Some Buried Caesar

"Clyde, then, had discovered the deception, and when you heard him propose the bet to Pratt, and the way he stated its terms, you suspected the fact. You followed him out to his car and had a brief talk with him and got your suspicions confirmed, and he agreed to return later that evening and discuss it with you. He did so. You were supposed to be asleep upstairs. You left the house secretly and met Clyde. I am giving you the probabilities as I accepted them Monday eve- ning. Clyde informed you that he knew of the deception and was determined to expose it in order to win his bet with Pratt. You, of course, faced ruin. He may have offered a com- promise: for instance, if you would give him $20,000 of the money Pratt had paid you he would use half of it to settle his bet, keep the other half for himself, and preserve your secret. I don't know, and it doesn't matter. What happened was that you knocked him unconscious, evolved a plan to make it appear that he had been killed by the bull, and pro- ceeded to execute it. I was inclined to believe, looking at the bull's horns Monday night, that you had smeared blood on them with your hands. You should have been much more thorough, but I suppose you were in a hurry, for you had to wash off the pick and get back to the house and into the upstairs room unobserved. You didn't know.'of course, whether the thing would be discovered in 5 minutes or 5 hours- since Mr. Goodwin was on the other side of the pasture talk- ing to Miss Rowan."

Wolfe opened his eyes. "Do I bore you or annoy you? Shall I stop?"

No movement and no response.