Chapter 10
Harry wasn’t against breaking and entering the premises of our suspects, but he didn’t want me to be the one doing it.
He wanted me to keep watch outside Duncan Hamlin’s office while he searched through the late Mrs. Hamlin’s personal effects, but there was one problem standing in the way of that plan.
Duncan Hamlin didn’t leave the premises.
By three o’clock, I’d grown impatient. I came up with a new plan that involved Harry distracting Mr. Hamlin with technical questions about electricity and his inventions.
He agreed, albeit reluctantly. “I don’t want you up there for more than ten minutes, Cleo.
It will be difficult to keep him talking for much longer without him growing suspicious.
It’s a small place and Mrs. Hamlin’s effects will have been put away by now, so I suggest searching a cupboard.
In exactly ten minutes, you have to leave. Understood?”
“Perfectly.”
He removed my watch from my jacket pocket and checked it against his, then slipped it back into the pocket. “Meet me around the corner afterward. Ten minutes begins now.”
“I think it should begin once you’re in the workshop.”
Harry was already crossing the road and didn’t respond.
I watched through the window from a safe distance while he spoke to Duncan Hamlin.
The inventor’s face went from tired to enthused in a moment as he invited Harry into his workshop.
Whatever Harry had said worked. I suspected his own enthusiasm had been genuine, and Duncan had picked up on it.
It was the reason I’d suggested Harry be the one to talk to him.
I slipped into the office then up the staircase to the room above the office and workshop.
It was a small space, barely big enough for a bed, dressing table, two armchairs, and a cupboard.
An even smaller kitchenette contained the bare essentials.
Duncan Hamlin wasn’t one for cleaning the dishes.
They were piled up in the sink, the remnants of previous meals congealing on them.
I looked through the four dressing table drawers first, expecting to see only masculine items. But two of the drawers contained embroidered handkerchiefs bearing the initials E.H., as well as scarves, jewelry and a woman’s underthings. There were no diaries, letters or address books, however.
I softly closed the drawers and tiptoed across the floor to the cupboard, only to step on a loose board. It creaked under my weight. I froze. Listened.
When I heard no one charging up the stairs, I continued on, my heart pounding.
Once safely at the cupboard door, I searched through the hanging and folded garments inside.
As with the dressing table, Edith Hamlin’s effects were alongside her husband’s, as if she’d simply stepped out for the day and was expected to return later.
If it wasn’t for the dirty dishes in the kitchen, I’d have thought he still lived with a woman.
I rifled through coat pockets, but it was the reticules and bags that interested me more.
There were only three. I quickly dug through each one, setting aside handkerchiefs, combs, pins and coins.
I found one address book and one small notebook, the latter with a silver retractable pencil attached to a slim black ribbon that wrapped around the little book.
I quickly looked at the contents of each, but it was obvious I couldn’t study them in any depth in the time I had left. I popped them into my bag and left, careful to avoid the creaking floorboard.
I hurried away from Mr. Hamlin’s office and waited around the corner. Harry joined me moments later. “Did he suspect?” I asked.
“Only once, when he thought he heard something, but I distracted him with a question and he soon forgot about the noise. What about you? Any luck?”
I removed the notebook and address book from my bag. “If Edith knew Isabel, these should have some reference to her.”
Harry glanced back the way he’d come. “How do you plan on returning them without being seen?”
“By post, anonymously after the investigation concludes.”
We took a hansom to our next destination, reading through each book for any reference to Isabel Kempsey. We found none.
I slipped them back into my bag as the hansom drew to the curb a few doors down from Rose Bolton’s detective agency.
The distraction technique Harry used on Duncan Hamlin wouldn’t work on Rose Bolton, so this time we were forced to wait for her to leave. Fortunately she did a mere fifteen minutes after we arrived. She locked the office door behind her and strode away, head bent into the breeze.
I stood in such a way as to hide Harry from view while he used his lockpicking tools to unlock the door. He had the task completed in a much faster time that I would have, and we slipped inside, closing the door behind us.
Miss Bolton had drawn the curtains before she left, but there was enough light coming in around the edges to see by.
The small office was sparsely furnished, reminding me of Harry’s office space soon after he’d moved into it.
There were no pictures of a personal nature, nor any decorative touches that a woman would add to her home.
