“I really don’t know where to start. I can’t help thinking that I’ve imagined the whole thing!”
A young lady detective was sitting with me and my husband in our front room, her hands fidgeting in her lap. Brown-haired with a freckled complexion, she wore a burgundy-plaid day dress.
“It’s all very strange,” she continued. “Will you promise to believe me?”
“I’m not certain we can promise that until you’ve told us what it relates to, Mrs Worthers,” responded James.
“Of course we’ll believe you,” I said, giving my husband a sharp glance. I had encountered this particular detective on a few previous occasions and knew her well enough to feel that I could trust her.
“The police don’t believe me. They looked at me as though I had lost my mind when I told them my story. I’m coming to you because I really don’t know whom else to speak to about it.”
I poured out the tea and handed her a cup. “We’re happy to listen without any judgement, Mrs Worthers.”
“Thank you.” She took the cup from me. “And please call me Beth.”
I smiled. “Call me Penny. What’s happened, Beth?”
“Two months ago I began working for Mr Charles Hamilton. He’s an Egyptologist.”
“How interesting!” I exclaimed.
“His wife is also an Egyptologist, but Mr Hamilton was my employer. Without his wife’s knowledge, I might add.”
“Did he want you to spy on her?” queried James.
“Yes. He suspected that she was committing adultery with his assistant.”
“And was she?” asked James, his eyebrows raised in curiosity.
“Stop interrupting Beth’s story,” I scolded. “We’ll find out in due course.”
“Very well. I’m certainly interested to know more.”
Beth gave an uneasy sigh. “Much of my work involves this sort of investigation. I’m forced to be a little duplicitous, I’m afraid. The husband often asks me to befriend the wife and discover whether or not she has been unfaithful to him, and this is what I was instructed to do for Mr Hamilton. I can’t claim to like the man, but he offered me good money, which was much-needed at the time. I have therefore spent the past few months befriending his wife.”
“How did you even begin to do that?” I asked.
“I joined the Ancient Egypt Society as an enthusiastic new member, Beth Somers, and developed friendships with a number of the ladies there. As luck would have it, Susan Hamilton and I got on extremely well. We lunched together regularly, and she told me all about her adventures in Egypt with her husband. The pair only recently returned to England after spending three years there. She adores the place and said she was looking forward to returning this coming winter.”
“Impressive,” said James. “But how do you do it? How were you able to forge a friendship with Mrs Hamilton, pretending to be someone else, without letting your cover slip?”
“Most of my work is undercover,” she replied. “You’ve been placed in similar situations yourself, Penny, have you not?”
“Yes, I have done some undercover work, but to be able to keep it up for several weeks, months even, must be challenging work.”
Beth gave an appreciative smile. “Yes, it is. And this case has been particularly challenging, for reasons I’ll explain now.”
“What do we know about Mr Hamilton’s assistant, with whom she was supposedly committing adultery?” asked James.
“His name is Mr John Smollett; a charming young chap of African descent. Susan Hamilton is also young. I mention this because Mr Hamilton is quite a bit older. Almost twenty years older than his wife, I should think.”
“But the charming assistant is the same age as Mrs Hamilton, is he?” asked James.
“Yes. And there is an undeniable attraction between the two. It also became apparent to me fairly swiftly that Susan was unhappy in her marriage. Mr Hamilton is rather a loud, brash man, and his manners tend to be quite coarse when he’s had a drink. To be quite frank with you, the pair are poorly matched. I can’t imagine why Susan’s family approved the marriage. She’s young and well educated, while I’m not convinced that he comes from a particularly good family, nor that he received a thorough education as a boy. However, he has acquired a good deal of knowledge about ancient Egypt and its artefacts in recent years. I suppose their shared love of the country is what brought the couple together.”
My cat, Tiger, strolled confidently into the room, stopping abruptly when she noticed the unknown woman sitting on the settee. She lowered her body and swiftly trotted over to the window.
“What a lovely cat,” said Beth. “Is she scared of me?”
“Just wary,” I replied as Tiger jumped onto the windowsill and surveyed us. “Did you find any evidence that Mrs Hamilton was committing adultery with Mr Smollett?”
“It was soon apparent that they were fond of one another, although I never managed to determine whether or not that fondness had extended into an extramarital affair. Events rather took over, you see.”
“What happened?” I asked.
“A few things, actually. Firstly, the whole situation began to feel very wrong to me. I had grown to like Susan Hamilton a great deal, and I began to feel ashamed that I was lying to her. I’ve worked on a number of similar cases but have never harboured such a sentiment before. I’ve always managed to maintain a facade and distance myself from the situation. On many occasions I have found the people I’ve spied on quite unpleasant, so I had no qualms about spying on them, but I had great sympathy for Susan. Her husband can be quite the bully, and I actually felt she deserved a bit of happiness with Mr Smollett. Therefore, I resolved to tell Mr Hamilton that I no longer wished to work on the case. For the first time in my career, I decided to leave the job unfinished.”
“What did he make of that?” asked James.
“There was no opportunity to find out, as it was then that things took a very strange turn indeed.”
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