Murder in the Gunroom Part 22

The extension phone rang shrilly. Walters picked it up, spoke into it, and listened for a moment.

"Yes, Miss Lawrence; he's right here. You wish to speak to him?" He handed the phone across the desk to Rand. "Miss Karen Lawrence, for you, Colonel Rand."

Rand took the phone. Before he had time to say "h.e.l.lo," the antique-shop girl demanded of him:

"Colonel Rand, you must tell me the truth. Did you have anything to do with Pierre Jarrett's being arrested?"

"_What?_" Rand barked. Then he softened his voice. "No; on my honor, Miss Lawrence. I knew nothing about it until this moment. Who did it? Olsen?"

"I don't know what his name was. He was a State Police sergeant," she replied. "He and another State Policeman came to the Jarrett house about half an hour ago, charged Pierre with the murder of Arnold Rivers, and took him away. His mother phoned me about it a few minutes ago."

"That G.o.d-d.a.m.ned two-faced Jesuitical b.a.s.t.a.r.d!" Rand exploded. "Where are you now?"

"Here at my shop. Mrs. Jarrett is coming here. She's afraid the reporters will be coming out to the house as soon as they hear about it, and she doesn't want to talk to them."

"All right. I'll be there as soon as I can. If there's anything I can do to help you, you can count on me for it."

He hung up, and turned to Walters. "Is my car still out front?" he asked.

"It is? Good. I'll be gone for a while; tell the others I have something to attend to."

"What's happened now?" Dunmore asked sourly.

"Just what I was speaking about. The Gestapo gathered up Pierre Jarrett; they seem to have gotten the idea, now, that the motive may have been compet.i.tion for the collection. Next thing, Farnsworth will think he has a case against Carl Gwinnett, and he'll land in the jug, too. I hope you realize that every time something like this happens, it peels a thousand or so off the price I'll be able to get for you people for these pistols."

Dunmore didn't try to ask how that would happen, for which Rand was duly thankful; he accepted the statement uncritically. Walters was staring at Rand in horror, saying nothing. Rand picked up the outside phone and dialed the same number he had called from the Rivers place that morning.

"Is Sergeant McKenna about?... He is? Fine; I'd like to speak to him.... Oh, h.e.l.lo, Mick; Jeff Rand."

McKenna chuckled out of the receiver. "Sort of slipped one over on you, didn't I?" he gloated. "Why, I was checking up on those people who were at Gresham's, last evening, and they all agreed that young Jarrett and the Lawrence girl had left the party about ten. So I had a talk with Miss Lawrence, and she tried to tell me that Jarrett was with her at her apartment, over the antique shop, from about ten fifteen until about twelve, when another girl she rooms with got home from a date. I'd of took that, too, only right across the street from the antique shop there is one of these old hens like you find in every neighborhood, the kind that keeps their nose flattened on the window between the curtains, checking up on the neighbors. I spotted her when I came out of the antique shop, so I slipped around to see her, and she told me that young Jarrett went into the apartment with the girl at about quarter past ten, stayed inside for about twenty minutes, then came out and drove away. She says Jarrett came back in about half an hour, and stayed till this girl who shares the Lawrence girl's apartment--a Miss Dupont, who teaches sixth grade at Thaddeus Stevens School--got home, about twelve. So there you are."

"Uh-huh. Dave Ritter said this was going to turn into another Hall-Mills case; well, now you have your Pig Woman," Rand said. "Miss Lawrence shouldn't have lied to you, Mick. I suppose she got worried when you started asking questions, and there's nothing like a good murder in the neighborhood to make liars out of people."

"And d.a.m.n well I know that!" McKenna agreed. "But that isn't all. It seems our cruise-car crew spotted Jarrett's car standing in Rivers's drive, about eleven. Just when he was away from the antique-shop, and about when the M.E. figures Rivers was getting the business."

"Did they get the number?" Rand asked. "Or how did they identify the car?"

"Oh, they knew it; see, our boys shoot a lot with the Scott County Rifle & Pistol Club, and they've all seen Jarrett's car at the range, different times," McKenna said. "A gray 1947 Plymouth coupe. Like I say, they knew the car, and they knew Jarrett collects guns, and the lights were on inside the shop and the shades were drawn, so they didn't think anything of it, at the time. See, they went to bed about ten this morning, and didn't get up till after five, so I didn't find out about it till after supper."

Rand shrugged, and managed to get some of the shrug into his voice. "Can be, at that," he said. "I hope you're not making a mistake, Mick; if you are, his lawyer's going to crucify you. What are you using for a motive?"

