ls and duplicates as the rest of us can consign to them, to
go into the arms business, with a general-antique sideline, which Karen
can manage while Pierre's writing.... Tell you what; I'll call a meeting
at my place tomorrow evening, say at eight thirty. That suit you?"

That, Rand agreed, would be all right. Gresham asked him how recently he
had seen the Fleming collection.

"About two years ago; right after I got back from Germany. You remember,
we went there together, one evening in March."

"Yes, that's right. We didn't have time to see everything," Gresham said.
"My God, Jeff! Twenty-five wheel locks! Ten snaphaunces. And every
imaginable kind of flintlock--over a hundred U.S. Martials, including the
1818 Springfield, all the S. North types, a couple of Virginia
Manufactory models, and--he got this since the last time you saw the
collection--a real Rappahannock Forge flintlock. And about a hundred and
fifty Colts, all models and most variants. Remember that big Whitneyville
Walker, in original condition? He got that one in 1924, at the Fred Hines
sale, at the old Walpole Galleries. And seven Paterson Colts, including
a couple of cased sets. And anything else you can think of. A Hall
flintlock breech-loader; an Elisha Collier flintlock revolver; a pair
of Forsythe detonator-lock pistols.... Oh, that's a collection to end
collections."

"By the way, Humphrey Goode showed me a pair of big ball-butt wheel
locks, all covered with ivory inlay," Rand mentioned.

Gresham laughed heartily. "Aren't they the damnedest ever seen, though?"
he asked. "Made in Germany, about 1870 or '80, about the time
arms-collecting was just getting out of the family-heirloom stage,
wouldn't you say?"

"I'd say made in Japan, about 1920," Rand replied. "Remember, there were
a couple of small human figures on each pistol, a knight and a huntsman?
Did you notice that they had slant eyes?" He stopped laughing, and looked
at Gresham seriously. "Just how much more of that sort of thing do you
think I'm going to have to weed out of the collection, before I can offer
it for sale?" he asked.

Gresham shook his head. "They're all. They were Lane Fleming's one false
step. Ordinarily, Lane was a careful buyer; he must have let himself get
hypnotized by all that ivory and gold, and all that documentation on
crested notepaper. You know, Fleming's death was an undeserved stroke of
luck for Arnold Rivers. If he hadn't been killed just when he was, he'