A Case of Doubtful Death

by Linda Stratmann

  Mr Georgeson hesitated, then handed Frances the letter. ‘I don’t suppose it makes much odds now.’

  Back home, Frances, in a dilemma, showed the letter to Sarah. ‘It doesn’t seem right to open another person’s correspondence, even when that person is dead. I have no authority to do it; in fact the only persons who do are his executors. Perhaps I should take it to Dr Bonner and let him open it and then ask him to show it to me.’

  ‘He might say no,’ observed Sarah.

  ‘Yes, he might, as he would be entitled to.’

  ‘Well, I think you should open it and read it.’

  Frances struggled with her conscience. ‘That would be very dishonest.’

  ‘Suppose there was something in it, something important that might save Mr Palmer’s life? What then?’

  The struggle weakened. ‘Yes, that is a very good point. Perhaps, under the circumstances …’

  ‘And then you can give it to Dr Bonner afterwards.’

  ‘But, won’t he notice it’s been opened?’

  Sarah gave a curious little smile and held out her hand for the letter. ‘He’ll be none the wiser.’

  Frances was not sure what mysteries Sarah was about to perform and decided it might be best not to know. She gave her the letter.

  Five minutes later the letter was back in Frances’ hands and she found that the envelope had released its gum and the paper could be slid out and unfolded.

  ‘Oh how stupid of me,’ said Frances as she stared at the dark spiky handwriting. ‘It’s in German. I suppose I thought – but then if Dr Mackenzie lived there all those years – oh dear!’

  As far as she was aware none of her acquaintances could speak German, and she felt unwilling to employ a stranger in case awkward questions were asked as to how she had come by, and indeed opened, a letter that was clearly addressed to another person. The prospect of purchasing a German dictionary and grammar and trying to translate it herself was neither appealing nor likely to ensure a quick or accurate answer.

  ‘Mr Garton has travelled a lot,’ said Sarah. ‘He often says he has been to every place in the world worth seeing. He might know someone who could help.’

  ‘And I hope I may rely on his discretion,’ said Frances. She knew Cedric Garton well enough to do without the formality of a note and, since his apartments were only a minute’s walk away on the same street, she decided to call and discover if he was at home.

  While Frances always enjoyed the company of that man of refined and sometimes unusual tastes, she felt less pleasure at the thought of encountering his manservant, Joseph, who, while undoubtedly devoted to his master, always made Frances feel as if she was being examined for those qualities he might best desire in Cedric’s intimate friends, and was always found badly wanting. To her surprise therefore, when Joseph saw her on the doorstep he looked almost pleased at her arrival, and admitted her to the house with some alacrity.

  ‘Miss Doughty, you have come at a moment when I fear you are greatly needed. Mr Garton has met with a – well there has been a small – well, you must see for yourself. Your assistance would be most valued.’

  Frances was shown into Cedric’s delightfully appointed drawing room, and Joseph knocked on a side door, opened it cautiously and peered in.

  ‘Sir - Miss Doughty is here to see you.’

  ‘Oh —’ said a muffled voice from within which was undoubtedly Cedric’s. ‘I am not sure whether I am in a fit state to be seen. It is all very unfortunate.’

  ‘What is the matter?’ Frances asked Joseph.

  The manservant uttered a sigh. ‘Mr Garton, as I am sure you know, is a devotee of the cultivation of the manly form to its greatest perfection, and to that end he recently became a student of Professor Pounder.’

  ‘I am afraid I don’t know that gentleman —’ Frances paused, recalling an advertisement she had seen in the Bayswater Chronicle. ‘Oh – the boxing instructor?’

  ‘Not boxing, Miss Doughty, no,’ said Joseph with a roll of the eyes, ‘Mr Garton would not indulge in coarse pugilism. He has taken up the exercise of sparring – the noble art of self-defence for the gentleman amateur.’

  Cedric appeared in the doorway, with an uncharacteristically rumpled shirt, open at the neck. For one awful moment Frances thought his face was covered in blood, but then she saw that he was clasping a large beefsteak to one eye.

