“Thank you,” she said as if he were doing her a favor.

“I’m going to give you a mild sedative now.”

“Oh?” she said, alarm creeping back into her voice.

“It’s fine. As I said, I need to search the house, and I prefer not to tie you down. This will be much more comfortable. Better for your circulation. You’ll be out for a few hours, and when you awake I will be gone and this whole unpleasantness will be over.”

“All right,” she said, working hard to believe him.

He unzipped a small leather pouch and withdrew a syringe and a vial of Luminal. Not a drug he usually used in these situations, but it was one that the doctor could get her hands on easily. It would make sense to the coroner. It was an antiepileptic, not a sedative, but had a similar effect, at least in small doses.

“How many glasses of wine did you have?”

“Two.”

He adjusted the dosage slightly and placed the syringe on the nightstand.

“If you’d be so kind,” he said.

“You want me to inject myself?”

“You are a doctor, Doctor.”

She thought it over and took the syringe. Rolling up her sleeve, she found a vein just below her elbow. When finished, she set the syringe on the nightstand and gave him an irritated look as if to say, “Happy now?” She had gone from terrified to inconvenienced with remarkable speed.

“Please be careful with the crystal downstairs. My husband bought it in Ireland on our honeymoon. I’d hate for it to be damaged.”

He assured her that he would take the utmost care.

When she was unconscious, Tinsley took another syringe from his case and gave her a second injection. Forty milliliters would be more than sufficient, given her age and weight. He sat in an armchair by the window and listened to her breathing slow and grind to a halt. He gave it a half hour then checked her vitals. Satisfied, he arranged the empty vial beside the syringe and stepped back to appraise the tableau. Something was missing.

He went downstairs to the piano and looked over the framed photographs until he found one of the doctor and her dead husband. They were holding hands, sitting with the ocean behind them. He took the picture upstairs and placed it on the bedside table where she could see it. Then he let himself out of the bedroom, shutting the door quietly as if not to disturb her.

In the office, he took the file he’d been instructed to retrieve and shut the safe. He’d been debating with himself where to leave the note and decided that the office was the right place. Her personal stationery was made of thick paper; he stood the envelope up so that the top fold tented and helped it sit prominently on the blotter. Next to it he placed the pen that had written the note.