Chapter 13 #2
I insisted we arrive separately at the hotel, just in case Uncle Ronald or Floyd were in the foyer and grew suspicious if we arrived together.
They weren’t, and I found them in the ballroom.
The large space was set up for Mr. Lombardi’s presentation with chairs placed in rows in front of a low platform where he would stand to speak.
Tables were arranged behind the chairs with bottles of the tonics and pills his company manufactured, as well as glassware for the participants to sample each one.
Brass plaques declared the name for each medicine—Soothing Syrup, Toothache Drops, Paralyxia Pills, Snake Oil Liniment, and Hair Restorer Quinine.
Beside the plaques were stacks of leaflets extolling the virtues of the medicines.
Harry arrived shortly after me. We spoke briefly, as it would look odd if we didn’t talk at all, then he joined Peter and Goliath.
Unlike the last meeting, this one did not contain just the heads of each department, although some where present.
It was for the front-of-house staff whose job it would be to stop Mr. Pierce entering the hotel.
I stood near the back as Harry described Mr. Pierce’s appearance.
After he finished, Harmony went through the details of the extra security she’d hired, and where she wanted everyone to stand and which part of the foyer they ought to monitor.
Finally, she made sure everyone knew what to do if Mr. Pierce did show.
Since it didn’t directly involve me, I found my attention drifting back to the investigation.
Once it was over, I joined Peter, Frank and Goliath as they headed to the staff parlor for a short break.
A nice cup of tea would do wonders to help me sort fact from fiction, but going over the evidence with them would be even better.
They wanted to know my personal thoughts on Mr. Pierce first, however. “Do you really think he’ll storm in here and cause a scene?” Peter asked as he handed me a teacup.
“I do, yes. He’s angry, sad and a drunkard. I believe he feels he has nothing to lose.”
“A volatile combination indeed.”
Frank cracked his knuckles. “I dare him to try and get past me.”
Goliath rolled his eyes. “It’s me he won’t get past. No one can beat the giant of the Mayfair.”
“Nobody calls you that.”
“People do.”
“No, they don’t.”
Peter made a good point, however. “You could be elsewhere at the time, Goliath, moving guests’ luggage. You might not be in the foyer when Pierce arrives.”
Goliath looked disappointed at the possibility of missing out on the excitement.
“If there’s luggage to move, I’ll send the other porter.
” He selected a biscuit from one of the tins and placed it on his palm then dipped his hand back into the tin to get another.
“It’s better if I stay downstairs on account of being a big man.
” He added another two biscuits to the pile and went to get more.
Frank slapped Goliath’s hand away from the tin. “You’ve had enough.”
“You calling me fat, Frank?”
Frank looked pointedly at Goliath’s stomach region, which seemed flat to me.
“Enough, you two,” Peter growled.
“You’re not in charge of us,” Frank snapped back.
“Actually, I am. Besides, Miss Fox doesn’t want to hear you bickering.”
“That’s true,” I said.
Peter shot me a grateful look.
“I have a question for you all,” I said before the bickering resumed. “Actually, it’s more of an opinion. If I apprise you of our investigation, can you tell me what you think we should do next? We’ve come to a bit of a dead end.”
All three gave me their full attention as I laid out the evidence against Duncan Hamlin. “Although we have other suspects with motives, he has the greatest knowledge of the device, and a motive for revenge against both Dr. Iverson and Isabel Kempsey.”
Goliath nodded along, but Frank shook his head. “Being the one to recommend Mrs. Hamlin visit the doctor isn’t a strong enough reason to kill Mrs. Kempsey. Seems to me he should have killed the doctor.”
“Miss Fox said he wouldn’t have known about her heart condition,” Goliath pointed out. “So maybe he didn’t intend to kill anyone, just cause a lot of bother.”
Peter was yet to give his opinion. He studied his biscuit as he dunked it into his cup of tea. When he lifted it out, tea dripped back into the cup, the biscuit forgotten. “The husbands and sisters of both Mrs. Kempsey and Mrs. Hamlin deny a connection between the women.”
“They stated they didn’t know of one,” I said, “but one or more could be lying.”
“I think you need to know for certain if they were acquaintances.”
“The doctor wrote Isabel Kempsey’s name on Mrs. Hamlin’s file, so they must be.”
“Did you see it?”
“Yes.” I sat up straighter. “But we didn’t verify it. What if Dr. Iverson added it later, after the death, to make it appear as though there’s a connection?
“Or someone else did,” Goliath added. “Someone could have faked his handwriting.”
“Thank you, all of you. I now have a plan.”
The door opened and Harry entered. “I thought I’d find you in here, Cleo.”
“Good timing.” I indicated the teapot. “Pour yourself a cup of tea and sit down. I have a plan.”
Peter, Goliath and Frank returned to work, leaving Harry and me alone in the staff parlor.
Although it was an odd place for a family member of the owner and a former employee to meet, at least it wasn’t in the privacy of my suite.
If caught in there, my reputation would be damaged and Harry would incur Uncle Ronald’s wrath.
Once Harry was seated with tea and a biscuit, I told him my plan for the evening.
