door, and stood there a minute listening. He heard
the mantel clock in the living-room ticking with the
resonance given by a room empty of all other sound.
Because his ears were keen, he heard also the little
alarm clock in the kitchen tick-tick-tick on the shelf
behind the stove where Jean kept it daytimes.

Peaceful enough, for all the silence; yet Lite reached
back and laid his fingers upon the smooth butt of his
six-shooter and opened the door with his left hand,
which was more or less awkward. He pushed the door
open and stepped inside. Then for a full minute he
did not move.

On the floor that Jean had scrubbed till it was so
white, a man lay dead, stretched upon his back. His
eyes stared vacantly straight up at the ceiling, where a
single cobweb which Jean had not noticed swayed in
the air-current Lite set in motion with the opening of
the door. On the floor, where it had dropped from his
hand perhaps when he fell, a small square piece of
gingerbread lay, crumbled around the edges. Tragic
halo around his head, a pool of blood was turning brown
and clotted. Lite shivered a little while he stared down
at him.

In a minute he lifted his eyes from the figure
and looked around the small room. The stove shone
black in the sunlight which the open door let in. On
the table, covered with white oilcloth, the loaf of gingerbread