Rex Stout - Some Buried Caesar

Wolfe nodded. "I see. The subtleties rule, as usual. That seems to cover the questions of value and superficial ap- pearance. The next point… I was astonished by what you told me on the telephone yesterday when I called you from Mr. Osgood's house. I would have supposed that every pure- bred calf would receive an indelible mark at birth. But you said that the only ones that are marked-with a tattoo on the ear-are those of solid color, with no white."

'That's right."

"So that if Caesar had been replaced by another bull it couldn't have been detected by the absence of any identifying mark."

"No. Only by comparing his color pattern with your knowl- edge of Caesar's color pattern or with the sketch on his Certificate of Registration."

"Just so. You spoke of sketches or photographs. How are they procured?"

'They are made by the breeder, at birth, or at least before the calf is six months old. On the reverse of the Application for Registration are printed outlines of a cow, both sides and face. On them the breeder sketches in ink the color pattern of the calf, showing white, light fawn, dark fawn, red fawn, brown and brindle. The sketches, filed in our office at Fembor- ough, are the permanent record for identification throughout life. Copies of them appear on the certificate of registration. If you buy a bull and want to be sure you are getting the right one, you compare his color and markings with the sketches."

Then I did understand you on the telephone. It sounded a little haphazard."

"It's the universal method," declared Bennett stiffly. "There has never been any difficulty."

"No offense. If it works it works." Wolfe sighed. "One more thing while you have your pie and coffee. This may require some reflection. Putting it as a hypothesis that Clyde Osgood actually undertook to replace Caesar with a sub- stitute, how many bulls are there within, say, 50 miles of here, which might have been likely candidates? With a fair re- semblance to Caesar, the closer the better, in general appear- ance and color pattern? Remember it mustn't be another champion, worth thousands."

Bennett objected, "But I've told you, it couldn't have worked. No matter how close the resemblance was, Monte McMillan would have known. He would have known Hickory Caesar Grindon from any bull on earth."

T said as a hypothesis. Humor me and we'll soon be through. How many such bulls within 50 miles?"

"That's quite an order." Bennett slowly munched a bite of pie, stirring his coffee, and considered. "Of course there's one right here, up at the shed. A Willowdale bull, 3-year- old. He'll never be in Caesar's class, but superficially he's a lot like him, color pattern and carriage and so on."

"Are you sure the one in the shed is the Willowdale bull?"

Bennett looked startled for an instant, then relieved. "Yes, it's Willowdale Zodiac all right. He was judged a while ago, and he's way down in pigment." He sipped some coffee. "There's a bull over at Hawley's, Orinoco, that might fill the bill, except his loin's narrow, but you might or might not notice that from any distance, depending on how he was standing. Mrs. Linville has one, over the other side of Crow- field, that would do even better than Orinoco, but I'm not sure if he's home. I understand she was sending him to Syracuse. Then of course another one would have been Hickory Bucking- ham Pell, Caesar's double brother, but he's dead."

"When did he die?"

"About a month ago. Anthrax. With most of the rest of McMillan's herd."

"Yes. That was a catastrophe. Was Buckingham also a champion?"

"Hell no. He and Caesar were both sired by old Hickory Gabriel, a grand and beautiful bull, but no matter how good a sire may be he can't be expected to hit the combination every time. Buckingham was good to look at, but his pigment secretion was bad and his daughters were inferior. He hadn't been shown since 1936, when he scored a 68 at Jamestown."

"In any case, he was dead. What about the Osgood herd? Any candidates there?"

Bennett slowly shook his head. "Hardly. There's a prom- ising junior sire, Thistleleaf Lucifer, that might be figured in, but he's nearer brindle than red fawn. However, you might miss it if you had no reason to suspect it, and if you didn't have Caesar's pattern well in mind."

"What is Lucifer's value?"

"That's hard to say. At an auction, it all depends…"

"But a rough guess?"

"Oh, between $500 and $800."

"I see. A mere fraction of $45,000."

Bennett snorted. "No bull ever lived that was worth $45,000. McMillan didn't get that for Caesar as a proper and reasonable price for him. It was only a bribe Pratt offered to pull him in on a shameful and discreditable stunt. One or two of the fellows are inclined to excuse McMillan, saying that losing 80% of his herd with anthrax was a terrible blow and he was desperate and it was a lot of money, but I say nothing in God's world could excuse a thing like that and most of them agree with me. I'd rather commit suicide than let myself-hey, George, over here! I was just coming. What's up?"

One of the men I had noticed in the judging enclosure, a big broad-shouldered guy with a tooth gone in front, ap- proached us, bumping the backs of chairs as he came.

"Can't they get along without me for 10 minutes?" Bennett demanded. "What's wrong now?"

"Nothin's wrong at the lot," the man said. "But we can't lead from the shed and back, on account of the crowd. There's a million people around there. Somebody found a dead man under a straw pile in the Holstein shed with a pitchfork through him. Murdered."

"Good God!" Bennett jumped up. "Who?"

"Don't know. You can't find out anything. You ought to see the mob…"

That was all I heard, because they were on their way out. A Methodist started after Bennett, but I intercepted her and told her I would pay for the meal. She said 90 cents, and I relinquished a dollar bill and sat down again across from Wolfe.

"The natural thing," I said, "would be for me to trot over there and poke around."

Wolfe shook his head. "It's after 3 o'clock, and we have business of our own. Let's attend to it."

He got himself erect and turned to give the folding chair a dirty look, and we departed. Outside it was simpler to navigate than formerly, because instead of moving criss- cross and every other way the crowd was mostly moving fast in a straight line, toward the end of the grounds where the cattle sheds were, in the opposite direction from the one we took. They looked excited and purposeful, as if they had just had news of some prey that might be pounced on for dinner. By keeping on one edge we avoided jostling.

Charles E. Shanks wasn't anywhere in sight around the orchid display, but Raymond Plehn, who was showing Laeliocattleyas and Odontoglossums, was there. It was the first we had seen of him, though of course we had looked over his entry, which wasn't in competition with ours. The building, with its enormous expanse of tables and benches ex- hibiting everything from angel food cake to stalks of corn 14 feet high, seemed to have about as many afternoon visitors as usual, who either hadn't heard the news from the Holstein shed or were contrary enough to be more interested in flowers and vegetables than in corpses.