Character guide

Jeff Rand

major

Also known as Jefferson Davis Rand, Colonel Rand, Colonel Jefferson Davis Rand

Rand runs a Tri-State Detective Agency but thinks of himself as a prosperous businessman and collector, a King Charles II in a Brooks Brothers suit who can be a serviceable friend or a very unpleasant enemy. Gladys Fleming maneuvers him into cataloguing her late husband's pistols, and his expertise soon makes him the one man who can see what the fake accident was hiding. He plays cat-and-mouse with suspects while quietly refusing to let Gladys stand guard with a target pistol, and his General Semantics habit of thinking in individuals rather than labels keeps him a step ahead of everyone else in the house.

Arnold Rivers

major

Also known as Rivers, Mr. Rivers, Mr. Arnold Rivers

Rivers dealt in antique arms and moved in the same collector circles as Lane Fleming, but he was the sort who identified people by class-label and would only drink with those he considered his equals. That very snobbery becomes a clue: Rand reasons that whoever shared Rivers's last drink was no butler, which narrows the field of suspects considerably. His death, following so closely on Fleming's, is what pulls Rand into the case at all, and the swarm of reporters outside his shop signals just how public the scandal is about to become.

Lane Fleming

major

Also known as Fleming, the late Lane Fleming

Fleming spent decades building one of the country's finest pistol collections, systematically replacing inferior pieces until the twenty-five hundred he left behind were a genuine asset for his widow and stepdaughters. The official story is that he died cleaning an old revolver, but the lawyer Goode is already defensive about rumors of suicide, and Rand finds the accident theory thin from the start. His death is the hinge on which everything turns: the collection must be appraised, the estate settled, and somewhere in that gunroom is the answer to whether he was careless or killed.

Gladys Fleming

major

Also known as Mrs. Fleming, Gladys

Gladys is blue-eyed, golden-haired, and persuasive enough that Rand compares her favorably to Nell Gwyn, and she knows exactly how to corner a man into taking a case he'd rather decline. She hires Rand ostensibly to appraise and sell the collection, but her real interest in how her husband died stays ambiguous, and she offers to stay home from church with a target pistol when the danger turns personal. Whether she's a grieving widow, a suspect, or something more calculating is a question the early chapters deliberately leave open.

Fred Dunmore

supporting

Also known as Dunmore

Dunmore moves through the household with a bluff, backslapping manner, grateful to Rand for recovering the stolen pistols and quick to admit he'd objected when Gladys first brought the detective in. But his curiosity about whether Rand is investigating Lane's death, and his careful fencing when Rand turns the question back on him, suggest a man with something to protect. He's the kind of supporting figure who could be a loyal friend or a nervous accomplice, and Rand watches him closely for exactly that reason.

Stephen Gresham

supporting

Also known as Gresham, Stephen

Gresham's name surfaces early when Farnsworth floats a theory about him in connection with Rivers, and Rand is careful to keep that speculation quiet because it could damage the young man professionally. Gresham then hires Rand himself to investigate the Rivers murder, which gives Rand a second client and a second thread to pull alongside the Fleming appraisal. His stake in the outcome, and whatever connection he had to Rivers's shop, make him a figure whose motives Rand has to weigh without tipping his hand.

Humphrey Goode

supporting

Also known as Goode, Humphrey

Goode moves through Rosemont as the trusted legal advisor to a dead man's estate, handling the Fleming collection's tangled affairs while the family circles its value. He is pompous and self-important enough that Rand can defuse a dinner-table battle simply by insulting him, and everyone gratefully joins in. That easy unpopularity makes him a useful barometer of the household's real loyalties, and a reminder that the money at stake has already turned relatives into rivals.

Pierre Jarrett

supporting

Also known as Jarrett, young Jarrett

Pierre is the earnest young man courting Gladys Fleming, a student of General Semantics and fiction plotting who shares Rand's collector's passion for old pistols. When the police arrest him for Arnold Rivers's murder, his mother and Dot Gresham rally to his defense while Rand insists the charge is a tactical blunder built on appearances. His arrest forces the women around him to choose sides, and it raises the stakes for Rand, who must clear the boy before the real killer finishes whatever was started in the gunroom.

Walters

supporting

Walters serves the Fleming household with the polished reserve of a man who knows his place and expects others to know theirs, which is precisely why Rand rules him out as Rivers's drinking companion. Rivers was too much of a snob to share a bottle with a butler, and Rand's General Semantics reading of class-labels turns that snobbery into an alibi. As the man who found the body and later stands bail hearings with the police, Walters anchors the early investigation in the mundane routines of the house.

