His physician, Dr Lindsay Scott, had last seen him on 30 January and testified that Harcourt was not in very good health, being weak and with an irregular heartbeat. He said that he did not expect him to die suddenly, but admitted, "I did not think he would live many years." The coroner dismissed the notion of suicide as "grotesque" given the evidence. Patrick Jackson, Harcourt's biographer in the "Oxford Dictionary of National Biography", also noted that suicide seemed unlikely given that Harcourt was in the midst of finishing a biography on his father, Sir William, which he had commissioned from Alfred George Gardiner. Harcourt had spent the evening prior to his death editing a recent draft and had an appointment with Gardiner the following day to discuss the project. Jackson writes, "It seems hard to believe that Harcourt would not have wished to see through to completion an enterprise over which he had exercised tight control, and which recalled for him the glorious days of political partnership with his father."