A Case of Doubtful Death (20 page)

Bonner was momentarily speechless and then threw up his hands in a gesture of exasperation. ‘Whose else would it be?’

‘I can’t say. Another of your customers? An unidentified body from a mortuary … or …’ Frances hesitated as the worst possible thought came from the back of her mind where it had been lurking for some days. ‘There is one man missing and unaccounted for – Mr Palmer.’

Bonner stared at her, aghast. ‘I have seen and heard many things in my career, but the things that come from your imagination horrify me.’

‘What horrifies me,’ said Frances, ‘is that so many of the terrible things I imagine I later find out to be true. Where is Dr Mackenzie’s coffin interred?’

‘It was deposited in the catacombs at All Souls, Kensal Green.’

‘Excellent. That makes our task easier, as there is no digging to be done. We may go and view it, assuming that it is still there.’

‘Of
course
it is still there!’ exclaimed Bonner. ‘Where else would it be? Do you think I spirit away coffins on my back in the middle of the night?’

‘Has it been sealed in lead?’

Bonner paused. ‘Not yet. Life House customers, providing certain hygienic requirements are met, are allowed to remain coffined without lead seals for two weeks in case signs of life appear. Dr Mackenzie’s coffin will be sealed very soon.’

‘Then there is no time to waste.’

It was some moments before Dr Bonner understood her meaning. ‘Are you suggesting that we open Dr Mackenzie’s coffin?’

‘I am.’

‘You will need an order from the Home Office,’ he advised, smiling at her naivety.

‘I see no difficulty over that,’ Frances replied.

‘Do you not?’ Bonner chuckled.

She stared back at him confidently. ‘None at all. I could have one in my hands in a matter of days.’

There was a long silence, during which Bonner’s attempt at humouring her drained away.

‘Miss Doughty,’ he said wearily, ‘you have my word as a man of honour that Dr Mackenzie did indeed die at the place and time notified, and is interred in the coffin that bears his name. Is that not enough for you?’

‘I would be failing in my profession as detective if I was to accept as truth without question any fact that I was able to check for myself, even one attested to by a man of honour,’ said Frances.

Bonner shifted in his chair, showing some unease, only a part of which may have been due to the discomfort in his foot. Frances watched him, but said nothing. He looked up at a framed portrait on the wall – a recently hung picture of Dr Mackenzie, a copy of the one that had been put on display at the Life House. ‘Poor fellow!’ he said shaking his head. ‘Miss Doughty, I really wish you were right in all your strange fancies. I wish he
was
in some place where he could be content and useful and not lying in his coffin. But he died that night, died in my arms, and there was nothing I could do. A man not yet fifty and worn out with care and work.’

‘What happened?’ asked Frances.

‘I have already told you what happened.’

She shook her head. ‘I think there is more.’

There was a quiet space of time long enough to take two breaths and then he capitulated. ‘If I was to tell you, would you promise not to make your peculiar allegations public? Do you know what damage that could do?’

‘I make no promises. But I might be prepared to temper my actions based on what further information I receive.’

He took his handkerchief from his pocket, and wiped his palms and forehead, then carefully folded the fabric before putting it away. ‘Very well. You recall that I told you of the lady in Germany who Mackenzie loved?’

‘Yes, the one forced to marry a brute for money.’

‘Indeed. The day before he died Mackenzie came to me and told me the sad tale. He said he had never ceased to love her and indeed she him. He assured me, however, and I believe him absolutely, that their acquaintance was wholly innocent, but such was their mutual affection that a crude mind might have put a certain interpretation on it. Any suggestion of scandal would of course have exposed the poor lady to the most dreadful ill-use from her foul husband and they had determined that much as it pained them, they must never see each other or communicate again. In the last few weeks, Mackenzie had received letters from friends in Germany, which showed that even this was not enough. The husband has been descending into madness and reached a kind of monomania on the subject. He actually believed that Mackenzie was living in Germany and visiting his wife. Mackenzie could think of only one way of protecting her – he must make this evil individual believe that he was dead. He asked me to help him.

