nt and beside the red-brick house.
Among them, Rand spotted a gold-lettered green sedan of the New Belfast
_Dispatch_ and _Evening Express_, a black coupe bearing the blazonry of
the New Belfast _Mercury_, cars from a couple of papers at Louisburg, the
state capital, and cars from papers as far distant as Pittsburgh,
Buffalo, and Cincinnati. In front of the shop, a motley assemblage of
journalists was interviewing and photographing an undersized runt in
a tan Chesterfield topcoat and a gray Homburg hat, whom they were
addressing as Mr. Farnsworth. The District Attorney of Scott County had
a mustache which failed miserably to make him look like Tom Dewey; he
impressed Rand as the sort of offensive little squirt who compensates
for his general insignificance by bad manners and loud-mouthed
self-assertion. Corporal Kavaalen, standing in the doorway of the shop,
caught sight of Rand and his companion as they got out of the car and
came to meet them, hustling them around the crowd and into the shop
before anybody could notice and recognize them.

"That was a good tip, about the telephone," he said softly. "Mick checked
at the Rosemont exchange. Rivers got a long-distance call from Topeka
last night; ten fifteen to ten seventeen. We got the night long distance
operator out of bed, and she confirmed it; Rivers took the call himself.
He gets a lot of long distance calls in the evenings; she knew his
voice." He corrected himself, shifting to the past tense and glancing, as
he did, at the chalk outline on the floor, now scuffed by many feet, and
the dried bloodstains. "You say this puts Gresham in the clear?"

"Absolutely," Rand assured him. "He was at home from nine twenty-two on."
He introduced Pierre Jarrett, and explained their mission. "You find
anything except what's here in the shop?"

"Only Rivers's own .38 Smith & Wesson, in his room, and a lot of pistols
out in the garage, that look like junk to me," Kavaalen said. "I'll show
them to you."

Rand nodded. "Pierre, you look around the shop; I'll see what this other
stuff is."

He followed Kavaalen through a door at the rear of the shop; the same one
through which Cecil Gillis had carried the Kentucky rifle the afternoon
before. Beside Rivers's car, there was a long workbench in the garage,
and piles of wood and cardboard cartons, and stacks of newspapers, and
a barrel full of excelsior, all evidently used in preparing arms for
shipment. There was also a large pile of