to where it had been stolen from?"

"No, I wouldn't. And if I were a butler who'd been robbing a valuable
collection, and an agency man moved in and started poking around, I might
get in a panic and do something extreme. That all hangs together, too."

While Rand was talking to McKenna, Private Jameson wandered back through
the shop.

"Hey, Sarge, is there any way into the house from here?" he asked. "The
outside doors are all locked, and I can't raise anybody."

Rand pointed out the flight of steps beside the fireplace. "I saw Rivers
come out of the house that way, yesterday," he said.

The State Policeman went up the steps and tried the door; it opened, and
he went through.

"Chances are Mrs. Rivers is away," McKenna said. "She's away a lot. They
have a colored girl who comes in by the day, but she doesn't generally
get here before noon. And the clerk doesn't get here till about the same
time."

"You seem to know a lot about this household," Rand said.

"Yeah. We have this place marked up as a bad burglary- and stick-up
hazard; we keep an eye on it. Rivers has all these guns, he does a big
cash business, he always has a couple of hundred to a thousand on
him--it's a wonder somebody hasn't made a try at this place long
ago.... Tell you what, Jeff; say you check up on this butler at the
Fleming place for us, and we'll check up here and see if we can find any
of the stuff that was stolen. We can get together and compare notes.
Maybe one or another of us may run across something about that accident
of Fleming's, too."

"Suits me. I'll be glad to help you, and I'll be glad for any help you
can give me on recovering those pistols. I haven't made any formal report
on that, yet, because I'm not sure exactly what's missing, and I don't
want any of that kind of publicity while I'm trying to sell the
collection. It may be that the two matters are related; there are some
points of similarity, which may or may not mean anything. And, of course,
I just may find somebody who'll make it worth my time to get interested
in this killing, while I'm at it."

McKenna chuckled. "That must hurt hell out of you, Jeff," he said. "A
nice classy murder like this, and nobody to pay you to work on it."

"It does," Rand admitted. "I feel like an undertaker watching a man being
swallowed by a shark."

"You want to stick around till this clerk of Rivers's gets here?" McKenna
asked. "He should be here in about an hour and a half."

"N