ould be able to duplicate it.... Well, don't take
any Czechoslovakian Stiegel."

He moved his car down the street to the Rosemont Inn, where he went into
the combination bar and grill and had a Bourbon-and-water at the bar.
Then he ordered lunch, and, while waiting for it, went into a phone-booth
and dialed the number of Stephen Gresham's office in New Belfast.

"I'd hoped to catch you before you left for lunch," he said, when the
lawyer answered. "There's been a new development in the Fleming
business." He had decided to follow the same line as with Karen Lawrence.
"You needn't worry about Arnold Rivers's offer, any more."

"Ha! So he backed out?"

"He was shoved out," Rand corrected. "On the sharp end of a Mauser
bayonet, sometime last night. I found the body this morning, when I went
to see him, and notified the State Police. They call it murder, but of
course, they're just prejudiced. I'd call it a nuisance-abatement
project."

"Look here, are you kidding?" Gresham demanded.

"I never kid about Those Who Have Passed On," Rand denied piously. Then
he recited the already hackneyed description of what had happened to
Rivers, with careful attention to all the gruesome details. "So I called
copper, directly. Sergeant McKenna's up a stump about it, and looking in
all directions for a suspect."

Gresham was silent for a moment, then swore softly.

"My God, Jeff! This is going to raise all kinds of hell!" He was silent
for a moment. "Look here, can you see me, at my home, about two thirty
this afternoon? I want to talk to you about this."

Rand smiled happily. This looked like what he had been angling for. Maybe
Arnold Rivers hadn't died in vain, after all.

"Why, yes; I can make it," he replied.

"Good. See you there, then."

Rand assured him that he would be on hand. When he returned to his table,
he found his lunch waiting for him. He sat down and ate with a good
appetite. After finishing, he had another drink, and sat sipping it
slowly and smoking his pipe; going over the story Gladys Fleming had told
him, and the gossip he had gotten from Carter Tipton, and the other
statements which had been made to him by different people about the death
of Lane Fleming, and the conclusions he had reached about the theft of
the pistols, and the killing of Arnold Rivers; sorting out the inferences
from the descriptions, and the descriptive statements of others from the
things he himself had observed. When his glass was e