A Case of Doubtful Death

by Linda Stratmann

  The cab passed some dingy yards crowded with broken carts and wagons, like graveyards for abandoned vehicles, then crossed the bridge that spanned the murky waters of the Grand Junction Canal, a watercourse that some humorous person had once dubbed ‘the River Styx’ since it bordered the General Cemetery of All Souls Kensal Green. Frances saw to her left the roof of the non-conformist chapel inside the perimeter wall, then the cab turned right down Harrow Road and took her down Church Lane, which lay opposite the church of St John the Evangelist. The lane, which led down to the canal bank, was flanked on its western side by cottages that had once formed part of old Portobello Lane and predated the recent building in the area, and on the other side by newer houses. The eastern side of the lane had once consisted of plots of open land with gardens and smallholdings. It was here that Dr Mackenzie, anxious to find a location for the Life House near to the great cemetery, had been fortunate enough to secure a small parcel of land at a reasonable price. Tucked out of the way, and with the occupants of the rented cottages having little say in the matter, the Life House had been built, and so discreet was its operation that despite the fact that its purpose was generally known, its presence there had become accepted. This was due in part to the respect in which Dr Mackenzie was held in Bayswater, but mainly to his care in ensuring that the business did not create a public nuisance.

  The Life House was a great deal smaller than Frances had imagined – a square, one-storey building with small windows just below the level of the roof to dissuade prying eyes. A single chimney wafted a coil of grey smoke into the greyer sky, but there were other brick protrusions, which Frances suspected were for the purpose of ventilation. The building presented a plain wall to the street, with no obvious entrance, but a path, which was just wide enough to admit six men bearing a coffin, wound about its corner. Frances followed the path and found a door on the eastern side of the building which faced away from the street, looking upon some walled yards and the back of a warehouse. It was a simple, but very solid-looking door with a heavy lock and neither bell nor knocker. A brass plate was inscribed PRIVATE – VISITORS PLEASE USE CHAPEL ENTRANCE with a little arrow pointing the way. The south side of the building faced the canal although separated from it by a railing and some stout trees, and here Frances found a smaller door with a knocker, and a brass plate inscribed CHAPEL.

  It was possible she noticed, for anyone leaving the Life House and intending to walk south, to avoid going up Church Lane and along Harrow Road, and instead cut through a small passage between the houses on the west of the lane to reach Ladbroke Grove Road. Frances assumed this must have been the start of Henry Palmer’s walk home and would also have been the easiest route for the coffins to take, just a short step to the east entrance of the cemetery.

  Frances knocked at the chapel door and after a few moments it swung inwards a few inches, and she was faced by a bored-looking young man with tousled hair wearing a medical orderly’s overall. The odour that crept from the doorway was a powerful suggestion of carbolic mixed with the flowery sweetness of scented candles.

  ‘Do you have an appointment Miss?’ asked the young man.

  Frances presented her card. ‘I do not,’ she said, ‘but I have been engaged by Mr Henry Palmer’s sister to enquire into his disappearance. Are you Mr Hemsley?’

  He stared at the card, ‘Yes, I am, but visits are by appointment only, and there are no burials waiting in any case, so I oughtn’t by rights to let you in.’ Despite this he looked as though he might be persuaded without difficulty.

  ‘I understand that Mr Palmer is a very good sort of person,’ said Frances. ‘Everyone is terribly worried about him and his poor sister is making herself quite ill. I am sure you would do anything in your power to help find him.’

  ‘Well, Palmer is a good sort, there’s no doubt about that.’ He hesitated. ‘I suppose there’s no harm in letting you see the chapel. But not the wards, mind, I’d lose my place if I let you in there.’

