# Murder in the Gunroom — Character guide

> Key figures in Murder in the Gunroom by H. Beam Piper.

- [Jeff Rand](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/murder_in_the_gunroom_se/characters/jeff_rand.md): 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 Flemi
- [Arnold Rivers](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/murder_in_the_gunroom_se/characters/arnold_rivers.md): 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 
- [Lane Fleming](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/murder_in_the_gunroom_se/characters/lane_fleming.md): 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. T
- [Gladys Fleming](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/murder_in_the_gunroom_se/characters/gladys_fleming.md): 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 appr
- [Fred Dunmore](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/murder_in_the_gunroom_se/characters/fred_dunmore.md): 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 abo
- [Stephen Gresham](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/murder_in_the_gunroom_se/characters/stephen_gresham.md): 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 hir
- [Humphrey Goode](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/murder_in_the_gunroom_se/characters/humphrey_goode.md): 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 ca
- [Pierre Jarrett](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/murder_in_the_gunroom_se/characters/pierre_jarrett.md): 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, h
- [Walters](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/murder_in_the_gunroom_se/characters/walters.md): 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
- [Dave Ritter](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/murder_in_the_gunroom_se/characters/dave_ritter.md): 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
- [Nelda Dunmore](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/murder_in_the_gunroom_se/characters/nelda_dunmore.md): 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 car
- [Mick McKenna](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/murder_in_the_gunroom_se/characters/mick_mckenna.md): 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
- [Anton Varcek](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/murder_in_the_gunroom_se/characters/anton_varcek.md): 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 'acciden
- [Geraldine Varcek](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/murder_in_the_gunroom_se/characters/geraldine_varcek.md): 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 prote
- [Karen Lawrence](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/murder_in_the_gunroom_se/characters/karen_lawrence.md): 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
- [Carl Gwinnett](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/murder_in_the_gunroom_se/characters/carl_gwinnett.md): A gun collector and acquaintance of Lane Fleming.
- [Cecil Gillis](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/murder_in_the_gunroom_se/characters/cecil_gillis.md): A young man who works for the Fleming family.
- [Philip Cabot](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/murder_in_the_gunroom_se/characters/philip_cabot.md): A friend of Jeff Rand and a fellow gun enthusiast.
- [Aarvo Kavaalen](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/murder_in_the_gunroom_se/characters/aarvo_kavaalen.md): A police corporal assisting in the investigation.
- [Elmer Umholtz](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/murder_in_the_gunroom_se/characters/elmer_umholtz.md): A gunsmith who provides information about the murder weapon.

HTML index: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/murder_in_the_gunroom_se/characters