A Sunless Sea

CHAPTER 12

Oliver Rathbone sat in his chamber in the Old Bailey trying to compose his mind to begin the defense of Dinah Lambourn, on the charge of murdering Zenia Gadney. It was the highest-profile case he had appeared in for some time. He had already received considerable criticism for taking it at all. Of course, the remarks had been oblique. Everyone knew that all accused persons had the right to be represented in court, whoever they were and whatever they were charged with, regardless of the certainty of their guilt. That was the law.

Personal revulsion was an entirely different matter. Acknowledging mentally that somebody should represent her was quite different from actually doing it yourself.

“Not a wise move, Rathbone,” one of his friends had said, shaking his head and pursing his mouth. “Should have let some hungry young beggar take it, one who has nothing to lose.”

Rathbone had been stung. “Is that who you’d want defending your wife?” he had demanded.

“My wife wouldn’t hack a prostitute to death and dump her in the river!” the man had replied with heat.

“Maybe Dinah Lambourn didn’t, either,” Rathbone had responded, wishing he had not been foolish enough to allow himself to be drawn into this discussion.

Perhaps the man had been right. As he sat in the big, comfortable chair and looked at the papers spread out on his desk, he wondered if he had been rash. Had he accepted this as a sort of suicide of his own, a self-inflicted punishment for failing Margaret?

The newspapers were running banner headlines about the trial. Some journalists had described Dinah as a woman consumed with hatred toward her own sex. They suggested she was insanely jealous, given to delusions, and had driven Lambourn to suicide with her possessiveness.

Another paper’s editorial pointed out that if the jury sanctioned a woman committing a hideous and depraved murder because her husband had resorted to a prostitute, there was no end to the slaughter that that might lead to.

And of course Rathbone had heard some women siding with Dinah, saying that men who consorted with prostitutes defiled the marriage bed, not only by the betrayal of their vows, but more immediately and physically by the possibility of returning to a loyal wife and bringing to her the diseases of the whorehouse, and thus of course to their children. And what about the money such men lavished on their own appetites, even while in the act of denying their wives household necessities?

To some men whom Rathbone had overheard at his club, Dinah was the ultimate victim. To others she was the symbol of a hysterical woman seeking to limit all a man’s freedoms and to pursue his every move.

One writer had presented her as the heroine for all betrayed wives, for all women used, mocked, and then cast aside. The heat of emotion carried away reason like jetsam on a flood tide.

Rathbone had prepared everything he could for this defense, but he knew he had far too little. Neither Monk nor Orme had been able to find a witness who had seen Zenia with a man near the time of her death. The one person she had been seen with, briefly on the road by the river, was unquestionably a woman. He had no wish to draw attention to that.

All he really had to defend Dinah with was her past loyalties to both Lambourn and Zenia, and her character. He would rather not put her on the witness stand to testify. She was too vulnerable to ridicule because of her belief in a conspiracy for which there was no proof. But in the end he might have to.

Monk and Hester were still searching for solid evidence, as was Runcorn, when he had the chance. The trouble was, everything they had found so far could just as easily be interpreted as evidence of her guilt as her innocence.

The attack on Monk had been brutal, and well organized, but there was nothing to tie it to the murder of Zenia Gadney. There had been no second attack, so far.

Rathbone was glad when the clerk came to interrupt his growing sense of panic and call him to the courtroom. The trial was about to begin.

All the usual preliminaries were gone through. It was a ritual to which Rathbone hardly needed to pay attention. He looked up at the dock, where Dinah sat between two wardens, high above the floor of the court. On the left-hand wall, under the window, were jury benches, and ahead was the great chair in which the judge sat, resplendent in his scarlet robes and full-bottomed wig.

Rathbone studied them one by one while the voices droned on. Dinah Lambourn looked beautiful in her fear. Her eyes were wide, her skin desperately pale. Her thick, dark hair was pulled back a little severely to reveal the bones of her cheeks and brow, the perfect balance of her features, her generous, vulnerable mouth. He wondered if that would tell against her, or for her. Would the jury admire her dignity, or misunderstand it for arrogance? There was no way of knowing.

