centage in standing there getting my face roasted and I
wasn’t in a mood to listen to Dave recite poetry.
Up a ways, near the gate through which we had carried
the canvas with its burden the night before. Lily Rowan sat
on the grass holding her nose. I had a notion to stop and tell
her with a sneer that it was only a pose to show how sensitive
and feminine she was, since Dave’s olfactory judgment had
been correct, but I didn’t even feel like sneering. I had
been sent there on the hop with my first chance to get a lick
in, and had arrived too late, and I knew that Nero Wolfe
wouldn’t be demanding a snapshot of a bull just to put it
in his album.
Lily held her hands out. “Help me up.”
I grabbed hold, gave a healthy jerk, and she popped up
and landed flat against me; and I enclosed her with both
arms and planted a thorough one, of medium duration, on her
mouth, and let her go.
“Well,” she said, with her eyes shining. “You cad.”
“Don’t count on that as a precedent,” I warned her. “I’m
overwrought. I may never feel like that again. I’m sore as the
devil and had to relieve the tension somehow. May I use
your telephone? Mr. Pratt’s telephone.”
“Go climb a tree,” she said, and got her arm through mine,
and we went to the house that way, though it is a form of
intimacy I don’t care for, since I have a tendency to fight
shy of bonds. Nor did I respond to the melting quality that
seemed to be creeping into her tone, but kept strictly to
persiflage.
Caroline was on the terrace, reading, looking even more
under the weather than she had that morning, and I paused
for a greeting. I didn’t see Jimmy anywhere. Lily went with
me to the phone in an alcove of the living room, and sat and
looked at me with a corner of her mouth turned up, as she
had the day before. I got the number of Osgood’s place,
and was answered by a maid, and asked for Wolfe.
His familiar grunt came: “Hello, Archie.”
“Hello. Hell all haywire. They already had the fire started
and it’s like an inferno. What can I do?”
“Confound it. Nothing. Return.”
“Nothing at all I can do here?”
“No. Come and help me admire stupidity.”
I hung up and turned to Lily: “Listen, bauble. What good
would it do if you told anyone that I came here to take a
picture of the bull?”
“None whatever.” She smiled and ran the tips of her
fingers down my arm. “Trust me, Escamillo.”
12
AN HOUR later, after eight o’clock, Wolfe and I
sat in the room that had been assigned to him
upstairs, eating off of trays, which he hated to do except at
breakfast. But he wasn’t complaining. He never talked busi-
ness at meals, and was glad to escape from his client. Os-
good had explained that his wife wouldn’t appear, and his
daughter would remain with her, and that perhaps it would
be as well to forego service in the dining room altogether,
and Wolfe had politely assented. His room was commodious
and comfortable. It was a little chintzy, but one of its chairs
was adequate for his bulk, and the bed would have held
two of him. It might have been supposed that the kitchen
would be sharing in the general household derangement, but
the covered dishes of broiled lamb chops with stuffed tomatoes
were hot and tasty, the salad was way below Fritz’s standard
but edible, and the squash pie was towards the top.
Osgood’s collision with Waddell and Captain Barrow had
been brief, for it had ended by the time I got back. The
captain was collecting fingerprints from everyone who had
been at Pratt’s place the night before, without disclosing
how dire his intent might be, and since Wolfe had already
obliged I figured I might as well. After he had got my ten
specimens collected and marked and put away in his little
case, he had announced that he was ready for a call on the
foreman of the stock barns, and at Wolfe’s suggestion Osgood
and McMillan had accompanied him, and Pratt had departed
for home, which left Wolfe and me alone with District At-
torney Waddell.
Waddell was glad to cooperate, he said, with Fred Os-
good’s representative. More than willing. He had pursued,
and intended to pursue, the investigation without fear or
favor. No one had a supported alibi except Lily Rowan
and me. They had left the dinner table before 9 o’clock.
Wolfe had gone upstairs to read. Pratt had gone to his desk
in the room next to the living room to look over some business
papers. McMillan had been shown to a room upstairs by
Bert, and had lain down with his shoes off for a nap until
1 o’clock, at which time he was to relieve me on guard duty.
He had slept lightly and the sound of the shots had awakened
him. Caroline had sat on the terrace for a while and had then
gone to the living room and looked at magazines. Jimmy
had been on the terrace with his sister, and when she left
he had remained there, and sat and smoked. He had heard
our voices. Lily’s and mine, as we had followed the pasture
fence on our tour, especially as we encountered the briar
patch, but remembered no other sounds above the noise of
the crickets and katydids. Bert had helped with the dinner
dishes until 10 o’clock and had then sat in the kitchen and
listened to the radio, with his ear glued to it because it had
to be kept pianissimo. Dave Smalley—Waddell knew all about
his having been fired by Clyde Osgood—Dave, on parting
from me at a quarter to 9, had gone to his room in a wing of
the garage building, shaved himself, and retired. Wolfe de-
manded, “Shaved?” in incredulity, and got the explanation
Dave had given, that he always shaved at bedtime because
he was too hungry to do it before breakfast, and after break-
fast there was no time.
So far as that went, Waddell conceded, anyone could
have done it. When you went on and asked why anyone
would have done it, that was different. There was no one
there with anything like a decent known motive to murder
Clyde Osgood unless you wanted to make an exception of
Dave Smalley, but Dave was harmless and always had been.
Say someone had caught Clyde sneaking in there after the
bull. If it had been Pratt, he would have simply ordered him
off. If it had been Jimmy, he would have socked him. If it
had been McMillan, he would have picked him up and thrown
him over the fence. If it had been Dave, he would have yelled
for help. If it had been Goodwin, who was guarding the bull,
of course he didn’t know… .
“I’ve explained,” said Wolfe patiently, “that the murder
was planned. Did you examine the bull?”
“I looked at him, and so did Sam Lake and the police.
There was one splotch on his face and a little caked on his
horns, but not much, he had rubbed most of that off. A bull
likes to keep his horns clean.”
“What about the grass around the hose and the pick
handle?”
“We sent the pick to Albany for laboratory inspection.
There were a few, kind of clots, we found in the grass, and
we sent them too. We won’t know until tomorrow.”
“They’ll report human blood, and then what? Will you still
waste time blathering about Clyde approaching the bull
with a meal of anthrax, and the bull, after consuming it, be-
coming resentful and goring him?”
“If they report human blood that will add weight to your
theory, of course. I said I’d cooperate, Wolfe, I didn’t agree
to lap up your sarcasm.”
“Pfui.” Wolfe shrugged. “Don’t think I don’t understand
your position, sir. You are fairly sure there has been a murder,
but you want to leave a path open to a public pretense that
there was none, in case you fail to solve it. You have made no
progress whatever toward a solution and see no prospect of
any, and you would abandon the attempt now and announce
it as accidental death as a result of malicious trespass, but
for me. You know I am employed by Mr. Osgood, who may
be obstructed but not ignored, and you further know that I
have the knack of arranging, when I do make a fool of myself,
that no one shall know it but me.”
“You make …” Waddell sputtered with anger. “You
accuse me of obstructing justice? I’m the law officer of this
county—”
“Bah! Swallow it, sir! You know perfectly well Clyde