"
"We can check possible thefts with Rivers's clerk, when he gets here,"
McKenna said. "Now, suppose you show me these things you found, back at
the rear ... Aarvo, you and the boys start taking pictures," he told
the corporal, then he followed Rand back through the shop.
He tested the temperature of the water in the ice-bowl with his finger.
He looked at the ashtray, and bent over and sniffed at each of the two
glasses.
"I see one of them's been emptied out," he commented. "Want to bet it
hasn't been wiped clean, too?"
"Huh-unh." Rand smiled slightly. "Even the tiny tots wipe off the
cookie-jar, after they've raided it," he said.
A flash-bulb lit the front of the shop briefly. Corporal Kavaalen said
something to the others. McKenna picked up the card Rand had found by the
edges and looked at it.
"What in hell's this all about, Jeff?" he asked.
"Rivers made it out for one of his pistols. An English flintlock
pocket-pistol; I can show you one almost like it, up front. He'd gotten
it and three others, back in 1938, in trade for a Kentucky rifle. The
numbers are reference-numbers; the letters are Rivers's private
price-code. Those three at the end are, respectively, what he absolutely
had to get for it, what he thought was a reasonable price, and the most
he thought the traffic would stand.
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