‘Yes, we did consider carrying out a deception, although we never discussed the detail. Palmer knew nothing of it, but we might have engaged his assistance at a later date. On the night of his death, Mackenzie came to the Life House and told me that he had decided to go through with it. He looked terribly tired and ill. He died, Miss Doughty, there was no pretence about it, he fell and died.’

‘And you accuse
me
of telling fanciful tales,’ declared Frances. ‘Dr Mackenzie’s story is identical to the plot of a sensational novel reviewed in the
Bayswater Chronicle
last month –
For the Love of a Ladye
by Augustus Mellifloe.’

‘I do not read such things,’ said Bonner, frowning.

‘Obviously not, and I am sure that he knew it. He had good reasons to want to disappear, but they were not the noble and selfless motives he claimed and most assuredly nothing he wished you to be aware of. Now then, if you still maintain that he is dead I would like to view the coffin and if I see any reason to have it opened, then I will insist on it being done.’

‘I have nothing to hide,’ said Bonner, ‘but I remain anxious that the reputation of the Life House is not impugned. Very well, I can see that you will not desist from this madness until you have your way. I will arrange for you to see the coffin as you request and you may bring all the witnesses you want, invite the press if you wish, so long as the excursion is represented in a proper light.’

Frances, taking Dr Bonner at his word about inviting the press, informed Mr Gillan that her eminent medical acquaintance was putting together a little party of interested persons to tour the catacombs at All Souls, and that he might make up one of their number, since it might provide an interesting and instructive item for the
Chronicle
. Dr Bonner was as good as his word and a visit was arranged for the next day.

D
r Bonner, who kept a smart little carriage, offered Frances and Sarah places for the journey, and there was also enough room for the svelte form of young Mr Fairbrother. Sarah looked at Mr Fairbrother with a furrowed brow as if to say that no man ought to appear as handsome as he did, and then stared very closely at Frances.

They proceeded up the Ladbroke Grove Road and then turned left into Harrow Road. The cemetery, thought Frances, was like a town in miniature and just as the needs of Bayswater had given rise to beautiful shopping promenades and market gardens to feed the demands of its inhabitants, so the needs of the cemetery had also to be fed, but in different ways. As they approached the fine, arched entrance it seemed that every business in the vicinity was in some way supplying the requirements not so much of the dead as the living who mourned them. Shops and yards bore signs declaring the businesses within to be that of stonemason and dealers in statuary, and from their doors came the continuous sounds of grinding and polishing; but only one kind of stone and marble was being fashioned. The goods on display were species of blank tombstones to serve as examples, taking the form of weeping women, angels, ivy-clad crosses, hourglasses and similar solemn testimonials. Other establishments were for the sale of fresh flowers and wreaths or
immortelles,
whose painted porcelain blooms were the perfect expression of the sadness of loss and a reminder that no living thing, however well preserved, can last forever. Most of the vehicles on the road were hearses and most of the men pausing for refreshment at inns were in undertakers’ weeds.

On the way Dr Bonner regaled his companions with some of the history of All Souls, and its many beautiful acres and elegant monuments. While Frances was partial to contemplating statuary she reflected on the prevalent custom and taste for viewing the cemetery as a pastime or even an entertainment. On a fine afternoon, fashionably dressed ladies and gentlemen came to stroll and talk or sit and eat sweetmeats, much as one might visit a garden that was no more than just a garden. To Frances, however, the cemetery served only two purposes for the visitor, one was to visit the tombs of the dead to remember those friends and relations who had departed. The other was to consider the living, and especially to examine inside oneself, and think of how short a time there was to become the person one ought to be.

At the entrance to the cemetery they were joined by the other members of the party, Dr Warrinder, who had arrived in a hansom, looking unhappy, and Mr Gillan, beaming with anticipation and holding a notebook and pencil at the ready.

