Some Buried Caesar (10 page)

“Oh, they always do that in cases of accidental death. Eye-witnesses. By the way, you won’t be leaving for New York today if they hold an inquest, only I don’t suppose they will. Did they ask if you had seen Clyde Osgood around there after dinner, before you went for your walk and ran onto me?”

“Yes. Of course I hadn’t. Why did they ask?”

“Search me.” I put sugar in my coffee and stirred. “Maybe they thought you had deprived him of all hope or something and he climbed into the pasture to commit suicide. All kinds of romantic ideas, those birds get. Did they ask if Clyde had come to Pratt’s place to see you?”

“Yes.” Her eyes lifted up at me and then dropped back to her coffee cup. “I didn’t understand that either. Why should they think he had come to see me?”

“Oh, possibly Clyde’s father sicked them on. I know when I mentioned your name to him last night and said you were there, he nearly popped open. I got the impression he had seen you once in a nightmare. Not that I think you belong in a nightmare, with your complexion and so on, but that was the impression I got.”

“He’s just a pain.” She shrugged indifferently. “He has no right to be talking about me. Anyway, not to you.” Her eyes moved up me and over me, up from my chest over my face to the top of my head, and then slowly traveled down again. “Not to you, Escamillo,” she said. I wanted to slap her, because her tone, and the look in her eyes going over me, made me feel like a potato she was peeling. She asked, “What did he say?”

“Not much.” I controlled myself. “Only his expression was suggestive. He spoke of wringing your neck. I gathered that you and his son Clyde had once been friends. I suppose he told the police and sheriff that, or maybe they knew it already, and that’s why they asked if Clyde came to see you last night.”

“Well, he didn’t. He would have been more apt to come to see Caroline than me.”

That was turning a new page for me, but I covered my surprise and inquired idly, “You mean Miss Pratt? Why, did they have dealings?”

“They used to have.” She opened the mirror of her compact to study nature with an eye to improvement. “I guess they were engaged, or about to be. Of course you don’t know about the Osgood-Pratt situation. The Osgoods have been rich for generations, they go back to a revolutionary general I think it was—their relatives in New York think the Social Register is vulgar. To me that’s all a bore … my mother was a waitress and my father was an immigrant and made his money building sewers.”

“Yet look at you. I heard Pratt say yesterday that he was born in an old shack on the spot where his new house stands.”

“Yes. His father worked as a stablehand for Osgood’s father. Clyde told me about it. A farmer had a beautiful daughter named Marcia and young Pratt got himself engaged to her and Frederick Osgood came back from college and saw her and married her. So she became Clyde Osgood’s mother, and Nancy’s. Pratt went to New York and soon began to make money. He didn’t marry, and as soon as he had time to spare he started to find ways to annoy Osgood. When he bought land up here and started to build, it looked as if the annoyance might become really serious.”

“And Clyde read up on family feuds and found that the best way to cure it would be for him to marry Pratt’s niece. A daughter is better in such cases, but a niece will do.”

“No, it wasn’t Clyde’s idea, it was his sister’s. Nancy’s.” Lily closed her compact. “She was staying in New York for the winter, studying rhythm at the
best night clubs, and met Jimmy and Caroline, and thought it might be helpful for the four of them to know each other, and when Clyde came down for a visit she arranged it. It made a sort of a situation, and she and Jimmy got really friendly, and so did Clyde and Caroline. Then Clyde happened to get interested in me, and I guess that reacted on Nancy and Jimmy.”

“Did you and Clyde get engaged?”

“No.” She looked at me, and the corner of her mouth turned up, and I saw her breasts gently putting the weave of the jersey to more strain as she breathed a deep one. “No, Escamillo.” She peeled her potato again. “I don’t suppose I’ll marry. Because marriage is really nothing but an economic arrangement, and I’m lucky because I don’t have to let the economic part enter into it. The man would be lucky too—I mean if a man attracted me and I attracted him.”

“He sure would.” I was wondering which would be more satisfactory, to slap her and then kiss her, or to kiss her and then slap her. “Did Clyde attract you much?”

“He did for a while.” She shivered delicately. “You know how tiresome it is when someone you found exciting gets to be nothing but a nuisance? He wanted me to marry him, too. You mustn’t think I’m heartless, because I’m not. Caroline would have been a swell wife for him, and I told him so. I rather thought they would make it up, and I hoped they would, and that’s why I said he would have been more apt to come to see Caroline than me last night.”

