Agnetha Chambers stood at the top of the narrow staircase, staring down at her own feet.   She wrinkled up her nose, squinting in a bid to force her near blind eyes to focus.   At the bottom of the stairs, her nephew Benjamin Charlton stood in complete silence, waiting, wondering when she would start down the stairs toward him.   Fall, damn you, fall! he thought, trying his best to will the old lady to her death.   It was rumoured that the Charltons had been accused of practising witchcraft at the Salem witch hunts of the 1690s, but try as he might, Benjamin couldn’t propel the old lady forward by force of will alone.

At last, however, she started forward….

But almost immediately she stopped again and stood on the second-top step, staring down the staircase, seemingly straight toward her nephew.   She can’t possibly see me from this distance! thought Benjamin.   He was terrified in case the old lady knew that he was standing there.   The old bag is as blind as a bat!

Yet for a moment it seemed as though old Aggie Chambers could indeed see her nephew standing in the shadows, on the lower landing, plotting her death.

Walk, damn you, walk! thought Benjamin.   He almost gasping out loud from shock, as his aunt called out, “Is that you, Benjamin?”   As though she could somehow read her nephew’s thoughts.

After a moment the old lady started forward again.   But she had only gone a step or two when she let out a shriek and fell headlong down the stairs.

Benjamin watched in delight as the plump old lady landed headfirst halfway down the stairs, then rolled like a beach ball down the red-carpeted stairs, head and legs smashing again and again into the solid railing on either side of the stairs.   Until finally she came to rest almost at his very feet.

Now that’s what I call the red-carpet treatment! thought Benjamin as he stood looking down at the broken body of his aunt.   He bent down to make certain she was dead — although the right angle that her neck formed, allowing her head to rest against her own shoulder, left little doubt about the matter.