At the coroner's inquest, Preece stated, "I found that I could not stand and called out and Sir William swam to me. I put my hand on his shoulder and I felt him suddenly sink. I thought he would come up again. My feet were on the mud then. Miss Emery called for help and the gardeners came with the boat." Gilbert had "died instantly of the heart attack". Once his body was recovered, it was laid out in the billiard room (now the hotel's restaurant) at Grim's Dyke. The family doctor, W.W. Shackleton, and Daniel Wilson of Bushey Heath Cottage Hospital, later certified that Gilbert had died at about 4.20 pm that afternoon of syncope (heart failure) brought on by excessive exertion. The coroner's jury, also meeting in the billiard room at Grim's Dyke two days later, on 31 May 1911, recorded a verdict of accidental death.