Some Buried Caesar (27 page)

“What about Bennett keeping his sketches under his eye?” I demanded. “Did you worm yourself into his confidence, or bribe him?”

“He went to eat. I’m not hurting his sketches. Keep quiet and don’t disturb me and don’t scratch.”

“I don’t itch any more.”

“Thank heaven.”

I sat and diverted myself by trying different combinations on the puzzle we were supposed to be solving. At that point, thanks to various hints Wolfe had dropped, I was able to provide fairly plausible answers to most of the questions on the list, but was still completely stumped by the significance of the drawing practice he was indulging in. It seemed fanciful and even batty to suppose that by copying one of Bennett’s sketches he was manufacturing evidence that would solve a double murder and earn us a fee and fulfil his engagement with Waddell, but the expression on his face left no doubt about his expectations. He was, by his calculations, sewing it up. I tried to work it into my combinations somehow, but couldn’t get it to fit. I quit, and let my brain relax.

Lew Bennett entered with a toothpick in his mouth. As he did so Wolfe put my memo pad, with the pages he had worked on still attached, into his breast pocket, and the pencil. Then he sighed, pushed back
his chair and got to his feet, and inclined his head to Bennett.

“Thank you, sir. There are your sketches intact. Guard them; preserve them carefully; you already thought them precious; they are now doubly so. It is a wise precaution for you to insist that they be made in ink, since that renders any alteration impossible without discovery. Doubtless Mr. Osgood will find occasion to thank you also. Come, Archie.”

When we left, Bennett was leaning over the table squinting at the sketches.

Down at the parking space Wolfe climbed into the front seat beside me, which meant that he had things to say. As I threaded my way slowly along the edge of the darting crowds, he opened up: “Now, Archie. It all depends on the execution. I’ll go over it briefly for you.…”

A
t Pratt’s place I parked in the graveled space in front of the garage, and we got out. Wolfe left me and headed for the house. Over at a corner of the lawn Caroline was absorbed in putting practice, which might have been thought a questionable occupation for a young woman, even a Metropolitan champion, on the afternoon of her former fiancé’s funeral, but under the circumstances it was open to differing interpretations. She greeted me from a distance as I passed by on my way to meet Lily Rowan as arranged on the phone.

Lily stayed put in the hammock, extending a hand and going over me with a swift and comprehensive eye.

I said, “You’re not so hot. Wolfe recognized your voice on the telephone last night.”

“He didn’t.”

“He did.”

“He agreed to meet me at the hotel at six in the morning.”

“Bah. You laid an egg, that’s all. However, you got him out of bed at midnight, which was something.
Thank you for doing me the favor. Now I want to offer to do you one, and I’m in a hurry. How would you like to take a lesson in detective work?”

“Who would give it to me?”

“I would.”

“I’d love it.”

“Fine. This may be the beginning of a worthwhile career for you. The lesson is simple but requires control of the voice and the facial muscles. You may not be needed, but on the other hand you may. You are to stay here, or close by. Sometime in the next hour or two I may come for you, or send Bert—”

“Come yourself.”

“Okay. And escort you to the presence of Mr. Wolfe and a man. Wolfe will ask you a question and you will tell a lie. It won’t be a complicated lie and there is no possibility of your getting tripped up. But it will help to pin a murder on a man, and therefore I want to assure you that it is not a frame-up. The man is guilty. If there were a chance in a million that he’s innocent—”

“Don’t bother.” The corner of her mouth went up. “Do I have any company in the lie?”

“Yes. Me; also Wolfe. What we need is corroboration.”

“Then as far as I’m concerned it isn’t a lie at all. Truth is relative. I see you’ve washed your face. Kiss me.”

“Pay in advance, huh?”

“Not in full. On account.”

After about 30 or 32 seconds I straightened up again and cleared my throat and said, “Whatever is worth doing at all is worth doing well.”

She was smiling and didn’t say anything.

“This is it,” I said. “Now quit smiling and listen.”

It didn’t take long to explain it. Four minutes later I was on my way to the house.

