Behind her came Dave Ritter.  He was Rand’s assistant, and also Kathie’s lover.  He was five or six years older than his employer, and slightly built.  His hair, fighting a stubborn rearguard action against baldness, was an indeterminate mousy gray-brown.  It was one of his professional assets that nobody ever noticed him, not even in a crowd of one; when he wanted it to, his thin face could assume the weary, baffled expression of a middle-aged book-keeper with a wife and four children on fifty dollars a week.  Actually, he drew three times that much, had no wife, admitted to no children.  During the war, he and Kathie had kept the Tri-State Agency in something better than a state of suspended animation while Rand had been in the Army.

Ritter fumbled a Camel out of his shirt pocket and made a beeline for the desk, appropriating Rand’s lighter and sharing the flame with Kathie.

“You know, Jeff,” he said, “one of the reasons why this agency never made any money while you were away was that I never had the unadulterated insolence to ask the kind of fees you do.  I was listening in on the extension in the file-room; I could hear Kathie damn near faint when you said five grand.”

“Yes; five thousand dollars for appraising a collection they’ve been offered ten for, and she only has a third-interest,” Kathie said, retracting herself into the chair lately vacated by Gladys Fleming.  “If that makes sense, now ...”

“Ah, don’t you get it, Kathleen Mavourneen?” Ritter asked.  “She doesn’t care about the pistols; she wants Jeff to find out who fixed up that accident for Fleming.  You heard that big, long shaggy-dog story about exactly what happened and where everybody was supposed to have been at the time.  I hope you got all that recorded; it was all told for a purpose.”

Rand had picked up the outside phone and was dialing.  In a moment, a girl’s voice answered.

“Carter Tipton’s law-office; good afternoon.”

“Hello, Rheba; is Tip available?”

“Oh, hello, Jeff.  Just a sec; I’ll see.”  She buzzed another phone.  “Jeff Rand on the line,” she announced.

A clear, slightly Harvard-accented male voice took over.

“Hello, Jeff.  Now what sort of malfeasance have you committed?”

“Nothing, so far—­cross my fingers,” Rand replied.  “I just want a little information.  Are you busy?...  Okay, I’ll be up directly.”

He replaced the phone and turned to his disciples.

“Our client,” he said, “wants two jobs done on one fee.  Getting the pistol-collection sold is one job.  Exploring the whys and wherefores of that quote accident unquote is the other.  She has a hunch, and probably nothing much better, that there’s something sour about the accident.  She expects me to find evidence to that effect while I’m at Rosemont, going over the collection.  I’m not excluding other possibilities, but I’ll work on that line until and unless I find out differently.  Five thousand should cover both jobs.”