A Case of Doubtful Death Read Free Page B

her missing brother had been both determined and tireless.
    Walter’s first action was to go to see Alice’s brother Bertie at the butcher’s shop, who confirmed that he had not seen Henry that day. Walter then sent Jackie to Golborne Road to see if Henry had returned home, but the boy came back with the news that Henry was not there.
    Walter next called on Alice at her place of employment, hoping that Henry might have gone to see her or at least sent a note, but she had still heard nothing from her brother and was now almost out of her wits with worry. Walter then took a cab up to the Life House and found that while he was not permitted to enter the wards, which were the preserve of staff and medical men, he could be admitted to the side chapel, which he found crowded with visitors; friends of the recently deceased Dr Mackenzie who had come to pay their respects. The doctor’s remains were in an open coffin, surrounded by floral tributes and sad faces. There was nothing unusual about the corpse, which looked very peaceful.
    Walter was informed by a distressed and exhausted Dr Bonner that his colleague had collapsed and died the night before, indeed Mackenzie had been speaking to Henry Palmer when he had suddenly clutched his stomach and chest, groaned with pain, and fallen. Bonner and Palmer had spent an hour doing all they could to revive him, but had at last given up hope. Bonner, who was well acquainted with Mackenzie’s history of ill health, was in no doubt that the doctor had indeed breathed his last. Since Bonner understood that Mackenzie’s landlady, Mrs Georgeson, waited up for her tenants so she could lock the premises at night, he had instructed Palmer to call on her and inform her of what had occurred. It was by then almost eleven o’clock, so Bonner had told Palmer that after speaking to Mrs Georgeson, there was no need for him to return to the Life House that evening, and he should go home. Palmer had departed as instructed, and Bonner had not seen or heard from him since, but then he would not have expected to. He had remained at the Life House after Palmer left until the arrival of the other orderly, Mr Hemsley, an hour later, and had then gone home to try and get a little rest. Early the next morning, he had notified Mackenzie’s friends by telegram, inviting them to a viewing at the chapel at ten o’clock. As far as he was aware he was still expecting Palmer back at the Life House at midday for his next period of duty.
    Walter had observed but not spoken to the other partner in the Life House, Dr Warrinder. That gentleman had been very upset and was fussing about the place, constantly asking Bonner if he was sure that his friend was really dead. He had even held a mirror to Mackenzie’s nose looking for the misting that would show the doctor still breathed, but without finding anything that might give him hope.
    Walter had next gone to Dr Mackenzie’s lodgings and spoken to the landlady Mrs Georgeson, who had just returned from viewing the body. She confirmed that Henry Palmer had come to the house a little after eleven o’clock the previous night to inform her of Dr Mackenzie’s death. He had left after a few minutes’ conversation and had last been seen walking down Ladbroke Grove Road. At this point in Walter’s narrative, Frances fetched a directory with a folding map on which he pointed out Henry’s most probable route home, going south down Ladbroke Grove Road away from the Life House, and making a left turn either down Telford Road, Faraday Road or Bonchurch Road, all of which would have led to Portobello Road, then turning right down Portobello Road for a short distance and left into Golborne Road.
    It was about a ten-minute walk from Dr Mackenzie’s lodgings to Henry’s home, allowing for the darkness and the fog. Walter had carefully followed each of Henry’s possible routes, but had seen no sign of him. He asked everyone he met on the way if a man had been there and suffered an