Some Buried Caesar

by Rex Stout

  "You should realize, Archie, that that is very irritating.

  Rubbing your hand indefinitely like that."

  I said offensively, "You'll get used to it in time." He finished a paragraph before he dog-eared a page and closed the book, and sighed. "What is it, temperament? It was a shock, of course, but you have seen violence before, and the poor monstrosity life leaves behind when it departs-"

  "I can stand the monstrosity. Go ahead and read your book. At present I'm low, but I'll snap out of it by morning. Down there you mentioned professional instinct. I may be short on that, but you'll allow me my share of professional pride. I was supposed to be keeping an eye on that bull, wasn't I? That was my job, wasn't it? And I sat over by the roadside smoking cigarettes while he killed a man."

  "You were guarding the bull, not the man. The bull is intact."

  "Much obliged for nothing. Phooey. You're accustomed to feeling pleased because you're Nero Wolfe, aren't you? All right, on my modest scale I permit myself a similar feel- ing about Archie Goodwin. When did you ever give me an errand that you seriously expected me to perform and I didn't perform it? I've got a right to expect that when Archie Goodwin is told to watch a pasture and see that nothing happens to a bull, nothing will happen. And you tell me that nothing happened to the bull, the bull's all right, he just killed a man… what do you call that kind of suds?"

  "Sophistry. Casuistry. Ignoratio elenchi."

  "Okay, I'll take all three."

  "It's the feeling that you should have prevented the bull from killing a man that has reduced you to savagery."

  "Yes. It was my job to keep things from happening in that pasture."

  "Well." He sighed. "To begin with, will you never learn to make exact statements? You said that I told you the bull killed a man. I didn't say that. If I did say that, it wouldn't be true. Mr. Osgood was almost certainly murdered, but not by a bull."

  I goggled at him. "You're crazy. I saw it."

  "Suppose you tell me what you did see. I've had no de- tails from you, but I'll wager you didn't see the bull impale Mr. Osgood, alive, on his horns. Did you?"

  "No. When I got there he was pushing at him on the ground. Not very hard. Playing with him. I didn't know whether he was dead or not, so I climbed the fence and walked over and when I was ten feet away-"

  Wolfe frowned. "You were in danger. Unnecessarily. The man was dead."

  "I couldn't tell. I fired in the air, and the bull beat it, and I took a look. I didn't have to apply any tests. And now you have the nerve to say the bull didn't kill him. What are you trying to do, work up a case because business has been bad?"

  "No. I'm trying to make you stop rubbing the back of your hand so I can finish this chapter before going to bed. I'm explaining that Mr. Osgood's death was not due to your negligence and would have occurred no matter where you were, only I presume the circumstances would have been differently arranged. I was not guilty of sophistry. I might suggest a thousand dangers to your self-respect, but a failure on the job tonight would not be one. You didn't fail. You were told to prevent the removal of the bull from the pasture. You had no reason to suspect an attempt to harm the bull, since the enemy's purpose was to defend him from harm, and certainly no reason to suspect an effort to frame him on a charge of murder. I do hope you won't begin-"

  He stopped on account of footsteps in the hall. They stopped by our door. There was a knock and I said come in and Bert entered.

  He looked at me. "Could you come downstairs? Mr. Os- good is down there and wants to see you."

  I told him I'd be. right down. After he had gone and his footsteps had faded away Wolfe said, "You might con- fine yourself to direct evidence. That you rubbed your hand and I endeavored to make you stop is our affair."

  I told him that I regarded it as such and left him to his book.

  5

  AT THE FOOT of the stairs I was met by Pratt; standing with his hands stuck deep in his pockets and his wide jaw clamped tight. He made a motion with his head without saying anything, and led m. mto the big living room and to where a long-legged gentleman sat on a chair biting his lip, and letting it go, and biting it again. This latter barked at me when I was still five paces short of him, without waiting for Pratt or me to arrange contact:

  "Your name's Goodwin, is it?"

  It stuck out all over him, one of those born-to-command guys. I never invite them to parties. But I turned on the control and told him quietly, "Yep. Archie Goodwin."

  "It was you that drove the bull off and fired the shots?"

  "Yes, doctor."

  "I'm not a doctor! I'm Frederick Osgood. My son has been killed. My only son."

