Rex Stout - Some Buried Caesar

"No."

"Well, I have… long ago… a dozen times or more, at

bullfights. Horses killed, and men injured… one man killed." Wolfe wiggled a finger. "Whether you've seen it or not, surely you can imagine what happens when a bull thrusts his hom deep into a living body, and tosses, and tears the wound. While the heart of the victim is still furiously pumping. Blood spurts all over the bull's face and head, and often clear to his shoulders and beyond. The bleeding of a man killed in that manner is frightful; the instant such a wound is made a tor- rent gushes forth. It was so in the case of Clyde Osgood. His clothing was saturated. I am told that the police report that where he was killed there is an enormous caked pool of it. Is that correct? You acknowledge it. Last night Mr. Goodwin, my assistant, found the bull turning Clyde Osgood's body over on the ground, with his horns, without much force or en- thusiasm. The natural supposition was that the bull had killed him. Not more than fifteen minutes later, when the bull had been tied to the fence, I examined him at close range with a flashlight. He has a white face, and there was only one smudge of blood on it, and his horns were bloody only a few inches down from the tips. Was that fact included in the police report?"

Waddell said slowly, "I don't remember… no." "Then I advise that the bull be inspected at once, provided he hasn't been already washed off. I assure you that my report is reliable." Wolfe wiggled a finger again. "I didn't come here to offer a conjecture, Mr. Waddell. I don't intend to argue it with you. Often in considering phenomena we encounter a suspicious circumstance which requires study and permits de- bate, but the appearance of the bull's face and head last night is not that, it is much more. It is conclusive proof that the bull didn't kill Clyde Osgood. You spoke of my reputation; I stake it on this."

"By God," Clyde Osgood's father muttered. "Well, by God. I looked at that bull myself, and I never thought…"

"I'm afraid you weren't doing much thinking last night," Wolfe told him. "It couldn't be expected of you. But it might have been expected of the police by the sanguine… par- ticularly the rustic police."

The District Attorney, without any sign of bubbling, said, "You've made a point, I grant that. Of course you have. But I'd like to have a doctor's opinion about the bleeding-"

"It was all over his clothes and the grass. Great quantities. If you consult a doctor, let it be the one who saw the wound. In the meantime, it would be well to act, and act soon, on the assumption that the bull didn't do it, because that's the fact."

"You're very positive, Mr. Wolfe. Very."

"I am." "Isn't it possible that the bull withdrew his horn so quickly that he escaped the spurt of blood?"

"No. The spurt is instantaneous, and bulls don't gore like that anyway. They stay in to tear. Has the wound been de- scribed to you?"

Waddell nodded. I noticed that he wasn't looking at Os- good. "That's another thing," he said. "That wound. If it wasn't made by the bull, what could possibly have done it? What kind of weapon?"

"The weapon is right there, not thirty yards from the pas- ture fence. Or was. I examined it."

I thought, uh-huh, see the bright little fat boy with all the pretty skyrockets! But I stared at him, and so did the others. Osgood ejaculated something, and Waddell's voice had a crack in it as he demanded, "You what?" "I said, I examined it." "The weapon that killed him?"

"Yes. I borrowed a flashlight from Mr. Goodwin, because of a slight difficulty in believing that Clyde Osgood would let himself be gored by a bull in the dark. I had heard him remark, in the afternoon, that he knew cattle. Later his father experienced the same difficulty, but didn't know how to re- solve it. I did so by borrowing the light and inspecting the bull, and perceived at once that the supposition which al- ready prevailed was false. The bull hadn't killed him. Then what had?"

Wolfe squirmed in his chair, which was after all eight inches too narrow, and continued, "It is an interesting ques- tion whether rapid and accurate brain work results from superior equipment or from good training. In my case, what- ever my original equipment may have been, it has certainly had the advantage of prolonged and severe training. One re- sult, not always pleasant and rarely profitable, is that I am likely to forget myself and concentrate on problems which are none of my business. I did so last night. Within thirty seconds after inspecting the bull's clean face, I had guessed at a possible weapon. Knowing where it was, I went and in- spected it, and verified my guess. I then returned to the house. By the time I arrived there I had reached a conclusion as to how the crime had been committed-and I have not altered it since."

"What was the weapon? Where was it?"

"It was rustic too. An ordinary pick for digging. In the afternoon, in an emergency created by the bull-preceded by Mr. Goodwin's destruction of my car-1 had been conveyed from the pasture by Miss Pratt in an automobile. We had passed by an excavation-the barbecue pit as I learned after- wards-with freshly dug earth and picks and shovels lying there. My guess was that a pick might have been used. I went with a flashlight to see, and found confirmation. There were two picks. One of them was perfectly dry, with bits of dried soil clinging to it, and the other was damp. Even the metal itself was still damp on the under side, and the wooden han- dle was positively wet. There was no particle of soil clinging to the metal. Obviously the thing had been thoroughly and recently washed, not more than an hour previously at the outside. Not far away I found the end of a piece of garden hose. It was connected somewhere, for when I turned the nozzle a little, water came. Around where the nozzle lay the grass was quite wet when I pressed my palm into it. It was more than a surmise, it was close to a certainty, that the pick had done the goring, got deluged with blood, been carefully washed with the garden hose and replaced on the pile of excavated soil where I found it."

"You mean-" Frederick Osgood stopped with his jaw clamped. His clenched fists, resting on his hams, showed white knuckles. He went on, harshly, "My son… was killed like that… dug at with a pick?"

Waddell was looking decomposed. He tried to bluster. "If all this is true-you knew it last night, didn't you? Why the hell didn't you spill it when the sheriff was there? When the cops were there on the spot?"

"I represented no interest last night, sir."

"What about the interest of justice? You're a citizen, aren't you? Did you ever hear of withholding evidence-"

"Nonsense. I didn't withhold the bull's face or the pick. You must know you're being silly. My cerebral processes, and the conclusions they lead me to, belong to me."

"You say the pick handle was wet and there was no dirt sticking to the metal. Couldn't it have been washed for some legitimate reason? Did you inquire about that?"

"I made no inquiries of anybody. At eleven o'clock at night the pick handle was wet. If you regard it as a rational project to find a legitimate nocturnal pick-washer, go ahead. The time might be better spent, if you need confirmation, in look- ing for blood residue in the grass around the hose nozzle and examining the pick handle with a microscope. It is hard to remove all vestige of blood from a piece of wood. Those steps are of course obvious, and others as well."