Page 69 of Murder on Harley Street
We walked on in silence, each with our hands buried in our coat pockets, collars up to protect our necks from the breeze whipping along the empty street.
After several moments, Harry broke the silence. “You’re right. There’s a very good chance she blames Dr. Iverson for not curing her. That’s a motive to ruin him.”
“And the connection to Isabel Kempsey?”
He shrugged. “I can’t see one, except that she was the doctor’s lover and Miss Wainsmith might think that killing her would punish him. Or she didn’t know about Mrs. Kempsey’s heart condition and didn’t think tampering with the machine would do anything to her other than give her a nasty jolt.”
“It’s unlikely she has any electric knowledge,” I pointed out. We’d meant to ask her but forgot. If she were guilty, she would have lied anyway.
“True. But we have to consider her as a suspect. We’ll interrogate her tomorrow morning. It’s Saturday and she won’t be at work. We can call on her before Lombardi’s presentation begins.”
I could tell from his tone that he wasn’t looking forward to the conversation. Neither was I. Nor did I want Miss Wainsmith to be the murderer, because she was dying and blamed the doctor for not helping her.
But if she was dying, then perhaps she didn’t care what happened to her now. Perhaps she was prepared to risk being hanged to get revenge on Dr. Iverson by murdering the woman she thought he loved.
Chapter14
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?”