He put up the usual level of resistance to my involvement in nocturnal sleuthing—which was to say it was halfhearted—then finally gave in with a sigh.
He knew I wouldn’t be excluded. We agreed to meet at the kitchen service entrance of the hotel at midnight, me with a lamp and he with his lockpicking tools.
“Make sure none of the staff see you,” I told him. “I don’t want anyone reporting to Uncle Ronald that you and I snuck out of the hotel together.”
He grunted. “At least then he’d know we’re together and we could end this pretense. I know I agreed to it, but it’s already becoming wearisome.”
“It will end when the time is right,” I said gently. “When he realizes you are my equal.”
“I know, but…what if that day never comes, Cleo?”
“It will.” I collected his empty teacup and placed it on top of mine. With my free hand, I caressed his jaw. “It will.”
By the light of a portable oil lamp, we inspected Edith Hamlin’s medical file.
The untidy handwriting referencing Isabel Kempsey matched some of the medical notes on the rest of her file, but not all.
The initial personal information was written in one hand, the diagnosis in another, and monthly updates on her weight and other measurements were noted in a third style.
“The receptionist wrote the name and address,” I said, pointing to the relevant lines on the first page.
“I presume Dr. Iverson wrote the diagnosis and what he prescribed, and Sister Dearden must have written Mrs. Hamlin’s weight and other comments during each appointment.
The individual letters of Isabel Kempsey’s scrawled name matched the doctor’s handwriting. ”
Harry removed another file from the cabinet at random and opened it. “The handwriting also matches the doctor’s diagnosis in this one.” He returned the file and put out his hand to accept Edith Hamlin’s.
I shuffled the papers together to re-pin them with the Gem paperclip but couldn’t find it. I must have dropped it. By the light of the lamp, I searched the vicinity, but it wasn’t on the desk surface or the floor. One of us must have accidentally kicked it under the desk.
When I still couldn’t find it, Harry suggested getting another one. “Miss Wainsmith probably keeps a box in the desk drawer.”
I opened the top drawer and moved aside some medical bottles and paper packets to search for the clips.
Harry joined me and picked out one of the bottles. He read the label. “Laudanum.” He picked up another bottle and one of the packets. “This tonic contains gentian root and some other herbs. This powder contains sodium bicarbonate.”
“Is Miss Wainsmith ill?”
Harry returned to the filing drawer and searched through them. “She has a file.”
I peered over his shoulder and read Dr. Iverson’s diagnosis. “‘Stomach complaint’. That’s rather vague.”
Harry pointed to the symptoms. “Abdominal pain, occasional vomiting after eating, weight loss and pale complexion.”
“She is very thin and looks tired,” I said.
“According to these notes, she has been losing weight every week for the past several weeks. The vomiting began three months ago and the abdominal pain shortly after that.”
“I’ve noticed she often touches her stomach. Sometimes it’s just a little flutter of her hand near her abdomen. She has had time off work recently, too. It seems the medicines aren’t working.”
We returned the bottles and packets and found a box of spare Gem paperclips. Slipping one onto the top of the papers, we returned both Edith Hamlin’s and Miss Wainsmith’s files to the cabinet. Moments later, Harry relocked the clinic door and we slipped away into the crisp autumn night.
“The handwriting is the same as Dr. Iverson’s,” I said as we walked.
Harry didn’t respond. His head was tilted down, as if he was studying the pavement at his feet, but I couldn’t see his face well under his hat. I suspected I knew the direction of his thoughts, however.
“You think Miss Wainsmith blames Dr. Iverson for not curing her,” I said.
He looked sharply at me. “We don’t know if she’s dying.”
“I truly hope she isn’t, and that it’s simply a complaint she’ll recover from.
But the signs aren’t good, Harry. The dramatic weight loss, the inability to keep down food, stomach pains so terrible she needs several tonics and powders to get her through and yet she still takes time off work.
I don’t know what it could be, but it has been going on for months. ”
We walked on in silence, each with our hands buried in our coat pockets, collars up to protect our necks from the breeze whipping along the empty street.
After several moments, Harry broke the silence. “You’re right. There’s a very good chance she blames Dr. Iverson for not curing her. That’s a motive to ruin him.”
“And the connection to Isabel Kempsey?”
He shrugged. “I can’t see one, except that she was the doctor’s lover and Miss Wainsmith might think that killing her would punish him. Or she didn’t know about Mrs. Kempsey’s heart condition and didn’t think tampering with the machine would do anything to her other than give her a nasty jolt.”
“It’s unlikely she has any electric knowledge,” I pointed out. We’d meant to ask her but forgot. If she were guilty, she would have lied anyway.
“True. But we have to consider her as a suspect. We’ll interrogate her tomorrow morning. It’s Saturday and she won’t be at work. We can call on her before Lombardi’s presentation begins.”
I could tell from his tone that he wasn’t looking forward to the conversation. Neither was I. Nor did I want Miss Wainsmith to be the murderer, because she was dying and blamed the doctor for not helping her.
But if she was dying, then perhaps she didn’t care what happened to her now. Perhaps she was prepared to risk being hanged to get revenge on Dr. Iverson by murdering the woman she thought he loved.