Some Buried Caesar -- While on their way to a rural exposition in upstate New York to show orchids, Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin are involved in a minor car accident. On their way to a nearby house to phone for help, they are threatened by a large bull but are eventually rescued by Caroline Pratt, a local golf champion, and her acquaintance Lily Rowan. The house and bull belong to Thomas Pratt, Caroline's uncle and the owner of a large chain of successful fast food restaurants, and he has purchased the bull—a champion Guernsey called Hickory Caesar Grindon—in order to barbecue it as part of a publicity stunt.

Golden Spiders -- A boy interrupts Nero Wolfe's dinner to tell him about a kidnapping he witnessed. The boy claims that a woman in a Cadillac with a male passenger asked him to call the police, but he was murdered shortly after. Wolfe's assistant, Archie Goodwin, uses the boy's savings to place an ad in the newspaper asking the woman to contact Wolfe. A wealthy widow named Laura Fromm shows up at Wolfe's office wearing the spider earrings and asks to hire him. Wolfe suspects Fromm knows who the driver is, but she refuses to reveal it. Fromm is murdered the next day.