Some Buried Caesar

Clyde, with his family connections, having the entree to about everything from the aquarium up. But Clyde had needed the dough not some time tomorrow, but now, and Bronson had given it to him; whereupon Clyde had mollified a few debts and slid the rest down his favorite chute, before dawn. Following a lifelong habit, he had confided in his sister, and her horror added to his own belated reflections had shown him that in his desperation he had taken an order which no Osgood could possibly fill. He had so notified Bronson, with regret and the expressed intention of repaying the ten grand at the earliest opportunity, but Bronson had revealed a nasty streak. He wanted the order filled, or the cash returned, forthwith; and a complication was that Clyde had rashly signed a receipt for the money which included specifications of what Bronson was to get for it. Bronson threatened to show the receipt to the family connections. Bad all around. When Clyde decided, as a last resort, on a trip to Crowfield for an appeal to his father, Bronson's dis- trust of him had got so deplorable that he insisted on going along and he couldn't be ditched; and Nancy had accom- panied them for the purpose of helping out with father. But father had been obdurate, and Monday it was beginning to look as if Clyde would have to confess all in order to get the money, which would be worse than bad, when on Pratt's terrace luck reared its pretty head again and Clyde made a bet.

Wolfe got all that out of her, patiently, with various de- tails and dates, and then observed, having finished the second bottle of beer, that while it seemed to establish Bronson as a man of disreputable motives it didn't seem to include one for murder.

"I know it," Nancy said. "I told you he couldn't have done it to get the money, because Clyde didn't have it, and any- way if he had had it he would have given it to him."

"Still you say he did it?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Because I saw Bronson follow Clyde over to Pratt's place."

"Indeed. Last night?"

"Yes."

"Tell me about it."