Some Buried Caesar

"Good." He sighed. "I thought I didn't like new houses, but this one is very pleasant. Of course that was the architect. Do you know where the money came from to build it? Miss Pratt told me. Her uncle operates a chain of popular restaurants in New York – hundreds of them. He calls them pratterias. Did you ever see one?"

"Sure." I had my pants down, inspecting the knee. "I've had lunch in them often."

"Indeed. How is the food?"

"So-so. Depends on your standard." I looked up. "If what you have in mind is flushing a dinner here to avoid a restaurant meal, pratteria grub is irrelevant and immaterial. The cook downstairs is ipso facto. Incidentally, I'm glad to learn they're called pratterias because Pratt owns them. I always supposed it was because they're places where you can sit on your prat and eat."

Wolfe grunted. "I presume one ignorance cancels another. I never heard 'prat' before, and you don't know the mean- ing of ipso facto. Unless 'prat' is your invention-"

"No. Shakespeare used it. I've looked it up. I never in- vent unless-"

There was a knock on the door, and I said come in. A specimen entered wearing dirty flannel pants and a shiny starched white coat, with grease on the side of his face. He stood in the doorway and mumbled something about Mr. Pratt having arrived and we could go downstairs when we felt like it. Wolfe told him we would be down at once and he went off.

I observed, "Mr. Pratt must be a widower." "No," said Wolfe, making ready to elevate himself. "He has never married. Miss Pratt told me. Are you going to comb your hair?"

We had to hunt for them. A woman in the lower hall with an apron on shook her head when we asked her, and we went into the dining room and out again, and through a big living room and another one with a piano in it before we finally found them out on a flagged terrace shaded with awnings. The two girls were off to one side with a young man, having highballs. Nearer to us, at a table, were two guys working their chins and fluttering papers from a brief case at each other. One, young and neat, looked like a slick bond salesman; the other, middle-aged or a little past, had brown hair that was turning gray, narrow temples and a wide jaw. Wolfe stopped, then in a minute approached nearer and stopped again. They looked up at him and the other one frowned and said;

"Oh, you're the fellows."

"Mr. Pratt?" Wolfe bowed faintly. "My name is Wolfe."