A Case of Doubtful Death Read online

  This book is dedicated to the Friends of Kensal Green and the General Cemetery Company with especial thanks to Lee Snashfold and Henry Vivian-Neal for all their help with my research.

  www.kensalgreencemetery.com

  www.kensalgreen.co.uk

  CONTENTS

  Title

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Author’s Note

  About the Author

  By the Same Author

  Copyright

  CHAPTER ONE

  In the cooler months, Henry Palmer’s most important duty was to keep the coal fires of the mortuary burning steadily. After all, as Dr Mackenzie used to say with his most engaging smile, an expression that ladies often commented was wasted on the dead, it wouldn’t do for the ‘patients’ to be too cold. Cold was the enemy of putrefaction, and worse than that, it paralysed the living, giving them a ghostly semblance of death that could delude the most skilled physician into certifying that life was extinct. While eminent medical men were confident that cures to the deadliest of disorders were almost within their grasp, science was still plagued with fundamental uncertainties. One of these, declared Dr Mackenzie, whatever practitioners liked to claim (and where, indeed, was the doctor of medicine who would ever admit to making a mistake?) was the infallible diagnosis of death. Failure to see the spark of life in a pale still form which seemed to have given up its last breath was, in his opinion, the worst possible error a doctor might make, for it could lead to horrors almost beyond human imagination.

  The causes and consequences of premature burial were something he had made his special study for many years. To Mackenzie, the establishment, of which he was both founder and chief director, was not a place of death, but of reassurance. He called it the Life House, and the new admissions, who were laid gently on flower-strewn beds, were, at his express instructions, referred to as patients, and never corpses. He even ensured that the main repository was divided by a curtain into male and female wards. It would never do for a patient to awaken and find themselves in the company of persons of the opposite sex, a shock which might have a fatal termination in someone already in a fainting state. Every patient, on first being admitted, was carefully examined, and if no sign of life was apparent, a length of thin cord was tied to a big toe and a finger, and connected to a bell, which was hung from a hook on the wall. Should any of the patients revive, the smallest movement would announce to the orderly employed to keep constant watch over the wards that one of his charges was alive, and every means of resuscitation that modern medicine could provide was at hand to ensure the speedy and effective restoration of consciousness.

  As far as Henry Palmer was aware, in the fifteen years of the Life House’s existence no patient had ever revived. Enshrouded by the warmth of the carefully tended winter fire, or in balmier seasons, the glow of the sun seeping through high windows, there was no answering flush on sinking cheeks, no sheen of sweat on pallid brows, only the spreading and darkening stains of decay. From time to time, the sound of a bell would be heard, but that was only due to undulations of the abdomen brought on by putrefactive gases causing a tremor, which rippled into the dead limbs. Before long it would be necessary to inform relatives that the patient had undeniably passed away, and the remains would be consigned to a coffin, placed in a side room referred to as the ‘chapel’, and later borne to a final resting place in All Souls Cemetery, Kensal Green.

  Palmer had a great deal of respect for Dr Mackenzie, despite his employer’s eccentric beliefs, and while many a man might have recoiled from the uncongenial and unrewarding work, the young orderly took satisfaction from knowing that he brought comfort to bereaved families. During the long, quiet hours spent with the dead he saw that all was neat and well kept, changed the linen coverlets, maintained the banks of fresh flowers around the silent forms, cleaned the bedsteads, and sprinkled and swabbed the floor with a solution of carbolic acid. The pungent tarry smell of the liquid, the odour of wilting bouquets and the warm nostril-stinging tang of burning coal were between them almost enough to conceal what would otherwise have been the most powerful smell in the building – the sickly odour of the decomposition of human flesh. He made a round of the patients every hour, looking for clues that life remained, and, finding none, entered the details in a report, priding himself on his meticulous and neatly-kept records. Dr Mackenzie, who lived close by in Ladbroke Grove Road, called twice a day, and his partner, Dr Bonner, daily. The third director, Dr Warrinder, was also a regular visitor, although Palmer felt that his interest was merely to supply an occupation for his retirement, something that had been forced on him by failing eyesight. The three doctors would solemnly examine every patient as Palmer gave them his verbal account of the day’s transactions, then they would read and initial his record book, and compliment him on a duty well done. There were occasional visitors, strictly by appointment, who were always medical men. Mackenzie abhorred the idea of prurient persons hoping to glut their gross tastes on scenes unfit for all but the eyes of professional gentlemen, and most especially would not tolerate visits from members of the press, or females. Families wanting a last view of the departed were never shown into the wards, the body being decently laid out in the chapel.

