Ms. Ebersol got it. “That’s why I know the name,” she said. “Then …” She looked at him. “… You’re a criminal attorney.”
“Guilty as charged,” Steve said.
She turned to Timberlaine. “You have a criminal attorney here, Russ?”
Timberlaine smiled. “It would appear I do.”
Potter nodded judiciously. “Good idea.”
Burdett came bustling up, gave a perfunctory nod to the rest of the table and grabbed Potter around the shoulder. “Jack,” he said, “I got two guns I want you to look at after dinner.”
“Oh?” Potter said. “Which two?”
Burdett held up his finger and smiled. “Tut, tut. Tell you after dinner.” He pointed at Timberlaine. “But you don’t tell him.”
Potter shrugged. “I’m his expert.”
“Yes, but you know the rules.” Burdett grinned. “What, have I got to bring my own expert to these things? I get independent examinations and you don’t tell anyone, that’s the deal. Right?”
Potter shrugged. “Right.”
“Then why do you say, I’m his expert?”
Potter shrugged again and his eyes twinkled slightly, “Because I’m his expert.”
Everyone laughed, Burdett included. Everyone but Timberlaine, who couldn’t hide his annoyance.
Burdett waggled a finger at Potter. “Now, now. You talk, I talk. I put it around gun circles you’re not to be trusted, how many of these cushy weekend assignments you gonna get?”
Crumbly’s laugh boomed again. “Good move, Burdett. Threaten the man you’re counting on for confidential advice.”
Burdett smiled. “Threat? What threat? I’m merely reminding him of the rules. The game isn’t fair if you don’t play by the rules, right?”
“This is not a game,” Ms. Ebersol said.
Burdett’s teeth flashed. “Of course it’s a game. That’s the whole point. If it weren’t, it wouldn’t be any fun. Right, Russ?”
Timberlaine didn’t answer, just glowered at him.
“See,” Burdett said. “The strong, silent type. That’s how he plays the game. Me, I don’t fit the image, I gotta play it my own way. But I certainly intend to play it.” He turned to Mr. Potter. “Jack? After dinner?”
Potter shrugged and smiled. “At your service.”
Burdett nodded, scuttled back to his own table and sat down.
Ms. Ebersol watched him go. “Insufferable,” she said.
“Now, now,” Mrs. Crumbly said. “If you don’t take him seriously, he’s sort of amusing.”
Timberlaine nodded grimly. “Sure,” he said.
When the meal ended, Burdett materialized at the table like an evil specter and grabbed Potter. “Come on, Jack,” he said. “You too, Nigouri. We want to look at a couple of your guns.”
“Which ones?” Nigouri said.
Burdett raised his finger. “Oh, no. I know you’re reporting back to Russ. We’ll see the whole batch.” Burdett shook his head. “Always trying. These guys. Always trying.”
Burdett corralled Potter and Nigouri and herded them out of the room. When they were gone, Steve managed to draw Timberlaine aside. “Look, I have to tell you,” Steve said, “I feel like a damn fool about this whole thing. But if you got a few moments, why don’t you show me and Tracy where you keep the guns.”
“Sure,” Timberlaine said. “Let me show you the layout.”
They went from the dining room into the main hall.
“My study’s in the west wing,” Timberlaine said. He grinned. “Bit of a jaunt, actually. One hell of a house, huh? Come on.”
He led them off down the hall.
“Are we apt to bump into Burdett and the gang?” Steve said.
“No, the viewing rooms are in the east wing.”
“Viewing rooms?”
“Two rooms set aside for dealers and collectors to display and examine wares.”
“What’s the big deal about secrecy?” Tracy asked.
Timberlaine frowned. “I beg your pardon?”
“At dinner. Burdett going on and on telling your expert not to tell you.”
“Of course,” Timberlaine said.
“But a gun’s a gun,” Tracy said. “I mean, your expert’s going to tell you the same thing he tells Burdett.”
“Of course.”
“So what’s the point?”
“It makes a big difference to know what someone’s going to bid on in advance. We’re all relatively rich, but it’s not as if anyone had unlimited funds. We’re auctioning off close to two hundred guns tomorrow. No one is going to buy them all. You save your money and bid on what you really want.”
“So?” Tracy said.
“So,” Timberlaine said irritably, “if you know what a person’s going to bid on, and if you’re a pain in the ass who wants to make it tough on them, you save your money to bid against them on that item.
“Well, here we are.”
Timberlaine stood aside and ushered them through a wide double door to the left. Steve and Tracy stepped in and found themselves in a room nearly as large as the dining room. The walls were lined with bookshelves and display cases. The cases were glass-enclosed and held gun racks, filled with rifles and pistols. In addition to the cases on the walls, there were numerous glass-topped table display cases scattered throughout the room. It was hard to estimate at a single glance, but there were literally hundreds of guns in the room. The effect was overwhelming.
“Good lord,” Steve said.
Timberlaine grinned. “Yes. Pretty impressive, isn’t it?”
“I’ll say,” Tracy said. “Are these guns all valuable?”
“That depends what you mean by valuable. They’re all worth money, some more than others.” Timberlaine pointed to one of the cases on the wall. “Now this is what you might call valuable. Flintlock, supposedly once owned by Alexander Hamilton. I paid twenty thousand dollars for it. That was ten years ago. I couldn’t tell you what it’s worth now. But I’ve been offered fifty.”
“Fifty thousand dollars?” Tracy said.
“That’s right,” Timberlaine said. “Naturally, I wouldn’t touch it.”
“Where’s our gun?” Steve asked. “The Pistol Pete imitation.”
“Oh,” Timberlaine said. “That would be over here.”
He led the way to one of the table-top display cases in the middle of the room. “There you are,” he said, pointing to it.
Steve and Tracy looked. The gun was lying in a little rack in the display case. It was lying so the R in the handle was facing up. A small typed card in front of it identified it as Pistol Pete Robbins’s gun, just as if it had been an exhibit in a museum.
“Is this where the gun was stolen from?” Steve said.
Timberlaine nodded. “Far as I know. I mean, the substitution could have been made some time when I had it out and was showing it around and I simply didn’t notice and returned it to the case myself. That’s possible. But the odds are it was taken from this case.”
“These cases locked?”
“Absolutely.”
“Who has the key?”
“I do, of course.”
“Where are the keys kept?”
“In my office.”
“Your office?”
“Yes, my office off the front hall.”
“Who has access to your office?”
“That, of course, is the problem. Practically anyone. The office is unlocked, most of the day no one’s there, anyone could go in and out as they pleased.”
“What about at night?”
“At night the office is locked. But anyone could have taken the keys during the day. And they’d have to have taken the gun during the day too.”
“Why is that?”
“ ’Cause there’s an electronic burglar alarm system activated at night.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah. So the substitution must have been done during the day.”
“Unless someone knew how to switch it off,” Steve said.
“Yes, except the switch is in the office and the office is locked.”
“Who would have a key?”
“I do. Martin does. But what’s the big deal?” Timberlaine said. “Anyone who could have stolen the key to the cases, could have stolen the key to the office. So maybe the gun could have been stolen at night, but it would be a damn sight easier to have stolen it during the day. At any rate, the fact is it was. And I want to take every precaution to see somebody doesn’t use that fact to get me into trouble.”