Free Murder on Gramercy Park by Victoria Thompson

told him without a hint that she was teasing him. “She asked me a few moments ago to tell her own father she was too ill to receive him, so she’s certainly too ill to see you.”
    “Is she?”
    “If she says she is, then she is,” she informed him. “Would you dare impose yourself on a woman during her lying-in?”
    Frank tried not to feel the irritation he was feeling, mostly because it wasn’t entirely unpleasant. He actually enjoyed arguing with Sarah Brandt, as difficult as that was to understand. “I need to find out what she knows about her husband’s death, and the sooner I do that, the better chance I have of finding the killer.”
    “I would be happy to question her for you if you’ll just tell me what you need to know,” she said, taking a seat on the sofa and making herself comfortable.
    “You are not a member of the police force, and you are not involved in this investigation,” he reminded her.
    “Well, then, I suppose you won’t be interested in the fact that Mrs. Blackwell uses morphine.”
    “What?” Although he hadn’t intended to, he sat down in the chair opposite her.
    “Mrs. Blackwell has used morphine for several years, except for a brief period,” she said. “It seems she began using it when she was injured in a riding accident.”
    “That’s the accident her husband cured her of, isn’t it?”
    “Yes, it is.”
    “What was wrong with her exactly?”
    “She said her back and neck were injured.”
    Frank frowned. “He cured her of a broken neck?”
    “I doubt it. More likely, she sprained her back or pulled something. Such injuries can be extremely painful, and there is no effective treatment except bed rest and opiates for the pain. Sometimes they get better, and sometimes they don’t.”
    “Except Blackwell knew of a treatment for it,” Frank reminded her.
    “So it appears. From what his wife told me, I think Blackwell must have been a bonesetter.”
    “A bone-setter? You mean he set broken bones?”
    “Not exactly. I suppose in the old days, that’s what bonesetters did, back before the science of medicine was so advanced and doctors began setting bones themselves,” she said, and Frank managed not to snort in derision. His opinion of medicine wasn’t quite as high as hers. “Nowadays,” she continued, “bonesetters perform manipulations on bones that make people feel better.”
    “What do you mean ‘manipulations’?”
    “I mean they move the body around and somehow manage to make bones shift position, on the theory that they are somehow out of their proper position, which is what is causing the problems. I imagine that something in Mrs. Blackwell’s spine or neck was somehow out of line from the accident, and Blackwell managed to realign it, thus relieving her pain.”
    “Is that possible?”
    “Apparently. She said her pain was completely gone within a few weeks, after she’d been confined to her bed for almost a year.”
    “How did you find out she uses morphine?” Frank asked.
    “Her baby became ill because he was no longer receiving the drug from his mother. I recognized the symptoms.”
    “You mean to tell me the woman gave her baby morphine?” Frank was horrified.
    “Not directly,” she explained patiently. “He would have gotten the effects of the morphine through the umbilical cord before he was born. Once he was born, he would no longer receive it. Sometimes, the baby receives enough of the drug through his mother’s milk to satisfy the craving, but Mrs. Blackwell chose to use a wet nurse, so after about a day, he was desperate for the drug and showing all the signs of deprivation. He would have died without it, so I gave him a small dose of opium to ease his suffering.”
    “You let him have morphine?” Frank asked, horrified all over again.
    She sighed with long-suffering. She always found Frank unreasonable, although he could never understand why. “My choice was to either give him the drug or watch him die in agony. What