said he’d prefer my company. He won’t let me give him anything. He said that God was punishing him, and he couldn’t escape that.”

“There’s breakfast in the dining room.”

“Thank you. It’s been a long morning for all of us. I could use some tea.” He nodded and disappeared down the passage.

Rutledge was standing very close to where Peter Teller had been found at the foot of the stairs. He looked at the spot, remembering the sprawled body and the family in distress. It had seemed to be genuine distress.

Amy, first to reach Peter, had said he had tried to speak her name.

Mee . . .

Rousing himself, Rutledge was about to walk back to the study when he heard another vehicle on the drive. It was the local police. Inspector Jessup said as Rutledge opened the door, “Dr. Fielding asked us to wait before coming. Who’s here now? I see the other motor.”

“Miss Teller, Walter Teller’s sister.”

Jessup nodded. “Was she here last night?”

“I telephoned her earlier. She arrived not five minutes before you.”

Rutledge led the way into the study. “It appears to be a straightforward case of accidental overdose.” He told Jessup what he had seen and about the spilled milk in the kitchen. “At this stage, I can’t see a case for suicide.”

“Or murder?”

“Not at this stage,” Rutledge repeated.

Jessup said, “Sometimes people aren’t careful enough counting out their drops. Are you comfortable with accidental death?”

“At the moment. I’ll listen to what other family members have to say.”

“There seems to have been a rash of them in this house. I hope this is the last. Bad things come in threes.”

“Teller and his sister are upstairs. To your right, second door. Or the master bedroom, farther along the passage.”

“Any marks on the body?”

“None that Fielding or I saw. He’ll know more later.”

Jessup nodded and went up the stairs two at a time.

Another motorcar came rapidly down the drive, and Rutledge opened the door to find a constable already standing there on duty, his cape wet with rain.

“Morning, sir.”

“Good morning, constable. I think that’s the deceased’s sister just arriving. Let her come in.”

“Thank you, sir.”

Rutledge went back inside and into the study, leaving the door ajar. He could hear Mary Brittingham speaking to the constable, then hurrying up the stairs.

A moment or two later, he heard a muffled cry as she must have reached her sister’s room.

It was sometime later that Walter Teller came down the stairs alone.

He walked into the study, nearly turned about as soon as he saw Rutledge there, then went to the window.

“The women are doing women things. I can’t think about what she’s to wear. I can’t face putting her into the ground. Tomorrow it may be easier. Jessup seems to be satisfied. He’s in the kitchen questioning Mollie. Something about milk spilled in the night.”

“Where did your wife keep her laudanum?”

He sat down, took a deep breath, and said, “Oddly enough, on a shelf in the kitchen. She was terrified that Harry might find it. I told her he’d have better sense, but she wouldn’t hear of keeping it anywhere else.”

“Did she take it often?”

“She only took it once before. When she’d hurt her back and couldn’t sleep. I’m surprised it hadn’t dried up long since.”

It made sense. Fumbling with the pan, spilling the milk, then miscounting her drops . . .

Rutledge said after a moment, “Why did she need them last night?”

“I expect it was Peter, the sound he made as he fell. She said she could still hear it. It was a shock for all of us. I don’t know how Amy held up. She watched him die.”

Rutledge let another silence fall. Then he said, “Do you think your brother’s death might have been intentional? Rather than facing trial and the publicity that will come in its wake, affecting the whole family. He couldn’t have foreseen he’d have been exonerated.”

“If Peter had wanted to escape anything, he would have gone somewhere quiet and private and shot himself. There are enough grounds here at Witch Hazel Farm for him to do that.”

“A good point. Who was Florence Teller? In truth?”

That brought Walter Teller out of his chair. “Now that Mary is here, we must break the news to my son. If you will excuse me?”

And he was gone.

Jessup came to say that he was ready for the body to be taken away. But Leticia Teller had asked him to wait until her brother and his wife arrived. Pulling out his pocket watch, he stood there considering