A Case of Doubtful Death Read Online Free

accident or been taken ill, but had learnt nothing. That evening Walter and the Palmers held a family conference and agreed that if Henry was not back by the next morning they would inform the police.
    Early the next day Walter went to Kilburn police station. The desk sergeant listened with grave attention, but took the view that Henry would have been upset by the death of Dr Mackenzie and had either taken a little more drink than was good for him, or his mind had become temporarily unhinged. Walter had found it impossible to convince him that both these suggestions were out of character. He then spoke to an Inspector called Gostelow, who impressed him as a very sensible man, and promised that he would circulate Henry’s description to his constables and ask them to look out for the missing orderly, but he comforted Walter with the comment that in such cases most people turned up later of their own accord, looking more embarrassed than anything else. Given that Henry had experienced a shock, he thought that such behaviour was not unexpected. Walter was unhappy that nothing more was to be done at that stage, but accepted that since Henry was an adult and had been missing for less than two days, the matter was unlikely to be treated as an emergency. Fearing that Henry had met with an accident and was lying unconscious in a hospital bed, Walter then sent messages to every hospital in Paddington giving Henry’s description and asking if an unidentified patient had been admitted. There was another family conference, and it was decided to put an advertisement in the Penny Illustrated Paper , which was duly arranged, although it was by then too late for an engraved portrait to go in the current week’s edition. Walter also asked Reverend Day at St Stephen’s to make an announcement during his Sunday sermon.
    Walter and Jackie went out searching together, visiting any public houses where Henry might have called, not that he frequented such places, but it was possible that after the shock of witnessing Dr Mackenzie’s death he might have felt in need of a restorative. They entered every shop along the way, stopped at market stalls, spoke to street traders, beggars and idle loiterers, showing them Henry’s photograph, but returned home exhausted and none the wiser.
    On the Friday morning Walter, without telling Alice the nature of his errand in case it distressed her, visited the mortuaries at the Kilburn and Paddington workhouses to ask if any unidentified bodies had been recently brought in, but the only one received which was still unnamed was at Kilburn and it was that of a young woman, probably an unfortunate, who had drowned herself in the Grand Junction Canal about two weeks previously.
    At Kilburn police station, Walter learned that all constables had been alerted to look for Henry, but so far without result. Walter’s next thought had been to interview the cabmen who drove along Ladbroke Grove Road, but due to the inclement weather on the night that Palmer had disappeared none could recall having seen him. Walter, seeing Alice’s health decline with the pain of uncertainty, had then suggested employing a detective. Miss Doughty, he had heard, was clever and sympathetic, and did not demand fees beyond what a working man might afford. They had some money put aside for the wedding but agreed that they were willing to spend it on finding Henry.
    That very morning Walter had been present at the funeral of Dr Mackenzie at All Souls, Kensal Green, and looked carefully about him during the brief but heartfelt ceremony. Henry was not there. Walter had been worried enough until that moment, but once he saw that Henry Palmer, a man of duty and sensitive emotions, had not attended Dr Mackenzie’s funeral, he felt suddenly convinced that the young man was dead.
    Frances felt a little guilty about taking the couple’s wedding savings, but as she looked at Alice, who was making a great meal out of her little corner of cake, she