Chapter 8
Harry could have easily caught the woman, but he allowed me to chase her and force her to stop. She tried to pull free, but I tightened my grip.
“Enough!” I snapped. “You won’t get away.”
She settled a penetrating glare on me that I found rather unnerving. “Unhand me or I’ll scream.” With her firm jaw and hard eyes, she looked prepared to follow through on her threat.
Before I gave in and released her, Harry made a good point. “Don’t try running away unless you want us to believe you murdered Isabel Kempsey.”
I relaxed my grip and she jerked free, but did not run off.
She shifted her glare to Harry and scanned his face and form, which she hadn’t done with me.
A subtle softening of her jaw signaled a lowering of her guard, proving once again that a handsome man could disarm some women without even trying.
She wasn’t ready to lower her guard all the way, however.
“I didn’t murder her.” Just as Dr. Iverson had described, the woman calling herself Mary Linton was quite pretty with clear skin and a slim figure.
He’d also said how determined she was to use the Electro Therapy Machine at her first appointment, and now that I’d met her, I understood how she could railroad a person into giving in.
There was a determination about her, a trait I admired, although not always in a suspect.
It was a trait she’d need as a private detective.
“May we go into your office to discuss this further?” Harry asked.
The woman glanced past us to the building from which she’d just emerged. The hesitation was at odds with the set jaw and direct glare. “We’ll talk out here.”
“Are you R. Bolton?”
“He’s my father. I’m his assistant, Miss Madeline Bolton.” She adjusted her grip on the handle of her bag. Strands of brown hair were caught in the clasp. “Who are you and what do you want?”
“We’re also private detectives. This is Miss Fox and I’m Harry Armitage.”
“Armitage! I’ve heard of you. You’ve solved some important murder cases since opening your agency.
My father and I are great admirers of your work.
” Her flawless cheeks turned pink as a shy smile touched her lips, which apparently Dr. Iverson found to be generous.
“You’re a marvelous detective, Mr. Armitage. So clever.”
“Miss Fox solved the murders with only a little input from me.”
He may as well not have spoken. She didn’t even acknowledge me. “May I ask you something? How do you manage to find such interesting investigations? We seem to get lumped with lost cats and cheating spouses.”
“There is a lot of that, but the murders seem to find us, not the other way around.” Harry cleared his throat. “Is Duncan Hamlin your client?”
“No.”
“We saw you near his workshop.”
She once again glanced at the door of the P.I. firm. “I should speak with my father.”
I blocked her path as she tried to move past me and plucked the hair out of the clasp of her bag.
I dangled it from my fingers. “You carry a brown wig in there to hide your natural red hair, but I suspect if we asked Dr. Iverson if he recognized you now, he would say you were the new patient who’d insisted on using the Electro Therapy Machine at her first appointment.
If we asked his nurse and receptionist if they recognized you, I think they would also say you were that patient, and that you returned later the same day looking for your glove.
I may not know you, Miss Bolton, but I am quite sure you don’t have a nervous condition that required a session on the machine. ”
Still, she hesitated. She was a very stubborn woman.
“Duncan Hamlin is your client, isn’t he? We saw you outside his workshop,” I went on. “Did he hire your father to steal a key to Dr. Iverson’s rooms?”
Her lips parted with her silent gasp.
“You weren’t as subtle as you thought you were,” I said.
“Miss Bolton,” Harry said firmly, “if Duncan Hamlin is the murderer, then you are an accessory.”
She gave in, but I sensed reluctance. “He hired my father to discover precisely where Dr. Iverson kept his machine, and to find a way into his rooms after hours. My father gave the assignment to me, since the clinic specializes in female conditions. I insisted on using the machine so I could see where and how it was stored. After my appointment, I saw the key on the reception desk and took it. I had a copy made then returned the original. I passed on the copy to Mr. Hamlin that very same day.”
“Why would he want access to the machine if not to tamper with it?” Harry asked.
“He simply wanted to break it to inconvenience the doctor and make the manufacturer seem incompetent. He was going to return every week or so and break it again and again, so that eventually the doctor would stop using the Electro Therapy Machine and instead purchase his revitalizer device. Mr. Hamlin used to work for the Medical Electrical Company, you see, but he went out on his own and has a superior product that he plans to market soon. He’s convinced that once the medical profession discovers his version, they’ll be impressed.