The judge was Grover Pendock, a man Rathbone had known for years, but never well. His wife was an invalid and he preferred to remain away from the social events to which she could not come. Was that in deference to her, or an admirable excuse to avoid a duty in which he had no pleasure? He had two sons. The elder, Hadley Pendock, was a sportsman of some distinction, and the judge was extremely proud of him. The younger one was more studious, it was said, and had yet to make his mark.

Rathbone looked up at Grover Pendock now and saw the general gravity of his rather large face, with its powerful jaw and thin mouth. This was a very public trial. He must know all eyes would be on his conduct of it, expecting-indeed, requiring-a swift and completely decisive conclusion. The sooner it was ended, the sooner the hysteria would die down and the newspapers turn their attention to something else. There must be no doubt as to justice being done, with no unseemly behavior, and above all, absolutely no chance for an appeal.

The counsel for the prosecution looked grim and full of confidence, as if already spoiling for a fight. Sorley Coniston was in his late forties, taller than Rathbone and heavier, smooth-faced. When he smiled there was a slight gap between his front teeth, which was not unattractive. He was almost handsome. Only a certain arrogance in his manner spoiled the grace with which he rose to call his first witness.

As expected, it was Sergeant Orme of the Thames River Police. Rathbone had known it would be, but it still puzzled him that Coniston had chosen Orme rather than Monk.

Then, as he saw Orme’s solid, calm face when he climbed the steps to the witness box and looked down at the floor of the court, he understood the choice. Monk was lean and elegant. He couldn’t help it. The air of command was in him: in the angle of his head, the bones of his face, his remarkable eyes. Orme was ordinary. No one would think him devious or overly clever. He would be believed. Anyone attacking his honesty would do more harm to themselves than to him.

Coniston walked out into the center of the floor and looked up at Orme, who was already sworn in and had given his name and his rank.

“Sergeant Orme,” Coniston began courteously, as if they were equals. “Will you please tell the court of your experience on the morning of the twenty-fourth of November, as you approached Limehouse Pier? Describe the scene for those of us who have not been there.”

Orme had been prepared for this, but he was uncomfortable nonetheless. It was obvious in his face, and the way he leaned forward a little, both hands gripping the rail. Rathbone knew it was the request for a description of something he was not used to putting into words for others, that made him behave so. To the jury it would look like distress at what he had seen. Coniston was already preparing them for the horror. Rathbone was impressed. He could easily have taken less trouble and assumed the mood would follow naturally.

“Mr. Monk and I were coming back from looking into a robbery farther up the river,” Orme began.

“Just two of you?” Coniston asked. “Were you rowing?”

“Both of us,” Orme answered. “One behind the other, sir, an oar each.”

“I see. Thank you. What time of day was it? What was the light?” Coniston asked.

“Early sunrise, sir. Lot of color in the sky, and across the water, too.” Orme was clearly unhappy.

“Were you close in to shore, or out in the current?” Coniston continued.

“Close in to shore, sir. Out in the stream an’ you’d be in the way of shipping, ferries an’ the like.”

“In the shadow of the docks and warehouses? Paint the picture for us, Sergeant Orme, if you please.”

Orme shifted his weight to the other foot. “About twenty yards out, sir. Buildings sort of … looming up, but we were not in their shadow. Water was smoother closer to shore. Out of the wind.”

“I see. You describe it well,” Coniston said graciously. “So you and Commander Monk were rowing back to Wapping after being called out before dawn. It was cool. The breeze made the river choppy except close to shore, almost in the shadow of the docks and the warehouses, rising sun spilling red light on the smooth, dark water around you?”

Orme’s face tightened as if the attention to beauty in the circumstances were distasteful to him. “Something like that, sir.”

“Did anything occur that caused you to stop?”

There was absolute silence in the courtroom, apart from the slight rustle of a skirt as someone shifted position.

“Yes, sir. We heard a woman crying out, on Limehouse Pier. She was screaming, and waving her arms. We couldn’t see why until we got right up to the pier and climbed the steps to the top. There was the body of a woman lying crumpled up on her side. Her … the body’d been ripped open and there was blood soaking her clothes …” He could not finish, not only because of his own emotion, but also because of the rising sound of gasps and groans from the body of the courtroom. In the gallery a woman was already crying, and there was a murmur of voices trying to offer comfort and telling others to be quiet.

