h with."

CHAPTER 3

Humphrey Goode was sixty-ish, short and chunky, with a fringe of
white hair around a bald crown. His brow was corrugated with wrinkles,
and he peered suspiciously at Rand through a pair of thick-lensed,
black-ribboned glasses. His wide mouth curved downward at the corners
in an expression that was probably intended to be stern and succeeded
only in being pompous. His office was dark, and smelled of dusty books.

"Mr. Rand," he began accusingly, "when your secretary called to make this
appointment, she informed me that you had been retained by Mrs. Gladys
Fleming."

"That's correct." Rand slowly packed tobacco into his pipe and lit it.
"Mrs. Fleming wants me to look after some interests of hers, and as
you're executor of her late husband's estate, I thought I ought to talk
to you, first of all."

Goode's eyes narrowed behind the thick glasses.

"Mr. Rand, if you're investigating the death of Lane Fleming, you're
wasting your time and Mrs. Fleming's money," he lectured. "There is
nothing whatever for you to find out that is not already public
knowledge. Mr. Fleming was accidentally killed by the discharge of an old
revolver he was cleaning. I don't know what foolish feminine impulse led
Mrs. Fleming to employ you, but you'll do nobody any good in this matter,
and you may do a great deal of harm."

"Did my secretary tell you I was making an investigation?" Rand demanded
incredulously. "She doesn't usually make mistakes of that sort."

The wrinkles moved up Goode's brow like a battalion advancing in platoon
front. He looked even more narrowly at Rand, his suspicion compounded
with bewilderment.

"Why should I investigate the death of Lane Fleming?" Rand continued.
"As far as I know, Mrs. Fleming is satisfied that it was an accident. She
never expressed any other belief to me. Do you think it was anything
else?"

"Why, of course not!" Goode exclaimed. "That's just what I was telling
you. I--" He took a fresh start. "There have been rumors--utterly without
foundation, of course--that Mr. Fleming committed suicide. They are, I
may say, nothing but malicious fabrications, circulated for the purpose
of undermining public confidence in Premix Foods, Incorporated. I had
thought that perhaps Mrs. Fleming might have heard them, and decided, on
her own responsibility, to bring you in to scotch them; I was afraid that
such a step might, by giving these rumors fresh currency, defeat its
intende