  On the day of the funeral Palmer would be there in his good dark suit of clothes, looking like an undertaker’s man and assisting the bearers. It was only on the patient’s final day above ground that he allowed himself to think of whom he or she had once been, and say his own farewell. His sister, Alice, and her friend Mabel Finch, to whose company he had recently become very partial, had both said, not without a laugh from Alice and a blush from Miss Finch, that he was almost ladylike in his feelings, not that that was in any way a bad thing. Dr Mackenzie was also at the funerals, with large sorrowful eyes, a man of science forever searching for the truth and always disappointed.

  Although friends and relatives were known to cling desperately to the hope that their loved one might not after all be dead, the prospect of revival was not something the Life House made much of in its message to the public. The enterprise made only one very clear guarantee. No customer of Dr Mackenzie’s Life House would ever be buried alive.

  ‘How very curious!’ exclaimed young detective Frances Doughty, making a careful study of a letter she had received that morning. It was a single sheet, with pale handwriting very lightly impressed upon the paper as if the writer was elderly or ill, and there were little stops and starts, suggesting that the composition of the message had been interrupted in a number of places by sudden and uncontrollable floods of emotion.

  Sarah, her trusted companion and assistant detective, a burly woman whose broad, plain face and stern expression concealed a world of loyalty and kindness, looked up from the drift of lacy knitting that seemed to flow effortlessly from her powerful fingers.

  ‘New customer?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes,’ said Frances, ‘her name is Alice Palmer, and she will be calling this afternoon.’ A small photograph wrapped carefully in light tissue as if it was a jewel, had been enclosed in a fold of the paper, and she showed it to Sarah. The sitter wa
s a slender young man in his Sunday-best suit, looking self-conscious and clutching a hat. ‘Miss Palmer’s brother, Henry. Have you ever seen him?’

  Sarah peered at the picture and shook her head. ‘No, I can’t say as I have. Isn’t he the man Reverend Day told us about in his sermon yesterday?’

  ‘Yes, Mr Palmer disappeared six days ago, and his family is very anxious for his safety. But here is a detail that piques my curiosity. For the last two years he has been working as an orderly at the Life House in Kensal Green.’

  ‘I’ve heard of that place,’ said Sarah, scornfully, ‘and they’ve no business calling it a Life House when all they do is take in dead folk. Coffins in and coffins out. I’ve never heard of anyone coming back to life.’

  ‘Nor I,’ agreed Frances. ‘There are stories of course, but they may be made up. But there is no denying that many people feel a great anxiety in case they should be taken ill and appear to be dead, and then buried before their time. If they know that they will be taken to the Life House it will put their minds at rest.’ Frances laid down the letter and photograph and picked up a copy of the Chronicle. ‘This, however, is the really interesting part. Henry Palmer disappeared on the very same evening that his employer, Dr Mackenzie, died.’

  Sarah nodded. ‘So he could have murdered Dr Mackenzie and then run away?’

