Some Buried Caesar (13 page)

“Why do you dislike and despise Mr. Pratt?”

“Damn it, I tell you that has nothing to do with it! It’s an old story. It had no bearing—”

“It wouldn’t account for a reciprocal hatred from Mr. Pratt that might have led him to murder?”

“No.” Osgood stirred impatiently and put down his highball. “No.”

“Can you suggest any other motive Mr. Pratt might have had for murdering your son? Make it plausible.”

“I can’t make it plausible or implausible. Pratt’s vindictive and tricky, and in his youth he had fits of violence. His father worked for my father as a stablehand. In a fit of temper he might have murdered, yes.”

Wolfe shook his head. “That won’t do. The murder was carefully planned and executed. The plan may have been rapid and extempore, but it was cold and thorough. Besides, your son was not discovered in an effort to molest the bull, remember that. You insisted on that point yourself before you had my demonstration of it. What could have got Mr. Pratt into a murderous temper toward your son if he didn’t find him trying to molest the bull?”

“I don’t know. Nothing that I know of.”

“I ask the same question regarding Jimmy Pratt.”

“I don’t know him. I’ve never seen him.”

“Actually never seen him?”

“Well … seen him perhaps. I don’t know him.”

“Did Clyde know him?”

“I believe they were acquainted. They met in New York.”

“Do you know of any motive Jimmy Pratt might have had for killing your son?”

“No.”

“I ask the same question regarding Caroline Pratt.”

“The same answer. They too met in New York, but the acquaintance was slight.”

“Excuse me, boss,” I put in. “Do I release cats in public?”

“Certainly.” Wolfe shot me a glance. “We’re talking of Mr. Osgood’s son, who is dead.”

“Okay. Clyde and Caroline Pratt were engaged to be married, but the clutch slipped.”

“Indeed,” Wolfe murmured. Osgood glared at me and said, “Ridiculous. Who the devil told you that?”

I disregarded him and told Wolfe, “Guaranteed. They were engaged for quite a while, only apparently Clyde didn’t want his father to know that he had been hooked by a female Pratt who was also an athlete. Then Clyde saw something else and made a dive for it, and the Osgood-Pratt axis got multiple fracture. The something else was the young lady who was outdoors with me last night, named Lily Rowan. Later … we’re up to last spring now … she skidded again and Clyde fell off. Since then he has been hanging around New York trying to get back on. One guess is that he came up here because he knew she
would be here, but that’s not in the guarantee. I haven’t had a chance—”

Osgood was boiling. “This is insufferable! Preposterous gossip! If this is your idea—”

I growled at Wolfe, “Ask him why he wants to wring Lily Rowan’s neck.”

“Mr. Osgood, please.” Wolfe keyed it up. “I warned you that a murder investigation is of necessity intrusive and impertinent. Either bear it or abandon it. If you resent the vulgarity of Mr. Goodwin’s jargon I don’t blame you, but nothing can be done about it. If you resent his disclosure of facts, nothing can be done about that either except to drop the inquiry. We have to know things. What about your son’s engagement to marry Miss Pratt?”

“I never heard of it. He never mentioned it. Neither did my daughter, and she would have known of it; she and Clyde were very close to each other. I don’t believe it.”

“You may, I think, now. My assistant is careful about facts. What about the entanglement with Miss Rowan?”

“That … yes.” As badly as Osgood’s head needed a rest, it was a struggle for him to remove the ducal coronet. “You understand this is absolutely confidential.”

“I doubt it. I suspect that at least a hundred people in New York know more about it than you do. But what do you know?”

“I know that about a year ago my son became infatuated with the woman. He wanted to marry her. She’s wealthy, or her father is. She’s a sex maniac. She wouldn’t marry him. If she had she would have ruined him, but she did that anyway, or she was doing
it. She got tired of him, but her claws were in him so deep he couldn’t get them out, and there was no way of persuading him to act like a man. He wouldn’t come home; he stayed in New York because she was there. He wasted a lot of my money and I cut off his income entirely, but that didn’t help. I don’t know what he has been living on the past four months, but I suspect my daughter has been helping him, though I decreased her allowance and forbade it. I went to New York in May and went to see the Rowan woman, and humiliated myself, but it did no good. She’s a damned strumpet.”

