Page 49 of Murder on Harley Street
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 thedoctorfor 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.”
