Well, that was to be expected. The way these pistols were arranged, the
absence of one from its hooks would have been instantly obvious. So, as
the good stuff had moved out, these disreputable changelings had moved
in.
"You had rather a shocking experience here, in Mr. Fleming's death," Rand
said, over his shoulder, to the butler.
"Oh, yes indeed, sir!" Walters seemed relieved that Rand had broken the
silence. "A great loss to all of us, sir. And so unexpected."
He didn't seem averse to talking about it, and went on at some length.
His story closely paralleled that of Gladys Fleming.
"Mr. Varcek called the doctor immediately," he said. "Then Mr. Dunmore
pointed out that the doctor would be obliged to notify either the coroner
or the police, so he called Mr. Goode, the family solicitor. That was
about twenty minutes after the shot. Mr. Goode arrived directly; he was
here in about ten minutes. I must say, sir, I was glad to see him; to
tell the truth, I had been afraid that the authorities might claim that
Mr. Fleming had shot himself deliberately."
Somebody else doesn't like the smell of that accident, Rand thought.
Aloud, he said:
"Mr. Goode lives nearby, then, I take it?"
"Oh, yes, sir. You can see his house from these windows. Over here, sir."
Rand looked out the window. The rain-soaked lawn of the Fleming residence
ended about a hundred yards to the west; beyond it, an orchard was
beginning to break into leaf, and beyond the orchard and another lawn
stood a half-timbered Tudor-style house, somewhat smaller than the
Fleming place. A path led down from it to the orchard, and another led
from the orchard to the rear of the house from which Rand looked.
"Must be comforting to know your lawyer's so handy," he commented. "And
what do you think, Walters? Are you satisfied, in your own mind, that Mr.
Fleming was killed accidentally?"
The servant looked at him seriously. "No, sir; I'm not," he replied.
"I've thought about it a great deal, since it happened, sir, and I just
can't believe that Mr. Fleming would have that revolver, and start
working on it, without knowing that it was loaded. That just isn't
possible, if you'll pardon me, sir. And I can't understand how he would
have shot himself while removing the charges. The fact is, when I came up
here at quarter of seven, to call him for cocktails, he had the whole
thing apart and spread out in front of him." The butler thought for a
moment. "I believe Mr. Dunmore had something like that in mind when he
called Mr. Goode."
"Well, what happened?" Rand asked. "Did the coroner or the doctor choke
on calling it an accident?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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