Some Buried Caesar (26 page)

“I don’t know.” Barrow compressed his lips. “I know what I’d like to do.”

“That’s a big help. You’ve had 6 or 8 men on this thing and they haven’t dug up a single solitary fragment, and this smart elephant knows who did it and will have conclusive evidence within 24 hours. So he says.” Waddell suddenly jerked up his chin and whirled to Wolfe: “Who knows it besides you? If Lake or any of his deputies have been holding out on me—”

“No,” Wolfe assured him. “That’s all right. They’re in the boat with you and Captain Barrow, with no hooks and no bait.”

“Then when did you pick it up? Where have you been? Goodwin certainly didn’t help any, since we collared him soon after Bronson’s body was found. By God, if this is a stall …”

Wolfe shook his head. “Please. I’ve known who killed Clyde Osgood since Monday night; I knew it as soon as I saw the bull’s face; and I knew the motive. Your incredulous stare only makes you look foolish. Likewise with Mr. Bronson; the thing was obvious.”

“You knew all about it when you were sitting there in that chair Tuesday afternoon? Talking to me, the district attorney?”

“Yes. But there was no evidence—or rather, there was, but before I could reach it it had been destroyed. Now I must find a substitute for it, and shall.”

“What was the evidence that was destroyed?”

“Not now. It’s nearly 11 o’clock, and Mr. Goodwin and I must be going. We have work to do. By the way, I don’t want to be annoyed by surveillance. It will be futile, and if we’re followed I shall consider myself released from the bargain.”

“Will you give me your word of honor that you’ll do just what you’ve agreed to do, with no reservations and no quibbling?”

“Not a word of honor. I don’t like the phrase. The word ‘honor’ has been employed too much by objectionable people and has been badly soiled. I give you my word. But I can’t sit here talking about it all day. I understand that my assistant has been legally committed, so the release must be legal too.”

Waddell sat and pulled at his ear. He frowned at Barrow, but apparently read no helpful hint on the
captain’s stony countenance. He reached for his telephone and requested a number, and after a little wait spoke into it: “Frank? Ask Judge Hutchins if I can run up and see him for a minute. I want to ask him to vacate a warrant.”

I
asked, “Shall I go get him?”

Wolfe said, “No. We’ll wait.”

We were in a room at the exposition offices, not the one where we had met Osgood Tuesday afternoon. This was smaller and contained desks and files and chairs and was cluttered with papers. It was noon. On leaving the courthouse with Wolfe I had been surprised to find that our sedan was parked out front; he explained that an Osgood employee had brought it from where I had left it the day before. He had instructed me to head for the exposition grounds, and our first stop had been the main exhibits building, where we gave the orchids an inspection and a spraying, and Wolfe arranged with an official for their care until Saturday, and the crating and shipping when the exposition closed. Then we had walked to the offices and been shown to Room 9. I was allowed to know that we expected to meet Lew Bennett there, but he hadn’t arrived, and at noon we were still waiting for him.

I said, “If you ask my opinion, I think the best thing we can do is disguise ourselves as well as possible
and jump in the car and drive like hell for New York. Or maybe across the line to Vermont and hide out in an old marble quarry.”

“Stop that scratching.”

I stuck my hands in my pockets. “You realize that I have been studying your face for 10 years, its lights and its shadows, the way it is arranged, and the way you handle it. And I say in all disrespect that I do not believe that the evidence which you mentioned to those false alarms is in existence.”

“It isn’t.”

“I refer to the evidence which you promised to deliver within 24 hours.”

“So do I.”

“But it doesn’t exist.”

“No.”

“But you’re going to deliver it?”

“Yes.”

I stared. “Okay. I suppose it was bound to happen sooner or later, but it’s so painful to see that I wish it had happened to me first. Once at my mother’s knee, back in 1839 I think it was—”

“Shut up, I’m going to make it.”

“What? The bughouse?”

“The evidence. There is none. The bull was cremated. Nothing else remained to demonstrate the motive for murdering Clyde, and even if there had been other incriminating details—and there were none—they would have been useless. As for Bronson, Mr. Lake reports a vacuum. No fingerprints, except yours on the wallet, no one who remembers seeing him enter the shed, no one who saw him in anybody’s company, no one with any discoverable motive. From the New York end, tracing his phone call, so far nothing—and
of course there can be nothing. A complete vacuum. Under the circumstances there is only—ah! Good morning, sir.”