It was bland and businesslike. There were only two places to search—the desk and a crate that Miss Bolton used to store client files.
There were very few, however. Her business wasn’t doing well.
It didn’t take long before we completed our search. We were just about to leave when the door opened. Rose Bolton stood on the threshold, her hand on the door handle, and gasped upon seeing us.
“What are you two doing in here?”
I couldn’t think of an excuse. Nor could Harry, apparently. We both stood silently staring back at her.
She didn’t ask again. “Get out this instant or I’ll scream for the police.”
“You won’t scream,” Harry said calmly. “If you do, we’ll be forced to tell D.S. Forrester of Scotland Yard that you blame Dr. Iverson for not diagnosing your sister’s cancer. We’ll also tell him you stole a key to enter the clinic before the murder of Isabel Kempsey.”
“They won’t believe I’m guilty. Duncan and I blame the doctor for Edith’s death, not Mrs. Kempsey. Neither of us would harm her to punish him.”
There was no way to untangle ourselves from our predicament except to admit the truth. “We’ve learned of a connection between them,” I said. “One that gives you a motive.”
She frowned. “What connection?”
“Mrs. Kempsey recommended the doctor to your sister.”
“Nonsense.”
“Dr. Iverson wrote Isabel Kempsey’s name on Edith’s medical file.”
The frown deepened. “That’s not right. Edith first learned about the doctor when Duncan worked for the Medical Electrical Company.
The company supplied that ridiculous revitalizing device to Dr. Iverson.
Edith thought it was a marvelous invention that could cure her weak constitution.
She didn’t realize she had cancer. She made an appointment at Iverson’s clinic specifically so she could try that infernal machine, but no one recommended the clinic to her.
She went of her own accord.” She folded her arms and arched her brows, challenging.
Could we have misread the writing on Edith Hamlin’s file? It had been difficult to read, after all. But no, I’d read Isabel Kempsey’s name, as had Harry. Perhaps Edith had given her sister a different story, keeping Isabel’s name out of it altogether. But why?
“I can see what you’re thinking, Miss Fox,” Miss Bolton went on.
“I can assure you, my sister wouldn’t have misled me.
We were close. She told me everything.” She looked away, her lips pressed tightly together.
After she composed herself, she turned back to me.
“I suspect you won’t believe me, and nor should you.
It’s your job to be suspicious of everyone and every piece of information.
I suggest you speak to my brother-in-law and ask to see Edith’s personal effects.
He’ll have kept it all, every scrap of paper and jotted note she left behind in her little notebook.
If you can’t find Isabel Kempsey’s name in there, then you’ll know I’m telling the truth and they didn’t know each other. ”
I removed the address book and notebook from my bag. “We’ve already looked. Please return these to Mr. Hamlin.”
“You stole them!”
“Borrowed,” I said. “We would appreciate it if you didn’t tell him. We don’t want to upset him.”
She snatched them off me. “You’ve got a nerve.”
“As do you,” Harry reminded her.
“Yes. Well. It seems we’re alike.” Miss Bolton stepped aside, inviting us to leave.
The moment I stepped out of the office, she intercepted Harry behind me.
“You believed me when I said I worked for my father,” she told him. “Admit it, Mr. Armitage, I’m a good detective.”
“You’re a good actress,” he conceded. “You had me fooled.”
She smiled at his praise. “I may have lied about a few things that day, but I didn’t lie about wanting to work for you. I can do whatever is required of me, from typing to accompanying you when you interrogate suspects.”
“I have all the help I need.”
Miss Bolton’s smile froze as her gaze flicked to me and back. “Of course.”
“You shouldn’t give up yet.” Harry indicated the office. “Your business may well take off.”
She sighed. “Not unless I get some more interesting and high-profile cases, and who’ll give a woman those?”
“Perhaps you could team up with a man,” I said. “One you trust, who sees you as an equal partner and won’t take all the credit when you solve a case.”
“And where will I find that unicorn?” she bit off.
“I found one at a hotel, but good men are everywhere.”
“Not in my experience. And anyway, Miss Fox, you seem to forget that you haven’t received any public recognition for solving cases. Mr. Armitage has, but not you. It seems to me you’re not a team of equals, after all.”
“My situation requires me to stay in the background.”
“And if it didn’t?” she scoffed.