Stephen Gresham was in his early sixties, but he could have still worn his World War I uniform without anything giving at the seams, and buckled1 the old Sam Browne at the same hole. As Rand entered, he rose from behind his desk and advanced, smiling cordially.
"Why, hello, Jeff!" he greeted the detective, grasping his hand heartily2. "You haven't been around for months. What have you been doing, and why don't you come out to Rosemont to see us? Dot and Irene were wondering what had become of you."
"I'm afraid I've been neglecting too many of my old friends lately," Rand admitted, sitting down and getting his pipe out. "Been busy as the devil. Fact is, it was business that finally brought me around here. I understand that you and some others are forming a pool to buy the Lane Fleming collection."
"Yes!" Gresham became enthusiastic. "Want in on it? I'm sure the others would be glad to have you in with us. We're going to need all the money we can scrape together, with this damned Rivers bidding against us."
"I'm afraid you will, at that, Stephen," Rand told him. "And not necessarily on account of Rivers. You see, the Fleming estate has just employed me to expertize the collection and handle the sale for them." Rand got his pipe lit and drawing properly. "I hate doing this to you, but you know how it is."
"Oh, of course. I should have known they'd get somebody like you in to sell the collection for them. Humphrey Goode isn't competent to handle that. What we were all afraid of was a public auction3 at some sales-gallery."
Rand shook his head. "Worst thing they could do; a collection like that would go for peanuts at auction. Remember the big sales in the twenties?... Why, here; I'm going to be in Rosemont, staying at the Fleming place, working on the collection, for the next week or so. I suppose your crowd wouldn't want to make an offer until I have everything listed, but I'd like to talk to your associates, in a group, as soon as possible."
"Well, we all know pretty much what's in the collection," Gresham said. "We were neighbors of his, and collectors are a gregarious4 lot. But we aren't anxious to make any premature5 offers. We don't want to offer more than we have to, and at the same time, we don't want to underbid and see the collection sold elsewhere."
"No, of course not." Rand thought for a moment. "Tell you what; I'll give you and your friends the best break I can in fairness to my clients. I'm not obliged to call for sealed bids, or anything like that, so when I've heard from everybody, I'll give you a chance to bid against the highest offer in hand. If you want to top it, you can have the collection for any kind of an overbid that doesn't look too suspiciously nominal6."
"Why, Jeff, I appreciate that," Gresham said. "I think you're entirely7 within your rights, but naturally, we won't mention this outside. I can imagine Arnold Rivers, for instance, taking a very righteous view of such an arrangement."
"Yes, so can I. Of course, if he'd call me a crook8, I'd take that as a compliment," Rand said. "I wonder if I could meet your group, say tomorrow evening? I want to be in a position to assure the Fleming family and Humphrey Goode that you're all serious and responsible."
"Well, we're very serious about it," Gresham replied, "and I think we're all responsible. You can look us up, if you wish. Besides myself, there is Philip Cabot, of Cabot, Joyner & Teale, whom you know, and Adam Trehearne, who's worth about a half-million in industrial shares, and Colin MacBride, who's vice9 president in charge of construction and maintenance for Edison-Public Power & Light, at about twenty thousand a year, and Pierre Jarrett and his fiancée, Karen Lawrence. Pierre was a Marine10 captain, invalided11 home after being wounded on Peleliu; he writes science-fiction for the pulps12. Karen has a little general-antique business in Rosemont. They intend using their share of the collection, plus such culls13 and duplicates as the rest of us can consign14 to them, to go into the arms business, with a general-antique sideline, which Karen can manage while Pierre's writing.... Tell you what; I'll call a meeting at my place tomorrow evening, say at eight thirty. That suit you?"
That, Rand agreed, would be all right. Gresham asked him how recently he had seen the Fleming collection.
"About two years ago; right after I got back from Germany. You remember, we went there together, one evening in March."
"Yes, that's right. We didn't have time to see everything," Gresham said. "My God, Jeff! Twenty-five wheel locks! Ten snaphaunces. And every imaginable kind of flintlock—over a hundred U.S. Martials, including the 1818 Springfield, all the S. North types, a couple of Virginia Manufactory models, and—he got this since the last time you saw the collection—a real Rappahannock Forge flintlock. And about a hundred and fifty Colts, all models and most variants15. Remember that big Whitneyville Walker, in original condition? He got that one in 1924, at the Fred Hines sale, at the old Walpole Galleries. And seven Paterson Colts, including a couple of cased sets. And anything else you can think of. A Hall flintlock breech-loader; an Elisha Collier flintlock revolver; a pair of Forsythe detonator-lock pistols.... Oh, that's a collection to end collections."
