Rex Stout - Some Buried Caesar

McMillan finally demanded, "What the hell is this, a staring match?"

Wolfe shook his head. "I don't like it," he said. "Believe me, sir, I take no pleasure from it. I have no desire to drag it out, to prolong the taste of victory. There has already been too much delay, far too much." He put his hand in his breast pocket, withdrew the memo pad, and held it out. "Take that, please, and examine the first three sheets. Thoroughly.-I'll want it back intact, Archie."

With a shrug of his broad shoulders, McMillan took the pad and looked it over. His head was bent and I couldn't see his face. After inspecting the sheets twice over he looked up again.

"You've got me," he declared. "Is there a trick to it?"

"I wouldn't say a trick." Wolfe's tone took on an edge. "Do you identify those sketches?"

"I never saw them before."

"Of course not. It was a bad question. Do you identify the original they were drawn from?"

"No I don't. Should I? They're not very good."

"That's true. Still I would have expected you to identify them. He was your bull. Today I compared them with some sketches, the originals on the applications for registration, which Mr. Bennett let me look at, and it was obvious that the model for them was Hickory Buckingham Pell. Your bull that died of anthrax a month ago."

"Is that so?" McMillan looked the sheets over again, in no haste, and returned his eyes to Wolfe. "It's possible. That's interesting. Where did you get these drawings?"

"That's just the point." Wolfe laced his fingers across his belly. "I made them myself. You've heard of that homely episode Monday afternoon, before your arrival. Mr. Goodwin and I started to cross the pasture and were interrupted by the bull. Mr. Goodwin escaped by agility, but I mounted that boulder in the center of the pasture. 1 was there some 15 minutes before I was rescued by Miss Pratt. I am vain of my dignity, and I felt undignified. The bull was parading not far off, back and forth, and I took my memorandum pad from my pocket and made those sketches of him. The ges- ture may have been childish, but I got satisfaction from it. It was… well, a justification of my point of vantage on the boulder. May I have the pad back, please?"

McMillan didn't move. I arose and took the pad from him without his seeming to notice it, and put it in my pocket.

McMillan said, "You must have a screw loose. The bull in the pasture was Caesar. Hickory Caesar Grindon."

"No, sir. I must contradict you, for again that's just the point. The bull in the pasture was Hickory Buckingham Pell. The sketches I made Monday afternoon prove it, but I was aware of it long before I saw Mr. Bennett's official records. I suspected it Monday afternoon. I knew it Monday night I didn't know it was Buckingham, for I had never heard of him, but I know it wasn't Caesar.";

"You're a goddam liar. Whoever told you-"

"No one told me." Wolfe grimaced. He unlaced his fingers to wiggle one. "Let me make a suggestion, sir. We're engaged in a serious business, deadly serious, and well gain nothing by cluttering it up with frivolous rhetoric. You know very well what I'm doing, I'm undertaking to demonstrate that Clyde Osgood and Howard Bronson died by your hand. You can't refute my points until I've made them, and you can't keep me from making them by calling me names. Let's show mutual respect. I can't expose your guilt by shouting 'mur- derer' at you, and you can't disprove it by shouting 'liar' at me. Nor by pretending surprise. You must have known why I asked you to meet me here."

McMillan's gaze was steady. So was his voice: "You're go- ing to undertake to prove something."

"I am. I have already shown proof that Caesar, the cham- pion, was never in that pasture."

"Bah. Those drawings? Anybody would see through that trick. Do you suppose anyone is going to believe that when the bull chased you on that rock you stood there and made pictures of him?"

"I think so." Wolfe's eyes moved. "Archie, get Miss Rowan."

I wouldn't have left him like that if he had had the sketches on him, but they were in my pocket. I hotfooted it downstairs and across the lawn and under the trees to the hammock, which she got out of as she saw me coming. She linked her arm through mine, and I had to tolerate it for business reasons, but I made her trot. She offered no ob- jections, but by the time we got upstairs to our destination she was a little out of breath. I had to admit she was a pretty good pupil when I saw her matter-of-fact nods. First to Wolfe and then to McMillan. Neither of them got up.

Wolfe said, "Miss Rowan. I believe Mr. Goodwin has in- formed you that we would ask you for an exercise of memory. I suppose you do remember that on Monday afternoon the activity of the bull marooned me on a rock in the pasture?"

She smiled at him. "I do."

"How long was I on the rock?"

"Oh… I would say 15 minutes. Between 10 and 20."

"During that time, what was Miss Pratt doing?"

"Running to get her car and driving to the pasture and arguing with Dave about opening the gate, and then driving to get you."

"What was Dave doing?"

"Waving the gun and arguing with Esca… Mr. Goodwin and arguing with Caroline and jumping around."

"What were you doing?"

"Taking it in. Mostly I was watching you, because you made quite a picture-you and the bull."

"What was I doing?"

"Well, you climbed to the top of the rock and stood there 2 or 3 minutes with your arms folded and your walking stick hanging from your wrist, and then you took a notebook or something from your pocket and it looked as if you were writing in it or drawing in it. You kept looking at the bull and back at the book or whatever it was. I decided you were making a sketch of the bull. That hardly seemed possible under the circumstances, but it certainly looked like it."

Wolfe nodded. "I doubt if there will ever be any reason for you to repeat all that to a judge and jury in a courtroom, but if such an occasion should arise would you do it?"

"Certainly. Why not?"

"Under oath?"

"Of course. Not that I would enjoy it much."

"But you would do it?"

"Yes."

Wolfe turned to the stockman. "Would you care to ask her about it?"

McMillan only looked at him, and gave no sign. I went to open the door and told Lily, "That will do, Miss Rowan, thank you," She crossed and stopped at my elbow and said, 'Take me back to the hammock." I muttered at her, "Go sit on your thumb. School's out." She made a face at me and glided over the threshold, and I shut the door and returned to my chair.

McMillan said, "I still say it's a trick. And a damn dirty trick. What else?"

"That's all." Wolfe sighed. "That's all, sir. I ask you to consider whether it isn't enough. Let us suppose that you are on trial for the murder of Clyde Osgood. Mr. Goodwin testifies that while I was on the rock he saw me looking at the bull and sketching on my pad. Miss Rowan testified as you have just heard. I testify that at that time, of that bull, I made those sketches, and the jury is permitted to compare them with the official sketches of Caesar and Buckingham. Wouldn't that satisfactorily-demonstrate that Buckingham was in the pasture, and Caesar wasn't and never had been?"