Rex Stout - Some Buried Caesar

"You're telling me." The District Attorney sent a glance, half a glare, at Osgood, and away again, back at Wolfe. "Now look here, don't get me wrong… you neither, Fred Osgood. I'm the prosecutor for this county and I know my duty and I intend to do it and I try to do it. If there's been a crime I don't want to back off from it and neither does Sam Lake, but I'm not going to raise a stink just for the hell of it and you can't blame me for that. The people who elected me wouldn't want it and nobody ought to want it. And the way it looks to me-in spite of no blood on the bull and whether I find a legitimate nocturnal pick-washer or not-it still strikes me as cuckoo. Did he climb into the pasture carrying the pick-where the bull was-and then Clyde Osgood climbed in after him and obligingly stood there while he swung the pick? Or was Clyde already in the pasture, and he climbed in with the pick and let him have it? Can you imagine aiming anything as clumsy and heavy as a pick at a man in the dark, and him still being there when it landed? And wouldn't the blood spurt all over you too? Who is he and where did he go to, covered with blood?"

Osgood snarled, "I told you, Wolfe. Listen to the damn fool-Look here. Carter Waddell! Now I'll tell you some- thing-"

"Please, gentlemen!" Wolfe had a palm up. "We're wasting a lot of time." He regarded the District Attorney and said patiently, "You're going about it wrong. You should stop squirming and struggling. Finding yourself confronted by an unpleasant fact… you're like a woman who conceals a stain on a table cover by putting an ash tray over it. Ineffectual, because someone is sure to move the ash tray. The fact is that Clyde Osgood was murdered by someone with that pick, and unhappily your function is to establish the fact and re- veal its mechanism; you can't obliterate it merely by invent- ing unlikely corollaries."

"I didn't invent anything, I only-"

"Pardon me. You assumed the fictions that Clyde climbed the fence into the pasture and obligingly stood in the dark and permitted himself to be fatally pierced by a clumsy pick. I admit that the first is unlikely and the second next to in- credible. Those considerations occurred to me last night on the spot. As I said, by the time I reached the house I had satisfied myself as to how the crime was committed, and I am still satisfied. I don't believe Clyde Osgood climbed the fence. He was first rendered unconscious, probably by a blow on the head. He was then dragged or carried to the fence, and pushed under it or lifted over it, and further dragged or car- ried ten or fifteen yards into the pasture, and left lying on his side. The murderer then stood behind him with the pick and swung it powerfully in the natural and ordinary manner, only instead of piercing and tearing the ground it pierced and tore his victim. The wound would perfectly resemble the goring of a bull. The blood-spurt would of course soil the pick, but not the man who wielded it. He got the tie-rope from where it was hanging on the fence and tossed it on the ground near the body, to make it appear that Clyde had en- tered the pasture with it; then he took the pick to the con- venient hose nozzle, washed it off, returned it where he had got it,, and went-" Wolfe shrugged "-went somewhere."

"The bull," Waddell said. "Did the bull just stand and look on and wait for the murderer to leave, and then push the body around so as to have bloody horns? Even a rustic sheriff might have noticed it if he had had no blood on him at all."

"I couldn't say. It was dark. A bull may or may not attack in the dark. But I suggest (1) the murderer, knowing how to handle a bull in the dark, before performing with the pick, approached the bull, snapped the tie-rope onto the nose ring, and led him to the fence and tied him. Later, before releasing him, he smeared blood on his horns. Or (2), after the pick had been used the murderer enticed the bull to the spot and left him there, knowing that the smell of blood would lead him to investigate. Or (3), the murderer acted when the bull was in another part of the pasture and made no effort to manufacture the evidence of bloody horns, thinking that in the excitement and with the weight of other circumstances as arranged, it wouldn't matter. It was his good luck that Mr. Goodwin happened to arrive while the bull was satisfying his curiosity… and his bad luck that I happened to arrive at all."

Waddell sat frowning, his mouth screwed up. After a mo- ment he blurted, "Fingerprints on the pick handle."

Wolfe shook his head. "A handkerchief or a tuft of grass, to carry it after washing it. I doubt if the murderer was an idiot."

Waddell frowned some more. "Your idea about tying the bull to the fence and smearing blood on his horns. That would be getting pretty familiar with a bull, even in the dark. I don't suppose anyone could have done it except Monte Mc- Millan… he was Monte's bull, or he had been. Maybe you're ready to explain why Monte McMillan would want to kill Clyde Osgood?"

"Good heavens, no. There are at least two other alterna- tives. Mr. McMillan may be capable of murder, I don't know, and he was certainly resolved to protect the bull from molesta- tion-but don't get things confused. Remember that the mur- der was no part of an effort to guard the bull; Clyde was knocked unconscious not in the pasture, but somewhere else."

"That's your guess." "It's my opinion. I am careful with my opinions, sir; they are my bread and butter and the main source of my self- esteem."

Waddell sat with his mouth screwed up. Suddenly Osgood barked at him ferociously:

"Well, what about it?"

Waddell nodded at him, and then unscrewed his mouth to mutter, "Of course." He got up and kicked his chair back, stuck his hands in his pockets, stood and gazed at Wolfe a minute, and then backed up and sat down again. "Goddam it," he said in a pained voice. "Of course. We've got to get on it as quick and hard as we can. Jesus, what a mess. At Tom Pratt's place. Clyde Osgood. Your son, Fred. And you know the kind of material I have to work with-for instance Sam Lake-on a thing Hke this… Ill have to pull them away from the exposition… I'll go out and see Pratt myself, now…" He jerked himself forward and reached for the telephone, Osgood said to Wolfe, bitterly, "You see the prospect."

Wolfe nodded, and sighed. "It's an extraordinarily difficult situation, Mr. Osgood."

"I know damn well it is. I may have missed the significance of the bull's face, but I'm not a fool. The devil had brains and nerve and luck. I have two things to say to you. First, I apologize again for the way I tackled you this afternoon. I didn't know you had really earned your reputation, so many people haven't, but I see now you have. Second, you can see for yourself that you'll have to do this. You'll have to go on with it."

Wolfe shook his head. "I expect to leave for New York Thursday morning. Day after tomorrow."

"But my God, man! This is what you do, isn't it? Isn't this your job? What's the difference whether you work at it in New York or here?"

"Enormous; the difference, I mean. In New York I have my home, my office in it, my cook, my accustomed sur-' roundings-"

"Do you mean…" Osgood was up, spluttering. "Do you mean to say you have the gall to plead your personal comfort, your petty convenience, to a man in the position I'm in?"

"I do." Wolfe was serene. "I'm not responsible for the posi- tion you're in. Mr. Goodwin will tell you: I have a deep aversion to leaving my home or remaining long away from it. Another thing, you might not think me so petty if you could see and hear and smell the hotel room in which I shall have to sleep tonight and tomorrow night… and heavens knows how many more nights if I accepted your commission."