  ‘There are many ways that the two events could be connected,’ said Frances cautiously, ‘or it could be that they are not connected at all. There is such a thing as coincidence, and I do allow for that when events are in themselves commonplace and unremarkable. But, where two rare and unexpected things happen on the same day and concern people who are acquainted, that circumstance deserves a very close examination. It does appear, however, that there was nothing suspicious about Dr Mackenzie’s death, although he was only forty-seven. It says here,’ she went on, perusing the Chronicle’s obituary, ‘that he had been very ill for some time, and it was well known that he had a weak heart. He had been advised to rest or even give up business altogether, but in common with many dedicated gentlemen he chose to ignore his doctor’s warnings. On the evening of the twenty-first of September, he was making his usual rounds of the Life House when he appeared to faint, but it was soon discovered that he was dead. His associate, Dr Bonner, said that he died from disease of the heart brought on by a septic abdomen, almost certainly made worse by overwork.’

  ‘Did Dr Mackenzie get put in his own Life House, then, and left to go all rotten?’ asked Sarah.

  ‘Apparently so,’ replied Frances. She put the newspaper aside and waited.

  In the few months that had elapsed since the shocking case of murder that had elevated Frances’ reputation in the public mind, Frances and Sarah had become quite settled in their new home and also into an acknowledged position in Bayswater society as ladies who could deal with any difficulty. Frances was spoken of in hushed tones across fashionable tea tables as a clever young woman of almost masculine mind, while a story had recently flown about the district of how Sarah had exposed the activities of a thieving footman by dint of picking him up and shaking him until the teaspoons in his pockets rattled.

  They occupied a first-floor apartment on Westbourne Park Road, rooms which would, in the days when the house had been the home of a gentleman with offices in the City, have been family sleeping accommodation. There was a large front room, which made a comfortable parlour where they dined and received visitors. A smaller room at the back of the house was where Frances slept and where she also kept her late father’s writing desk and all her papers and books. The compartment which connected the two must once have been a dressing room, and Frances had hesitated, because of its small size and Sarah’s imposing width, to suggest that she might like to make it her sleeping quarters, but Sarah, anticipating Frances’ concerns, had at once appropriated it to her sole use, firmly declaring it to be the cosiest bedroom she had ever known.

  The furnishings throughout were plain and practical, since Frances liked to be surrounded by things that were useful and easily kept clean. Ostentatious decoration, she believed, was something that should be reserved for important public buildings. She had been in too many homes where the acquisition of pretty trinkets had disguised a discontented household. When her friends, Miss Gilbert and Miss John, leading lights of the Bayswater Women’s Suffrage Society, had first called upon her, they had gazed upon the simple austerity of the parlour with expressions approaching panic, although they would not have dreamed of offering any comment or suggestion. Soon afterwards Frances had been sent, almost as one sends a parcel of food to a starving family, two large cushions made of maroon velvet with heavy gold fringes, one embroidered with the figure of Britannia and the other with Boadicea. Frances made a special point of always placing these on display whenever the ladies called for tea.

  As to the matter of family portraits, an essential in any parlour, Frances was in some difficulty as she had only one, a study of her late brother Frederick taken on the occasion of his twenty-first birthday, and that she had placed in a prominent position. She had no pictures of her father, and if there had been any of her mother or of her parents’ nuptials, those she felt sure had been destroyed long ago. Sarah had a photograph of her eight brothers, but it was felt best to place this in another room, so as not to alarm visitors.

  During the day, Frances and Sarah saw clients and pursued their enquiries. In the evenings, they sat in easy chairs before the fire, enjoying a princely feast of cocoa and hot buttered toast, and while Sarah wielded her needles, Frances read aloud from the newspapers. This was not merely for the entertainment they had to offer; as Bayswater’s busiest detective she must make sure to know everything she could about recent events and notable people in that bustling part of Paddington. Sarah’s tastes were for the more sensational items of news, anything that might make her open her eyes wide or even declare ‘well I never!’ She often laughed heartily at the reports in the Bayswater Chronicle of the sometimes unseemly quarrels between the men of the Paddington vestry, and commented that if she was there she would bang their silly heads together and then perhaps they would attend to their business more and there would be fewer holes in the macadam on Bishop’s Road.

