But what was the astonishment of some of the frequenters of the purlieus
of Baker-street to see the man who was supposed to have been buried
visiting the same haunts where they had seen him before.
To have witnessed or heard of the funeral of a man, and then to meet
that same man in his customary sphere of business afterwards, is of the
nature of a ghost-story. "What did the coffin in Highgate Cemetery
contain?" was the riddle.
Mrs. Druce's husband was a son of the late Mr. T.C. Druce, and it was on
behalf of her son that proceedings were commenced. She made an
application to the Consistory Court for a faculty granting her power to
have the coffin in Highgate Cemetery opened in order to see whether it
contained a body or only some heavy substance such as lead.
It was asserted that T.C. Druce had been seen alive some years after it
was supposed that he had been buried; that he was identified as the Duke
of Portland, and that there were persons cognisant of the fact that the
Duke and Druce were one and the same person before 1864.
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