Lament for Brookings

At the sound of the dinner gong Mr. Mudmarsh was ushered into his dining room where sat Bunny Hook, Professor Randal Punch, and Mudmarsh’s attorney, Kenneth Brookings, whom Mudmarsh immediately shot with the pistol he kept holstered in his dinner jacket. He gurgled his last words, I love you very much, my dear Beaver, then expired, falling from the chair with a thump.
“Not as much a calamity as one would imagine,” said Professor Punch in a dry tone.
Ms. Hook peered at the dead man, her brow crinkled, as if in thought.
Mr. Mudmarsh sat down and had a chug of wine. The room was large and hung with family portraits. Mudmarsh looked at the remaining two, wondering what surprises they had in store for him with tonight’s brief production, which began with Punch leaping from his chair and executing a series of somersaults, each accompanied with a plaintive groan. The man was fifty-seven years old and in no shape to be rolling about the floor. Bunny Hook bounded from her seat, removed from a box of props a handful of carrots, and began tossing them on the floor, shouting instructions to Professor Punch, “Get the treats, you Donkey!”
By this time Punch had abandoned his tumbles and was simply crawling about the carpet grunting and gobbling up carrots. Mudmarsh leaned back and roared with laughter. He drank more wine, then ordered Bunny to command Punch to do more of the somersaulting.
“Let’s return to your tumbles, Donkey,” she related to Professor Punch.
“Must I?” he lamented.
“Yes!” Mr. Mudmarsh boomed.
“Yes,” echoed Ms. Hook.
“If I must,” concluded Punch philosophically, and resumed his tumbling.
“Slap his rear-end, Bunny. Slap it hard!” Mudmarsh ordered. Bunny brought her hand down with a loud smack.
“O dear,” sobbed Professor Punch. “This is a rather gruesome business.”
“Again, Bunny!” Mudmarsh screamed, drinking more wine.
But Bunny did not obey.
She stood very still peering at a particular portrait hung upon the wall, a portrait of Mr. Mudmarsh’s mother, Lady Castor.
“Ms. Hook, what is the meaning of this?” Mudmarsh demanded. Punch stopped tumbling. He looked first at Bunny, then Mudmarsh, with a sort of stupefied terror in his eyes.
Bunny remined silent.
“Ms. Hook, you will answer me!” Mudmarsh screamed, spilling his wine.
Bunny drew her eyes from the portrait of Mudmarsh’s mother. She looked at Mudmarsh. She pointed back at the portrait, then whispered, “Castor in French means beaver.”
Mr. Mudmarsh squirmed uneasily in his chair.
Professor Punch exhaled a knowing “Ah!”
Bunny and Punch glanced, nervously, each at the other, then bolted for the exit. Mr. Mudmarsh was very quick on the draw. At this close proximity, even with moving targets, it’s quite simple to hit one’s mark. They both fell with a thump, and Mr. Mudmarsh began to clear the table.