Some Buried Caesar

That was really what decided the question, 5 minutes later- the chance of a free airplane ride. Bennett gave in. He made a notation of the sketches Wolfe wanted, made a couple of phone calls, and was ready. I went with him to the landing field; we walked because he wanted to stop at the Guernsey cattle shed on the way. At the field we found Sturtevant, a good-looking kid with a clean face and greasy clothes, warm- ing up the engine of a neat little biplane painted yellow. He said he was set and Bennett climbed in. I backed out of harm's way and watched them taxi across the field, and turn, and come scooting across the grass and lift. I stood tihere until they were up some 400 feet and headed east, and then walked back to the exposition grounds proper, to meet Wolfe at the Methodist tent as arranged. One rift in a gray sky was that I was to get another crack at the fricassee, and after my C. C. P. U. breakfast I had a place for it.

But it wasn't a leisurely meal, for it appeared that we had a program-that is, Wolfe had it and I was to carry it out. After all his gab about violating rules, he kept his intact about the prohibition of business while eating, and since he was in a mood there wasn't much conversation. When the pie had been disposed of and the coffee arrived, he squirmed to a new position on the folding chair and began to lay it out. I was to take the car and proceed to Osgoods, and bathe and change my clothes. Since the house would be full of funeral guests, I was to make myself as unobtrusive as possible, and if Osgood himself failed to catch sight of me at all, so much the better, as I was still.under suspicion of having steered his daughter to a rendezvous with the loathsome Pratt brat. I was to pack our luggage and load it in the car, have the car filled with gas and oil and whatever else it had an appetite for, and report at the room where we had met Bennett not later than 3 o'clock.

"Luggage?" I sipped coffee. "Poised for flight, huh?" Wolfe sighed. "We'll be going home. Home."

"Any stops on the way?"

"Well stop at Mr. Pratt's place." He sipped. "By the way, I'm overlooking something. Two things. Have you a memo- randum book with you? Or a notebook?"

"I've got a pad. You know the kind I carry."