Rex Stout - Some Buried Caesar

In 5 minutes, in spite of the exposition traffic, we were pulling up at the courthouse. Instead of entering at the front, as with Osgood when calling on Waddell the day before, we went around to a side entrance that was on the ground level. The hall was dark and smelled of disinfectant and stale tobacco juice. The trooper preceding us turned the knob of a door marked SHERI F, with one F gone, and I followed him in with Barrow at my rear. It was a big dingy room with de- crepit desks and chairs, at one desk in a corner being the only occupant, a bald-headed gentleman with a red face and gold- rimmed specs who nodded at us and said nothing.

"We're going through you," Barrow announced.

I nodded indifferently and struck a pose. I know that the whole included all its parts and that that was one of the parts, and it had been necessary for Wolfe to toss me to the dogs so that he could have a private interview with the dis- trict attorney's coat pocket. So I tolerated it, and got ad- ditional proof that they had been to police school. They did everything but rip my seams. When they had finished I re- turned the various items to their proper places, and sat down. Barrow stood and gazed down at me. I was surprised he didn't go and wash his face, because that nicotine and soap must have stung. Tough as they come, those weatherbeaten babies.

"The mistake you made," I told him, "was coming in there breathing fire. Nero Wolfe and I are respectable law-abiding detectives."

He grunted. "Forget it. I'd give a month's pay to know how you did it, and maybe I'll find out sometime, but not now. I'm not going to try any hammering. Not at present." He glanced to see that the trooper was ready at a desk with notebook and pencil. "I just want to know a few things. Do you maintain that you took nothing from Bronson at any time?"

"I do."

"Did you suspect him of being implicated in the murder of Clyde Osgood?"

"You've got the wrong party. Mr. Wolfe does all the sus- pecting for the firm, ask him. I'm the office boy."

"Do you refuse to answer?"

"No indeed. If you want to know whether I personally suspected Bronson of murder, the reply is no. No known motive."

"Wasn't there anything in his relations with Clyde that might have supplied a motive?"

"Search me. You're wasting time. Day before yesterday at 2 o'clock the Osgoods and Pratts and Bronson were all com- plete strangers to Mr. Wolfe and me. Our only interest in any of them is that Osgood hired us to investigate the murder of his son. You started investigating simultaneously. If you're discouraged with what you've collected and want our crop as a handout, you'll have to go to Mr. Wolfe. You said you wanted to question me in connection with the murder of Howard Bronson."

'That's what I'm doing."

"Go ahead."

He kicked a chair around and sat down. "Wolfe inter- viewed Bronson last night. What was said at that interview?"

"Ask Mr. Wolfe."

"Do you refuse to answer?"

"I do, you know. I'm a workingman and don't want to lose my job."

"Neither do I. I'm working on a murder, Goodwin."

"So am I."

"Were you working on it when you entered the shed this afternoon where Bronson was killed?"

"No, not at that moment. I was waiting for Lew Bennett to tear himself away from the judging lot. I happened to see Nancy Osgood going into the shed and followed her out of curiosity. I found her in there in the stall talking to Jimmy Pratt. I knew her old man would be sore if he heard of it, which would have been too bad under the circumstances, so I advised them to postpone it and scatter, and they did so, and I went back to the Methodist tent where my employer was."

"How did they and you happen to pick the spot where Bronson's body was?"

"I didn't pick it, I found them there. I don't know why they picked it, but it would seem likely that it wasn't cause and effect. I imagine they would have chosen some other spot if they had known what was under the pile of straw."

"Did you know what was under it?"

"I'll give you three guesses."

"Did you?"

"No."

"Why were you so eager to get them out of there in a hurry?"

"I wouldn't say I was eager. It struck me they were fairly dumb to feed gossip at this particular time."

"You wouldn't say that you were eager to keep it quiet that they had been there, and you had?"

"Eager? Nope. Put it that I was inclined to feel it was desirable."

"Then why did you bribe the shed attendant?"

Of course he had telegraphed it again. But even so it was an awkward and undesirable question.

I was waiting for that," I told him. "Now you have got me where it hurts, because the only explanation I can offer, which is the true one, is loony. There are times when I feel kittenish, and that was one. I'll give it to you verbatim." I did so, words and music, repeating the conversation just as it had occurred, up to the departure of the beneficiary. "There," I said, "Robin Hood, his sign. And when a corpse was dis- covered there, the louse thought I had been bribing him with a measly tenspot, and so did you. I swear to God I'll lay for him tonight and take it away from him."

Barrow grunted. "You're good at explanations. The finger- prints on the wallet. I suppose a man like Bronson would leave a wallet containing two thousand dollars lying around on a veranda. Now this. Do you realize how good you are?"

"I told you it was loony. But lacking evidence to the con- trary, you might assume that I'm sane. Do I look like a goof who would try to gag a stranger in a case of murder with a ten dollar note? Should I start serious bribing around here, the per capita income of this county would shoot up like a skyrocket. And by the way, does that clodhopper say that I made any suggestions about silence or even discretion?"

"We're all clodhoppers around here. You try telling a jury of clophoppers that you're in the habit of tossing out ten dollar bills for the comic effect."

I snorted. "Unveil it, brother. What jury? My peers sitting on my life? Honest, are you as batty as that?"

"No." The Captain squinted at me and rubbed a spot on the side of his neck. "No, Goodwin, I'm not. I'm not looking forward to the pleasure of hearing a jury's opinion of you. Nor do I bear any grudge because you and your boss started the stink on the Osgood thing. I don't care how slick you are or where you come from or how much you soak Osgood for, but now that the bag has been opened it is going to be emptied. Right to the bottom. Do you understand that?"

"Go ahead and jiggle it."

Tm going to. And nothing's going to roll out of my sight while I'm not looking. You say ask Wolfe, and I'm going to, but right now I'm asking you. Are you going to talk or not?"

"My God, my throat's sore now."

"Yeah. I've got the wallet with your prints all over it. I've got the bill you gave the shed attendant. Are you going to tell me what you got from Bronson and where it is?"

"You're just encouraging me to lie. Captain."

"All right, I'll encourage you some more. This morning a sheriffs deputy was in the hotel lobby when Bronson entered. When Bronson went to a phone booth and put in a New York call, the deputy got himself plugged in on another line. He heard Bronson tell somebody in New York that a man named Goodwin had poked him in the jaw and taken the receipt from him, but that he expected to pull it off anyway. Well?"