Some Buried Caesar

Plot introduction

On the way to an agricultural fair north of Manhattan, Wolfe's car runs into a tree, stranding Wolfe and Archie at the home of the owner of a chain of fast-food cafés. A neighbor is later found gored to death; the authorities rule the death an accident but Wolfe deduces that it was murder. Lily Rowan, Archie's longtime girlfriend, makes her first appearance.

This is one of several Wolfe plots that break one of Wolfe's cardinal rules, to never conduct business away from the Manhattan brownstone. It involves minor characters who appear in several other Wolfe novels, under different names and in different locales: the self-important police officer who tries to intimidate Archie, and the occasionally bumbling but politically attuned district attorney. The book's title is from The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam.

Plot summary

Wolfe and Archie are on their way to show orchids at an exposition in rural New York when a tire of their car blows, causing a minor collision into a tree. Uninjured, they decide to walk to a nearby house to phone for help, but as they cross a nearby pasture they are threatened by a large bull. Archie runs for the fence to divert the bull, giving Wolfe time to climb to safety atop a large boulder. Wolfe is subsequently retrieved by car by Caroline Pratt, a local golf champion and the niece of Thomas Pratt, the owner of the nearby house and a large chain of successful fast food restaurants.

As they enjoy Pratt's hospitality, Wolfe and Archie meet Pratt's nephew Jimmy and Lily Rowan, a Manhattan socialite and friend of Jimmy's who takes a shine to Archie. After a tense confrontation with a representation from the Guernsey League, who are in town for the exhibition, Pratt reveals that as part of a publicity stunt for his restaurants he plans to barbecue the very bull that threatened Wolfe and Archie, which happens to be a champion Guernsey named Hickory Caesar Grindon. He has purchased Caesar for the then-fantastic price of $45,000 from a nearby stockman, Monte McMillan, who has recently suffered a downturn in his fortunes.

Another tense confrontation occurs moments after when the party is joined by Clyde and Nancy Osgood, the children of Pratt's neighbor Frederick, along with a New Yorker named Howard Bronson. Pratt and Frederick Osgood are bitter rivals, and after tempers flare Clyde offers to bet Pratt $10,000 that Pratt will not barbecue Caesar. Pratt accepts the bet, but fears that Clyde will attempt to sabotage his barbecue by freeing the bull. Wolfe offers Archie's services as a guard to prevent any possible theft in exchange for a comfortable stay at Pratt's house. During his watch that night, Lily Rowan shows up to keep Archie company, and together they discover Clyde's body, gored to death in the pasture.

As the bull was seen using its horns to push at the corpse, the assumption that is made is that Clyde entered the pasture to free the bull but was gored to death by it in the process. Wolfe, alone of the guests at the Pratt residence, believes that Clyde was murdered. His suspicions are shared by Frederick Osgood, who knows his son to be an experienced cattle-man who would not have made the amateurish mistakes that would have caused his death had the bull been responsible; the elder Osgood consequently hires Wolfe to learn the identity of the murderer and agrees to house him in comfort for the duration of the investigation. Archie is also hired by Caroline Pratt to prevent what she believes to be Lily Rowan's attempts to seduce her brother Jimmy.

Wolfe confronts the local district attorney, Waddell, with his suspicions of murder. As well as Clyde's experience with bulls, Wolfe observes that the face of the bull was free from the amount of gore that would be expected that he violently attacked and gored Clyde. Wolfe proposes that the murder weapon was in fact a digging pick that the murderer used to fake the attack, having first knocked Clyde out and dragged him into the paddock. Waddell, who has a petty rivalry with the elder Osgood, is skeptical but is nevertheless convinced to reopen the investigation. Upon interviewing Nancy Osgood, Wolfe learns that Clyde's apparent friend Bronson is in fact a New York loan shark who has been shadowing Clyde in order to ensure he receives $10,000 that Clyde borrowed to cover his gambling debts.

News comes that the bull has died suddenly, of anthrax. Upon learning that this means that the bull will be cremated, Wolfe immediately sends Archie to either delay this or to get photos of the bull beforehand, but Archie arrives after the cremation has started. Wolfe interviews both McMillan and Bronson, but neither man is cooperative. Bronson confirms that Clyde was in debt to him, and out of respect for Nancy Osgood Wolfe has Archie retrieve the receipt of Clyde's debt that Bronson holds. Wolfe, suspecting that Bronson knows who the murderer is, warns him not to act rashly.

The next day, Wolfe's orchids win numerous prizes at the exposition, defeating a hated rival in the process. Wolfe orders Archie to arrange a meeting with Lew Bennett, the head of the Guernsey League; while doing so, Archie discovers Jimmy Pratt and Nancy Osgood in a secret romantic rendezvous, having kept their relationship secret from their rivalling guardians. By chance, during their confrontation Archie also stumbles upon the body of Howard Bronson, gored with a pitchfork and hidden under straw. He manages to conceal the body and returns to Wolfe with the news. When the body is discovered, Archie is detained by Captain Barrow, the bullying local head of the state police, and is imprisoned by the authorities as a material witness when he refuses to reveal what he knows about Bronson.

