Some Buried Caesar

IT WAS certainly an antique. Apparently it was a whole wing of the ground floor of the court- house. The cells faced each other, two rows of them, one on either side of a long corridor. Mine was two doors from the far end. My cellmate was a chap in a dark blue suit with a pointed nose and sharp brown eyes and a thick mop of well- brushed hair. At the time I was locked in, which was around 6 o'clock, he was sitting on one of the cots brushing the hair. The dim light from the little barred window, too high to see out of, made things seem gloomy. We exchanged greetings and he went on brushing. Pretty soon he asked;

"Got any cards or dice with you?"

"Nope."

"They didn't strip you, did they?"

'They took my knife."

He put the brush down and nodded. "You can't kick on that. Were you working out at the grounds? I've never seen you around before."

"You wouldn't. My name is Archie Goodwin, and I'm from New York and am being squeezed." I waved a hand and sat down on the other cot, which was covered with a dirty gray blanket. "Forget it. Were you working out at the grounds?"

"I was until yesterday afternoon. Spoon-bean. Are you hungry?"

'I could eat. But I hesitate to send in an order-"

"Oh, not on the house. No. They feed at 5, and it's the usual. But if you're hungry and happen to have a little jack…"

"Go ahead."

He went over to the deor and tapped three times with his fingernail on one of the iron bars, waited a second, and tapped twice. In a couple of minutes slow footsteps sounded in the corridor, and as they got to our apartment my mate said in a tone restrained but not particularly secretive, "Here, Slim."

I got up and ambled across. It wasn't the keeper who had escorted me in, but a tall skinny object with an Adam's ap- ple as big as a goose egg. I got out the Nero Wolfe expense wallet, extracted a dollar bill, and told him that I required two ham sandwiches and a chocolate egg malted. He took it but shook his head and said it wasn't enough. I told him I knew that but hadn't wanted to spoil him, and parted from another one, and asked him to include 5 evening papers in the order.