I was puzzled. "You'd not make yourself eligible for kingship by killing kings," I said.
"Kingship be damned," he sneered. "My father was an earl's bastard, but as for me, I'm a pure democrat. No, no, I'm going to abolish royalty. It has served its turn."
"But where do you come in?"
"The pleasure of the game is mine, the knowledge and the ecstasy of power unlimited to make and break."
"Oh! oh! my tiger, having tasted blood already, once at least, the thirst grows on you."
"Once at least—bah!" he jeered, grinning like a fiend.
"Pardon my ignorance," I entreated. "Who was your latest victim."
"Navarro," he answered, grinning still. "The scamp is a true clairvoyant and had to be shut up. He leaped from London Bridge the night you came here and stepped like a poor rabbit into the trap I laid for you."
"Well," said I, in tones husky with throat dryness and apparent admiration, "that makes two—Weldon and Navarro?"