Murder in the Gunroom by H. Beam Piper (most read books of all time .txt) 📖

traded a .38-special to some halfbreed goat-herder for it."

"This fellow who bought it, now; did he see Belden and Haven's Colt book, when it came out in 1940?"

"Yes, and he was plenty burned up, but what could he do? Rivers was dug in behind this innocent-purchase-and-sale-in-good-faith Maginot Line of his. You know, that bastard took me, once, just one-tenth as badly, with a fake U.S. North & Cheney Navy flintlock 1799 Model that had been made out of a French 1777 Model." The lawyer muttered obscenely.

"Why didn't you sue hell out of him?" Rand asked. "You might not have gotten anything, but you'd have given him a lot of dirty publicity. That's all Fleming was expecting to do about those wheel locks."

"I'm not Fleming. He could afford litigation like that; I can't. I want my money, and if I don't get it in cash, I'm going to beat it out of that dirty little swindler's hide," Gresham replied, an ugly look appearing on his face.

"I wouldn't blame you. You could find plenty of other collectors who'd hold your coat while you were doing it," Rand told him. Then he inquired, idly: "What sort of a pistol was it that Lane Fleming is supposed to have shot himself with?"

Gresham frowned. "I really don't know; I didn't see it. It's supposed to have been a Confederate Leech & Rigdon .36; you know, one of those imitation Colt Navy Models that were made in the South during the Civil War."

Rand nodded. He was familiar with the type.

"The story is that Fleming found it hanging back of the counter at some roadside lunch-stand, along with a lot of other old pistols, and talked the proprietor into letting it go for a few dollars," Gresham continued. "It was supposed to have been loaded at the time, and went off while Fleming was working on it, at home." He shook his head. "I can't believe that, Jeff. Lane Fleming would know a loaded revolver when he saw one. I believe he deliberately shot himself, and the family faked the accident and fixed the authorities. The police never made any investigation; it was handled by the coroner alone. And our coroner, out in Scott County, is eminently fixable, if you go about it right; a pitiful little nonentity with a tremendous inferiority complex."

"But good Lord, why?" Rand demanded. "I never heard of Fleming having any troubles worth killing himself over."

Gresham lowered his voice. "Jeff, I'm not supposed to talk about this, but the fact is that I believe Fleming was about to lose control of the Premix Company," he said. "I have, well, sources of inside information. This is in confidence, so don't quote me, but certain influences were at work, inside the company, toward that end." He inspected the tip of his cigar and knocked off the ash into the tray at his elbow. "Lane Fleming's death is on record as accidental, Jeff. It's been written off as such. It would be a great deal better for all concerned if it were left at that."

CHAPTER 5

Rand drove slowly through Rosemont, the next day, refreshing his memory of the place. It was one of the many commuters' villages strung out for fifty miles along the railroad lines radiating from New Belfast, and depended for its support upon a population scattered over a five-mile radius at estates and country homes. Obviously a planned community, it was dominated by a gray-walled, green-roofed railroad station which stood on its passenger-platform like a captain in front of four platoons of gray-walled, green-roofed houses and stores aligned along as many converging roads. There was a post office, uniform with the rest of the buildings; an excessive quantity of aluminum trimming dated it somewhere in the middle Andrew W. Mellon period. There were four gas stations, a movie theater, and a Woolworth store with a red front that made it look like some painted hussy who had wandered into a Quaker Meeting.

Over the door of one of the smaller stores, Rand saw a black-lettered white sign: Antiques. There was a smoke-gray Plymouth coupé parked in front of it.

Instead of turning onto the road to the Fleming estate, he continued along Route 19 for a mile or so beyond the village, until he came to a red brick pseudo-Colonial house on the right. He pulled to the side of the road and got out, turning up the collar of his trench coat. The air was raw and damp, doubly unpleasant after the recent unseasonable warmth. An apathetically persistent rain sogged the seedling-dotted old fields on either side, and the pine-woods beyond, and a high ceiling of unbroken dirty gray gave no promise of clearing. The mournful hoot of a distant locomotive whistle was the only sound to pierce the silence. For a moment, Rand stood with his back to the car, looking at the gallows-like sign that proclaimed this to be the business-place of Arnold Rivers, Fine Antique and Modern Firearms for the Discriminating Collector.

The house faced the road with a long side; at the left, a porch formed a continuation under a deck roof, and on the right, an ell had been built at right angles, extending thirty feet toward the road. Although connected to the house by a shed roof, which acquired a double pitch and became a gable roof where the ell projected forward, it was, in effect, a separate building, with its own front door and its own door-path. Its floor-level was about four feet lower than that of the parent structure.