  ‘Sparring,’ he declared. ‘I had no idea the fellow was going to strike me!’

  He strode in, half fell into a chair and leaned back, still clutching the steak. Joseph yelped in horror and ran to get a towel to protect the furnishings.

  ‘Did you strike him back?’ asked Frances.

  ‘I most assuredly did! I was the terror of the establishment. There will not be a beefsteak to be had in the whole of Bayswater now.’

  Frances had some experience in dealing with minor injuries from her years spent working in her father’s chemist’s shop on the Grove. The walking wounded were more likely to come there than go to the expense of a doctor, although her father, who had a horror of doing anything gratis, had always insisted she sell them something, usually a box of Holloway’s Pills which claimed to be able to cure everything and therefore suited all eventualities. ‘Well, perhaps you could let me see what the matter is; I may be able to help. I am not sure if steak is the best treatment.’

  Cedric reluctantly peeled the steak away from his eye and Frances handed it to Joseph, who took it away and returned with a basin of water and a cloth. A few moments were enough to establish that the skin around Cedric’s eye was unbroken and the eye itself was undamaged. The main injury was a swollen semi-circular contusion and a large bruise to Cedric’s self-esteem.

  ‘How does it look?’ he murmured faintly.

  ‘It is a beautiful colour and I think Joseph will be at some pains to find a necktie that will match the shade.’

  ‘Oh, you are too cruel. May I have the steak back?’

  ‘Only if it is cooked and on a plate. I shall ask Joseph to wet a towel in cold water and apply it to the eye – that will take the swelling down.’

  After a few minutes Cedric, his confidence restored, felt able to survey the damage in a mirror, flicking a blond lock from his forehead with a gallant toss of the head. ‘A battle wound,’ he said. ‘I am a hero of combat. Set upon by a gang of the very worst type of rough, all of whom I dealt with and sent on their way sustaining only this light blow, which I wear with pride as a mark of my victory.’ He smiled. ‘Thank you Miss Doughty, you are the ministering angel of the hour, a veritable Nightingale or Seacole. I am sorry to have greeted you with my dress in such disarray, it was most impolite. Please make yourself comfortable and I will return a new man. Joseph – a pot of tea and a beefsteak sandwich if you please!’

  A few minutes later Cedric was freshly spruced and cologned, and a tray of comestibles had appeared. Joseph had sliced the steak as thin as paper and arranged it in little fried ribbons on pieces of toast with a pot of relish, although Frances preferred and took a plain biscuit with her tea. ‘I confess,’ she said, ‘that my call today was not of a purely social nature, but in order to entreat your help. Do you happen to know a reliable and discreet person who would be able to translate something written in German? Or perhaps you speak the language yourself?’

  Cedric nibbled toast and smiled kindly. ‘Oh I wish I were worthy of such confidence! The brain is a delicate thing and should in my opinion be exercised as little as possible. I try not to think too much, it can spoil all the pleasure of life. Of course I speak Italian, as I lived there so long and was obliged to acquire it, and I have some French and fragments of Greek, oh and a little Turkish and Arabic, but I would not claim to be a student, these things seep into my poor head and will not go away.’

  Frances, nodding regretfully, unfolded the letter and gazed at it. ‘Such curious handwriting,’ she said.

  Cedric glanced at the envelope, and she could see that she had attracted his interest, for there was a little
sparkle of mischief in his eyes. ‘Hmm, a missive to the recently departed Dr Mackenzie. I will not ask how you came by it, as you might shock me with your reply. Well, let me see it, I might essay a guess.’

  He took the letter and after a few moments said, ‘The sender is a Dr Ervin Kastner of the Leichenhaus – a mortuary that is – in Hamburg. A close friend, as they appear to be on first name terms. It says —’ There was a long pause, during which Frances refreshed herself with tea. ‘Yes, I think I have it; it says,

  Dear Alastair,

  Regarding the disquieting matter mentioned in my earlier letter you will be pleased to know that against all expectations Friedrich’s health is much improved and his doctors are confident that he will make a full recovery. Even so, I am aware that we cannot rest easy and as soon as he is well enough I will speak to him about the matter that concerns us.

