Finally, the meal ended, and the diners drifted away from the table. Rand went to his room for a few moments, then went to the gunroom to get the notes he had made. Fred Dunmore was using the private phone as he entered.
"Well, never mind about that, now," he was saying. "We'll talk about it when I see you.... Yes, of course; so am I.... Well, say about eleven.... Be seeing you."
He hung up and turned to Rand. "More God-damned union trouble," he said. "It's enough to make a saint lose his religion! Our factory-hands are organized in the C.I.O., and our warehouse, sales, and shipping personnel are in the A.F. of L., and if they aren't fighting the company, they're fighting each other. Now they have some damn kind of a jurisdictional dispute.... I don't know what this country's coming to!" He glared angrily through his octagonal glasses for a moment. Then his voice took on an ingratiating note. "Look here, Colonel; I just didn't understand the situation, until you explained it. I hope you aren't taking anything that sister-in-law of mine said seriously. She just blurts out the first thing that comes into her so-called mind; why, only yesterday she was accusing Gladys of bringing you into this to help her gyp the rest of us. And before that ..."
"Oh, forget it." Rand dismissed Geraldine with a shrug. "I know she was talking through a highball glass. As far as selling the collection is concerned, you just let Rivers sell you a bill of something you hadn't gotten a good look at. He's a smart operator, and he's crooked as a wagon-load of blacksnakes. Maybe you never realized just how much money Fleming put into this collection; naturally you wouldn't realize how much could be gotten out of it again. A lot of this stuff has been here for quite a while, and antiques of any kind tend to increase in value."
"Well, I want you to know that I'm just as glad as anybody if you can get a better price out of him than I could." Dunmore smiled ruefully. "I guess he's just a better poker player than I am."
"Not necessarily. He could see your hand, and you couldn't see his," Rand told him.
"You going to see Gresham and his friends, this evening?" Dunmore asked. "Well, when you get back, if you find four cars in the garage, counting the station-wagon, lock up after you've put your own car away. If you find only three, then you'll know that Anton Varcek's still out, so leave it open for him. That's the way we do here; last one in locks up."
CHAPTER 9
Rand found another car, a smoke-gray Plymouth coupé, standing on the left of his Lincoln when he went down to the garage. Running his car outside and down to the highway, he settled down to his regular style of driving—a barely legal fifty m.p.h., punctuated by bursts of absolutely felonious speed whenever he found an unobstructed straightaway. Entering Rosemont, he slowed and went through the underpass at the railroad tracks, speeding again when he was clear of the village. A few minutes later, he was turning into the crushed-limestone drive that led up to the buff-brick Gresham house.