I'll call you later."
He listened to Goode babble his gratitude for a while, then terminated
the call and hung up. Then he transferred the Colt .38 to the side pocket
of his coat, picked up one of the sheets on which he had been listing
the collection, and sat for almost fifteen minutes pretending to study
it, keeping his eyes shifting from the hall door to the spiral stairway
and back again.
Finally, the hall door opened, and Anton Varcek came in. Rand half rose,
covering the Czech from his side pocket; Varcek came over and sat down in
an armchair near the desk. He was looking more than ever like Rudolf
Hess. Rudolf Hess on the morning of the Beer Hall Putsch.
"Colonel Rand," he began. "There has, within the last half hour, been a
most important development. I am at a loss to define its significance,
but its importance is inescapable."
Rand nodded. He had been expecting somebody to give birth to an important
development; the steps toward gunfire were progressing in logical series.
"Well?" He smiled encouragingly. "What happened?"
"After you and the ladies left the dining-room," Varcek said, "Fred
Dunmore turned to me and apologized for harboring unjust suspicions of me
in the matter of Lane Fleming's death.
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