I made myself scarce. It sounded fairly loco. As I trotted out to where Osgood's sedan was still parked, and got in and got it going, my mind was toying with theories that would account for Wolfe's sudden passion for photography, but I couldn't concoct one that wasn't full of holes. For instance, if all he wanted was to have it on record that the bull's face was comparatively clean, why pictures from all angles? I devised others, wilder and more elaborate, during the four minutes it took to drive to the highway and along it for a mile to Pratt's place, but none was any good. At the entrance to the drive a state cop stopped me and I told him I was sent by Waddell.
I parked in the space in front of the garage, alongside the yellow Wethersill standing there, and jumped out and headed for the house. But I was only halfway there when I heard a call:
'Hey! Escamillo!'
I turned and saw Lily Rowan horizontal, lifted onto an elbow, on a canvas couch under a maple tree. I trotted over to her, telling her on the way:
'Hullo, plaything. I want to borrow a camera.'
'My lord,' she demanded, 'am I such a pretty sight that you just have to-'
'No. This is serious and urgent. Have you got a camera?'
'Oh, I see. You came from the Osgoods. Oh, I knew you were there. It's that yellow-eyed Nancy-'
'Cut it. I tell you I'm serious. I want to take a picture of the bull before they get their-'
'What bull?'
'The bull.'
'Good heavens. What a funny job you have. No one will ever take another picture of that bull. They've started the fire.'
'Goddam it! Where?'
'Down at the other end…'
I was off on the lope, which may have been dumb, but I was in the throes of emotion. I heard her clamoring, 'Wait! Escamillo! I'm coming along!' but I kept going. Leaving the lawn, as I passed the partly dug pit for the barbecue, I could smell the smoke, and soon I could see it, above the clump of birches towards the far end of the pasture. I slowed to a trot and cussed out loud as I went.
There was quite a group there, 15 or 20 besides the ones tending the fire. I joined them unnoticed. A length of the fence had been torn down and we stood back of the gap. Apparently Hickory Caesar Grindon had had a ring built around him of good dry wood, in ample quantity, for there was so much blaze that you could only catch an occasional glimpse of what was left of him between the tongues of flame. It was hot as the devil, even at the distance we were stand- ing. Four or five men in shirt sleeves, with sweat pouring from them, were throwing on more wood from nearby piles. The group of spectators stood, some silent, some talking. I heard a voice beside me:
'I thought maybe you might get around.'
I turned for a look. 'Oh, hello, Dave. What made you think I'd be here?'
'Nothin' particular, only you seem like a feller that likes to be around where things is goin' on.' He pinched at his nose. 'I'll be demed if it don't smell like a barbecue. Same smell exactly. You might close your eyes and think he was bein' et.'
'Well, he's not. He won't-be.'
'He sure won't.' Silence, while we watched the flames. In a little he resumed, 'You know, it gets you thinkin', a sight like that, denied if it don't. A champion bull like that Caesar bein' burnt up with scorn. It's ignominious. Ain't it?'
'Absolutely.'
'Yes it is.' He pinched his nose again. 'Do you read pohtry?'
'No. Neither do you.'
'The hell I don't. A book my daughter give me one Christmas I've read twenty times, parts of it more. In one place it says I sometimes think that never grows so red the rose as where some buried Caesar bled.' Of course this Caesar's bein' burnt instead of buried, but there's a con- nection if you can see it.'
I made a fitting reply and shoved off. There was no per- centage in standing there getting my face roasted and I wasn't in a mood to listen to Dave recite poetry.
Up a ways, near the gate through which we had carried the canvas with its burden the night before. Lily Rowan sat on the grass holding her nose. I had a notion to stop and tell her with a sneer that it was only a pose to show how sensitive and feminine she was, since Dave's olfactory judgment had been correct, but I didn't even feel like sneering. I had been sent there on the hop with my first chance to get a lick in, and had arrived too late, and I knew that Nero Wolfe wouldn't be demanding a snapshot of a bull just to put it in his album.
Lily held her hands out. 'Help me up.'
I grabbed hold, gave a healthy jerk, and she popped up and landed flat against me; and I enclosed her with both arms and planted a thorough one, of medium duration, on her mouth, and let her go.
'Well,' she said, with her eyes shining. 'You cad.'
'Don't count on that as a precedent,' I warned her. 'I'm overwrought. I may never feel like that again. I'm sore as the devil and had to relieve the tension somehow. May I use your telephone? Mr. Pratt's telephone.'
'Go climb a tree,' she said, and got her arm through mine, and we went to the house that way, though it is a form of intimacy I don't care for, since I have a tendency to fight shy of bonds. Nor did I respond to the melting quality that seemed to be creeping into her tone, but kept strictly to persiflage.