  He stepped back and opened the door fully. Frances entered and found herself in a small room, with plain coffin shells and lids and trestles propped against the walls. A crucifix and two candlesticks stood on a small table covered with a white lace-edged cloth, forming a kind of altar. She had quite hoped to glance inside the ward, if only out of curiosity, and had to admit that there was a challenge in gaining admission to places where she was not allowed, but there was a wheeled stretcher placed across an inner door which she was sure must connect the chapel with the ward, a guardian to dissuade prying eyes.

  ‘What can you tell me about the night Dr Mackenzie died? I understand you arrived for duty at midnight?’

  He scratched his head. ‘That’s right. I got here at the usual time, expecting to see Palmer just about to leave, but instead it was Dr Bonner who told me what had gone on. He said there was to be a viewing the next morning, and he and Palmer had already carried the doctor into the chapel, so we got him laid out properly with flowers and such, and then Dr Bonner went home, but he was back soon after seven o’clock. Then Dr and Mrs Warrinder arrived a little later; they’d been sent a telegram.’

  ‘Who else came for the viewing?’

  ‘Mrs Bonner, she never misses one, and then a middle-aged person, I think she was Dr Mackenzie’s landlady, and Mr Fairbrother, he’s a young surgeon come up to London to study, he’s been assisting Dr Bonner, and there was a young man, only he hadn’t come for the viewing at all, in fact he didn’t even know Dr Mackenzie had died, he came to ask if Palmer was there. I think Palmer’s sister is his sweetheart. That was the first we heard he’d not been home the night before.’

  ‘What about Dr Darscot? I had heard he was a friend of Dr Mackenzie.’

  Hemsley shook his head. ‘No, I don’t know a Dr Darscot, but there are any number of doctors who come to look around the wards, so he might have been one of those.’

  ‘You were on duty here until midday, which would be the time that Mr Palmer would normally arrive. Did you wait here for him?’

  ‘Yes, well we all hoped that he would come, we thought perhaps he had had something urgent to do that had kept him from home, and maybe he had sent a message and the message got lost, and he would be here as usual. You could rely on him like that. There had only ever been the one time when he hadn’t come and that was when he was too ill to get out of bed, but he’d still made sure to send a note so that we knew and could get someone in.’

  ‘But he never came back.’

  ‘No, and there was no note or anything. I stayed on for a little longer, and saw the fire was properly tended and then Dr Warrinder came in, as they couldn’t get anyone else in a hurry. The next day they got some medical students to take care of the place, and now there’s a new man, Renfrew, he started a few days ago.’

  Frances looked at the connecting door. Hemsley followed her look and gave a little knowing smile, but made no comment. ‘I see that visitors for a viewing must knock at the chapel door, but how do the doctors and orderlies gain admission? Do you all have keys?’

  ‘All the doctors have a set. I have one and so does Palmer.’

  Frances wondered if someone might have waylaid Palmer to steal his keys, for what purpose she could not imagine, but it was a possible motive for an assault that could have ended in the missing man’s injury or death.

  ‘Has anyone ever tried to steal your keys?’ she asked.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Or asked to borrow them?’

  He looked uncomfortable. ‘I’ve been asked by press-men to let them in to take a look around. One wanted to borrow my keys and I’m sure he meant to have copies made. Been offered good money, too. But I didn’t take it.’

  ‘So, if Palmer is missing then his keys are too?’

  ‘Yes, Dr Bonner had to order the locks changed and new sets of keys made.’

  Frances made a note of Hemsley’s address; he was lodging with a family in St Charles Square, off Ladbroke Grove Road. He confirmed that he walked to and from the Life House
along the main road, using the side alley that led to Church Lane and assumed that Palmer would have done the same, as it was the fastest way.

  Frances left the Life House, following the path that Palmer must have taken. She was not afraid of walking, and recalled the long journeys she had undertaken on foot through rain and mud, when her father had been alive and grumbled at every small expense.

