Murder in the Gunroom by H. Beam Piper (100 books to read in a lifetime TXT) 📕

bed with her.” She laid down the pistol and slid off the desk. “Well, pleasant dreams; I’ll see you in the morning.”

After she had left the gunroom, Rand looked at his watch. It was a very precise instrument; a Swiss military watch, with a sweep second hand, and two timing dials. It had formerly been the property of an Obergruppenführer of the S.S., and Rand had appropriated it to replace his own, broken while choking the Obergruppenführer to death in an alley in Palermo. He zeroed the timing dials and pressed the start-button. Then he stood for a time over the old cobbler’s bench, mentally reconstructing what had been done after Lane Fleming had been shot, after which he hurried down the spiral and along the rear hall to the garage, where he snatched his hat and coat from the car. He threw the coat over his shoulders like a cloak, and went on outside. He made his way across the lawn to the orchard, through the orchard to the lawn of Humphrey Goode’s house, and across this to Goode’s side door. He stood there for a few seconds, imagining himself opening the door and going inside. Then he stopped the timing hands and returned to the Fleming house, locking the garage doors behind him. In the garage, he looked at the watch.

It had taken exactly six minutes and twenty-two seconds. He knew that he could move more rapidly than the dumpy lawyer, but to balance that, he had been moving over more or less unfamiliar ground. He left his hat and trench coat in the car and went upstairs.

Undressing, he went into the bathroom in his dressing-gown, spent about twenty minutes shaving and taking a shower, and then returned to his own room.

XVII

When he rose, the next morning, Rand noticed something which had escaped his eye when he had gone to bed the night before. His .38-special, in its shoulder-holster, was lying on the dresser; he had not bothered putting it on when he had gone to see Rivers the morning before, and it had lain there all the previous day. He distinctly remembered having moved it, shortly after dinner, when he had gone to his room for some notes he had made on the collection.

However, between that time and the present it had managed to flop itself over; the holster was now lying back-up. Intrigued by such a remarkable accomplishment in an inanimate object, Rand crossed the room in the dress-of-nature in which he slept and looked more closely at it, receiving a second and considerably more severe surprise. The revolver in the holster was not his own.

It was, to be sure, a .38 Colt Detective Special, and it was in his holster, but it was not the Detective Special he had brought with him from New Belfast. His own gun was of the second type, with the corners rounded off the grip; this one was of the original issue, with the square Police Positive grip. His own gun had seen hard service; this one was in practically new condition. There was a discrepancy of about thirty thousand in the serial numbers. His gun had been loaded in six chambers with the standard 158-grain loads; this one was loaded in only five, with 148-grain mid-range wad-cutter loads.

Rand stood for some time looking at the revolver. The worst of it was that he couldn’t be exactly sure when the substitution had been made. It might have happened at any time between eight o’clock and twelve, when he had gone to bed. He rather suspected that it had been accomplished while he had been in the bathroom, however.

Dumping out the five rounds in the cylinder, he inspected the changeling carefully. It was, he thought, the revolver Lane Fleming had kept in the drawer of the gunroom desk. There was no obstruction in the two-inch barrel, the weapon had not been either fired or cleaned recently, the firing-pin had not been shortened, the mainspring showed the proper amount of tension, and the mechanism functioned as it should. There was a chance that somebody had made up five special hand-loads for him, using nitroglycerin instead of powder, but that didn’t seem likely, as it would not necessitate a switch of revolvers. There were four or five other possibilities, all of them disquieting; he would have been a great deal less alarmed if somebody had taken a shot at him.

Getting a box of cartridges out of his Gladstone, he filled the cylinder with 158-grain loads. When he went to the bathroom, he took the revolver in his dressing-gown pocket; when he dressed, he put on the shoulder-holster, and pocketed a handful of spare rounds.

Anton Varcek was loitering in the hall when he came out; he gave Rand good morning, and fell into step with him as they went toward the stairway.

“Colonel Rand, I wish you wouldn’t mention this to anybody, but I would like a private talk with you,” the Czech said. “After Fred Dunmore has left for the plant. Would that be possible?”

“Yes, Mr. Varcek; I’ll be in the gunroom all morning, working.” They reached the bottom of the stairway, where Gladys was waiting. “Understand,” Rand continued, “I never really studied biology. I was exposed to it, in school, but at that time I was preoccupied with the so-called social sciences.”

Varcek took the conversational shift in stride. “Of course,” he agreed. “But you are trained in the scientific method of thought. That, at least, is something. When I have opportunity to explain my ideas more fully, I believe you will be interested in my conclusions.”

They greeted Gladys, and walked with her to the dining-room. As usual, Geraldine was absent; Dunmore and Nelda were already at the table, eating in silence. Both of them seemed self-conscious, after the pitched battle of the evening before. Rand broke the tension by offering Humphrey Goode in the role of whipping-boy; he had no sooner made a