Read Some Buried Caesar Online
Authors: Rex Stout
Some Buried Caesar
PRAISE FOR NERO WOLFE
“It is always a treat to read a Nero Wolfe mystery. The man has entered our folklore.… Like Sherlock Holmes … he looms larger than life and, in some ways, is much more satisfactory.”
—New York Times Book Review
“Nero Wolfe towers over his rivals … he is an exceptional character creation.”
—New Yorker
“The most interesting great detective of them all.”
—Kingsley Amis, author of
Lucky Jim
“Nero Wolfe is one of the master creations.”
—James M. Cain, author of
The Postman Always Rings Twice
ARCHIE GOODWIN
“Archie is a splendid character.” —Agatha Christie
“Stout’s supreme triumph was the creation of Archie Goodwin.” —P. G. Wodehouse
“If he had done nothing more than to create Archie Goodwin, Rex Stout would deserve the gratitude of whatever assessors watch over the prosperity of American literature.… Archie is the lineal descendant of Huck Finn.” —Jacques Barzun
REX STOUT
“Rex Stout is one of the half-dozen major figures in the development of the American detective novel.” —Ross Macdonald
“I’ve found Rex Stout’s books about Nero Wolfe endlessly readable.… I sometimes have to remind myself that Wolfe and Goodwin are the creations of a writer’s mind, that no matter how many doorbells I ring in the West Thirties, I’ll never find the right house.” —Lawrence Block
“Fair warning: It is safe to read one Nero Wolfe novel, because you will surely like it. It is extremely unsafe to read three, because you will forever be hooked on the delightful characters who populate these perfect books.” —Otto Penzler
Fer-de-Lance
The League of Frightened Men
The Rubber Band
The Red Box
Too Many Cooks
Some Buried Caesar
Over My Dead Body
Where There’s a Will
Black Orchids
Not Quite Dead Enough
The Silent Speaker
Too Many Women
And Be a Villain
The Second Confession
Trouble in Triplicate
In the Best Families
Three Doors to Death
Murder by the Book
Curtains for Three
Prisoner’s Base
Triple Jeopardy
The Golden Spiders
The Black Mountain
Three Men Out
Before Midnight
Might As Well Be Dead
Three Witnesses
If Death Ever Slept
Three for the Chair
Champagne for One
And Four to Go
Plot It Yourself
Too Many Clients
Three at Wolfe’s Door
The Final Deduction
Gambit
Homicide Trinity
The Mother Hunt
A Right to Die
Trio for Blunt Instruments
The Doorbell Rang
Death of a Doxy
The Father Hunt
Death of a Dude
Please Pass the Guilt
A Family Affair
Death Times Three
W
hat some people will do for publicity. In the realm of food, you can make a Guinness record-defying submarine sandwich or pepperoni pizza. Or, in the case of Thomas Pratt, owner of a string of 1930s-vintage fast-food restaurants known as pratterias, you can propose to barbecue a prizewinning bull. To spend $45,000 on a piece of beef that will serve only 100 people, explains the enterprising Pratt to an unamused Nero Wolfe and a goggling Archie Goodwin, is not only an efficient way to spend money that would otherwise go to ineffectual newspaper advertising, it also makes
psychological
sense:
Look here. Do you realize what a stir it will make that the senior grand champion Guernsey bull of the United States is being barbecued and served in chunks and slices to a gathering of epicures? And by whom? By Tom Pratt of the famous pratterias! Let alone the publicity, do you know what the result will be? For weeks and months every customer that eats a roast beef sandwich in a pratteria will have a sneaking unconscious feeling that he’s chewing a piece of Hickory Caesar Grindon! That’s what I mean when I say psychology.
But psychology has a tendency to run amuck, as do both people and sedans. Stranded at the Pratt house in upstate New York owing to an unforeseen encounter between their car and a tree, the immense, unflappable Nero Wolfe and his smart-mouth assistant, Archie Goodwin, have to remake both housing and transportation plans on their expedition to exhibit Wolfe’s orchids at the fair in nearby Crowfield. In the process, they land in the middle of a not-so-neighborly altercation between Guernsey League officials, longtime stockmen, and Pratt. Infuriated at Pratt’s plan for Hickory Caesar Grindon, the stockmen cajole, threaten, insult, and even propose a dangerous wager in order to save Caesar. So heated is their conflict that a character from the sixties might observe, “Hey! Don’t have a cow, man.”
