A Case of Doubtful Death (27 page)

‘And what happened to the needle and the phial? Where are they? Dr Mackenzie could not have injected himself at home and then walked to the Life House. He would have collapsed before he arrived there. Surely those items would have been on his person, or nearby, or in his bag? Has Dr Bonner concealed them? Because if he knew what had happened he must bear some of the responsibility for Dr Mackenzie’s death. Did he lie about the sepsis to encourage a quicker burial in case the injection was discovered, and so inadvertently hurry his friend into the catacombs while still alive?’

Fairbrother shook his head in despair. ‘I know that he will have an explanation.’

‘Good, I very much look forward to hearing it.’

He uttered a groan. ‘Dr Bonner
is
unwell. He really is! You must believe me! Please don’t try and question him today! Could you not wait until he is better?’

‘I will speak to him today and will not be talked or cajoled out of it. Please do not try.’

‘No,’ he said miserably, ‘I can see that would be useless.’

‘Has he employed a solicitor?’

‘Yes – Mr Rawsthorne.’

‘Who is not so fleet of foot as we and will no doubt be coming in a later cab.’

‘You don’t intend to question Dr Bonner without his legal man beside him?’ said Fairbrother, alarmed.

‘If at all possible,’ said Frances.

‘Then I will be there as witness!’

‘As you please.’

‘Strictly I could deny you entry to the house, if I wished,’ he said, querulously.

‘And how do you propose to do that?’

‘I –’ he avoided her gaze. ‘I am not sure.’

‘Then you had better let me in.’

By the time they arrived, there was no question of Frances not gaining immediate entry to Dr Bonner’s house, where she found that gentleman sitting alone in his study. There was a bandage on his foot and his stick within easy reach. ‘Forgive me if I do not rise,’ he said dolefully. ‘The gout is always at its worst when I am agitated.’ Fairbrother scurried about pouring a glass of water from a carafe to which, at a slight signal from his mentor, he added a small measure of brandy.

‘I will not explore your reasons for not being present at the inquest today,’ said Frances, ‘I have a feeling that your replies will be neither interesting nor useful. There was no verdict today; the hearing was adjourned for a week to enable you to attend. It was felt that it could not be concluded without your evidence.’

‘I feared that,’ said Bonner. ‘I had hoped to be able to spend some time out of London, taking the sea air, but I suppose if I did so my absence might be misinterpreted.’

‘The needle mark has been found,’ said Frances. ‘The matter injected has been identified as morphine.’

Bonner was silent and Fairbrother stared at him. ‘The revelation does not surprise you,’ he asked, shocked.

Bonner shook his head. ‘No. I understand how it must look for me, but I had hoped to preserve Mackenzie’s reputation. He does not deserve the name of suicide. I knew that he wanted to go away and allow the world to believe that he was dead. He told me he would inject himself with a sedative to help him simulate the appearance of death, but I am afraid he underestimated the effect of the drug on his weak heart.’

‘The injection was not the cause of death,’ said Frances.

‘No?’ said Bonner. ‘But it can scarcely have been anything else.’ Suddenly, his mouth trembled and tears started in his eyes. ‘Oh, dear God! No! No!’

Fairbrother came to stand by Bonner’s side. ‘Miss Doughty,’ he said, ‘I think it would be best if I spoke to Dr Bonner privately. Grant him that, at least.’

The doorbell sounded and Frances, anticipating the arrival of Mr Rawsthorne, decided to depart.

Frances spent the rest of her day fending off the attentions of persons who wished her to discover the whereabouts of pet kittens, monkeys, canaries and even white mice. One gentleman, however, a Mr Horton, was so persistent, claiming that he was actually in some grave personal danger, that she agreed to see him. He was plainly dressed and looked like a man who took as much care of himself as he thought necessary, but which was still not enough. His collar was worn, as were his cuffs, and he had paid too little attention to his hair, which was overlong and none too clean, but his appearance showed many signs of an attempt to appear respectable and he had not entirely failed. She thought him perhaps of the class of junior clerk or salesman, although unlikely currently to be in employment.

