Instead of turning onto the road to the Fleming estate, he continued along Route 19 for a mile or so beyond the village, until he came to a red brick pseudo-Colonial house on the right.  He pulled to the side of the road and got out, turning up the collar of his trench coat.  The air was raw and damp, doubly unpleasant after the recent unseasonable warmth.  An apathetically persistent rain sogged the seedling-dotted old fields on either side, and the pine-woods beyond, and a high ceiling of unbroken dirty gray gave no promise of clearing.  The mournful hoot of a distant locomotive whistle was the only sound to pierce the silence.  For a moment, Rand stood with his back to the car, looking at the gallows-like sign that proclaimed this to be the business-place of Arnold Rivers, Fine Antique and Modern Firearms for the Discriminating Collector.

The house faced the road with a long side; at the left, a porch formed a continuation under a deck roof, and on the right, an ell had been built at right angles, extending thirty feet toward the road.  Although connected to the house by a shed roof, which acquired a double pitch and became a gable roof where the ell projected forward, it was, in effect, a separate building, with its own front door and its own door-path.  Its floor-level was about four feet lower than that of the parent structure.

A Fibber McGee door-chime clanged as Rand entered.  Closing the door behind him, he looked around.  The room, some twenty feet wide and fifty long, was lighted by an almost continuous row of casement windows on the right, and another on the left for as far as the ell extended beyond the house.  They were set high, a good five feet from lower sill to floor, and there was no ceiling; the sloping roof was supported by bare timber rafters.  Racks lined the walls, under the windows, holding long-guns and swords; the pistols and daggers and other small items were displayed on a number of long tables.  In the middle of the room, glaring at the front door, was a brass four-pounder on a ship’s carriage; a Philippine latanka, muzzle tilted upward, stood beside it.  Where the ell joined the house under the shed roof, there was a fireplace, and a short flight of steps to a landing and a door out of the dwelling, and some furniture—­a davenport, three or four deep chairs facing the fire, a low cocktail-table, a cellarette, and, in the far corner, a big desk.

As Rand went toward the rear, a young man rose from one of the chairs, laid aside a magazine, and advanced to meet him.  He didn’t exactly harmonize with all the lethal array around him; he would have looked more at home presiding over an establishment devoted to ladies’ items.  His costume ran to pastel shades, he had large and soulful blue eyes and prettily dimpled cheeks, and his longish blond hair was carefully disordered into a windblown effect.

“Oh, good afternoon,” he greeted.  “Is there anything in particular you’re interested in, or would you like to just look about?”