“Order! Please, ladies and gentlemen,” Pendock said from the bench. “Let us continue. Allow Sergeant Orme to be heard.”

“Thank you, my lord,” Coniston said soberly, then turned again to Orme. “I assume you and Commander Monk examined this poor woman’s remains?”

“Yes, sir. There was nothing we could do for her. She was past all human help,” Orme said hoarsely. “We asked the witness’s name and address, and all she could tell us, which wasn’t anything. She had just come there looking for her husband. Then I stayed with the body, and Mr. Monk went for the local police.”

“The local police?” Coniston said with raised eyebrows. “But since she was found on the pier, was she not within your jurisdiction?”

“Yes, sir. But the first thing we wanted to know was who she was,” Orme pointed out reasonably.

Coniston smiled and relaxed his tense position a fraction. “Of course. We will come to that. She was not known to you?”

“No, sir.”

“And could you describe the body for us, Sergeant?” This time he made no apology.

Rathbone would like to have objected, but there were no grounds. The crime was appalling. Coniston was entitled to horrify the jury until they were sick and weeping. Had Rathbone been prosecuting he would have done the same.

Orme swallowed hard. Even from where he was sitting, Rathbone could see the muscles of his neck and jaws tighten. The effort it cost him to maintain his control would be just as visible to the jurors.

“Yes, sir,” Orme said quietly. He gripped the rail in front of him and breathed in and out several times before beginning. “She wasn’t a young woman, maybe forty, but not gone to fat. Her skin was very white, what we could see of it. Her clothes had been torn, or cut, and her … her bosom laid bare. Someone had slit her open right from …” He moved a rather jerky hand to the middle of his own chest and then slowly down below the rail to where his groin would be. He swallowed again. “And her entrails were pulled out, sir, an’ left lying all over her. It … it wasn’t easy to see if everything was there, sir, an’ I wouldn’t know anyway.”

Coniston looked pale himself. “Was that the full extent of her injuries, Sergeant?”

“No, sir. There was blood matted in her hair, as if she’d been hit pretty hard.”

Coniston stood with his head bowed. “Thank you, Sergeant. Would you please remain on the stand in case my learned friend for the defense has any questions for you?” He looked across at Rathbone with a courteous smile. There was nothing for Rathbone to question, and they both knew it.

Rathbone stood up and addressed the judge. “Thank you, my lord. But I think Sergeant Orme has already told us all that he is able to.”

Orme left the stand, and his place was taken by Overstone, the police surgeon who had examined the corpse. He held himself with military precision and looked straight at Coniston, his face bleak, his thinning hair smooth to his head. He looked tired, as if he had done this too many times, and it was getting harder rather than easier for him. It flickered through Rathbone’s mind that it was requiring all the man’s strength of will to speak with a steady, unemotional voice.

“You examined the body of this unfortunate woman that the police found on Limehouse Pier, Dr. Overstone?” Coniston began.

“I did,” Overstone answered.

“Describe it for me, if you please. I mean what manner of person had she been in life?”

“About five foot, three inches tall,” Overstone replied. “Of average build, thickening a little around the waist. She appeared to be well nourished. I would estimate her age to be middle or late forties. Her hair was light brown, her eyes blue. As much as one could tell, she must have been very pleasant-looking in life. She had good teeth, fine-boned hands.”

“Any sign of illness?” Coniston inquired, as if it were a reasonable question.

Overstone’s face tightened. “The woman was hacked to bits!” he said between his teeth. “How in God’s name would I know?”

Coniston flushed slightly, even though he had incited the answer. In that instant Rathbone knew he had done it intentionally. The emotion in the room was taut as a violin string. Rathbone felt his own muscles lock and his neck ache with the effort of trying to breathe deeply and relax. Some of the jurors were looking at him, wondering what on earth he would do to defend anyone accused of such a crime. Possibly they wondered why he was here at all.

Coniston’s penitence was brief. He addressed Overstone again.

“But you could ascertain the cause of her death, couldn’t you, sir?” he said respectfully.