But of course that is the point: despite the many remonstrances, the cow will be had. And this being the thirties rather than the sixties, the demonstration ends there. The various characters skulk off concocting complicated designs to fulfill their passions: amorous, financial, and bovine. There is the female golf champion (“one of those,” Archie uncharitably observes), formerly engaged to one of the feuding neighbors, who in
his
turn is now smitten with a Pratt houseguest, who has in
her
turn begun to lavish her attentions on an unreluctant Archie. The female golf champion is willing to pay Archie the cost of lunch to keep the houseguest away from her brother, Jimmy Pratt. (And the cost of the lunch for two people in 1938? Two dollars, which will not quite get you a cup of cappuccino in 1994, much less a biscotto to go with it.) There is the big-boned stockman who, after his herd was virtually destroyed by anthrax, sold Caesar to Tom Pratt, but only with great sadness (“I was up all night the day he was dropped—he sucked these fingers when he was only six hours old.”). And there is the love-smitten, bet-proffering neighbor, also an expert stockman. He is accompanied by a suspicious-looking city slicker friend, who persists in presenting himself as the model of sartorial perfection in a Crawnley suit and Monteith tie, despite the fact that this is, after all, the country.
Unfortunately, the country is immune to neither bizarre couture nor evil. When first one and then another murder occurs, Nero Wolfe diverts himself from attending to his precious orchids (prizewinning albinos) and rouses himself (but not much) to apply logic and observation, and some sleight of hand, to the solution. When pursuit of the murderer leads him out to the Crowfield fair, Nero Wolfe fortifies himself with regular trips to the Methodist tent, where the followers of John Wesley are making quite a name (and a pretty penny) for themselves with their excellent chicken fricassee and dumplings. Archie manages to maintain, albeit tenuously, his love interest, while fooling the smarter-than-expected rural police, who suspect he is hiding evidence. Despite his quick hand, quick brain, and even quicker mouth, Archie ends up in the Crowfield County jail, where he amuses himself by forming the Crowfield County Prisoners’ Union, complete with a much-disputed list of demands.
The solution to this delightfully complicated plot comes at last, and just in time for Nero’s and Archie’s safe deliverance from the perils of upstate New York. For those still hungering for a barbecue at book’s end, I offer a recipe for beans to go with your ribs. Serve them with potato salad, rolls, corn, coleslaw, and rich, fudgy, homemade brownies—all essential components of a true all-American barbecue. While Archie would undoubtedly refer to a side dish as “a cute number sitting on the bench,” and refer the cooking of beans to Fritz, I found the best recipe for a bean dish from Tom and Enid Schantz of the Rue Morgue mystery bookstore in Boulder, Colorado. Enjoy, and don’t let anybody give you any bull.
RUE MORGUE BEANS WITH BACON
8 slices bacon
1 15-ounce can pinto beans, drained
1 15-ounce can kidney beans, drained
1 15-ounce can garbanzo beans, drained
1 28-ounce can baked beans, including sauce (recommended brand: B & M)
4 cups onions, quartered and thinly sliced (about 2 large onions)
½
cup dark corn syrup
¼
cup cider vinegar
1 tsp. dry mustard
Cook bacon, drain, and cut into 1-inch slices. Combine bacon and rest of ingredients in Dutch oven on top of stove. Simmer uncovered for 2 hours, stirring every 15 minutes, until sauce is slightly reduced and onions are completely cooked. Serves 8.
—Diane Mott Davidson
T
hat sunny September day was full of surprises. The first one came when, after my swift realization that the sedan was still right side up and the windshield and windows intact, I switched off the ignition and turned to look at the back seat. I didn’t suppose the shock of the collision would have hurled him to the floor, knowing as I did that when the car was in motion he always had his feet braced and kept a firm grip on the strap; what I expected was the ordeal of facing a glare of fury that would top all records; what I saw was him sitting there calmly on the seat with his massive round face wearing a look of relief—if I knew his face, and I certainly knew Nero Wolfe’s face. I stared at him in astonishment.
He murmured, “Thank God,” as if it came from his heart.
I demanded, “What?”
“I said thank God.” He let go of the strap and wiggled a finger at me. “It has happened, and here we are. I presume you know, since I’ve told you, that my distrust and hatred of vehicles in motion is partly based on my plerophory that their apparent submission
to control is illusory and that they may at their pleasure, and sooner or later will, act on whim. Very well, this one has, and we are intact. Thank God the whim was not a deadlier one.”