er, and
I want it, right now. As Mr. Goode's agent, I'm responsible for that
collection, of which the revolver you're holding is a part. That revolver
is too valuable an asset to ignore. You certainly realize that."

"Well, I don't have any intention of exceeding my authority, of course,"
Kirchner disclaimed hastily. "And I certainly wouldn't want to go against
Mr. Goode's wishes." Humphrey Goode must pull considerable weight around
the courthouse, Rand surmised. "But you realize, that revolver's still
loaded...."

"Oh, that's not your worry. I'll draw the charges, or, better, fire them
out. It stood one shot, it can stand the other five."

"Well, would you mind if I called Mr. Goode on the phone?"

Rand did, decidedly. However, he shook his head negligently.

"Certainly not; go ahead and call him, by all means."

The coroner went away. In a few minutes he was back, carrying a
revolver in both hands. Evidently Goode had given him the green light.
He approached, handling the weapon with a caution that would have been
excessive for a Mills grenade; after warning Rand again that it was
loaded, he laid it gently on his desk.

It was a .36 Colt, one of the 1860 series, with the round barrel and the
so-called "creeping" ramming-lever. Somebody had wound a piece of wire
around it, back of the hammer and through the loading-aperture in front
of the cylinder; as the hammer was down on a fired chamber, there was no
way in God's world, short of throwing the thing into a furnace, in which
it could be discharged, but Kirchner was shrinking away from it as though
it might jump at his throat.

"I put the wire on," the coroner said. "I thought it might be safer that
way."

"It'll be a lot safer after I've emptied it into the first claybank,
outside town," Rand told him. "Sorry I had to be a little short with you,
Mr. Kirchner, but you know how it is. I'm responsible to Mr. Goode for
the collection, and this gun's part of it."

"Oh, that's all right; I really shouldn't have taken the attitude I did,"
Kirchner met him halfway. "After I talked to Mr. Goode, of course, I knew
it was all right, but ... You see, I've been bothered a lot about that
pistol, lately."

"Yes?" Rand succeeded in being negligent about it.

"Oh my, yes! The newspaper people wanted to take pictures of me holding
it, and then, there was an antique-dealer who was here trying to buy it."

"Who was that--Arnold Rivers?"

"Why yes! Do you know him? He has