want. If you hadn’t eluded me last night I’d have got him
then. Here are the alternatives for you to choose from. It is
simplified for me by the fact that the sheriff, Mr. Lake, hap-
pens to be a protege of Mr. Osgood’s, while you are not. I
understand you and Mr. Lake are inclined to pull in opposite
directions.
“First. Release Mr. Goodwin at once. With his help I shall
shortly have my proof perfected, and I’ll deliver it to you,
with the murderer, alive or dead.
“Second. Refuse to release Mr. Goodwin. Keep him. With-
out his help and therefore with more difficulty, I’ll get the proof
anyway, and it and the murderer will go to Mr. Lake. I am
told that the Crowfield Daily Journal will be glad to cooperate
with him and see that a full and correct account of his achieve-
ment is published, which is fortunate, for the public deserves
to know what it gets for the money it pays its servants. It’s
a stroke of luck for you that you have Mr. Goodwin. But for
that, I wouldn’t be bothering with you at all.”
Wolfe regarded the district attorney inquiringly. “Your
choice, sir?”
I grinned. “He means take your pick.”
Barrow growled at me, “Close your trap.”
Waddell declared, “I still think it’s a bluff.”
Wolfe lifted his shoulders a quarter of an inch and dropped
them. “Then it’s Mr. Lake.”
“You said you know who murdered Clyde Osgood and
Howard Bronson. Do you mean one man committed both
crimes?”
“That won’t do. You get information after my assistant is
released, not before,—and when I’m ready to give it.”
“In a year or two, huh?”
“Hardly that long. Say within 24 hours. Less than that, I
hope.”
“And you actually know who the murderer is and you’ve got
evidence?”
“Yes, to the first. I’ll have satisfactory evidence.”
“What kind of evidence?”
Wolfe shook his head. “I tell you it won’t do. I’m not play-
ing a guessing game, and I won’t be pumped.”
“Convincing evidence?”
“Conclusive.”
Waddell sat back, pulled at his ear, and said nothing. Fi-
nally he turned to the stenographer and told him, “Give me
that notebook and beat it.” That command having been
obeyed, he sat again a minute and then looked at Barrow and
demanded sourly, “What about it. Captain? What the hell are
we going to do?”
“I don’t know.” Barrow compressed his Ups. “I know what
I’d like to do.”
“That’s a big help. You’ve had 6 or 8 men on this thing and
they haven’t dug up a single solitary fragment, and this
smart elephant knows who did it and will have conclusive
evidence within 24 hours. So he says.” Waddell suddenly
jerked up his chin and whirled to Wolfe: “Who knows it be-
sides you? If Lake or any of his deputies have been holding
out on me—”
“No,” Wolfe assured him. “That’s all right. They’re in the
boat with you and Captain Barrow, with no hooks and no
bait.”
“Then when did you pick it up? Where have you been?
Goodwin certainly didn’t help any, since we collared him
soon after Bronson’s body was found. By God, if this is a
stall…”
Wolfe shook his head. “Please. I’ve known who killed Clyde
Osgood since Monday night; I knew it as soon as I saw the
bull’s face; and I knew the motive. Your incredulous stare
only makes you look foolish. Likewise with Mr. Bronson; the
thing was obvious.”
“You knew all about it when you were sitting there in that
chair Tuesday afternoon? Talking to me, the district attorney?”
“Yes. But there was no evidence—or rather, there was, but
before I could reach it it had been destroyed. Now I must find
a substitute for it, and shall.”
“What was the evidence that was destroyed?”
“Not now. It’s nearly 11 o’clock, and Mr. Goodwin and I
must be going. We have work to do. By the way, I don’t want
to be annoyed by surveillance. It will be futile, and if we’re
followed I shall consider myself released from the bargain.”
“Will you give me your word of honor that you’ll do lust
what you’ve agreed to do, with no reservations and no quib-
bling?”
