Some Buried Caesar

"I'm afraid you weren't doing much thinking last night," Wolfe told him. "It couldn't be expected of you. But it might have been expected of the police by the sanguine… par- ticularly the rustic police."

The District Attorney, without any sign of bubbling, said, "You've made a point, I grant that. Of course you have. But I'd like to have a doctor's opinion about the bleeding-"

"It was all over his clothes and the grass. Great quantities. If you consult a doctor, let it be the one who saw the wound. In the meantime, it would be well to act, and act soon, on the assumption that the bull didn't do it, because that's the fact."

"You're very positive, Mr. Wolfe. Very."

"I am." "Isn't it possible that the bull withdrew his horn so quickly that he escaped the spurt of blood?"

"No. The spurt is instantaneous, and bulls don't gore like that anyway. They stay in to tear. Has the wound been de- scribed to you?"

Waddell nodded. I noticed that he wasn't looking at Os- good. "That's another thing," he said. "That wound. If it wasn't made by the bull, what could possibly have done it? What kind of weapon?"

"The weapon is right there, not thirty yards from the pas- ture fence. Or was. I examined it."

I thought, uh-huh, see the bright little fat boy with all the pretty skyrockets! But I stared at him, and so did the others. Osgood ejaculated something, and Waddell's voice had a crack in it as he demanded, "You what?" "I said, I examined it." "The weapon that killed him?"

"Yes. I borrowed a flashlight from Mr. Goodwin, because of a slight difficulty in believing that Clyde Osgood would let himself be gored by a bull in the dark. I had heard him remark, in the afternoon, that he knew cattle. Later his father experienced the same difficulty, but didn't know how to re- solve it. I did so by borrowing the light and inspecting the bull, and perceived at once that the supposition which al- ready prevailed was false. The bull hadn't killed him. Then what had?"