e go in?" she asked, taking Rand's arm.

The cocktails were waiting when they entered the drawing-room, off the
dining-room. The butler poured for them and put the glasses and the
shaker on a low table by a lounge.

"I'm afraid dinner's going to be a little later than I said, Mrs.
Fleming," he apologized. "Things were kind of stirred up, today, with all
those people here."

"That's all right; we can wait," she replied. "We won't need anything
more, Reuben."

Motioning Rand down on the lounge beside her, she handed him a glass and
lifted her own.

"Now," she began. "Just what sort of skulduggery has been going on? As of
Friday, the top offer for the collection was twenty-five thousand five
hundred, from some dealer up in Massachusetts. And then, on Saturday, you
came bounding in with Stephen Gresham's certified check for twenty-six
thousand. And I seem to recall that the late unlamented Rivers's offer of
twenty-five thousand straight had them stopped. Not that I'm inclined
to look askance at an extra five hundred--I can buy a new hat with my
share of that, even after taxes--but I would like to know what happened.
And I might add, that's only one of many things I'd like to know."

"The client is entitled to a full report," Rand said, tasting his
cocktail. It was a vodka Martini, and very good. "You know, none of that
crowd are millionaires. Adam Trehearne, who's the plutocrat of the bunch,
isn't so filthy rich he doesn't know what to do with all his money--what
the tax-collectors leave of it--and the rest of them have to figure
pretty closely. The most they could possibly scratch together was
twenty-two thousand. So I put four thousand into the pot, myself,
bringing the total to five hundred over the Kendall offer, and hastily
declared the collection sold. Of course, my getting into it meant that
much less for everybody else, but five-sixths of a collection is better
than no pistols at all. I imagine Colin MacBride is honing up his
_sgian-dhu_ for me because I got that big Whitneyville Walker Colt, but
what the hell; he got the cased pair of Paterson .34's, and the Texas .40
with the ramming-lever."

"Why, I think the division was fair enough," Gladys said. "They'd agreed
to take your valuation, hadn't they? And all that slide-rule and
comptometer business.... But Jeff--four thousand dollars?" she queried.
"You only got five from me, and you can't run a detective agency on old
pistols."

Rand grinned as he set d