Trip to consult Dr. Baker

The trip to consult Doctor Baker, undertaken on the morning after the inquest, is the journey that breaks the deadlock of suspicion and blackmail. Maxim, the narrator, Colonel Julyan, and Jack Favell drive from Manderley to Barnet, north of London, to find the doctor whose name and telephone number Rebecca had entered in her engagement diary on the day she died. The party travels in two cars, Favell following in his green sports car, and stops for lunch at a county-town hotel before reaching the suburbs of London in the early afternoon. The journey is long and wearying, the narrator feeling the heat and noise of the city press upon her, but the destination holds the key to whether Maxim will be exposed as a murderer or vindicated by a hidden truth.

The Discovery of the Appointment

At Roselands, Doctor Baker's ivy-covered house, the group is received by the retired physician, who is initially puzzled by the visit. Colonel Julyan explains the circumstances and shows Baker the page from Rebecca's diary, which reads "Baker, two o'clock" with a heavy cross beside it. Baker consults his files and recalls a patient who gave the name "Mrs Danvers" — a tall, slim, dark, very handsome woman who had come to him a week earlier complaining of symptoms and had returned for the results of X-rays. The doctor remembers her standing in his consulting room and demanding the truth, saying she did not want soft words or a bedside manner. He told her plainly that she was very seriously ill: a deep-rooted growth, inoperable, and that within three or four months she would be under morphia. The X-rays also revealed a malformation of the uterus that meant she could never have had a child, though that was unrelated to the disease. She paid her fee and left; he never saw her again.

The Revelation of Rebecca's Illness

The revelation that Rebecca was terminally ill transforms the meaning of her death. The cancer, not Maxim's bullet, becomes the motive for her actions on the final night. Favell, who had been pressing an accusation of murder, is visibly shaken by the news, his face turning grey and his hands trembling. He mutters about the cancer business, asking if it is contagious, and admits he never had the remotest idea she was ill. Colonel Julyan immediately grasps the legal significance: Baker's evidence provides a credible motive for suicide, squashing any case Favell might bring. The doctor offers to supply a written report, and Julyan tells him it may not be necessary. The party leaves the house, and Favell, standing on the pavement, waves and laughs, but his threat is broken.

The Aftermath and the Return Journey

Driving away from Barnet, Colonel Julyan advises Maxim to get away for a while, suggesting Switzerland, and notes that if people are not there to be talked about, the talk dies. He offers to let it be known quietly in Kerrith that a London doctor has supplied a motive, to forestall any gossip. Maxim and the narrator decline an invitation to dine with Julyan's sister and instead stop at a small Soho restaurant for dinner. There, Maxim telephones Frank Crawley at Manderley and learns that Mrs Danvers has disappeared, having packed her belongings and left the house through the woods without passing the lodge gates. The narrator feels relief, believing that with Mrs Danvers gone, she can finally take control of the household and build a future with Maxim. But Maxim is uneasy, saying he does not like it, and insists on driving through the night to return to Manderley immediately. The journey home becomes a race against an unnamed dread, and as they approach the coast, the narrator sees a red glow on the horizon — the sky shot with crimson, like a splash of blood — and Maxim says, "That's Manderley." The trip to consult Doctor Baker, which should have been the end of their ordeal, instead delivers them to the final catastrophe.