"It probably hasn't been fired since Appomattox," Rand agreed. "Philip, do you think all this didn't-know-it-was-loaded routine might be an elaborate suicide build-up, either before or after the fact?"
"Absolutely not!" There was a trace of impatience in Cabot's voice. "Lane Fleming wasn't the man to commit suicide. I knew him too well ever to believe that."
"I heard a rumor that he was about to lose control of his company," Rand mentioned. "You know how much Premix meant to him."
"That's idiotic!" Cabot's voice was openly scornful, now, and he seemed a little angry that Rand should believe such a story, as though his confidence in his friend's intelligence had been betrayed. "Good Lord, Jeff, where did you ever hear a yarn like that?"
"Quote, usually well-informed sources, unquote."
"Well, they were unusually ill-informed, that time," Cabot replied. "Take my word for it, there's absolutely nothing in it."
"So it wasn't an accident, and it wasn't suicide," Rand considered. "Philip, what is the prognosis on this merger of Premix and National Milling & Packaging, now that Lane Fleming's opposition has been, shall we say, liquidated?"
Cabot's head jerked up; he looked at Rand in shocked surprise.
"My God, you don't think...?" he began. "Jeff, are you investigating Lane Fleming's death?"
"I was retained to sell the collection," Rand stated. "Now, I suppose, I'll have to find out who's been stealing those pistols, and recover them, and jail the thief and the fence. But I was not retained to investigate the death of Lane Fleming. And I do not do work for which I am not paid," he added, with mendacious literalness.