They followed Helen to the agency, parking carefully round the corner. “We’ll watch until she leaves,” said Hamish, “and then go in and see if we can find out what she was trying to find out.”
He peered round the corner, but after only a few moments, he said, “She’s out again. There’s a truck coming along. Tuck in behind it, Charlie, so she doesn’t see us.”
After a few streets, the truck turned off, leaving them feeling exposed. Charlie hung back before setting off again in pursuit. Finally Helen stopped outside a large villa on the outskirts. Again, Charlie parked around a corner. Hamish got out to discreetly watch the villa. Helen was inside for a quarter of an hour before coming out again and getting in her car.
“Right,” said Hamish. “Let’s go in and see if Betty is working there.”
It was Betty herself who answered the door. She looked at them in surprise as Hamish produced his warrant card and said they would like to speak to her.
“Only a few minutes,” said Betty. “I’ve just started work here and my gentleman will be wanting tea soon.”
She led them into a gloomy Victorian front parlour dominated by a large stuffed owl in a glass case. The room was cold and damp.
“We wondered why Helen Mackenzie called on you,” said Hamish.
“I’d been working for Colonel Halburton-Smythe,” said Betty. “Helen said she was tired of Mr. Harrison and wondered if the colonel would be needing a new nurse. I told her there seemed to be nothing up with him and he was all right now. She asked if the colonel had been curious about the murders and I told her everyone was. That’s all. I’ve really got to go.”
Hamish begged her to say nothing about their enquiries, and he and Charlie took their leave.
“I don’t like this at all,” said Hamish. “We’ve got to keep an eye on the colonel.”
They went back to Lochdubh and straight to the hotel to find the colonel triumphant with news. Mr. Harrison had phoned him and had decided to accept the colonel’s invitation to stay at the hotel.
“That nurse Helen had been asking questions about you,” said Hamish. “She may not hesitate to murder again.”
“Pooh! Charlie will look after me,” said the colonel.
But Hamish fretted. “There’s so many ways she could get at you. Poison, a blow on the head, anything.”
Mr. Harrison was allocated one of the large rooms on the ground floor. Its barred windows looked out over the back. Hamish saw that there were several laurel bushes outside the windows and decided to watch and see what happened when Helen was alone with her patient. If only, he thought, they had enough on her to get a search warrant. And yet her room at the hunting lodge had been searched twice along with all the other rooms.
He and Charlie were told they could have dinner that evening, but at another table. To Hamish’s dismay, he heard the colonel moving into Poirot mode and beginning to question Harrison and Helen all about the murders. They were on first-name terms, but at last Harrison seemed to weary of all the questions and said sharply, “Look, George. I am still mourning the death of my son. I don’t want to talk about it.” The colonel reluctantly dropped the subject. Helen did not contribute to the conversation.
When Harrison retired for the night, Hamish went out to take up his post outside the bedroom window. It had begun to rain, steady drenching rain, pattering down on the laurel leaves and dripping down the back of his neck. To his dismay, thick curtains had been drawn across the windows. He pressed his ear to the glass.
“I think you would be more comfortable in your own home,” he heard Helen say.
“Nonsense,” came Harrison’s voice. “The food’s great here and I need a change of scene. Leave me. I’m tired of your fussing around.”
“Now, then. What would you do without your Helen?”
“Find another nurse. Like taxis in a rank.”
“Now, aren’t we cruel? You said you loved your Helen.”
“Oh, shove off. I want to be on my own. I wish George would stop playing detective. I believe he thinks you’re a murderer, Helen. What do you think of that?”
“I could sue him.”
“You wouldn’t get very far. He suspects everyone.”
The days dragged by. Harrison finally took his leave. Nothing sinister had happened. A FOR SALE board was now outside the hunting lodge. The days were sunny, just the sort of weather that Hamish usually enjoyed. But the dark shadow of unsolved murders plagued him. He was sure Helen Mackenzie was a ruthless murderer.
Charlie and the colonel were sitting one evening in Charlie’s apartment when the colonel said, “I feel Percy Harrison should really be warned about that nurse.”