Some Buried Caesar

HE SAT in the chair McMillan had vacated and continued to look tolerably amused. Wolfe, im- movable, with his eyes nearly shut, appeared to be more than half asleep, which may or may not have deceived Bronson but didn't deceive me. I yawned. With the angle of the light striking Bronson as it did, his nose looked blunter than it had on the veranda, as if it had at some time been permanently pushed, and his clever gray eyes looked smaller.

Finally he said in a cultivated tone, "I understood you wanted to ask me something."

Wolfe nodded. "Yes, sir. Were you able to overhear much of my conversation with Miss Osgood this afternoon?"

"Not a great deal. In fact, very little." Bronson smiled. "What was that for, to see if I would make an effort at in- dignation? Let me suggest… we won't really need finesse. I know a little something about you, I'm aware of your re- sources, but I have a few myself. Why don't we just agree that you're not a fool and neither am I?"

"Indeed." Wolfe's lids had lifted so that his eyes were more than slits. "Are you really a coolheaded man? There are so few."

"I'm fairly intelligent."

"Then thank heaven we can discuss facts calmly, without a lot of useless pother… facts which I have got from Miss Osgood. For instance, that you are what Mr. Osgood-and many other people-would call an unscrupulous blackguard."

"I don't…" Bronson flipped a hand. "Oh, well. Calling names…"

"Just so. I can excoriate stupidity, and often do, because it riles me, but moral indignation is a dangerous indulgence. Ethology is a chaos. Financial banditry, for example… I either condemn it or I don't; and if I do, without prejudice, where will I find jailers? No. My only excuse for labeling you an unscrupulous blackguard is the dictionary, and I do it to clarify our positions. I'm in the detective business, and you're in the blackguard business… and I want to consult with you about both. I am counting on you to help me in my investiga- tion of a murder, and I also have a suggestion to make regard- ing one of your projects-the one that brought you here. Regarding the murder-"

"Perhaps we'd better take the last one first and get it out of the way. I'm always open to a reasonable suggestion."

"As you please, sir." Wolfe's lips pushed out, and in again. "You have a paper signed by Clyde Osgood. You showed it to Miss Osgood this morning."

"A receipt for money I paid him."

"Specifying the services he was to perform in return."

"Yes."