'The beer is good.' Wolfe shuddered, and muttered, 'A mob yelling for beds.' He looked around. 'This is a remarkably pleasant room… large and airy, good windows… I think perhaps I should have modem casements installed in my room at home. Two excellent beds – did you try one of the beds?'
I looked at him suspiciously. 'No.'
'They are first class. When did you say the garage will send for the car?'
I said patiently, 'Tomorrow by noon.'
'Good.' He sighed. 'I thought I didn't like new houses, but this one is very pleasant. Of course that was the architect. Do you know where the money came from to build it? Miss Pratt told me. Her uncle operates a chain of popular restaurants in New York – hundreds of them. He calls them pratterias. Did you ever see one?'
'Sure.' I had my pants down, inspecting the knee. 'I've had lunch in them often.'
'Indeed. How is the food?'
'So-so. Depends on your standard.' I looked up. 'If what you have in mind is flushing a dinner here to avoid a restaurant meal, pratteria grub is irrelevant and immaterial. The cook downstairs is ipso facto. Incidentally, I'm glad to learn they're called pratterias because Pratt owns them. I always supposed it was because they're places where you can sit on your prat and eat.'
Wolfe grunted. 'I presume one ignorance cancels another. I never heard 'prat' before, and you don't know the mean- ing of ipso facto. Unless 'prat' is your invention-'
'No. Shakespeare used it. I've looked it up. I never in- vent unless-'
There was a knock on the door, and I said come in. A specimen entered wearing dirty flannel pants and a shiny starched white coat, with grease on the side of his face. He stood in the doorway and mumbled something about Mr. Pratt having arrived and we could go downstairs when we felt like it. Wolfe told him we would be down at once and he went off.
I observed, 'Mr. Pratt must be a widower.' 'No,' said Wolfe, making ready to elevate himself. 'He has never married. Miss Pratt told me. Are you going to comb your hair?'
We had to hunt for them. A woman in the lower hall with an apron on shook her head when we asked her, and we went into the dining room and out again, and through a big living room and another one with a piano in it before we finally found them out on a flagged terrace shaded with awnings. The two girls were off to one side with a young man, having highballs. Nearer to us, at a table, were two guys working their chins and fluttering papers from a brief case at each other. One, young and neat, looked like a slick bond salesman; the other, middle- aged or a little past, had brown hair that was turning gray, narrow temples and a wide jaw. Wolfe stopped, then in a minute approached nearer and stopped again. They looked up at him and the other one frowned and said;
'Oh, you're the fellows.'
'Mr. Pratt?' Wolfe bowed faintly. 'My name is Wolfe.'
The younger man stood up. The other just kept on frowning. 'So my niece told me. Of course I've heard of you, but I don't care if you're President Roosevelt, you had no busi- ness in that pasture when my man ordered you out. What did you want in there?'
'Nothing.'
'What did you go in there for?'
Wolfe compressed his lips, then loosened them to ask, 'Did your niece tell you what I told her?'
'Yes '
'Do you think she lied?'
'Why… no.'
'Do you think I lied?'
'Er… no.'
Wolfe shrugged. 'Then it remains only to thank you for your hospitality-your telephone, your accommodations, your refreshment. The beer especially is appreciated. Your niece has kindly offered to take us to Crowfield in your car… if you will permit that?'
'I suppose so.' The lummox was still frowning. He leaned back with his thumbs in his armpits. 'No, Mr. Wolfe, I don't think you lied, but I'd still like to ask a question or two. You see, you're a detective, and you might have been hired… God knows what lengths they'll go to. I'm being pested half to death. I went over to Crowfield with my nephew today to take a look at the exposition, and they hounded me out of the place. I had to come home to get away from them. I'll ask a straight question: did you enter that particular pasture because you knew that bull was in it?'
Wolfe stared. 'No, sir.'
'Did you come to this part of the country in an effort to do something about that bull?'
'No, sir. I came to exhibit orchids at the North Atlantic Exposition.'
'Your choosing that pasture was pure accident?'
'We didn't choose it. It was a question of geometry. It was the shortest way to this house.' After a pause Wolfe added bitterly, 'So we thought'
Pratt nodded. Then he glanced at his watch, jerked him- self up and turned to the man with the brief case, who was stowing papers away. 'All right, Pavey, you might as well make the 6 o'clock from Albany. Tell Jameson there's no reason in God's world why the unit should drop below twenty- eight four. Why shouldn't people be as hungry this September as any other September? Remember what I said, no more Fairbanks pies…' He went on a while about dish breakage percentages and new leases in Brooklyn and so forth, and shouted a last minute