Dr. Iverson is well connected within the medical community and has been vocal in his support for the Electro Therapy Machine. ”
“Did you know Mr. Hamlin left the Medical Electrical Company under a cloud?” I asked. “He and the owner, Mr. Reid, had a falling out with Mr. Reid blaming him for stealing his ideas. Mr. Hamlin felt unappreciated by his former employer.”
Miss Bolton glanced at Harry. “Is that true?”
He nodded.
“I’m sure Mr. Hamlin never intended to harm anyone,” she went on.
“And yet a woman is dead,” I said.
“He’s a nice, unassuming man.”
“In our experience, nice people are capable of murder,” Harry said.
She shifted her weight from foot to foot. “I will admit that it’s not beyond the realms of possibility that he might want to destroy his former employer, but to do so by murdering an innocent woman…that’s monstrous.”
“Are you quite sure he didn’t know Isabel Kempsey?” I asked. It wasn’t just a question for Miss Bolton. It was for Harry and me, too.
“I’m sure.”
We had no further questions and thanked her.
“Wait,” she said. “Please don’t let my father know I spoke to you.
After he read about the murder in the papers, he became worried about our involvement, but I assured him my disguise was perfect and that my real identity wouldn’t be uncovered.
I’m somewhat embarrassed that you found me so quickly, and he’d be furious.
He already thinks women shouldn’t be detectives, but I convinced him to hire me.
” A shadow passed over her pretty face. “My brother used to work for our father, but he died and…and now Father just has me.”
Harry gave her a sympathetic nod. “Perhaps don’t use identifiable places in your false name next time, nor choose an address in a street near your office.”
She chewed her lower lip before releasing it.
“Thank you for the advice. I’m still quite new at this, but I’m a very quick learner, and very willing to do everything required of me in an investigation.
Mr. Armitage, this may be bold of me, but no woman got anywhere by being demure.
If you need another assistant then please do consider me.
I don’t want to work for my father for long. ”
“Miss Fox isn’t my assistant; she’s my partner. I’ll keep you in mind if we have more work than we can handle.” He touched the brim of his hat in a polite farewell, then made a rather obvious point of offering me his arm.
I didn’t think it a very professional thing to do in front of a rival private detective, but given Miss Bolton may have been admiring Harry for more than his investigative skill, I took his arm anyway.
“Do you think she spoke the truth?” I asked him, once we were some distance away.
“I don’t see why she would lie. She wouldn’t want to risk being an accessory to murder if Duncan Hamlin turns out to be guilty.”
Indeed.
I glanced over my shoulder, but Miss Bolton had moved on. She wasn’t continuing in the direction she’d been heading in when we caught up to her, however. She was re-entering her father’s office.
The door to Duncan Hamlin’s office and workshop was locked. He may have gone out, or he may have been warned by Miss Bolton that we might call on him. When I shared my thoughts with Harry, he agreed she may have telephoned him.
He stepped away from the door, tipped his head back, and peered up at the open window on the first floor. “Let’s try around the back. There’s probably a door leading directly into the workshop from the lane or a courtyard.”
“And if it’s locked, too?”
“We wait.”
A short lane led us to the back of the row of shops, including Mr. Hamlin’s.
The gate’s lock was broken, but if Mr. Hamlin was inside, he would have heard our arrival thanks to the squeaking hinge.
The courtyard was paved with the same red bricks as the building.
The door to the outhouse stood ajar, but the door to the workshop was closed.
Harry tried it only to discover it, too, was locked. No one answered his knock.
I huffed out a frustrated breath.
Harry merely smiled at me. “Do you want to pick the lock or shall I?”
“I thought you said we’d wait.”
“We will. Inside.” He removed his lockpicking tools from his pocket and got to work on the lock.
At that moment, the door opened from the other side. Upon seeing us, Duncan Hamlin emitted a yelp and tried to shut the door. Harry put his shoulder to it and forced it open.
I entered behind him. “Have something to hide, Mr. Hamlin?”
The inventor backed up until he hit a long desk covered with sketched plans of mechanical devices.
Without taking his gaze off Harry, he slipped around the desk to the other side.
“I, er, of course not. I simply have too many things to do and I know talking to you both will take up my time.” From the way he eyed Harry carefully, I suspected he thought he needed protecting from him.