“Yes. A violent blow to the head,” Overstone answered. “It crushed her skull. She would have died instantly. The mutilation was done after her death, thank heaven. She can have known nothing about it.” There was a very slight defensiveness in Overstone’s face.

“Thank you, Doctor,” he said calmly. He walked back toward his seat, then at the last moment turned around again and looked up. “Oh … one more thing. Would it have required great strength to have struck the blow that killed her?”

“No, not if it were wielded with a swing.”

“Did you ever find what it was that was used?”

“They brought the body to me, man!” Overstone said irritably. “They didn’t take me onto the pier to look at it.”

Coniston’s face remained impassive. “Just so. Have you any idea what the weapon was? What do you think most likely, if you please?”

“A heavy piece of metal: a length of piping, something of that order,” Overstone answered him. “I doubt a wooden bar would have had the weight, unless it was hardwood, even ebony.”

“And the mutilations? Would they have needed particular strength or skill?”

“Just a sharp blade. There was nothing skilled about it.” Overstone said the words with loathing.

“Would a woman have the strength to have done it?” Coniston finally asked what everyone in the room was thinking.

“Yes.” Overstone did not add anything.

Coniston thanked him and turned to Rathbone. “Your witness, Sir Oliver.”

Rathbone tried desperately to think of anything to say that would make the slightest difference. Dinah must be wondering why on earth she had hired him. Her life was in his hands.

“Was there anything about the injuries, anything at all, to indicate what manner of person had inflicted them?” he asked, looking up at Overstone.

“No, sir,” Overstone replied.

“Nothing to suggest their height?” Rathbone elaborated. “Strength? Whether they were left- or right-handed, for example. Male or female? Young or old?”

“I said nothing at all, sir,” Overstone repeated. “Except perhaps, considering the power of the blow, it might have been two-handed.” He lifted both his own arms above his head, hands clenched together, and brought them down and sideways, as if holding a two-handed sword. “But that hardly helps. All it does is make height irrelevant.”

“So it could have been anyone, except perhaps a child?”

“Just so.”

Rathbone nodded. There was nothing more he could ask. Overstone was dismissed.

Next Coniston called Monk to the stand.

Monk was immaculately dressed, as always, elegant even to his polished boots. But he climbed the stairs to the witness bar as if he were stiff, and stood with one shoulder a little higher than the other.

To begin with, the court seemed less tense, not knowing what to expect from him. They thought the worst horror was past. Nevertheless the jurors watched him gravely, faces pale, several of them fidgeting with discomfort. They knew the people in the gallery were looking at them, trying to guess what they thought. Rathbone did not see a single one of them look toward Dinah Lambourn sitting high up in the dock, with burly woman jailers on either side of her.

Coniston seemed aware this time that he was dealing with a potentially hostile witness, in spite of the fact that it was Monk who had arrested Dinah. Rathbone’s long friendship with Monk must be widely known. Coniston was far too clever not to have made certain he was aware of such things and the effect it might have on his case.

“Mr. Monk,” he began softly. The gallery was silent, to be sure they missed nothing. “You were with Sergeant Orme when you first discovered the body of this poor woman, that dawn at Limehouse Pier. You and he heard the screams of the woman who found her. Orme remained with her to guard the body, and you went to call the local police, in case they could identify her, and appropriate authorities to take care of the corpse?”

“Yes,” Monk agreed, his face carefully expressionless.

“Did the local police know who she was?” Coniston asked casually, as if he did not know the answer.

“No,” Monk replied.

Coniston looked a little startled. He stood motionless, stopped in mid-stride. “They had never had occasion to arrest her, or at least caution her regarding her activities as a prostitute?”

“That is what they said,” Monk agreed again.

“If she was indeed a prostitute, do you not find that remarkable?” Coniston asked with a lift of surprise in his voice.

Monk’s face was expressionless. “People often don’t recognize someone when they have died violently, especially if there is a lot of blood involved. People can look smaller than you remember them when they were alive. And if they are not dressed as you know them, or in a place where you expect to see them, you do not always realize who they are.”

Coniston looked as if that was not the answer he had wanted. He moved on. “Did you then make inquiries to find out who she was?”

“Of course.”

“Where did you inquire?” Coniston spread his hands, encompassing an infinity of possibilities.

