But why were you back here
bright and early this morning? You working on Rivers for somebody? If so,
give."
Rand told him what he was working on. "Rivers wants to buy the Fleming
collection. That was the reason I saw him yesterday. But the reason I
came here, this morning, is that I find that somebody has stolen about
two dozen of the best pistols out of the collection since Fleming's
death, and tried to cover up by replacing them with some junk that Lane
Fleming wouldn't have allowed inside his house. For my money, it's the
butler. Now that Fleming's dead, he's the only one in the house who knows
enough about arms to know what was worth stealing. He has constant access
to the gunroom. I caught him in a lie about a book Fleming kept a record
of his collection in, and now the book has vanished. And furthermore, and
most important, if he'd been on the level, he would have spotted what was
going on, long ago, and squawked about it."
"That's a damn good circumstantial case, Jeff," McKenna nodded. "Nothing
you could take to a jury, of course, but mighty good grounds for
suspicion.... You think Rivers could have been the fence?"
"He could have been. Whoever was higrading the collection had to have an
outlet for his stuff, and he had to have a source of supply for the junk
he was infiltrating into the collection as replacements.
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