A Case of Doubtful Death

by Linda Stratmann

  ‘I wish I knew,’ said Frances. ‘I am still not at all convinced that the body is that of Dr Mackenzie, and I have a theory for which there is as yet no proof, but I will continue my enquiries.’

  In a brief conversation with Dr Carmichael she reassured him that she had agents looking for the missing journal without informing him that they were also checking on the bona fides of Dr Carmichael. She was aware that he was a source of further useful information, if she could only discover a means of extracting it, and with a new strategy in mind, made an appointment to see him later that afternoon.

  There was also the opportunity for a discussion with Mr Gillan, who informed Frances that his contacts knew nothing of any theft of snuffboxes from the house of a doctor in Kensington.

  Frances returned home in a state of some despondency, her best hope being that a detailed examination of the body by an expert might cast some light on the mystery, albeit he would be starting from the possibly incorrect assumption that the dead man was Dr Mackenzie.

  Her only comfort was the appearance of two more clients. The first was a young gentleman who wished to know if his sweetheart was entertaining his attentions only so that she might enjoy the valuable gifts with which he showered her. Frances had no experience of romance, but suggested to him that rather than engage a detective he should, instead of expensive gifts, shower his sweetheart with items of sentimental value only, such as notes and flower buds and judge her love by her appreciation of these tokens. Secretly Frances had some sympathy for a young lady with such a distrustful lover. She charged the gentleman a guinea for her advice and sent him on his way.

  Her next client was a woman who believed her neighbour was stealing her washing, but had never been able to catch her in the act. Her face bore marks of an earlier discussion with the neighbour on that subject. Frances took the commission, although she knew it would not be well paid and decided to send Tom or one of his ‘men’ to watch the washing lines, and see what transpired.

  There was no progress in discovering Mrs Pearson’s missing maid, indeed Frances thought she was unlikely to make any until the client told her the real reason for her concern. Nevertheless, she felt confident that the case would be solved in time, with some patient wearing away of the lady’s natural reticence, and possibly a sharp reminder to shock her into an admission. If she could find a missing parrot a lady’s maid ought not to present any difficulty, but then on that principle, neither should Henry Palmer.

  She received a note from Chas and Barstie to say that they had been accepted as members of the Piccadilly Club, and would keep an eye on the activities of Dr Carmichael.

  That gentleman duly presented himself after luncheon and was anxious to know what progress Frances had made in her enquiries. Frances faced him across the parlour table, her notebook and pencil at her fingertips, and favoured him with a gentle smile intended both to place him at his ease and make him lower his guard. ‘I am gathering information both personally and through my many agents,’ she said. ‘I am presently making arrangements to go to Edinburgh to pursue my enquiries further.’

  ‘Edinburgh?’ Dr Carmichael exclaimed. ‘I am afraid I don’t understand. The journal and the blackmailers are, in all probability, in London. If any approach is made to me it will be done here. Why should you go to Edinburgh?’

  Frances’ smile expressed levels of patience and geniality it had never before achieved. Even Sarah looked faintly troubled. ‘As you yourself have explained to me, the circumstances described in the journal and which could well have led to the blackmail of Dr Mackenzie occurred in Edinburgh. I will need to acquaint myself thoroughly with them, and look into family connections and friends who could be of importance. There may also be matters that affect you. I mean to leave no stone unturned, Dr Carmichael, you may be assured of that.’

  Dr Carmichael did not appear comforted by Frances’ proposed expedition to Edinburgh or her reassurance of thoroughness. His expression showed unease rather than anything else. ‘But – that would be a matter of some expense.’

  ‘It would of course, but you have already said that you would be willing to pay anything to have the difficulty resolved.’

  ‘I had not anticipated …’ He struggled to express himself, but abandoned the attempt.

