“He seems perfectly healthy,” Sarah judged with more than a little relief when she’d finished her examination.

“Except for that hair. Did the morphine turn it that color, do you think?” the nurse asked with obvious disapproval.

“Certainly not,” Sarah assured her. “He simply has red hair.”

“Never saw hair like that on a baby,” the nurse insisted. “It ain’t natural.”

“Many people have red hair, and it’s perfectly natural,” Sarah assured her as patiently as she could. People had the oddest prejudices.

The nurse hmmphed her skepticism. “How long do you think we’ll have to give him that horrible stuff?”

“A few months,” Sarah said. “We’ll wait until he’s gained some weight, and we’re certain he’s healthy. Then we’ll gradually decrease his dosage. Have you heard how Mrs. Blackwell is doing?”

“Don’t nobody tell me anything,” the nurse said, a little disgusted. As a newcomer to the household she wouldn’t have gained the confidence of the other staff members, and her job, of necessity, kept her from socializing with them. “I do know they’re having the doctor’s funeral this morning.”

“So I gathered,” Sarah said. “That’s why I came today. I was afraid Mrs. Blackwell might be upset. I’d better go check on her.”

The nurse made another rude noise. “If she’s got some morphine, she probably don’t even know what’s going on in her own parlor.”

Sarah gave her a quelling look which made her frown, but at least she didn’t say any more. Sarah hoped she wasn’t going to have to suggest that Mrs. Blackwell get another nurse, but if this one was going to be so disapproving of her employer, things could become very difficult.

Sarah learned from the maid lingering in the hallway that Mrs. Blackwell was awake and wanted to see her. The bedroom was dark when Sarah entered, the heavy drapes drawn against the morning sunlight. Mrs. Blackwell lay propped against her pillows, her face pale and her expression drawn.

“How is my baby?” she asked Sarah, who decided the woman might not be as selfish and spoiled as she had originally thought. At least she’d asked about the baby first.

“He’s doing very well,” Sarah said. “We have apparently determined the correct dose of morphine to give him, and he’s thriving on the nurse’s milk.”

“Thank heaven,” she breathed, closing her lovely eyes for a moment in apparent relief.

“What have you named him?” Sarah asked to be sociable.

Her eyes flew open, and Sarah was surprised to see the alarm in them. “I… I haven’t thought,” she said. “Edmund wanted… but now… I don’t know!”

“There’s no hurry,” Sarah assured her, disturbed by her reaction. The woman seemed incapable of making any decision without her husband’s approval. If that were true, his death was going to hamper the decision-making process considerably. “It will be a while before he even knows he has a name,” Sarah added in an attempt to lighten the moment.

Mrs. Blackwell didn’t look reassured. “But other people will know,” she pointed out. “My father… he’ll expect me to…” She lifted the back of her hand to her forehead in a gesture of despair.

“Why don’t you let me examine you,” Sarah suggested, hoping to take her mind off of the terrible burden of selecting a name for her child. “Are you having any discomfort?”

FRANK HAD TIMED his arrival at the Blackwell home so he would be there to see the guests as they arrived. He wanted to get a look at the people who felt the need to honor Blackwell’s memory or at least to assure themselves he was dead.

He found Amos Potter giving frantic orders to the servants, who scurried around trying to do his bidding. He didn’t look at all happy to see Frank.

“Mr. Malloy,” he said imperiously. “As I informed you yesterday, your presence here is completely unnecessary.”

“Not unless you think it’s unnecessary for me to find out who killed Dr. Blackwell,” Frank replied.

Potter glared at him impatiently. “Surely you don’t believe anyone coming here today could have killed him?”

“I won’t know until I see them, now will I?” Frank said reasonably.

Potter didn’t think this was reasonable at all. “I already told you who the killer is,” he reminded him. “You had him in your power, and you let him get away.”

“He hasn’t gotten away,” Frank said. “Besides, I don’t have any reason to believe he’s the killer.”

“Who else could it have been? The boy is insane with grief and rage. His father deserted him and his family and left them penniless. He probably spent years trying to locate Edmund, and when he did, Edmund rejected him once again. Unable to control his fury, he shot poor Edmund and tried to cover up his crime. There, you see how simple it is? And I’m not even a policeman,” Potter said smugly.

“Do you want me to accuse an innocent boy just so I can collect a reward?” Frank asked with as much genuine confusion as he could muster.

Potter barely controlled his impatience. “He isn’t innocent!”

Frank waited until the maid who was straightening the chairs moved out of earshot. “I questioned him thoroughly, and he gave me all the right answers, Mr. Potter. I don’t believe he killed his father.”

“Then he is even more clever than I imagined,” Potter informed him. “He’s Edmund’s son, all right. If he is at all like his father, he would have no trouble bending the truth to suit his needs, and he would have the advantage of his youth to lend him the appearance of innocence.”

“Was Dr. Blackwell an accomplished liar?” Frank asked curiously.

The color rose in Potter’s face, and he glanced uneasily at the casket standing nearby. “It’s wrong to speak ill of the dead,” he said.

“Then you believe that there is ill you could speak about,” Frank surmised. “Tell me, who did the good doctor lie to? You? His patients? His wife? We certainly know he lied to the current Mrs. Blackwell by not telling her about the first Mrs. Brown.”

“I refuse to discuss such a thing with Edmund lying dead just a few feet away,” Potter sniffed.

“Then we can discuss it later,” Frank said.

Plainly, Potter did not like being told what to do by a mere policeman. “You will excuse me now. I have many things to do before the guests arrive.”

Frank let him go. He wasn’t going to get anywhere with him right now anyway. He went to the kitchen to find a cup of coffee while he waited for the funeral guests to begin arriving.

“DO YOU KNOW my husband’s funeral is this morning?” Mrs. Blackwell asked Sarah as she finished her examination.

“Yes,” Sarah said. “I noticed the preparations when I arrived. I’m sure you must be disappointed that you can’t attend.”

Mrs. Blackwell sighed. “Funerals frighten me. My mother died when I was quite young, and I remember how horrible it all was, everything draped in black. I can’t stand the thought of it.”

“Then I won’t suggest that you try to go downstairs to at least pay your respects. I’m sure one of the servants could carry you if you really wanted to see your husband’s… uh… casket.”

Mrs. Blackwell shuddered. “Oh, no, I couldn’t possibly… Edmund wouldn’t want me to see him like that anyway. He’d want me to remember him as he was, I’m sure of it,” she reasoned. She tried to reach over to the nightstand, but couldn’t quite. “Could you…?” she asked Sarah. “In the top drawer…”

Sarah opened the drawer in the bedside table, expecting to find a handkerchief or smelling salts, and was surprised to see a syringe lying there instead. “Do you inject the morphine?” she asked in horror. This was even worse than she’d imagined.

“Please,” Mrs. Blackwell entreated, her lovely blue eyes filling with tears. “Don’t judge me! I can’t… You don’t know what I’ve had to suffer.”

Sarah had a good idea it wasn’t so very much at all, compared with many who never turned to the oblivion of opiates, but she was a nurse, not a missionary. Reluctantly, she handed the materials to her patient.