of course they did, but try and get them to admit it, even to themselves. Nobody likes to think that the new vice president of the company murdered his way into the position. So everybody assumed the attitudes of the three Japanese monkeys, and made respectable noises about what a great loss Mr. Fleming was to the business world, and how lucky Dunmore was that he had that contract. She looked at him inquiringly for a moment. Jeff, I want you to tell me exactly how everything happened, she said. I think I have a right to know. Yes, you have, he agreed. I'll tell you the whole thing, what I actually know and what I was forced to guess at. When this merger idea first took shape last summer, Dunmore saw how unalterably opposed to it Mr. Fleming was, and he began wishing him out of the way. Sometime later he decided to do something about it. I suppose Anton Varsa gave him the idea in the first place, with his jabber about the danger of a firearms accident. Dunmore decided he'd fix one up for Mr. Fleming. First of all, he'd need a firearm, collector's type, and in good working condition, and in good working order. He couldn't be one of the guns in the collection, he'd have to keep it loaded all the time waiting for an opportunity to use it. He couldn't take a weapon out of the collection because it would be missed, and he couldn't load one and hang it up again, because that would be discovered. So he had to get one of his own, and he got it from Arnold Rivers. You know that? I mean, that's not just a guess. I know it. The gun he got from Rivers was a 36 Colt, 1860 Navy model, Serial Number 2444, Rand Holder. Rivers had that gun last summer. He had it refinished by a gunsmith named Umholtz. After Umholtz refinished it, the gun was in Rivers Shop until November of last year, when it was sold by Rivers personally. And that was the revolver that was found in Lane Fleming's hand, and the one I got from the coroner with the letter vouching for the fact that it had been so found. He finished his cocktail. Gladys picked up the shaker mechanically and refilled his glass. Now we have done more with his 36 Colt, loaded with powder, caps and bullets from the ammunition supply in the gun room, waiting for a chance to use it. And also, he has this nil-pack contract in his safe deposit box at the bank. That takes care of the weapon and the motive. Only the opportunity is needed, and that came on the 22nd of December, when Mr. Fleming brought home that Confederate Leech and Rigdon 36 he had just bought. It was just the piece of luck that both revolvers were like in caliber and general type, but it wouldn't have made a lot of difference. Nobody was paying much attention to details, and Dunmore was on the scene to misdirect any attention anybody would pay to anything. Now he comes to the mechanics of the thing, the modus operandi, or as it is professionally known, the MO. You remember what happened that evening? Nelda had gone out. You and Geraldine were listening to the radio in the parlor over there. Varzik had gone out to his lab. Mr. Fleming was alone in the gun room, working on his new revolver, and Fred Dunmore said he was going to take a bath. What he did, of course, was to draw a tub full of water, undress, put on his bathrobe and slippers, hide the 36 colt under the bathrobe, and then go across the hall to the gun room, where he found Mr. Fleming sitting on that cobbler's bench, putting the finishing touches on the Leech and Rigdon. So he fired a close range, wiped the prints off the colt with an oily rag, put it in Lane Fleming's right hand, put the rag in his left, grabbed up the Leech and Rigdon, and scuttled back to his bathroom, deadlatching and chatting the gun room door as he went out. This last, of course, was a delaying tactic to give him time to establish his bathtub alibi. He lifted the cocktail glass to his lips. These vodka martinis were strong, and three of them before dinner was leaning way over backward, maintaining the tradition of the hard-drinking private eye. But Gladys was working on her third, and no client was going to drink him under. So in the privacy of his bathroom he kicked out of his slippers, threw off his robe, hid the Leech and Rigdon, probably in a space between the tub and the wall that I found while we were searching the house, the night before the shooting of Dunmore, and jumped into the tub there to await developments. As soon as he heard Varsuk's uproar in the hall he could emerge, dripping bathwater and innocence, to find out what the fuss was all about. Do you know anything about something called General Semantics, he asked suddenly? Yes, before I married Lane, I went around with a radio ad-writer, she told him. He was a nice boy, but he'd get drunker than a boiled owl about once