  Reaching the upper end of Ladbroke Grove Road, she passed the walled perimeter of All Souls and the gates of the eastern entrance to the cemetery, then crossed the bridge which afforded her a fine view of the canal on either side, with its tugs and barges. The gasworks, she was obliged to admit, was not an attractive sight, although of undoubted utility, as was the bridge over the lines of the Great Western Railway. In all it took some ten minutes for her to reach Dr Mackenzie’s lodgings, and there she stood for a few moments at the bottom of the steps, where Palmer had paused. Why had he done so? Was he thinking about something, or had he seen something or someone that had attracted his attention? Frances gazed about her but could see nothing of importance.

  She turned left as Palmer had done and started down the road again, crossing Telford Road, and reaching the junction with Faraday Road. Had Palmer turned left here or had he gone on to Bonchurch Road? Either way he must have reached Portobello Road, walked a short distance and then taken a right turn into Golborne Road, with its rows of shops and lodging rooms above. All the routes would have been well lit, although the yellow lamps might have found it hard to penetrate the enveloping fog that had persisted on the night of Palmer’s last known walk. Both Faraday and Bonchurch Roads were entirely residential, whereas Portobello and Golborne were busy commercial streets where even late at night one might have expected to find many people about. If Palmer had lost his way he might have stumbled into a basement area, yet had he done so he would have been found soon enough. A trapdoor above a cellar might have been left carelessly open, but Frances felt sure that Walter’s enquiries had covered that possibility. He had been very thorough. All the houses looked well-kept and occupied, and the residents would have noticed something amiss.

  Supposing, however, that Palmer had not gone straight to his home, but had had an errand to perform, one that would have taken him along a different route? Supposing he had been sent on this errand by Dr Mackenzie? Frances had been told repeatedly that in recent months Mackenzie had looked tired and ill. Might he have had a secret worry on his mind?

  She arrived home and the walk in the crisp air had warmed her. A note had arrived from Dr Bonner saying that if Frances would call on him at 2 p.m. he would be very pleased to speak to her about the unfortunate disappearance of Mr Palmer.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Dr Bonner’s home was one of the handsome five-storey residences on Ladbroke Grove Road. There was fresh white paint, and polish, and a trim maid in a starched apron and a smart cap with stiff lace points. Somewhere Frances felt sure there was a large Mrs Bonner in a great deal of whalebone and a fashionable gown planning a busy afternoon of calls, over a silver tea service crusted with scrollwork, and a pile of sugared cakes, while a stern nursemaid ensured that the Bonner offspring were scrubbed pink and perfectly behaved.

  Frances was shown up to the consulting rooms on the first floor, where she found a small, portly gentleman of about fifty with plump fingers and a ready smile. Dr Bonner wore his shiny pate without embarrassment but cultivated a long, sandy coloured ruff of hair at his nape and soft, well-trimmed side-whiskers. It gave him an air that combined abundant geniality with trustworthiness. Although Frances had approached him for an interview unconnected with her own state of health, his manner was so well established that he could not help but gaze upon her as if she was a new patient, who had come to him with some delicate female ailment and to whom gentle reassurance was essential.

  Dr Bonner greeted her politely and gestured her to a comfortable easy chair of deep-buttoned brown leather, then sat facing her, not from across his desk, which was a great expanse of polished walnut, but from another such chair drawn up in front of a fireplace. Frances looked about her and saw shelves of medical books, glass cabinets of instruments, and anatomical pictures of great artistry and tasteful restraint. Her family doctor, Dr Collin, was a busy man with a large practice and his consulting room reflected that. Dr Bonner’s room was how a museum of modern life might show how a doctor’s room ought to appear, beautifully maintained, but quite unused. Frances thought that Dr Bonner was a man who did exactly as much work as he wished to do.

  ‘It is a particular pleasure to make your acquaintance,’ said Dr Bonner. ‘An old friend of mine sent his granddaughters to the Bayswater Academy for the Education of Young Ladies and suffered much anxiety over that unfortunate matter. His gratitude that you were able to resolve it was very marked.’

