Rand thanked him profusely, put the
letter in his pocket, and stuck the Colt down his pants-leg.
About two miles from the county seat Rand stopped his car on a deserted
stretch of road and got out. Unwinding the wire Kirchner had wrapped
around the revolver, he picked up an empty beer-can from the ditch,
set it against an embankment, stepped back about thirty feet and began
firing. The first shot kicked up dirt a little over the can--Rand never
could be sure just how high any percussion Colt was sighted--and the
other four hit the can. He carried the revolver back to the car and put
it into the glove-box with the Leech & Rigdon.
After starting the car, he snapped on the radio, in time for the two
fifteen news-broadcast from the New Belfast station. As he had expected,
the murder was out; the daily budget of strikes and Congressional
investigations and international turmoil was enlivened by a more or less
imaginative account of what had already been christened the "Rosemont
Bayonet Murder." Rand resigned himself to the inevitable influx of
reporters. Then he swore, as the newscaster continued:
"District Attorney Charles P. Farnsworth, of Scott County, who has taken
charge of the investigation, says, and we quote: 'There is strong
evidence implicating certain prominent persons, whom we are not, as yet,
prepared to name, and if the investigation, now under way and making
excellent progress, justifies, they will be apprehended and formally
charged.
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