a month, and weep about his crimes against sanity and meaning. He'd recite long excerpts from his professional creations, and show how he had been deliberately objectifying words and identifying them with the things for which they stood, and confusing orders of abstraction and juggling multi-ordinal meanings. He was going to lend me his Koran, a book called Science and Sanity, and then he took a job with an ad agency in Chicago, and I got married and… ran nodded. Then you realized that the word is not the thing spoken of, and that the inference is not the description, and that we cannot know all about anything, et cetera. He added hastily, like a papist, signing himself with the cross. Well, some considerable disregard of these principles seems to have existed in this case. Dunmore is seen in the bathrobe, his feet bare, and making wet tracks on the floor, his hair wet, et cetera. Straight away, one and all appear to have assumed that he was in a tub, splashing soap suds around while Lane Fleming was being shot, and Anton Varsic, who can be taken as an example of what Si Hayakawa was talking about when he spoke of people behaving like scientists inside but not outside their laboratories, saw Lane Fleming dead with an object labeled revolver in his hand, and because of his verbal identifications and semantic reactions, he immediately included the inference of an accident in his description of what he had seen. That was just an extra dividend of luck for Dunmore. It got the whole crowd of you thinking in terms of accidental shooting. Well, from there out everything would have been a wonderful success for Dunmore except for one thing. Arnold Rivers must have heard somehow that Lane Fleming had been shot with a Confederate-36 that he'd bought somewhere that day, and that the revolver was in the hands of this coroner of yours. So Arnold, with his big chisel well-ground, went to see if he could manage to get it out of the coroner for a few dollars, and when he saw it, lo, it was the 36 colt he'd sold to Dunmore about a month before. Glad to sit down her glass. So, she said, things begin to explain themselves. You may say so indeed, Rand told her. And what do you suppose Rivers did with this little item of information? Why, as nearly as I can reconstruct it, he did a very foolish thing. He tried to blackmail a man who had committed a murder. He told Fred Dunmore he'd keep his mouth shut about the 36 colt if Dunmore would get him the Fleming collection. He wanted that instead of cash, because he could get more out of it in a few years than Dunmore could ever screed. And in the meantime, the prestige of handling that collection would go a long way toward repairing his rather dilapidated reputation. Fred should have bumped him off right then. It would have been the cheapest and easiest way out, and he'd probably be alive and uncaught today if he had. But he was willing to pay ten thousand dollars to save himself the trouble, and that's what he told you Rivers had offered for the collection. The ten thousand Dunmore told you Rivers was willing to pay was really the ten thousand he was willing to pay himself to keep Rivers quiet. Then I was introduced into the picture, and as you know, one of my first acts was to go to Rivers' shop and sneer scornfully at Rivers' supposed offer of ten thousand. And right away, Rivers upped it to twenty five thousand. You'll recall, no doubt that Mr. Fleming had a life insurance policy, one of these partnership mutual policies which gave both Dunmore and Varsik exactly twenty five thousand a piece. I assume that Rivers had found out about that. I thought at the time that it was peculiar that Rivers would jump his own offer up without knowing what anybody else was offering for the collection. I see now that it wasn't his own money he was being so generous with. And there was another incident while I was at Rivers' shop that piqued my curiosity. Rivers had in his shop a thirty six leech and riggedon revolver, and I had been informed that it was a rub-olver of that type that Mr. Fleming had brought home the evening he was killed. I thought at the time that it was curious that two confederate arms of the same type and make should show up this far north. But my main idea in buying it was the possibility that I might use it in some way as circumstances would permit to throw a scare into somebody. Rivers was quite willing to let me have it until he found out that I would be staying at this house. And then he tried to back out of the sale and offered me seventy five dollars credit on anything else in the shop if I had returned it to him. Well, I'd known that Mr. Fleming had been about to start suit against Rivers over a crooked deal Rivers had put over on him, and I knew that if Mr. Fleming's