A Fibber McGee door-chime clanged as Rand entered. Closing the door behind him, he looked around. The room, some twenty feet wide and fifty long, was lighted by an almost continuous row of casement windows on the right, and another on the left for as far as the ell extended beyond the house. They were set high, a good five feet from lower sill to floor, and there was no ceiling; the sloping roof was supported by bare timber rafters. Racks lined the walls, under the windows, holding long-guns and swords; the pistols and daggers and other small items were displayed on a number of long tables. In the middle of the room, glaring at the front door, was a brass four-pounder on a ship's carriage; a Philippine latanka, muzzle tilted upward, stood beside it. Where the ell joined the house under the shed roof, there was a fireplace, and a short flight of steps to a landing and a door out of the dwelling, and some furniture—a davenport, three or four deep chairs facing the fire, a low cocktail-table, a cellarette, and, in the far corner, a big desk.

As Rand went toward the rear, a young man rose from one of the chairs, laid aside a magazine, and advanced to meet him. He didn't exactly harmonize with all the lethal array around him; he would have looked more at home presiding over an establishment devoted to ladies' items. His costume ran to pastel shades, he had large and soulful blue eyes and prettily dimpled cheeks, and his longish blond hair was carefully disordered into a windblown effect.

"Oh, good afternoon," he greeted. "Is there anything in particular you're interested in, or would you like to just look about?"

"Mostly look about," Rand said. "Is Mr. Rivers in?"

"Mr. Rivers is having luncheon. He'll be finished before long, if you care to wait.... Have you ever been here before?"

"Not for some time," Rand said. "When I was here last, there was a young fellow named Jordan, or Gordon, or something like that."

"Oh. He was before my time." The present functionary introduced himself as Cecil Gillis. Rand gave his name and shook hands with him. Young Gillis wanted to know if Rand was a collector.

"In a small way. General-pistol collector," Rand told him. "Have you many Colts, now?"

There was a whole table devoted to Colts. No spurious Whitneyville Walkers; after all, a dealer can sell just so many of such top-drawer rarities before the finger of suspicion begins leveling itself in his direction, and Arnold Rivers had long ago passed that point. There were several of the commoner percussion models, however, with lovely, perfect bluing that was considerably darker than that applied at the Colt factory during the 'fifties and 'sixties of the last century. The silver plating on backstraps and trigger-guards was perfect, too, but the naval-battle and stagecoach-holdup engravings on the cylinders were far from clear—in one case, completely obliterated. The cylinder of one 1851 Navy bore serial numbers that looked as though they had been altered to conform to the numbers on other parts of the weapon. Many of the Colts, however, were entirely correct, and all were in reasonably good condition.

Rand saw something that interested him, and picked it up.

"That isn't a real Colt," the exquisite Mr. Gillis told him. "It's a Confederate copy; a Leech & Rigdon."

"So I see. I have a Griswold & Grier, but no Leech & Rigdon."

"The Griswold & Grier; that's the one with the brass frame," Cecil Gillis said. "Surprising how many collectors think all Confederate revolvers had brass frames, because of the Griswold & Grier, and the Spiller & Burr.... That's an unusually fine specimen, Mr. Rand. Mr. Rivers got it sometime in late December or early January; from a gentleman in Charleston, I understand. I believe it had been carried during the Civil War by a member of the former owner's family."

Rand looked at the tag tied to the trigger-guard; it was marked, in letter-code, with three different prices. That was characteristic of Arnold Rivers's business methods.

"How much does Mr. Rivers want for this?" he asked, handing the revolver to young Gillis.

The clerk mentally decoded the three prices and vacillated for a moment over them. He had already appraised Rand, from his twenty-dollar Stetson past his Burberry trench coat to his English hand-sewn shoes, and placed him in the pay-dirt bracket; however, from some remarks Rand had let drop, he decided that this customer knew pistols, and probably knew values.

"Why, that is sixty dollars, Mr. Rand," he said, with the air of one conferring a benefaction. Maybe he was, at that, Rand decided; prices had jumped like the very devil since the war.

"I'll take it." He dug out his billfold and extracted three twenties. "Nice clean condition; clean it up yourself?"

"Why, no. Mr. Rivers got it like this. As I said, it's supposed to have been a family heirloom, but from the way it's been cared for, I would have thought it had been in a collection," the clerk replied. "Shall I wrap it for you?"

"Yes, if you please." Rand followed him to the rear, laying aside his coat and hat. Gillis got some heavy paper out of a closet and packaged it, then hunted through a card-file in the top drawer of the desk, until he found the card he wanted. He made a few notes on it, and was still holding it and the sixty dollars when he rejoined Rand by the fire.

In spite of his effeminate appearance and over-refined manner, the young fellow really knew arms. The conversation passed from Confederate revolvers to the arms of the Civil War in general, and they were discussing the changes in tactics occasioned by the introduction of the revolver and the repeating carbine when the door from the house opened and Arnold Rivers appeared on the landing.

He looked older than when Rand had last seen him. His hair was thinner on top and grayer at the temples. Never particularly robust, he had lost weight, and his face was thinner and more hollow-cheeked. His mouth still had the old curve of supercilious insolence, and he was still smoking with the six-inch carved ivory cigarette-holder which Rand remembered.

He looked his visitor over carefully from the doorway, decided that he was not soliciting magazine subscriptions or selling Fuller brushes, and came down the steps. As he did, he must have recognized Rand; he shifted the cigarette-holder to his left hand and extended