Dark and weird dreams last night.
17th century France. A wealthy Count publicly beats his wife and mistress. His mistress for "tempting him to sin", his wife for "troubling him with reproachful glances, when she should have borne her troubles patiently." The next day he comes to his wife's bedside while she lies recovering, to say goodbye before going hunting. She apologizes for provoking him. He sees a full glass of wine by her bedside and drinks it up, not realizing it contains poppy juice for her pain. She says nothing to him.
He heads out hunting, continues to drink heavily as he always does on such expeditions, but due to the combination of poppy juice with the alcohol gets much drunker than he normally does and falls off his horse and cracks his head and dies.
The mistress confronts the wife, suspicious of the accident in a many who normally had almost infinite capacity for alcohol. The wife indignantly denies any responsibility saying "Margurite, henceforth we should be friends, for I saw the joy in the Count's eyes when he beat us, and believe God took him from us to spare him the sin of an eventual double murder."
I also dreamed a really dark, twisted and creepy take on "The Parent Trap" which I have noted, and will put aside to some day write up and submit to Ellery Queen. Not that the "Parent Trap" and the million and one varietions and imitations over the years were not fundamentally twisted and creepy to begin with.