I explained all, but neither he nor George was much mollified. Their earlier doubts about our project were renewed by this talk of ‘leguminous mystification’ (Sam) and ‘awful Romish fellows soaked in absinthe’ (George). I soothed them a bit but they were still restive. Moreover, they had a scheme of their own up their sleeves which they now insisted we should carry into effect concurrently with the Satanic Mass ploy.

‘You see,’ said Sam, ‘we’ve been thinking about the victims as distinct from the witchcraft aspect – in case the latter is by any chance a red herring – and, although three victims is not a very useful number to generalize from, one can draw a few tentative conclusions. First, all three families who’ve suffered are English. This could suggest a hatred for English people generally.’

‘It could also suggest,’ I put in, ‘an Englishman who doesn’t fancy Jersey women.’

‘An Englishman?’ scoffed George, ‘with all that witch nonsense? Tommyrot.’

‘I thought we were leaving out the witchcraft aspect for the moment.’

‘So we are,’ said Sam, ‘and your point is well taken, if we are to be logical. But to proceed. George and I are both tolerably well off – though not in the class of the millionaire immigrants who seem so to excite the Jersiais’ dislike – but the husband of the last victim, the doctor, is only as rich as a thriving general practice can make him and he has been in Jersey for twenty years, well liked by one and all. However, we are all three in what’s called the middle class so it could be a class-hatred or/and an anti-English thing. Notice I say anti-English not anti-British, because Jersey is probably the loyalest of the Crown’s appanages. Then there’s the age of the victims: they’re all in their thirties. This could well be because we all happen to have wives in their thirties or it could indicate that the rapist simply likes women of that age. This could suggest again’ – it was choking him to say this, for he was evidently more in the mood for murder than reason – ‘that he actually likes a good-looking woman in her prime, in what I shall have to call a fairly normal way; I mean, if he was an assaulter of little girls or old ladies we could be sure that he was really vilely mad, couldn’t we? The last point is that the three victims are all closely grouped on the map, which suggests a pedestrian, don’t you think, or someone who doesn’t dare to use a motor-car – unlike the Beast of Jersey, of course, who is supposed to have driven all over the Island to his, ah, targets.’

‘Or again, a comparative stranger,’ I put in gently, ‘like an Englishman who wasn’t familiar with all the “back doubles”?’

‘Yes,’ Sam said patiently, ‘it could, indeed, suggest that, too.’