Howard could see Clem’s face twist in rage. “Fine, then!” the handyman shouted. “Then you can just stay the way you are, and you can keep your little bastard!”

Beatrice reached over and slapped Clem across the face. Harry Noons saw it all, and hurried up the stairs.

And suddenly the solution to his dilemma was clear to Howard.

It came to him so easily. He didn’t even have to think it through. It was right there, fully plotted, in the forefront of his mind.

“Clem,” he said, stepping out from behind the armoire. “How dare you use such language in front of a lady?”

The groundsman jumped when he saw Howard, dropping his pitchfork on the floor. “I’m sorry, Mr. Howard. I’m very sorry. I just-”

“I should fire you on the spot,” Howard said.

He knew the threat of termination would cause great distress for the simple man. Jobs were scarce. Clem wasn’t eager to stand in breadlines like so many others.

“No, please, Mr. Howard,” he begged, “don’t fire me!”

Howard frowned. “Go wait for me in my father’s workshop at the other end of the basement. Under no circumstances are you to leave there. I’ll be in to speak with you presently.”

Clem scurried off into the dark shadows of the basement.

Beatrice was placing the baby back down in his crib. “So you’ve decided to play the gallant knight, have you?” she asked, smiling at Howard when she turned back to look at him. Her smugness was infuriating. “So perhaps my hope is justified that you will make me your wife.”

“I would suggest,” Howard said, bending down and taking Clem’s pitchfork in his hands, “that you abandon hope, Beatrice.”

And with that, he charged at her with the pitchfork, his anger and desperation summoning almost superhuman strength. He plunged its long, sharp, metal tines into her soft chest, piercing the breasts he had once so tenderly caressed, puncturing her heart and her lungs, easily impaling her against the plaster wall.

Beatrice had time to scream only one, but it was a long and terrible wail. Her dark eyes were open wide in shock and accusation. Blood poured down from her wounds, instantly staining her white dress and pooling on the floor.

Howard wasted no time. Rushing out of the room and back up the stairs into the foyer, he felt certain that no matter the commotion, the simpleminded, terrified Clem would not leave the workshop. It would be disobeying a direct order. Once into the foyer, Howard quickly turned around, heading back down the stairs, just as his brothers came running from elsewhere in the house.

“What was that scream?” his brother Douglas asked.

“I don’t know,” Howard said. “It came from the basement.”

They hurried down the stairs just as Harry Noons came rushing in from the servants’ entrance. They peered into Beatrice’s room and let out a collective gasp.

“Clem!” Harry Noons babbled. “I saw him here just seconds ago-they was arguin’-she slapped him across the face!”

“We’ll search the grounds,” Douglas said, taking charge as always. Howard felt a vicious delight in tricking him.

“Dear God,” Desmond Young uttered when he, too, came down the stairs and saw Beatrice’s bloody body. His eyes flickered over to Howard.

“Noons says he saw her arguing with Clem just minutes ago,” Howard said.

“Ayuh, I did,” Noons agreed. “She struck him. That’s when I left. He musta killed her right afterward.”

Howard’s brothers were already hurrying out the back stairs in search of Clem. Desmond Young turned to Howard.

“Why don’t you search the basement for him?” he suggested. “He might be hiding down here somewhere, don’t you think?”

Their eyes held. Howard had the distinct impression that his father knew, or at least suspected, the truth, and was colluding with him.

“Yes,” Howard said. “I’ll search the basement.”

His father nodded, then, with Noons, headed outside.

Once he was alone in the basement, Howard walked over to his father’s workshop. Opening the door, he saw Clem cowering inside.

Howard took a deep breath. “How could you do such a thing, Clem?” he asked quietly, shaking his head.

“Do what, Mr. Howard?”

“Come with me.”

The handyman followed him back to Beatrice’s room, where Howard showed him the carnage. Beatrice’s body hung limply from the wall. An enormous glistening puddle of blood had collected on the floor.

“Beatrice!” Clem cried.

“You killed her,” Howard said calmly.

“No!”

“Yes, you did.” He looked Clem fiercely in the eyes. “I found you, remember? I threatened to fire you!”

“Yes, but…”

“She slapped you, didn’t she?”

“Yes, but I didn’t-”

“You got angry! Very angry!”

Clem’s face went white.

“Didn’t you, Clem? She slapped you, and you got very angry!”

“Yes,” he admitted.

“And then you killed her! With your pitchfork! Look! Look at it sticking out of her!”

“No…”

Howard moved in, his eyes wild. “I saw you do it, Clem! I saw you!”

“You…you did?”

“Indeed. I saw you drive that pitchfork right through her body.”

“I…didn’t mean to kill her… I don’t remember…”

“You’re a simpleton. Aren’t you, Clem? A simpleton!”

Clem had begun to cry. He nodded his head.

“Your puny brain can’t remember what you did,” Howard told him. “You’ve blocked the horror of it from your mind.”

“I…killed Beatrice?”

“Yes,” Howard told him. “And now I must call the sheriff!” He began walking toward the stairs.

“Mr. Howard, they’ll put me in jail. They’ll hang me!”

Howard stopped walking, turning around to glare at Clem. “Yes, Clem, they will.”

“But my ma…who would support her then? I take care of my ma, you know. I’m all she’s got. What will happen to my ma?”

Howard did indeed know that Clem took care of his sick, elderly mother. He cocked his head to one side and raised his eyebrows at Clem. “They’ll put her in the poorhouse, I suppose. Pity, really. The poorhouse is a sickly den of thieves and degenerates. Pity how your poor mother will have to suffer for what you did.”

“Please, Mr. Howard, you gotta help me!”

Howard seemed to consider his request. “Well, I don’t know… I should just go upstairs and call the sheriff.”

“No, please don’t!”

“Well, if I’m going to help you, Clem, then you will need to help me.”

The poor simple man was nodding absurdly. “Yes, yes, sure, anything!”

“I want you to break the baby’s neck.”

Clem’s eyes nearly bugged out of his head.

“You want me to…?”

“You heard me.” Howard was surprised at how easy it was to ask such a thing. But in truth, it was that baby that had caused his terrible dilemma. That baby who stood between him and the kind of life he deserved. To ask for its removal was not so difficult. “I want you to kill Beatrice’s baby.”

“But…”

“Don’t argue with me, Clem,” Howard said. “I’ll just turn around and go call the sheriff. You’ll be hanged, and your mother will die a terrible death in the poorhouse.”

Clem was crying again. “But why?”

“Really, Clem, you ask the most inane questions. Do you want that child to grow up motherless? We’d have to put it in the poorhouse, too. And babies fare even worse in the poorhouse than do old ladies.”

“Oh…” Clem said, hanging his head.

“You would be doing the child a great service, Clem. Snapping its neck means its death will be quick and painless. It’s the least you can do for killing its mother.”

“Really?” Clem asked, his simple eyes wide.

“Yes, Clem. It’s quite easy. Just go over to the crib and snap its little neck.”

The dumb brute took a step toward the crib.

“Then remain here once it’s done,” Howard instructed him. “Remain standing there with the child in your arms. I’ll be right back to take care of everything.”

“Yes, Mr. Howard.”

Howard hurried out of the room. His heart had hardened considerably in the last hour, and yet still he could not bear to see what Clem was about to do. The child was his own flesh and blood, after all. He contented himself that death would be quick. Whether it was painless or not as he’d assured Clem, he wasn’t so sure. But there was logic in what he had told the simpleton. The bastard child was indeed better off dead.