“Not by definition. A strumpet takes money. However … I see, at this point, no incentive for Miss Rowan to murder him. Miss Pratt … it might be. She was jilted, and she is muscular. Mortification could simmer in a woman’s breast a long time, though she doesn’t look it. When did your son arrive here from New York?”

“Sunday evening. My daughter and his friend Bronson rode up with him.”

“Had you expected him?”

“Yes. He phoned from New York Saturday night.”

“Was Miss Rowan already at Mr. Pratt’s place?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t know she was there until your man told me last night, when I went over there.”

“Was she, Archie?”

I shook my head. “No sale. I was working on another case at lunch.”

“It doesn’t matter. I’m only clearing away rubbish, and I doubt if it amounts to more than that.” Back at Osgood: “Why did your son come after so long an absence? What did he say?”

“He came—” Osgood stopped. Then he went on, “They came to be here for the exposition.”

“Why did he come, really?”

Osgood glared and said, “Damn it.”

“I know, Mr. Osgood. We don’t usually hang our linen on the line till it has been washed, but you’ve hired me to sort it out. Why did your son come to see you? To get money?”

“How did you know that?”

“I didn’t. But men so often need money; and you had stopped your son’s income. Was his need general or specific?”

“Specific as to the sum. He wanted $10,000.”

“Oh.” Wolfe’s brows went up a trifle. “What for?”

“He wouldn’t tell me. He said he would be in trouble if he didn’t get it.” Osgood looked as if it hurt where the coronet had been. “I may as well … he had used up a lot of money during his affair with that woman. I found out in May that he had taken to gambling, and that was one reason I cut him off. When he asked for $10,000 I suspected it was for a gambling debt, but he denied it and said it was something more urgent. He wouldn’t tell me what.”

“Did you let him have it?”

“No. I absolutely refused.”

“He was insistent?”

“Very. We … there was a scene. Not violent, but damned unpleasant. Now …” Osgood set his jaw, and looked at space. He muttered with his teeth clamped, “Now he’s dead. Good God, if I thought that $10,000 had anything to do—”

“Please, sir. Please. Let’s work. I call your attention to a coincidence which you have probably already noticed: the bet your son made yesterday afternoon
with Mr. Pratt was for $10,000. That raises a question. Mr. Pratt declined to make a so-called gentleman’s wager with your son unless it was underwritten by you. I understand that he telephoned you to explain the difficulty, and you guaranteed payment by your son if he lost. Is that correct?”

“Yes.”

“Well.” Wolfe frowned at his two empty bottles. “It seems a little inconsistent … first you refuse to advance $10,000 needed urgently by your son to keep him out of trouble, and then you casually agree on the telephone to underwrite a bet he makes for that precise sum.”

“There was nothing casual about it.”

“Did you have any particular reason to assume that your son would win the bet?”

“How the hell could I? I didn’t know what he was betting on.”

“You didn’t know that he had wagered that Mr. Pratt would not barbecue Hickory Caesar Grindon this week?”

“No. Not then. Not until my daughter told me afterwards … after Clyde was dead.”

“Didn’t Mr. Pratt tell you on the phone?”

“I didn’t give him a chance. When I learned that Clyde had been to Tom Pratt’s place and made a bet with him, and that Pratt had the insolence to ask me to stand good for my son—what do you think? Was I going to ask the dog for details? I told him that any debt my son might ever owe him, for a bet or anything else, or for $10,000 or ten times that, would be instantly paid, and I hung up.”

“Didn’t your son tell you what the bet was about when he got home a little later?”

“No. There was another scene. Since you have … you might as well have all of it. When Clyde appeared I was furious, and I demanded … I was in a temper, and that roused his, and he started to walk out. I accused him of betraying me. I accused him of arranging a fake bet with Pratt and getting Pratt to phone me, so that I would have to pay it, and then Pratt would hand him the money. Then he did walk out. As I said, I didn’t find out until afterwards what the bet was about or how it was made. I left the house and got in a car and drove over the other side of Crowfield to the place of an old friend of mine. I didn’t want to eat dinner at home. Clyde’s friend, this Bronson, was here, and my daughter and my wife … and my presence wouldn’t make it a pleasant meal. It was already unpleasant enough. When I got back, after ten o’clock, there was no one around but my wife, and she was in her room crying. About half an hour later the phone call came from Pratt’s—his nephew. I went. That was where I had to go to find my son dead.”