  ‘The other question is the thief of the journal. This, as you have said, has most probably already been sold, however, the maid may well be a known character in the underworld, one who has several aliases and a whole host of disreputable associates, one of whom may be our quarry. I know you don’t wish me to trouble your sister, Ellen, but if you could speak to her and obtain an exact description of the maid, and the name she was using, I would be very much obliged to you. Also, I will want to discuss the matter with the Kensington police who are pursuing the theft and may be willing to advise me of their progress. I have not been able to establish the full details of the crime and I therefore require the name of the police officer who has charge of the matter. Do you know the name and address of the pawnshop in which the snuffboxes were discovered? I will need to speak to the owner.’ She took up her pencil and prepared to write.

  ‘I am afraid I don’t …’

  ‘No matter, I can soon discover it,’ said Frances, cheerfully.

  Dr Carmichael abruptly rose from his chair. ‘Miss Doughty, I …’

  ‘Yes?’

  He wavered, then sat down again. ‘I cannot finance a visit to Edinburgh. Also, I do not wish you to involve the police. The maid, so I understand, was a very commonplace looking person and with a name she might have shared with a thousand such.’

  Frances put down her pencil. ‘Do you wish me to proceed at all?’

  ‘I – yes – I need the journal back.’

  ‘You make it very hard for me. Well, if I am not to go to Edinburgh perhaps you can furnish me with some information.’

  ‘I will do what I can,’ he said unwillingly, which was exactly the result Frances had been hoping for.

  ‘On what date did your sister Madeleine pass away?’

  He looked startled. ‘I don’t see how that can be of any consequence.’

  ‘It may not be, but I like to know as much as I can about any person concerned in the matter under enquiry.’

  ‘If you must, I suppose,’ he grumbled. ‘It was in the summer of 1859. June 16th or 17th – I remember it was just a few days after her birthday – she was twenty-one.’

  ‘And the cause of her death?’

  Carmichael hesitated. ‘It is very painful for me to speak of this. She was in a severely weakened condition and died of blood poisoning. A stronger woman might have rallied, but Madeleine was always very delicate.’

  ‘Pardon me for asking this very impertinent question, but — ’

  He held up his hand to stay her. ‘I think I can guess what it is you are about to ask. My sister’s memory is sacred and pure to me. Let it remain so.’

  ‘And yet her state of health has an important bearing on the blackmail of Dr Mackenzie.’

  ‘That is true, although what may actually have been the case, or what a young woman of her limited understanding in such things might have feared, or been led to believe, may be quite different.’

  ‘You have not seen this journal, but your sister Ellen has done so. Did she tell you what it said?’

  ‘No, only that it showed Mackenzie to have told many lies, lies that revealed he had treated Madeleine cruelly.’

  ‘In what way?’

  Carmichael, his face a picture of loathing, appeared to be steeling himself to divulge unpleasant matters. ‘He led her to believe that he had a pure and noble affection for her. Mackenzie’s brother, David, had already revealed to me that he entertained the sincerest esteem for my sister, but as he was then enjoying only the salary of a humble clerk, he had decided to refrain from addressing her on the subject until he was further advanced in his career and in a position to marry. Madeleine, although she respected David Mackenzie, did not love him; indeed she could not d
o so, he has a coldness about him that she found uncongenial. Mackenzie knew full well what his brother’s intentions were, but he was an unscrupulous rogue able to masquerade as a man of wit and charm, and exercise great persuasiveness. He was easily able to engage Madeleine’s girlish affections, but he then grew suddenly inattentive. I believe that he had transferred his addresses to a lady of fortune. All this I suspected, but could not prove. He denied that he had had any more than the briefest acquaintance with my sister, and that no words other than the usual courtesies had been exchanged. If she had pined away for his love then he professed to be quite unaware of her feelings. Her journal, however, tells another tale, exposes his lies, shows him to be the cruel and heartless adventurer that he really was.’

  Whether or not he spoke the truth Frances could not say, but his emotion as he recalled events of more than twenty years ago was undeniable.

  ‘The brother – David – he and Dr Mackenzie were thereafter on bad terms?’ Frances asked.

  ‘Yes, the cause is obvious.’

  ‘What is his current profession?’

