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MURDER IN THE GUNROOM
By H. BEAM PIPER
NEW YORK _Alfred A. Knopf_ 1953 FIRST EDITION
TO _Colonel Henry W. Shoemaker_ an old and valued friend, who waspromised this dedication, with an entirely different novel in mind,twenty-two years ago.
PREFACE
_The Lane Fleming collection of early pistols and revolvers was one ofthe best in the country. When Fleming was found dead on the floor ofhis locked gunroom, a Confederate-made Colt-type percussion .36 revolverin his hand, the coroner's verdict was "death by accident." But GladysFleming had her doubts. Enough at any rate to engage Colonel JeffersonDavis Rand--better known just as Jeff--private detective and apistol-collector himself, to catalogue, appraise, and negotiate thesale of her late husband's collection.
There were a number of people who had wanted the collection. Thequestion was: had anyone wanted it badly enough to kill Fleming? And ifso, how had he done it? Here is a mystery, told against the fascinatingbackground of old guns and gun-collecting, which is rapid-fire withoutbeing hysterical, exciting without losing its contact with reason, andwhich introduces a personable and intelligent new private detective. Itis a story that will keep your nerves on a hair trigger even if you don'tknow the difference between a cased pair of Paterson .34's and a Texas.40 with a ramming-lever._
CHAPTER 1
It was hard to judge Jeff Rand's age from his appearance; he wascertainly over thirty and considerably under fifty. He looked hard andfit, like a man who could be a serviceable friend or a particularlyunpleasant enemy. Women instinctively suspected that he would make amost satisfying lover. One might have taken him for a successful lawyer(he had studied law, years ago), or a military officer in mufti (he stillhad a Reserve colonelcy, and used the title occasionally, to impresspeople who he thought needed impressing), or a prosperous businessman,as he usually thought of himself. Most of all, he looked like KingCharles II of England anachronistically clad in a Brooks Brothers suit.
At the moment, he was looking rather like King Charles II being botheredby one of his mistresses who wanted a peerage for her husband.
"But, Mrs. Fleming," he was expostulating. "There surely must be somebodyelse.... After all, you'll have to admit that this isn't the sort of workthis agency handles."
The would-be client released a series of smoke-rings and watched themfloat up toward the air-outlet at the office ceiling. It spoke well forRand's ability to subordinate esthetic to business considerations that hewas trying to give her a courteous and humane brush-off. She made eventhe Petty and Varga girls seem credible. Her color-scheme was blue andgold; blue eyes, and a blue tailored outfit that would have looked severeon a less curvate figure, and a charmingly absurd little blue hat perchedon a mass of golden hair. If Rand had been Charles II, she could havewalked out of there with a duchess's coronet, and Nell Gwyn would havebeen back selling oranges.
"Why isn't it?" she countered. "Your door's marked _Tri-State DetectiveAgency, Jefferson Davis Rand, Investigation and Protection_. Well, I wantto know how much the collection's worth, and who'll pay the closest toit. That's investigation, isn't it? And I want protection from beingswindled. And don't tell me you can't do it. You're a pistol-collector,yourself; you have one of the best small collections in the state. Andyou're a recognized authority on early pistols; I've read some of yourarticles in the _Rifleman_. If you can't handle this, I don't know whocan."
Rand's frown deepened. He wondered how much Gladys Fleming knew about theprinciples of General Semantics. Even if she didn't know anything, shewas still edging him into an untenable position. He hastily shifted fromthe attempt to identify his business with the label, "private detectiveagency."
"Well, here, Mrs. Fleming," he explained. "My business, includingarmed-guard and protected-delivery service, and general investigationand protection work, requires some personal supervision, but none ofit demands my exclusive attention. Now, if you wanted some routineinvestigation made, I could turn it over to my staff, maybe put two orthree men to work on it. But there's nothing about this business of yoursthat I could delegate to anybody; I'd have to do it all myself, at theexpense of neglecting the rest of my business. Now, I could do what youwant done, but it would cost you three or four times what you'd gain byretaining me."
"Well, let me decide that, Colonel," she replied. "How much would youhave to have?"
"Well, this collection of your late husband's consists of sometwenty-five hundred pistols and revolvers, all types and periods," Randsaid. "You want me to catalogue it, appraise each item, issue lists, andnegotiate with prospective buyers. The cataloguing and appraisal alonewould take from a week to ten days, and it would be a couple more weeksuntil a satisfactory sale could be arranged. Why, say five thousanddollars; a thousand as a retainer and the rest on completion."
That, he thought, would settle that. He was expecting an indignantoutcry, and hardened his heart, like Pharaoh. Instead, Gladys Flemingnodded equably.
"That seems reasonable enough, Colonel Rand, considering that you'd haveto be staying with us at Rosemont, away from your office," she agreed."I'll give you a check for the thousand now, with a letter ofauthorization."
