The Animal-Lover's Book of Beastly Murder by Patricia Highsmith

six feet deep and winding. How fascinating to know that the very ground he stood on was being used by families and their offspring as shelter and storage place, safe bedrooms— home! And no one could tell it from looking at the ground. What a good thing his father had stopped jogging, Larry thought, because even Larry sank in now and then if he stepped on a burrow entrance unawares. His father, being heavier, would sink in more, and might set about getting rid of the hamsters—even if his father still thought they were moles. Larry congratulated himself that his rather furtive feeding of the garden hamsters was paying off. However, this same fact caused Larry to tell a lie, which weighed a bit on his conscience. It happened thus: His mother remarked in the kitchen one afternoon, “There aren’t so many as I thought there’d be by this time. To tell you the truth, I’m glad, Larry. So much easier—” “I’ve given a few away to kids at school,” Larry said, interrupting in his haste, and feeling awful at once. “Oh, I see. I thought something was a little out of the ordinary about them.” Betty laughed. “I was reading about them, and it seems they fight moles—destroy them. It might be a good idea if we put a couple in the garden. What do you think, Larry? Can you bear to part with a pair or two?” Larry’s slightly freckled face almost split with his smile. “I think the hamsters would like that.” After that, in a matter of ten days, things happened with lightning speed, or so it seemed to La