Mamie eats some of the remnants of cake and sandwiches while she listens.

“Hanging in the priest hole—all of them. She looked for them all night. Hamilton’s gone, cleared off. It’s the drink. The police have got a warrant out. They were found hanged on the beams after Mass this morning. Didn’t I say poor Alice Long was looking bad at Mass? I thought it must be her father again. But she’d been up all night looking for the dogs, and at Mass she still didn’t know where they were. It was after Mass they found them, herself and Mrs. Huddlestone. Think of the sight! Five of them hanging in a row. Poor little beasts. Hamilton disappeared yesterday. They’ll get him, though, just wait.”

“He’s a bit of a lunatic,” Mamie’s father says.

“Lunatic! He’s vicious. He ought to be hung himself. They were all Alice Long had. But he’ll be caught!”

Her father says, “I doubt it. Not Hamilton. Even the roebuck called him Pussyfoot.” He laughs at his own joke. The mother turns away her head.

Mamie says, “How many were hanging in the priest hole?”

“All of them in a row.”

“How many?”

“Five. You know she had five. You took them out, didn’t you?”

Mamie says, “I was only wondering if there was room for five in the priest hole. Did she really say there were five? It wasn’t four?”

“She said all five of them. What are you talking about, no room in the priest hole? There’s plenty room. He’d have killed six if she’d had six. She was so good to him.”

“A shocking affair,” says her father.

Mamie feels weightless as daylight. She waves her arms as if they are freed of a huge harness.

“Five of them.” I counted wrong. I didn’t lose one. There were five. She skips over to fetch the shining brass pokers from the fender and places them criss-cross on the linoleum to practise her sword-dance. Then she starts to dance, heel-and-toe, heel-and-toe, over-and-across, one-two-three, one-two-three.