The Secretary of the National Guernsey League, having entered and shut the door behind him, approached. He looked like a man who has been interrupted, but nothing like as exasperated as he had been the preceding day. His greeting was affable but not frothy, and he sat down as if he didn’t expect to stay long.

Wolfe said, “Thank you for coming. You’re busy of course. Remarkable, how many ways there are of being busy. I believe Mr. Osgood told you on the phone that I would ask a favor in his name. I’ll be brief. First the relevant facts: the records of your league are on file in your office at Fernborough, which is 110 miles from here, and the airplane belonging to Mr. Sturtevant, who takes passengers for hire at the airport at the other end of these grounds, could go there and return in 2 hours. Those are facts.”

Bennett looked slightly bewildered. “I guess they are. I don’t know about the airplane.”

“I do, I’ve inquired. I’ve even engaged Mr. Sturtevant’s services, tentatively. What I would like to have, sir, before 3 o’clock, are the color pattern sketches of Hickory Caesar Grindon, Willowdale Zodiac, Hawley’s Orinoco, Mrs. Linville’s bull whose name I don’t know, and Hickory Buckingham Pell. Mr. Sturtevant is ready to leave at a moment’s notice. You can accompany him, or Mr. Goodwin can, or you can merely give him a letter.”

Bennett was frowning. “You mean the original sketches?”

“I understand no others are available. Those on certificates are scattered among the owners.”

Bennett shook his head. “They can’t leave the files, it’s a strict rule. They’re irreplaceable and we can’t take risks.”

“I understand. I said you can go yourself. When they come you can sit me here at this table with them and they can be constantly under your eye. I need only half an hour with them, possibly less.”

“But they mustn’t leave the files. Anyhow, I can’t get away.”

“This is the favor requested by Mr. Osgood.”

“I can’t help it. It … it isn’t reasonable.”

Wolfe leaned back and surveyed him. “One test of intelligence,” he said patiently, “is the ability to welcome a singularity when the need arises, without excessive strain. Strict rules are universal. We all have a rule not to go on the street before clothing ourselves, but if the house is on fire we violate it. There is a conflagration here in Crowfield—metaphorically. People are being murdered. It should be extinguished, and the incendiary should be caught. The connection between that and the sketches in your files may be hidden to you, but not to me; for that you will have to accept my word. It is vital, it is essential, that I see those sketches. If you won’t produce them as a favor to Mr. Osgood, you will do so as obligation to the community. I must see them.”

Bennett looked impressed. But he objected. “I didn’t say you couldn’t see them. You can, anybody can, at our office. Go there yourself.”

“Preposterous. Look at me.”

“I don’t see anything wrong with you. The airplane will carry you all right.”

“No.” Wolfe shuddered. “It won’t. That’s another thing you must accept my word for, that to expect me to get into an airplane would be utterly fantastic. Confound it, you object to violating a minor routine rule and then have the effrontery to suggest—have you ever been up in an airplane?”

“No.”

“Then for heaven’s sake try it once. It will be an experience for you. You’ll enjoy it. I’m told that Mr. Sturtevant is competent and trustworthy and has a good machine. Get those sketches for me.”

That was really what decided the question, 5 minutes later—the chance of a free airplane ride. Bennett gave in. He made a notation of the sketches Wolfe wanted, made a couple of phone calls, and was ready. I went with him to the landing field; we walked because he wanted to stop at the Guernsey cattle shed on the way. At the field we found Sturtevant, a good-looking kid with a clean face and greasy clothes, warming up the engine of a neat little biplane painted yellow. He said he was set and Bennett climbed in. I backed out of harm’s way and watched them taxi across the field, and turn, and come scooting across the grass and lift. I stood there until they were up some 400 feet and headed east, and then walked back to the exposition grounds proper, to meet Wolfe at the Methodist tent as arranged. One rift in a gray sky was that I was to get another crack at the fricassee, and after my C. C. P. U. breakfast I had a place for it.

But it wasn’t a leisurely meal, for it appeared that we had a program—that is, Wolfe had it and I was to carry it out. After all his gab about violating rules, he kept his intact about the prohibition of business while eating, and since he was in a mood there wasn’t much
conversation. When the pie had been disposed of and the coffee arrived, he squirmed to a new position on the folding chair and began to lay it out. I was to take the car and proceed to Osgoods, and bathe and change my clothes. Since the house would be full of funeral guests, I was to make myself as unobtrusive as possible, and if Osgood himself failed to catch sight of me at all, so much the better, as I was still under suspicion of having steered his daughter to a rendezvous with the loathsome Pratt brat. I was to pack our luggage and load it in the car, have the car filled with gas and oil and whatever else it had an appetite for, and report at the room where we had met Bennett not later than 3 o’clock.

