Murder in the Gunroom

  CHAPTER 20

  The dining-room was empty, when Rand came down to breakfast the nextmorning. Taking the seat he had occupied the evening before, he waiteduntil Ritter came out of the kitchen through the pantry.

  "Good morning, Colonel Rand," the Perfect Butler greeted him unctuously."If I may say so, sir, you're a bit of an early riser. None of the familyis up yet, sir."

  Rand jerked a thumb toward the kitchen. "Who's out there?" he hissed.

  "Just the cook; frying sausage and flipping pancakes. Premix pancakes, ofcourse. The maid sleeps out; she hasn't gotten here yet. How'd it go lastnight? You put a dummy under the covers and sleep on the floor?"

  "No, last night I was safe. The blow-off isn't due till this morning,when the women are at church, and he'll have to catch me and the fall-guytogether."

  "What do you want me to do?" Ritter asked, giving an un-butler-like hitchat his shoulder-holster. "I can stand on my official dignity, and get outof any cleaning-up work till after dinner, and I won't have any buttlingto do till the women get home from church."

  "Case Varcek and Dunmore, when they come in; see if either of them isrod-heavy. Find anything, last night?"

  Ritter shook his head. "I searched Varcek's lab, after everybody was inbed, and I searched the cars in the garage, and a lot of other places. Ididn't find them. Whoever he is, the chances are he has them in hisroom."

  "Did you look back of the books in the library?" Rand asked. When Rittershook his head, he continued: "That's probably where they are. Not thatit makes a whole lot of difference."

  "If I'd found them, it'd of given me something to watch; then I'd knowwhen the fun was going to start." Ritter broke off suddenly. "Yes, sir.Will you have your coffee now, or later, sir?"

  Gladys entered, wearing the blue tailored outfit she had worn to Rand'soffice, on Wednesday.

  "At ease, at ease," she laughed, dropping into her chair. "Anything new?"

  Rand shook his head. "We'll have to wait. I'm expecting some action thismorning; I hope it'll be over before you're home from church."

  She looked at him seriously. "Jeff, you're using yourself asmurder-bait," she said. "Aren't you?"

  "More or less. He knows I'm onto him. He's pretty sure I haven't any realproof, yet, but he doesn't know how soon I will have. He realizes thatI'm cat-and-mousing him, the way I did Walters. So he'll try to kill mebefore I pounce, and when he does, he'll convict himself. What he doesn'trealize is that as long as he sits tight, he's perfectly safe."

  Neither of them mentioned the obvious corollary, that conviction andexecution would be almost simultaneous. It must have been uppermost inGladys's mind; she leaned over and put her hand on Rand's arm.

  "Jeff, would it help any if I stayed home, instead of going to church?"she asked. "I'm a pretty fair pistol-shot. Lane taught me. I can stayover ninety at slow fire, and in the eighties at timed-and-rapid. If Ihid somewhere with a target pistol--"

  "Absolutely not!" Rand vetoed emphatically. "I'm not saying that becauseI'm afraid you might stop a slug yourself. You're a big girl, now; youcan take your own chances. But if you stayed home, he wouldn't make amove. You and Geraldine and Nelda have to be out of the house beforehe'll feel safe coming out of the grass."

  "Watch it!" Ritter warned. "Yes, ma'am; at once, ma'am."

  Nelda came in and sat down. Ritter held her chair and fussed over her,finding out what she wanted to eat. He was bringing in her fruit whenVarcek and Geraldine entered. Nelda was inquiring if Rand wanted to cometo church with them.

  "No; I'm one of the boys the chaplain couldn't find in the foxholes,"Rand said. "I'm going to put in a quiet morning on the collection. Ifnobody gets murdered or arrested in the meantime, that is."

  Geraldine looked woebegone; her hands were trembling. "My God, do I havea hangover!" she moaned. "Walters, for heaven's sake, fix me upsomething, quick!" Then she saw Ritter. "Who the devil are you?" shedemanded. "Where's Walters?"

  "Out on bail," Rand told her. "Don't you remember?"

  "Oh, you did this to me!" she accused. "Walters could always fix me up,in the morning. Now what am I going to do?"

  "You might stop drinking," her husband suggested mildly.

