"I don't see why you women had to do this," Dunmore huffed. "Rivers has made us a fair offer. Bringing in an outsider will only give him the impression that we lack confidence in him."

"Well, won't that be just too, too bad!" Geraldine slashed at him. "We mustn't ever hurt dear Mr. Rivers's feelings like that. Let him have the collection for half what it's worth, but never, never let him think we know what a G.o.d-d.a.m.ned crook he is!"

Dunmore evidently didn't think that worth dignifying with an answer.

Doubtless he expected Nelda to launch a counter-offensive, as a matter of principle. If he did, he was disappointed.

"Well?" Nelda demanded. "What did you want us to do; give the collection away?"

"You don't understand," Dunmore told her. "You've probably heard somebody say what the collection's worth, and you never stopped to realize that it's only worth that to a dealer, who can sell it item by item. You can't expect ..."

"We can expect a lot more than ten thousand dollars," Nelda retorted. "In fact, we can expect more than that from Rivers. Colonel Rand was talking to Rivers, this afternoon. Colonel Rand doesn't have any confidence in Rivers at all, and he doesn't care who knows it."

"You were talking to Arnold Rivers, this afternoon, about the collection?" Dunmore demanded of Rand.

"That's right," Rand confirmed. "I told him his ten thousand dollar offer was a joke. Stephen Gresham and his friends can top that out of one pocket. Finally, he got around to admitting that he's willing to pay up to twenty-five thousand."

"I don't believe it!" Dunmore exclaimed angrily. "Rivers told me personally, that neither he nor any other dealer could hope to handle that collection profitably at more than ten thousand."

"And you believed that?" Nelda demanded. "And you're a business man? _My G.o.d!_"

"He's probably a good one, as long as he sticks to pancake flour,"

Geraldine was generous enough to concede. "But about guns, he barely knows which end the bullet comes out at. Ten thousand was probably his idea of what we'd think the pistols were worth."

Dunmore ignored that and turned to Rand. "Did Arnold Rivers actually tell you he'd pay twenty-five thousand dollars for the collection?" he asked.

"I can't believe that he'd raise his own offer like that."

"He didn't raise his offer; I threw it out and told him to make one that could be taken seriously." Rand repeated, as closely as he could, his conversation with the arms-dealer. When he had finished, Dunmore was frowning in puzzled displeasure.

"And you think he's actually willing to pay that much?"

"Yes, I do. If he handles them right, he can double his money on the pistols inside of five years. I doubt if you realize how valuable those pistols are. You probably defined Mr. Fleming's collection as a 'hobby'

and therefore something not to be taken seriously. And, aside from the actual profit, the prestige of handling this collection would be worth a good deal to Rivers, as advertising. I haven't the least doubt that he can raise the money, or that he's willing to pay it."

Dunmore was still frowning. Maybe he hated being proved wrong in front of the women of the family.

"And you think Gresham and his friends will offer enough to force him to pay the full amount?"

Rand laughed and told him to stop being nave. "He's done that, himself, and what's more, he knows it. When he told me he was willing to go as high as twenty-five thousand, he fixed the price. Unless somebody offers more, which isn't impossible."

"But maybe he's just bluffing." Dunmore seemed to be following Gwinnett's line of thought. "After he's bluffed Gresham's crowd out, maybe he'll go back to his original ten thousand offer."

"Fred, please stop talking about that ten thousand dollars!" Geraldine interrupted. "How much did Rivers actually tell you he'd pay? Twenty-five thousand, like he did Colonel Rand?"

Dunmore turned in his chair angrily. "Now, look here!" he shouted.

"There's a limit to what I've got to take from you...."

He stopped short, as Nelda, beside him, moved slightly, and his words ended in something that sounded like a smothered moan. Rand suspected that she had kicked her husband painfully under the table. Then Walters came in with the meat course, and firing ceased until the butler had retired.

"By the way," Rand tossed into the conversational vacuum that followed his exit, "does anybody know anything about a record Mr. Fleming kept of his collection?"

"Why, no; can't say I do," Dunmore replied promptly, evidently grateful for the change of subject. "You mean, like an inventory?"

"Oh, Fred, you do!" Nelda told him impatiently. "You know that big gray book Father kept all his pistols entered in."

"It was a gray ledger, with a black leather back," Gladys said. "He kept it in the little bookcase over the workbench in the gunroom."

"I'll look for it," Rand said. "Sure it's still there? It would be a big help to me."

