O. You remember what happened that
evening. Nelda had gone out. You and Geraldine were listening to the
radio in the parlor, over there. Varcek had gone up to his lab. Mr.
Fleming was alone in the gunroom, working on his new revolver. And Fred
Dunmore said he was going to take a bath. What he did, of course, was to
draw a tub full of water, undress, put on his bathrobe and slippers, hide
the .36 Colt under the bathrobe, and then go across the hall to the
gunroom, where he found Mr. Fleming sitting on that cobbler's bench,
putting the finishing touches on the Leech & Rigdon. So he fired at close
range, wiped the prints off the Colt with an oily rag, put it in Lane
Fleming's right hand, put the rag in his left, grabbed up the Leech &
Rigdon, and scuttled back to his bathroom, deadlatching and shutting the
gunroom door as he went out. This last, of course, was a delaying tactic,
to give him time to establish his bathtub alibi."
He lifted the cocktail glass to his lips. These vodka Martinis were
strong, and three of them before dinner was leaning way over backward
maintaining the tradition of the hard-drinking private eye, but Gladys
was working on her third, and no client was going to drink him under.
"So, in the privacy of his bathroom, he kicked out of his slippers, threw
off his robe, hid the Leech & Rigdon, probably in a space between the tub
and the wall that I found while we were searching the house, the night
before the shooting of Dunmore, and jumped into the tub, there to await
developments.
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