Rand nodded in return. Being thoroughly conscious of the fact thathe could only know a thin film of the events on the surface of anysituation, he was not easily surprised.
"Very well," he said. "You've hired an arms-expert. I'll be in Rosemontsome time tomorrow afternoon. Now, who are these prospective purchasersyou mentioned, and just how prospective, in terms of United Statescurrency, are they?"
"Well, for one, there's Arnold Rivers; he's offering ten thousand for thecollection. I suppose you know of him; he has an antique-arms business atRosemont."
"I've done some business with him," Rand admitted. "Who else?"
"There's a commission-dealer named Carl Gwinnett, who wants to handlethe collection for us, for twenty per cent. I'm told that that isn't anunusually exorbitant commission, but I'm not exactly crazy about theidea."
"You shouldn't be, if you want your money in a hurry," Rand told her."He'd take at least five years to get everything sold. He wouldn't dumpthe whole collection on the market at once, upset prices, and spoil hisfuture business. You know, two thousand five hundred pistols of the sortMr. Fleming had, coming on the market in a lot, could do just that. Theold-arms market isn't so large that it couldn't be easily saturated."
"That's what I'd been thinking.... And then, there are some privatecollectors, mostly friends of Lane's--Mr. Fleming's--who are talkingabout forming a pool to buy the collection for distribution amongthemselves," she continued.
"That's more like it," Rand approved. "If they can raise enough moneyamong them, that is. They won't want the stuff for resale, and they maypay something resembling a decent price. Who are they?"
"Well, Stephen Gresham appears to be the leading spirit," she said. "Thecorporation lawyer, you know. Then, there is a Mr. Trehearne, and a Mr.MacBride, and Philip Cabot, and one or two others."
"I know Gresham and Cabot," Rand said. "They're both friends of mine, andI have an account with Cabot, Joyner & Teale, Cabot's brokerage firm.I've corresponded with MacBride; he specializes in Colts.... You're thesole owner, I take it?"
"Well, no." She paused, picking her words carefully. "We may just runinto a little trouble, there. You see, the collection is part of theresidue of the estate, left equally to myself and my two stepdaughters,Nelda Dunmore and Geraldine Varcek. You understand, Mr. Fleming and Iwere married in 1941; his first wife died fifteen y
ears before."
"Well, your stepdaughters, now; would they also be my clients?"
"Good Lord, no!" That amused her considerably more than it did Rand."Of course," she continued, "they're just as interested in selling thecollection for the best possible price, but beyond that, there may be aslight divergence of opinion. For instance, Nelda's husband, FredDunmore, has been insisting that we let him handle the sale of thepistols, on the grounds that he is something he calls a businessman.Nelda supports him in this. It was Fred who got this ten-thousand-dollaroffer from Rivers. Personally, I think Rivers is playing him for asucker. Outside his own line, Fred is an awful innocent, and I've nevertrusted this man Rivers. Lane had some trouble with him, just before ..."
"Arnold Rivers," Rand said, when it was evident that she was not goingto continue, "has the reputation, among collectors, of being the biggestcrook in the old-gun racket, a reputation he seems determined to liveup--or down--to. But here; if your stepdaughters are co-owners, what'smy status? What authority, if any, have I to do any negotiating?"
Gladys Fleming laughed musically. "That, my dear Colonel, is where youearn your fee," she told him. "Actually, it won't be as hard as it looks.If Nelda gives you any argument, you can count on Geraldine to take yourside as a matter of principle; if Geraldine objects first, Nelda willhelp you steam-roll her into line. Fred Dunmore is accustomed to dealingwith a lot of yes-men at the plant; you shouldn't have any troubleshouting him down. Anton Varcek won't be interested, one way or another;he has what amounts to a pathological phobia about firearms of any sort.And Humphrey Goode, our attorney, who's executor of the estate, willwelcome you with open arms, once he finds out what you want to do. Thatcollection has him talking to himself, already. Look; if you come outto our happy home in the early afternoon, before Fred and Anton get backfrom the plant, we ought to ram through some sort of agreement withGeraldine and Nelda."
"You and whoever else sides with me will be a majority," Rand considered."Of course, the other one may pull a Gromyko on us, but ... I think I'lltalk to Goode, first."
"Yes. That would be smart," Gladys Fleming agreed. "After all, he'sresponsible for selling the collection." She crossed to the desk and satdown in Rand's chair while she wrote out the check and a short letter ofauthorization, then she returned to her own seat.
"There's another thing," she continued, lighting a fresh cigarette."Because of the manner of Mr. Fleming's death, the girls have a horror ofthe collection almost--but not quite--as strong as their desire to getthe best possible price for it."
"Yes. I'd heard that Mr. Fleming had been killed in a firearms accident,last November," Rand mentioned.
