“You dirty sneak!” she yelled, catching sight of Walters.  “After all we’ve done for you, you turn around and rob us!  I hope they give you twenty years!”

Walters turned to McKenna.  “Sergeant, I am willing to accept the penalty of the law for what I have done, but I don’t believe, sir, that it includes being yapped at by this vulgar bitch.”

Nelda let out an inarticulate howl of fury and sprang at him, nails raking.  Corporal Kavaalen caught her wrist before she could claw the prisoner.

“That’s enough, you!” he told her.  “You stop that, or you’ll spend a night in jail yourself.”

She jerked her arm loose from his grasp and flung out of the library.  As she went out, Gladys entered; Rand, who had been bringing up in the rear, stepped down from the stairway.

“He confessed,” he said softly.  “We had to bluff it out of him, but he came across.  Sold the pistols to Carl Gwinnett.  We’re going, now, to pick up Gwinnett and the pistols.”

“I’m glad you found the pistols,” she told him.  “But what’re we going to do, over the week-end, for a butler....”

Rand snapped his fingers.  “Dammit, I never thought of that!” He allowed his brow to furrow with thought.  “I won’t promise anything, but I may be able to dig up somebody for you, for a day or so.  Some of my friends are visiting their son, in a Naval hospital on the West Coast, and their butler may be glad for a chance to pick up a little extra money.  Shall I call him and find out?”

“Oh, Colonel Rand, would you?  I’d be eternally grateful!”

It was just as easy as that.

CHAPTER 18

Dave Ritter, driving his small coupe, kept his eye on the white State Police car ahead.  Rand, who had come away from the Fleming home in the white car, had called Ritter from the office of the Justice of the Peace while waiting for Walters to put up bail, after his hearing.  Now, en route to Gwinnett’s, he was briefing his assistant on what had happened.

“So everything’s set,” he concluded.  “Mrs. Fleming jumped at it; she knows you’re coming in your own car, which you may keep in the garage there.  You’ve left New Belfast about now; if you show up around three, you’ll be safe on the driving time.  Your name is Davies; I decided on that in case I suffer a lapsus linguae and call you Dave in front of somebody.”

“Yeah.  I’ll have to watch and not call you Jeff, Colonel Rand, sir.”  He nodded toward the glove-box.  “That Leech & Rigdon’s in there; you’d better get it out before I go to the Flemings’.  The guy at the drive-in made a positive identification; it’s the one he sold Fleming.  I saw the rest of the pistols he has there; don’t waste time looking him up about them.  They stink.  And I saw Tip this morning.  He got young Jarrett sprung on a writ.”  He thought for a moment.  “What does this do to the Rivers and Fleming murders?”