Osgood was murdered, and you descend to that gibberish
about him poisoning that bull!” Wolfe halted abruptly, and
sighed. “But there, I beg your pardon. I have forfeited the
right to reproach even gibberish. I had this case like that,
complete—” he showed a clenched fist “—and I let it go.”
The fist popped open.
“You don’t mean you know the mur—”
“I mean I was lazy and conceited. You may quote that.
Forget my dispraise, it was beside the point; you do your
best. So do I. That’s the devil of it: my best wasn’t good
enough this afternoon. But it will be. Drop all notion of
filing it as an accident, Mr. Waddell; you may as well close
that path, for you won’t be allowed to return by it …”
Soon after that McMillan and Captain Barrow had re-
turned, and they had all left, after Wolfe had arranged for
McMillan to pay us a visit at 9 o’clock that evening.
During dinner Wolfe wasn’t talkative, and I made no
special effort at conversation because he didn’t deserve it.
If he wanted to be charitable enough to concede Waddell a
right to live, I wouldn’t have objected to that, but he might
have kept within bounds. Decorum is decorum. If he wanted
to admit he had made a boob of himself and prattle about
forfeiting rights, that was okay, but the person to admit it
too wasn’t a half-witted crime buzzard from the upstate
sticks, but me. That’s what a confidential assistant is for.
The only thing that restrained me from letting my indigna-
tion burst into speech was the fact that I didn’t know what
the hell he was talking about.
McMillan was punctual. It was 9 on the dot, and we were
sipping coffee, when a maid came to say he was below. I
went down and told him that Wolfe calculated there might be
more privacy if he didn’t object to coming upstairs, and he
said certainly not. On the upper landing we ran into Nancy
and he stopped for a couple of words with her, having, as he
had observed the day before, known the Osgood youngsters
since they were babies.
Wolfe greeted him. He sat down and declined coffee.
Wolfe looked at him and sighed. I sipped coffee and watched
them over the rim of the cup.
Wolfe said, “You look tired.”
The stockman nodded. “I’m about all in. I guess I’m get-
ting old. Scores of times I’ve stayed up all night with a cow
dropping a calf … but of course this wasn’t exactly the
same as a cow dropping a calf.”
“No. Its antithesis. Death instead of birth. It was obliging
of you to come over here; I dislike expeditions at night. In
my capacity as an investigator for your friend Mr. Osgood,
may I ask you some questions?”
“That’s what I came for.”
“Good. Then first, you left Mr. Pratt’s terrace yesterday
afternoon with the announced intention of telling Clyde not
to do anything foolish. Miss Osgood has told me that you
called Clyde from the car and conversed with him a few
minutes. What was said?”
“Just that. I knew Clyde had a streak of recklessness in
him—not bad, he wasn’t a bad boy, just a little reckless some-
times—and after what he had said to Pratt I thought he
might need a little quieting down. I sort of made a joke of
it and told him I hoped he wasn’t going to try to pull any
Halloween stunt. He said he was going to win his bet with
Pratt. I told him there was no way he could do it and the
sensible thing was to let me go and arrange with Pratt to
call the bet off. He refused, and I asked him how he ex-
pected to win it, and of course he wouldn’t tell me. That
was all there was to it. I couldn’t get anything out of him,
and he went and got in his car.”
“Without giving you the slightest hint of his intentions.”
“Right.”
Wolfe grimaced. “I hoped you would be able to tell me
a little more than that.”
“I can’t tell you more than what happened.”
“Of course riot. But I had that much, which is nothing,
from Mr. Waddell, as you told it to him. He is the district
attorney. I represent your friend Mr. Osgood. I had rather
counted on your willingness to disclose things to me which
you might choose to withhold from him.”
McMillan frowned. “Maybe you’d better say that again.
It sounds to me as if you meant I’m lying about it.”
“I do. —Now pleasel” Wolfe showed a palm. “Don’t let’s
be childish about the depravity of lying. Victor Hugo wrote
a whole book to prove that a lie can be sublime. I strongly sus-
pect you’re lying, and I’d like to explain why. Briefly, because
Clyde Osgood wasn’t an imbecile. I suppose you have heard
from Mr. Waddell of my theory that Clyde didn’t climb into
the pasture, but was put there. I still incline to that, but
whether he voluntarily entered the pasture or not, he certainly
went voluntarily from his home to Pratt’s place. What for?”
He paused to empty his coffee cup. McMillan, still frown-
ing, sat and looked at him.
Wolfe resumed, “I risk the assumption that he wasn’t
merely out for a stroll. He had a purpose, to do something
or see somebody. I counted Dave out. Miss Rowan was with
Mr. Goodwin. Mr. Waddell tells me that the others, in-
cluding you, profess complete ignorance of Clyde’s presence
on the premises. I find it next to impossible to believe that;
the reason being, as I said, that Clyde was not an imbecile;
for if he didn’t go there to see someone I must assume that his
object was some sort of design, singlehanded, against the
bull, and that’s preposterous. What design? Remove the bull
from the pasture, lead him away and keep him hid some-
where until the week was up? Feed him anthrax to kill him
and render him inedible? Glue wings on him and ride him,
a bovine Pegasus, to the moon? The last surmise is no more
unlikely than the first two.”
“You’re not arguing with me,” McMillan said drily. “If
I set out to try to prove anything I wouldn’t know where to
start. But about my lying—”
“I’m coming to it.” Wolfe pushed at his tray, with a glance
at me, and I got up and moved it out of his way. He went
on, “Frankly, I am not now dealing with the murder. I
haven’t got that far. I must first find a reasonable hypothesis to
account for Clyde’s going there … or rather, let me go
back still further and put it this way: I must find a reasonable
hypothesis for his evident expectation of winning that bet.
Didn’t he tell you he expected to win the bet?”
“Yes.”
“And he wouldn’t tell you how?”
“No.”
“Well” Wolfe compressed his lips. “That’s what I can’t
believe. I can’t believe that, because he could expect to win
the bet only with your assistance.”
McMillan stared, with his heavy brows down. “Now,” he
said finally, “I don’t think you want to start talking like that.
Not to me. I don’t believe so.”
“Oh yes I do,” Wolfe assured him. “It’s my one form of
prowess. I do talk. But I mean no offense, I’m speaking only of
Clyde’s expectations. I must account for his expecting to win
that bet before I can approach the murder at all. I have con-
sidered, thoroughly, all the possible schemes, as well as the
impossible, he might have had in mind, and there is one
which appears neat, not too atrocious, and practicable though
perhaps difficult. I have said he couldn’t have expected simply
to remove the bull from the pasture, because he couldn’t have
hid him from the resulting search. But why couldn’t he re-
move Caesar and put another bull in his place?”
The stockman snorted. “A good grade Holstein maybe.”
“No. Humor me, sir. Take my question as serious and
answer it. Why couldn’t he?”
“Because he couldn’t.”
“But why not? There were, I don’t know how many,
Guernsey bulls at the exposition, only seventeen miles away,
and cattle trucks there to haul them in. There were some much
closer, here at his father’s place, within leading distance.
Might not one of them, though vastly inferior to the champion
Caesar in the finer qualities which I don’t know about, re-
semble him sufficiently in size and coloring to pass as a
substitute? A substitute for only one day, since the butcher
was to come on Wednesday? Who would have known the
difference?”
McMillan snorted again. “I would.”
“Granted. You could have mistaken no other bull for
your Caesar. But everyone else might easily have been fooled.
At the very least there was an excellent sporting chance of it.