Rex Stout: The Rodeo Murder

I told him no, I was going to Miss Lily Rowan’s party, and he let me pass. The New York Police Department likes to grant reasonable requests from citizens, especially when the request comes from a woman whose father was a Tammany district leader for thirty years. There were no parked cars on that side of the street, but twenty paces short of the building entrance a truck with cameras was hugging the curb, and there was another one farther on, near Madison Avenue.

When I had left with Wolfe Lily had had nine guests; now she had twenty or more. Three of the new arrivals were cowboys, making six with Cal Barrow, Harvey Greve, and Mel Fox; the rest were civilians. They were all on the terrace. The civilians were at the parapet, half at one end and half at the other, leaving the parapet clear for thirty feet in the middle. The cowboys, their ten-gallon hats on their heads and their ropes in their hands, were lined up facing a tall skinny man in a brown suit. At the man’s elbow was Roger Dunning, the promoter. The man was speaking.

“... and that’s the way it’s going to be. I’m the judge and what I say goes. I repeat that Greve hasn’t done any practicing, and neither has Barrow or Fox. I have Miss Rowan’s word for that, and I don’t think you want to call her a liar. I’ve told you the order, but you don’t move in until I call your name. Remember what I said, if you take a tumble off a bronc it’s four feet down; here it’s a hundred feet down and you won’t get up and walk. Once again, no hooligan stuff. There’s not supposed to be any pedestrians on this side of the street from four o’clock to five, but if one comes out of a house and one of you drops a loop on him you won’t sleep in a hotel room tonight. We’re here to have some fun, but don’t get funny.” He looked at his watch. “Time to go. Fox, get—”

“I want to say something,” Roger Dunning said.

“Sorry, Roger, no time. We promised to start on the dot. Fox, get set. The rest of you scatter.”

He went to the parapet, to the left, and picked up a green flag on a stick that was there on a chair. Mel Fox stepped to the middle of the clear stretch, straddled the parapet, and started his noose going. The others went right and left to find spots in the lines of guests. I found a spot on the right that happened to be between Laura Jay and Anna Casado. Leaning over to get a view of the street, I saw I was blocking Laura Jay and drew in a little. The three mounted cowboys and the man I had seen talking to them were grouped on the pavement halfway to Park Avenue. The judge stuck his arm out with the green flag and dipped it, the man down with the mounted cowboys said something, and one of the ponies was off on the jump, heading down the middle of the lane between the curb on our side and the parked cars on the other. Mel Fox, leaning out from his hips, moved his whirling loop back a little, and then brought it forward and let it go. When it reached bottom it was a little too far out and the cowboy on the pony was twenty feet ahead of it. The instant it touched the pavement Fox started hauling it in; he had thirty seconds until the flag started number two. He had it up and a noose going in less than that, but the judge went by his watch. The flag dipped, and here came the second one. That was a little better; the rope touched the pony’s rump, but it was too far in. Fox hauled in again, shifted his straddle a little, and started another whirl. That time he nearly made it. Anna Casado, on my left, let out a squeal as the rope, descending smoothly in a perfect circle, brushed the edge of the cowboy’s hat. The audience clapped, and a man in a window across the street shouted “Bravo!” Fox retrieved his rope, taking his time, dismounted from the parapet, said something I didn’t catch because of other voices, and moved off as the judge called out, “Vince!”

A chunky little youngster in a purple shirt, Levis, and working boots mounted the parapet. Saturday night I had seen him stick it out bareback on one of the roughest broncs I had ever seen — not speaking as an expert. He wasn’t so hot on a parapet. On his first try his loop turned straight up, which could have been an air current, on his second it draped over a parked car across the street, and on his third it hit the asphalt ten feet ahead of the pony.

Harvey Greve was next. Naturally I was rooting for him, since he had done me a lot of favors during the month I had spent at Lily’s ranch. Lily called something to him from the other end of the parapet, and he gave her a nod as he threw his leg over and started his loop. His first throw was terrible; the noose buckled and flipped before it was halfway down. His second was absolutely perfect; it centered around the cowboy like a smoke ring around a fingertip, and Harvey timed the jerk just right and had him. A yell came from the audience as the cowboy tightened the reins and the pony braked, skidding on the asphalt. He loosened the loop with one hand and passed it over his head, and as soon as it was free the judge sang out “Thirty seconds!” and Harvey started hauling in. His third throw sailed down round and flat, but it was too late by ten feet.

As the judge called Barrow’s name and Cal stepped to the parapet, Laura Jay, on my right, muttered, “He shouldn’t try it.” She was probably muttering to herself, but my ear was right there and I turned my head and asked her why. “Somebody stole his rope,” she said.

“Stole it? When? How?”

“He don’t know. It was in the closet with his hat and it was gone. We looked all around. He’s using the one that was on that saddle and it’s new and stiff, and he shouldn’t—”

She stopped and I jerked my head around. The flag had dipped and the target was coming. Considering that he was using a strange rope, and a new one, Cal didn’t do so bad. His loops kept their shape clear down, but the first one was short, the second was wide, and the third hit bottom before the pony got there. Neither of the last two ropers, one named Lopez and the other Holcomb, did as well. When Holcomb’s third noose curled on the curb below us the judge called, “Second round starts in two minutes! Everybody stay put!”

There were to be three rounds, giving each contestant a total of nine tries. Roger Dunning was stationed near the judge, with a pad of paper and a pen in his hand, to keep score in case the decision had to be made on form and how close they came, but since Harvey Greve had got one that wouldn’t be necessary.

In the second round Fox got a rider and Lopez got a pony. In the third round Holcomb got a rider and Harvey got his second one. The winner and first world champion rope-dropper or drop-roper from one hundred feet up: Harvey Greve! He took the congratulations and the riding from the other competitors with the grin I knew so well, and when he got kissed by a friend of Lily’s who was starring in a hit on Broadway and knew how to kiss both on stage and off, his face was nearly as pink as Nan Karlin’s shirt. Anna Casado broke off a branch of sagebrush and stuck it under his hatband. Lily herded us into the living room, where we gathered around the sawhorse, and Roger Dunning was starting a presentation speech when Cal Barrow stopped him.

“Wait a minute, this goes with it,” Cal said, and went and hung the rope on the horn. He turned and sent the blue-gray eyes right and then left. “I don’t want to start no fuss right now, but when I find out who took mine I’ll want to know.” He moved to the rear of the crowd, and Dunning put his hand on the seat of the saddle. Dunning had a long and narrow bony face with a scar at the side of his jaw.

“This is a happy occasion,” he said. “Thank God nothing happened like one of you falling off. I wanted to have a net down—”

“Louder!” Mel Fox called.