“Maybe he did. Have you asked her?”

“Good lord no. Me ask Caroline anything about
Clyde? I wouldn’t dare mention his name to her. She hates me.”

“She invited you up for the barbecue, didn’t she?”

“Yes, but that was because she was being clever. Her brother Jimmy and I were beginning to be friendly, and she thought if he saw me out here in the country, a lot of me, he would realize how superficial and unhealthy I am.”

“Oh. So you’re unhealthy?”

“Terribly.” The corner of her mouth went up another sixteenth of an inch. “Because I’m frank and simple. Because I never offer anything I don’t give, and I never give anything and then expect to get paid for it. I’m frightfully unhealthy. But I guess I was wrong to say superficial. I doubt if Caroline thinks I’m superficial.”

“Excuse me a minute,” I said, and stood up.

Even in the midst of being ruined I had had Wolfe’s table across the tent in the corner of my eye, partly to note his reaction to the fricassee, which had appeared to be satisfactory since he had ordered a second portion, and my interrupting my despoiler was on account of a sign from him. A man was standing by Wolfe’s chair talking to him, and Wolfe had glanced in my direction with a lift to his brow which I considered significant. So I excused myself to Lily and got up and ambled over. As I arrived the man turned his head and I saw it was Lew Bennett, the secretary of the National Guernsey League.

“Archie, I must thank you.” Wolfe put his napkin down. “For suggesting the fricassee. It is superb. Only female Americans can make good dumplings, and not many of them.”

“Yes, sir.”

“You have met Mr. Bennett.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Can you conveniently extricate yourself from that …” He turned a thumb in the direction I had come from.

“You mean right now?”

“As soon as may be. Now if you are not too involved. Mr. Bennett has been looking for me at the request of Mr. Osgood, who is waiting in the exposition office and wishes to see me. Mr. Shanks and I shall have finished our lunch in ten minutes.”

“Okay. I’m badly involved but I’ll manage it.”

I went back to my table and told Lily we must part, and summoned the Methodist to give me a check. The damage proved to be $1.60, and, having relinquished a pair of dimes for the missionaries, I reflected with pride that the firm had cleaned up 20 cents net on the deal.

Lily said in a tone of real disappointment without any petulance that I could detect, “I had supposed we would spend the afternoon together, watching the races and riding on the merry-go-round and throwing balls at things …”

“Not ever,” I said firmly. “Not the afternoon. Whatever the future may have in store for us, whatever may betide, I work afternoons. Understand once and for all that I am a workingman and I only play with toys at odd moments. I am working when you would least expect it. Throughout this delightful lunch with you, I have been working and earning money.”

“I suppose while you were paying me all those charming compliments one part of your brain, the
most important part, was busy on some difficult problem.”

“That’s the idea.”

“Dear Escamillo. Darling Escamillo. But the afternoon comes to an end, doesn’t it? What will you be doing this evening?”

“God knows. I work for Nero Wolfe.”

T
he room in the exposition offices, to which Bennett led us, on a kind of mezzanine in the Administration Building, was large and lofty, with two dusty windows in the board wall and plain board partitions for the other three sides. The only furniture were three big rough tables and a dozen wooden chairs. On one table were a pile of faded bunting and a bushel basket half-full of apples; the other two were bare. Three of the chairs were occupied. Sidney Darth, Chairman of the North Atlantic Exposition Board, was on the edge of one but jumped up as we entered; Frederick Osgood, the upstate duke, had sagging shoulders and a tired and bitter but determined expression; and Nancy Osgood sat with her spine curved and looked miserable all over.

Bennett did the introductions. Darth mumbled something about people waiting for him and loped off. Wolfe’s eyes traveled over the furniture with a hopeless look, ending at me, meaning couldn’t I for God’s sake rustle a chair somewhere that would hold all of him, but I shook my head inflexibly, knowing how useless
it was. He compressed his lips, heaved a sigh, and sat down.

Bennett said, “I can stay if you want … if I can be of any help …” Wolfe looked at Osgood and Osgood shook his head: “No thanks, Lew. You run along.” Bennett hesitated a second, looking as if he wouldn’t mind staying a bit, and then beat it. After the door had closed behind him I requisitioned a chair for myself and sat down.

