Some Buried Caesar

Chapter 8

In all ordinary circumstances Wolfe’s cocky and unlimited conceit prevents the development of any of the tender sentiments, such as compassion for instance, but that afternoon I felt sorry for him. He was being compelled to break some of his most ironclad rules. He was riding behind strange drivers, walking in crowds, obeying a summons from a prospective client, and calling upon a public official, urged on by his desperate desire to find a decent place to sit down. The hotel room we had managed to get - since we hadn’t arrived Monday evening to claim the one we had reserved - was small, dark and noisy, and had one window which overlooked a building operation where a concrete mixer was raising cain. If you opened the window, cement dust entered in clouds. There was nowhere at all to sit near our space in the exhibits building. At the Methodist tent they had folding chairs. The ones at the room where we had gone to meet Osgood, where Wolfe had probably expected something fairly tolerable, had been little better; and obviously Wolfe regarded the District Attorney’s office as a sort of forlorn last hope. I never saw him move faster than when we entered and a swift glance showed him there was just one upholstered, in dingy black leather, with arms. You might almost have called it a swoop. He stood in front of it for the introduction and then sank.

Carter Waddell, the District Attorney, was pudgy and middle-aged and inclined to bubble. I suppose he did special bubbling for Osgood, on account of sympathy for bereavement and to show that the 1936 election had left no hard feelings, not to mention his love for his country of which Osgood owned 2000 acres. He said he was perfectly willing to reopen the discussion they had had earlier in the day, though his own opinion was unaltered. Osgood said he didn’t intend to discuss it himself, that would be a waste of time and effort, but that Mr. Nero Wolfe had something to say.

“By all means,” Waddell bubbled. “Certainly. Mr. Wolfe’s reputation is well known, of course. Doubtless we poor rustics could learn a great deal from him. Couldn’t we, Mr. Wolfe?”

Wolfe murmured, “I don’t know your capacity, Mr. Waddell. But I do think I have something pertinent to offer regarding the murder of Clyde Osgood.”

“Murder?” Waddell stretched his eyes wide. “Now I don’t know. Petitio principii isn’t a good way to begin. Is it?”

“Of course not.” Wolfe wriggled himself comfortable, and sighed. “I offer the word as something to be established, not as a postulate. Did you ever see a bull kill a man, or injure one with his horn?”

“No, I can’t say I have.”

“Did you ever see a bull who had just gored a man or a horse or any animal? Immediately after the goring?”

“No.”

“Well, I have… long ago… a dozen times or more, at bullfights. Horses killed, and men injured… one man killed.” Wolfe wiggled a finger. “Whether you’ve seen it or not, surely you can imagine what happens when a bull thrusts his horn deep into a living body, and tosses, and tears the wound. While the heart of the victim is still furiously pumping. Blood spurts all over the bull’s face and head, and often clear to his shoulders and beyond. The bleeding of a man killed in that manner is frightful; the instant such a wound is made a torrent gushes forth. It was so in the case of Clyde Osgood. His clothing was saturated. I am told that the police report states that where he was killed there is an enormous caked pool of it. Is that correct? You acknowledge it. Last night Mr. Goodwin, my assistant, found the bull turning Clyde Osgood’s body over on the ground, with his horns, without much force or enthusiasm. The natural supposition was that the bull had killed him. Not more than fifteen minutes later, when the bull had been tied to the fence, I examined him at close range with a flashlight. He has a white face, and there was only one smudge of blood on it, and his horns were bloody only a few inches down from the tips. Was that fact included in the police report?”

Waddell said slowly, “I don’t remember… no.”

“Then I advise that the bull be inspected at once, provided he hasn’t been already washed off. I assure you that my report is reliable.” Wolfe wiggled a finger again. “I didn’t come here to offer a conjecture, Mr. Waddell. I don’t intend to argue it with you. Often in considering phenomena we encounter a suspicious circumstance which requires study and permits debate, but the appearance of the bull’s face and head last night is not that, it is much more. It is conclusive proof that the bull didn’t kill Clyde Osgood. You spoke of my reputation; I stake it on this.”