“We spoke to local residents, shopkeepers, other women who lived in the area and with whom she might have been acquainted,” Monk answered, still hardly any emotion in his voice.

“When you say ‘women,’ do you mean prostitutes?” Coniston pressed.

Monk’s face was bland. Probably only Rathbone could see the tiny muscle ticking in his cheek.

“I mean laundresses, factory workers, peddlers, anyone who might have known her,” he said.

“Were you successful?” Coniston inquired courteously.

“Yes,” Monk told him. “She was identified as Zenia Gadney, a middle-aged woman who lived quietly, by herself, at Fourteen Copenhagen Place, just beyond Limehouse Cut. She was known to several other people in the street.”

“How did she support herself?” Coniston was still calm and polite, but the tension in him was not missed by the jury. Watching them, Rathbone could feel it himself.

“She didn’t,” Monk answered. “There was a man who called on her once a month, and gave her sufficient funds for her needs, which appeared to be modest. We found no evidence of her having earned any money other than that, except for the very occasional small sewing job, which might have been as much for goodwill and companionship as for money.” Monk’s face was somber, his voice quiet, as if he too mourned not only her terrible death, but the seeming futility of her life.

Knowing him as he did, Rathbone had no difficulty reading the emotions in his face and his choice of words. He wondered if Coniston read it also. Would he judge him with any accuracy?

Coniston hesitated a moment, then went on. “I assume that, as a matter of course, you attempted to identify this man, and the kind of relationship he had with her?”

“Of course,” Monk answered. “He was Dr. Joel Lambourn, of Lower Park Street, Greenwich.”

“I see,” Coniston said quickly. “That would be the late husband of the accused, Mrs. Dinah Lambourn?”

Monk’s face was a blank slate. “Yes.”

“Did you go to see Mrs. Lambourn? Ask her about her husband’s connection with Mrs. Gadney?” Coniston said innocently. “It must have been unpleasant for you to have to inform her of her husband’s connection with the dead woman.” There was a touch of pity in his voice now.

“Yes, of course I did,” Monk answered him. His own expression was ironed clear of compassion as much as he could, and yet it still shone through.

The jury watched intently. Even Pendock in the judge’s seat leaned forward a little. There was a sigh of breath in the gallery, as if the tension had become too great.

“And her reaction?” Coniston prompted a little sharply, as if he was annoyed at having to ask.

“At first she said she did not know Mrs. Gadney,” Monk replied. “Then she admitted that she was aware that her husband had supported her until his death two months earlier.”

“She knew!” Coniston said loudly and clearly, even half turning toward the gallery so no one in the whole courtroom could have missed it. He swung back toward Monk. “Mrs. Lambourn knew that her husband had been visiting and paying Zenia Gadney for years?”

“She said so,” Monk agreed.

Rathbone made a small note on his paper in front of him.

“But first she denied it?” Coniston pressed. “Was she embarrassed? Angry? Humiliated? Afraid, even?”

Rathbone considered objecting on the grounds that such a judgment was not in Monk’s expertise, then changed his mind. It would be futile, merely drawing attention to his own desperation.

The shadow of a smile crossed Monk’s face, and then disappeared. “I don’t know. She was in the grip of some powerful emotion, but I have no way of knowing what it was. It could easily have been shock and horror at the manner of Zenia Gadney’s death.”

“Or remorse?” Coniston added.

Rathbone started to rise to his feet.

Pendock saw him. “Mr. Coniston, you are speculating inappropriately. Please restrict yourself to questions the witness can answer.”

“I apologize, my lord,” Coniston said contritely. He looked up at Monk again. “But it would be accurate to say that Mrs. Lambourn was in a state of extreme emotion, Mr. Monk?”

“Yes.”

“Considering what you had learned of Dr. Lambourn’s connection with the victim, and that Mrs. Lambourn at some point or other had become aware of it, did you take steps to find out if Mrs. Lambourn had ever visited Zenia Gadney herself?”

“Yes.” Monk’s face was tight with unhappiness, but he did not evade the answer. “Several witnesses saw someone answering her description in Copenhagen Place the day before Zenia Gadney’s corpse was found on the pier. They say she was making inquiries to find Mrs. Gadney, specifically in the shops.”

