"Exactly. And since the water is deep round those rocks, as you say, he was presumably in a bathing-dress too."
"Looks like it."
"Quite so. Well, now—what was the face-slashing done with? People don't usually take knives out with them when they go for a morning dip."
"That's a puzzle," said the stout man.
"Not altogether. Let's say, either the murderer had a knife with him or he had not. If he had——"
"If he had," put in the prim man eagerly, "he must have laid wait for the deceased on purpose. And, to my mind, that bears out my idea of a deep and cunning plot."
"Yes. But, if he was waiting there with the knife, why didn't he stab the man and have done with it? Why strangle him, when he had a perfectly good weapon there to hand? No—I think he came unprovided, and, when he saw his enemy there, he made for him with his hands in the characteristic British way."
"But the slashing?"
"Well, I think that when he had got his man down, dead before him, he was filled with a pretty grim sort of fury and wanted to do more damage. He caught up something that was lying near him on the sand—it might be a bit of old iron, or even one of those sharp shells you sometimes see about, or a bit of glass—and he went for him with that in a desperate rage of jealousy or hatred."
"Dreadful, dreadful!" said the elderly woman.