The rest of the dinner pa.s.sed in relative tranquillity. The conversation proceeded in fairly safe channels. Dunmore was anxious to avoid any further reference to the sum of ten thousand dollars; when Gladys induced Rand to talk about his military experiences, he lapsed into preoccupied silence. Several times, Geraldine and Nelda aimed halfhearted feline swipes at one another, more out of custom than present and active rancor. The women seemed to have erected a temporary tri-part.i.te _Entente_-more-or-less-_Cordiale_.

Finally, the meal ended, and the diners drifted away from the table. Rand went to his room for a few moments, then went to the gunroom to get the notes he had made. Fred Dunmore was using the private phone as he entered.

"Well, never mind about that, now," he was saying. "We'll talk about it when I see you.... Yes, of course; so am I.... Well, say about eleven.... Be seeing you."

He hung up and turned to Rand. "More G.o.d-d.a.m.ned union trouble," he said.

"It's enough to make a saint lose his religion! Our factory-hands are organized in the C.I.O., and our warehouse, sales, and shipping personnel are in the A.F. of L., and if they aren't fighting the company, they're fighting each other. Now they have some d.a.m.n kind of a jurisdictional dispute.... I don't know what this country's coming to!" He glared angrily through his octagonal gla.s.ses for a moment. Then his voice took on an ingratiating note. "Look here, Colonel; I just didn't understand the situation, until you explained it. I hope you aren't taking anything that sister-in-law of mine said seriously. She just blurts out the first thing that comes into her so-called mind; why, only yesterday she was accusing Gladys of bringing you into this to help her gyp the rest of us.

And before that ..."

"Oh, forget it." Rand dismissed Geraldine with a shrug. "I know she was talking through a highball gla.s.s. As far as selling the collection is concerned, you just let Rivers sell you a bill of something you hadn't gotten a good look at. He's a smart operator, and he's crooked as a wagon-load of blacksnakes. Maybe you never realized just how much money Fleming put into this collection; naturally you wouldn't realize how much could be gotten out of it again. A lot of this stuff has been here for quite a while, and antiques of any kind tend to increase in value."

"Well, I want you to know that I'm just as glad as anybody if you can get a better price out of him than I could." Dunmore smiled ruefully. "I guess he's just a better poker player than I am."

"Not necessarily. He could see your hand, and you couldn't see his," Rand told him.

"You going to see Gresham and his friends, this evening?" Dunmore asked.

"Well, when you get back, if you find four cars in the garage, counting the station-wagon, lock up after you've put your own car away. If you find only three, then you'll know that Anton Varcek's still out, so leave it open for him. That's the way we do here; last one in locks up."

CHAPTER 9

Rand found another car, a smoke-gray Plymouth coupe, standing on the left of his Lincoln when he went down to the garage. Running his car outside and down to the highway, he settled down to his regular style of driving--a barely legal fifty m.p.h., punctuated by bursts of absolutely felonious speed whenever he found an un.o.bstructed straightaway. Entering Rosemont, he slowed and went through the underpa.s.s at the railroad tracks, speeding again when he was clear of the village. A few minutes later, he was turning into the crushed-limestone drive that led up to the buff-brick Gresham house.

A girl met him at the door, a cute little redhead in a red-striped dress, who gave him a smile that seemed to start on the bridge of her nose and lift her whole face up after it. She held out her hand to him.

"Colonel Rand!" she exclaimed. "I'll bet you don't remember me."

"Sure I do. You're Dot," Rand said. "At least, I think you are; the last time I saw you, you were in pigtails. And you were only about so high."

He measured with his hand. "The last time I was here, you were away at school. You must be old enough to vote, by now."

"I will, this fall," she replied. "Come on in; you're the first one here. Daddy hasn't gotten back from town yet. He called and said he'd be delayed till about nine." In the hall she took his hat and coat and guided him toward the parlor on the right.

"Oh, Mother!" she called. "Here's Colonel Rand!"

Rand remembered Irene Gresham, too; an over-age dizzy blonde who was still living in the Flaming Youth era of the twenties. She was an extremely good egg; he liked her very much. After all, insisting upon remaining an F. Scott Fitzgerald character was a harmless and amusing foible, and it was no more than right that somebody should try to keep the bright banner of Jazz Age innocence flying in a grim and sullen world. He accepted a cigarette, shared the flame of his lighter with mother and daughter, and submitted to being gushed over.