Rex Stout: The Rodeo Murder

“You’re just sore because you didn’t win,” Dunning told him. “I wanted to have a net below but they wouldn’t. This magnificent saddle with genuine silver rivets and studs was handmade by Morrison, and I don’t have to tell you what that means. It was donated by Miss Lily Rowan, and I want to thank her for her generosity and hospitality on behalf of everybody concerned. I now declare Harvey Greve the undisputed winner of the first and only roping contest ever held in a Park Avenue penthouse — anyway just outside the penthouse and we could see Park Avenue — and I award him the prize, this magnificent saddle donated by Miss Lily Rowan. Here it is, Harvey. It’s all yours.”

Applause and cheers. Someone called “Speech!” and others took it up, as Harvey went and flattened his palm on the sudadero. He faced the audience. “I tell you,” he said, “if I tried to make a speech you’d take this saddle away from me. The only time I make a speech is when a cayuse gets from under me and that’s no kind for here. You all know that was just luck out there, but I’m mighty glad I won because I sure had my eye on this saddle. The lady that kissed me, I didn’t mind that at all, but I been working for Miss Lily Rowan for more’n three years and she never kissed me yet and this is her last chance.”

They let out a whoop, and Lily ran to him, put her hands on his shoulders, and planted one on each cheek, and he went pink again. Two men in white jackets came through the arch, with trays loaded with glasses of champagne. In the alcove a man at the piano and two with fiddles started “Home on the Range.” Lily had asked me a week ago what I thought of having the rug up and trying some barn dancing, and I had told her I doubted if many of the cowboys and girls would know how, and none of the others would. Better just let the East meet the West.

The best way to drink champagne, for me anyhow, is to gulp the first glass as a primer and sip from there on. Lily was busy being a hostess, so I waited to go and touch glasses with her until I had taken a couple of sips from my second. “Doggone it,” I told her, “I’d a brung my rope and give it a whirl if I’d a known you was goin’ tuh kiss the winner.” She said, “Huh. If I ever kissed you in front of an audience the women would scream and the men would faint.”

I moved around a while, being sociable, and wound up on a chair by a clump of sagebrush on the terrace, between Laura Jay and a civilian. Since I knew him well and didn’t like him much, I didn’t apologize for horning in. I asked her if Cal had found his rope, and she said she didn’t think so, she hadn’t seen him for the last half hour.

“Neither have I,” I said. “He doesn’t seem to be around. I wanted to ask him if he’d found it. I haven’t seen Wade Eisler either. Have you?”

Her eyes met mine straight. “No. Why?”

“No special reason. I suppose you know I’m in the detective business.”

“I know. You’re with Nero Wolfe.”

“I work for him. I’m not here on business, I’m a friend of Miss Rowan’s, but I’m in the habit of noticing things, and I didn’t see Wade Eisler at the parapet while they were roping, and I haven’t seen him since. I know you better than I do the others, except Harvey Greve, because I sat next to you at lunch, so I just thought I’d ask.”

“Don’t ask me. Ask Miss Rowan.”

“Oh, it’s not that important. But I’m curious about Cal’s rope. I don’t see why—”

Cal Barrow was there. He had come from the rear and was suddenly there in front of me. He spoke, in his low easy voice. “Can I see you a minute, Archie?”

“Where have you been?” Laura demanded.

“I been around.”

I stood up. “Find your rope?”

“I want to show you. You stay hitched, Laura.” She had started up. “You hear me?” It was a command, and from her stare I guessed it was the first one he had ever given her. “Come along, Archie,” he said, and moved.

He led me around the corner of the penthouse. On that side the terrace is only six feet wide, but in the rear there is space enough for a badminton court and then some. The tubs of evergreens that had been removed from the front were there, and Cal went on past them to the door of a shack which Lily used for storage. The grouse had been hung there Saturday afternoon. He opened the door and entered, and when I was in shut the door. The only light came from two small windows at the far end, so it was half dark coming in from broad daylight, and Cal said, “Look out, don’t step on him.”

I turned and reached for the light switch and flipped it, turned back, and stood and looked down at Wade Eisler. As I moved and squatted Cal said, “No use taking his pulse. He’s dead.”

He was. Thoroughly. The protruding tongue was purple and so were the lips and most of the face. The staring eyes were wide open. The rope had been wound around his throat so many times, a dozen or more, that his chin was pushed up. The rest of the rope was piled on his chest.

“That’s my rope,” Cal said. “I was looking for it and I found it. I was going to take it but I thought I better not.”

“You thought right.” I was on my feet. I faced him and got his eyes. “Did you do it?”

“No, sir.”

I looked at my wrist: twelve minutes to six. “I’d like to believe you,” I said, “and until further notice I do. The last I saw you in there you were taking a glass of champagne. More than half an hour ago. I haven’t seen you since. That’s a long time.”

“I been hunting my rope. When I drank that one glass I asked Miss Rowan if she minded if I looked and she said no. We had already looked inside and out front. Then when I come in here and found him I sat on that box a while to think it over. I decided the best thing was to get you.”

“Wasn’t this door locked?”

“No, sir. It was shut but it wasn’t locked.”

That was possible. It was often left unlocked in the daytime. I looked around. The room held all kinds of stuff — stacks of luggage, chairs, card tables, old magazines on shelves — but at the front, where we were, there was a clear space. Everything seemed to be in place; there was no sign that Eisler had put up a fight, and you wouldn’t suppose a man would stand with his hands in his pockets while someone got a noose around his neck and pulled it tight. If he had been conked first, what with? I stepped to a rack against the wall on the left and put a hand out, but pulled it back. One of those three-foot stainless-steel rods, for staking plants, would have been just the thing, and the one on top was lying across the others. If I had had gloves and a glass with me, and there had been no rush, and Cal hadn’t been there with his eyes boring at me, I would have given it a look.

I opened the door, using my handkerchief for the knob, and stepped out. There were six windows in the rear of the penthouse, but except for the two near the far corner, which belonged to the maid’s room and bathroom, their view of the shack and the approach to it was blocked by the evergreens. That had been a break for the murderer; there had certainly been someone in the kitchen. I went back inside, shut the door, and told Cal, “Here’s how it is. I have to get the cops here before anyone leaves if I want to keep my license. I don’t owe Wade Eisler anything, but this will be a sweet mess for Miss Rowan and I’m a friend of hers, so I’m curious. When did you first miss the rope?”

He opened his mouth and closed it again. He shook his head. “I guess I made a mistake,” he said. “I should have took that rope off and found it somewhere else.”

“You should like hell. It would have been a cinch for the police lab to prove it had been around his neck. When did you first miss it?”