A Case of Doubtful Death (13 page)

‘Only he did not come to me,’ Bonner interjected. ‘My eyes are sharper than Dr Warrinder’s and he knew he could not dissemble with me.’

‘He came back to me a few days later asking how my hand was,’ said Warrinder, ‘and I told him the same lie. What else could I do? If I had said anything he would have known that we suspected him. I spoke to Dr Bonner about it and he said he would find some way of approaching him and perhaps offer some help.’

‘But before I could do anything the poor man was dead,’ said Bonner.

‘Well that is very interesting,’ said Frances, thoughtfully. The private loan from Darscot and the extraction of funds from the Life House had occurred at approximately the same time. The two events had to be connected. Mackenzie, she surmised, must have needed £
1
,
000
but the Life House account would only supply half that amount and he had had to go to Darscot for the rest. He undoubtedly did not dare take all the funds of the Life House in case other expenses caused cheques to be returned which would expose what he had done. His desperate attempt to draw more money from the Life House shortly before his death was, she felt sure, for the purpose of repaying Darscot’s loan.

‘Do either of you know why Dr Mackenzie needed the money he took?’ she asked.

They looked at each other and she could see that neither had any clue as to the reason.

‘Was he a gambler? A drinker? Did he belong to the Monmouth Club?’

‘Not that I am aware,’ said Bonner. ‘I can’t imagine where he would have had the time, not for that or any kind of vice.’

‘Do you think,’ asked Frances, ‘that Dr Mackenzie’s worries could have been connected in any way with that unfortunate business with Mr Erlichmann? I mean of course the incident in
1863
which you, Dr Bonner, failed to mention to me, but which of course I have since learned of. Why do you think Dr Mackenzie was receiving letters from Dr Kastner in Germany concerning Mr Erlichmann?’

‘I really don’t think that a brief disturbance that took place seventeen years ago can have anything to do with Dr Mackenzie’s financial distress,’ said Bonner, confidently. ‘No, I think you may entirely rule out that line of enquiry.’

There was no doubt however, despite Dr Bonner’s easy manner, that Dr Warrinder had found the question unsettling. ‘Have you anything more to tell me, Dr Warrinder?’ asked Frances.

‘Oh no,’ he said, ‘nothing at all; really I have no more information – none.’

Before she returned home, Frances extracted a solemn promise from both men that they had told her all they knew and would not conceal anything from her in the future. She did not believe either of them.

It was, she felt, useless at this point to ask further questions of the two doctors. She needed more information which she could use to prise out what she was sure were bigger secrets. She wrote to Chas and Barstie, asking if they had heard of any financial issues in which Dr Mackenzie might have been involved, be it investments, gambling, loans made or received, or sending funds abroad.

Sarah’s enquiries about Mrs Pearson’s missing maid had revealed little. Being a ladies’ maid the girl had thought herself rather above the other servants, which had not encouraged friendly conversation. She had attended to her duties diligently and there had been no male callers, neither had she ever mentioned a sweetheart. On half days and Sundays she did dress in a manner above her station, and some of the servants thought that she hoped to attract a husband in a better walk of life, but they had to admit that there was nothing flirtatious or indecent in her manners, and no suggestion that she had ever made eyes at young gentlemen. Mrs Pearson had been entirely satisfied with her services.

That evening Frances and Sarah both went to the little apartment on Golborne Road where they found Walter Crowe and Mabel Finch keeping Alice company, alternately holding her hand and fluttering anxiously about her. The young woman still looked frail and thin, but there were some dishes of food, broken pieces of pie and cake and buttered bread, which looked as though they had been sampled, and even a glass of milk. As soon as Alice spied Sarah, she picked up the glass with trembling fingers and took a sip. Alice had recently returned to her work in the shop, and although the long days spent on her feet and sometimes ascending steps to fetch down items from high shelves was telling on her strength, it did provide an occupation which was far better than moping at home, and also relieved her of financial anxieties. Everyone had been very kind to her, she said. Many of the ladies who called in asked her in the gentlest possible way if there was any news of her dear brother, and when she confessed there was none, expressed their sympathy and their unshakable confidence that he would soon be found. All had offered to pray for his safe return and several had suggested she employ that clever Miss Doughty, who could find out everything.