A cheerful looking red-faced gatekeeper presented them with an illustrated handbook which included a map of the cemetery and introduced them to their guide, a small, serious man dressed in funereal black whose usual role was to preside at interments. He was, as they were to discover, a tireless fount of all information regarding the history and customs of All Souls.

He began by informing the party that they were to take no note of recent reports that curious sounds had been heard in the catacombs as he was able to reassure them that these were solely due to the wind entering the gratings. He only mentioned this as he wished to ensure that the ladies were not alarmed. Sarah said that he need not worry on her account as she did not believe in ghosts and even if she did, she did not think that something that was made of nothing could do her any harm. Their guide smiled thinly, as if too polite to mention that even something that was made of something was unlikely to be able to harm Sarah.

On the way to the chapel they passed a greenhouse which, they were informed, had been established by the cemetery to supply a demand for fresh flowers that even the nearby nurseries were unable to meet. Frances wondered if that was really true and what the proprietors of nearby nurseries thought about the rival establishment.

As they walked along the path to the chapel, Frances was obliged to comment that there was a great deal of costly marble in the grounds, some of it in the portable form of urns and tablets, and wondered if there was any danger of robbery, but she was assured that a night-watchman who was accompanied by a dog and carried a gun, patrolled the grounds, and also took particular care to observe the entrances of the catacombs and mausoleums.

There were, explained their guide, three separate catacombs in the cemetery, one below the Dissenters’ Chapel in the east and two below the central chapel, where services were conducted according to the Church of England. The catacomb that lay under the building’s colonnade had long since been filled, but the one they were about to see extended under the whole chapel and still received deposits. The remains of many distinguished persons, including surgeons and physicians of note, were to be found there.

‘Dr Mackenzie was impressed from his first visit to All Souls many years ago by the dignity and hygiene of its arrangements,’ said Dr Bonner, ‘and while a catacomb vault will cost more than a burial in the earth, it will hold many coffins and is no trouble to maintain.’ He was walking a little more easily than the previous day, but still required the assistance of his stick.

‘Did he have any funeral money put aside?’ asked Frances.

‘None, I’m afraid. Dr Warrinder and myself were obliged to meet the expense.’

The iron gates of the chapel were open and its interior, with an altar below a far window and a double row of dark wooden pews on either side, was like a church, but a church built only for one purpose. Here there would never be the joy of marriage or christening or the celebration of life, only burials and loss. Its centre was dominated by an extraordinary structure – a high oblong plinth, black and shiny as jet, a carved pillar at each corner, its sides dressed in velvet and on top, a deep platform with gilded surrounds. Frances was just wondering if it might be an unusual kind of coffin, when the guide explained that it was a catafalque for the conveyance of remains into the catacombs below, the method for which would become apparent shortly. The machinery operated on the hydraulic principle, which meant that it employed liquid operated by a pump.

Frances hoped that they might ride down to the catacombs on the great black plinth which would have been quite a novelty, but to her disappointment the guide, who had now lit a lantern, unlocked a side door and she found that she was expected to descend by a narrow, steep stone staircase whose builders had not anticipated that it would ever be used by ladies whose heavy skirts made progress very difficult, or by gentlemen with weak legs. The guide looked on anxiously as Dr Warrinder tottered down the steps and Mr Fairbrother offered Dr Bonner his arm for support.

Frances had not been quite sure what to expect, a large room like a dungeon, perhaps, and was astounded at the sight of something resembling a wine cellar that might have lain below a great castle or a money vault suitable for a bank. They were looking down a corridor easily wide enough to admit several people walking abreast and lit by gas lamps. The plain arched roof and walls were not the grim bare stone she had anticipated; all were painted white. On either side were vaults for the deposit of coffins, each large enough to hold a dozen or more. She was told that the catacomb was arranged in six aisles and there were
216
vaults in all. The guide showed them the shining metal columns down which the catafalque was able to descend with smooth dignity, and the pump, with a great iron handle, which took two strong men to operate.