Some Buried Caesar

Wolfe sighed. "At least he might have. Let's say his pro- posal was that he should, with your consent, remove Caesar and put another bull in his place. He would take Caesar to the Osgood barns. You would, during Tuesday, help to guard the substitute so that no one who would be at all likely to notice the deception would be permitted to approach too closely. With the substitute once butchered, on Wednes- day, the danger would of course be over. On Thursday Mr. Pratt and his guests, with trumpets of publicity, would eat the barbecued bull. On Sunday, with the week expired, Clyde would present Mr. Pratt with irrefutable evidence that it was not Caesar who had been sacrificed and that he had therefore won the bet. Mr. Pratt would of course ex- plode with rage, but in the end he would have to compose himself and admit his helplessness and pay the $10,000, for if the facts were made public the roar of laughter would obliter- ate him. Customers in a pratteria would say, 'Do you suppose this is really beef? It may be woodchuck.' Mr. Pratt would have to pay and keep his mouth shut. He couldn't even take Caesar back, for what would he do with him? Clyde Osgood would get the $10,000, and doubtless a part of his pro- posal would be that you would get Caesar. I don't know how that would work out, since officially Caesar would be dead but there might be a way around that difficulty, and as a minimum benefit you could breed his exceptional qualities into your herd."

Wolfe intertwined his fingers at his abdominal peak. "That, of course, is merely the outline of the proposal. Clyde had probably developed it in detail, including the time and manner of shuffling the bulls. The most auspicious time for that would have been after 1 o'clock, when you would be the one on guard, but you might have refused to involve your- self to that extent; and therefore one possibility is that the shuffling was set for earlier and had actually taken place. Caesar may be alive at this moment. The bull who died of anthrax may have been only a substitute. I offer that only as a conjecture; obviously it is tenable only on the supposition that you agreed to Clyde's proposal and entered into his scheme… and you know more about that than I do. But leaving that entirely aside, what do you think of the scheme itself? Do you detect any flaws?"

McMillan was eying him with a grim smile. He said calmly, "You're slick, aren't you?"