Murder!
He got to his feet.
I’m wasting time, he thought. I must call the police.
He turned the beam of the flashlight on Fay again. He had to convince himself that she was dead. He bent over her and touched the artery in her neck. He could feel nothing, and he had again to fight down the nauseating sickness.
As he stepped back, his foot slipped into something that made him shudder. He had stepped into a puddle of blood that had formed on the blue and white carpet.
He wiped his shoe on the carpet, and then walked unsteadily into the sitting-room.
The hot, inky darkness, pierced only by the beam of the flashlight, suffocated him. He made his way across the room to the liquor cabinet, poured himself out a stiff whisky and gulped it down. The spirit steadied his shaken nerves.
He swung the beam of light around, trying to locate the telephone. He saw the telephone on a small table by the settee. He made a move towards it, then stopped.
Suppose the police refused to accept his story? Suppose they accused him of killing Fay?
He turned cold at the thought.