Coniston nodded slowly. “She was searching to find the victim. Did anyone mention her state of mind? Please be exact, Mr. Monk.”

“She was in great distress,” Monk replied. “Two or three people described her as behaving wildly. That was why they remembered her.”

“Did you ask Mrs. Lambourn about this?”

“Of course.”

“And her answer?”

“At first she told me that she had been at a soirée with a friend. I visited the friend, who told me otherwise.”

“Is it possible that this friend was mistaken-or worse, that she lied?” Coniston pressed.

“No,” Monk said flatly. “I merely asked her where she had been at that day and time, and she told me. She was in company with many other people, and we have since verified her whereabouts. There was no such soirée as Mrs. Lambourn said she attended.”

“So she lied?” Coniston said, again loudly and clearly.

“Yes.”

Coniston smiled very slightly.

“To sum up, Commander Monk, your evidence is that the accused, Mrs. Dinah Lambourn, knew that her husband had visited the victim for many years, and paid her money on a regular basis. On the day before the murder she went to the street on which the victim lived, searching for her, asking people where she could find her. Several people told you that she was in a state of great distress, almost hysterical. When you asked her about this, she lied to you and said she was somewhere else, which you have proved to be untrue. Is that correct?”

“Yes,” Monk said miserably.

“At that point, did you arrest her and charge her with the murder of Zenia Gadney?”

“Yes. She said she had not killed her, and insisted that she had not been to Copenhagen Place,” Monk replied.

“Thank you, Commander Monk,” Coniston said with visible satisfaction. He turned to Rathbone. “Your witness, Sir Oliver.”

Rathbone walked out slowly into the center of the open space and looked up at Monk. He was aware that every person in the courtroom was watching him, waiting to see what he could possibly do. He had a sudden vision in his mind of a Christian entering an arena full of lions. He was hoping for a miracle, and not at all sure that he believed in them.

“Mr. Monk, you said that Mrs. Lambourn admitted to knowing that her husband had been visiting Mrs. Gadney for many years. By the way, was she married, or are we using the title as a courtesy?”

“Neighbors said that she claimed to have been married,” Monk answered. “But we found no trace of anyone called Gadney, nor any record of him.”

“And Dr. Lambourn had been supporting her financially all the time she had been there?” Rathbone continued.

“Approximately fifteen years,” Monk agreed.

“I see.” Rathbone frowned. “And you say that apparently Mrs. Lambourn knew of this all that time, or at least most of it? Are you certain?”

“Yes.”

“Because she admitted it? And of course you believed her?” Rathbone allowed a small lift of incredulity into his voice.

Monk looked at him with a flash of humor, there an instant and then gone again. “Because another witness also told me,” he corrected him.

“Ah. So you have no doubt that she did indeed know of Mrs. Gadney for some considerable time, probably years?”

“That’s right.”

“And Dr. Lambourn had been dead how long when Mrs. Gadney was murdered?”

“Nearly two months.”

Rathbone could see in Monk’s face that he knew exactly what the next question was going to be. Their eyes met. “And what reason did you find that caused Mrs. Lambourn, two months into her widowhood, suddenly to go to Copenhagen Place searching for Zenia Gadney, hysterical with emotion, allowing even shopkeepers and their customers to see her in such a state? What did she want with Zenia Gadney then, and so urgently, after years of knowing all about her? There was no more money going to her, was there?”

Several jurors leaned forward as if to be certain of catching every word of the answer. One frowned and shook his head.

There was a rustle of movement in the gallery and a sharp hiss of indrawn breath.

Pendock was staring at Rathbone, his face furrowed with apprehension.

Monk did not seem perturbed. Rathbone wondered for a moment if perhaps he had walked into a trap. He calmed himself by remembering that while it was Monk who had arrested Dinah, it was also Monk who had sought out Rathbone to defend her, and worked in his own time to find new evidence about the case.

