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

the White House if he wants to.” He turned to Walters. “Now, where would he have this stuff stashed?”

“In the garret, sir. I know the way.”

As Kavaalen accompanied Gwinnett to the phone, Walters started upstairs. Rand and McKenna followed, with Mrs. Gwinnett bringing up the rear. During the search of the attic, she stood to one side, watching the ex-butler dig into a pile of pistols.

“This is one, gentlemen,” Walters said, producing a Springfield 1818 Model flintlock. “And here is the Walker Colt, and the .40-caliber Colt Paterson, and the Hall .⁠ ⁠…”

Eventually, he had them all assembled, including the five cased sets. Rand found a couple of empty bushel baskets and laid the pistols in them, between layers of old newspapers. He picked up one, and McKenna took the other, while Walters piled the five flat hardwood cases into his arms like cordwood. Still saying nothing, her eyes stony with hatred, the woman followed them downstairs.

The rest of the afternoon was consumed with formalities. Gwinnett was given a hearing, at which he was represented by a lawyer straight out of a B-grade gangster picture. Rand had a heated argument with an overzealous Justice of the Peace, who wanted to impound the pistols and jackknife-mark them for identification, but after hurling bloodthirsty threats of a damage suit for an astronomical figure, he managed to retain possession of the recovered weapons.

Ritter left at a little past three, to report for duty in the Fleming household. Rand rode with McKenna and Kavaalen to the State Police substation, where the pistols were transferred to McKenna’s personal car, in which they and Rand were to be transported back to the Fleming place.

It was five o’clock before Rand had finished telling the sergeant and the corporal everything he felt they ought to know.

“When we get to the Flemings’, I’ll give you that revolver I got from the coroner,” he finished. “One of your boys can take it to this fellow Umholtz, and get him to identify it. You might also show it to young Gillis, and see what he knows about it. Gillis might even give you a name for who got it from Rivers. I’m not building any hopes on that, and the reason I’m not is that Gillis is still alive. If he knew, I don’t think he would be.”

“Yeah. I can see that,” McKenna nodded. “Fact is, I can see everything, now, except one thing. This pistol-switch somebody gave you; what’s the idea of that?”

“Why, that’s because I’m on the spot,” Rand told him. “I’m to be killed, and somebody else is to be killed along with me. The .25 automatic will be used on me, and the .38 will be used on the other fellow, and we’ll be found dead about five feet apart, and I’ll be holding my own gun, and the other fellow will be holding the .25, and it will look as though we shot it out and scored a double knockout. That way, my mouth will be shut about what I’ve learned since I came here, and the man who’s supposed to have killed me will take the rap for Fleming and Rivers both. Nothing to stop an investigation like a couple of corpses who can’t tell their own story and can take the blame for everything.”

“Zhee-zus!” Kavaalen’s eyes widened. “That must be just it!”

“Well, you got your nerve about you, I’ll say that,” McKenna commented. “You sit there and talk about it like it was something that was going to happen to Joe Doakes and Oscar Zilch.” He looked at Rand intently. “You want us to keep an eye on you?”

Rand leaned over and spat into the brass cuspidor, a gesture of braggadocio he had picked up among the French maquis.

“Hell, no! That’s the last thing I do want!” he said. “I want him to try it. You realize, don’t you, that all this is pure assumption and theory? We don’t have a single fact, as it stands, that proves anything. We could go and pick this fellow up, and he’s one of three men, so we could grab all three of them, and even if we found the .25 Webley & Scott and my .38 in his pockets, we couldn’t charge him with anything. Fact is, right now we can’t even prove that Lane Fleming’s death was anything but the accident it’s on the books as being. But let him take a shot at me.⁠ ⁠…”

“And then you’ll have another nice, clear case of self-defense.” McKenna frowned. “Goddammit, Jeff, you’ve had to defend yourself too many times, already. This’ll be⁠—well, how many will it be?”

“Counting Germans?” Rand grinned. “Hell, I don’t know; I can’t remember all of them.”

“One thing,” Kavaalen said solemnly, “you never hear of any lawyers springing people out of cemeteries on writs.”

“Look, Jeff,” McKenna said, at length. “If it’s the way you think, this guy won’t dare kill you instantly, will he? Seems to me, the way the script reads, this other guy shoots you, and you shoot back and kill him, and then you die. Isn’t that it?”

Rand nodded. “I’m banking on that. He’ll try to give me a fatal but not instantly fatal wound, and that means he’ll have to take time to pick his spot. The reason I’ve managed to survive these people against whom I’ve had to defend myself has been that I just don’t give a damn where I shoot a man. A lot of good police officers have gotten themselves killed because they tried to wing somebody and took a second or so longer about shooting than they should have.”

“Something in that, too,” McKenna agreed. “But what I’m getting at is this: I think I know a way to give you a little more percentage.” He rose. “Wait a minute; I’ll be right back.”

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 awed in the presence