And, right away, Rivers upped it to
twenty-five thousand. You'll recall, no doubt, that Mr. Fleming had a
life-insurance policy, one of these partnership mutual policies, which
gave both Dunmore and Varcek exactly twenty-five thousand apiece. I
assume that Rivers had found out about that.
"I thought, at the time, that it was peculiar that Rivers would jump his
own offer up, without knowing what anybody else was offering for the
collection. I see, now, that it wasn't his own money he was being so
generous with. And there was another incident, while I was at Rivers's
shop, that piqued my curiosity. Rivers had in his shop a .36 Leech &
Rigdon revolver, and I had been informed that it was a revolver of that
type that Mr. Fleming had brought home the evening he was killed. I
thought at the time that it was curious that two Confederate arms of the
same type and make should show up this far north, but my main idea in
buying it was the possibility that I might use it, in some way as
circumstances would permit, to throw a scare into somebody. Rivers was
quite willing to let me have it until he found out that I would be
staying at this house, and then he tried to back out of the sale and
offered me seventy-five dollars' credit on anything else in the shop, if
I'd return it to him.
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