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

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 mopped his face with a wad of Kleenex and went over to the room-temperature thermostat, turning it down to sixty.

Sitting down at the desk, he dialed Humphrey Goode’s number on the private outside line. A maid answered; a moment later he was talking to the Fleming lawyer.

“Rand, here,” he identified himself. “Mr. Goode, I’ve been thinking over our conversation of last evening. There is a great deal to be said for the position you’re taking in the matter. As you 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?” Goode’s voice fairly shook. “Then you’re going to drop the investigation?”

“No, Mr. Goode; 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?” Goode wanted to know.

“The murderer of Lane Fleming is also guilty of the murder of Arnold Rivers,” Rand stated. “I know that positively, now. Murder is punished capitally, 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 that; 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!” Goode’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 Goode 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 fifteen 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 Varcek came in. Rand half rose, covering the Czech from his side pocket; Varcek came over and sat down in an armchair near the desk. He was looking more than ever like Rudolf Hess. Rudolf Hess on the morning of the Beer Hall Putsch.

“Colonel Rand,” he began. “There has, within the last half hour, been a most important development. I am 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,” Varcek 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 gunroom 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 Humphrey Goode 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 Goode up to?”

“Fred said that his informant told him that Lane had proof that Goode 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 Goode was Rivers’s 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 Varcek hadn’t thought of that. “Why, I suppose he was concerned about the possibility of repercussions in the business world. After all, Goode is our board chairman, and maybe he thought that people might begin thinking that the murder had some connection with the affairs 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 Czech said. “My own position is too vulnerable;