“By God,” Clyde Osgood’s father muttered. “Well, by God. I looked at that bull myself, and I never thought…”

“I’m afraid you weren’t doing much thinking last night,” Wolfe told him. “It couldn’t be expected of you. But it might have been expected of the police by the sanguine… particularly the rustic police.”

The District Attorney, without any sign of bubbling, said, “You’ve made a point, I grant that. Of course you have. But I’d like to have a doctor’s opinion about the bleeding -”

“It was all over his clothes and the grass. Great quantities. If you consult a doctor, let it be the one who saw the wound. In the meantime, it would be well to act, and act soon, on the assumption that the bull didn’t do it, because that’s the fact.”

“You’re very positive, Mr. Wolfe. Very.”

“I am.”

“Isn’t it possible that the bull withdrew his horn so quickly that he escaped the spurt of blood?”

“No. The spurt is instantaneous, and bulls don’t gore like that anyway. They stay in to tear. Has the wound been described to you?”

Waddell nodded. I noticed that he wasn’t looking at Osgood. “That’s another thing,” he said. “That wound. If it wasn’t made by the bull, what could possibly have done it? What kind of weapon?”

“The weapon is right there, not thirty yards from the pasture fence. Or was. I examined it.”

I thought, uh-huh, see the bright little fat boy with all the pretty skyrockets! But I stared at him, and so did the others. Osgood ejaculated something, and Waddell’s voice had a crack in it as he demanded, “You what?”

“I said, I examined it.”

“The weapon that killed him?”

“Yes. I borrowed a flashlight from Mr. Goodwin, because of a slight difficulty in believing that Clyde Osgood would let himself be gored by a bull in the dark. I had heard him remark, in the afternoon, that he knew cattle. Later his father experienced the same difficulty, but didn’t know how to resolve it. I did so by borrowing the light and inspecting the bull, and perceived at once that the supposition which already prevailed was false. The bull hadn’t killed him. Then what had?”

Wolfe squirmed in his chair, which was after all eight inches too narrow, and continued, “It is an interesting question whether rapid and accurate brain work results from superior equipment or from good training. In my case, whatever my original equipment may have been, it has certainly had the advantage of prolonged and severe training. One result, not always pleasant and rarely profitable, is that I am likely to forget myself and concentrate on problems which are none of my business. I did so last night. Within thirty seconds after inspecting the bull’s clean face, I had guessed at a possible weapon. Knowing where it was, I went and inspected it, and verified my guess. I then returned to the house. By the time I arrived there I had reached a conclusion as to how the crime had been committed - and I have not altered it since.”

“What was the weapon? Where was it?”

“It was rustic too. An ordinary pick for digging. In the afternoon, in an emergency created by the bull - preceded by Mr. Goodwin’s destruction of my car - I had been conveyed from the pasture by Miss Pratt in an automobile. We had passed by an excavation - the barbecue pit as I learned afterwards - with freshly dug earth and picks and shovels lying there. My guess was that a pick might have been used. I went with a flashlight to see, and found confirmation. There were two picks. One of them was perfectly dry, with bits of dried soil clinging to it, and the other was damp. Even the metal itself was still damp on the under side, and the wooden handle was positively wet. There was no particle of soil clinging to the metal. Obviously the thing had been thoroughly and recently washed, not more than an hour previously at the outside. Not far away I found the end of a piece of garden hose. It was connected somewhere, for when I turned the nozzle a little, water came. Around where the nozzle lay the grass was quite wet when I pressed my palm into it. It was more than a surmise, it was close to a certainty, that the pick had done the goring, got deluged with blood, been carefully washed with the garden hose and replaced on the pile of excavated soil where I found it.”

“You mean -” Frederick Osgood stopped with his jaw clamped. His clenched fists, resting on his hams, showed white knuckles. He went on, harshly, “My son… was killed like that… dug at with a pick?”

Waddell was looking decomposed. He tried to bluster. “If all this is true - you knew it last night, didn’t you? Why the hell didn’t you spill it when the sheriff was there? When the cops were there on the spot?”

“I represented no interest last night, sir.”

