minutes in silence. Then McCann's curiosity got the better of him.
"Anyway," he asked, "what did you think of her?"
By this time I had come to a determination. Never had I felt anything to approach the loathing, the cold
hatred, the implacable urge to kill, which this woman had aroused in me. It was not that my pride had
suffered, although that was sore enough. No, it was the conviction that in the room behind the doll-shop
dwelt blackest evil. Evil as inhuman and alien as though the doll-maker had in truth come straight from
that hell in which Ricori believed. There could be no compromise with that evil. Nor with the woman in
whom it was centered.
I said: "McCann, in all the world there is nothing so evil as that woman. Do not let the girl slip through
your fingers again. Do you think she knew last night that she had been seen?"