Chapter 14
Now that I knew about her illness, I saw Miss Wainsmith differently. She wasn’t merely pale, she was deathly pale. She wasn’t just slim, she was gaunt. Although she put on a smile in greeting, it was tight at the edges, as if she were in pain.
It was early and she’d come from the dining room where she must have joined the other lodgers for breakfast. She carried a teacup with her. It didn’t contain tea, however, just milk.
“Does that help?” I asked, indicating the cup as we sat in the parlor.
She blinked huge eyes at me. “Pardon?”
“Milk is sometimes given to sooth diseases of the stomach.”
She pressed a hand to her middle, only to quickly move it away again. “It helps a little. How did you know?”
We weren’t prepared to tell her we broke into the clinic, so we didn’t answer. Instead, Harry continued with the line of questioning I’d begun. “How long is Dr. Iverson going to continue with your current course of treatment?”
She simply shrugged.
“Perhaps that’s a question you should ask him,” I said.
“I don’t understand. If a different course of treatment is required, he hasn’t said as much to me. I’m sure he’ll mention it if it becomes necessary, but hopefully it won’t. The laudanum in particular is helping.”
“It’s merely masking the pain,” Harry went on. “It’s not curing you.”
She swallowed and glanced at the doorway.
“Have you discussed this with anyone else?” I asked. “Your family or friends?”
“I don’t have any good friends here in London, and I’m not close to my family.”
“What about Sister Dearden?”
She glanced at the doorway again. “She’s been very good to me. She answers all my questions and advises me on medicines and so forth. It was she who told me not to bother with the Electro Therapy Machine.”
“Why not?” Harry asked.
Miss Wainsmith placed her fingers to her lips and cast another guilty look at the doorway.
“I probably shouldn’t say, so please don’t tell anyone I told you, but she claims the machine doesn’t cure anything.
It simply gives the patient a nice tingling sensation at the point where the discs touch the skin.
The patient feels as though the machine is doing something, but it really isn’t. ”
“Has she ever said that to Dr. Iverson?” I asked.
Miss Wainsmith shook her head vigorously.
“She’d never say anything like that to him!
She regards him very highly in all other things.
The device is merely one treatment he offers.
I should also add that she values her position too much, and he is such a nice man.
She only said it to me because she didn’t want me wasting my time. ”
“You believe her?”
“I do. Sister Dearden is very caring and an extremely dedicated nurse.”
“And yet she works for a doctor whose treatments she doesn’t believe in,” I said.
“I told you, it’s just the one treatment.
Don’t think poorly of her for not telling him her thoughts on the machine.
She simply doesn’t want to upset him. A harmonious working environment is best for everyone.
Sister Dearden enjoys her work at the clinic.
The good wages and easy hours allow her to see unfortunate women in her spare time without charging them.
If she were in a hospital, she’d be overworked and underpaid, and those poor souls who come to see her wouldn’t have anyone. ”
“They come here?” I asked.
“Mostly, although sometimes she visits them. One is with her now.”
A thought struck me, but I needed to discuss it with Harry before I went upstairs to confront Sister Dearden. Harry’s mind was on something else, however.
“I’ll find a new doctor for you,” he said to Miss Wainsmith.
“I don’t need a new one. Dr. Iverson is one of the best. If he can’t cure me, no one can.”
“Perhaps so, but a second opinion can’t hurt. I don’t have a name yet, but I’ll get it by the end of the weekend.”
“Very well, but I don’t think anything more can be done for me. Dr. Iverson is doing everything he can. Anyway, the laudanum helps…” Her bony fingers twisted in her lap and she looked away.
Once outside, I asked Harry if he planned to ask Mr. Hobart for a name. The hotel manager knew everyone of note in the city, including the names of the best doctors, not just the ones everyone thought were the best.
Harry confirmed it but added a grim point. “Miss Wainsmith may need a surgeon. Sometimes the only way to find out what’s going on inside a body is to take a look.”
It was a troubling thought. She was so young.
Harry looked over his shoulder at the lodging house door. “What do you think about Sister Dearden’s opinion on the Electro Therapy Machine?”
“It makes me wonder if she thinks the doctor’s other treatments don’t work, which leads me to wonder if he has ever misdiagnosed a friend of hers.
Perhaps she wants revenge for that misdiagnosis.
I wonder if Edith Hamlin or Mrs. Pierce was that friend.
