I read the final entry again, my hand over my lips.

Eliza Fanning, London. Ingr. unknown. 12 Feb 1791.

The twelfth of February? It didn’t make sense. The apothecary jumped from the bridge on the eleventh of February, and the article said the river was “littered with ice.” Even if someone survived the fall, it seemed unlikely they would have lasted more than a minute or two in the frigid water.

It was curious, too, that just one name was listed: Eliza Fanning. The entry did not say she was “on account” of anyone else. She must have come to the shop by herself, then. Did she have any idea that she was the final customer? And did she play any role in the apothecary’s demise?

I pulled a blanket over my legs. Admittedly, this final entry left me a bit spooked. I considered the possibility that the discrepancy was an error; perhaps the apothecary simply got her dates mixed up. Could this something really be nothing?

And it was also strange that the entry said Ingr. unknown—ingredients unknown. It seemed impossible. How could the apothecary have dispensed something of which she had no knowledge?

Maybe it wasn’t the apothecary at all. Maybe someone else made the entry. But the shop was well hidden, and it seemed unreasonable that someone would have entered the shop the day after the apothecary jumped in order to write down such a cryptic, final message. It only made sense that it was the apothecary’s own entry.

But if she made the entry, then who jumped?

More questions than answers had presented themselves in the last few minutes, and my curiosity melted into frustration. Nothing matched up: the victim in the first article didn’t fit with the victim in the entry about Lord Clarence; the final entry was cryptically written, with its strange handwriting and the reference to unknown ingredients; and most significant, the date of the final entry was a day after the apothecary had supposedly died.

I spread out my hands, at a complete loss. How many secrets did the apothecary take to her grave?

I walked to the minifridge and pulled out the bottle of champagne that the hotel had stocked in the suite. I didn’t think to pour the chilled wine into a glass; instead, once I’d popped off the cork, I lifted the rim to my lips and took a deep drink directly from the bottle.

Instead of fortifying me, the champagne left me fatigued, almost dizzy. My curiosity about the apothecary had worn down for the day, and the idea of further research was not appealing.

Tomorrow, perhaps.