Alone, again. And yet the freedom was so penetrating and real that I stood motionless, almost stunned, for a moment. I gazed at the floor, waiting with dread for the inevitable wave of loneliness to wash over me. I waited for James to run back, asking for another chance to stay. I waited for my phone to ring, the hospital or police calling with news, bad news, more bad news.

I waited, too, for the stab of regret; I did not tell James about the apothecary. I didn’t tell him that I broke into a hidden subcellar. I didn’t tell him about Gaynor or Bachelor Alf or the serial killer whose secrets I still held safe.

I didn’t tell him any of it.

I stood in front of the door a long while, waiting for guilt, or regret, to rush its way into me. But nothing of the sort plagued me. Nothing festered, and no scores were left to be settled.

As I turned away from the door, my phone dinged—a text from Gaynor. Sorry for the delay! she said. Parish records show a Lady Bea Clarence died at St. Thomas’ hospital, edema, on 23 Oct 1816. No surviving children.

I stared at my phone, dumbfounded, and lowered myself onto the bed. The hospital note was indeed a deathbed confession, written—perhaps with a guilty conscience—by Lord Clarence’s widow twenty-five years after his death.

I picked up the phone to call Gaynor and tell her what I’d learned.

After I explained the existence of Miss Berkwell, the mistress—who I knew about not from the articles Gaynor printed for me, but from the entry in the apothecary’s register—Gaynor was quiet for some time.

There was only one thing I hadn’t told her, and this was about the register entry made the day after the apothecary supposedly died, bearing the name Eliza Fanning.

I kept this to myself.

“This is astounding,” Gaynor finally said through the phone. As I pondered how utterly unbelievable the entire thing was, how utterly spectacular the whole thing was, I could imagine Gaynor shaking her head in awe at all that I’d solved. “And all of this due to a little vial in the river. I can’t believe you pieced it all together. Excellent detective work, Caroline. I do believe you’d be an asset to any PI team.”

I thanked her, then reminded her I’d been a little too close to the police force in recent days.

“Well, if not a PI team,” she replied, “then maybe you could join the research crew at the library.” I felt sure she meant it in jest, but she’d struck a tender nerve. “I’ve seen the spark in you,” she added.