Dave Ritter

supporting

Also known as Ritter, David Abercrombie Ritter

Ritter works the case from the outside, driving his own coupé, running down gun-shop identifications, and keeping Rand briefed on what the police are doing. He is quick enough to sprint around a house and put a bullet at a fleeing suspect's feet before Rand can even round the corner, and loyal enough to swallow being called Davies in front of the Flemings. His legwork on the Leech & Rigdon and his rescue of young Jarrett on a writ give Rand the breathing room to keep investigating inside Rosemont.

Nelda Dunmore

supporting

Also known as Nelda

Nelda is one of the loudest voices in the Fleming household's running war over the estate, trading vituperation with her husband Fred and with Humphrey Goode while Gladys tries to keep her modulated tone. Her shrieks carry all the way up the spiral stairway to the gunroom, where Rand can hear the family tearing at itself over money and blame. That open hostility makes the household a nest of motives, and it gives Rand a front-row seat to the resentments that could have gotten Lane Fleming killed.

Mick McKenna

supporting

Also known as McKenna, Mick

McKenna is the law's man on the Rivers murder, competent enough to check long-distance calls and pull Walters in for questioning, but vain enough to want the collar ahead of Rand. He arrests Pierre Jarrett on appearances, a move Rand calls a serious tactical error born of fear that the detective will beat him to the solution. His competition with Rand shapes the middle of the book, forcing the private investigator to work around the police while the real killer stays loose.

Anton Varcek

supporting

Also known as Varcek

Varcek works alongside Fred Dunmore at the Fleming plant while privately despising the firearms that surround him, a chemist who reasons that a man skilled enough to avoid poisoning himself would never die of an 'accidental' gunshot. His late hours and his wife's fierce protectiveness keep suspicion circling back to him, and his quiet suggestion that Lane Fleming was murdered pushes Rand deeper into the case. He is the puzzle piece who won't quite fit, and the reader can't stop watching him.

Geraldine Varcek

supporting

Also known as Geraldine

Geraldine drifts at the edges of the Fleming household, often missing from meals and rarely offering explanations, yet she guards Anton's reputation with a vigilance that reads as either devotion or complicity. Her protectiveness sharpens the tension around her husband's alibis, since the person most invested in clearing him is also the one whose movements Rand can least account for. She matters because the case's early questions about who was where keep circling back to her silence.

Karen Lawrence

supporting

Also known as Miss Lawrence, Miss Karen Lawrence

As secretary to the Fleming household, Karen Lawrence sits close enough to the family to know its frictions, its finances, and its secrets, yet her position demands discretion that keeps her mostly in the background. Her knowledge of the estate's business and the collection's value gives Rand a grounded counterpoint to the family's evasions and self-interest. She matters because the early investigation runs on exactly the kind of unglamorous, inside information she quietly holds.

Carl Gwinnett

minor

Also known as Gwinnett, Mr. Gwinnett

A gun collector and acquaintance of Lane Fleming.

Cecil Gillis

minor

Also known as young Gillis, Gillis

A young man who works for the Fleming family.

Philip Cabot

minor

Also known as Cabot

A friend of Jeff Rand and a fellow gun enthusiast.

Aarvo Kavaalen

minor

Also known as Corporal Kavaalen, Kavaalen

A police corporal assisting in the investigation.

Elmer Umholtz

minor

Also known as Umholtz

A gunsmith who provides information about the murder weapon.

Mr. Farnsworth

minor

Also known as Farnsworth, Charles P. Farnsworth

The district attorney investigating the murder.

Mrs. Rivers

minor

Arnold Rivers' widow, who is questioned about her husband's death.

Gus Olsen

minor

Also known as Olsen

A local police officer involved in the case.

Carter Tipton

minor

Also known as Tipton

A friend of Lane Fleming and a gun collector.

Irene Gresham

minor

Also known as Irene

Stephen Gresham's wife, who is concerned about her husband's involvement.

Kathie O'Grady

minor

Also known as Kathie, Kathleen Mavourneen

A young woman with a connection to the Fleming household.

Adam Trehearne

minor

Also known as Trehearne

A friend of Jeff Rand who provides information about guns.

Dot Gresham

minor

Also known as Dot

Stephen Gresham's sister, who is involved in the family drama.

Mr. Kirchner

minor

Also known as Kirchner, Jason Kirchner

A gun dealer who had dealings with Lane Fleming.

Colin MacBride

minor

Also known as MacBride

A friend of Jeff Rand and a gun expert.

Mrs. Jarrett

minor

Pierre Jarrett's mother, who is concerned about her son.

Mr. Dunmore

minor

Fred Dunmore's father, a minor character in the story.

Mrs. Dunmore

minor

Fred Dunmore's mother, a minor character.

Mrs. Gwinnett

minor

Carl Gwinnett's wife, who appears briefly.

Mr. Verral

minor

A minor character who provides information to the police.

Jeeves

minor

A servant in the Fleming household.

Dorothy Gresham

minor

Also known as Dorothy

Another member of the Gresham family, mentioned briefly.