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“They lock up the crown jewels of England, too,” Matt said. “Something about them being valuable.”
“Are these things valuable?” Penny asked.
“Some of the antiques are really worth money,” Matt said. “Museum stuff.”
“But what did he do with all of them?” Penny asked.
“Looked at them,” Matt said. “Just…took pleasure in having them.”
“What the hell is this?” Chad asked, looking down into a glass-topped, felt-lined display case. “It looks like a sniper rifle, without a scope.”
Matt went and looked.
“That one I know,” he said. “The Great White Hunter showed me that one himself. It’s a .30 caliber—note that I did not say .30–06—Springfield, Model of 1900. When Roosevelt, the first Roosevelt, came back from Cuba and got himself elected President—”
“What in the world are you talking about?” Penny demanded.
“Turn your mouth off automatic, all right? I’m talking to Chad.”
“Screw you!”
“Before I was so rudely interrupted, Chad: When Roosevelt made the Ordnance Corps pay Mauser for a license to manufacture bolt actions based on the Spanish 7mm they used in Cuba, the Springfield Arsenal made a trial run. Twenty rifles, I think he said. One of them they gave to Roosevelt, who was then President. That’s it. Christ only knows how much it’s worth. Martha’s father told me it took him three years to talk Roosevelt’s daughter into selling it to him once he found out she had it.”
“Are we finished here?” Penny asked.
“Penny!” Daffy said.
“We are not finished here, love of my life,” Matt said, not at all pleasantly. “You may be, but I have just begun to give Chad the tour.”
“I want to go back downstairs. I’m bored up here.”
“And I’m bored down there.”
“You didn’t seem to be bored when you were sucking up to the Mayor.”
“Have a nice time downstairs, Penelope,” Matt said. “Don’t let the doorknob hit you in the ass on your way out.”
Penny extended her right hand, with the center finger in an extended upward position, the others folded, and walked out of the arms room.
“You’re right, Matthew my boy,” Chadwick Thomas Nesbitt IV said. “On occasion, and this is obviously one of them, our beloved Penny can be a flaming pain in the ass.”
“I suspect it may be that time of the month,” Matt said.
Chad laughed.
“The both of you are disgusting!” Daffy said. “I’m going with Penny.”
“Mind what Matt said about the doorknob, darling,” Chad said.
“You bastard!” Mrs. Nesbitt said, and marched out.
“I am tempted,” Matt said, “to repeat the old saw that there would be a bounty on them, if they didn’t have—”
“Don’t!” Chad interrupted, laughing. “I’m too tired to have to fight to defend the honor of the mother-to-be of my children.”
Ten minutes later, as Matt, having successfully gotten through the lock on one of the pistol cabinets, was showing Chad a mint-condition, low-serial-numbered Colt Model 1911 self-loader, Inspector Peter Wohl came into the gun room, trailed by Mrs. C. T. Nesbitt IV and Miss Penelope Detweiler.
“My God, she called the cops!” Matt said, the wit of which remark getting through only to Mr. Nesbitt.