“What about the interest of justice? You’re a citizen, aren’t you? Did you ever hear of withholding evidence -”

“Nonsense. I didn’t withhold the bull’s face or the pick. You must know you’re being silly. My cerebral processes, and the conclusions they lead me to, belong to me.”

“You say the pick handle was wet and there was no dirt sticking to the metal. Couldn’t it have been washed for some legitimate reason? Did you inquire about that?”

“I made no inquiries of anybody. At eleven o’clock at night the pick handle was wet. If you regard it as a rational project to find a legitimate nocturnal pick-washer, go ahead. The time might be better spent, if you need confirmation, in looking for blood residue in the grass around the hose nozzle and examining the pick handle with a microscope. It is hard to remove all vestige of blood from a piece of wood. Those steps are of course obvious, and others as well.”

“You’re telling me.” The District Attorney sent a glance, half a glare, at Osgood, and away again, back at Wolfe. “Now look here, don’t get me wrong… you neither, Fred Osgood. I’m the prosecutor for this county and I know my duty and I intend to do it and I try to do it. If there’s been a crime I don’t want to back off from it and neither does Sam Lake, but I’m not going to raise a stink just for the hell of it and you can’t blame me for that. The people who elected me wouldn’t want it and nobody ought to want it. And the way it looks to me - in spite of no blood on the bull and whether I find a legitimate nocturnal pick-washer or not - it still strikes me as cuckoo. Did he climb into the pasture carrying the pick - where the bull was - and then Clyde Osgood climbed in after him and obligingly stood there while he swung the pick? Or was Clyde already in the pasture, and he climbed in with the pick and let him have it? Can you imagine aiming anything as clumsy and heavy as a pick at a man in the dark, and him still being there when it landed? And wouldn’t the blood spurt all over you too? Who is he and where did he go to, covered with blood?”

Osgood snarled, “I told you, Wolfe. Listen to the damn fool. - Look here, Carter Waddell! Now I’ll tell you something -”

“Please, gentlemen!” Wolfe had a palm up. “We’re wasting a lot of time.” He regarded the District Attorney and said patiently, “You’re going about it wrong. You should stop squirming and struggling. Finding yourself confronted by an unpleasant fact… you’re like a woman who conceals a stain on a table cover by putting an ash tray over it. Ineffectual, because someone is sure to move the ash tray. The fact is that Clyde Osgood was murdered by someone with that pick, and unhappily your function is to establish the fact and reveal its mechanism; you can’t obliterate it merely by inventing unlikely corollaries.”

“I didn’t invent anything, I only -”

“Pardon me. You assumed the fictions that Clyde climbed the fence into the pasture and obligingly stood in the dark and permitted himself to be fatally pierced by a clumsy pick. I admit that the first is unlikely and the second next to incredible. Those considerations occurred to me last night on the spot. As I said, by the time I reached the house I had satisfied myself as to how the crime was committed, and I am still satisfied. I don’t believe Clyde Osgood climbed the fence. He was first rendered unconscious, probably by a blow on the head. He was then dragged or carried to the fence, and pushed under it or lifted over it, and further dragged or carried ten or fifteen yards into the pasture, and left lying on his side. The murderer then stood behind him with the pick and swung it powerfully in the natural and ordinary manner, only instead of piercing and tearing the ground it pierced and tore his victim. The wound would perfectly resemble the goring of a bull. The blood-spurt would of course soil the pick, but not the man who wielded it. He got the tie-rope from where it was hanging on the fence and tossed it on the ground near the body, to make it appear that Clyde had entered the pasture with it; then he took the pick to the convenient hose nozzle, washed it off, returned it where he had got it, and went -” Wolfe shrugged “ - went somewhere.”

“The bull,” Waddell said. “Did the bull just stand and look on and wait for the murderer to leave, and then push the body around so as to have bloody horns? Even a rustic sheriff might have noticed it if he had had no blood on him at all.”