Wolfe was on the terrace with Pratt and Jimmy and Monte McMillan. Jimmy looked sullen and preoccupied, and I judged from his eyes that he was having too many highballs. McMillan sat to one side, silent, with his eyes fixed on Wolfe. Pratt was raving. He appeared to be not only sore because the general ruction had spoiled his barbecue plans and ruined the tail end of his country sojourn, but specifically and pointedly sore at Wolfe for vague but active reasons which had probably come to him on the bounce from District Attorney Waddell. Even so his deeper instincts prevailed, for when I arrived he interrupted himself to toss me a nod and let out a yell for Bert.

But Wolfe, who, I noticed, had already disposed of a bottle of beer, shook his head at me and stood up. “No,” he said. “Please, Mr. Pratt. I don’t resent your belligerence, but I think before long you may acknowledge its misdirection. You may even thank me, but I don’t ask for that either. I didn’t want to disturb you. I needed to have a talk with Mr. McMillan in private. When I told him so on the phone this morning and we tried to settle on a meeting place that would ensure privacy, I took the liberty of suggesting your house. There was a special reason for it, that the presence of Miss Rowan might be desirable.”

“Lily Rowan? What the hell has she got to do with it?”

“That will appear. Or maybe it won’t. Anyhow, Mr. McMillan agreed to meet me here. If my presence is really offensive to you we’ll go elsewhere. I thought perhaps that room upstairs—”

“I don’t give a damn. But if there’s anything on my mind I’m in the habit of getting it off—”

“Later. Indulge me. It will keep. If you’ll permit us to use the room upstairs? …”

“Help yourself.” Pratt waved a hand. “You’ll need something to drink. Bert! Hey,
Bert!”

Jimmy shut his eyes and groaned.

We got ourselves separated. McMillan, who still hadn’t opened his mouth, followed Wolfe, and I brought up the rear. As we started up the stairs, with the stockman’s broad back towering above me, I got my pistol from the holster, to which it had been previously restored, and slipped it into my side coat pocket, hoping it could stay there. There was one item on Wolfe’s bill of fare that might prove to be ticklish.

The room was in apple-pie order, with the afternoon sun slanting in through the modern casement windows which Wolfe had admired. I moved the big upholstered chair around for him, and placed a couple more for McMillan and me. Bert appeared, as sloppy and efficient as ever, with beer and the makings of highballs. As soon as that had been arranged and Bert had disappeared, McMillan said:

“This is the second time I’ve gone out of my way to see you, as a favor to Fred Osgood. It’s sort of getting monotonous. I’ve got 7 cows and a bull at Crowfield that I’ve just bought that I ought to be taking home.”

He stopped. Wolfe said nothing. Wolfe sat leaning back in the big upholstered chair, motionless, his hands resting on the polished wooden arms, gazing at the stockman with half-shut eyes. There was no indication that he intended either to speak or to move.

McMillan finally demanded, “What the hell is this, a staring match?”

Wolfe shook his head. “I don’t like it,” he said. “Believe me, sir, I take no pleasure from it. I have no desire to drag it out, to prolong the taste of victory. There has already been too much delay, far too much.” He put his hand in his breast pocket, withdrew the memo pad, and held it out. “Take that, please, and examine the first three sheets. Thoroughly.—I’ll want it back intact, Archie.”

With a shrug of his broad shoulders, McMillan took the pad and looked it over. His head was bent and I couldn’t see his face. After inspecting the sheets twice over he looked up again.

“You’ve got me,” he declared. “Is there a trick to it?”

“I wouldn’t say a trick.” Wolfe’s tone took on an edge. “Do you identify those sketches?”

“I never saw them before.”

“Of course not. It was a bad question. Do you identify the original they were drawn from?”

“No I don’t. Should I? They’re not very good.”

“That’s true. Still I would have expected you to identify them. He was your bull. Today I compared them with some sketches, the originals on the applications for registration, which Mr. Bennett let me look at, and it was obvious that the model for them was Hickory Buckingham Pell. Your bull that died of anthrax a month ago.”

“Is that so?” McMillan looked the sheets over again, in no haste, and returned his eyes to Wolfe. “It’s possible. That’s interesting. Where did you get these drawings?”

“That’s just the point.” Wolfe laced his fingers
across his belly. “I made them myself. You’ve heard of that homely episode Monday afternoon, before your arrival. Mr. Goodwin and I started to cross the pasture and were interrupted by the bull. Mr. Goodwin escaped by agility, but I mounted that boulder in the center of the pasture. I was there some 15 minutes before I was rescued by Miss Pratt. I am vain of my dignity, and I felt undignified. The bull was parading not far off, back and forth, and I took my memorandum pad from my pocket and made those sketches of him. The gesture may have been childish, but I got satisfaction from it. It was … well, a justification of my point of vantage on the boulder. May I have the pad back, please?”

