Page 37 of Murder on Harley Street
Private detectives sometimes had to disguise themselves while investigating and the one thing we knew about Mary Linton was that she’d put on a wig to cover her distinctive red hair. She was trying to be unobtrusive, to blend in, perhaps so no one would notice her when she stole Sister’s Dearden’s key then returned to the clinic at the end of the day to put it back, using the excuse that she’d left her glove behind. Few ladies left the house without gloves, and if she did, she’d notice immediately, not hours later. All of those points added up to suspicious behavior, and happening mere days before Isabel Kempsey’s murder made the woman even more suspicious.
But how was a private detective involved in the murder of a woman at a medical clinic?
It wasn’t until a slim redhead left the office carrying a bag that the pieces began to fit into place. “It’s her. Come on, Harry, let’s confront her before she disappears.”
He fell into step beside me as we crossed the street. “How do you know that’s the woman calling herself Mary Linton?”
“Do you see her bag?” The leather handbag wasn’t as large as a doctor’s medical case, but it was quite big. Few women carried one that large on their everyday outings. It was too unwieldy. It was the sort of bag a woman who worked in an office carried with her, a little like Mr. Hobart’s satchel that he used to carry paperwork to and from the hotel.
“What about it?” Harry asked.
“A woman who caught the omnibus outside Duncan Hamlin’s workshop carried the same bag. She had her wig on then, I think, but it’s definitely the same bag.” We were only a few steps behind the woman now. “Excuse me,” I called out. “May we have a word?”
She glanced over her shoulder, gasped, and ran off.
Chapter8
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?”
