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cold hand. Drew stood behind him, one steadying hand on his stepfather’s sagging shoulder.
    “Poor Mr. Parker and Mr. Drew,” Beryl sobbed.
    “All right,” the constable said over another torrent of weeping. “That’s all for now.”
    Anna and some of the other girls were clustered, whispering, in the hallway. But when Beryl came out, they gathered around her and, clucking and consoling, led her away to her quarters.
    “This has already been fingerprinted and photographed,” Applegate said, and he handed the little bottle to Dr. Wallace, who put it into his black bag along with his stethoscope.
    “I’ll run some tests to make sure the contents were the same as the label and to make sure it’s what’s in her system,” the doctor assured him. “I see nothing to suggest it wasn’t an accidental overdose of the stuff. For now, we’ll say death by misadventure.”
    “Thank you, Doctor,” Mason said, not taking his eyes from his wife’s waxen face.
    “Will you be all right, Parker?” the doctor asked. “I could give you something to help you relax, if you’d like.”
    “No,” Mason murmured. “No, that’s all right.”
    Dr. Wallace snapped his bag shut and came over to the bedside. He looked closely at Mason, and then he lifted Drew’s chin so he could better peer at him.
    “How about you, son?”
    “I don’t need anything.” Drew patted Mason’s shoulder. “I wish you’d get him to bed, though.”
    “Not yet,” Mason said. “Not until they come to—to take her.”
    “I’ll be taking her now,” the doctor said, his voice gentle. “There will have to be an autopsy, I’m afraid.”
    Mason clung a little more tightly to the lifeless hand he held. Then he sighed, released it and stood up. “Of course. Of course.”
    It was a relief when Mason’s man, Plumfield, appeared and led him away.
    “I’ll let you carry on then, Dr. Wallace,” Applegate said. “If you’d like to come along with me, Mr. Drew, I do have a few more questions.”
    With one final look at Constance, Drew followed the constable out into the now-vacant hallway, shutting the bedroom door behind him.
    “You heard what the maid said,” Applegate began. “Was there any of that that didn’t seem right to you?”
    Drew shook his head. “No. Mother’s often mentioned taking something to help her sleep some nights. Dr. Wallace prescribed it for her himself, as he said. And Beryl does listen to Gert and Daisy every week without fail. I had a friend who acted in it once, and she worried me to death with questions about him.”
    “Not to be indelicate, sir,” Applegate said, “but it would be stretching coincidence if the two deaths were unrelated.”
    “I suppose it would,” Drew agreed. “But we don’t even know if my mother knew about Lincoln’s death. All the same, earlier on—”
    He caught himself, remembering what Mason had said when the constable had first suggested sending for Constance. “According to her maid, she has retired for the evening. She was, quite understandably, upset by what’s happened.” Beryl never would have told him Constance was upset over Lincoln’s death. She hadn’t yet heard about it. Had Mason been mistaken about what she said, assuming the murder was the cause of Constance being upset, or had he lied?
    “What is it, sir?” Applegate pressed.
    Drew shook his head. “Oh, um, earlier on Mother did complain of a headache. That could be why she went up to bed and took something to help her sleep. It never took much to put her into a state, and everyone knew it.”
    “I suppose we can’t prove whether or not there was a connection until we’ve had a chance to go through Mr. Lincoln’s things. You did have his room locked up after we found the body?”
    “I believe my stepfather had someone take care of that.”
    The constable nodded. “I’d like to see it now, if you please, sir.”
    Drew rang for a maid, and in another moment they were unlocking the door to Lincoln’s