Then I stood and watched him struggle out of his shirt and
heard the seams protesting. “I suspected it the minute you
told me to unpack. Okay. That’s a new one. Pasture patrol.
Bodyguard for a bull. I sincerely trust you’ll enjoy a good
night’s sleep, sir, having this lovely room all to yourself.”
“Don’t take a tone with me, Archie. It will be dull, that’s
all, for a man as fidgety—”
“Dull?” I waved a hand. “Don’t you believe it. Dull, out
there alone in the night, sharing my secrets with the stars?
You don’t know me. And glowing with satisfaction because
just by being there I’ll be making it possible for you to
snooze in that excellent bed in this big airy room. And then
the dawnj Mr. Wolfe, how I love the dawn!”
“You won’t see the dawn.”
“The hell I won’t. Who’ll bump me off, Clyde? Or will
the bull get me?”
“Neither. I have made arrangements with Mr. Pratt and
Mr. McMillan. The man called Dave will be on guard while
we are dining. At 8:30 you will relieve him, and at 1 o’clock
you will be relieved by Mr. McMillan. You often go to bed
that late at home. You had better waken me by knocking
when you come in. I am not accustomed to my room being
entered at night.”
“Okay.” I resumed with the suitcase, and laid out a fresh
shirt for him. “But darned if 111 lug that shotgun around.
I’ll take that up with McMillan. Incidentally, I’ve accepted
a commission too. For the firm. Not a very lucrative one. The
fee has already been paid, two bucks, but it’ll be eaten up by
expenses. The client is Miss Caroline Pratt.”
Wolfe muttered, “Jabber.”
“Not at all. She paid me two bucks to save her brother from
a fate worse than death. Boy, is it fun being a detective! Up
half the night chaperoning a bull, only to be laid waste by
a blonde the next day at lunch. Look, we’ll have to send a
telegram to Fritz; here’s a button off.”
I DIDN’T get to share any secrets with any stars.
Clouds had started to gather at sundown, and by
half past eight it was pitch-dark. Armed with a flashlight, and
my belt surrounding a good dinner—not of course up to
Fritz Brenner’s standard, but far and away above anything
I had ever speared at a pratteria—I left the others while
they were still monkeying with coffee and went out to take
over my shift. Cutting across through the orchard, I found
Dave sitting on an upended keg over by the fence, clutching
the shotgun.
“All right,” I told him, cutting off the light to save juice.
“You must be about ready for some chow.”
“Naw,” he said, “I couldn’t eat late at night like this. I
had some meat and potatoes and stuff at six o’clock. My
main meal’s breakfast. It’s my stommick that wakes me up,
I git so derned hungry I can’t sleep.”
“That’s interesting. Where’s the bull?”
“I ain’t seen him for a half hour. Last I saw he was down
yonder, yon side of the big walnut. Why the name of com-
mon sense they don’t tie him up’s beyond me.”
“Pratt says he was tied the first night and bellowed all
night and nobody could sleep.”
Dave snorted. “Let him beller. Anybody that can’t sleep
for a bull’s bellerin’ had better keep woonies instead.”
“What’s woonies?”
He had started off in the dark, and I heard him stop.
“Woonies is bulls with their tails at the front end.” He
cackled. “Got you that time, mister! Good night!”
I decided to take a look, and anyhow moving was better
than standing still, so I went along the fence in the direction
of the gate we had driven through in our rescue of Wolfe.
It sure was a black night. After making some thirty yards I
played the flashlight around the pasture again, but couldn’t
find him. I kept on to the other side of the gate, and that
time I picked him up. He wasn’t lying down as I supposed
he would be,’ but standing there looking at the light. He
loomed up like an elephant. I told him out loud, “All right,
honey darling, it’s only Archie, I don’t want you to get
upset,” and turned back the way I had come.
It looked to me as if there was about as much chance
of anyone kidnapping that bull as there was of the bull giving
milk, but in any event I was elected to stay outdoors until
one o’clock, and I might as well stay in the best place in case
someone was fool enough to try. If he was taken out at all
it would certainly have to be through a gate, and the one
on the other side was a good deal more likely than this one.
So I kept going, hugging the fence. It occurred to me that
it would be a lot simpler to go through the middle of the
pasture, and as dark as it was there was no danger of Caesar
starting another game of tag, or very little danger at least
… probably not any, really …
I went on around the fence. Through the orchard I could
see the lighted windows of the house, a couple of hundred
yards away. Soon I reached the comer of the fence and turned
left and, before I knew it, was in a patch of briars. Ten
minutes later I had rounded the bend in the road and was
passing our sedan still nestled up against the tree. There was
the gate. I climbed up and sat on the fence and played the
light around, but it wasn’t powerful enough to pick up the
bull at that distance. I switched it off.
I suppose if you live in the country long enough you get
familiar with all the little noises at night, but naturally you
feel curious about them when you don’t know what they are.
The crickets and katydids are all right, but something scuttling
through the grass makes you wonder what it could be. Then
there was something in a tree across the road. I could hear it
move around among the leaves, then for a long while it would
be quiet, and then it would move again. Maybe an owl, or
maybe some little harmless animal. I couldn’t find it with the
light.
I had been there I suppose half an hour, when a new noise
came from the direction of the car. It sounded like something
heavy bumping against it. I turned the light that way, and
at first saw nothing because I was looking too close to the
ground, and then saw quite plainly, edging out from the
front fender, a fold of material that looked like part of a
coat, maybe a sleeve. I opened my mouth to sing out, but
abruptly shut it again and turned off the light and slid from
the fence and sidestepped. It was just barely possible that
the Guernsey League had one or two tough guys on the roll,
or even that Clyde Osgood himself was tough or thought he
was. I stepped along the grass to the back of the car, moved
around it keeping close to the side, reached over the front
fender for what was huddled there, grabbed, and got a
shoulder.
There was a squeal and a wiggle, and a protest: “Say!
That hurts!” I flashed the light and then turned loose and
stepped back.
“For God’s sake,” I grumbled, “don’t tell me you’re sen-
timental about that bull too.”
Lily Rowan stood up, a dark wrap covering the dress she
had worn at dinner, and rubbed at her shoulder. “If I hadn’t
stumbled against the fender,” she declared, “I’d have got
right up against you before you knew I was there, and I’d
have scared you half to death.”
“Goody. What for?”
“Dam it, you hurt my shoulder.”
“I’m a brute. How did you get here?”
“Walked, I came out for a walk. I didn’t realize it was so
dark; I thought my eyes would get used to it. I have eyes like
a cat, but I don’t think I ever saw it so dark. Is that your face?
Hold still.”
She put a hand out, her fingers on my cheek. For a second
I thought she was going to claw, but the touch was soft, and
when I realized it was going to linger I stepped back a pace
and told her, “Don’t do that, I’m ticklish.”
She laughed. “I was just making sure it was your face.
Are you going to have lunch with me tomorrow?”
“Yes.”
“You are?” She sounded surprised.
“Sure. That is, you can have lunch with me. Why not? I
think you’re amusing. You’ll do fin-e to pass away some time,
just a pretty toy to be enjoyed for an idle moment and then