police-officer doesn't have to recite any incantation before he makes an
arrest, any more than he needs to read any Riot Act before he can start
shooting, but it won't hurt to warn you that anything you say can be used
against you."

"At least, I must insist upon knowing why I am being arrested," Walters
said icily.

"Oh! Don't you know?" McKenna asked. "Why, you're being arrested for the
murder of Arnold Rivers."

For a moment the butler retained his professional glacial disdain, and
then the bottom seemed to drop suddenly out of him. Rand suppressed a
smile at this minor verification of his theory. Walters had been
expecting to be accused of larceny, and was prepared to treat the charge
with contempt. Then he had realized, after a second or so, what the State
Police sergeant had really said.

"Good God, gentlemen!" He looked from Mick McKenna to Corporal Kavaalen
to Rand and back again in bewilderment. "You surely can't mean that!"

"We can and we do," Rand told him. "You stole about twenty-five pistols
from this collection, after Mr. Fleming died, and sold them to Arnold
Rivers. Then, when I came here and started checking up on the
collection, you knew the game was up. So, last evening, you took out the
station-wagon and went to see Rivers, and you killed him to keep him from
turning state's evidence and incriminating you. Or maybe you killed him
in a quarrel over the division of the loot. I hope, for your sake, that
it was the latter; if it was, you may get off with second degree murder.
But if you can't prove that there was no premeditation, you're tagged for
the electric chair."

"But ... But I didn't kill Mr. Rivers," Walters stammered. "I barely knew
the gentleman. I saw him, once or twice, when he was here to see Mr.
Fleming, but outside of that...."

"Outside of that, you sold him about twenty-five of these pistols, and
got a like number of junk pistols from him, for replacements." He took
the list Pierre Jarrett and Stephen Gresham had compiled out of his
pocket and began reading: "Italian wheel lock pistol, late sixteenth- or
early seventeenth-century; pair Italian snaphaunce pistols, by Lazarino
Cominazo...." He finished the list and put it away. "I think we've missed
one or two, but that'll do, for the time."

"But I didn't sell those pistols to Mr. Rivers," Walters expostulated. "I
sold them to Mr. Carl Gwinnett. I can prove it!"

That Rand had not expected. "Go on!" he jeered. "I suppose you h