Anybody who knew the habits of
the Fleming household could have slipped up to the gunroom, while Varcek
was in his lab, Dunmore was in the bathroom, and Gladys and Geraldine
were in the parlor. As he crossed the hall to his own room, Rand was
thinking of how narrowly Arnold Rivers had escaped a disastrous lawsuit
and criminal action by the death of Lane Fleming.
CHAPTER 10
When Rand came down to breakfast the next morning, he found Gladys,
Nelda, and a man whom he decided, by elimination, must be Anton Varcek,
already at the table. The latter rose as Rand entered, and bowed jerkily
as Gladys verified the guess with an introduction.
He was about Rand's own age and height; he had a smooth-shaven,
tight-mouthed face, adorned with bushy eyebrows, each of which was almost
as heavy as Rand's mustache. It was a face that seemed tantalizingly
familiar, and Rand puzzled for a moment, then nodded mentally. Of course
he had seen a face like that hundreds of times, in newsreels and
news-photos, and, once in pre-war Berlin, its living double. Rudolf Hess.
He wondered how much deeper the resemblance went, and tried not to let it
prejudice him.
Nelda greeted him with a trowelful of sweetness and a dash of
bedroom-bait.
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