fell for no reason. He looked at them as they soaked and spread in the white linen, vanishing. “I don’t know anyone named Alice Jane Ballard.

I never knew anyone named Alice Jane Ballard. It was all—all—I don’t know. I said I loved her and wanted to marry her to get around somehow to make you smile. Yes, I said it because I planned to make you smile, that was the only reason. I’m never going to have a woman, I always knew for years I never would have. Will you please pass the potatoes, Aunt Rose?”

The front door splintered and fell. A heavy softened rushing filled the hall. Men broke into the dining room.
A hesitation.

The police inspector hastily removed his hat.
“Oh, I beg your pardon,” he apologized. “I didn’t mean to intrude upon your supper, I—”

The sudden halting of the police was such that their movement shook the room. The movement catapulted the bodies of Aunt Rose and Uncle Dimity straight away to the carpet, where they lay, their throats severed in a half moon from ear to ear—which caused them, like the children seated at the table, to have what was the horrid illusion of a smile under their chins, ragged smiles that welcomed in the late arrivals and told them everything with a simple grimace. . . .

The End