  "Excuse me, I thought you looked like a doctor."

  Pratt, who had backed off and stood facing us with his hands still in his pockets, spoke: "The doctor hasn't got here yet. Mr. Osgood lives only a mile away and came in a few minutes."

  Osgood demanded, "Tell your story. I want to hear it."

  "Yes, sir." I told him. I know how to make a brief but complete report and did so, up to the point where the others had arrived, and ended by saying that I presumed he had had the rest of it from Mr. Pratt.

  "Never mind Pratt. Your story is that you weren't there when my son entered the pasture."

  "My story is just as I've told it."

  "You're a New York detective."

  I nodded. "Private."

  "You work for Nero Wolfe and came here with him."

  "Right. Mr. Wolfe is upstairs."

  "What are you and Wolfe doing here?"

  I said conversationally, "If you want a good sock in the jaw, stand up."

  He started to lift. "Why, damn you-"

  I showed him a palm. "Now hold it. I know your son has just been killed and I'll make all allowances within reason, but you're just making a damn fool of yourself. What's the matter with you, anyway? Are you hysterical?"

  He bit his lip. In a second he said, with his tone off a shade, "No, I'm not hysterical. I'm trying to avoid making a fool of myself. I'm trying to decide whether to get the sheriff and the police here. I can't understand what happened. I don't believe it happened the way you say it did."

  "That's too bad." I looked him in the eye. "Because for my part of it I have a witness. Someone was with me all the time. A… a young lady."

  "Where is she? What's her name?"

  "Lily Rowan."

  He stared at me, stared at Pratt, and came back to me. He was beyond biting his lip. "Is she here?"

  "Yes. I'll give you this free: Mr. Wolfe and I had an accident to our car and walked to this house to telephone. Everyone here was a stranger to us, including Lily Rowan. After dinner she went for a walk and found me guarding the pasture and stayed to keep me company. She was with me when I found the bull and drove him off. If you get the police and they honor me with any attention they'll be wasting their time. I've told you what I saw and did, and everything I saw and did."

  Osgood's fingers were fastened onto his knees like claws digging for a hold. He demanded, "Was my son with this Lily Rowan?"

  "Not while she was with me. She joined me on the far side of the pasture around nine-thirty. I hadn't seen your son since he left here in the afternoon. I don't know whether she had or not. Ask her."

  "I'd rather wring her neck, damn her. What do you know about a bet my son made today with Pratt?"

  A rumble came from Pratt: "I've told you all about that, Osgood. For God's sake give yourself a chance to cool down a little."

  "I'd like to hear what this man has to say. What about it, Goodwin? Did you hear them making the bet?"

  "Sure, we all heard it, including your daughter and your son's friend-name of Bronson." I surveyed him with decent compassion. 'Take some advice from an old hand, mister, from one who has had the advantage of watching Nero Wolfe at work. You're rotten at this, terrible. You remind me of a second-grade dick harassing a dip. I've seen lots of people knocked dizzy by sudden death, and if that's all that's wrong with you ther
e's nothing anyone can give you ex- cept sympathy, but if you're really working on an idea the best thing you can do is turn it over to professionals. Have you got a suspicion you can communicate?"

  "I have."

  "Suspicion of what?"

  "I don't know, but I don't understand what happened. I don't believe my son walked into that pasture alone, for any purpose whatever. Pratt says he was there to get the bull. That's an idiotic supposition. My son wasn't an idiot. He wasn't a greenhorn with cattle, either. Is it likely he would go up to a loose bull, and if the bull showed temper, just stand there in the dark and let it come?"

  Another rumble from Pratt: "You heard what McMillan said. He might have slipped or stumbled, and the bull was too close-"

  "I don't believe it! What was he there for?"

  "To win ten thousand dollars."

  Osgood got to his feet. He was broad-shouldered, and a little taller than Pratt, but a bit paunchy. He advanced on Pratt with fists hanging and spoke through his teeth. "You damn skunk. I warned you not to say that again…"

  I slipped in between them, being more at home there than I was with bulls. I allotted the face to Osgood: "And when the doctor comes his duty would be to get you two bandaged up. That would be nice. If Pratt thinks your son was trying to win a bet that's what he thinks, and you asked for his opinion and you got it. Cut out the playing. Either wait till morning and get some daylight on it, or go ahead and send for the sheriff and see what he thinks of Pratt's opinion. Then the papers will print it, along with Dave's opinion and Lily Rowan's opinion and so forth, and we'll see what the public thinks. Then some intelligent reporters from New York will print an interview with the bull-"

  "Well, Mr. Pratt! I'm sorry I couldn't make it sooner…"

  We turned. It was a stocky little man with no neck, carry- ing a black bag.

