Rex Stout - Some Buried Caesar

"Okay." I resumed with the suitcase, and laid out a fresh shirt for him. "But darned if 111 lug that shotgun around. I'll take that up with McMillan. Incidentally, I've accepted a commission too. For the firm. Not a very lucrative one. The fee has already been paid, two bucks, but it'll be eaten up by expenses. The client is Miss Caroline Pratt." Wolfe muttered, "Jabber."

"Not at all. She paid me two bucks to save her brother from a fate worse than death. Boy, is it fun being a detective! Up half the night chaperoning a bull, only to be laid waste by a blonde the next day at lunch. Look, we'll have to send a telegram to Fritz; here's a button off."

4

I DIDN'T get to share any secrets with any stars. Clouds had started to gather at sundown, and by half past eight it was pitch-dark. Armed with a flashlight, and my belt surrounding a good dinner-not of course up to Fritz Brenner's standard, but far and away above anything I had ever speared at a pratteria-I left the others while they were still monkeying with coffee and went out to take over my shift. Cutting across through the orchard, I found Dave sitting on an upended keg over by the fence, clutching the shotgun.

"All right," I told him, cutting off the light to save juice. "You must be about ready for some chow."

"Naw," he said, "I couldn't eat late at night like this. I had some meat and potatoes and stuff at six o'clock. My main meal's breakfast. It's my stommick that wakes me up, I git so derned hungry I can't sleep."

"That's interesting. Where's the bull?"

"I ain't seen him for a half hour. Last I saw he was down yonder, yon side of the big walnut. Why the name of com- mon sense they don't tie him up's beyond me."

"Pratt says he was tied the first night and bellowed all night and nobody could sleep."

Dave snorted. "Let him beller. Anybody that can't sleep for a bull's bellerin' had better keep woonies instead."

"What's woonies?"

He had started off in the dark, and I heard him stop. "Woonies is bulls with their tails at the front end." He cackled. "Got you that time, mister! Good night!"

I decided to take a look, and anyhow moving was better than standing still, so I went along the fence in the direction of the gate we had driven through in our rescue of Wolfe. It sure was a black night. After making some thirty yards I played the flashlight around the pasture again, but couldn't find him. I kept on to the other side of the gate, and that time I picked him up. He wasn't lying down as I supposed he would be,' but standing there looking at the light. He loomed up like an elephant. I told him out loud, "All right, honey darling, it's only Archie, I don't want you to get upset," and turned back the way I had come.

It looked to me as if there was about as much chance of anyone kidnapping that bull as there was of the bull giving milk, but in any event I was elected to stay outdoors until one o'clock, and I might as well stay in the best place in case someone was fool enough to try. If he was taken out at all it would certainly have to be through a gate, and the one on the other side was a good deal more likely than this one. So I kept going, hugging the fence. It occurred to me that it would be a lot simpler to go through the middle of the pasture, and as dark as it was there was no danger of Caesar starting another game of tag, or very little danger at least… probably not any, really…

I went on around the fence. Through the orchard I could see the lighted windows of the house, a couple of hundred yards away. Soon I reached the comer of the fence and turned left and, before I knew it, was in a patch of briars. Ten minutes later I had rounded the bend in the road and was passing our sedan still nestled up against the tree. There was the gate. I climbed up and sat on the fence and played the light around, but it wasn't powerful enough to pick up the bull at that distance. I switched it off.

I suppose if you live in the country long enough you get familiar with all the little noises at night, but naturally you feel curious about them when you don't know what they are. The crickets and katydids are all right, but something scuttling through the grass makes you wonder what it could be. Then there was something in a tree across the road. I could hear it move around among the leaves, then for a long while it would be quiet, and then it would move again. Maybe an owl, or maybe some little harmless animal. I couldn't find it with the light.

I had been there I suppose half an hour, when a new noise came from the direction of the car. It sounded like something heavy bumping against it. I turned the light that way, and at first saw nothing because I was looking too close to the ground, and then saw quite plainly, edging out from the front fender, a fold of material that looked like part of a coat, maybe a sleeve. I opened my mouth to sing out, but abruptly shut it again and turned off the light and slid from the fence and sidestepped. It was just barely possible that the Guernsey League had one or two tough guys on the roll, or even that Clyde Osgood himself was tough or thought he was. I stepped along the grass to the back of the car, moved around it keeping close to the side, reached over the front fender for what was huddled there, grabbed, and got a shoulder.

There was a squeal and a wiggle, and a protest: "Say! That hurts!" I flashed the light and then turned loose and stepped back.

"For God's sake," I grumbled, "don't tell me you're sen- timental about that bull too."

Lily Rowan stood up, a dark wrap covering the dress she had worn at dinner, and rubbed at her shoulder. "If I hadn't stumbled against the fender," she declared, "I'd have got right up against you before you knew I was there, and I'd have scared you half to death."

"Goody. What for?"

"Dam it, you hurt my shoulder."

"I'm a brute. How did you get here?"

"Walked, I came out for a walk. I didn't realize it was so dark; I thought my eyes would get used to it. I have eyes like a cat, but I don't think I ever saw it so dark. Is that your face? Hold still."

She put a hand out, her fingers on my cheek. For a second I thought she was going to claw, but the touch was soft, and when I realized it was going to linger I stepped back a pace and told her, "Don't do that, I'm ticklish."

She laughed. "I was just making sure it was your face. Are you going to have lunch with me tomorrow?"

"Yes."

"You are?" She sounded surprised.

"Sure. That is, you can have lunch with me. Why not? I think you're amusing. You'll do fin-e to pass away some time, just a pretty toy to be enjoyed for an idle moment and then tossed away. That's all any woman can ever mean to me, be- cause all the serious side of me is concentrated on my career. I want to be a policeman."

"Goodness. I suppose we ought to be grateful that you're willing to bother with us at all. Let's get in your car and sit down and be comfortable."

"It's locked and I haven't got the key. Anyhow, if I sat down I might go to sleep and I mustn't because I'm guarding the bull. You'd better run along. I promised to be on the alert."

"Nonsense." She moved around the fender, brushing against me, and planted herself on the running board. "Come here and give me a cigarette. Clyde Osgood lost his head and made a fool of himself. How could anyone possibly do any- thing about that bull, with only the two gates, and one of them on the side towards the house and the other one right there? And you can't do any work on your career, here on a lonely road at night. Come and play with one of your toys."