Just because we don’t know of a connection between her and either of them doesn’t mean there isn’t one. ”
Harry clicked his fingers. “What if her lover died as a result of Dr. Iverson’s malpractice?”
I gasped, as the implication struck me. “You think she’s sapphic, too? That she wrote the anonymous note to Mrs. Iverson?”
Harry looked at the lodging house again. “Do you want to ask her?”
I gave it serious consideration before shaking my head.
“Not yet. If she’s guilty of tampering with the machine to get revenge on Dr. Iverson, we won’t get a straight answer from her.
She’s not going to admit she killed Isabel Kempsey, even if it was an accident.
Nor do I think it’s a good idea to let her know we’re fishing for more information.
Let’s ask the doctor if Sister Dearden has ever questioned his methods.
If they’ve argued over the death of a patient in the past, and if we can prove that patient was her lover, then we have solid evidence.
It might be enough to convince Forrester to release Hamlin and arrest her. ”
Harry checked the time on his watch. “We’ll need to be quick.”
We found Dr. Iverson strolling along a path strewn with fallen leaves in the garden square near his house, his hands clasped behind him.
He seemed to be deep in thought. I was glad he was alone.
The previous discussion we’d had with his wife had been awkward, and I didn’t want to bring up the possibility of Sister Dearden’s sapphic tendencies in front of her.
Harry had no such qualms mentioning it to Dr. Iverson, however. “Has she ever recommended a particularly good friend see you, and that woman subsequently became your patient?”
“No. Never. Why?”
Not put off, Harry tried a different question. “Was she close to any of your patients?”
“Close?”
“Lovers.”
“Good lord, no! That would be highly unethical. Besides, she isn’t like that. She doesn’t have relationships with women.”
“Are you sure?”
He gave Harry an arch look. “I know when a woman is interested in me, Mr. Armitage.”
“Are you implying she has flirted with you?”
“I am and she has.” Dr. Iverson rocked back on his heels, seemingly rather pleased to tell us he’d captured another female heart.
“It was at the end of a particularly trying day, after Miss Wainsmith had gone home. I was tired and frustrated, and Sister Dearden cheered me up. She was very flattering about my…” He cleared his throat as he glanced at me.
“My attributes. She invited me for a drink, but I turned her down. She’s my employee. It wouldn’t be appropriate.”
Apparently it was quite all right for him to have a relationship with his patients, however.
I was somewhat disappointed that our theory was extinguished so soon after we’d come up with it, but Harry wasn’t giving up yet. “Has she ever confronted you over a diagnosis, accusing you of making a mistake?”
“No.”
“She has never disagreed with you over a patient’s treatment?”
“Never. Mr. Armitage, what are you getting at? Do you think Sister Dearden has something to do with Isabel’s murder?”
“We’re exploring a theory.”
“Then I hope my answers have proved it to be wrong, because she isn’t a murderess. Nor is she sapphic. Sister Dearden may be somewhat unfeminine in nature, but it’s not fair to paint her as a lover of women simply because she’s unwed and plain.”
Harry’s jaw firmed. “I assure you, we weren’t.”
Weren’t we? Perhaps we had tried to fit her into that particular mold.
Perhaps we’d believed the cliché that a direct woman lacking feminine qualities must not be interested in romance with a man.
Although I liked to think of myself as an unprejudiced person, making assumptions about people was a necessary part of being a detective.
I just needed to be more aware of making judgments that weren’t clichéd.
If Harry felt similarly chastised, he didn’t show it. He forged on with his interrogation. “We know Miss Wainsmith has been taking time off from work because of her illness.”
Dr. Iverson frowned at Harry then me. “Did she happen to tell you what she believes is the cause?”
Since he was still looking at me when he asked the question, I answered. “She doesn’t know the cause, and assumes you don’t, either. Are you suggesting you do, or that she should?”
“Ah. This is awkward. Patient confidentiality and all that.”
“I don’t understand. Why haven’t you told Miss Wainsmith the name of her disease?”
“Because I don’t believe she has a disease. I believe she may be with child and doesn’t want to admit it.”
I drew in a sharp breath. It was not something I’d considered. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Harry rub his jaw. “Are you saying you don’t know?” I asked the doctor.
“I did examine her, but it would have been very early in the pregnancy as she’d only just begun to have symptoms. There’s a good chance she didn’t even know herself. That was a mere three months ago. Some women don’t show until four or five, particularly with their first.”