“Not a word of honor. I don’t like the phrase. The word
“honor’ has been employed too much by objecnoname people
and has been badly soiled. I give you my word. But I can’t
sit here talking about it all day. I understand that my assistant
has been legally committed, so the release must be legal too.”
Waddell sat and pulled at his ear. He frowned at Barrow,
but apparently read no helpful hint on the captain’s stony
countenance. He reached for his telephone and requested a
number, and after a little wait spoke into it: “Frank? Ask
Judge Hutchins if I can run up and see him for a minute. I
want to ask him to vacate a warrant.”
I ASKED, “Shall I go get him?”
Wolfe said, “No. We’ll wait.”
We were in a room at the exposition offices, not the one
where we had met Osgood Tuesday afternoon. This was small-
er and contained desks and files and chairs and was cluttered
with papers. It was noon. On leaving the courthouse with
Wolfe I had been surprised to find that our sedan was parked
out front; he explained that an Osgood employee had brought
it from where I had left it the day before. He had instructed
me to head for the exposition grounds, and our first stop
had been the main exhibits building, where we gave the
orchids an inspection and a spraying, and Wolfe arranged
with an official for their care until Saturday, and the crating
and shipping when the exposition closed. Then we had walked
to the offices and been shown to Room 9. I was allowed to
know that we expected to meet Lew Bennett there, but he
hadn’t arrived, and at noon we were still waiting for him.
I said, “If you ask my opinion, I think the best thing we can
do is disguise ourselves as well as possible and jump in the
car and drive like hell for New York. Or maybe across the line
to Vermont and hide out in an old marble quarry.”
“Stop that scratching.”
I stuck my hands in my pockets. “You realize that I have
been studying your face for 10 years, its lights and its shadows,
the way it is arranged, and the way you handle it. And I say
in all disrespect that I do not believe that the evidence
which you mentioned to those false alarms is in existence.”
“It isn’t.”
“I refer to the evidence which you promised to deliver
within 24 hours.”
“So do I.”
“But it doesn’t exist.”
“No.”
“But you’re going to deliver it?”
“Yes.”
I stared. “Okay. I suppose it was bound to happen sooner
or later, but it’s so painful to see that I wish it had happened
to me first. Once at my mother’s knee, back in 1839 I think it
was—”
“Shut up, I’m going to make it.”
“What? The bughouse?”
“The evidence. There is none. The bull was cremated. Noth-
ing else remained to demonstrate the motive for murdering
Clyde, and even if there had been other incriminating de-
tails—and there were none—they would have been useless. As
for Bronson, Mr, Lake reports a vacuum. No fingerprints, ex-
cept yours on the wallet, no one who remembers seeing him
enter the shed, no one who saw him in anybody’s company,
no one with any discoverable motive. From the New York
end, tracing his phone calL so far nothing—and of course
there can be nothing. A complete vacuum. Under the circum-
stances there is only—ah! Good morning, sir.”
The Secretary of the National Guernsey League, having
entered and shut the door behind him, approached. He
looked like a man who has been interrupted, but nothing
like as exasperated as he had been the preceding day.
His greeting was affable but not frothy, and he sat down as
if he didn’t expect to stay long.
Wolfe said, “Thank you for coming. You’re busy of course.
Remarkable, how many ways there are of being busy. I be-
lieve Mr. Osgood told you on the phone that I would ask a
favor in his name. I’ll be brief. First the relevant facts: the
records of your league are on file in your office at Fem-
borough, which is 110 miles from here, and the airplane
belonging to Mr. Sturtevant, who takes passengers for hire
at the airport at the other end of these grounds, could go
there and return in 2 hours. Those are facts.”
Bennett looked slightly bewildered. “I guess they are. I
don’t know about the airplane.”
“I do, I’ve inquired. I’ve even engaged Mr. Sturtevant’s
services, tentatively. What I would like to have, sir, before
3 o’clock, are the color pattern sketches of Hickory Caesar