“I was under a strain, of course,” Osgood snapped. “I sup-
pose I’m inclined to arrogance, if you want to call it that.
I wouldn’t like to think I’m habitually rude, but I would be
rude to Pratt on sight if the circumstances were such that I
couldn’t ignore him. Last night I couldn’t ignore him. Call
it normal conduct and forget it.”
“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 high-
ball. “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 mar-
ried, 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 be-
cause he knew she would be here, but that’s not in the guar-
antee. I haven’t had a chance—”
Osgood was boiling. “This is insufferable! Preposterous
gossipl 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 im-
pertinent. Either bear it or abandon it. If you resent the vul-
garity of Mr. Goodwin’s jargon I don’t blame you, but noth-
ing 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 en-
gagement 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 gam-
bling 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 un-
derwritten 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