  Frances, who despite all that had occurred, entertained the greatest respect for the former headmistress of that establishment and continued to pay her visits, smiled at the compliment.

  ‘I naturally entertain considerable confidence in your ability to discover the whereabouts of Mr Palmer,’ he added, with a smile of the most penetrating sincerity.

  ‘Do you believe,’ asked Frances, ‘that the disappearance of Mr Palmer and the death of Dr Mackenzie are connected in any way?’

  He evinced a gentle surprise. ‘Connected? No, I don’t believe so.’

  ‘And yet they did occur on the same day.’

  ‘Hmmm.’ Dr Bonner laced his fingers and appeared to be giving the matter some thought, although Frances sensed that he did it only to indulge a lady. ‘I can see why you might think so. It has been suggested, principally by people who have never met Mr Palmer, that he was so upset by what he had witnessed that he suffered a brainstorm, as a result of which he laid violent hands upon himself or else met with a fatal accident. Myself, I cannot believe it. When Palmer left the Life House he was of course greatly sorrowed by what had occurred, but he was a sensible man, as must all men be who follow his line of work, and he had a task to perform, which I had every confidence he would carry out, and indeed he did, as I later discovered.’

  ‘How would you describe him as an employee?’

  Bonner smiled, as if seeing the man before him. ‘Reliable, sensible, diligent, respectful. I can assure you that had we thought he was the sort of person who would lose his head and become alarmed as easily as people have been suggesting, we would not have engaged him in the capacity we did. A man who had dealt with his own tragedy – the accident that claimed his father – would be the last man to throw a fit at the loss of his employer.’

  ‘Supposing,’ said Frances, expanding on her new theory, ‘that Dr Mackenzie had some worry on his mind. Might he have confided it to Mr Palmer? Perhaps Mr Palmer had an urgent errand to carry out for Dr Mackenzie that he had to keep secret?’

  Bonner looked astonished.

  ‘I am only guessing, of course,’ said Frances.

  ‘Oh,’ said Bonner, after a long pause, ‘I would say you are very wide of the mark. Dr Mackenzie regarded Palmer as an employee and not as an intimate friend who he could take into his confidence. If he had personal worries, I am sure he would have confided them in me. But he did not.’

  ‘Apart from yourself, who were Dr Mackenzie’s closest friends?’

  ‘There is Dr Warrinder, of course, who assists in the management of the Life House.’

  ‘Is that all?’

  ‘As far as I am aware.’

  ‘And he had never married?’

  ‘No, he had not.’ Bonner gave a little shake of the head and a sad smile. ‘Oh, I can guess what you are thinking.’ Frances doubted this very much, but let him go on. ‘You are thinking that he was a dull fellow without sentiment, but that was not the case. There was a lady he admired, indeed loved, many years ago, a lady of beauty and accomplishment but with no fortune. Unhappily, her father prevailed upon her to marry a man of wealth, who treated her with great cruelty, and Dr Mackenzie swore he would have no other lady for
his bride and would wait in the hope that she might one day be free.’

  Frances was not entirely convinced by this story, but decided not to pursue it. ‘Did he know a Dr Darscot?’

  ‘Yes, but how well he knew him I cannot say.’

  ‘Did he have a club, or belong to any societies?’

  ‘No, I wish he had.’ Bonner sighed despondently. ‘Perhaps if he had indulged in some recreation he might not have placed himself under such a strain. But I am afraid all he ever thought of was work. Not only the Life House, but he spent his evenings writing medical pamphlets, he lectured occasionally, and in recent months he had also started to see some patients again.’

  ‘Where were his consulting rooms?’

  ‘He had none. I allowed him the use of mine as a favour.’

  ‘I understand that you and Dr Warrinder are his executors.’

  ‘Yes. The principal concern of his will was to safeguard the future of the Life House. He owned a half share in the business and I own the other half. Mackenzie’s will divided his share equally between Dr Warrinder and myself, and his personal property was wholly assigned to the use of the Life House.’