"So I only need to bother with what's
on the walls, in this room?... By the way, did Mr. Fleming keep any sort
of record of his collection? A book, or a card-index, or anything like
that?"
"Why no, sir." Walters was positive. Then he hedged. "If he did, I never
saw or heard of anything of the sort. Mr. Fleming knew everything in this
room. I've seen him, downstairs, when somebody would ask him about
something, close his eyes as though trying to visualize and then give a
perfect description of any pistol in the collection. Or else, he could
enumerate all the pistols of a certain type; say, all the Philadelphia
Deringers, or all the Allen pepperboxes, or all the rim-fire Smith &
Wesson tip-back types. He had a remarkable memory for his pistols,
although it was not out of the ordinary otherwise, sir."
Rand nodded. Any collector--at least, any collector who was a serious
arms-student--could do that, particularly if he were a good visualizer
and kept his stuff in some systematic order. At the moment, he could have
named and described any or all of his own modest collection of two
hundred-odd pistols and revolvers.
"I was hoping he'd kept a record," he said. "A great many collectors do,
and it would have helped me quite a bit.
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