Murder in the Gunroom · Chapter 2 (2/2)

“Oh, they are the usual bodyless voices that float about,” Tipton told him. “Emanating, I suspect, from sources interested in shaking out the less sophisticated small shareholders before the merger. The story is always approximately the same: That Lane Fleming saw his company drifting reefward, was unwilling to survive the shipwreck, and performed seppuku. The family are supposed to have faked up the accident afterward. I dismiss the whole thing as a rather less than subtle bit of market-manipulation chicanery.”

“Or a smoke screen, to cover the defects in camouflaging a murder as an accident,” Rand added.

Tipton nodded. “That could be so, too,” he agreed. “Say somebody dislikes the looks of that accident, and starts investigating. Then he runs into all this miasma of suicide rumors, and promptly shrugs the whole thing off. Fleming killed himself, and the family made a few alterations and are passing it off as an accident. The families of suicides have been known to do that.”

“Yes. Regular defense-in-depth system; if the accident line is penetrated, the suicide line is back of it,” Rand said. “Well, in the last few years, we’ve seen defenses in depth penetrated with monotonous regularity. I’ve jeeped through a couple, myself, to interrogate the surviving ex-defenders. It’s all in having the guns and armor to smash through with.”