“I couldn’t say. It was dark. A bull may or may not attack in the dark. But I suggest (1) the murderer, knowing how to handle a bull in the dark, before performing with the pick, approached the bull, snapped the tie-rope onto the nose ring, and led him to the fence and tied him. Later, before releasing him, he smeared blood on his horns. Or (2), after the pick had been used the murderer enticed the bull to the spot and left him there, knowing that the smell of blood would lead him to investigate. Or (3), the murderer acted when the bull was in another part of the pasture and made no effort to manufacture the evidence of bloody horns, thinking that in the excitement and with the weight of other circumstances as arranged, it wouldn’t matter. It was his good luck that Mr. Goodwin happened to arrive while the bull was satisfying his curiosity… and his bad luck that I happened to arrive at all.”

Waddell sat frowning, his mouth screwed up. After a moment he blurted, “Fingerprints on the pick handle.”

Wolfe shook his head. “A handkerchief or a tuft of grass, to carry it after washing it. I doubt if the murderer was an idiot.”

Waddell frowned some more. “Your idea about tying the bull to the fence and smearing blood on his horns. That would be getting pretty familiar with a bull, even in the dark. I don’t suppose anyone could have done it except Monte McMillan… he was Monte’s bull, or he had been. Maybe you’re ready to explain why Monte McMillan would want to kill Clyde Osgood?”

“Good heavens, no. There are at least two other alternatives. Mr. McMillan may be capable of murder, I don’t know, and he was certainly resolved to protect the bull from molestation - but don’t get things confused. Remember that the murder was no part of an effort to guard the bull; Clyde was knocked unconscious not in the pasture, but somewhere else.”

“That’s your guess.”

“It’s my opinion. I am careful with my opinions, sir; they are my bread and butter and the main source of my self-esteem.”

Waddell sat with his mouth screwed up. Suddenly Osgood barked at him ferociously:

“Well, what about it?”

Waddell nodded at him, and then unscrewed his mouth to mutter, “Of course.” He got up and kicked his chair back, stuck his hands in his pockets, stood and gazed at Wolfe a minute, and then backed up and sat down again. “Goddam it,” he said in a pained voice. “Of course. We’ve got to get on it as quick and hard as we can. Jesus, what a mess. At Tom Pratt’s place. Clyde Osgood. Your son, Fred. And you know the kind of material I have to work with - for instance Sam Lake - on a thing like this… I’ll have to pull them away from the exposition… I’ll go out and see Pratt myself, now…”

He jerked himself forward and reached for the telephone.

Osgood said to Wolfe, bitterly, “You see the prospect.”

Wolfe nodded, and sighed. “It’s an extraordinarily difficult situation, Mr. Osgood.”

“I know damn well it is. I may have missed the significance of the bull’s face, but I’m not a fool. The devil had brains and nerve and luck. I have two things to say to you. First, I apologize again for the way I tackled you this afternoon. I didn’t know you had really earned your reputation, so many people haven’t, but I see now you have. Second, you can see for yourself that you’ll have to do this. You’ll have to go on with it.”

Wolfe shook his head. “I expect to leave for New York Thursday morning. Day after tomorrow.”

“But my God, man! This is what you do, isn’t it? Isn’t this your job? What’s the difference whether you work at it in New York or here?”

“Enormous; the difference, I mean. In New York I have my home, my office in it, my cook, my accustomed surroundings -”

“Do you mean…” Osgood was up, spluttering. “Do you mean to say you have the gall to plead your personal comfort, your petty convenience, to a man in the position I’m in?”

“I do.” Wolfe was serene. “I’m not responsible for the position you’re in. Mr. Goodwin will tell you: I have a deep aversion to leaving my home or remaining long away from it. Another thing, you might not think me so petty if you could see and hear and smell the hotel room in which I shall have to sleep tonight and tomorrow night… and heaven knows how many more nights if I accepted your commission.”

“What’s wrong with it?”

“Everything imaginable.”

“Then leave it. Come to my house. It’s only sixteen miles out, and you can have a car until yours is repaired, and your man here can drive it…”

“I don’t know.” Wolfe looked doubtful. “Of course, if I undertake it I shall need immediately a good deal of information from you and your daughter, and your own home would be a good place for that…”

I stood up with my heels together and saluted him, and he glared at me. Naturally he knew I was on to him. Machiavelli was a simple little shepherd lad by comparison. Not that I disapproved by any means, for the chances were that I would get a fairly good bed myself, but it was one more proof that under no circumstances could you ever really trust him.