  Frances’ first venture into her new profession had not been without some anxiety. For several weeks she had worried less about solving cases than keeping herself and Sarah fed and housed. Fortunately the success of her first case, which was not unconnected with the recent General Election, had been followed by a secret meeting with a parliamentary gentleman as a result of which she had since been in receipt of a modest salary, on the understanding that her services would always be available to the government. It would not make her a rich woman, but it provided a measure of financial security.

  That summer she had been entrusted with a mission of great delicacy. An eminent gentleman had asked her to deliver a message to a lady, a message of such sensitivity that it could not be committed to paper. Tact and discretion were required. Frances had duly delivered the message, but finding that tact and discretion were insufficient to achieve the desired result she had added a few firm and well-directed words of her own, thereby avoiding a scandal. Her probity and discretion had been appreciated in the form of a very handsome honorarium, and Prime Minister Mr Gladstone, who was torn between a natural compulsion to save her from an unsuitable life and his awareness of her usefulness, had made her the gift of a prayer book in which he had been kind enough to inscribe his signature. That item, too, occupied a place in the parlour, although modesty forbade Frances to show the dedication to visitors unless specifically requested.

  For the most part, however, Frances’ commissions had been of a more mundane nature – discovering the whereabouts of erring husbands, enquiring after the honesty of ardent suitors, or recovering letters written in the heat of a passion that had since cooled.

  The only case in which she had failed was a quite trivial one, and yet it remained on her mind. Mrs Chiffley was the wife of a prospe
rous tea merchant, and some months ago her husband had presented her with the gift of a parrot. Unfortunately, while her husband was away on business, Mrs Chiffley had carelessly allowed the bird to escape. She did not wish to advertise in the newspapers for its return in case her husband came to know of her error, neither was there the option of buying a replacement as the bird had very distinctive markings which Mr Chiffley had commented upon. Mrs Chiffley, in desperation, had come to Frances, offering a substantial reward for the safe recovery of her pet, but Frances could do no more than make discreet enquiries and ask her trusted associates to keep their eyes well open. The bird could have flown back to India or even China for all she knew, although she did occasionally submit to the fear that she would discover Mrs Chiffley’s parrot in the windows of Mr Whiteley’s emporium, its sapphire feathers enhancing a fashionable hat.

  Frances could not help wondering if there were other private detectives who experienced failure. It seemed unlikely that she was the only one. Unfortunately, she did not know any other detectives and even if she had it would have been impertinent to say the least to ask them about their unsolved cases. She suspected that other detectives did not take their failures to heart as she did, but cast them aside without a trace of guilt and forgot them in a moment.

  Closer to her inner soul was her indecision as to whether she should try to find her mother. Frances had been brought up to believe that her mother had died when she was three years old, and had not long ago found that the abandonment was of a more earthly nature, and in the company of a man. Early in 1864, her mother had given birth to twins, a girl and a boy, of whom her husband William had suspected he was not the father, but the girl had died very young. It was possible that Frances’ mother was still alive, and also her brother – perhaps, it had been hinted, a full brother – who would now be sixteen. Frances felt sure that she was equal to the quest, but still she hesitated. She was afraid not of what she might find, but that her efforts would be met with a cruel rejection. She had lived above her father’s chemist’s shop on Westbourne Grove for many years after her mother’s departure, and even now that she had quit the Grove, everyone there knew her new address, so if her mother really wished to see her she could easily discover where she might be found. Supposing her father to have been the obstacle to a reunion, her mother could hardly be ignorant of William Doughty’s death, a tragedy which had exercised the gossips of Bayswater for some weeks, and whose aftermath was still unresolved. It was the strongest possible indication that her mother, for reasons of her own, did not wish to be discovered. All the same, every time Frances pushed the idea aside it returned, and she tormented herself with the thought that her mother might have come into the shop as a customer, and never revealed who she was, and she might have seen and spoken to her and never known it. The only other place that she and her mother held in common was Brompton cemetery where her father, older brother and sister were buried. Frances went regularly to tend the graves, but saw no signs of another visitor, and no one could tell her if another lady came there.