Sarah noticed Prescott’s aunt was also veiled, although hers was shorter and much lighter than Mrs. Ellsworth’s. She was, Sarah knew, a widow, and she probably wore the veil all the time. Such elaborate mourning was a little excessive, but some women enjoyed flaunting their grief.
As they approached, she saw that the woman was trying to feed Prescott something, but he kept turning his head away.
He said something that sounded like, “Tastes bad,” and she could hear his aunt coaxing him softly, the way one did with ill-tempered sick people.
“Mrs. Beasley,” Sarah called when they were near enough.
Mrs. Beasley didn’t turn. She just kept coaxing Prescott to eat. She must, Sarah thought, be hard of hearing.
“Mrs. Beasley!” she called more loudly as they reached Prescott’s bed. “I’m Sarah Brandt, a friend of your nephew’s.”
Mrs. Beasley’s head came up in surprise, and she jumped to her feet, dropping the bowl from which she had been feeding her nephew. It spilled on the bed, all over Prescott, and Sarah and Mrs. Ellsworth instinctively reached to salvage what they could of the porridge.
“I’m so sorry,” Sarah said. “I didn’t mean to startle you.” But when she looked up to reassure Mrs. Beasley, she saw only the woman’s back as she hurried away, nearly running in her fright.
“Oh, dear,” Mrs. Ellsworth said, watching her disappear out the door. “She’s quite shy, isn’t she?”
“I certainly didn’t mean to frighten her. I should go after her and apologize,” Sarah said.
“No!” Prescott said, surprising both women.
“Mr. Prescott?” Sarah tried, wondering if he was talking to her. “How are you feeling?”
“No,” he said again, obviously not hearing her at all. “Too sweet… Tastes… bad.”
That’s what he’d been saying to his aunt. Sarah wondered what the woman had been feeding him that had caused such a reaction. She lifted the nearly empty bowl to her nose and took a sniff.
How odd, she thought, certain she must be mistaken. But when she dipped her finger in and took a taste, she cried out in alarm.
“Good heavens!” Mrs. Ellsworth exclaimed, but Sarah was calling for the nurse.
One of the nurses came rushing over. “Whatever is the matter?”
“That woman was trying to poison Mr. Prescott!” Sarah cried.
“Poison!” Mrs. Ellsworth was saying, over and over, but the nurse wasn’t as impressed.
“Who are you to know such a thing?” the nurse demanded skeptically.
“I’m a trained nurse, and if you don’t believe me, taste this for yourself.” She offered the bowl to the woman, who reared back in alarm.
“You want me to taste poison?” she asked, horrified.
“It’s opium,” Sarah said. “A very strong mixture.”
Instantly, the woman paled. “What on earth would she have been giving him that for?” she asked.
“Probably to kill him,” Sarah said impatiently. “Now hurry and find a doctor.”
“Is there a chance to save him?” Mrs. Ellsworth asked.
“He may have saved himself if he refused to eat very much of it,” Sarah said, rolling up her sleeves and getting ready to work on Prescott.
“Will he be all right, do you think?” Mrs. Ellsworth asked her later, after the doctor had finished examining Prescott. He lay peacefully on his pillow, but he looked awfully pale from being poked and prodded as the doctor checked to see if he showed any evidence of opium poisoning. He’d been very weak and ill to begin with, and now… Sarah simply didn’t know. At least the doctor had felt sure he hadn’t ingested very much of the opium. If the strain of being saved didn’t kill him, he’d probably recover.
The two women were keeping a vigil by his bed. They’d found the basket the woman had used to bring the poisoned porridge into the hospital. Unfortunately, the basket was the kind that was available at every market in the city, and it contained no clue as to who the woman might have been.
“Well,” Mrs. Ellsworth said, “I think we can be fairly certain that woman wasn’t his aunt.”
“She may have been the one who tried to kill him the first time, though,” Sarah said. “She could have seen the newspaper story, figured out where he would be, and decided to finish him off.”
“Did you see what she looked like?”
“No,” Sarah said with a rueful smile. “You were right, a veil is the perfect disguise.”
Mrs. Ellsworth had removed hers, and she smiled back at Sarah. “You probably thought I was a worthless old woman.”
“I haven’t thought that for a long time, not since I saw how you can handle an iron skillet,” Sarah said, recalling the time Mrs. Ellsworth had rescued her.
“Oh, yes,” Mrs. Ellsworth remembered. “One never knows what one is capable of until the time comes, does one?” She leaned back in her chair with a satisfied grin.
Sarah grinned back. “Now all you have to do is worry about keeping Mr. Prescott alive.”
“After what we’ve already been through, it will probably be very dull work indeed, but I’ll do my best. Now I’m sure you have some investigating of your own to do. I’ll be fine, and if any veiled women show up and try to give Mr. Prescott something to eat, you can rest assured I will raise the alarm… or the skillet, if necessary.”
“I know I can count on you. Meanwhile, I’ve got to find Mr. Malloy and let him know what’s happened here.”
Frank stood on Giddings’s front porch and waited for someone to answer his knock. He’d seen the front curtain twitch, so he knew his presence had been noted. He’d give them another moment before he started pounding and shouting and generally causing a disturbance.
Fortunately, Mrs. Giddings wasn’t willing to risk a scene. She opened the door and admitted Frank without a word, closing the door quickly behind him. Her expression told him how much she loathed the sight of him, but she was too much of a lady to actually say so.
“Is Harold here?” he asked.
She seemed surprised. “I thought you were here for Gilbert. What do you want with Harold?”
“I want to ask him some questions,” Frank replied.
Her anger evaporated into fear. “About what?”
“That’s something I’ll discuss with Harold. Now is he here or not?”
“I don’t think-” she began, but her son cut her off.
“Who was it, Mother?” he called from the back of the house.
Now she looked frantic. “He’s just a boy!” she cried.
Unmoved, Frank headed for the back of the house.
“Wait, I’ll get him!” she tried, hurrying after him, but Frank didn’t want to take a chance that she’d send him out the back door.
He found Harold seated at the kitchen table, eating his supper. He half rose from his chair at the sight of Frank, but Frank pushed him back down again, none too gently.
The boy’s eyes filled with fear, too, and he looked to his mother for an explanation.
“Please,” was all she said, and she said it to Frank.
“I hate interrupting your supper,” Frank said sarcastically, “but there’s a few questions I need to ask you, Harold.”
“Is it about my father?” he asked, glancing at his mother again.
“No, it’s about you.”
“Me?” What color was left in his young face drained away. “What do you need to know about me?”
“I need to know why you went to see Anna Blake the night she died,” Frank said, pulling out another of the kitchen chairs and seating himself.
“He was here that night, with me,” his mother said quickly. “I already told you that!”
Frank turned to her with mild interest. “With you and your husband?” he asked.
“Yes, yes, we were all here,” she insisted. “Just like I said!”
“Except I found out your husband was in jail that night,” he said. “So if you were trying to give him an alibi, you were wasting your time. He’s already got a good one.” Frank turned back to the boy. “Don’t you bother lying. You were there at Anna Blake’s house. The other women saw you, and they can identify you. Now tell me why you went there and what happened.”