the crime had been committed-and I have not altered it since.'
'What was the weapon? Where was it?'
'It was rustic too. An ordinary pick for digging. In the afternoon, in an emergency created by the bull-preceded by Mr. Goodwin's destruction of my car-1 had been conveyed from the pasture by Miss Pratt in an automobile. We had passed by an excavation-the barbecue pit as I learned after- wards-with freshly dug earth and picks and shovels lying there. My guess was that a pick might have been used. I went with a flashlight to see, and found confirmation. There were two picks. One of them was perfectly dry, with bits of dried soil clinging to it, and the other was damp. Even the metal itself was still damp on the under side, and the wooden han- dle was positively wet. There was no particle of soil clinging to the metal. Obviously the thing had been thoroughly and recently washed, not more than an hour previously at the outside. Not far away I found the end of a piece of garden hose. It was connected somewhere, for when I turned the nozzle a little, water came. Around where the nozzle lay the grass was quite wet when I pressed my palm into it. It was more than a surmise, it was close to a certainty, that the pick had done the goring, got deluged with blood, been carefully washed with the garden hose and replaced on the pile of excavated soil where I found it.'
'You mean-' Frederick Osgood stopped with his jaw clamped. His clenched fists, resting on his hams, showed white knuckles. He went on, harshly, 'My son… was killed like that… dug at with a pick?'
Waddell was looking decomposed. He tried to bluster. 'If all this is true-you knew it last night, didn't you? Why the hell didn't you spill it when the sheriff was there? When the cops were there on the spot?'
'I represented no interest last night, sir.'
'What about the interest of justice? You're a citizen, aren't you? Did you ever hear of withholding evidence-'
'Nonsense. I didn't withhold the bull's face or the pick. You must know you're being silly. My cerebral processes, and the conclusions they lead me to, belong to me.'
'You say the pick handle was wet and there was no dirt sticking to the metal. Couldn't it have been washed for some legitimate reason? Did you inquire about that?'
'I made no inquiries of anybody. At eleven o'clock at night the pick handle was wet. If you regard it as a rational project to find a legitimate nocturnal pick-washer, go ahead. The time might be better spent, if you need confirmation, in look- ing for blood residue in the grass around the hose nozzle and examining the pick handle with a microscope. It is hard to remove all vestige of blood from a piece of wood. Those steps are of course obvious, and others as well.'
'You're telling me.' The District Attorney sent a glance, half a glare, at Osgood, and away again, back at Wolfe. 'Now look here, don't get me wrong… you neither, Fred Osgood. I'm the prosecutor for this county and I know my duty and I intend to do it and I try to do it. If there's been a crime I don't want to back off from it and neither does Sam Lake, but I'm not going to raise a stink just for the hell of it and you can't blame me for that. The people who elected me wouldn't want it and nobody ought to want it. And the way it looks to me-in spite of no blood on the bull and whether I find a legitimate nocturnal pick-washer or not-it still strikes me as cuckoo. Did he climb into the pasture carrying the pick-where the bull was-and then Clyde Osgood climbed in after him and obligingly stood there while he swung the pick? Or was Clyde already in the pasture, and he climbed in with the pick and let him have it? Can you imagine aiming anything as clumsy and heavy as a pick at a man in the dark, and him still being there when it landed? And wouldn't the blood spurt all over you too? Who is he and where did he go to, covered with blood?'
Osgood snarled, 'I told you, Wolfe. Listen to the damn fool-Look here. Carter Waddell! Now I'll tell you some- thing-'
'Please, gentlemen!' Wolfe had a palm up. 'We're wasting a lot of time.' He regarded the District Attorney and said patiently, 'You're going about it wrong. You should stop squirming and struggling. Finding yourself confronted by an unpleasant fact… you're like a woman who conceals a stain on a table cover by putting an ash tray over it. Ineffectual, because someone is sure to move the ash tray. The fact is that Clyde Osgood was murdered by someone with that pick, and unhappily your function is to establish the fact and re- veal its mechanism; you can't obliterate it merely by invent- ing unlikely corollaries.'
'I didn't invent anything, I only-'
'Pardon me. You assumed the fictions that Clyde climbed the fence into the pasture and obligingly stood in the dark and permitted himself to be fatally pierced by a clumsy pick. I admit that the first is unlikely and the second next to in- credible. Those considerations occurred to me last night on the spot. As I said, by the time I reached the house I had satisfied myself as to how the crime was committed, and I am still satisfied. I don't believe Clyde Osgood climbed the fence. He was first rendered unconscious, probably by a blow on the head. He was then dragged or carried to the fence, and pushed under it or lifted over it, and further dragged or car- ried ten or fifteen yards into the pasture, and left lying on his side. The murderer then stood behind him with the pick and swung it powerfully in the natural and ordinary manner, only instead of piercing and tearing the ground it pierced and tore his victim. The wound would perfectly resemble the goring of a bull. The blood-spurt would of course soil the pick, but not the man who wielded it. He got the tie-rope from where it was hanging on the fence and tossed it on the ground near the body, to make it appear that Clyde had en- tered the pasture with it; then he took the pick to the con- venient hose nozzle, washed it off, returned it where he had got it,, and went-' Wolfe shrugged '-went somewhere.'
'The bull,' Waddell said. 'Did the bull just stand and look on and wait for the murderer to leave, and then push the body around so as to have bloody horns? Even a rustic sheriff might have noticed it if he had had no blood on him at all.'
'I couldn't say. It was dark. A bull may or may not attack in the dark. But I suggest (1) the murderer, knowing how to handle a bull in the dark, before performing with the pick, approached the bull, snapped the tie-rope onto the nose ring, and led him to the fence and tied him. Later, before releasing him, he smeared blood on his horns. Or (2), after the pick had been used the murderer enticed the bull to the spot and left him there, knowing that the smell of blood would lead him to investigate. Or (3), the murderer acted when the bull was in another part of the pasture and made no effort to manufacture the evidence of bloody horns, thinking that in the excitement and with the weight of other circumstances as arranged, it wouldn't matter. It was his good luck that Mr. Goodwin happened to arrive while the bull was satisfying his curiosity… and his bad luck that I happened to arrive at all.'
Waddell sat frowning, his mouth screwed up. After a mo- ment he blurted, 'Fingerprints on the pick handle.'
Wolfe shook his head. 'A handkerchief or a tuft of grass, to carry it after washing it. I doubt if the murderer was an idiot.'
