Rex Stout - Some Buried Caesar

McMillan said nothing.

Wolfe shrugged. "Anyhow, you were prompt and energetic. As long as the bull was destined to be cooked and eaten-this was to be the day for that, by the way-you ran little risk of exposure. But when all thought of the barbecue was aban- doned, and it was suspected that Clyde had been murdered, the bull's presence, alive or dead, was a deadly peril to you. You acted at once. You not only killed him, you did it by a method which insured that his carcass would be immediately destroyed. You must have been prepared for contingencies.

"As for me, I was stumped. You had licked me. With all trace of the bull gone but his bones, there seemed no possible way of establishing your motive for murdering Clyde. I had no evidence even for my own satisfaction that my surmise had been correct-that the bull was not Caesar. Tuesday eve- ning I floundered in futilities. I had an interview with you and tried to draw you out by suggesting absurdities, but you were too wary for me. You upbraided me for trying to smear some of the mess on you, and left. Then I tried Bronson, hoping for something-anything. That kind of man is always impervious unless he can be confronted with facts, and I had no facts. It's true that he led me to assumptions: that Clyde had told him how and why he expected to win the bet, and that Bron- son therefore knew you were guilty-might even have been there himself, in the dark-and that he was blackmailing you. I assumed those things, but he admitted none of them, and of course I couldn't prove them.

"Yesterday morning I went for Bennett. I wanted to find out all I could about identifying bulls. He was busy. Mr. Goodwin couldn't get him. After lunch I was still waiting for him. Finally he came, and I got a great deal of information, but nothing that would constitute evidence. Then came the news that Bronson had been murdered. Naturally that was obvious. Suspecting that he was blackmailing you, I had told the man he was a fool and he had proved me correct. There too you acted promptly and energetically. Men like you, sir, when once calamity sufficiently disturbs their balance, be- come excessively dangerous. They will perform any desperate and violent deed, but they don't lose their heads. I wouldn't mind if Mr. Goodwin left me with you in this room alone, be- cause it is known that we are here; but I wouldn't care to offer you the smallest opportunity if there were the slightest room for your ingenuity."

McMillan lifted his head and broke his long silence. "I'm through," he said dully.

Wolfe nodded. "Yes, I guess you are. A jury might be re- luctant to convict you of first degree murder on the testimony of my sketches, but if Pratt sued you for $45,000 on the ground that you hadn't delivered the bull you sold, I think flie sketches would clinch that sort of case. Convicted of that swindle, you would be through anyway. About the sketches. I had to do that. 3 hours ago there wasn't a shred of evidence in existence to connect you with the murders you committed. But as soon as I examined the official sketches of Buckingham and Caesar I no longer surmised or deduced the identity of the bull in the pasture; I knew it. I had seen the white patch on the shoulder with my own eyes, and I had seen the exten- sion of the white shield on his face. I made the sketches to support that knowledge. They will be used in the manner I described, with the testimony of Miss Rowan and Mr. Good- win to augment my own. As I say, they will certainly convict you of fraud, if not of murder."

Wolfe sighed. "You killed Clyde Osgood to prevent the exposure of your fraud. Even less, to avoid the compulsion of having to share its proceeds. Now it threatens you again. That's the minimum of the threat."

McMillan tossed his head, as if he were trying to shake something off. The gesture looked familiar, but I didn't re- member having seen him do it before. Then he did it again, and I saw what it was: it was the way the bull had tossed his head in the pasture Monday afternoon.

He looked at Wolfe and said, "Do me a favor. I want to go out to my car a minute. Alone."

Wolfe muttered, "You wouldn't come back."

"Yes, I would. My word was good for over 50 years. Now it's good again. Ill be back within 5 minutes, on my feet."

"Do I owe you a favor?"

"No. I'll do you one in return. I'll write something and sign it. Anything you say. You've got it pretty straight. I'll do it when I come back, not before. And you asked me how I killed Buckingham. I'll show you what I did it with."

Wolfe spoke to me without moving his head or his eyes. "Open the door for him, Archie."

I didn't stir. I knew he was indulging himself in one of his romantic impulses, and I thought a moment's reflection might show him its drawbacks; but after only half a moment he snapped at me, "Well?"

I got up and opened the door and McMillan, with a heavy tread but no sign of the blind staggers, passed out. I stood and watched his back until the top of his head disappeared on his way downstairs. Then I turned to Wolfe and said sarcastically, "Fortune-telling and character-reading. It would be nice to have to explain-"

"Shut up."

I kicked the door further open and stood there, listen- ing for the sound of a gunshot or a racing engine or what- ever I might hear. But the first pertinent sound, within the 5 minutes he had mentioned, was his returning footsteps on the stairs. He came down the hall, as he had promised, on his feet, entered without glancing at me, walked to Wolfe and handed him something, and went to his chair and sat down.

"That's what I said I'd show you." He seemed more out of breath than the exertion of his trip warranted, but other- wise under control. "That's what I killed Buckingham with." He turned his eye to me. "I haven't got any pencil or paper. If you'll let me have that pad…"

Wolfe held the thing daintily with thumb and forefinger, regarding it-a large hypodermic syringe. He lifted his gaze.

"You had anthrax in this?"

"Yes. Five cubic centimeters. A culture I made myself from the tissues of Caesar's heart the morning I found him dead. They gave me hell for cutting him open, but-" He shrugged. "I did that before I got the idea of saying the carcass was Buckingham instead of Caesar. I only about half knew what I was doing that morning, but it was in my mind to use it on myself-the poison from Caesar's heart. Watch out how you handle that. It's empty now, but there might be a drop left on the needle, though I just wiped it off."

"Will anthrax kill a man?"

"Yes. How sudden depends on how he gets it. In my case collapse will come in maybe twenty minutes, because I shot more than two cubic centimeters of that concentrate in this vein." He tapped his left forearm with a finger. "Right in the vein. I only used half of it on Buckingham."

"Before you left for Crowfield Tuesday afternoon."

"Yes." McMillan looked at me again. "You'd better give me that pad and let me get started."

I got out the pad and tore off the three top sheets which contained the sketches, and handed it to him, with my fountain pen. He took it and scratched with the pen to try it, and asked Wolfe, "Do you want to dictate it?"

"No. Better in your own words. Just-it can be brief. Are you perfectly certain about the anthrax?"

"Yes. A good stockman is a jack of all trades."

Wolfe sighed, and shut his eyes.