A Case of Doubtful Death Read online

  ‘Does it say that a great deal?’ she demanded. He looked puzzled. ‘Does it say the name Henry a great deal?’

  The guide looked at Dr Bonner and even in the dim light Frances could see his pitying smile. ‘I am afraid this can happen when a lady with a bit of an imagination comes down here – she can start to have all sorts of fancies. I suggest we escort her back upstairs.’

  Frances hurried back to the vault. ‘Open the door,’ she said.

  ‘I’m afraid I can’t do that.’

  ‘I insist you open it!’

  ‘Miss Doughty, you are overwrought and we should leave at once,’ said Dr Bonner.

  ‘Hhhhennryyy!’

  ‘It sounds like “Henry” to me too and I’ve never been overwrought in my life,’ declared Sarah.

  ‘Lead the way,’ said Bonner to the guide.

  ‘I agree,’ said Warrinder. ‘The cold is affecting my rheumatism. Let us go.’

  ‘Not until the door has been opened,’ said Frances, resolutely.

  ‘That is up to the owner of the vault,’ said the guide. ‘Are you the owner of the vault, Miss? I don’t believe you are.’

  Frances had to admit that she was not.

  ‘Well then,’ said the guide, ‘that is the end of the tour and I do hope you have all found it interesting.’

  ‘Oh my Lord!’ exclaimed Gillan. He was peering through the bars into the vault. ‘I can see something moving!’

  ‘That’s impossible!’ said the guide.

  ‘See for yourself.’ He stepped back, and as the guide moved forward with the lamp Frances could see that Gillan’s face was as white as a new corpse.

  ‘There’s nothing in there except coffins,’ said the guide. ‘How can anything be moving? Nothing can get through the bars.’

  ‘Rats?’ suggested Warrinder.

  ‘There are no rats down here,’ said the guide. ‘Nor mice, nor anything alive other than ourselves.’ He moved the lamp back and forth. ‘No, it’s a trick of the light.’

  ‘Hhennryyy!’ said the voice and gave a loud shriek, and then they all saw it, a dark shape, moving around on top of the coffin.

  Warrinder gave a scream. ‘Oh! It’s Mackenzie! He’s alive! He’s alive! Quickly man, quickly, open the vault! I am part owner and I authorise it!’

  The guide glanced at Bonner, who appeared to be struck dumb with terror.

  ‘Do it!’ shouted Warrinder. ‘Do it at once! You may save a man’s life!’

  The guide shrugged and took a heavy bunch of keys from his belt.

  Frances felt her heart thudding loudly as the key turned with a grinding noise that was echoed by a loud scream from inside the vault.

  ‘Oh poor fellow!’ exclaimed Warrinder, holding his hands to his face. ‘Somebody save him!’

  The door swung open and the guide ran in, followed closely by Frances, Sarah and Gillan. The shape moved and turned, and as the lamp was raised towards it Frances saw the reflection of eyes, small eyes, bright as glass beads. The lid of the coffin had risen to create a slit about an inch high and protruding from it was something like dark shriveled twigs, and then Frances realised what it was she was seeing – fingers, rotting fingers, a last desperate appeal for help, while sitting on top of the coffin, pecking at the fingers with an irritated look in its eyes, was Mrs Chiffley’s parrot.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Frances would always remember that moment, which was printed upon her mind like a photograph. Dr Warrinder, his hands raised, his features transfigured in joyous acclamation; the guide, his mouth fallen open in surprise; Mr Gillan, his eyes gleaming like an antiquarian who had found a treasure-laden tomb, rapidly sketching the scene in his notebook; young Mr Fairbrother, backing away in alarm; Sarah, as unflappable as a mountain; and Dr Bonner, his face contorted in anguish, the dim light casting his features into a mask of tragedy.

  Their guide was the first to speak. ‘Ladies, gentlemen, I earnestly request that we should all leave. I need to inform the cemetery authorities at once.’

  ‘Oh, but what about Mackenzie?’ exclaimed Warrinder. ‘We must recover him immediately – we may still be able to restore him! Quickly, before it is too late!’

