Paul was alone. He was sitting in a brown leather armchair. He was wearing a blue suit, a white shirt, a wide knobby jaw, and a long thin nose. He stared directly at us with a grin that wasn't funny. His legs were spread apart and the heels of the pointy black shoes dug into the nap of the maroon carpet like the one in the other room. His ears were wax-white and his eyes were white-rimmed and there was a wide rust stain on the white shirt in the vicinity of the left breast. A thin golden knife-hilt grew out of the middle of the stain. You didn't have to touch him to know he was dead.

1964.