“She claimed that she did not go to Copenhagen Place,” Monk said slowly and distinctly. “She believes that her husband, Dr. Joel Lambourn, was murdered because of his work to prove that opium is sold in this country-”

Coniston shot to his feet. “My lord!” he said loudly. “This is absolutely irrelevant and misleading. Opium is a common medicine prescribed by doctors and available in every apothecary in England, and thousands of ordinary shops. If Mrs. Lambourn took it, for pain or any other reason, it does not excuse what she did. Millions of people take opium. It relieves distress and sleeplessness; it does not drive to insanity or give any excuse for murder.”

“Taken too heavily, too often, it can cause addiction, especially if smoked,” Rathbone said tartly. “And taken in overdose, it kills.”

Coniston turned to him. “Zenia Gadney was not addicted and she did not die of an overdose of opium, Sir Oliver! She was beaten over the head with an iron pipe and then obscenely mutilated. Her intestines were torn out and-”

“Order,” Pendock barked furiously. “We are aware of how she died, Mr. Coniston! Sir Oliver! Are you suggesting that Mrs. Lambourn took opium, and that it in any way excuses this terrible crime?”

“No, my lord, I-”

“Good,” Pendock snapped. “Then please proceed with your questions to Mr. Monk, if you have any more. Otherwise we are adjourned for luncheon.”

“Only a few more, my lord.” Without waiting for Pendock to grant him permission, Rathbone turned to Monk again. “You believe that her sudden decision to look for Zenia Gadney had something to do with her husband’s death?” he demanded.

“Not his death so much as the ruin of his reputation,” Monk replied. “And she did not believe he had taken his own life.”

Again Coniston rose to his feet. “My lord, the tragic suicide of Joel Lambourn-”

Pendock raised his hand. “I am quite aware of it, Mr. Coniston.” He turned sharply to Rathbone. “Sir Oliver, Dr. Lambourn had already been dead for two months by the time Mrs. Lambourn began to look for Zenia Gadney. If she believed Mrs. Gadney in some way responsible for Dr. Lambourn’s suicide, then you must show some evidence to that effect. Have you any?”

“No, my lord.”

“Then please move on.” It was an order.

Rathbone drew in his breath to find some other question. He hated to retreat now; it looked as if in some way he were surrendering. And that was also how it felt. He had nothing else to ask Monk. Clearly, whatever he said that raised the issue of Joel Lambourn’s death, or any area of his work related to the report on opium, was going to be disallowed, unless he could make it so clearly relevant that to refuse it would be grounds for appeal.

“Nothing further, thank you, my lord,” he said with as good grace as he could manage, and retired to his seat.

After the luncheon adjournment, Coniston called evidence regarding the death of Joel Lambourn and its effect on his widow. Rathbone’s interest sharpened. Perhaps he would have an opportunity to open up the subject in such a way that Lambourn’s suicide could be questioned after all. Monk had certainly given him sufficient evidence to debate, if he could get a toe in the door. It would need only the smallest error of judgment on Coniston’s part, one slip by his witnesses, and the subject could be raised.

Rathbone glanced behind him and noted how many journalists were sitting attentively, pencils in hand. They would not miss the slightest inflection, even if the jury did.

Then, as Rathbone was turning back to face the judge and the witness box, his eye caught sight of a face he knew. He had even met him half a dozen times at one function or another. It was Sinden Bawtry, an ambitious man in the government with a reputation for philanthropy. His fortune was built on the manufacture of patent medicines, particularly one known as Doctor’s Home Remedy for Pain.

Rathbone avoided catching his eye, without being certain as to why. He did not want Bawtry to know that he had seen him, at least not yet, although he was a handsome man, and would not go unnoticed by the press. By tomorrow every newspaper reader would know he had been here.

Now Rathbone’s attention was needle sharp. Bawtry’s interest in Lambourn’s connection to the case was obvious. Was he here privately, or as a representative of the government’s interest?

Rathbone watched carefully as a policeman he did not know climbed the steps to the witness box. Monk had told him that Runcorn had been in charge of the investigation into Lambourn’s death. So who was this man, Appleford, and why had Coniston chosen him?

“Commissioner Appleford,” Coniston began smoothly, “I believe the tragic death of Joel Lambourn was referred from regular police inquiry, up to your command. Is that correct?”