  Bonner groaned and placed a hand on Warrinder’s shoulder. ‘Come along, my dear fellow. I can assure you there is nothing we can do for him.’

  The guide made an attempt at politely ushering the ladies to the stairs, in the hope that the gentlemen would follow, but to his discomfiture, the ladies would not permit themselves to be ushered.

  ‘I want that parrot,’ said Sarah.

  The guide stared at her.

  ‘Well, it’s no business being here.’

  ‘And I might add,’ said Frances, ‘that allowing it to remain might result in the destruction of material that could be important in any future medical examination. Moreover, I know the identity of the owner and can restore it to her.’

  The guide unwillingly acquiesced, but not before declaring to Mr Gillan’s considerable disappointment that only he, as official guide, should be allowed to go any further into the compartment. There, not without eliciting squawks of protest, he extricated the bird and handed it to Sarah, then relocked the iron doors. He then shepherded the little party back to the stairs, and the cool and soothing gloom of the Anglican chapel. Mr Gillan did not remain with them long, but with the news hot in his pocket, bounded away at a most unfunereal pace in the direction of Harrow Road in search of a cab. Mrs Chiffley’s parrot bore the indignity of being tucked firmly yet gently under Sarah’s arm with mounting concern, as if fearing that it was about to be plucked for the pot. It repeatedly called upon ‘Henry’ for assistance, that being, Frances assumed, Mr Chiffley’s Christian name.

  Once the catacombs had been locked away from visitors, their guide abruptly left, and Frances, after instructing Sarah to bear the aggrieved parrot back to its owner and mention that an invoice for her fee would follow shortly, was left with the three medical men, all of whom were in varying stages of distress and confusion. Fairbrother approached the velvet-draped altar, where he bowed his head and appeared to be praying, Warrinder was walking unsteadily up and down, wringing his hands as if still convinced that there was some hope of restoring some life to the owner of the blackened fingers, while an exhausted Bonner, who seemed to have aged ten years, had sunk into a pew.

  Frances approached Bonner and he shrank back from her, an encouraging sign, she thought. ‘Perhaps,’ she said, taking a place beside him, ‘you have something to say to me.’

  ‘Whatever would I say that I have not already said?’ he exclaimed.

  ‘The truth. The things you have previously omitted to mention.’

  He bridled, but Frances had long ago lost any patience or respect for those who avoided telling her what she wanted to know by standing on their reputations, which often did not bear a close examination.

  ‘This is hard enough for me to bear without your insinuations,’ he protested.

  ‘I must confess,’ said Frances, ‘that had I been asked before this morning what I thought might be found in Dr Mackenzie’s coffin, I would have replied stones, or bricks, or lead – anything that might weigh the same as a corpse, anything, indeed, except a body, let alone that of Dr Mackenzie. It does now appear that there is indeed a corpse in the coffin, but I have yet to be convinced of its identity.’

  ‘Oh this is absurd!’ Bonner exclaimed in exasperation.

  ‘Dr Mackenzie told you a story that would not reflect on his honour, to persuade you to help fabricate evidence of his death. Mr Palmer may have been involved in the deception, or if not, he was sent away on some errand. You and Mackenzie together then placed a body in the coffin. I am sure there are many unclaimed corpses lying in workhouse mortuaries to which a doctor might have had access without arousing suspicion, and it was just a matter of waiting until one came along that resembled Dr Mackenzie. People who are told they are viewing a body of a named person will see what they expect to see. Any differences will be put do
wn to the relaxation of features after death. So – tell me Dr Bonner – where is he?’

  At the altar, Mr Fairbrother had stopped praying and turned to stare at her with an expression of frank astonishment.

  ‘Really, Miss Doughty,’ said Bonner, ‘it seems to me that you have mistaken your calling and ought to be writing works of popular fiction. Detective novels would suit you very well.’

  ‘Do not attempt to distract me with insults. You were, on your own admission, present when the body was placed in the coffin, so you must know from whence it came and whose it was.’