Frances did not feel very clever and she did not share the confidence of the ladies of Bayswater. Between herself, Walter Crowe and the Kilburn police every possible location in the area where Henry Palmer might have come to accidental grief or been the victim of a crime had been thoroughly searched. She wondered if he had left Bayswater – but where could he be? Scotland? Germany? Anything was possible.

Walter had a copy of the new edition of the
Penny Illustrated Paper
, which had, as he requested, printed an engraved copy of the portrait of Henry Palmer with an appeal for anyone who had seen him to come forward. Thus far he had received five communications, one of an indecent nature, which he refused to describe, the others suggesting that a man of vaguely similar appearance had been seen in places as diverse as Liverpool and the Isle of Wight. ‘It is early days yet,’ he said, hopefully. ‘They will print it again next week if he is not found before then.’

Frances began to wonder if she had been wasting her time on strange fancies. She knew that she had them and sometimes they led her true, but it could be that this time she had gone astray. She was often thankful for the blunt, practical views of Sarah, which could bring her down to earth with a well-needed jolt. Had the death of Dr Mackenzie and Palmer’s disappearance on the same day been a coincidence after all? Did Palmer have reasons to want to disappear that had nothing at all to do with his employer? Reasons so urgent that after carrying out his duty at the Life House he had run away as originally planned?

Although these questions had already been disposed of at their first meeting, Frances asked Alice if anything had occurred to her since then about her brother’s state of mind. Had he been unhappy in his work? Had he been in debt? Had there been any quarrels? The answer to all these questions was in the negative.

Miss Finch, a pretty young woman who knew how to display her eyes and hair and rosy cheeks to their best advantage, was just as mystified as her friends. She had known Alice for a year, since they worked in the same emporium. Mabel hesitated to mention the precise nature of her occupation in front of Walter, but alluded in the most delicate way to ladies clothing of a variety which both supported and enhanced the female form. She and Henry Palmer had been on terms of a singularly pleasant friendship.

‘I am sorry to ask questions which may be of a prying nature,’ said Frances.

‘Oh, please, do not worry yourself about that!’ exclaimed Miss Finch. ‘If anything I can say will help to find Henry – I mean Mr Palmer – I will help you in any way I can and I care nothing for my own feelings on any point.’

‘Had you and Mr Palmer spoken of marriage?’ asked Frances.

Mabel simpered in a way that Frances understood gentlemen found interesting. She often wanted to take girls that simpered and give them a good shaking, but then she was not a gentleman. ‘Nothing of that kind has actually been said, I mean, nothing out loud, but sometimes, there is a look in a young man’s eye that one can read. I think you understand me?’ She simpered again and Frances hoped that Mabel could not read the look in
her
eye.

‘Did you anticipate that the ocular appreciation shown by Mr Palmer would eventually be translated into words?’

Mabel smiled demurely. ‘I thought it very probable that it would.’

‘And if Mr Palmer had made you an offer of marriage, how would you have received it?’

Mabel smiled at Alice, who pressed her fingers encouragingly. ‘I would have blushed a great deal and told him I must speak to my father, then I would have confided in Alice, made the dear man wait a week while I planned my trousseau, and said yes.’

‘Do you think Mr Palmer anticipated that if he made an offer it would be accepted?’

‘Oh, I really don’t know,’ said Mabel, coyly.

‘No? What did his eyes tell you?’

If Mabel had been holding a fan she would have pressed it to her heart. ‘I think he may have known the reply would be favourable.’

