The Underground Man

From the first page of the 1974 Fontana edition:
'Dance with Death... She sat there, her eyes blurred like cold windows. 'He was half dead already,' she said. 'All I did was to put him out of his misery.* Her clenched right hand jerked downward convulsively, re-enacting the stabbing. 'I'd do the same to a dying animal.'
There was no use arguing with her. I crossed the room to the phone and called the police. While the reciever was still in my hand, she opened a drawer and took out a butcher knife. Moving to jangled music I could not hear, she came at me...'

The Underground Man
Fontana edition, 1974

Trivia:
The Underground Man became Millar's best-selling book. The first printing sold out before publication day, an there were five more Knopf printings - one of which was distributed by the Book-of-the-Month Club. The novel was on the New York Times best seller list for 17 weeks, reaching number four, and sold 54,000 copies in the first six months.
A person in the novel, young Ronny Broadhurst, was a portrait of Millar's own grandson, Jimmy. Millar stated that this was 'the only one I have ever drawn from life.'