Murder in the Gunroom

It was hard to judge Jeff Rand’s age from his appearance; he was certainly over thirty and considerably under fifty. He looked hard and fit, like a man who could be a serviceable friend or a particularly unpleasant enemy. Women instinctively suspected that he would make a most satisfying lover. One might have taken him for a successful lawyer (he had studied law, years ago), or a military officer in mufti (he still had a Reserve colonelcy, and used the title occasionally, to impress people who he thought needed impressing), or a prosperous businessman, as he usually thought of himself. Most of all, he looked like King Charles II of England anachronistically clad in a Brooks Brothers suit.

At the moment, he was looking rather like King Charles II being bothered by one of his mistresses who wanted a peerage for her husband.

“But, Mrs. Fleming,” he was expostulating. “There surely must be somebody else.⁠ ⁠… After all, you’ll have to admit that this isn’t the sort of work this agency handles.”

“Nothing, so far⁠—cross my fingers,” Rand replied. “I just want a little information. Are you busy?⁠ ⁠… Okay, I’ll be up directly.”

He replaced the phone and turned to his disciples.

“Our client,” he said, “wants two jobs done on one fee. Getting the pistol-collection sold is one job. Exploring the whys and wherefores of that quote accident unquote is the other. She has a hunch, and probably nothing much better, that there’s something sour about the accident. She expects me to find evidence to that effect while I’m at Rosemont, going over the collection. I’m not excluding other possibilities, but I’ll work on that line until and unless I find out differently. Five thousand should cover both jobs.”

“You think that’s how it is?” Kathie asked.

“Look, Kathie. I got just as far in Arithmetic, at school, as you did, and I suspect that Mrs. Fleming got at least as far as long division, herself. For reasons I stated, I simply couldn’t have handled that collection business for anything like a reasonable fee, so I told her five thousand, thinking that would stop her. When it didn’t, I knew she had something else in mind, and when she went into all that detail about the death of her husband, she as good as told me that was what it was. Now I’m sorry I didn’t say ten thousand; I think she’d have bought it at that price just as cheerfully. She thinks Lane Fleming was murdered. Well, on the face of what she told me, so do I.”

“Let’s get the business over first,” Gresham suggested. “I suppose you’ve gone over the collection already, Jeff?”

“Yes, and first of all, I want to know something. When was the last that any of you saw it?”

Gresham and Pierre had been in Fleming’s gunroom just two days before the fatal “accident.”

“And can you tell me if the big Whitneyville Colt was still there, then?” Rand asked. “Or the Rappahannock Forge, or the Collier flintlock, or the Hall?”

“Why, of course⁠ ⁠… My God, aren’t they there now?” Gresham demanded.

Rand shook his head. “And if Fleming still had them two days before he was killed, then somebody’s been weeding out the collection since. Doing it very cleverly, too,” he added. “You know how that stuff’s arranged, and how conspicuous a missing pistol would be. Well, when I was going over the collection, I found about two dozen pieces of the most utter trash, things Lane Fleming wouldn’t have allowed in the house, all hanging where some really good item ought to have been.” He took a paper from his pocket and read off a list of the dubious items, interpolating comments on the condition, and a list of the real rarities which Gresham had mentioned the day before, which were now missing.

Rand was looking at the Confederate revolvers. Griswold & Grier, Haiman Brothers, Tucker & Sherrod, Dance Brothers & Park, Spiller & Burr⁠—there it was: Leech & Rigdon. He tapped it on the cylinder with a finger.

“Wasn’t it one of those things that killed Lane Fleming?” he asked.

“Leech & Rigdon? So I’m told.” Cabot hesitated. “Jeff, I saw that revolver, not four hours before Fleming was shot. Had it in my hands; looked it over carefully.” He shook his head. “It absolutely was not loaded. It was empty, and there was rust in the chambers.”

“Then how the hell did he get shot?” Rand wanted to know.

“That I couldn’t say; I’m only telling you how he didn’t get shot. Here, this is how it was.

When he rose, the next morning, Rand noticed something which had escaped his eye when he had gone to bed the night before. His .38-special, in its shoulder-holster, was lying on the dresser; he had not bothered putting it on when he had gone to see Rivers the morning before, and it had lain there all the previous day. He distinctly remembered having moved it, shortly after dinner, when he had gone to his room for some notes he had made on the collection.

However, between that time and the present it had managed to flop itself over; the holster was now lying back-up. Intrigued by such a remarkable accomplishment in an inanimate object, Rand crossed the room in the dress-of-nature in which he slept and looked more closely at it, receiving a second and considerably more severe surprise. The revolver in the holster was not his own.

It was, to be sure, a .38 Colt Detective Special, and it was in his holster, but it was not the Detective Special he had brought with him from New Belfast.