  With all good wishes

  Ervin

  Frances, who knew that Cedric was very much more talented than he liked to admit, had no doubt that this was an accurate translation, and asked him to repeat it while she carefully wrote the words in her notebook. Dr Kastner, she assumed, was an old associate from Mackenzie’s time in Germany and it appeared that ‘Friedrich’ was a mutual friend whose health had been giving cause for anxiety, but there was clearly another difficulty connected with this, something Dr Kastner had not seen fit to put in writing, something that had led to considerable unease for them both. It now looked very probable that it was Mackenzie himself who had destroyed his earlier correspondence, which might have been of a sensitive or secret nature, and possible, too, that his worries about Friedrich had contributed to both his ill-health and his death. She wondered if Mackenzie’s hidden concerns had been a factor in the disappearance of Henry Palmer.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  At the end of a long day Frances had a note of her own to compose, to Mr Max Gillan, the assiduous reporter of the Bayswater Chronicle, whose articles about her career had given her both an unwarranted notoriety and a satisfying number of clients. There was a discreet arrangement whereby Frances provided Mr Gillan with interesting stories and he gave her information that she might not otherwise have been able to obtain.

  Frances’ letter asked Mr Gillan to keep her informed of any interesting developments in the search for Henry Palmer, and she also told him of a rumour pervading Bayswater that Palmer had been given an important secret task to perform by Dr Mackenzie, which he had decided to honour even after his employer’s death. She did not mention that the originator of the rumour was herself. The doctor, she added, was still deeply mourned by his medical friends Doctors Bonner, Warrinder and Darscot, and asked Mr Gillan if he had an address for the last-named gentleman.

  A detective, Frances reflected, as she and Sarah sipped their evening cocoa, like the police force needed to have eyes and ears everywhere. She was very fortunate not only to have the advice of Mr Gillan and other friends, but the services of young Tom Smith, a relative of Sarah’s who had once been the Doughtys’ delivery boy and now worked for the new owner of the chemist’s shop, the enterprising and energetic Mr Jacobs. That gentleman had recently disappointed the mothers of all the single girls in Bayswater by announcing his intention to marry a young lady of fortune in the spring. Both the shop and young Tom had prospered and he was already in the process of outgrowing his first uniform.

  Tom also carried messages and ran errands for Chas and Barstie, and knew every street and byway in Bayswater. There was no one better to spot anything out of the ordinary; something moved or changed or missing. Sarah had been to see Tom, showing him Henry Palmer’s portrait, and he had said he would set about the task. A fee was of course involved; in fact Frances was unable to recall Tom ever having carried out a commission without one. There were many very unusual words in his vocabulary, but ‘gratis’ was not one of them.

  Frances had been intending to go up to Kilburn police station and speak to Inspector Gostelow, but the following morning that journey was rendered unnecessary by an early visit from Walter Crowe, who had just been there himself and found that nothing had yet been discovered. He declared that he would go there every day whatever the weather, until Henry was found. Frances could not help thinking of a time less than a year earlier when she had never set foot in a police station, neither had she anticipated that she would ever do so, and yet now it seemed that they were places where she was often to be found.

  She had little comfort to offer Mr Crowe, but reported what she had learned, and put forward her theory that Dr Mackenzie had employed Palmer on some urgent task, the necessity for which even his death could not erase. Crowe said that if there was such a mission he knew nothing of it, but he would speak to Alice in case her brother had confided in her.

  Alice, he told her sadly, was no better, but then she was also no worse, and he was grateful to Sarah for calling with little treats to tempt her appetite. Frances nodded and smiled, as if Sarah’s efforts to get nourishing food into Alice were something she already knew about. Walter said that Alice’s friend, Mabel Finch, also liked to call on her, but since Mabel had been sweet on Henry and there had been something approaching an understanding between them, it naturally followed that all the young women ever spoke of was the missing man, and he was not sure if this helped Alice or the reverse. Frances discovered that Mabel would be visiting Alice that evening and said that she would call and speak with her.

