d-index, or anything like
that?"

"Why no, sir." Walters was positive. Then he hedged. "If he did, I never
saw or heard of anything of the sort. Mr. Fleming knew everything in this
room. I've seen him, downstairs, when somebody would ask him about
something, close his eyes as though trying to visualize and then give a
perfect description of any pistol in the collection. Or else, he could
enumerate all the pistols of a certain type; say, all the Philadelphia
Deringers, or all the Allen pepperboxes, or all the rim-fire Smith &
Wesson tip-back types. He had a remarkable memory for his pistols,
although it was not out of the ordinary otherwise, sir."

Rand nodded. Any collector--at least, any collector who was a serious
arms-student--could do that, particularly if he were a good visualizer
and kept his stuff in some systematic order. At the moment, he could have
named and described any or all of his own modest collection of two
hundred-odd pistols and revolvers.

"I was hoping he'd kept a record," he said. "A great many collectors do,
and it would have helped me quite a bit." He made up his mind to compile
such a record, himself, when he got back to New Belfast. It would be a
big help to Carter Tipton, when it came time to settle his own estate,
and a man on whom the Reaper has scored as many near-misses as on Jeff
Rand should begin to think of such things. "And how about writing
materials? And is there a typewriter available?"

There was: a cased portable was on the floor beside the workbench.
Walters showed him which desk drawers contained paper and other things.
There was, Rand noticed, a loaded .38 Colt Detective Special, in the
upper right-hand desk drawer.

"And these phones," the butler continued, indicating them. "This one is
a private outside phone; it doesn't connect with any other in the house.
The other is an extension. It has a buzzer; the outside phone has a
regular bell."

Rand thanked him for the information. Then, picking up a note-pad and
pencil, he started on the left of the collection, meaning to make a
general list and rough approximation of value for use in talking to
Gresham's friends that evening. Tomorrow he would begin on the detailed
list for use in soliciting outside offers.

Twenty-five wheel locks: four heavy South German dags, two singles
and a pair; three Saxon pistols, with sharply dropped grips, a pair
and one single; five French and Italian sixteenth-century pistols;
a pair of sma