unroom. The
only question in my mind is whether Rivers would have known about that.
That lawsuit and criminal action that Fleming was going to start--and
that's been verified from sources independent of Goode--was a good sound
motive. And say he took the Leech & Rigdon away, after leaving the Colt
in Fleming's hand; selling it to some collector who'd put it in with a
hundred or so other pistols would be a good way of disposing of it. And I
can understand his trying to buy the Colt, to get it out of circulation."
Rand sipped his Bourbon. "But that leaves us with the question of who
killed Rivers, and why."

"Well, because Fleming is dead--and it doesn't matter whether he was
murdered or died of old age--Walters starts robbing the collection. He
sells the pistols to Rivers," Ritter reconstructed. "And, as Rivers
doesn't want them around his shop till they've had time to cool off, he
stores them with this Umholtz character, who seems to have been in plenty
of crooked deals with Rivers in the past. The pistols are worth about ten
grand, and nobody knows where they are but Rivers and Umholtz, and if
Rivers drops dead all of a sudden, nobody will know where they are except
Umholtz, and in a couple of years he can get them sold off and have the
money all to himself."

"Yes, Dave; that's good sound murder, too. And Rivers would sit down and
drink with Umholtz, and Umholtz could take that Mauser out of the rack
right in front of Rivers and Rivers wouldn't suspect a thing till it was
too late. Of course, it depends upon two unverified assumptions: One,
that the pistols were sold to Rivers, and, two, that Rivers stored them
with Umholtz."

"And, three, that Walters stole the pistols in the first place," Ritter
added. "You know, it's possible that somebody else in that house might
have stolen them."

"Yes. As I said, anything's possible, within structural limits, but
possibilities exist on different orders of probability. We can't try to
consider all the possibilities in any case, because they are indefinitely
numerous; the best we can do is screen out all the low-order
probabilities, list the high-order probabilities, and revise our list
when and as new data comes to light. Well, I've told you why I think
Walters is a good suspect. From what I've seen of that household, I think
Walters was personally loyal to Lane Fleming, and I don't believe he
feels any loyalty to anybody else there, with the exception of Gladys
Fleming. He