mpty and his pipe
burned out, he left a tip beside the ashtray, paid his check and went
out.

He had two hours until his meeting with Stephen Gresham; he knew exactly
where to spend them. The county seat was a normal twenty minutes' drive
from Rosemont, but with the road relatively free from traffic he was able
to cut that to fifteen. Parking his car in front of the courthouse, he
went inside.

The coroner, one Jason Kirchner, was an inoffensive-looking little fellow
with a Caspar Milquetoast mustache and an underslung jaw. He wore an Elks
watchcharm, an Odd Fellows ring, and a Knights of Pythias lapel-pin. He
looked at Rand's credentials, including the letter Humphrey Goode had
given him, with some bewilderment.

"You're working for Mr. Goode?" he asked, rather needlessly. "Yes, I see;
handling the sale of Mr. Fleming's pistols, for the estate. Yes. That
must be interesting work, Mr. Rand. Now, what can I do for you?"

"Why, I understand you have an item from that collection, here in your
office," Rand said. "The pistol with which Mr. Fleming shot himself.
Regardless of its unpleasant associations, that pistol is a valuable
collector's item, and one of the assets of the estate. If I'm to get full
value for the collection, for the heirs, I'll have to have that, to sell
with the rest of the weapons."

"Well, now, look here, Mr. Rand," Kirchner started to argue, "that
revolver's a dangerous weapon. It's killed one man, already. I don't know
as I ought to let it get out, where it might kill somebody else."

Rand estimated that this situation called for a modified version of his
hard-boiled act.

"You think you can show cause why that revolver shouldn't be turned
over to the Fleming estate?" he demanded. "Well, if I don't get it,
right away, Mr. Goode will get a court order for it. You had no right
to impound that revolver, in the first place; you removed it from the
Fleming home illegally in the second place, since you had no intention
of holding any formal inquest, and you're holding it illegally now. A
court order might not be all we could get, either," he added menacingly.
"Now, if you have any reason to suspect that Mr. Fleming committed
suicide ... or was murdered, for instance ..."

"Oh, my heavens, no!" Kirchner cried, horrified. "It was an accident,
pure and simple; I so certified it. Death by accident, due to
inadvertence of the deceased."

"Well, then," Rand said, "you have no right to hold that revolv