  "I was out when the call… oh. Mr. Osgood. This is terrible. A very terrible thing. Terrible."

  I followed the trio into the next room, where the piano was, and the divan. There was no sense in Osgood going in there again, but he went. Jimmy Pratt, who had been sitting on the piano stool, got up and left. The doctor trotted over to the divan and put his bag down on a chair. Osgood crossed to a window and stood with his back to the room. When the sound came of the canvas being opened, and the doctor's voice saying "My God!" quite loud, involuntarily, Osgood turned his head half around and then turned it back again.

  Thirty minutes later I went upstairs and reported to Wolfe, who, in yellow pajamas, was in the bathroom brushing his teeth:

  "Doc Sackett certified accidental death from a wound in- flicted by a bull. Frederick Osgood, bereaved father, who would be a duke if we had dukes or know the reason why, suspects a fly in the soup, whether for the same reason as yours or not I can't say, because you haven't told me your reason if any. I didn't know your wishes in regard to goading him with innuendo…"

  Wolfe rinsed his mouth and spat. "I requested you merely to give direct evidence."

  "There was no merely about it. I tell you Osgood is in the peerage and he doesn't believe it happened the way it did happen, his chief reason being that Clyde was too smart to fall for a bull in the dark and that there is no acceptable reason to account for Clyde being in the pasture at all. He offered those observations to Doc Sackett, along with others, but Sackett thought he was just under stress and shock, which he was, and refused to delay the certification, and arranged for an undertaker to come in the morning. Whereupon Os- good, without even asking permission to use the telephone, called up the sheriff and the state police."

  "Indeed." Wolfe hung the towel on the rack. "Remind me to wire Theodore tomorrow. I found a mealy bug on one of the plants."

  6

  AT ELEVEN o'clock Tuesday morning I stood working on a bottle of milk which I had brought in from a dairy booth, one of hundreds lining the enormous rotunda of the main exhibits building at the Crow- field exposition grounds, and watching Nero Wolfe being gracious to an enemy. I was good and weary. On account of the arrival of the officers of the law at Pratt's around mid- night, and their subsequent antics, I hadn't got to bed until after two. Wolfe had growled me out again before seven. Pratt and Caroline had been with us at breakfast, but not Lily Kowan or Jimmy. Pratt, looking as if he hadn't slept at all, reported that McMillan had insisted on guarding the bull the remainder of the night and was now upstairs in bed. Jimmy had gone to Crowfield with a list of names which probably wasn't complete, to send telegrams cancelling the invitations to the barbecue. It seemed likely that Hickory Caesar Grindon's carcass would never inspire a rustic festivity, but his destiny was uncertain. All that had been decided about him was that be wouldn't be eaten on Thursday. He had been convicted by the sheriff and the state police, who had found lying in the pasture, near the spot where Clyde Osgood had died, a tie-rope with a snap at one end, which had been, identified as the one which had been left hanging on the fence. Even that had not satisfied Frederick Osgood, but it had satisfied the police, and they had dismissed Os- good's suspicions as vague, unsupported, and imaginary. When, back upstairs packing, I had asked Wolfe if he was satisfied too, he had grunted and said, "I told you last night that Mr. Osgood was not killed by the bull. My infernal curiosity led me to discover that much, and the weapon that was used, but I refuse to let the minor details of the problem take possession of my mind, so we won't discuss it." "You might just mention who did it-" "Please, Archie."

  I put it away with moth balls and went on with the luggage.

  We were decamping for a Crowfield hotel. The contract for bull-nursing was cancelled, and though Pratt mumbled some- thing about our staying on to be polite, the atmosphere of the house said go. So the packing, and lugging to the car, and spraying the orchids and getting them on board too, and the drive to Crowfield with Caroline as chauffeur, and the fight for a hotel room which was a pippin-I mean the fight, not the room-and getting both Wolfe and the crates out to the exposition grounds and finding our space and getting the plants from the crates without injury… It was in fact quite a morning.