‘Miss Doughty,’ he began, ‘I am in urgent need of help and I understand that it is to you that I must apply to be sure of success. You may be able to save my life!’

‘I do not undertake dangerous missions,’ said Frances, ‘however, I will listen to what you say and advise if I can.’

‘Oh, but you
must
help me! I have been to other persons in the neighbourhood and they all proved themselves quite unable. Then I chanced to hear of the affair of the parrot and I knew I must come to you!’

‘Does this involve an animal of some kind?’ asked Frances, apprehensively.

‘It does indeed. The creature in question is an alligator.’

‘You have mislaid an alligator?’ she exclaimed. ‘Alive or stuffed?’

‘Oh very much alive, and I have not mislaid it at all, no, no, I very much wish I could, but the horrible beast will keep pursuing me and I cannot escape it.’

Frances took a moment or two to consider this. ‘It pursues you?’

‘Yes!’ His hands were shaking and he used a soiled cuff to mop his forehead.

‘Where, exactly?’

‘Oh, everywhere!’ he said very earnestly.

‘In the street?’

‘Yes, and when I am at home it lodges in my chimney and makes terrible roaring sounds. But I must reassure you that the fox has been dealt with. Yes,’ he said with a satisfied smile, ‘I have dealt with him myself, so you need not trouble yourself about the fox.’

‘Mr Horton,’ said Frances, after a little thought, ‘I am not an expert in these matters, but I do believe the alligator to be an aquatic animal. And one moreover which is seldom to be found in Bayswater, where it might attract some attention.’

‘I know,’ he said, nodding. ‘I understand the difficulty, for it does need to keep its skin wet, but it is a clever beast and basks in the Serpentine on a daily basis. It is there even now!’

Frances was briefly tempted to try and reason with Mr Horton, but realised that the unfortunate man was a stranger to reason.

‘I really do not think I am equipped to catch an alligator,’ she said.

‘But if you could just speak to it and tell it to depart, I am sure it would do your bidding!’ he pleaded.

Such a commission, thought Frances, might be one of the easiest ones she had ever attempted, since she felt sure that if the gentleman could imagine this obstinate reptile into existence than he might be persuaded to imagine it gone, but she did not wish to take unfair advantage of a fragile mind and in any case, the payment might prove to be as insubstantial as the alligator.

Politely but firmly she informed Mr Horton that she was unable to deal with his request and he departed, in a state of great disappointment.

Her last client gone, Frances and Sarah settled to enjoy a quiet evening when she received a note asking her to meet David Mackenzie at the office of Mr Rawsthorne promptly at ten o’clock the next morning.

M
r Rawsthorne had acted for the Doughty family ever since Frances could remember and had been a sympathetic support at the time of both her brother’s and her father’s death. How she wished that her normally parsimonious parent had been prudent enough to entrust his investments to the good care of Mr Rawsthorne and not chase after the fanciful dream that had led to his ultimate ruin. Had he been wiser she would even now be studying to qualify as a pharmacist, with the business flourishing in the safe hands of a good manager, instead of which she had been obliged to sell her inheritance to meet an unexpected mountain of debt. Unable even to obtain an apprenticeship after the association of the Doughty name with a number of sensational murders, she had been faced with a choice of depending on the charitable good nature of her uncle, or embarking on a risky career as a detective. Some months after taking that adventurous step, she felt herself growing towards financial independence but still balancing on the fine margin that lay between success and failure, the outcome far from certain.

Even Mr Rawsthorne was not immune to financial reverses since he had lost funds as a result of the recent crash of the Bayswater bank, an event which, while it would undoubtedly have occurred whatever Frances had done or said, had happened at the time it did because of her enquiries. The last few months might have been good to him, with the excitement attendant on the General Election, but he could not have been unaware that the loss of some important clients had been directly attributable to Frances. Nevertheless, he greeted her with his accustomed good humour, which was more than could be said for his clerk, Mr Wheelock, a grinning, ink-smeared scarecrow with hair like a bundle of brazen bedsprings dipping over his eyes. Frances, who hoped that she would never be so shallow as to judge solely on appearance, found Wheelock’s manner insulting and could not reconcile Mr Rawsthorne’s employment of him with his own solid reputation and pleasant nature. She had never broached the subject with Rawsthorne, but was obliged to assume that the clerk had some talent in the field of arithmetic, or an ability to keep important matters confidential that was out of the common way.