  Bonner gestured frantically with his fists, dropping his stick, which Frances had to pick up for him. It was a weighty object with a gnarled top and she thought that his gout must be troubling him more than he might like to admit. ‘I do, of course I do; the body is that of Dr Mackenzie. I cannot account for the mechanism in the coffin having been operated, but I am sure that any examination will reveal that he died from a weak heart as certified by me, and at the time and date stated. I suspect that the mechanism in the coffin was at fault, or was operated by the gases of decomposition, which would account for what we saw.’

  Despite her best efforts, Dr Bonner refused to move from that position, and Frances was obliged to comfort herself with the thought that a proper identification, post-mortem examination and inquest would soon follow. She could be patient. Nevertheless, with her suspicions very thoroughly aroused, she could not help being concerned that those most likely to be called upon to identify the exhumed body were Dr Bonner, and the dim-sighted and easily duped Dr Warrinder. There was, she reflected, no one who knew Mackenzie well enough to be asked to identify the body who was not also a trusted friend or employee and therefore potentially an accomplice. ‘It is my intention,’ said Frances, ‘to reveal my suspicions to the police and insist that the identification of the remains is carried out by several persons.’

  ‘Do as you please,’ said Bonner, flapping his hand at her dismissively, ‘you will only make yourself appear ridiculous.’

  Fairbrother, shaking his head, turned from her as if afraid that she would question him next, but Frances thought that if she had any questions to ask him this would be better done when his mentor was not present.

  Some worried-looking gentlemen came to take the body away and a few moments after they had descended into the catacombs, there was a gentle gurgling of liquid from the pump and the catafalque began to sink smoothly through the floor. The process took about fifteen minutes and then there was a wait for the coffin to be fetched before the watery whisper started again, and the black draped coffin began to be seen. While Frances was not afraid of a coffin as such, seeing one rise up out of the floor almost as if it was doing so under its own power was a trifle unnerving. When the catafalque was once more in place, Frances approached it before the cemetery officials could return and, to the astonishment of the three medical men, lifted the cloth to satisfy herself that the coffin was indeed that of Dr Mackenzie. She could do no more and it was soon borne away to a waiting hearse to be removed to Kilburn mortuary.

  ‘I will of course attend the inquest,’ said Frances. ‘I especially look forward to the establishment of the deceased’s identity.’

  Dr Bonner, she thought, was giving an extraordinary display of innocence, but that should come easily to him. Was it not a part of his profession to soothe the sick with half-truths and offer the dying the comfort of lies? Perhaps he was relying on the passage of time obscuring the features of the deceased and his reputation as a medical man of eminence in the district securing the hoped-for result.

  Frances had only a short distance to walk to Kilburn police station where, as she might have anticipated, the desk sergeant regarded her as a young lady who had perhaps taken too much in the way of drink, or was subject to attacks of hysteria, but he promised to make a note of her concerns about suitable persons being chosen to identify the remains. ‘If you are in any doubts about me,’ she told him, ‘I suggest you have a word with Inspector Sharrock at Paddington Green, who will vouch for the fact that when I make a great deal of noise about something it is not without good cause!’ Inspector Sharrock, while publicly holding Frances to be a meddler who ought to be out looking for a husband and not concerning herself with murders, had, she felt sure, been obliged to admit to himself if no one else that she had successfully concluded a number of knotty cases. She was advised that Dr Hardwicke, the coroner, would be hearing cases at Providence Hall, Paddington on Monday and that the proceedings would, in all probability, open then.

  The one mystery that Frances felt sure she would never solve was how Mrs Chiffley’s parrot had ever come to be in the catacombs, although she could essay a guess. The Chiffleys did not live very far from All Souls. In all probability the bird, after circling the grey houses of Kensal Green, had been attracted by the delightful shrubs and flowers of the cemetery and had flown down to disport itself amongst the gravestones. Perhaps it had subsisted on fragments of bread from the picnic baskets of visitors, and been captured by one of the cemetery officials who had then concealed it and scoured the newspapers for an advertisement offering a reward for its return. That reward was now hers, but it would, she was sure, be followed by anxious requests from the public to search for every missing songbird in Paddington.

