"Then came the sound of a single pair of footsteps, and then the whoosh and creak of someone settling heavily into a chair. There was silence for a moment. Then Lord John said "You can get up now, if you wish. I am supposing that you are not in fact prostrate with shock," he added, ironically. "Somehow I suspect that a mere murder would not be sufficient to discompose a woman who could deal single-handedly with a typhoid epidemic."