s enough to make a saint lose his religion! Our factory-hands are
organized in the C.I.O., and our warehouse, sales, and shipping personnel
are in the A.F. of L., and if they aren't fighting the company, they're
fighting each other. Now they have some damn kind of a jurisdictional
dispute.... I don't know what this country's coming to!" He glared
angrily through his octagonal glasses for a moment. Then his voice took
on an ingratiating note. "Look here, Colonel; I just didn't understand
the situation, until you explained it. I hope you aren't taking anything
that sister-in-law of mine said seriously. She just blurts out the first
thing that comes into her so-called mind; why, only yesterday she was
accusing Gladys of bringing you into this to help her gyp the rest of us.
And before that ..."

"Oh, forget it." Rand dismissed Geraldine with a shrug. "I know she was
talking through a highball glass. As far as selling the collection is
concerned, you just let Rivers sell you a bill of something you hadn't
gotten a good look at. He's a smart operator, and he's crooked as a
wagon-load of blacksnakes. Maybe you never realized just how much money
Fleming put into this collection; naturally you wouldn't realize how much
could be gotten out of it again. A lot of this stuff has been here for
quite a while, and antiques of any kind tend to increase in value."

"Well, I want you to know that I'm just as glad as anybody if you can get
a better price out of him than I could." Dunmore smiled ruefully. "I
guess he's just a better poker player than I am."

"Not necessarily. He could see your hand, and you couldn't see his," Rand
told him.

"You going to see Gresham and his friends, this evening?" Dunmore asked.
"Well, when you get back, if you find four cars in the garage, counting
the station-wagon, lock up after you've put your own car away. If you
find only three, then you'll know that Anton Varcek's still out, so leave
it open for him. That's the way we do here; last one in locks up."

CHAPTER 9

Rand found another car, a smoke-gray Plymouth coupe, standing on the
left of his Lincoln when he went down to the garage. Running his car
outside and down to the highway, he settled down to his regular style of
driving--a barely legal fifty m.p.h., punctuated by bursts of absolutely
felonious speed whenever he found an unobstructed straightaway. Entering
Rosemont, he slowed and went through the underpass at the railroad
tracks,