  "Oh, just stop breathing; that would be better all around," Neldainterposed.

  Ritter coughed delicately. "Begging your pardon, ma'am, but I've alwaysrawther fawncied myself for an expert on morning-awfter tonics. If you'llwait a moment--"

  He departed on his errand of mercy, returning shortly with a highballglass filled with some dark, evil-looking potion. He set it on the tablein front of the sufferer and poured her a cup of coffee.

  "Now, ma'am; just try this. Take it gradually, if I may suggest. Don'tattempt to gulp it; it's quite strong, ma'am."

  Geraldine tasted it and pulled a Gorgon-face. Encouraged by Ritter, shemanaged to down about half of the mixture.

  "Splendid, ma'am; splendid!" he cheered her on. "Now, drink your coffee,ma'am, and then finish it. That's right, ma'am. And now, more coffee."

  Geraldine struggled through with the black draft and drank the second cupof coffee. As she set down the empty cup, she even managed to smile.

  "Why, that's wonderful!" She lit a cigarette. "What is it? I feel asthough I might live, after all."

  "A recipe of my own, a variant on the old Prairie Oyster, but without theraw egg, which I consider a needless embellishment, ma'am. I learned itin the household of a former employer, a New York stockbroker. Poor man:he did himself in in the autumn of 1929."

  "Well, it's too bad you won't be with us permanently, Davies," Neldasaid. "Your recipe seems to be just what Geraldine needs. With a dash ofprussic acid added, of course."

  That got the bush-fighting off to a good start. When Dunmore came in, afew minutes later, the two sisters were stalking one another through thejungle, blow-gunning poison darts back and forth. The newcomer sat downwithout a word; throughout the meal, he and Varcek treated one anotherwith silent and hostile suspicion. Finally Gladys looked at her watch andcalled a truce to the skirmishing by announcing that it was time to startfor church. Rand left the room with the ladies; in the hall, Gladysbrushed against him quickly and gripped his left arm.

  "Do be careful, Jeff," she whispered.

  "Don't worry; I will," Rand assured her. Then he turned into the libraryand went up the spiral to the gunroom, while the three women went down tothe garage.

  He was standing at the window as the big Packard moved out onto thedrive. Nelda was at the wheel, and Gladys, beside her on the front seat,raised a white-gloved hand in the thumbs-up salute. Rand gave it back,and watched the car swing around the house. Then he mopped his face witha wad of Kleenex and went over to the room-temperature thermostat,turning it down to sixty.

  Sitting down at the desk, he dialed Humphrey Goode's number on theprivate outside line. A maid answered; a moment later he was talking tothe Fleming lawyer.

  "Rand, here," he identified himself. "Mr. Goode, I've been thinking overour conversation of last evening. There is a great deal to be said forthe position you're taking in the matter. As you reminded me, I'm asmall, if purely speculative, stockholder in Premix, myself, and evenif I weren't, I should hate to be responsible for undeserved losses byinnocent investors."

  "Yes?" Goode's voice fairly shook. "Then you're going to drop theinvestigation?"

  "No, Mr. Goode; I can't do that. But I believe a formula could be evolvedwhich would keep the Premix Company and its affairs out of it. In fact, Ithink that the whole question of the death of Lane Fleming might possiblybe kept in the background. Would that satisfy you? It would require somevery careful manipulation on my part, and your cooperation."

  "But.... See here, if you're investigating the death of Mr. Fleming, howcan that be kept in the background?" Goode wanted to know.

  "The murderer of Lane Fleming is also guilty of the murder of ArnoldRivers," Rand stated. "I know that positively, now. Murder is punishedcapitally, and one of the peculiarities of capital punishment is that itca
n be inflicted only once, on no matter how many counts. If our man goesto the chair for the death of Rivers, the death of Fleming might evenremain an accident. I can hardly guarantee that; I have my agency licenseto think of, among other things. But I feel reasonably safe in sayingthat I could keep the Premix Company from figuring in the case. Wouldthat satisfy you?"

  "It most certainly would, Colonel Rand!" Goode's voice shook even more."Are you sure?"

