Rex Stout - Some Buried Caesar

"Hullo, plaything. I want to borrow a camera."

"My lord," she demanded, "am I such a pretty sight that you just have to-"

"No. This is serious and urgent. Have you got a camera?"

"Oh, I see. You came from the Osgoods. Oh, I knew you were there. It's that yellow-eyed Nancy-"

"Cut it. I tell you I'm serious. I want to take a picture of the bull before they get their-"

"What bull?"

"The bull."

"Good heavens. What a funny job you have. No one will ever take another picture of that bull. They've started the fire."

"Goddam it! Where?"

"Down at the other end…"

I was off on the lope, which may have been dumb, but I was in the throes of emotion. I heard her clamoring, "Wait! Escamillo! I'm coming along!" but I kept going. Leaving the lawn, as I passed the partly dug pit for the barbecue, I could smell the smoke, and soon I could see it, above the clump of birches towards the far end of the pasture. I slowed to a trot and cussed out loud as I went.

There was quite a group there, 15 or 20 besides the ones tending the fire. I joined them unnoticed. A length of the fence had been torn down and we stood back of the gap. Apparently Hickory Caesar Grindon had had a ring built around him of good dry wood, in ample quantity, for there was so much blaze that you could only catch an occasional glimpse of what was left of him between the tongues of flame. It was hot as the devil, even at the distance we were stand- ing. Four or five men in shirt sleeves, with sweat pouring from them, were throwing on more wood from nearby piles. The group of spectators stood, some silent, some talking. I heard a voice beside me:

"I thought maybe you might get around."

I turned for a look. "Oh, hello, Dave. What made you think I'd be here?"

"Nothin' particular, only you seem like a feller that likes to be around where things is goin' on." He pinched at his nose. "I'll be demed if it don't smell like a barbecue. Same smell exactly. You might close your eyes and think he was bein' et."

"Well, he's not. He won't-be."

"He sure won't." Silence, while we watched the flames. In a little he resumed, "You know, it gets you thinkin', a sight like that, denied if it don't. A champion bull like that Caesar bein' burnt up with scorn. It's ignominious. Ain't it?"

"Absolutely."

"Yes it is." He pinched his nose again. "Do you read pohtry?"

"No. Neither do you."

"The hell I don't. A book my daughter give me one Christmas I've read twenty times, parts of it more. In one place it says I sometimes think that never grows so red the rose as where some buried Caesar bled.' Of course this Caesar's bein' burnt instead of buried, but there's a con- nection if you can see it."

I made a fitting reply and shoved off. There was no per- centage in standing there getting my face roasted and I wasn't in a mood to listen to Dave recite poetry.

Up a ways, near the gate through which we had carried the canvas with its burden the night before. Lily Rowan sat on the grass holding her nose. I had a notion to stop and tell her with a sneer that it was only a pose to show how sensitive and feminine she was, since Dave's olfactory judgment had been correct, but I didn't even feel like sneering. I had been sent there on the hop with my first chance to get a lick in, and had arrived too late, and I knew that Nero Wolfe wouldn't be demanding a snapshot of a bull just to put it in his album.

Lily held her hands out. "Help me up."

I grabbed hold, gave a healthy jerk, and she popped up and landed flat against me; and I enclosed her with both arms and planted a thorough one, of medium duration, on her mouth, and let her go.

"Well," she said, with her eyes shining. "You cad."

"Don't count on that as a precedent," I warned her. "I'm overwrought. I may never feel like that again. I'm sore as the devil and had to relieve the tension somehow. May I use your telephone? Mr. Pratt's telephone."

"Go climb a tree," she said, and got her arm through mine, and we went to the house that way, though it is a form of intimacy I don't care for, since I have a tendency to fight shy of bonds. Nor did I respond to the melting quality that seemed to be creeping into her tone, but kept strictly to persiflage.

Caroline was on the terrace, reading, looking even more under the weather than she had that morning, and I paused for a greeting. I didn't see Jimmy anywhere. Lily went with me to the phone in an alcove of the living room, and sat and looked at me with a corner of her mouth turned up, as she had the day before. I got the number of Osgood's place, and was answered by a maid, and asked for Wolfe. His familiar grunt came: "Hello, Archie."

"Hello. Hell all haywire. They already had the fire started and it's like an inferno. What can I do?"

"Confound it. Nothing. Return."

"Nothing at all I can do here?"

"No. Come and help me admire stupidity."

I hung up and turned to Lily: "Listen, bauble. What good would it do if you told anyone that I came here to take a picture of the bull?"

"None whatever." She smiled and ran the tips of her fingers down my arm. "Trust me, Escamillo."

12

AN HOUR later, after eight o'clock, Wolfe and I sat in the room that had been assigned to him upstairs, eating off of trays, which he hated to do except at breakfast. But he wasn't complaining. He never talked busi- ness at meals, and was glad to escape from his client. Os- good had explained that his wife wouldn't appear, and his daughter would remain with her, and that perhaps it would be as well to forego service in the dining room altogether, and Wolfe had politely assented. His room was commodious and comfortable. It was a little chintzy, but one of its chairs was adequate for his bulk, and the bed would have held two of him. It might have been supposed that the kitchen would be sharing in the general household derangement, but the covered dishes of broiled lamb chops with stuffed tomatoes were hot and tasty, the salad was way below Fritz's standard but edible, and the squash pie was towards the top.

Osgood's collision with Waddell and Captain Barrow had been brief, for it had ended by the time I got back. The captain was collecting fingerprints from everyone who had been at Pratt's place the night before, without disclosing how dire his intent might be, and since Wolfe had already obliged I figured I might as well. After he had got my ten specimens collected and marked and put away in his little case, he had announced that he was ready for a call on the foreman of the stock barns, and at Wolfe's suggestion Osgood and McMillan had accompanied him, and Pratt had departed for home, which left Wolfe and me alone with District At- torney Waddell.

Waddell was glad to cooperate, he said, with Fred Os- good's representative. More than willing. He had pursued, and intended to pursue, the investigation without fear or favor. No one had a supported alibi except Lily Rowan and me. They had left the dinner table before 9 o'clock. Wolfe had gone upstairs to read. Pratt had gone to his desk in the room next to the living room to look over some business papers. McMillan had been shown to a room upstairs by Bert, and had lain down with his shoes off for a nap until 1 o'clock, at which time he was to relieve me on guard duty. He had slept lightly and the sound of the shots had awakened him. Caroline had sat on the terrace for a while and had then gone to the living room and looked at magazines. Jimmy had been on the terrace with his sister, and when she left he had remained there, and sat and smoked. He had heard our voices. Lily's and mine, as we had followed the pasture fence on our tour, especially as we encountered the briar patch, but remembered no other sounds above the noise of the crickets and katydids. Bert had helped with the dinner dishes until 10 o'clock and had then sat in the kitchen and listened to the radio, with his ear glued to it because it had to be kept pianissimo. Dave Smalley-Waddell knew all about his having been fired by Clyde Osgood-Dave, on parting from me at a quarter to 9, had gone to his room in a wing of the garage building, shaved himself, and retired. Wolfe de- manded, "Shaved?" in incredulity, and got the explanation Dave had given, that he always shaved at bedtime because he was too hungry to do it before breakfast, and after break- fast there was no time.