  That Sunday after church Sarah wanted to entertain Tom to tea, partly, thought Frances, to introduce him to a more genteel manner of refreshing himself and fit him for the more prosperous future he had been promised, but also, she felt sure, to divert her from matters of business and quiet her mind. Tom duly arrived as smart and spruced as it was possible for him to be by his own efforts, which meant that Sarah had only to wash and polish and arrange him for about twenty minutes until she thought him fit to sit at the table. Tom revealed that he was now in business on his own account. He had organised a band of ‘men’ as he called them, although Frances felt sure that none of them was much more than twelve, and they would assemble in the doorway of Mr Beccles’ shop on the Grove, which was commodious and rarely busy otherwise, to be assigned their tasks. Busy gentlemen in the Grove were starting to learn where Tom’s little army could be found and he now had a thriving trade. They slept in a small attic room above the shop, which Mr Beccles said they could have for nothing if they made deliveries for him. Sarah gazed at the diminutive businessman with almost maternal pride, and flicked her napkin at him whenever he felt tempted to wipe crumbs from his mouth with a sleeve. She gave him a bag of buns before he left.

  Unusually for the first day of an inquest, where little more than evidence of identification was to be expected, the little hall on Church Street was crowded, and there could be no doubt as to which case was arousing the public interest, since the only others to be heard were rather more commonplace deaths due to a drunken fall, hydrophobia, and want of nourishment.

  Mr Gillan was there with the light of anticipation in his eyes and Frances did not have to enquire as to the reason why large crowds had shown such an early curiosity about the proceedings. Doctors Bonner and Warrinder and Mr Fairbrother were also in attendance, as were Mrs Georgeson, Dr Carmichael and Mr Darscot. Frances was surprised to see her own doctor, Dr Collin, there as well, and wondered what his involvement might be. She was unable to contain her impatience and with an alacrity that might well have seemed like forwardness, took a seat beside Mr Fairbrother. Dr Bonner, nearby, sat lost in thought.

  ‘Have you seen the body?’ she asked. ‘What was your conclusion?’

  ‘I have,’ said Fairbrother, ‘and I fear that you are due for a disappointment. It is without a shadow of a doubt that of Dr Mackenzie.’

  ‘Oh!’ said Frances, with some surprise. ‘But can you be quite sure? You have not known him long.’

  ‘Yes, I am quite sure. I have been in his company a number of times, sometimes for several hours together when on duty in the Life House. I should add that Dr Collin was an acquaintance of Dr Mackenzie and has confirmed the identification.’

 
; Frances pondered this. ‘Surely the features of the corpse were very much altered?’

  ‘Not at all, he was perfectly recognisable.’

  ‘Then the body cannot be that of Dr Mackenzie,’ Frances stated firmly. ‘If it was, after the lapse of time, some of which was spent in the warmth of the Life House, he would be greatly decomposed. Some other body, that of a man of similar appearance, was placed in the coffin before it was deposited in the catacombs.’

  Fairbrother shook his head. ‘My experience in these matters is necessarily limited, but I am given to understand that the rate of decomposition of bodies or different portions of the same body can vary to a considerable degree, often for no reason that medical science can explain. I think you are mistaken and I have no doubt that on the basis of the evidence given today the coroner will determine that the body is that of Dr Mackenzie. However, it is intended that a full post-mortem will be carried out by a Home Office man, with Dr Collin assisting and myself taking notes, and that should remove all suspicions, even yours.’ He looked very pleased with himself. ‘It will be a most valuable experience for me.’

  The inquest proceedings were necessarily brief and Dr Hardwicke, the coroner, as Fairbrother had anticipated, accepted that the remains were those of Dr Mackenzie and ordered a detailed post-mortem. Frances had assumed that this was a normal requirement given the circumstances under which the corpse had been removed from the catacombs, but Hardwicke commented that his order followed from some unusual circumstances presenting themselves at the initial examination. Frances demanded to know what these were, but both Fairbrother and Bonner were frustratingly tight-lipped. The inquest was adjourned.

  Walter Crowe, who was by some curious means of communication absorbing the same hollow-eyed appearance as his betrothed, came up and tipped his hat to Frances. ‘This is an interesting development,’ he said. ‘What can it mean? Do you think it has any bearing on poor Henry’s fate?’