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The Mystery of the Mysterious Housewife

When Morty arrived Anemone was already dead.

As he stood over her, huge tears dropped silently down his grisly cheeks. They collected in a pool on her lifeless body. She lay prone, a little damp and decidedly cold.

He was very sad. They had been together for a lifetime. They had loved and laughed, had children and a lived in a happy home.

Anemone had always kept house. She had been the perfect housewife. Morty's home had been his castle. He never knew how it stayed clean, neat and smelling so sweet.

The funeral was a lovely affair. The coffin, grand in black, took pride of place amidst white blooms everywhere.

The Jones and Combs families had rallied together and descended upon town en-mass.

As the body glided on its way to eternity via the furnace, voices as clearly pitched as a chorus of angel bells, sang out over the funeral home's sound system.

It was all very moving. There was not a single dry eye in the entire congregation.

Edna Kringle, a cousin, whose inebriation was legendary, sat with moistened eyes, upright, a position she was known to have assumed last on her wedding day.

The lunatic Meredith twins, nephews of Anemone, sat demurely. They clutched hands and sobbed dementedly.

Minerva Smith had been Morty's first love. She swallowed hard. Intermittent gulps and the odd gasp escaped as she clung to composure as desperately as to her pearls:

"Perhaps now that she's gone, I will have a second chance with Morty", she thought.

Afterward at Morty's home, everyone mingled, stirring teacups. Supermarket cake and packet biscuits, with checkout slips and prices showing, lay in a pile barely touched.

Without Anemone, tea would never be the same again.

Angela, Morty's son's third wife, squeezed his over-sized and somewhat clammy palm and commiserated:

"If you require any help you just ask."

Evania, a neighbor, shook hands vigorously. She, too, offered to help Morty:

"With anything, absolutely anything."

Afterward,Morty looked at the kitchen sink. It was filled with crockery and cutlery.

Anemone's best tea set was in disarray. Cups lay everywhere: on window ledges, atop cupboards, upon tables, underneath chairs, in the sitting room, bedroom, on the terrace and even in the bathroom.

As he brushed past a table, Morty heard a sudden crash as crockery dived onto the floor and scattered into a thousand pieces.

Biscuit crumbs, scattered along the carpet, had been trodden into fine powder. Tea had been spilt on the coffee table. Somebody had used the

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