  ‘He is still at the Procurator Fiscal’s office, but in a position of greater responsibility.’

  ‘But soon afterwards Dr Mackenzie left Scotland for Germany. Why was that?’

  ‘Not everyone believed his protestations of innocence,’ said Carmichael, with a subdued note of triumph. ‘His reputation suffered and he was unable to obtain advancement. He saw an escape abroad as a means of making a new beginning. He knew that waiting mortuaries were of interest only to the wealthy.’

  ‘What surprises me,’ said Frances, ‘is that the character of the man you describe in Edinburgh is quite different from the character of the man who lived in Bayswater. How do you account for that?’

  ‘Much time has passed. Who can tell what experiences he has had which might have changed him? Or perhaps he had not changed. No – I think he had not. There may yet be secret crimes and vices to be uncovered.’

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  When Carmichael had gone, Frances turned her mind once more to the disappearance of Henry Palmer and did what she always did when a problem seemed to have arrived at an impasse; she supplied herself with a really large pot of tea and went back to the beginning. Henry Palmer had last been seen just after 11 p.m. on Tuesday the 21st of September, walking north up Ladbroke Grove Road, his intended destination and purpose unknown. Because he had disappeared on the same night that Dr Mackenzie had died – or was supposed to have died – Frances had assumed that the two events were linked. She had found out a great deal about Dr Mackenzie’s activities and no doubt would discover more, but none of this had solved the mystery of Henry Palmer. She had been looking at Palmer’s disappearance as an isolated incident, but supposing it was not? Suppose, she thought, Palmer had been sent on an errand by Dr Mackenzie or was walking north for some reason of his own, and had become the victim of a crime? Might there be a gang who had chosen Kensal Green and Ladbroke Grove for their robberies? That would mean that there had been other events of a criminal or suspicious nature in the area, which at first glance appeared to have no connection with Palmer. Frances brought out all her most recent newspapers and over toast and tea, she and Sarah pored over them.

  ‘What we are looking for is anything of an out-of-the-way nature that took place either before or after Mr Palmer’s disappearance, and in the same area. Let us look three months before and all dates since. It might not even be a crime, or at least it might not look like one. Was there a curious accident, perhaps, or something that went missing and was advertised as lost? The only difficulty is of course that it might have been such a small affair that it was never in the newspapers, or even reported to the police, so we need to think about gossip and rumours, too.’

  ‘Or someone dead who was supposed to have died natural but was really murdered,’ said Sarah. ‘Hmph!’ She prodded a death notice with a fat finger. ‘She went young. I’ll bet he has a new wife and a baby this time next year.’ Frances reflected sadly that the death of a married woman of childbearing age was not as unusual an event as it ought to be, and that if conjugal happiness was never to be hers, which seemed very probable, then she might count herself fortunate. She wondered if she would feel herself to be as fortunate in this respect at forty as she did now at twenty.

  Several hours of earnest endeavour concluded in a small result: the ascent of a balloon at Kensal Green on the 4th of September, and two persons drowned in the canal, a boy who got out of his depth while bathing on the 2nd of September and the body of an unfortunate woman taken from the water on the 22nd.

  ‘I wonder if the female body was ever identified,’ said Frances, since there were two young women she would very much like to trace – Mrs Pearson’s missing maidservant, Ethel, and the nursemaid who had stolen Madeleine Carmichael’s journal.

  When the woman’s body was found it was believed that she had been in the water for at least two weeks, but Frances thought that such an estimate could be stretched by several days either way. Mrs Pearson’s maid had last been seen ten days before the discovery of the body, and the thief eight days. The body could be that of either of the missing women. There was a brief mention in the newspaper of the inquest, which had taken place at Kilburn mortuary. The post-mortem examination had been carried out by Dr Bonner assisted by Mr Fairbrother, and the conclusion was that the unknown woman had drowned. ‘Supposing,’ said Frances, ‘this was not, as has been concluded, the death of a despairing unfortunate, but either a suicide due to remorse for some terrible thing she had done, or, what is almost as bad, a murder. She could have had criminal associates who decided to kill her for secrets she held; perhaps they were able to render her unconscious by a method that left no trace, or else left a trace that was attributed to an accidental cause, and then threw her in the canal.’

