Page 45 of Murder on Harley Street
“The note said to meet at a particular address on Regent Street,” I said. “Mr. Armitage and I went there at the appointed time, but no one showed up. It later came to our attention that the address was directly opposite a venue where men can meet in private.”
“Do you mean a gentleman’s club?” Miss Wainsmith asked. “The doctor belongs to one. What of it?” She blinked innocently back at me.
“It’s not a gentleman’s club.”
The more worldly Sister Dearden understood my meaning. “Are you suggesting Dr. Iverson has relationships with other men?”
Miss Wainsmith gasped and her cheeks pinked. “What utter nonsense! Miss Fox, I can assure you, he isnotthat way inclined. Is he, Sister?”
“Indeed not. Not that I am aware of, at least.” There was a note of amusement in Sister Dearden’s response.
Not Miss Wainsmith’s, however. She was furious on her employer’s behalf. “That is a most offensive suggestion, Miss Fox. You ought to be ashamed of yourself for even thinking it. You’ve met him, after all. He is very masculine, and very popular with women. Indeed, I’ve never even seen him look at a man in the sort of way you’re implying. Not even Mr. Armitage here, and he is a particularly handsome man. If the doctor were interested in men, Mr. Armitage would certainly be worthy of a longing gaze, but I didn’t see anything of the sort.”
Was her denial too vehement for a mere employee? Could she be defending her lover?
Harry cleared his throat. Suddenly realizing she’d exposed her own thoughts on Harry’s looks, Miss Wainsmith flushed even redder. She busied herself with the paperwork on the desk.
A somewhat amused Sister Dearden turned to the filing cabinet to slip the last patient’s file into a drawer.
Miss Wainsmith’s protest may have been vehement, but I tended to agree with her. If Dr. Iverson liked men, he would have taken particular notice of Harry. Harry was a man worthy of more than one look. But there’d been no lingering gazes. Was the meeting place’s proximity to the Café Royal important at all? More importantly, who had written the letter? Miss Wainsmith had claimed not to have seen it, but if the note was delivered to the clinic, it would have passed through her hands and into the doctor’s, so perhaps it wasn’t sent to the clinic at all.
I was about to press Miss Wainsmith again when Harry brought up the subject of the missing key. “You were right and it was the woman you saw return later claiming to look for her missing glove.”
Sister Dearden closed the filing cabinet drawer with a bang. “I knew it! Did she make a copy?”
I removed the key Mr. Reid had given me from my bag. “She did, then returned your original key while pretending to search for her glove.” I set the key on the desk.
Miss Wainsmith flipped the pages back through the appointment book. “Mary Linton, her name was. Very suspicious of her, we were. Weren’t we, Sister? She just wasn’t the typical sort of patient we get here.”
“Have you informed the police?” Sister Dearden asked.
“Not yet,” Harry said.
“Why not? She stole my key andmusthave come in and tampered with the Electro Therapy Machine before Mrs. Kempsey died. You’ve solved the case, Mr. Armitage.”
“But why would she kill her?” Miss Wainsmith asked. “Was she in love with Dr. Iverson, too? Was it jealousy?”
“That would be my guess.”
“It would be an incorrect guess,” I said. “The woman’s name is not Mary Linton and she wasn’t having an affair with the doctor, or wanting to start a relationship with him. She may blame him for the death of her sister.”
“He hasn’t killed anyone!” Miss Wainsmith cried.
Sister Dearden didn’t deny it, however. “Who was her sister?”
“Mrs. Edith Hamlin,” Harry said.
“I’ve never heard of her,” Miss Wainsmith said.
“She died last year.”
Sister Dearden’s brow furrowed in thought. “I remember her. Her death rocked Dr. and Mrs. Iverson, but it wasn’t unexpected. Mrs. Hamlin came to us looking for a cure for a delicate constitution, but it turned out that her fragility was the result of an underlying disease.”
“Rose Bolton—the real name of the woman calling herself Mary Linton—blames Dr. Iverson for not detecting the disease.”
“There was nothing anyone could have done for her. As I recall, she was prescribed a tonic to keep her comfortable.”
“Nerve Elixir?” I asked. “It contains an addictive amount of cocaine.”
