"
Goode gave a hacking chuckle. "You'll do as an arms-expert, Mr. Rand," he
said. "And you'd win the piggy-bank. It seems that after Mr. Fleming
bought them, he took them apart, and found, just as you say, that the
screw-threads had been machine-cut, and that the working-parts were
interchangeable from one pistol to the other. There were a lot of papers
accompanying them--I have them here--purporting to show that they had
been sold by some Austrian nobleman, an anti-Nazi refugee, in whose
family they had been since the reign of Maximilian II. They are, of
course, fabrications. I looked up the family in the _Almanach de Gotha_;
it simply never existed. At first, Mr. Fleming had been inclined to take
the view that Rivers had been equally victimized with himself. However,
when Rivers refused to take back the pistols and refund the purchase
price, he altered his opinion. He placed them in my hands, instructing me
to bring suit and also start criminal action; he was in a fearful rage
about it, and swore that he'd drive Rivers out of business. However,
before I could start action, Mr. Fleming was killed in that accident, and
as he was the sole witness to the fact of the sale, and as none of the
heirs was interested, I did nothing about it.
Pages:
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47