"By the way, Humphrey Goode showed me a pair of big ball-butt wheel locks, all covered with ivory inlay," Rand mentioned.
Gresham laughed heartily. "Aren't they the damnedest ever seen, though?" he asked. "Made in Germany, about 1870 or '80, about the time arms-collecting was just getting out of the family-heirloom stage, wouldn't you say?"
"I'd say made in Japan, about 1920," Rand replied. "Remember, there were a couple of small human figures on each pistol, a knight16 and a huntsman? Did you notice that they had slant17 eyes?" He stopped laughing, and looked at Gresham seriously. "Just how much more of that sort of thing do you think I'm going to have to weed out of the collection, before I can offer it for sale?" he asked.
Gresham shook his head. "They're all. They were Lane Fleming's one false step. Ordinarily, Lane was a careful buyer; he must have let himself get hypnotized by all that ivory and gold, and all that documentation on crested18 notepaper. You know, Fleming's death was an undeserved stroke of luck for Arnold Rivers. If he hadn't been killed just when he was, he'd have run Rivers out of the old-arms business."
"I notice that Rivers isn't advertising19 in the American Rifleman any more," Rand observed.
"No; the National Rifle Association stopped his ad, and lifted his membership card for good measure," Gresham said. "Rivers sold a rifle to a collector down in Virginia, about three years ago, while you were still occupying Germany. A fine, early flintlock Kentuck, that had been made out of a fine, late percussion20 Kentuck by sawing off the breech-end of the barrel, rethreading it for the breech-plug, drilling a new vent21, and fitting the lock with a flint hammer and a pan-and-frizzen assembly, and shortening the fore-end to fit. Rivers has a gunsmith over at Kingsville, one Elmer Umholtz, who does all his fraudulent conversions22 for him. I have an example of Umholtz's craftsmanship23, myself. The collector who bought this spurious flintlock spotted24 what had been done, and squawked to the Rifle Association, and to the postal25 authorities."
"Rivers claimed, I suppose, that he had gotten it from a family that had owned it ever since it was made, and showed letters signed 'D. Boone' and 'Davy Crockett' to prove it?"
"No, he claimed to have gotten it in trade from some wayfaring26 collector," Gresham replied. "He convinced Uncle Whiskers, but the N.R.A. took a slightly dimmer view of the transaction, so Rivers doesn't advertise in the Rifleman any more."
"Wasn't there some talk about Whitneyville Walker Colts that had been made out of 1848 Model Colt Dragoons?" Rand asked.
"Oh Lord, yes! This fellow Umholtz was practically turning them out on an assembly-line, for a while. Rivers must have sold about ten of them. You know, Umholtz is a really fine gunsmith; I had him build a deer-rifle for Dot, a couple of years ago—Mexican-Mauser action, Johnson barrel, chambered for .300 Savage27; Umholtz made the stock and fitted a scope-sight—it's a beautiful little rifle. I hate to see him prostitute his talents the way he does by making these fake antiques for Rivers. You know, he made one of these mythical28 heavy .44 six-shooters of the sort Colt was supposed to have turned out at Paterson in 1839 for Colonel Walker's Texas Rangers—you know, the model he couldn't find any of in 1847, when he made the real Walker Colt. That story you find in Sawyer's book."
"Why, that story's been absolutely disproved," Rand said. "There never was any such revolver."
"Not till Umholtz made one," Gresham replied. "Rivers sold it to,"—he named a moving-picture bigshot—"for twenty-five hundred dollars. His story was that he picked it up in Mexico, in 1938; traded a .38-special to some halfbreed goat-herder for it."
"This fellow who bought it, now; did he see Belden and Haven's Colt book, when it came out in 1940?"
"Yes, and he was plenty burned up, but what could he do? Rivers was dug in behind this innocent-purchase-and-sale-in-good-faith Maginot Line of his. You know, that bastard29 took me, once, just one-tenth as badly, with a fake U.S. North & Cheney Navy flintlock 1799 Model that had been made out of a French 1777 Model." The lawyer muttered obscenely.
"Why didn't you sue hell out of him?" Rand asked. "You might not have gotten anything, but you'd have given him a lot of dirty publicity30. That's all Fleming was expecting to do about those wheel locks."
"I'm not Fleming. He could afford litigation like that; I can't. I want my money, and if I don't get it in cash, I'm going to beat it out of that dirty little swindler's hide," Gresham replied, an ugly look appearing on his face.
"I wouldn't blame you. You could find plenty of other collectors who'd hold your coat while you were doing it," Rand told him. Then he inquired, idly: "What sort of a pistol was it that Lane Fleming is supposed to have shot himself with?"
