Some Buried Caesar

I grinned at him. "Sure I'll explain. Last evening at Os- good's house I found a wallet on the veranda. I looked in it for papers to identify the owner, and found it was Bronson's, and returned it to him. It never occurred to me to wipe off my prints."

"Oh. You had it ready."

"Had what ready?" I demanded innocently. "The wallet?" "The explanation."

"Yeah, I carry a big stock for the country trade." I com- pressed my lips at him. "For God's sake use your bean. If I had croaked the guy and frisked the wallet, or if I had found him dead and frisked it, would I have left my. signature all over it? Do I strike you as being in that category? Maybe I can offer you a detail though. You say the wallet was empty. Last night when I found it, and when I returned it to him, it was bulging with a wad which I estimated roughly at 2000 bucks."

At that point Nero Wolfe's genius went into action. I say genius not because he concocted the stratagem, for that was only quick wit, but because he anticipated the need for it far enough ahead of time to get prepared. I didn't rec- ognize it at the moment for what it was; all I saw, without paying it any attention, was that, apparently bored by a con- versation he had no part in, he slipped the pistol into his coat pocket and picked up the sprayer and began fussing with the nozzle and the pressure handle.

"You advise me to use my bean," Barrow was saying. "I'll try. Did you remove anything from the wallet?" "Today? I haven't seen it. I only found it once." "Today or any other time. Did you?" "No."

"Did you take anything from Bronson at all? His person or his effects?" "No."

"Are you willing to submit to a search?" My brain didn't exactly reel, but the wires buzzed. For half a second five or six alternatives chased each other around in a battle royal. Meanwhile I was treating Barrow to a grin to show how serene I was, and also, out of the corner of an eye, I was perceiving that Nero Wolfe's right index finger, resting half concealed by his coat on the pressure lever, was being wiggled at me. It was a busy moment. Hoping to God I had interpreted the wiggle correctly, I told Barrow affably, "Excuse the hesitation, but I'm trying to decide which would annoy you more, to deny you the courtesy and compel you to take steps, or let you go ahead and find nothing. Now that my gun is gone and you can't disarm me-"

The spray of nicotine and soap, full force under high pres- sure, hit him smack in the face.