" He had left the library door purposely open; when the
doorbell rang, he heard it. "I'll let them in," he said. "You go and head
Walters off."
Rand hurried to the front door and admitted Gresham and Pierre, hustling
them down the hall, into the library, and up the spiral to the gunroom,
while Gladys went to the foot of the front stairs. Through the open
gunroom door, Rand could hear her speaking to Walters, as though sending
him on some errand to the rear of the house. He closed the door and
turned to the others.
"We'll have to make it fast," he said. "Mrs. Fleming can't hold the
butler off all day. Let's start over here, and go around the racks."
They began at the left, with the wheel locks. Pierre put his finger
immediately on the shabby and disreputable specimen Rand had first
noticed.
"Phew! Is that one a stinker!" he said. "What used to be there was a
nice late sixteenth- or early seventeenth-century North Italian pistol,
all covered with steel filigree-work. A real beauty; much better than
average."
"Those Turkish atrocities," Gresham pointed out. "They're filling in for
a pair of Lazarino Cominazo snaphaunces that Lane Fleming paid seven
hundred for, back in the mid-thirties, and didn't pay a cent too much
for, even then.
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