Rex Stout - Some Buried Caesar

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.

It was another fine day and the crowd was kicking up quite.a dust. Banners, balloons, booby booths and bingo games were all doing a rushing business, not to mention hot dogs, orange drinks, popcorn, snake charmers, lucky wheels, shoot- ing galleries, take a slam and win a ham, two-bit fountain pens and Madam Shasta who reads the future and will let you in on it for one thin dime. I passed a platform whereon stood a girl wearing a grin and a pure gold brassiere and a Fuller brush skirt eleven inches long, and beside her a hoarse guy in a black derby yelling that the mystic secret Dingaroola Dance would start inside the tent in eight minutes. Fifty people stood gazing up at her and listening to him, the men looking as if they might be willing to take one more crack at the mystic, and the women looking cool and contemptuous. I moseyed along. The crowd got thicker, that being the main avenue leading to the grandstand entrance. I got tripped up by a kid diving between my legs in an effort to resume contact with mamma, was glared at by a hefty milkmaid, not bad-looking, who got her toe caught under my shoe, wriggled away from the tip of a toy parasol which a sweet little girl kept digging into my ribs with, and finally left the worst of the happy throng behind and made it to the Methodist grub- tent, having passed by the Baptists with the snooty feeling of a man-about-town who is in the know.

Believe it or not, she was there, at a table against the can- vas wall toward the rear. I pranced across the sawdust, concealing my amazement. Dressed in a light tan jersey thing,. with a blue scarf and a little blue hat, among those hearty country folk she looked like an antelope in a herd of Guern- seys. I sat down across the table from her and told her so. She yawned and said that what she had seen of antelopes' legs made it seem necessary to return the compliment for re- pairs, and before I could arrange a comeback we were inter- rupted by a Methodist lady in white apron who wanted to know what we would have.

Lily Rowan said, "Two chicken fricassee with dumplings."

"Wait a minute," I protested. "It says there they have beef pot roast and veal-" "No." Lily was firm. "The fricassee with dumplings is made by a Mrs. Miller whose husband has left her four times on account of her disposition and returned four times on account of her cooking and is still there. So I was told yes- terday by Jimmy Pratt."

The Methodist bustled off. Lily looked at me with a comer of her mouth curled up and remarked as if it didn't matter much, "The chief reason I came was to see how surprised you would look when you found me here, and you don't look surprised at all and you begin by telling me I have legs like an antelope."

I shrugged. "Go ahead and nag. I admit I'm glad you came, because if you hadn't I wouldn't have known about the fricassee. Your harping on legs is childish. Your legs are unusually good and you know it and so do I. Legs are made to be walked with or looked at, not talked about, especially not in a Methodist stronghold. Are you a Catholic? What's the difference between a Catholic and a river that runs up- hill?"

She didn't know and I told her, and we babbled on. The fricassee came, and the first bite, together with dumpling and gravy, made me marvel at the hellishness of Mrs. Miller's disposition, to drive a man away from that. It gave me an idea, and a few minutes later, when I saw Wolfe and Charles E. Shanks enter the tent and get settled at a table on the other side, I excused myself and went over and told him about the fricassee, and he nodded gravely.

I was corralling the last of my rice when Lily asked me when I was going back to New York. I told her it depended on what time the orchids were judged on Wednesday; we would leave either Wednesday afternoon or Thursday morn- ing.

"Of course," she said, "we'll see each other in New York."

"Yeah?" I swallowed the rice. "What for?"

"Nothing in particular. Only I'm sure we'll see each other, because if you weren't curious about me you wouldn't be so rude, and I was curious about you before I ever saw your face, when I saw you walking across that pasture. You have a distinctive way of walking. You move very… I don't know…"

"Distinctive will do. Maybe you noticed I have a dis- tinctive way of getting over a fence too, in case of a bull. Speaking of bulls, I understand the barbecue is off."

"Yes." She shivered a little. "Naturally. I'm thinking of leaving this afternoon. When I came away at noon there was a string of people gawking along the fence, there where your car had been..,. where we were last night. They would have crossed the pasture and swarmed all over the place if there hadn't been a state trooper there."

"With the bull in it?"

"The bull was at the far end. That what's-his-name-Mc- Millan-took him there and tied him up again." She shivered. "I never saw anything like last night… I had to sit on the ground to keep from fainting. What were they asking questions for? Why did they ask if I was with you all the time? What did that have to do with him getting killed by the bull?"

"Oh, they always do that in cases of accidental death. Eye-witnesses. By the way, you won't be leaving for New York today if they hold an inquest, only I don't suppose they will. Did they ask if you had seen Clyde Osgood around there after dinner, before you went for your walk and ran onto me?"

"Yes. Of course I hadn't. Why did they ask?"

"Search me." I put sugar in my coffee and stirred. "Maybe they thought you had deprived him of all hope or something and he climbed into the pasture to commit suicide. All kinds of romantic ideas, those birds get. Did they ask if Clyde had come to Pratt's place to see you?"

"Yes." Her eyes lifted up at me and then dropped back to her coffee cup. "I didn't understand that either. Why should they think he had come to see me?"

"Oh, possibly Clyde's father sicked them on. I know when I mentioned your name to him last night and said you were there, he nearly popped open. I got the impression he had seen you once in a nightmare. Not that I think you belong in a nightmare, with your complexion and so on, but that was the impression I got."

"He's just a pain." She shrugged indifferently. "He has no right to be talking about me. Anyway, not to you." Her eyes moved up me and over me, up from my chest over my face to the top of my head, and then slowly traveled down again. "Not to you, Escamillo," she said. I wanted to slap her, because her tone, and the look in her eyes going over me, made me feel like a potato she was peeling. She asked, "What did he say?"