might keep quiet about the missing pistols if she were the
thief; if Dunmore, or Varcek, or either of the girls had done the
stealing, he'd tell Gladys, and she'd pass it on to me. She would be
glad of anything that could be used against any of the others. And if,
on the other hand, she had stolen the pistols herself, she wouldn't have
wanted me poking around, and wouldn't have brought me in, at least not
to handle the collection." Rand looked regretfully at his empty glass and
decided against ordering another. "Dave, I just thought of something," he
said. "How do you think this would work?"

He told Ritter what he had thought of. Ritter drank beer slowly and
meditatively.

"It just might work," he considered. "I've seen that gag work a hundred
times: hell, I've used something like that, myself, at least fifty times,
and so have you. And I don't think Walters would be familiar enough with
dick-practice to see what you were doing. But if it turns out that
Walters didn't sell the pistols to Rivers at all, what then?"

"Well, if he sold them to Umholtz, Pierre Jarrett's theory is still valid
until disproved," Rand said. "And if he didn't sell them either to Rivers
or Umholtz, we'll have to conclude that Rivers and Fleming were killed by
the same person, the Rivers killing being a security measure. That is,
unless we find that Rivers was killed by Pierre Jarrett, which is a sort
of medium-high-order probability. Jarrett and the girl left Gresham's
early enough for him to have killed Rivers; they were both pretty hard
hit by that twenty-five-grand blockbuster Rivers had dropped on
them.... Give me back that Colt, Dave. All you have to do is get an
identification on the Leech & Rigdon from the barbecue man. I'm going
to let Mick McKenna handle Umholtz, one way or another, after we've
concluded the Walters experiment. Until then, we don't want to stir
Umholtz up, at all."

CHAPTER 15

Parking in the drive, Rand entered the Fleming house by the front door.
The butler must have been busy with his pre-dinner tasks in the rear; it
was Gladys herself who admitted him.

"Stay out of there," she warned him, taking his arm and guiding him away
from the parlor doorway. "Nelda and Geraldine are in there, ignoring each
other. If you go in, they'll start talking to you, and then they'll start
talking at each other through you, and the air will be full of tomahawks
in a jiffy. Let's go up in the gunroom; that's out of the ba