David Mackenzie, who had presumably been thoroughly briefed by Mr Rawsthorne as to Frances’ good name, no longer looked at her as if she was an irredeemably immoral woman, only as someone who might, with very little encouragement, become one. After briefly rising from his chair to greet her, he sat primly, every muscle in his frame tightly tensed, alive with a sense of his virtue, which needed a constant and vigilant defence. Mr Rawsthorne, ignoring the discomfort in the office, sat at his ease behind his desk.

‘Well now, Miss Doughty, say whatever it is you have to say,’ said Mackenzie.

‘I am hoping to find Henry Palmer, your brother’s assistant, who went missing on the same night that he – well as it now appears, collapsed and was thought to be dead. The fact that the two events occurred on the same night cannot be ignored and so I have been trying to learn as much as I can about your brother, who may well have sent Mr Palmer away on some errand. I understand that you were not on cordial terms?’

‘We were not,’ Mackenzie replied curtly. ‘We had not spoken in over twenty years.’

‘Can you advise me of the reason for this?’

His mouth twitched in disgust. ‘It is not a nice subject, Miss Doughty.’

‘I hardly expected it would be anything trivial.’

‘You may speak freely to the young lady,’ said Rawsthorne. ‘She has a strong constitution.’

‘Hmm, well that is as may be,’ said Mackenzie dubiously. ‘If it was just the case of my brother’s memory I would have no compunction about speaking my mind, but another’s reputation is at stake, a fine and very beautiful lady, beautiful not only in her person but in her mind, her very soul.’

‘You speak of Madeleine Carmichael.’

‘I do. Twenty-two years ago she was the ornament of Edinburgh society and I was a junior clerk, working every hour I could to be something better. I knew I did not deserve the lady, but determined to apply myself so that one day I would be able to address her in terms of matrimony.’

‘She knew of this?’

‘She cannot have failed to be aware of my profound and honourable esteem.’

‘And your brother? He knew of it too?’

He looked pained. ‘Oh yes, he knew, but it made no difference to him. He also admired Miss Carmichael and set out to woo her for himself.’

‘With what result?’

Mackenzie struggled with his memories. ‘I cannot prove it, Miss Doughty, no one can, but I am convinced that he – prevailed – won her love, persuaded the innocent girl that to succumb to his crude desires was no sin – and to be blunt – ruined her.’

Frances nodded. ‘Was there any result of this connection?’

‘If you mean did she bear a child, she did not. Worse than that, far, far worse.’

‘You mean her condition was a direct cause of her death?’

‘
Alastair
caused her death!’ he exclaimed with a little wail of distress. ‘My own brother killed the finest woman who ever breathed!’

Frances was about to speak, but Mackenzie raised his hand for silence and took a few moments to regain his accustomed composure. ‘Oh please do not ask me for proof, he was very clever and although we suspected him and tried every means at our disposal to bring the crime home to him, it was impossible. She died of septicaemia in the most terrible agony that nothing could relieve, following what can only be described as the work of a butcher. The case went before the Procurator Fiscal, but while the cause of death was never in any doubt the identity of the culprit was. Alastair gave evidence that he had never had any criminal connection with Miss Carmichael, and indeed that she had only visited him once, shortly before she died, telling him of her shameful plight and asking him for advice. He claimed that he had told her that her best course was to confess all to her father and throw herself upon his mercy. The court believed him. Some weeks later I learned that a lady who matched Miss Carmichael’s description had visited him many times in his lodgings. I think, and Carmichael also thought, that my brother lied in court, and not only had he ruined a dear sweet girl, but in trying to escape the consequences of his infamy he brought about her death. Many people in Edinburgh thought the same and the feeling against him was such that eventually he decided to leave the city. A post came up in Germany about then and he left. I have not seen him since, nor have I wished to.’