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the news of this killing, for which the three policemen subsequently received citations, was

eagerly conveyed to all the relatives of the deceased couple by newspaper reporters, and the next

morning the closest of these relatives, as well as a couple of undertakers, three lawyers, and a

priest, climbed into taxis and set out for the house with the broken window. they assembled in the

living-room, men and women both, and they sat around in a circle on the sofas and armchairs,

smoking cigarettes and sipping sherry and debating what on earth should be done now with the

baby upstairs, the orphan lexington.

it soon became apparent that none of the relatives was particularly keen to assume responsibility

for the child, and the discussions and arguments continued all through the day. everybody

declared an enormous, almost an irresistible desire to look after him, and would have done so with

the greatest of pleasure were it not for the fact that their apartment was too small, or that they

already had one baby and couldn’t possibly afford another, or that they wouldn’t know what to do

with the poor little thing when they went abroad in the summer, or that they were getting on in

years, which surely would be most unfair to the boy when he grew up, and so on and so forth.

they all knew, of course, that the father had been heavily in debt for a long time and that the

house was mortgaged and that consequently there would be no money at all to go with the child.

they were still arguing like mad at six in the evening when suddenly, in the middle of it all, an

old aunt of the deceased father (her name was glosspan) swept in from virginia, and without even

removing her hat and coat, not even pausing to sit down, ignoring all offers of a martini, a whisky,

a sherry, she announced firmly to the assembled relatives that she herself intended to take sole

charge of the infant boy from then on. what was more, she said, she would assume full financial

responsibility on all counts, including education, and everyone else could go back home where

they belonged and give their consciences a rest. so saying, she trotted upstairs to the nursery and

snatched lexington from his cradle and swept out of the house with the baby clutched tightly in

her arms, while the relatives simply sat and stared and smiled and looked relieved, and mcpottle

the nurse stood stiff with disapproval at the head of the stairs, her lips compressed, her arms folded

across her starchy bosom.

and thus it was that the infant lexington, when he was thirteen days old, left the city of new

york and travelled southward to live with his great aunt glosspan in the state of virginia.