“If you like,” I answered with equal calm.

“I admire your wholehearted, bloodthirsty instincts, Miss Beddingfeld. But we will leave him to recover at his leisure. He is not seriously hurt.”

“You shrink from a second murder, I see,” I said sweetly.

“A second murder?”

He looked genuinely puzzled.

“The woman at Marlow,” I reminded him, watching the effect of my words closely.

An ugly brooding expression settled down on his face. He seemed to have forgotten my presence.

“I might have killed her,” he said. “Sometimes I believe that I meant to kill her.⁠ ⁠…”