“He was here?”

“Yes, you slept through the whole thing. Mr. Malloy took him away.”

“And did you say that Potter had killed Dr. Blackwell and that poor boy, too?”

“I’m afraid so.”

Dudley closed his eyes and shuddered slightly.

“If the pain is that bad, I can go ahead and-”

“No, no, I’m fine,” he assured her, opening his eyes and managing a strained smile. He swallowed a few more bites before he said, “Don’t let Letitia come here. I don’t want her in this place.”

Sarah couldn’t tell him that Letitia still thought he was dead, so she was unlikely to try to visit him at all, but of course, Malloy would soon be informing her that her husband’s killer had been caught and Dudley was, in fact, alive. Sarah couldn’t help wondering if Letitia would then even want to visit Dudley. Sarah knew that if the man she loved had been lying grievously wounded, nothing could have kept her away, but she couldn’t imagine that sort of devotion from Letitia Blackwell. But maybe she was doing the woman an injustice.

“I’m sure she’ll want to arrange for a better place for you to stay when it’s safe to move you,” she said, hoping that, at least, was true.

“She will, but she probably won’t think of it herself. She’s really quite naive about things. That’s why she needs someone to look after her. Blackwell never took proper care of her.”

Which was, of course, why you felt obligated to commit adultery with her, Sarah thought, but of course she didn’t say that. “Oh, yes,” she said instead, not above a little shameless gossiping, even if it involved a dead man. “You started to say something last night about her being afraid of Dr. Blackwell. Was he abusive to her? Did he hurt her, I mean?”

“Not that I know of,” Dudley said, taking another bite. When he’d swallowed, he added, “But there are other ways to hurt someone besides hitting them. He had forced her to give up the morphine. You can’t imagine how horrible that was for her.”

Sarah could well imagine it, having seen others going through the same agonizing process.

He swallowed another bite. “And then he made her speak at the lectures, even knowing how terrified she was. She did it for him, because she was so grateful to him, but he never appreciated it. No wonder she turned to the morphine again.”

“I suppose she was also concerned about her husband finding out about you and the baby,” Sarah suggested.

Dudley frowned as he swallowed the next bite. “I don’t think she was afraid of that so much. Blackwell paid hardly any attention to her at all, except that he…”

“That he what?” Sarah asked, trying to appear only mildly interested.

“Well, he disapproved of the morphine use. Actually, I don’t think he cared about Letitia’s health as much as he was worried that if she was taking the morphine again, it would reflect badly on his cure of her. He suspected that she was using it again, but of course he never found any proof because she was careful not to keep it in the house.”

“Is that what she was so afraid of?” Sarah asked. “That he would find out and make her stop again?”

“It would have killed her,” Dudley said, growing agitated. “You must understand, she just couldn’t go through that again.”

“I understand completely,” Sarah assured him. Few people could endure such an ordeal even once.

“She tried to describe the pain to me, but I don’t think I can even imagine what it was like. She was simply terrified he’d put her through that again. She was so terrified that I even thought…”

“What did you think?” Sarah prodded when he hesitated.

He smiled sheepishly. “You’ll think I’m a cad.”

Sarah already thought so, but she said, “You can’t shock me, Mr. Dudley.”

“I hate to admit it now, since I know it wasn’t true, but I was actually afraid that Letitia might’ve killed Dr. Blackwell herself. That’s how frightened she was that he would discover she was still using morphine.”

“Oh, my, that is unchivalrous of you,” she agreed, even as a chill stole up her spine at the very thought.

“If you could have seen her that day when she came to Mr. Fong’s, you’d forgive me for believing it, though,” he defended himself. “She was on the verge of hysteria. She’d quarreled with Blackwell, you see. He’d accused her of using morphine again. She’d denied it, of course, but it was an ugly scene. And she knew that when the baby came, she wouldn’t be able to get out for several weeks. She’d have to keep the morphine in the house then, and if Blackwell found it…”

“I can certainly see why you were worried,” Sarah agreed sympathetically. She couldn’t help wondering how sympathetic Letitia would be if she were to learn of her lover’s suspicions, however.

“I can’t tell you how relieved I am to hear it was Mr. Potter all along,” he was saying.

“I guess you forgot that Letitia was with you when Dr. Blackwell was killed, so she couldn’t have done it.”

“She was, of course, after their quarrel. But I couldn’t help thinking… Well, no matter. None of it matters now, does it?”

Sarah supposed it didn’t.

FRANK HAD BEEN looking forward to going to the Blackwell home to tell the widow her husband’s murder had been solved so he could be finished with this case. Of course, he’d get no reward now. Potter was hardly likely to make good on his original offer, and Symington had only wanted to reward him if he proved Dudley was the killer. On top of all that, he’d have to tell Symington and Letitia that Dudley wasn’t even dead. Not only would Symington be disappointed, they’d both be angry because he’d deceived them. Still, having the case over would be something to savor. He never wanted to see any of these people again.

Unfortunately, the case wasn’t over.

No matter how much Frank wanted it to be true, Amos Potter hadn’t killed Edmund Blackwell, and his confession had proved it. First there was the problem of how Potter got the gun in the first place. Hard as he tried, he couldn’t imagine anyone allowing another man, a man with whom he was supposedly quarreling, no less, to reach into the desk drawer at his very elbow to pull out a gun without trying to stop him. To make matters worse, Blackwell would hardly have just calmly kept on writing his letter while Potter raised the gun and pointed it to his head.

Potter had made no mention of trying to make the death look like a suicide afterward, either. He hadn’t known Blackwell was writing a letter when he was shot, and he hadn’t mentioned laying the pistol down beside him to make it appear Blackwell himself had used it. Most of all, he hadn’t mentioned replacing the pen Blackwell had been writing with in its stand.

Probably he hadn’t mentioned these things because he knew nothing about them, and he knew nothing about them because he wasn’t even there when Edmund Blackwell was killed.

Which left Frank with the task of explaining why a man would confess to a murder he hadn’t committed. And why he’d commit a murder to cover that one up if he wasn’t guilty of it in the first place, because he’d apparently killed Calvin Brown. But most importantly, Frank would have to figure out who had really killed Edmund Blackwell in the first place.

That probably wouldn’t be too difficult, though. Potter had only confessed to protect someone, and Frank knew there was only one person he’d die to protect: Letitia Blackwell.

Frank figured he shouldn’t be surprised to realize he’d once again underestimated a female. Sarah Brandt was always accusing him of doing just that. But even she had been fooled this time. As difficult as it was to imagine, Letitia Blackwell had blown her husband’s brains out and then calmly kept an assignation with her lover.

Now all he had to do was convince the chief of detectives, the police commission, and Maurice Symington that sweet Letitia Blackwell should be charged with murder.