Some Buried Caesar

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."

19

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?"