PREFACE

The Lane Fleming collection of early pistols and revolvers was one of the best in the country.  When Fleming was found dead on the floor of his locked gunroom, a Confederate-made Colt-type percussion .36 revolver in his hand, the coroner’s verdict was “death by accident.”  But Gladys Fleming had her doubts.  Enough at any rate to engage Colonel Jefferson Davis Rand—­better known just as Jeff—­private detective and a pistol-collector himself, to catalogue, appraise, and negotiate the sale of her late husband’s collection.

There were a number of people who had wanted the collection.  The question was:  had anyone wanted it badly enough to kill Fleming?  And if so, how had he done it?  Here is a mystery, told against the fascinating background of old guns and gun-collecting, which is rapid-fire without being hysterical, exciting without losing its contact with reason, and which introduces a personable and intelligent new private detective.  It is a story that will keep your nerves on a hair trigger even if you don’t know the difference between a cased pair of Paterson .34’s and a Texas .40 with a ramming-lever._

CHAPTER 1

It was hard to judge Jeff Rand’s age from his appearance; he was certainly over thirty and considerably under fifty.  He looked hard and fit, like a man who could be a serviceable friend or a particularly unpleasant enemy.  Women instinctively suspected that he would make a most satisfying lover.  One might have taken him for a successful lawyer (he had studied law, years ago), or a military officer in mufti (he still had a Reserve colonelcy, and used the title occasionally, to impress people who he thought needed impressing), or a prosperous businessman, as he usually thought of himself.  Most of all, he looked like King Charles II of England anachronistically clad in a Brooks Brothers suit.

At the moment, he was looking rather like King Charles II being bothered by one of his mistresses who wanted a peerage for her husband.

“But, Mrs. Fleming,” he was expostulating.  “There surely must be somebody else....  After all, you’ll have to admit that this isn’t the sort of work this agency handles.”

The would-be client released a series of smoke-rings and watched them float up toward the air-outlet at the office ceiling.  It spoke well for Rand’s ability to subordinate esthetic to business considerations that he was trying to give her a courteous and humane brush-off.  She made even the Petty and Varga girls seem credible.  Her color-scheme was blue and gold; blue eyes, and a blue tailored outfit that would have looked severe on a less curvate figure, and a charmingly absurd little blue hat perched on a mass of golden hair.  If Rand had been Charles II, she could have walked out of there with a duchess’s coronet, and Nell Gwyn would have been back selling oranges.