  "I'm not sure of anything. It'll cost the Premix Company some money toget this done--I'll have certain expenses, for one thing, which could notvery gracefully be itemized--and I will have to have your cooperation.Now, I want you to remain at home, where I can reach you at any moment,for the rest of the day. I'll call you later."

  He listened to Goode babble his gratitude for a while, then terminatedthe call and hung up. Then he transferred the Colt .38 to the side pocketof his coat, picked up one of the sheets on which he had been listingthe collection, and sat for almost fifteen minutes pretending to studyit, keeping his eyes shifting from the hall door to the spiral stairwayand back again.

  Finally, the hall door opened, and Anton Varcek came in. Rand half rose,covering the Czech from his side pocket; Varcek came over and sat down inan armchair near the desk. He was looking more than ever like RudolfHess. Rudolf Hess on the morning of the Beer Hall Putsch.

  "Colonel Rand," he began. "There has, within the last half hour, been amost important development. I am at a loss to define its significance,but its importance is inescapable."

  Rand nodded. He had been expecting somebody to give birth to an importantdevelopment; the steps toward gunfire were progressing in logical series.

  "Well?" He smiled encouragingly. "What happened?"

  "After you and the ladies left the dining-room," Varcek said, "FredDunmore turned to me and apologized for harboring unjust suspicions of mein the matter of Lane Fleming's death. He said that he had been unableto understand who else could have murdered Lane, until you had pointedout to him that the house could have been entered from the garage, andthe gunroom from the library. Then, he said, he had had a conversationwith some unnamed gentleman at the party last evening, and had learnedthat Lane had discovered that Humphrey Goode was deceiving him, and hadbeen about to have him dismissed from his position with the company, andto sever his personal connections with him."

  "The devil, now!" Rand gave a good imitation of surprise. "What sort ofjiggery-pokery was Goode up to?"

  "Fred said that his informant told him that Lane had proof that Goode hadaccepted a bribe from Arnold Rivers, to misconduct the suit which Lanewas bringing against Rivers about a pair of pistols he had bought fromRivers. It seems that Goode was Rivers's attorney, also, and had beeninvolved with him in a number of dishonest transactions, although theconnection had been kept secret."

  "That's a new angle, now," Rand said. "I suppose that he killed Rivers inorder to prevent the latter from incriminating him. Why didn't Fred cometo me with this?" he asked.

  "Eh?" Evidently Varcek hadn't thought of that. "Why, I suppose he wasconcerned about the possibility of repercussions in the business world.After all, Goode is our board chairman, and maybe he thought that peoplemight begin thinking that the murder had some connection with the affairsof the company."

  "That's possible, of course," Rand agreed. "And what's your ownattitude?"

  "Colonel Rand, I cannot allow these facts to be suppressed," the Czechsaid. "My own position is too vulnerable; you've showed me that. Exceptfor the fact that somebody could have entered the house through thegarage, the burden of suspicion would lie on me and Fred Dunmore."

  "Well, do you want me to help you with it?" Rand asked.

  "Yes, if you will. It would be helping yourself, also, I believe," Varcekreplied. "Fred is downstairs, now, in the library; I suggest that you andI go down and have a talk with him. Maybe you could show him the folly oftrying to suppress any facts concerning Lane's death."

  "Yes, that would be both foolish and dangerous." Rand got to his feet,keeping his hand on the .38 Colt. "Let's go down and talk to him now."

  They walked side by side toward the spiral, Rand keeping on the right andlagging behind a little, lifting the stubby revolver clear of his pocket.Yet, in spite of his vigilance, it happened before he could prevent it.

  A lance of yellow fire jumped out of the shadows of the stairway,and there was a soft cough of a silenced pistol, almost lost in the_click-click_ of the breech-action. Rand felt something sledge-hammer himin the chest, almost knocking him down. He staggered, then swung up theColt he had drawn from his pocket and blazed two shots into the stairway.There was a clatter, and the sound of feet descending into the library.He rushed forward, revolver poised, and then a shot boomed from below,followed by three more in quick succession.

  "Okay, Jeff!" Ritter's voice called out. "War's over!"

