'Well, you climbed to the top of the rock and stood there 2 or 3 minutes with your arms folded and your walking stick hanging from your wrist, and then you took a notebook or something from your pocket and it looked as if you were writing in it or drawing in it. You kept looking at the bull and back at the book or whatever it was. I decided you were making a sketch of the bull. That hardly seemed possible under the circumstances, but it certainly looked like it.'
Wolfe nodded. 'I doubt if there will ever be any reason for you to repeat all that to a judge and jury in a courtroom, but if such an occasion should arise would you do it?'
'Certainly. Why not?'
'Under oath?'
'Of course. Not that I would enjoy it much.'
'But you would do it?'
'Yes.'
Wolfe turned to the stockman. 'Would you care to ask her about it?'
McMillan only looked at him, and gave no sign. I went to open the door and told Lily, 'That will do, Miss Rowan, thank you,' She crossed and stopped at my elbow and said, 'Take me back to the hammock.' I muttered at her, 'Go sit on your thumb. School's out.' She made a face at me and glided over the threshold, and I shut the door and returned to my chair.
McMillan said, 'I still say it's a trick. And a damn dirty trick. What else?'
'That's all.' Wolfe sighed. 'That's all, sir. I ask you to consider whether it isn't enough. Let us suppose that you are on trial for the murder of Clyde Osgood. Mr. Goodwin testifies that while I was on the rock he saw me looking at the bull and sketching on my pad. Miss Rowan testified as you have just heard. I testify that at that time, of that bull, I made those sketches, and the jury is permitted to compare them with the official sketches of Caesar and Buckingham. Wouldn't that satisfactorily-demonstrate that Buckingham was in the pasture, and Caesar wasn't and never had been?'
McMillan merely gazed at him.;
Wolfe went on, 'I'll answer your charge that it's a trick. What if it is? Are you in a position to condemn tricks? As a matter of fact, I do know, from the evidence of my own eyes, that the bull was Buckingham. I had the opportunity to ob- serve him minutely. Remember that I have studied the official sketches. Buckingham had a white patch high on his left shoulder; Caesar had not. The bull in the pasture had it. The white shield on Buckingham's face extended well below the level of the eyes; on Caesar it was smaller and came to a point higher up. Not only did I see the face of the bull in the pasture on Monday afternoon, but that night I examined it at close range with a flashlight. He was Buckingham. You know it; I know it; and if I can help a jury to know it by per- forming a trick with sketches I shall certainly do so. With Mr. Goodwin and Miss Rowan to swear that they saw me making them, I think we may regard that point as estab- lished.'
'What else?'
'That's all. That's enough.'
McMillan abruptly stood up. I was on my feet as soon as he was, with my gun in sight. He saw it and grinned at me without any humor, with his gums showing. 'Go ahead and stop me, son,' he said, and started, not fast but not slow, for the door. 'Make it good though.'
I dived past him and got to the door and stood with my back against it. He halted three paces off.
Wolfe's voice came, sharp, 'Gentlemen! Please! If you start a commotion, Mr. McMillan, the thing is out of my hands. You must realize that. A wrestling match would bring people here. If you get shot you'll only be disabled; Mr. Goodwin doesn't like to kill people. Come back here and face it. I want to talk to you.'
McMillan wheeled and demanded, 'What the hell do you think I've been doing for the past month except face it?'
'I know. But you were still struggling. Now the struggle's over. You can't go out of that door; Mr. Goodwin won't let you. Come and sit down.'
McMillan stood for a minute and looked at him. Then slowly he moved, back across the room to his chair, sat, put his elbows on his knees, and covered his face with his hands.
Wolfe said, 'I don't know how you feel about it. You asked me what else. If you mean what other proof confronts you, I repeat that no more is needed. If you mean can I offer salve to your vanity, I think I can. You did extremely well. If I had not been here you would almost certainly have escaped, even the stigma of suspicion.'
Wolfe got his fingers laced again. I returned the gun to my pocket and sat down. Wolfe resumed: 'As I said, I suspected Monday afternoon that the bull in the pasture was not the champion Caesar. When Clyde offered to bet Pratt that he would not barbecue Hickory Caesar Grindon, he opened up an amusing field for conjecture. I diverted myself with it while listening to Pratt's jabber. How did Clyde propose to win his bet? By removing the bull and hiding him? Fantastic; the bull was guarded, and where could he be hid against a search? Replace the bull with one less valuable? Little less fantastic; again, the bull was guarded, and while a substitute might be found who would deceive others, surely none would deceive you, and you were there. I considered other alterna- tives. There was one which was simple and plausible and presented no obstacles at all: that the bull in the pasture was not Hickory Caesar Grindon and Clyde had detected it. He had just come from the pasture, and he had binoculars, and he knew cattle. I regarded the little puzzle as solved and dismissed it from my mind, since it was none of my business. 'When the shots fired by Mr. Goodwin took us all to the pasture Monday night, and we found that Clyde had been killed, it was still none of my business, but the puzzle gained in interest and deserved a little effort as an intellectual challenge. I examined the bull, looked for the weapon and found it, and came to this room and sat in this chair and satisfied myself as to the probabilities. Of course I was merely satisfying myself as a mental exercise, not the legal require- ments for evidence. First, if the bull wasn't Caesar you cer- tainly knew it, and therefore you had swindled Pratt. How and why? Why, to get $45,000. How, by selling him Caesar and then delivering another bull, much less valuable, who resembled him. Then where was Caesar? Wouldn't it be highly dangerous for you to have him in your possession, since he had been legally sold, and cooked and eaten? You couldn't call him Caesar, you wouldn't dare to let anyone see him. Then you didn't have him in your possession. No one did. Caesar was dead.'
Wolfe paused, and demanded, 'Wasn't Caesar dead when you took the $45,000 from Pratt?'