death had been murder there had been a substitution of revolvers. So I showed the gun I'd bought from Rivers to Philip Cabin, who had seen the revolver Mr. Fleming had bought, and he recognized it. It hasn't been established just how Rivers got the leech and riggedon and never will be. The only people who knew were Rivers and Dunmore, and both are in the morgue, and both are in the proverbial class of non-tail bearers. I assumed that Dunmore gave it to Rivers as a sort of down payment on Rivers' silence, and to get rid of it. Well, you remember Dunmore's angry incredulity when I told him that Rivers was offering twenty five thousand instead of ten thousand. One would have thought on the face of it that he would have been glad. As Nelda's husband he would share in the higher price being paid for the collection. But when you realize that Rivers was buying the collection out of Dunmore's pocket, his reaction becomes quite understandable. I daresay I signed Arnold Rivers' death warrant right there. I'll bet your conscience bothers you about that, Gladys remarked. Oh sure, it's been gnawing hell out of me ever since, ran told her cheerfully. But right away Dunmore decided to kill Rivers. He called him on the phone as soon as he left the table. Here I'm speaking by the book. I walked in on him in the gun room as he was completing the call, though I didn't know at the time, and arranged to see him that evening, probably to devise ways and means of dealing with the Jeffrand menace for an ostensible reason. So that night Dunmore killed Rivers with a bayonet, and here we have some more Aristotelian confusion of orders of abstraction. The bayonet is defined verbally as a soldier's weapon, so Farnsworth and Mick McKenna and the rest of them bemused themselves with suspects like Stephen Gresham and Pierre Gérard, and ignored Dunmore, who'd never had an hour's military training in his life. I'd like to check up on what picture shows Dunmore had been seeing in the week, or so before the killing. I'll bet anything he'd been to one of these South Pacific Bonsai operas. And speaking of confusing orders of abstraction, Mick McKenna and his merry men pulled the classic in that line. They saw a Dunmore's automobile, verbally defined it as a gray Plymouth coop, in Rivers Drive at the estimated time of the murder. Pierre Gérard has a car of that sort, so they included the inferential idea of Pierre Gérard's ownership of the car, so described. Well, that's about all there is to it. Of course I showed Fred Dunmore the Legion rigged in and told him it was the gun I'd gotten from the coroner. That was all he needed to tell him that I was on to the murder, and probably on to him as the murderer. But he had evidently assumed that already. That was after he had assembled my thirty-eight in that twenty-five automatic, and was planning to double kill me and Anton Varsik. At that he'd probably killed me if I hadn't been wearing that bulletproof vest of McKenna's. I owe Mick for my life. I'll have to buy him a drink sometime to square that. Well, how about Walters and the pistols he stole? Gladys asked. Didn't that have anything to do with it? No. It was a result of Mr. Fleming's death, of course. I understand that the situation here had deteriorated rather abruptly after Mr. Fleming's death. Walters was about fed up on the way things were here, and he was going to hand in his notice. Then he decided he ought to have a stake to tide him over till he could get another butling job. So he started high-grading the collection. Gladys nodded. I suppose he decided, after Lane's death, that he didn't know anybody hear anything. Too bad he didn't wait, though. The situation has remedied itself, and that's something else I owe you. Yes? I noticed there was nobody here but you, Rand mentioned. Oh, Henton's gone to New York. The Rockefeller Foundation is financing the major part of his research work. And he's well enough off to finance the rest himself. Geraldine went with him. Nelda's still recuperating from the shock of her sudden bereavement at a high-price sanatorium. I understand there's a very good-looking young doctor there. And she's been talking about going to New York herself in order, as she puts it, to lead her own life. I don't know whether she was afraid I'd be a restraining influence or a dangerous competitor, but she feels that her own life could be best led away from here. She's set down her glass and leaned back comfortably. Peace. It's wonderful. Ruben, the gingerbread butler, appeared in the dining-room doorway. Dinner served now, Mrs. Fleming, he announced. Rand rose, and Gladys took his arm. Together they went into the dining-room. End of Chapter 21. Recording by Anthony Wilson. End of Murder in the Gun Room by H. B. Piper.