"It was with one of his collection-pieces," the widow replied. "Onehe'd bought just that day; a Confederate-made Colt-type percussion .36revolver. He'd brought it home with him, simply delighted with it, andstarted cleaning it at once. He could hardly wait until dinner was overto get back to work on it.
"We'd finished dinner about seven, or a little after. At about half-past,Nelda went out somewhere in the coupe. Anton had gone up to hislaboratory, in the attic--he's one of these fortunates whose work is alsohis hobby; he's a biochemist and dietitian--and Lane was in the gunroom,on the second floor, working on his new revolver. Fred Dunmore was havinga bath, and Geraldine and I had taken our coffee into the east parlor.Geraldine put on the radio, and we were listening to it.
"It must have been about 7:47 or 7:48, because the program had changedand the first commercial was just over, when we heard a loud noise fromsomewhere upstairs. Neither of us thought of a shot; my own first ideawas of a door slamming. Then, about five minutes later, we heard Anton,in the upstairs hall, pounding on a door, and shouting: 'Lane! Lane! Areyou all right?' We ran up the front stairway, and found Anton, in hisrubber lab-apron, and Fred, in a bathrobe, and barefooted, standingoutside the gunroom door. The door was locked, and that in itself wasunusual; there's a Yale lock on it, but nobody ever used it.
"For a minute or so, we just stood there. Anton was explaining that hehad heard a shot and that nobody in the gunroom answered. Geraldine toldhim, rather impatiently, to go down to the library and up the spiral. Yousee," she explained, "the library is directly under the gunroom, andthere's a spiral stairway connecting the two rooms. So Anton wentdownstairs and we stood waiting in the hall. Fred was shivering in hisbathrobe; he said he'd just jumped out of the bathtub, and he hadnothing on under it. After a while, Anton opened the gunroom door fromthe inside, and stood in the doorway, blocking it. He said: 'You'd betternot come in. There's been an accident, but it's too late to do anything.Lane's shot himself with one of those damned pistols; I always knewsomething like this would happen.'
"Well, I simply elbowed him out of the way and went in, and the othersfollowed me. By this time, the uproar had penetrated to the rear of thehouse, and the servants--Walters, the butler, and Mrs. Horder, thecook--had joined us. We found Lane inside, lying on the floor, shotthrough the forehead. Of course, he was dead. He'd been sitting on one ofthese old cobblers' benches of the sort that used to be all the thing forcocktail-tables; he had his tools and polish and oil and rags on it. He'dfallen off it to one side and was lying beside it. He had a revolver inhis right hand, and an oily rag in his left."
"Was it the revolver he'd brought home with him?" Rand asked.
"I don't know," she replied. "He showed me this Confederate revolver whenhe came home, but it was dirty and dusty, and I didn't touch it. And Ididn't look closely at the one he had in his hand when he was ... on thefloor. It was about the same size and design; that's all I could swearto." She continued: "We had something of an argument about what to do.Walters, the butler, offered to call the police. He's English, and hismind seems to run naturally to due process of law. Fred and Anton bothhowled that proposal down; they wanted no part of the police. At thesame time, Geraldine was going into hysterics, and I was trying to gether quieted down. I took her to her room and gave her a couple ofsleeping-pills, and then went back to the gunroom. While I was gone, itseems that Anton had called our family doctor, Dr. Yardman, and then Fredcalled Humphrey Goode, our lawyer. Goode lives next door to us, about twohundred yards away, so he arrived almost at once. When the doctor came,he called the coroner, and when he arrived, about an hour later, they allwent into a huddle and decided that it was an obvious accident and thatno inquest would be necessary. Then somebody, I'm not sure who, called anundertaker. It was past eleven when he arrived, and for once, Nelda gothome early. She was just coming in while they were carrying Lane out in abasket. You can imagine how horrible that was for her; it was days beforeshe was over the shock. So she'll be just as glad as anybody to see thelast of the pistol-collection."
Through the recital, Rand had sat silently, toying with the ivory-handledItalian Fascist dagger-of-honor that was doing duty as a letter-opener onhis desk. Gladys Fleming wasn't, he was sure, indulging in anymasochistic self-harrowing; neither, he thought, was she talking torelieve her mind. Once or twice there had been a small catch in hervoice, but otherwise the narration had been a piece of straightreporting, neither callous nor emotional. Good reporting, too; carefullydetailed. There had been one or two inclusions of inferential matter inthe guise of description, but that was to be looked for and discounted.And she had remembered, at the end, to include her ostensible reason fortelling the story.
"Yes, it must have been dreadful," he sympathized. "Odd, though, that anold hand with guns like Mr. Fleming would have an accident like that. Imet him, once or twice, and was at your home to see his collection, acouple of years ago. He impressed me as knowing firearms prettythoroughly.... Well, you can look for me tomorrow, say around two. Inthe meantime, I'll see Goode, and also Gresham and Arnold Rivers."