  Busy as she was with the Palmer mystery, Frances knew that she was not so established in her profession that she could afford to ignore other clients. A note had arrived that morning from a lady who wished to discuss a question of a delicate nature concerning the arrangements at the Paddington Baths on Queen’s Road. Frances was eager to see Dr Bonner and deliver Dr Kastner’s letter, which had been neatly resealed in its envelope and Sarah, seeing that she was torn between the requirements of two clients, volunteered to interview the lady. She did not like to think that females who went for a refreshing bath were being interfered with and thought the complaint ought to be dealt with at once.

  Dr Bonner was more than happy to see Frances again. It was with some anxiety that she watched him open the letter, but he seemed not to notice that he was not the first person to do so.

  ‘Ah, as I suspected, the letter is in German,’ he said. ‘As I mentioned, Mackenzie lived there for many years and was fluent in the language. I don’t speak it myself, I am afraid.’

  ‘May I see it?’ asked Frances, innocently.

  ‘Do you speak German?’ he asked with some surprise.

  ‘No, but I thought I might be able to make out some names.’

  ‘Well, I can see that the sender is Dr Ervin Kastner. He is the director of a waiting mortuary in Germany, very similar to the Life House. Mackenzie worked closely with him for many years and they were good friends.’

  Frances peered at the letter and he hesitated, then handed it to her. ‘What unusual handwriting! It is very hard to make anything out,’ she said. ‘Is that a name? Frederick or something very like it.’

  ‘Friedrich is a German name, yes that may very well be it. Kastner may be referring to Friedrich Erlichmann.’

  ‘Is he also a doctor?’

  ‘No, but he writes and lectures on the subject of suspended animation. I have some of his pamphlets here. Dr Mackenzie translated them into English.’

  Bonner rose and went to the bookcase, from which he extracted a slim publication from the shelf and handed it to Frances. She noticed for the first time that he walked with a slight limp. ‘This is his first and best-known work,’ said Bonner, easing himself back into his chair. ‘It still sells well. Please do take it with my compliments.’

  The title of the pamphlet was A Recovery from the Disorder of Death.

  ‘Of course you are far too young to remember, but Mr Erlichmann was quite a celebrity a number of years ago and intimately associated with the foundation of the Life House here. He was a very young man, no more than twenty, when in 1862 he suffered a grave
illness and was to all purposes apparently dead. Mackenzie was studying in Germany at the time and of course made a point of interviewing him. Erlichmann told him that he had actually been certified dead and placed in his coffin, and was on the point of being lowered into his grave when, fortunately for him, the signs of life appeared and he was revived just in time.

  ‘When Mackenzie returned to England and was trying to establish the Life House he initially met with very little interest. The project is an expensive one as you can imagine, the land had to be purchased, and the house built to a very specific design. The Paddington vestry would not countenance the matter and Mackenzie exhausted all his savings, but it was not sufficient and his efforts at raising funds produced very little. I came in with him as a partner, but we were still short of what we needed when Mackenzie thought of bringing Erlichmann over to England to lecture about his experiences. You have never seen him but Friedrich Erlichmann is a man of excellent address and is, so many of the ladies have told me, considered to be extremely handsome. His command of English at the time was somewhat wanting, but Mackenzie was able to write his speeches for him. The lectures were very successful and Erlichmann became quite the lion of Bayswater; no elegant dinner was complete without him and the stories he told of his experiences both chilled the blood and opened the purses of our patrons. I understand – and this is only a rumour, of course – that he was summoned to a private audience with the Queen. Perhaps she hoped that Prince Albert might not be beyond recovery. If so, she was undoubtedly disappointed.’

  ‘Do you think Mr Palmer might have gone to Germany?’ asked Frances.

  ‘Whatever for?’ exclaimed Bonner.

  ‘He might have gone in connection with some business of Dr Mackenzie’s.’

  Bonner looked doubtful. ‘If Mackenzie had any business in Germany in recent years, I am unaware of it. He has friends there still and there may be some exchange of medical information, but that is all.’