Wolfe sat looking at him, and after a moment sighed. “That’s too bad,” he said. “I mean it’s too bad that you were away from home, and weren’t on speaking terms with your son. I had hoped to learn from you what time he left the house, and under what circumstances, and what he may have said of his destination and purpose. You can’t tell me that.”

“Yes, I can. My daughter and Bronson have told me—”

“Pardon me. If you don’t mind, I’d rather hear it from them. What time is it, Archie?”

I told him, ten after five.

“Thank you. —You realize, Mr. Osgood, that we’re
fishing in a big stream. This is your son’s home, hundreds of people in this county know him, one or more of them may have hated or feared him enough to want him dead, and almost anyone could have got to the far end of the pasture without detection, despite the fact that my assistant had the pasture under surveillance. It was a dark night. But we’ll extend our field only if we’re compelled to; let’s finish with those known to be present. Regarding motive, what about Mr. McMillan?”

“None that I know of. I’ve known Monte McMillan all my life; his place is up at the north end of the county. Even if he had caught Clyde trying some fool trick with the bull—my God, Monte wouldn’t murder him … and you say yourself—”

“I know. Clyde wasn’t caught doing that.” Wolfe sighed. “That seems to cover it. Pratt, McMillan, the nephew, the niece, Miss Rowan … and on motive you offer no indictment. I suppose, since this place is at a distance of only a mile or so from Mr. Pratt’s, which might fairly be called propinquity, we should include those who were here. What about Mr. Bronson?”

“I don’t know him. He came with Clyde and was introduced as a friend.”

“An old friend?”

“I don’t know.”

“You never saw him or heard of him before?”

“No.”

“What about the people employed here? There must be quite a few. Anyone with a grudge against your son?”

“No. Absolutely not. For three years he more or less supervised things here for me, and he was competent
and had their respect, and they all liked him. Except—” Osgood stopped abruptly, and was silent, suspended, with his mouth open. Then he said, “Good God, I’ve just remembered … but no, that’s ridiculous …”

“What is?”

“Oh … a man who used to work here. Two years ago one of our best cows lost her calf and Clyde blamed this man and fired him. The man has done a lot of talking ever since, denying it was his fault, and making some wild threats I’ve been told about. The reason I think of it now … he’s over at Pratt’s place. Pratt hired him last spring. His name is Dave Smalley.”

“Was he there last night?”

“I presume so. You can find out.”

I put in an oar: “Sure he was. You remember Dave, don’t you? How he resented your using that rock as a waiting room?”

Wolfe surveyed me. “Do you mean the idiot who waved the gun and jumped down from the fence?”

“Yep. That was Dave.”

“Pfui.” Wolfe almost spat. “It won’t do, Mr. Osgood. You remarked, correctly, that the murderer had brains and nerve and luck. Dave is innocent.”

“He’s done a lot of talking.”

“Thank God I didn’t have to listen to it.” Wolfe stirred in the big comfortable chair. “We must get on. I offer an observation or two before seeing your daughter. First, I must warn you of the practical certainty that the official theory will be that your son did enter the pasture to molest the bull, in spite of my demonstration to Mr. Waddell. They will learn that Clyde bet Mr. Pratt that he would not barbecue Hickory
Caesar Grindon
this week
. They will argue that all Clyde had to do to win the bet was to force a postponement of the feast for five days, and he might have tried that. They will be fascinated by the qualification
this week
. It is true that there is something highly significant in the way the terms of the bet were stated, but they’ll miss that.”

“What’s significant about it? It was a damned silly—”

“No. Permit me. I doubt if it was silly. I’ll point it out to you when I’m ready to interpret it. Second, whatever line Mr. Waddell takes should have our respectful attention. If he offends, don’t in your arrogance send him to limbo, for we can use his facts. Many of them. We shall want, for instance, to know what the various persons at Mr. Pratt’s house were doing last night between 9 o’clock and 10:30. I don’t know, because at 9 o’clock I felt like being alone and went up to my room to read. We shall want to know what the doctor says about the probable time of your son’s death. The presumption is that it was not more than, say 15 minutes, before Mr. Goodwin arrived on the spot, but the doctor may be helpful. We shall want to know whether my conclusions have been supported by such details as the discovery of blood residue in the grass by the hose nozzle, and on the pick handle, et cetera. Third, I’d like to repeat a question which you evaded a while ago. Why do you hate Mr. Pratt?”