Some Buried Caesar

Chapter 5

At the foot of the stairs I was met by Pratt, standing with his hands stuck deep in his pockets and his wide jaw clamped tight. He made a motion with his head without saying anything, and led me into the big living room and to where a long-legged gentleman sat on a chair biting his lip, and letting it go, and biting it again. This latter barked at me when I was still five paces short of him, without waiting for Pratt or me to arrange contact:

“Your name’s Goodwin, is it?”

It stuck out all over him, one of those born-to-command guys. I never invite them to parties. But I turned on the control and told him quietly, “Yep. Archie Goodwin.”

“It was you that drove the bull off and fired the shots?”

“Yes, doctor.”

“I’m not a doctor! I’m Frederick Osgood. My son has been killed. My only son.”

“Excuse me, I thought you looked like a doctor.”

Pratt, who had backed off and stood facing us with his hands still in his pockets, spoke: “The doctor hasn’t got here yet. Mr. Osgood lives only a mile away and came in a few minutes.”

Osgood demanded, “Tell your story. I want to hear it.”

“Yes, sir.” I told him. I know how to make a brief but complete report and did so, up to the point where the others had arrived, and ended by saying that I presumed he had had the rest of it from Mr. Pratt.

“Never mind Pratt. Your story is that you weren’t there when my son entered the pasture.”

“My story is just as I’ve told it.”

“You’re a New York detective.”

I nodded. “Private.”

“You work for Nero Wolfe and came here with him.”

“Right. Mr. Wolfe is upstairs.”

“What are you and Wolfe doing here?”

I said conversationally, “If you want a good sock in the jaw, stand up.”

He started to lift. “Why, damn you -”

I showed him a palm. “Now hold it. I know your son has just been killed and I’ll make all allowances within reason, but you’re just making a damn fool of yourself. What’s the matter with you, anyway? Are you hysterical?”

He bit his lip. In a second he said, with his tone off a shade, “No, I’m not hysterical. I’m trying to avoid making a fool of myself. I’m trying to decide whether to get the sheriff and the police here. I can’t understand what happened. I don’t believe it happened the way you say it did.”

“That’s too bad.” I looked him in the eye. “Because for my part of it I have a witness. Someone was with me all the time. A… a young lady.”

“Where is she? What’s her name?”

“Lily Rowan.”

He stared at me, stared at Pratt, and came back to me. He was beyond biting his lip. “Is she here?”

“Yes. I’ll give you this free: Mr. Wolfe and I had an accident to our car and walked to this house to telephone. Everyone here was a stranger to us, including Lily Rowan. After dinner she went for a walk and found me guarding the pasture and stayed to keep me company. She was with me when I found the bull and drove him off. If you get the police and they honor me with any attention they’ll be wasting their time. I’ve told you what I saw and did, and everything I saw and did.”

Osgood’s fingers were fastened onto his knees like claws digging for a hold. He demanded, “Was my son with this Lily Rowan?”

“Not while she was with me. She joined me on the far side of the pasture around nine-thirty. I hadn’t seen your son since he left here in the afternoon. I don’t know whether she had or not. Ask her.”

“I’d rather wring her neck, damn her. What do you know about a bet my son made today with Pratt?”

A rumble came from Pratt: “I’ve told you all about that, Osgood. For God’s sake give yourself a chance to cool down a little.”

“I’d like to hear what this man has to say. What about it, Goodwin? Did you hear them making the bet?”

“Sure, we all heard it, including your daughter and your son’s friend - name of Bronson.” I surveyed him with decent compassion. “Take some advice from an old hand, mister, from one who has had the advantage of watching Nero Wolfe at work. You’re rotten at this, terrible. You remind me of a second-grade dick harassing a dip. I’ve seen lots of people knocked dizzy by sudden death, and if that’s all that’s wrong with you there’s nothing anyone can give you except sympathy, but if you’re really working on an idea the best thing you can do is turn it over to professionals. Have you got a suspicion you can communicate?”

“I have.”

“Suspicion of what?”

“I don’t know, but I don’t understand what happened. I don’t believe my son walked into that pasture alone, for any purpose whatever. Pratt says he was there to get the bull. That’s an idiotic supposition. My son wasn’t an idiot. He wasn’t a greenhorn with cattle, either. Is it likely he would go up to a loose bull, and if the bull showed temper, just stand there in the dark and let it come?”

Another rumble from Pratt: “You heard what McMillan said. He might have slipped or stumbled, and the bull was too close -”

“I don’t believe it! What was he there for?”

“To win ten thousand dollars.”

Osgood got to his feet. He was broad-shouldered, and a little taller than Pratt, but a bit paunchy. He advanced on Pratt with fists hanging and spoke through his teeth. “You damn skunk. I warned you not to say that again…”

I slipped in between them, being more at home there than I was with bulls. I allotted the face to Osgood: “And when the doctor comes his duty would be to get you two bandaged up. That would be nice. If Pratt thinks your son was trying to win a bet that’s what he thinks, and you asked for his opinion and you got it. Cut out the playing. Either wait till morning and get some daylight on it, or go ahead and send for the sheriff and see what he thinks of Pratt’s opinion. Then the papers will print it, along with Dave’s opinion and Lily Rowan’s opinion and so forth, and we’ll see what the public thinks. Then some intelligent reporters from New York will print an interview with the bull -”

“Well, Mr. Pratt! I’m sorry I couldn’t make it sooner…”

We turned. It was a stocky little man with no neck, carrying a black bag.

“I was out when the call… oh. Mr. Osgood. This is terrible. A very terrible thing. Terrible.”

I followed the trio into the next room, where the piano was, and the divan. There was no sense in Osgood going in there again, but he went. Jimmy Pratt, who had been sitting on the piano stool, got up and left. The doctor trotted over to the divan and put his bag down on a chair. Osgood crossed to a window and stood with his back to the room. When the sound came of the canvas being opened, and the doctor’s voice saying “My God!” quite loud, involuntarily, Osgood turned his head half around and then turned it back again.

Thirty minutes later I went upstairs and reported to Wolfe, who, in yellow pajamas, was in the bathroom brushing his teeth:

“Doc Sackett certified accidental death from a wound inflicted by a bull. Frederick Osgood, bereaved father, who would be a duke if we had dukes or know the reason why, suspects a fly in the soup, whether for the same reason as yours or not I can’t say, because you haven’t told me your reason if any. I didn’t know your wishes in regard to goading him with innuendo…”

Wolfe rinsed his mouth and spat. “I requested you merely to give direct evidence.”

“There was no merely about it. I tell you Osgood is in the peerage and he doesn’t believe it happened the way it did happen, his chief reason being that Clyde was too smart to fall for a bull in the dark and that there is no acceptable reason to account for Clyde being in the pasture at all. He offered those observations to Doc Sackett, along with others, but Sackett thought he was just under stress and shock, which he was, and refused to delay the certification, and arranged for an undertaker to come in the morning. Whereupon Osgood, without even asking permission to use the telephone, called up the sheriff and the state police.”

“Indeed.” Wolfe hung the towel on the rack. “Remind me to wire Theodore tomorrow. I found a mealy bug on one of the plants.”