Murder in the Gunroom - H. Beam Piper (digital ebook reader .TXT) 📗

that pistol is a valuable collector’s item, and one of the assets of the estate. If I’m to get full value for the collection, for the heirs, I’ll have to have that, to sell with the rest of the weapons.”

“Well, now, look here, Mr. Rand,” Kirchner started to argue, “that revolver’s a dangerous weapon. It’s killed one man, already. I don’t know as I ought to let it get out, where it might kill somebody else.”

Rand estimated that this situation called for a modified version of his hard-boiled act.

“You think you can show cause why that revolver shouldn’t be turned over to the Fleming estate?” he demanded. “Well, if I don’t get it, right away, Mr. Goode will get a court order for it. You had no right to impound that revolver, in the first place; you removed it from the Fleming home illegally in the second place, since you had no intention of holding any formal inquest, and you’re holding it illegally now. A court order might not be all we could get, either,” he added menacingly. “Now, if you have any reason to suspect that Mr. Fleming committed suicide⁠ ⁠… or was murdered, for instance⁠ ⁠…”

“Oh, my heavens, no!” Kirchner cried, horrified. “It was an accident, pure and simple; I so certified it. Death by accident, due to inadvertence of the deceased.”

“Well, then,” Rand said, “you have no right to hold that revolver, and I want it, right now. As Mr. Goode’s agent, I’m responsible for that collection, of which the revolver you’re holding is a part. That revolver is too valuable an asset to ignore. You certainly realize that.”

“Well, I don’t have any intention of exceeding my authority, of course,” Kirchner disclaimed hastily. “And I certainly wouldn’t want to go against Mr. Goode’s wishes.” Humphrey Goode must pull considerable weight around the courthouse, Rand surmised. “But you realize, that revolver’s still loaded.⁠ ⁠…”

“Oh, that’s not your worry. I’ll draw the charges, or, better, fire them out. It stood one shot, it can stand the other five.”

“Well, would you mind if I called Mr. Goode on the phone?”

Rand did, decidedly. However, he shook his head negligently.

“Certainly not; go ahead and call him, by all means.”

The coroner went away. In a few minutes he was back, carrying a revolver in both hands. Evidently Goode had given him the green light. He approached, handling the weapon with a caution that would have been excessive for a Mills grenade; after warning Rand again that it was loaded, he laid it gently on his desk.

It was a .36 Colt, one of the 1860 series, with the round barrel and the so-called “creeping” ramming-lever. Somebody had wound a piece of wire around it, back of the hammer and through the loading-aperture in front of the cylinder; as the hammer was down on a fired chamber, there was no way in God’s world, short of throwing the thing into a furnace, in which it could be discharged, but Kirchner was shrinking away from it as though it might jump at his throat.

“I put the wire on,” the coroner said. “I thought it might be safer that way.”

“It’ll be a lot safer after I’ve emptied it into the first claybank, outside town,” Rand told him. “Sorry I had to be a little short with you, Mr. Kirchner, but you know how it is. I’m responsible to Mr. Goode for the collection, and this gun’s part of it.”

“Oh, that’s all right; I really shouldn’t have taken the attitude I did,” Kirchner met him halfway. “After I talked to Mr. Goode, of course, I knew it was all right, but⁠ ⁠… You see, I’ve been bothered a lot about that pistol, lately.”

“Yes?” Rand succeeded in being negligent about it.

“Oh my, yes! The newspaper people wanted to take pictures of me holding it, and then, there was an antique-dealer who was here trying to buy it.”

“Who was that⁠—Arnold Rivers?”

“Why yes! Do you know him? He has an antique-shop on the other side of Rosemont; he doesn’t sell anything but guns and swords and that sort of thing,” Kirchner said. “He was here, making inquiries about it, and my clerk showed it to him, and then he started making offers for it⁠—first ten dollars, and then fifteen, and then twenty; he got up as high as sixty dollars. I suppose it’s worth a couple of hundred.”

It was probably worth about thirty-five. Rand was intrigued by this second instance of an un-Rivers-like willingness to spare no expense to get possession of a .36-caliber percussion revolver.

“Did he have it in his hands?” he asked.

“Oh, yes; he looked it over carefully. I suppose he thought he could get a lot of money for it, because of the accident, and Mr. Fleming being such a prominent man,” Kirchner suggested.

Rand allowed himself to be struck by an idea.

“Say, you know, that would make it worth more, at that!” he exclaimed. “What do you know! I never thought of that.⁠ ⁠… Look, Mr. Kirchner; I’m supposed to get as much money for these pistols, for the heirs, as I can. How would you like to give me a letter, vouching for this as the pistol Mr. Fleming killed himself with? Put in how you found it in his hand, and mention the serial numbers, so that whoever buys it will know it’s the same revolver.” He picked up the Colt and showed Kirchner the serials, on the butt, and in front of the trigger-guard. “See, here it is: 2444.”

Kirchner would be more than willing to oblige Mr. Goode’s agent; he typed out the letter himself, looked twice at the revolver to make sure of the number, took Rand’s word for the make, model, and caliber, signed it, and even slammed his seal down on it. Rand thanked him profusely, put the letter in his pocket, and stuck the Colt down his pants-leg.

About two miles from the county seat Rand stopped his car on a deserted stretch of road and got out. Unwinding the wire Kirchner had wrapped around the revolver, he picked up an empty beer-can from the ditch, set it against an