"William! What are you doing here? I presume you wish to see Hester? I am afraid she is out. She has gone"—she hesitated—"to see a patient."

"Old and ill and poor, I imagine," he replied dryly.

She knew him too well. She caught the edge of deeper meaning in his voice. "What is it, William?" she demanded. Although he had naturally risen to his feet, and he was some eight inches taller than she, she still managed to make him feel as if he should respond promptly and truthfully.

"I believe you have been missing certain medicines from the apothecary’s rooms." It was a statement.

"Hester never called you in on the matter?" She was amazed and openly disbelieving.

"No, of course not. Why? Have you solved the problem?"

"I don’t think you need to concern yourself with it," she answered severely. "At least certainly not yet."

"Why? Because it is a nurse who has taken them?" That was only half intended to be a challenge, but it sounded like one.

"We do not know who it is," she replied. "And since you agree that Hester did not ask you to investigate for us, why are we discussing the matter? You can have no interest in it."

"You are wrong. Unfortunately, I do have." His voice dipped, the previous moment’s confrontation suddenly changed to sorrow. "I wish I could leave it alone. It is not the fact that you are missing them that concerns me, it is the chance that whoever took them may have been blackmailed over the thefts, even though I believe she put them to the best possible use."

"Blackmail!" Callandra stared at him in dismay.

"Yes ... and murder. I’m sorry."

She said nothing, but the gravity in her face showed her fear, and he felt that it also betrayed her guess as to what else lay beyond the thefts, to the steady draining away of supplies over months, perhaps years, to help those she perceived to be in need. It was a judgment no individual had the right to make, and yet if no one did, who would care and who would break the rules in order to show that they should be changed?

"Do you know who it is?" he asked.

She looked him straight in the eye. "I have not the slightest idea," she replied. They both understood it was a lie and that she would not change it. He did not really expect her to, nor would he have been pleased if she had.

"And neither has Hester!" she added firmly.

"No ... I thought not," he conceded with the ghost of a smile. "But you can give me an estimate as to how much and of which sorts."

She hesitated.

"Surely you would prefer to do that yourself than for me to have to ask someone else?" he said without blinking.

She realized it was a threat, very barely disguised. He would carry it through no matter how much he would dislike it.