t it," Gwinnett advised. "Making a big offer to scare
away competition is one thing, and paying off on it is another. I've seen
that happen before, you know. Fact is, there's one dealer, not far from
here, who makes a regular habit of it. He'll make some fantastic offer,
and then, when everybody's been bluffed out, he'll start making
objections and finding faults, and before long he'll be down to about
a quarter of his original price."

"The practice isn't unknown," Rand admitted.

"I'll bet you don't have this twenty-five thousand dollar offer on paper,
over a signature," Gwinnett pursued. "Well, here." He opened his brief
case and extracted a sheet of paper, handing it to Rand. "You can file
this; I'll stand back of it."

Rand looked at the typed and signed statement to the effect that Carl
Gwinnett agreed to pay the sum of fifteen thousand dollars for the Lane
Fleming pistol-collection, in its entirety, within thirty days of date.
That was an average of six dollars a pistol. There had been a time, not
too long ago, when a pistol-collection with an average value of six
dollars, particularly one as large as the Fleming collection, had been
something unusual. For one thing, arms values had increased sharply in
the meantime. For another, Lane Fleming had kept his collection clean of
the two-dollar items which dragged down so many collectors' average
values. Except for the two-dozen-odd mysterious interlopers, there wasn't
a pistol in the Fleming collection that wasn't worth at least twenty
dollars, and quite a few had values expressible in three figures.

"Well, your offer is duly received and filed, Mr. Gwinnett," Rand told
him, folding the sheet and putting it in his pocket. "This is better
than an unwitnessed verbal statement that somebody is willing to pay
twenty-five thousand. I'll certainly bear you in mind."

"You can show that to Arnold Rivers, if you want to," Gwinnett said. "See
how much he's willing to commit himself to, over his signature."

CHAPTER 8

Pre-dinner cocktails in the library seemed to be a sort of household
rite--a self-imposed Truce of Bacchus before the resumption of
hostilities in the dining-room. It lasted from six forty-five to seven;
everybody sipped Manhattans and kept quiet and listened to the radio
newscast. The only new face, to Rand, was Fred Dunmore's.

It was a smooth, pinkly-shaven face, decorated with octagonal rimless
glasses; an entirely unremarkable face; the fac