find a decent place to sit down. The hotel room we had man- aged to get-since we hadn't arrived Monday evening to claim the one we had reserved-was small, dark and noisy, and had one window which overlooked a building operation where a concrete mixer was raising cain. If you opened the window, cement dust entered in clouds. There was nowhere at all to sit near our space in the exhibits building. At the Methodist tent they had folding chairs. The ones at the room where we had gone to meet Osgood, where Wolfe had probably expected something fairly tolerable, had been little better; and obviously Wolfe regarded the District Attorney's office as a sort of forlorn last hope. I never saw him move faster than when we entered and a swift glance showed him there was just one upholstered, in dingy black leather, with arms. You might almost have called it a swoop. He stood in front of it for the introduction and then sank.
Carter Waddell, the District Attorney, was pudgy and middle-aged and inclined to bubble. I suppose he did Special bubbling for Osgood, on account of sympathy for bereave- ment and to show that the 1936 election had left no hard feelings, not to mention his love for his country of which Osgood owned 2000 acres. He said he was perfectly willing to reopen the discussion they had had earlier in the day, though his own opinion was unaltered. Osgood said he didn't intend to discuss it himself, that would be a waste of time and effort, but that Mr. Nero Wolfe had something to say. 'By all means,' Waddell bubbled. 'Certainly. Mr. Wolfe's reputation is well known, of course. Doubtless we poor rustics could learn a great deal from him. Couldn't we, Mr. Wolfe?'
Wolfe murmured, 'I don't know your capacity, Mr. Wad- dell. But I do think I have something pertinent to offer regarding the murder of Clyde Osgood.'
'Murder?' Waddell stretched his eyes wide. 'Now I don't know. Petitio principii isn't a good way to begin. Is it?'
'Of course not.' Wolfe wriggled himself comfortable, and sighed. 'I offer the word as something to be established, not as a postulate. Did you ever see a bull kill a man, or injure one with his hom?'
'No, I can't say I have.'
'Did you ever see a bull who had just gored a man or a horse or any animal? Immediately after the goring?'
'No.'
'Well, I have… long ago… a dozen times or more, at
bullfights. Horses killed, and men injured… one man killed.' Wolfe wiggled a finger. 'Whether you've seen it or not, surely you can imagine what happens when a bull thrusts his hom deep into a living body, and tosses, and tears the wound. While the heart of the victim is still furiously pumping. Blood spurts all over the bull's face and head, and often clear to his shoulders and beyond. The bleeding of a man killed in that manner is frightful; the instant such a wound is made a tor- rent gushes forth. It was so in the case of Clyde Osgood. His clothing was saturated. I am told that the police report that where he was killed there is an enormous caked pool of it. Is that correct? You acknowledge it. Last night Mr. Goodwin, my assistant, found the bull turning Clyde Osgood's body over on the ground, with his horns, without much force or en- thusiasm. The natural supposition was that the bull had killed him. Not more than fifteen minutes later, when the bull had been tied to the fence, I examined him at close range with a flashlight. He has a white face, and there was only one smudge of blood on it, and his horns were bloody only a few inches down from the tips. Was that fact included in the police report?'
Waddell said slowly, 'I don't remember… no.' 'Then I advise that the bull be inspected at once, provided he hasn't been already washed off. I assure you that my report is reliable.' Wolfe wiggled a finger again. 'I didn't come here to offer a conjecture, Mr. Waddell. I don't intend to argue it with you. Often in considering phenomena we encounter a suspicious circumstance which requires study and permits de- bate, but the appearance of the bull's face and head last night is not that, it is much more. It is conclusive proof that the bull didn't kill Clyde Osgood. You spoke of my reputation; I stake it on this.'
'By God,' Clyde Osgood's father muttered. 'Well, by God. I looked at that bull myself, and I never thought…'
'I'm afraid you weren't doing much thinking last night,' Wolfe told him. 'It couldn't be expected of you. But it might have been expected of the police by the sanguine… par- ticularly the rustic police.'
The District Attorney, without any sign of bubbling, said, 'You've made a point, I grant that. Of course you have. But I'd like to have a doctor's opinion about the bleeding-'
'It was all over his clothes and the grass. Great quantities. If you consult a doctor, let it be the one who saw the wound. In the meantime, it would be well to act, and act soon, on the assumption that the bull didn't do it, because that's the fact.'
'You're very positive, Mr. Wolfe. Very.'
'I am.' 'Isn't it possible that the bull withdrew his horn so quickly that he escaped the spurt of blood?'
'No. The spurt is instantaneous, and bulls don't gore like that anyway. They stay in to tear. Has the wound been de- scribed to you?'
Waddell nodded. I noticed that he wasn't looking at Os- good. 'That's another thing,' he said. 'That wound. If it wasn't made by the bull, what could possibly have done it? What kind of weapon?'
'The weapon is right there, not thirty yards from the pas- ture fence. Or was. I examined it.'
I thought, uh-huh, see the bright little fat boy with all the pretty skyrockets! But I stared at him, and so did the others. Osgood ejaculated something, and Waddell's voice had a crack in it as he demanded, 'You what?' 'I said, I examined it.' 'The weapon that killed him?'
'Yes. I borrowed a flashlight from Mr. Goodwin, because of a slight difficulty in believing that Clyde Osgood would let himself be gored by a bull in the dark. I had heard him remark, in the afternoon, that he knew cattle. Later his father experienced the same difficulty, but didn't know how to re- solve it. I did so by borrowing the light and inspecting the bull, and perceived at once that the supposition which al- ready prevailed was false. The bull hadn't killed him. Then what had?'
Wolfe squirmed in his chair, which was after all eight inches too narrow, and continued, 'It is an interesting ques- tion whether rapid and accurate brain work results from superior equipment or from good training. In my case, what- ever my original equipment may have been, it has certainly had the advantage of prolonged and severe training. One re- sult, not always pleasant and rarely profitable, is that I am likely to forget myself and concentrate on problems which are none of my business. I did so last night. Within thirty seconds after inspecting the bull's clean face, I had guessed at a possible weapon. Knowing where it was, I went and in- spected it, and verified my guess. I then returned to the house. By the time I arrived there I had reached a conclusion as to how