  ‘You’ll have to get her dug up,’ said Sarah, matter of factly

  ‘I may need to at that, but before I do I will speak to Dr Bonner about it – or perhaps Mr Fairbrother.’

  There was a long silence and then Sarah gave her newspaper a good shake.

  ‘You do not care for Mr Fairbrother?’ asked Frances.

  ‘I didn’t say so.’

  ‘And yet I have that impression. How has he offended you?’

  ‘He hasn’t,’ said Sarah. ‘Not yet. But he might do, so I keep on my guard.’ She gave a firm nod.

  The next morning, Frances, having learned all that she could from the newspapers about the unclaimed body in the canal, which was little enough, set out for Dr Bonner’s house. When she had first entered into the detective business, which she had done as a matter of personal and urgent necessity, she had begun with no idea as to how persons in that profession went about their daily tasks. It had seemed to her to be the height of rudeness to call upon someone she wished to question without first submitting a letter of introduction and a card requesting an interview at their convenience. How she had envied Inspector Sharrock of Paddington Green, who, with not the slightest pretence at observing any of the proprieties, was often so bold as to demand entry to people’s homes by the front door without a moment’s notice of his intentions. How she had shuddered at the idea that she might do so herself and yet she had done it, and not only that, she had, to her shame, enjoyed it. Now that she was better known in Bayswater – largely because of Mr Gillan, who never allowed humble truths to inconvenience him in his search for a tale to entertain readers of the Chronicle – it often sufficed to present her card at the door and then walk in for all the world as if she had been invited. She was a detective and people expected her to be impolite. It was not, she thought regretfully, a good outcome to her endeavours, but she had to earn her bread and this was the opportunity that had presented itself.

  Dr Bonner’s starchy maid was even crisper than usual. She held herself stiffly erect as if any movement of her wrists against the knife-like edges of her cuffs might have unfortunate consequences. ‘Do you have an appointment, Miss?’ she
asked, knowing full well that Frances did not.

  ‘Dr Bonner has made it clear to me that in view of the unusual circumstances, he will not hinder me in my investigations,’ replied Frances. The maid looked at Frances as if she was attempting to sell her bad meat.

  ‘He is too busy to see visitors.’

  ‘The consequences of the recent inquest on Dr Mackenzie, I suppose,’ said Frances. ‘In that case, it is more than ever imperative that I see him at once. It is a matter of life or death, but chiefly I think, of death.’

  ‘You may wait in the parlour,’ said the maid reluctantly, ‘I will tell him that you are here.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Frances, ‘I will wait for ten minutes and then if he has not appeared, I will go up to his consulting room. You needn’t trouble yourself, I know the way.’

  As she entered the hallway, sensing the maid’s glance of displeasure settle on the back of her neck like an angry wasp, she was surprised to see Mr Darscot coming down the stairs.

  ‘Good afternoon Mr Darscot, I hope you are well?’ she enquired, wondering what business the young man had there.

  ‘Oh, I could be better, Miss Doughty,’ he said, shaking his head with a mournful expression that was almost comic. ‘I am such a poor fellow with my nerves and this business with Mackenzie coming out of his grave has quite unsettled me. Dr Bonner has been kind enough to prescribe a remedy, which I hope will be a complete cure. I assume – indeed I very much hope – that you are here in your professional capacity and not as a patient?’

  ‘That is the case,’ Frances reassured him.

  ‘I expect you know that all of Bayswater is abuzz with the news that you have been called in on the case of the missing man – we expect good tidings very soon! And if there should be anything I can do to assist you, please do not hesitate to ask, as long as it doesn’t involve any actual – well, danger.’

  ‘I shall bear your kind offer in mind,’ said Frances, ‘and please do not concern yourself about danger; my assistant, Miss Smith, takes care of all matters of that nature.’