On the afternoon of July 30, 1951, acting on what I am obliged to
describe as an unexpected impulse, I drove out to the country for the
purpose of calling on my friend Dr. David Bannerman. I had not seen him
nor had word from him since the evening of June 12 of this year, 1951.
* * * * *
After knocking, calling to him and hearing no response, I went upstairs
to his bedroom and found him dead. From superficial indications I
judged that death must have taken place during the previous night. He
was lying on his bed on his left side, comfortably disposed as if for
sleep, but fully dressed, with a fresh shirt and clean summer slacks.
His eyes and mouth were closed, and there was no trace of the disorder
to be expected at even the easiest death.
* * * * *
Because of these signs I assumed, soon as I had determined the absence
of breath and heartbeat and noted the chill of the body, that some
neighbor must have already found him, performed these simple rites
of respect for him, and probably notified a local physician or other
responsible person. I therefore waited, Dr. Bannerman had no telephone,
expecting that someone would soon call.
Dr. Bannerman's journal was on a table near his bed, open to that page
on which he had written a codicil to his will. I read that part. Later,
while I was waiting for others to come, I read the remainder of the
journal, as he apparently wished me to do. The ring he mentions was on
the fifth finger of his left hand, and it is now in my possession.
When writing that codicil, Dr. Bannerman must have overlooked
or forgotten the fact that in his formal will, written some
months earlier, he had appointed me executor. If there are legal
technicalities involved, I shall be pleased to co-operate fully with
the proper authorities.
The ring, however, will remain in my keeping, since that was Dr.
Bannerman's expressed wish, and I am not prepared to offer it for
examination or discussion under any circumstances.
The notes for a revision of one of his textbooks were in his desk, as
indicated in the journal. They are by no means "messy," nor are they
particularly revolutionary except in so far as he wished to re-phrase,
as theory or hypothesis, certain statements which I would have
regarded as axiomatic. This is not my field, and I am not competent to
judge. I shall take up the matter with his publishers at the earliest
opportunity.[5]
[Footnote 5: LIBRARIAN'S NOTE: But it seems he never did. No new
edition of "Introductory Biology" was ever brought out, and the
textbook has been out of print since 1952.]
So far as I can determine, and bearing in mind the results of the
autopsy performed by Stephen Clyde, M.D., the death of Dr. David
Bannerman was not inconsistent with the presence of an embolism of
some type not distinguishable on post mortem. I have so stated on the
certificate of death. I am compelled to add one other item of medical
opinion for what it may be worth:
I am not a psychiatrist, but, owing to the demands of general practise,
I have found it advisable to keep as up to date as possible with
current findings and opinion in this branch of medicine. Dr. Bannerman
possessed, in my opinion, emotional and intellectual stability to a
higher degree than anyone else of comparable intelligence in the entire
field of my acquaintance, personal and professional.
* * * * *
If it is suggested that he was suffering from a hallucinatory
psychosis, I can only say that it must have been of a type quite
outside my experience and not described, so far as I know, anywhere in
the literature of psychopathology.
Dr. Bannerman's house, on the afternoon of July 30, was in good order.
Near the open, unscreened window of his bedroom there was a coverless
shoebox with a folded silk scarf in the bottom. I found no pillow such
as Dr. Bannerman describes in the journal, but observed that a small
section had been cut from the scarf. In this box, and near it, there
was a peculiar fragrance, faint, aromatic, very sweet, such as I have
never encountered before and therefore cannot describe.
It may or may not have any bearing on the case that, while I remained
in his house that afternoon, I felt no sense of grief or personal
loss, although Dr. Bannerman had been a loved and honored friend for a
number of years. I merely had, and have, a conviction that after the
completion of some very great undertaking, he had found peace.
The ring he bequeathed to me has confirmed that.