Murder in the Gunroom, H. Beam Piper [ebook reader color screen .txt] 📗

Rand glanced over them. Tipton had neatly and concisely summarized the provisions of Lane Fleming’s will, and had also listed all Fleming’s life insurance policies, with beneficiaries, including a partnership policy on the lives of Fleming, Dunmore, and Anton Varcek, paying each of the survivors $25,000.

“I see Gladys and Geraldine and Nelda each get a third of Fleming’s Premix stock,” Rand commented. “But before they can have the certificates transferred to them, they have to sign over their voting-power to the board of directors. Evidently Fleming didn’t approve of the feminine touch in business.”

“Yeah, isn’t that a dandy?” Ritter asked. “The directors are elected by majority vote of the stockholders. They now have the voting-power of a majority of the stock; that makes the present board self-perpetuating, and responsible only to each other.”

“So it does, but that wasn’t what I was thinking of. According to Tip, the board is one hundred percent in favor of the merger with National Milling & Packaging. We’ll have to suppose Fleming knew that; there must have been considerable intramural acrimony on the subject while he was still alive. Now, since he opposed the merger, if he had intended committing suicide, he would have made some other arrangement, wouldn’t he? At least, one would suppose so. Well, then,” Rand asked, “why, since he is so worried about these suicide rumors, doesn’t Goode use the one argument which would utterly disprove them? Or is there some reason why he doesn’t want to call attention to the fact that Fleming’s death is what makes the merger possible?”

“Well, that would be calling attention to the fact that the merger made Fleming’s death necessary,” Ritter pointed out. He poured more beer into his glass. “While we’re on it, what’s the angle on this butler’s livery I was supposed to bring? I brought my tux, and I borrowed a striped vest from the Theatrical Property Exchange, and I brought that Dago .380 of yours. But what makes you think the Flemings are going to be needing a new butler? You going to poison the one they have?”

“The one they have has been exceeding his duties,” Rand said. “He was supposed to clean the pistol-collection. Not content with that, he’s been cleaning it out. I know it was the butler.” He went, at length, into his reasons for thinking so, and described the modus operandi of the thefts. “Now, all this is just theory, so far, but when I’m able to prove it, I’m going to put the arm on this Walters, if it’s right in the middle of dinner and he only has the roast half served. And I want you ready to step into the vacancy thus created. I’m going to be busy as a pup in a fireplug factory with this Rivers thing, and I’ll need some checking-upping done inside the Fleming household.”

He went on, in meticulous detail, to explain about the Rivers murder. “I’ll have some work for you, before you’re ready to start buttling, too.” Disencumbering himself of the two percussion revolvers, he laid them on the table. “I want you to take these and show them to this barbecue man. Get from him a positive statement, preferably in writing, as to which, if either, he sold to Lane Fleming. You might show your Agency card and claim to be checking up on some stolen pistols that have been recovered. Then, if he identifies the Leech & Rigdon, take the Colt and show it to Elmer Umholtz. You want to be careful how you handle him; we may want him for puncturing Rivers, though I’m inclined to doubt that, as of now. Get him to tell you, yes or no, whether he reblued it and replated the back-strap and trigger-guard, and if he did it for Rivers; and if so, when. I know that’s been done; the bluing is too dark for a Civil War period job; the frame, which ought to be case-hardened in colors, has been blued like the barrel and cylinder, the cylinder-engraving is almost obliterated, and you can see a few rust-pits that have been blued over. But I want to know if this gun was ever in Rivers’s shop; that’s the important thing.”

“Uh-huh. Got the addresses?”

Rand furnished them, and Ritter noted them down. The waitress wandered back to see if they wanted anything else; she gave a small squeak of surprise when she saw the two big six-shooters on the table. Rand and Ritter repeated their orders, and when she brought back the drinks, the Colt and the Leech & Rigdon were out of sight.

“The way I see it, everybody who’s within a light-year of this Rivers killing is trying to pin the medal on somebody else,” Ritter was saying. “The Lawrence girl was afraid young Jarrett had done it; right away, she sicced you onto Gillis. Gillis didn’t lose any time putting McKenna and Farnsworth onto Gresham. Gresham’s the only one who didn’t have a pasty ready; you’re supposed to dig one up for him. And Jarrett, the first chance he gets, introduces Umholtz.” He stared into his beer, as though he thought Ultimate Verity might be lurking somewhere under the suds. “Do you think it might be possible that Rivers bumped Fleming off, in spite of his getting killed later?” he asked.

“Anything’s possible,” Rand replied, “except where some structural contradiction is involved, like scoring thirteen with one throw of a pair of dice. Yes, he could have. The way the Flemings leave their garage open as long as any of the cars are out, anybody could have sneaked into the house from the garage, and gone up from the library to the gunroom. The only question in my mind is whether Rivers would have known about that. That lawsuit and criminal action that Fleming was going to start⁠—and that’s been verified from sources independent of Goode⁠—was a good sound motive. And say he took the Leech & Rigdon away, after leaving the Colt in Fleming’s hand; selling it to