McMillan didn’t move. I arose and took the pad from him without his seeming to notice it, and put it in my pocket.

McMillan said, “You must have a screw loose. The bull in the pasture was Caesar. Hickory Caesar Grindon.”

“No, sir. I must contradict you, for again that’s just the point. The bull in the pasture was Hickory Buckingham Pell. The sketches I made Monday afternoon prove it, but I was aware of it long before I saw Mr. Bennett’s official records. I suspected it Monday afternoon. I knew it Monday night. I didn’t know it was Buckingham, for I had never heard of him, but I know it wasn’t Caesar.”

“You’re a goddam liar. Whoever told you—”

“No one told me.” Wolfe grimaced. He unlaced his fingers to wiggle one. “Let me make a suggestion, sir. We’re engaged in a serious business, deadly serious, and we’ll gain nothing by cluttering it up with frivolous rhetoric. You know very well what I’m doing, I’m
undertaking to demonstrate that Clyde Osgood and Howard Bronson died by your hand. You can’t refute my points until I’ve made them, and you can’t keep me from making them by calling me names. Let’s show mutual respect. I can’t expose your guilt by shouting ‘murderer’ at you, and you can’t disprove it by shouting ‘liar’ at me. Nor by pretending surprise. You must have known why I asked you to meet me here.”

McMillan’s gaze was steady. So was his voice: “You’re going to undertake to prove something.”

“I am. I have already shown proof that Caesar, the champion, was never in that pasture.”

“Bah. Those drawings? Anybody would see through that trick. Do you suppose anyone is going to believe that when the bull chased you on that rock you stood there and made pictures of him?”

“I think so.” Wolfe’s eyes moved. “Archie, get Miss Rowan.”

I wouldn’t have left him like that if he had had the sketches on him, but they were in my pocket. I hotfooted it downstairs and across the lawn and under the trees to the hammock, which she got out of as she saw me coming. She linked her arm through mine, and I had to tolerate it for business reasons, but I made her trot. She offered no objections, but by the time we got upstairs to our destination she was a little out of breath. I had to admit she was a pretty good pupil when I saw her matter-of-fact nods, first to Wolfe and then to McMillan. Neither of them got up.

Wolfe said, “Miss Rowan. I believe Mr. Goodwin has informed you that we would ask you for an exercise of memory. I suppose you do remember that on
Monday afternoon the activity of the bull marooned me on a rock in the pasture?”

She smiled at him. “I do.”

“How long was I on the rock?”

“Oh … I would say 15 minutes. Between 10 and 20.”

“During that time, what was Miss Pratt doing?”

“Running to get her car and driving to the pasture and arguing with Dave about opening the gate, and then driving to get you.”

“What was Dave doing?”

“Waving the gun and arguing with Esea … Mr. Goodwin and arguing with Caroline and jumping around.”

“What were you doing?”

“Taking it in. Mostly I was watching you, because you made quite a picture—you and the bull.”

“What was I doing?”

“Well, you climbed to the top of the rock and stood there 2 or 3 minutes with your arms folded and your walking stick hanging from your wrist, and then you took a notebook or something from your pocket and it looked as if you were writing in it or drawing in it. You kept looking at the bull and back at the book or whatever it was. I decided you were making a sketch of the bull. That hardly seemed possible under the circumstances, but it certainly looked like it.”

Wolfe nodded. “I doubt if there will ever be any reason for you to repeat all that to a judge and jury in a courtroom, but if such an occasion should arise would you do it?”

“Certainly. Why not?”

“Under oath?”

“Of course. Not that I would enjoy it much.”

“But you would do it?”

“Yes.”

Wolfe turned to the stockman. “Would you care to ask her about it?”

McMillan only looked at him, and gave no sign. I went to open the door and told Lily, “That will do, Miss Rowan, thank you.” She crossed and stopped at my elbow and said, “Take me back to the hammock.” I muttered at her, “Go sit on your thumb. School’s out.” She made a face at me and glided over the threshold, and I shut the door and returned to my chair.