Page 68 of Murder on Harley Street
“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 lightof 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 handwritingisthe 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.”