Gresham frowned. "I really don't know; I didn't see it. It's supposed to have been a Confederate Leech31 & Rigdon .36; you know, one of those imitation Colt Navy Models that were made in the South during the Civil War."
Rand nodded. He was familiar with the type.
"The story is that Fleming found it hanging back of the counter at some roadside lunch-stand, along with a lot of other old pistols, and talked the proprietor32 into letting it go for a few dollars," Gresham continued. "It was supposed to have been loaded at the time, and went off while Fleming was working on it, at home." He shook his head. "I can't believe that, Jeff. Lane Fleming would know a loaded revolver when he saw one. I believe he deliberately33 shot himself, and the family faked the accident and fixed34 the authorities. The police never made any investigation35; it was handled by the coroner alone. And our coroner, out in Scott County, is eminently36 fixable, if you go about it right; a pitiful little nonentity37 with a tremendous inferiority complex."
"But good Lord, why?" Rand demanded. "I never heard of Fleming having any troubles worth killing38 himself over."
Gresham lowered his voice. "Jeff, I'm not supposed to talk about this, but the fact is that I believe Fleming was about to lose control of the Premix Company," he said. "I have, well, sources of inside information. This is in confidence, so don't quote me, but certain influences were at work, inside the company, toward that end." He inspected the tip of his cigar and knocked off the ash into the tray at his elbow. "Lane Fleming's death is on record as accidental, Jeff. It's been written off as such. It would be a great deal better for all concerned if it were left at that."
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buckled
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| a. 有带扣的 | |
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heartily
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| adv.衷心地，诚恳地，十分，很 | |
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auction
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| n.拍卖；拍卖会；vt.拍卖 | |
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gregarious
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| adj.群居的，喜好群居的 | |
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premature
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| adj.比预期时间早的；不成熟的，仓促的 | |
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nominal
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| adj.名义上的；(金额、租金)微不足道的 | |
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entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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crook
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| v.使弯曲；n.小偷，骗子，贼；弯曲(处) | |
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vice
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| n.坏事；恶习；[pl.]台钳，老虎钳；adj.副的 | |
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marine
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| adj.海的；海生的；航海的；海事的；n.水兵 | |
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invalided
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| 使伤残（invalid的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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pulps
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| 水果的肉质部分( pulp的第三人称单数 )； 果肉； 纸浆； 低级书刊 | |
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culls
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| n.挑选，剔除( cull的名词复数 )v.挑选，剔除( cull的第三人称单数 ) | |
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consign
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| vt.寄售（货品），托运，交托，委托 | |
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variants
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| n.变体( variant的名词复数 )；变种；变型；（词等的）变体 | |
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knight
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| n.骑士，武士；爵士 | |
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slant
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| v.倾斜，倾向性地编写或报道；n.斜面，倾向 | |
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crested
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| adj.有顶饰的，有纹章的，有冠毛的v.到达山顶（或浪峰）( crest的过去式和过去分词 )；到达洪峰，达到顶点 | |
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advertising
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| n.广告业；广告活动 a.广告的；广告业务的 | |
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percussion
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| n.打击乐器；冲突，撞击；震动，音响 | |
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vent
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| n.通风口，排放口；开衩；vt.表达，发泄 | |
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conversions
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| 变换( conversion的名词复数 )； （宗教、信仰等）彻底改变； （尤指为居住而）改建的房屋； 橄榄球（触地得分后再把球射中球门的）附加得分 | |
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craftsmanship
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| n.手艺 | |
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spotted
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| adj.有斑点的，斑纹的，弄污了的 | |
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postal
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| adj.邮政的，邮局的 | |
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wayfaring
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| adj.旅行的n.徒步旅行 | |
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savage
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| adj.野蛮的；凶恶的，残暴的；n.未开化的人 | |
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mythical
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| adj.神话的；虚构的；想像的 | |
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bastard
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| n.坏蛋，混蛋；私生子 | |
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publicity
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| n.众所周知，闻名；宣传，广告 | |
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leech
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| n.水蛭，吸血鬼，榨取他人利益的人；vt.以水蛭吸血；vi.依附于别人 | |
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proprietor
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| n.所有人；业主；经营者 | |
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deliberately
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| adv.审慎地；蓄意地；故意地 | |
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fixed
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| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
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investigation
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| n.调查，调查研究 | |
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eminently
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| adv.突出地；显著地；不寻常地 | |
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nonentity
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| n.无足轻重的人 | |
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killing
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| n.巨额利润；突然赚大钱，发大财 | |
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