“Yes, it is.” Appleford was of average height, slim although running very slightly to fat around the waist. His light brown hair was thinning drastically, but he was smart and appeared very confident, as if he were here only to be helpful and clear up difficulties lesser men might find beyond them.

“Why was it not left to the superintendent of the nearest police station? That would be Mr. Runcorn, at Blackheath, would it not?” Coniston said with every appearance of being casual.

“Mr. Runcorn did deal with the first evidence,” Appleford replied with a slight smile. “When it was realized that the dead man was Joel Lambourn, a fine man, an excellent scientist, who had had some recent …” He hesitated, as if looking for a suitably delicate word. “Emotional distress,” he continued. “Her Majesty’s Government wished to be discreet about as much of his personal affairs as was possible, without any perversion of the law. There was no way to avoid admitting that his death was suicide, but the more immediate facts were not made public. There was no purpose to be served, and his family could be protected. It seemed a merciful thing to do for a man who had served his country so well.”

“Indeed.” Coniston bowed his head, then looked up again. “Was anything pertinent concealed from the law? I mean was there any possible question whatever that his death might not have been self-inflicted?”

“None at all,” Appleford replied. “He took opium, quite a heavy dose, presumably to deaden the pain, and then slit his wrists.”

“Thank you, Commissioner.” Coniston turned to Rathbone. “Sir Oliver?”

Rathbone knew even before he began that he would achieve nothing with Appleford. But he refused to be cowed into not trying.

“Is it particularly painful, slitting one’s wrists?” he asked. “I mean sufficiently so that one requires opium to bear it?”

“I have no idea!” Appleford said with a touch of sarcasm.

“I apologize,” Rathbone said, with an equally cutting edge to his voice. “I thought you had been called upon as an expert, more so than Superintendent Runcorn. Is that not the case?”

“I was called in to take on the responsibility of keeping the matter discreet,” Appleford snapped. “That was not within Runcorn’s power.”

“Apparently not,” Rathbone agreed. “Yet every man and his dog seems to know that Joel Lambourn was profoundly discredited and, in despair because of it, he committed suicide in Greenwich Park. It did happen in Greenwich Park, didn’t it? Or is that where the discretion comes in?”

Coniston stood up, exasperation clear in his face and his manner. “My lord, Sir Oliver is simply trying to embarrass the witness because he has no useful questions to ask him. May we not, in decency, leave Dr. Lambourn’s final tragedy in the little privacy it has left? It has no bearing on Zenia Gadney’s murder.”

Rathbone swung around. “Has it not? Then it appears you have been given a great deal of information about it that I have not. Your whole prosecution rests on the fact that you believe Mrs. Lambourn killed Zenia Gadney over something to do with Dr. Lambourn.” His voice dripped sarcasm. “Are you suggesting some other connection between the two women, one of whom is a highly respected doctor’s widow in Greenwich, the other a middle-aged prostitute across the river in Limehouse?”

“Of course he is the connection!” Coniston said with some heat. “But his life, not his death.”

“Are they totally separate matters?” Rathbone asked incredulously.

There were several rustles of movement in the gallery as people craned forward, afraid of missing something.

In the jury box the members looked from side to side, and then up at the judge.

“Yes,” Coniston said boldly. “Insofar as the professional despair that caused his suicide was completely separate from the domestic jealousy that caused his wife to murder Mrs. Gadney.” He too looked up to the judge. “My lord, the defense is seeking to muddy the case by raising issues that considerably precede Mrs. Gadney’s murder and have nothing to do with it. Mrs. Lambourn had no involvement in her husband’s work for the government; therefore it cannot have had anything to do with the murder of Zenia Gadney.”

Rathbone rose to protest. The conclusion was totally unwarranted.

“My lord-”

“Your point is very well taken, Mr. Coniston,” Pendock cut across him. “Sir Oliver, if you have no relevant questions to ask Commissioner Appleford, the court excuses him, and we will proceed to the next witness. If you please, Mr. Coniston?”

Rathbone sat down feeling as if he had been crushed by a weight he should have seen falling on him, and yet he had not. He had no idea where he could turn next. The ruling was unfair, and yet if he protested again he would earn Pendock’s fury without being able to prove anything in Dinah’s favor, because frankly, he did not have anything.

He felt suddenly very close to despair.