‘What I am endeavouring to discover, Miss Finch,’ said Frances patiently, ‘is whether Mr Palmer might have been in a state of violent emotion; disappointment in love, or whatever it is that gentlemen feel at such times, and, if he had been, he might have felt the need to be alone with his thoughts. How does that strike you?’

‘I can assure you, Miss Doughty,’ Mabel whispered, ‘that whatever the reason for poor Henry going away, it was not I who was the cause.’

Alice broke in. ‘Henry did observe only recently that he thought Mabel had a very fine complexion,’ she said.

Given the nature of Palmer’s occupation, Frances thought that as compliments went this was not altogether an outstanding one. Nevertheless, it was clear to her that there had been a strong attraction between the two young people, and neither had anticipated anything other than a mutually happy outcome.

‘Is there anything that any of you can recall Mr Palmer saying, not necessarily immediately before he disappeared, but at any time beforehand which suggested that he might have had some secret anxiety troubling him? Did he say anything about Dr Mackenzie or Dr Bonner or Dr Warrinder that you thought even slightly unusual? Had he been given a task to perform which was not part of his normal duties?’

They looked at each other. ‘He said he thought Dr Warrinder’s eyesight was getting worse,’ said Alice, ‘only the poor gentleman didn’t like to admit it.’

‘Did any of you ever meet Dr Mackenzie?’ asked Frances.

Walter and Alice shook their heads, but Mabel said, ‘I haven’t exactly met the gentleman, but he did once give a lecture at Westbourne Hall. That was about three months ago and Henry – I mean Mr Palmer – was assisting him by selling pamphlets, and he suggested I go along and listen as he had a free ticket and then we might take a walk afterwards.’

‘Was it a very interesting talk?’

‘I can’t say as I thought so.’

‘How did Dr Mackenzie impress you?’

‘He was a very sad-looking person. I think he must have been handsome when he was a young man. I was told he was under fifty, but he seemed a great deal older to me. And then only about a week before he died, I happened to pass him in the street and I knew him straight away though of course he didn’t know me, but he was quite bent like an old man, very unwell and tired and his beard was quite grey. I was sorry to hear that he had died but I cannot say that I was very surprised.’

The next morning Frances once again called at Mrs Georgeson’s house in response this time to a note from Mary Ann, who had remembered what it was that was missing from Dr Mackenzie’s room.

The maid was apologetic and spent some time twisting her pale head on its stalk, needing considerable reassurance that the delay in her memory was a matter of no moment at all, the main thing being that it had returned. Frances eventually gave her threepence, which seemed to help.

‘Dr Mackenzie used to have this travelling bag,’ said Mary Ann. ‘Sometimes he gave lectures in places where he had to go by train and stay overnight, and then he used to put his requisites in it and take it with him. That was the thing that was missing.’

‘Do you know if he took it with him when he went out that last night?’

‘I don’t know; I didn’t see him go out. But Mrs Georgeson was expecting him back, so I suppose he wouldn’t have taken it.’

‘Dr Bonner didn’t pick it up? He might have used it to pack up Dr Mackenzie’s papers and books.’

‘No. He put Dr Mackenzie’s books and things in a box, and arranged for a carrier to take them. He didn’t take anything away himself. But the bag used to be in the wardrobe at the bottom and I cleaned it out and I’m sure it wasn’t there.’

‘Can you describe it to me?’

‘Oh it was an old thing, brown leather, very worn and scratched.’

‘Did it have any initials on it? Would you know it if you saw it?’

‘Not any initials, no, but the leather on the handle was split and he had bound it up with a bit of cord. So I would know it by that.’

Frances was puzzled. Had Mackenzie taken the bag from his home that night or had someone else removed it? If Mackenzie had taken it then it suggested that he had lied to Mrs Georgeson about his intention to return home and was instead intending to go away, perhaps to avoid his creditors. But the bag would then have been discovered at the Life House after his death, and no one had mentioned it.