  Now, at eleven o'clock, I was providing for replacement of my incinerated tissue by filling up with milk. The orchids had been sprayed and straightened and manicured and were on the display benches in the space which had been allotted to us. The above-mentioned enemy that Wolfe was being gracious to was a short fat person in a dirty impressed mohair suit with keen little black eyes and two chins, by name Charles E. Shanks. I watched them and listened to them as I sipped the milk, because it was instructive. Shanks knew that the reason Wolfe had busted precedent and come to Crowfield to exhibit albinos which he had got by three new crosses with Paphiopedilum lawrenceanum hyeanum was to get an award over one Shanks had produced by crossing P. callosum sanderae with a new species from Burma; that Wolfe de- sired and intended to make a monkey of Shanks because Shanks had fought shy of the metropolitan show and had also twice refused Wolfe's offers to trade albinos; and that one good look at the entries in direct comparison made it prac- tically certain that the judges' decision would render Shanks not only a monkey but even a baboon. Furthermore, Wolfe knew that Shanks knew that they both knew; but hearing them gabbing away you might have thought that when a floriculturist wipes his brow it is to remove not sweat but his excess of brotherly love; which is why, knowing the stage of vindictiveness Wolfe had had to arrive at before he de- cided on that trip, I say it was instructive to listen to them.

  I had been subjected to a few minor vexations in con- nection with the pasture affair. During the battle for a room at the hotel I had been approached by a bright-eyed boy with big ears and a notebook who grabbed me by the lapel and said he wanted, not only for the local Journal but also for the Associated Press, as lurid an account as possible of the car- nage and gore. I traded him a few swift details for his help on the room problem. A couple of other news retrievers, in town to cover the exposition I suppose, also came sniffing around; and while I had been helping Wolfe get the orchids primped up I had been accosted by a
tall skinny guy in a pin-check suit, as young as me or younger, wearing a smile that I would recognize if I saw it in Siam-the smile of an elected person who expects to run again, or a novice in train- ing to join the elected person class at the first opportunity. He looked around to make sure no spies were sneaking up on us at the moment, introduced himself as Mr. Whosis, As- sistant District Attorney of Crowfield County, and told me at the bottom of his voice, shifting from the smile to Expression 9B, which is used when speaking of the death of a voter, that he would like to have my version of the unfortunate occurrence at the estate of Mr. Pratt the preceding evening.

  Feeling pestered, I raised my voice instead of lowering it. "District Attorney, huh? Working up a charge of murder against the bull?"

  That confused him, because he had to show that he ap- preciated my wit without sacrificing Expression 9B; also I attracted the attention of passers-by and a few of them stopped in the aisle to look at us. He did it pretty well. No, he said, not a charge of murder, nothing like that, not even against the bull; but certain inquiries had been made and it was felt desirable to supplement the reports of the sheriff and police by firsthand information so there could be no complaint of laxity…

  I drew the picture for him without any retouching or painting out, and he asked a few fairly intelligent questions. When he had gone I told Wolfe about him, but Wolfe had orchids and Charles E. Shanks on his mind and showed no sign of comprehension. A little later Shanks himself appeared on the scene and that was when I went for the bottle of milk.

  There was an ethical question troubling me which couldn't be definitely settled until one o'clock. In view of what had happened at Pratt's place I had no idea that Lily Rowan would show up for the lunch date, and if she didn't what was the status of the two dollars Caroline had paid me? Anyhow, I had decided that if the fee wasn't earned it wouldn't be my fault, and luckily my intentions fitted in with Wolfe's plans which he presently arranged, namely to have lunch with Shanks. I wouldn't have eaten with them anyway, since I had heard enough about stored pollen and nutritive solutions and fungus inoculation for a while, so a little be- fore one I left the main exhibits building and headed down the avenue to the right in the direction of the tent which covered the eatery operated by the ladies of the First Metho- dist Church. That struck me as an incongruous spot to pick for being undone by a predatory blonde, but she had said the food there was the best available at the exposition grounds, and Caroline's reply to an inquiry during the mom- ing ride to Crowfield had verified it, so I smothered my con- science and went ahead.