  He managed, somehow, to get down the steep spiral. The little .25 Webley& Scott was lying on the bottom step; he pushed it aside with his foot,and cautioned Varcek, who was following, to avoid it. Ritter, stilllooking like the Perfect Butler in spite of the .380 Beretta in his hand,was standing in the hall doorway. On the floor, midway between thestairway and the door, lay Fred Dunmore. His tan coat and vest wereturning dark in several places, and Rand's own Detective Special waslying a few inches from his left hand.

  "He came in here and shut the door," Ritter reported. "I couldn't followhim in, so I took a plant in the hall. When I heard you blastingupstairs, I came in, just in time to see him coming down. You winged himin the right shoulder; he'd dropped the .25, and he had your gat in hisleft hand. When he saw mine, he threw one at me and missed; I gave himthree back for it. See result on floor."

  "Uh-uh; he'd have gotten away, if you hadn't been on the job," he toldRitter. Then he picked up his own revolver and holstered it. After aglance which assured him that Fred Dunmore was beyond any further actionof any sort, he laid the square-butt Detective Special on the floorbeside him. "You did all right, Dave," he said. "Now, nobody's going tohave a chance to bamboozle a jury into acquitting him." He thought of hisrecent conversation with Humphrey Goode. "You did just all right," herepeated.

  "So it was Fred, then," he heard Varcek, behind him, say. "Then he waslying about this evidence against Goode." The Czech came over and stoodbeside Rand, looking down at the body of his late brother-in-law. "Butwhy did he tell me that story, and why did he shoot at us when we weretogether?"

  "Both for the same general reason." Rand explained about the two pistolsand the planned double-killing. "With both of us dead, you'd be themurderer, and I'd be a martyr to law-and-order, and he'd be in theclear."

  Varcek regarded the dead man with more distaste than surprise. Evidentlyhis experiences in Hitler's Europe had left him with few illusions aboutthe sanctity of human life or the extent of human perfidy. Ritterholstered the Beretta and got out a cigarette.

  "I hope you didn't leave your lighter upstairs," he told Rand.

  Rand produced and snapped it, holding the flame out to his assistant."Dave," he lectured, "the Perfect Butler always has a lighter in goodworking order; lighting up the mawster is part of his duties. Rememberthat, the next time you have a buttling job."

  Ritter leaned forward for the light. "Dunmore was a better shot with hisright hand than he was with his left," he commented. "He didn't comewithin a yard of me, and he scored a twelve-o'clock center on you. Rightthrough the necktie."

  Rand glanced down. Then he burst into a roar of obscene blasphemy.

  "Seven dollars and fifty cents I paid for that tie, not three weeks ago,"he concluded. "Does your grandmother make patchwork quilts? If she does,she can have it."

  "My God!" Varcek stared at Rand unbelievingly. "Why, he hit you! You'rewounded!"

  "Only in the necktie," Rand reassured him. "I have a hole in my shirt,too." He reached under the latter garment and rummaged, as though toevict a small trespasser. When he brought out his hand, he was holding abattered .25-caliber bullet. He held it out to show to V
arcek and Ritter.

  "Sure," Ritter grinned at Varcek. "Didn't you know? Superman."

  "I'm wearing a bulletproof vest; Mick McKenna loaned it to me yesterday,"Rand enlightened Varcek. "I never wore one of the damn things before, andif I can help it, I'll never wear one again. I'm damn near stewed alivein it."

  "Think how hot you'd be, right now, if you hadn't been wearing it,"Ritter reminded him.

  "Then you knew, since yesterday, that he would do this?" Varcek asked.

  "I knew one or the other of you would," Rand replied. "I had quite a fewreasons for thinking it might be Dunmore, and one good one for notsuspecting you."

  "You mean my dislike for firearms?"

  "That could have been feigned, or it could have been overcome," Randreplied. "I mean your knowledge of biology and biochemistry. If you'dkilled Lane Fleming, there'd have been no clumsy business of fakeaccidents; not as long as both of you ate at the same table. He'dhave just died, an unimpeachably natural death." He turned to Ritter."Dave, I'm going upstairs; I want to get out of this damned coat of mailI'm wearing. While I'm doing it, I want you to call Carter Tipton, at theJarrett place, and Humphrey Goode, and Mick McKenna, in that order. TellGoode to get over here as fast as he can, and come up to my room; tellhim we have to consider ways and means of implementing my suggestion tohim."