"Rivers was outbidding this crowd Jarrett and the girl were in with. They all told me about that," McKenna said. "And he and the girl were planning to use their end of the collection to go into the arms business, after they got married. Rivers got in the way." McKenna, at the other end of the line, must have shrugged, too. "After all, for about four years, they'd been training Jarrett to overcome resistance with the bayonet, so he did just that."

"Maybe so. You find out anything about that other matter I was interested in?"

"You mean the pistols? Huh-unh; we went over Rivers's place with a fine-tooth comb, and questioned young Gillis about it, and we didn't get a thing. You sure those pistols went to Rivers?"

"I'm not sure of anything at all," Rand replied, looking at his watch.

"You going to be in, say in a couple of hours? I want to have a talk with you."

"Sure. I'll be around all evening," McKenna a.s.sured him. "If we don't have another murder."

Rand hung up. He pulled the sheet out of the typewriter, laid it face down on the other sheets he had finished, and laid a long seventeenth-century Flemish flintlock on top for a paperweight, memorizing the position of the pistol relative to the paper under it.

"Put those pistols back on the wall," he told Walters, indicating several he had laid aside after listing. "Leave the others there; I'm not finished with them yet. I'll be back before too long. If I don't find any more bodies."

CHAPTER 16

It was raining again as Rand parked his car about a hundred yards up the street from Karen Lawrence's antique-shop. The windows were dark, but Karen was waiting inside the door for him. He entered quickly, mindful of the All-Seeing Eye across the street, and followed her to a back room, where Mrs. Jarrett and Dorothy Gresham were. All three women regarded him intently, as though trying to decide whether he was friend or enemy.

There was a long silence before Mrs. Jarrett spoke, and when she did, her words were almost the same as Karen's when she had spoken over the phone.

"Colonel Rand," she began, obviously struggling with herself, "you must tell me the truth. Did you have anything to do with my son's being arrested?"

Rand shook his head. "Absolutely nothing, Mrs. Jarrett," he told her, unbuckling the belt of his raincoat and taking it off. "I have never seriously suspected your son of the Rivers murder, I had no idea that McKenna was contemplating arresting him, and if I had, I would have advised him against it. Besides causing annoyance to innocent people, McKenna's made a serious tactical error. He was misled by appearances, and he was afraid I'd break this case before he did, which I intend to do." He turned to Karen Lawrence. "I talked to McKenna after you called me; he as much as admitted making that arrest to get in ahead of me."

"I told you," Dorothy Gresham flashed at the others. "I knew Jeff wouldn't stoop to anything as contemptible as pretending to be Pierre's friend and then getting him arrested!"

Rand permitted himself a wry inward smile. He hoped she would not have an opportunity to observe his stooping capabilities before he had finished his various operations at Rosemont.

"I certainly hoped not." Mrs. Jarrett relaxed, smiling faintly at Rand.

"Pierre likes you, Colonel. I hated the thought that you might have betrayed him. Are you working on the Rivers case, too?"

Rand nodded again, turning to Dot Gresham. "Your father retained me to make an investigation," he said. "After that trouble he had with Rivers about that spurious North & Cheney, he wanted the murderer caught before somebody got around to accusing him."

"You mean there's a chance Dad might be suspected?" Dot was scared.

Rand nodded. The girl was beginning to look suspiciously at Karen and Mrs. Jarrett. Getting ready to toss Pierre to the wolves if her father were in danger, Rand suspected. He hastened to rea.s.sure her.

"Rivers was still alive when your father reached home, last evening," he told her. "That's been established."

She breathed her obvious relief. If Gresham had left home after Rand's departure with Philip Cabot, she didn't know it.

Karen, on the other hand, was growing more and more worried.

"Look, Colonel," she began. "They didn't just pull Pierre's name out of a hat. They must have had something to suspect him about."

"Yes. You shouldn't have lied to McKenna. He checked up on your story; the woman across the street told him about seeing Pierre leave here a little before eleven and come back about half an hour later."

"I was afraid of that," Karen said. "I forgot all about that old hag.

There's nothing that can go on around here that she doesn't know about; Pierre calls her Mrs. G2."

"And then," Rand continued, "McKenna claims that a car like Pierre's was seen parked in Rivers's drive about the time Pierre was away from here."

Mrs. Jarrett moaned softly; her face, already haggard, became positively ghastly. Karen gasped in fright.