The next day, with the help of Lily Rowan, Wolfe secures Archie's release with the promise to the authorities that he knows who the murderer is and will soon reveal it. Once Archie is released, Wolfe admits that although he does know who the murderer is, the murderer has cleverly managed to destroy all of the evidence before Wolfe could use it to expose his identity. With the help of Bennett and Lily Rowan, however, Wolfe nevertheless confronts Monte McMillan and accuses him of being the murderer. Wolfe had deduced early on that the bull in the pasture was not Hickory Caesar Grindon at all, and has learned that it was in fact Hickory Buckingham Pell, an inferior brother who supposedly died when anthrax wiped out a large portion of McMillan's herd. Caesar was in fact the bull who died, and when Pratt offered to buy Caesar for his barbecue the desperate McMillan sold him Buckingham under the pretense that it was Caesar. McMillan murdered Clyde Osgood when Clyde discovered the fraud and intended to expose it to win the bet, and murdered Bronson when the loan shark, realizing this, tried to blackmail McMillan.

Although Wolfe admits that McMillan has covered his tracks well and is unlikely to be convicted of murder, the evidence Wolfe has produced is sufficient to convict McMillan of fraud, which would ruin him nonetheless. Accepting defeat, McMillan produces the syringe he used to infect the bull with anthrax to conceal his crime, and reveals he has also infected himself. He writes a confession out for Wolfe before dying. Months later, Archie records the case, revealing in the process that Jimmy Pratt and Nancy Osgood are engaged to be married and that he has begun a friendship with Lily Rowan, who has returned to New York.

The unfamiliar word

"Nero Wolfe talks in a way that no human being on the face of the earth has ever spoken, with the possible exception of Rex Stout after he had a gin and tonic," said Michael Jaffe, executive producer of the A&E TV series, A Nero Wolfe Mystery. Nero Wolfe's erudite vocabulary is one of the hallmarks of the character. Examples of unfamiliar words — or unfamiliar uses of words that some would otherwise consider familiar — are found throughout the corpus, often in the give-and-take between Wolfe and Archie. Stout did not normally resort to Latin phrases, but Some Buried Caesar contains several.

Plerophory, chapter 1. Wolfe to Archie, after the shock of the collision that follows a blown tire:

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.

Ignoratio elenchi, chapter 4. Wolfe places the Latin phrase subsequent to "sophistry" and "casuistry". Unfamiliarity is a personal and subjective concept.

Petitio principii, chapter 8, spoken by District Attorney Carter Waddell.

Apodictically, chapter 9. Wolfe to Frederick Osgood:

Elimination, as such, is tommyrot. Innocence is a negative and can never be established; you can only establish guilt. The only way I can apodictically eliminate any individual from consideration as the possible murderer is to find out who did it.

Ethology, chapter 13. Wolfe, after Bronson accuses him of name calling:

Just so. I can excoriate stupidity, and often do, because it riles me, but moral indignation is a dangerous indulgence. Ethology is a chaos. Financial banditry, for example ... I either condemn it or I don't; and if I do, without prejudice, where will I find jailers? No. My only excuse for labeling you an unscrupulous blackguard is the dictionary, and I do it to clarify our positions. I'm in the detective business, and you're in the blackguard business ...

Cast of characters

Nero Wolfe – The private investigator

Archie Goodwin – Wolfe's assistant, and the narrator of all Wolfe stories

Thomas Pratt – The owner of a chain of fast-food restaurants, who plans to barbecue a champion Guernsey bull for publicity

Monte McMillan – The stockman who sold the champion bull Caesar to Pratt

Frederick Osgood – Pratt's neighbor, a wealthy landowner whose prodigal son is found gored to death in a cow pasture

Clyde and Nancy Osgood – Frederick Osgood's son and daughter

Carolyn and Jimmy Pratt – Thomas Pratt's niece and nephew

Lily Rowan – A free spirit from Manhattan with whom Clyde Osgood is smitten. Introduced in this book, Miss Rowan makes frequent appearances later in the series, as a prominent figure in some plots and as Archie's close friend.

Howard Bronson – A mysterious, sinister acquaintance of Clyde Osgood, also from Manhattan

Reviews and commentary

Isaac Anderson, The New York Times Book Review (February 5, 1939) — Only twice since Rex Stout began to record his adventures in detection has Nero Wolfe left his home for an extended stay. The first time was when he attended a convention of chefs (Too Many Cooks). This time he goes to exhibit his orchids, and again he arrives at the scene of a murder before it happens. A prize bull is suspected of the killing, but Wolfe knows better, although he keeps his opinion to himself because he prefers not to take on another investigation away from home. When it proves impossible to keep out of the case he agrees to take a hand and the mystery is as good as solved, even though it does look at times as though Wolfe has, for once, met his match. The story is told in the usual breezy Rex Stout manner — the breeziness being supplied chiefly by Archie Goodwin — and anybody who reads detective stories can tell you that Rex Stout and Nero Wolfe make a combination that is hard to beat.