Osgood surveyed Wolfe with an aristocratic scowl. “So you’re Nero Wolfe. I understand you came to Crowfield to exhibit orchids.”

Wolfe snapped at him, “Who told you so?”

The scowl got half startled away, but came right back again. “Does it matter who told me?”

“No. Nor does it matter why I came to Crowfield. Mr. Bennett said you wished to consult me, but surely not about orchids.”

I restrained a grin, knowing that Wolfe was not only establishing control, which was practical and desirable, but was also relieving his resentment at having been sent for and having come, even if it was on his way anyhow.

“I don’t give a damn about the orchids.” Osgood preserved the scowl. “The purpose of your presence here is relevant because I need to know if you are a friend of Tom Pratt’s, or are being employed by him, or have been. You were at his house last night.”

“Relevant to what, sir?” Wolfe sounded patient with distress. “Either you want to consult me or you don’t. If you do, and I find that I am in any way committed to a conflicting interest, I shall tell you so. You have started badly and offensively. Why the devil should I account to you for my presence here in
Crowfield or anywhere else? If you need me, here I am. What can I do for you?”

“Are you a friend of Tom Pratt’s?”

Wolfe grunted with exasperation, got himself raised, and took a step. “Come, Archie.”

Osgood raised his voice: “Where you going? Damn it, haven’t I got a right to ask—”

“No, sir.” Wolfe glared down at him. “You have no right to ask me anything whatever. I am a professional detective in good standing. If I accept a commission I perform it. If for any reason I can’t undertake it in good faith, I refuse it. Come, Archie.”

I arose with reluctance. Not only did I hate to walk out on what might develop into a nice piece of business, but also my curiosity had been aroused by the expression on Nancy Osgood’s face. When Wolfe had got up and started to go she had looked relieved, and when after Osgood’s protest he had started off again her relief had been even more evident. Little contrary things like that disturbed my peace of mind, so it suited me fine when Osgood surrendered.

“All right,” he growled. “I apologize. Come back and sit down. Of course I’ve heard about you and your damned independence. I’ll have to swallow it because I need you and I can’t help it. These damn fools here … in the first place they have no brains and in the second place they’re a pack of cowards. I want you to investigate the death of my son Clyde.”

Sure enough, as Wolfe accepted the apology by returning to sit down, Nancy quit looking relieved and her hands on her lap, having relaxed a little, were clasped tight again.

Wolfe asked, “What aspect of your son’s death do you want investigated?”

Osgood said savagely, “I want to know how he was killed.”

“By a bull. Wasn’t he? Isn’t that the verdict of the legal and medical authorities?”

“Verdict hell. I don’t believe it. My son knew cattle. What was he in the pasture at night for? Pratt’s idea that he went there to get the bull is ridiculous. And he certainly wasn’t ass enough to let himself be gored like that in the pitch-dark.”

“Still he was gored.” Wolfe shifted on the measly chair. “If not by the bull, then how and by what?”

“I don’t know. I don’t pretend to know. You’re an expert and that’s what I want you to find out. You’re supposed to have intelligence above the average … what do you think? You were at Pratt’s place. Knowing the circumstances as you do, do you think he was killed by the bull?”

Wolfe sighed. “Expert opinions cost money, Mr. Osgood. Especially mine. I charge high fees. I doubt if I can accept a commission to investigate your son’s death. My intention is to leave for New York Thursday morning, and I shouldn’t care to be delayed much beyond that. I like to stay at home, and when I am away I like to get back. Without committing myself to an investigation, my fee for an opinion, now, will be a thousand dollars.”

Osgood stared. “A thousand dollars just to say what you think?”

“To say what I have deduced and decided, yes. I doubt if it’s worth it to you.”

“Then why the devil do you ask it?”

Nancy’s voice came in, a husky protest, “Dad. I told you. It’s foolish … it’s all so foolish …”

Wolfe glanced at her, and back at her father, and shrugged. “That’s the price, sir.”

“For one man’s guess.”

“Oh, no. For the truth.”

“Truth? You’re prepared to prove it?”

“No. I sell it as an opinion. But I don’t sell guesses.”