Charismo tick-tocked his letter opener, considering this. “No, Barnum. I want these two to disappear entirely. Not so much as a hair left.”

“Then there are two avenues we can advance along. One, I has an old army pal with a pig farm by Newport. Pigs will eat from crown to toe, brain and bone, makes no differ to a pig.”

“I think not,” said Charismo. “The last time you tramped pig dung all over my carpets. What is our second choice?”

“Burning,” said Barnum simply. “I chop ’em in the kitchen and feed ’em slow into the furnace. Takes a few days and is grisly labor, but once the job is done, all the king’s horses couldn’t put these two bad eggs together again.”

Charismo giggled. “Nicely put, Mr. Barnum. You do make me smile. The furnace it is, but do your stabbing business in the kitchen.”

“Very good, master,” said Barnum, and he slung Chevie over one shoulder. “Can you manage for an hour while I make a start on the butchering?”

“You go ahead,” said Charismo magnanimously. “I shall be perfectly fine.... Oh, perhaps you might bring some more cakes when you have finished cutting. Tibor is peckish.”

“More cakes. Of course, master.”

Charismo winked at Chevie. “Master. I get shivers, every time.”

To Tibor’s utter surprise, Chevie had enough spirit for one last comment. She looked the WARP witness directly in the eye and said, “You talk too much.”

A statement not just of opinion but of fact, as it would turn out.

Barnum swung Riley by the belt in an arc toward his other shoulder. However, as soon as the manservant’s hand was free, the poisoned boy somehow found the strength to roll off and land on Charismo’s chest.

“Murderer!” he slurred. “You killed my family.”

“Eeek!” said Charismo. “Get him off me, Barnum. He could have lice.”

Had Riley been more alert, he might have been able to land a painful or even fatal blow, but in his drugged state it was all he could do to squirm a little and pat Charismo’s chest like an infant.

“C’mere, boy,” said Barnum, and he reclaimed his prisoner with strong fingers, tossing him back onto his free shoulder.

“Take care, Barnum,” said a shaken Charismo, checking his mask. “Even a dying dog can be dangerous.”

“Sorry, master,” said Barnum, inserting the toe of his boot into a crack in the door and nudging it open. “I should have taken more care that you were not overpowered by the incapacitated child that you had just poisoned to death.”

Charismo glared after his manservant as he left, wondering if perhaps he should begin docking his wages for insolence.

Barnum bundled the condemned pair into the dumbwaiter in the adjoining room and winched them down toward the kitchen. As the elevator dropped into its shaft, Chevie heard Charismo’s voice drift through: “You are such a slacker, Barnum. The dumbwaiter, honestly.”