Jacques Barzun and Wendell Hertig Taylor, A Catalogue of Crime — The story of the prize bull, to be highly esteemed by all Stout partisans. Nero and Archie in top form despite rural surroundings.

Clifton Fadiman, The New Yorker (February 3, 1939) — Clyde Osgood is found gored to death, and Hickory Caesar Grindon, prize bull, is the natural suspect. Fortunately, Nero Wolfe and his Watson, Archie Goodwin, are on the spot to run down the real murderer. Mr. Stout's dialogue and clever plots seem to get better and better.

The Saturday Review of Literature (February 4, 1939) — Ingenious plot, Nero's eccentricities, Archie Goodwin's wise-cracks keep story on Stout's best level. Verdict: Unbeatable.

Terry Teachout, About Last Night, "Forty years with Nero Wolfe" (January 12, 2009) — Rex Stout's witty, fast-moving prose hasn't dated a day, while Wolfe himself is one of the enduringly great eccentrics of popular fiction. I've spent the past four decades reading and re-reading Stout's novels for pleasure, and they have yet to lose their savor ... It is to revel in such writing that I return time and again to Stout's books, and in particular to The League of Frightened Men, Some Buried Caesar, The Silent Speaker, Too Many Women, Murder by the Book, Before Midnight, Plot It Yourself, Too Many Clients, The Doorbell Rang, and Death of a Doxy, which are for me the best of all the full-length Wolfe novels.

Time (March 6, 1939) — Attempted barbecue of a championship bull cooks the goose of two up-State New Yorkers. Not expert-proof, but Nero Wolfe's sleuthing and Archie Goodwin's cracks make it Rex Stout's best.

Per la fama di Cesare (Radiotelevisione Italiana)

Some Buried Caesar was adapted for a series of Nero Wolfe films produced by the Italian television network RAI (Radiotelevisione Italiana). Directed by Giuliana Berlinguer from a teleplay by Edoardo Anton, Nero Wolfe: Per la fama di Cesare first aired March 11, 1969.

The series of black-and-white telemovies stars Tino Buazzelli (Nero Wolfe), Paolo Ferrari (Archie Goodwin), Pupo De Luca (Fritz Brenner), Renzo Palmer (Inspector Cramer), Roberto Pistone (Saul Panzer), Mario Righetti (Orrie Cather) and Gianfranco Varetto (Fred Durkin). Other members of the cast of Per la fama di Cesare include Gabriella Pallotta (Lily Rowan), Antonio Rais (Dave), Aldo Giuffrè (Thomas Pratt), Umberto Ceriani (Jimmy), Franco Sportelli (MacMillan), Giorgio Favretto (Clyde Osgood) and Nicoletta Languasco (Nancy Osgood).

Publication history

1938, The American Magazine, December 1938, abridged as "The Red Bull"

1939, New York: Farrar & Rinehart, February 2, 1939, hardcover

In his limited-edition pamphlet, Collecting Mystery Fiction #9, Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe Part I, Otto Penzler describes the first edition of Some Buried Caesar: "Green cloth, front cover and spine printed with black; rear cover blank. Issued in a full-color pictorial dust wrapper … The first edition has the publisher's monogram logo on the copyright page. The second printing, in March 1939, is identical to the first except that the logo was dropped." In April 2006, Firsts: The Book Collector's Magazine estimated that the first edition of Some Buried Caesar had a value of between $2,500 and $5,000.

1939, Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1939, hardcover

1939, London: Collins Crime Club, July 3, 1939, hardcover

1940, New York: Grossett and Dunlap, 1940, hardcover

1941, New York: Triangle, October 1941, hardcover

1945, New York: Dell (mapback by Gerald Gregg) #70, January 1945, as The Red Bull: A Nero Wolfe Story, paperback

1958, New York: The Viking Press, All Aces: A Nero Wolfe Omnibus (with Too Many Women and Trouble in Triplicate), May 15, 1958, hardcover

1963, New York: Pyramid (Green Door) #R931, November 1963, paperback

1972, London: Tom Stacey, 1972, hardcover

1994, New York: Bantam Crimeline ISBN 0-553-25464-2 June 1994, paperback, Rex Stout Library edition with introduction by Diane Mott Davidson

1998, Auburn, California: The Audio Partners Publishing Corp., Mystery Masters ISBN 1-57270-054-8 August 1998, audio cassette (unabridged, read by Michael Prichard)

2008, New York: Bantam Dell Publishing Group (with The Golden Spiders) ISBN 0-553-38567-4 September 30, 2008, trade paperback

2010, New York: Bantam Crimeline ISBN 978-0-307-75619-0 September 8, 2010, e-book