“Luggage?” I sipped coffee. “Poised for flight, huh?”

Wolfe sighed. “We’ll be going home. Home.”

“Any stops on the way?”

“We’ll stop at Mr. Pratt’s place.” He sipped. “By the way, I’m overlooking something. Two things. Have you a memorandum book with you? Or a notebook?”

“I’ve got a pad. You know the kind I carry.”

“May I have it? And your pencil. It would be well to use the kind of pencil that is carried, though I think it will never get to microscopes. Thank you.” He frowned at the pad. “Larger sheets would be better, but this will serve, and it wouldn’t do to buy one in Crowfield.” He put the pad and pencil in his pocket. “The second thing, I must have a good and reliable liar.”

“Yes, sir.” I tapped my chest.

“No, not you. Rather, in addition to you.”

“Another liar besides me. Plain or fancy?”

“Plain. But we’re limited. It must be one of the three persons who were there when I was standing on that rock in the pasture Monday afternoon.”

“Well.” I pursed my lips and considered. “Your friend Dave might do for a liar. He reads poetry.”

“No. Out of the question. Not Dave.” Wolfe opened his eyes at me. “What about Miss Rowan? She seems inclined to friendship. Emphatically, since she visited you in jail.”

“How the devil did you know that?”

“Not knowledge. Surmise. Your mother’s voice on the telephone was hers. We’ll discuss that episode after we get home. You must have suggested that performance to her, therefore you must have been in communication with her. People in jail aren’t called to the telephone, so she couldn’t have phoned you. She must have gone to see you. Surely, if she is as friendly as that, she would be pliant.”

“I don’t like to use my spiritual appeal for business purposes.”

“Proscriptions carried too far lead to nullity.”

“After I analyze that I’ll get in touch with you. My first impulse is to return it unopened.”

“Will she lie?”

“Good lord, yes. Why not?”

“It’s important. Can we count on it?”

“Yes.”

“Then another detail is for you to telephone, find her, and make sure she will be at Mr. Pratt’s place from 3 o’clock on. Tell her you will want to speak to her as soon as we arrive there.” He caught the eye of a Methodist, and when she came to his beckoning requested more coffee. Then he told me, “It’s after 1
o’clock. Mr. Bennett is over halfway to Fernborough. You haven’t much time.”

I emptied my cup and left him.

The program went without a hitch, but it kept me on the go. I phoned Pratt’s first thing, for Lily Rowan, and she was there, so I checked that off. I warmed up the concrete out to Osgood’s, and by going in the rear entrance and up the back stairs avoided contact with the enraged father. I probably wouldn’t have been noticed anyway, for the place was nearly as crowded as the exposition. There must have been a hundred cars, which was why I had to park long before I got to the end of the drive, and of course I had to carry the luggage. Upstairs I caught a glimpse of Nancy, and exchanged words with the housekeeper in the back hall downstairs, but didn’t see Osgood. The service began at 2 o’clock, and when I left the only sound in the big old house, coming from the part I stayed away from, was the rise and fall of the preacher’s voice pronouncing the last farewell for Clyde Osgood, who had won a bet and lost one simultaneously.

At 5 minutes to 3, with clean clothes and a clean body, not to mention the mind, with the car, filled with luggage and the other requisites, parked conveniently near, and without any satisfactory notion of the kind of goods Wolfe’s factory was turning out in the line of evidence, though I had a strong inkling of who the consignee was to be, I sought Room 9 in the exposition offices. Sturtevant had apparently made good on his schedule, for the factory was in operation. Wolfe was there alone, seated at a table, with half a dozen sketches of bulls, on small sheets of white paper about 6 by 9 inches, arranged neatly in a row. One of them, separate, was directly under his eye, and he
kept glancing back and forth from it to the sheet of my memo pad on which he was working with my pencil. He looked as concentrated as an artist hell bent for a masterpiece. I stood and observed operations over his shoulder for a few minutes, noting that the separate sheet from which he seemed to be drawing his inspiration was marked “Hickory Buckingham Pell,” and then gave it up and sat down.