A Sunless Sea (33 page)

He realized with only momentary surprise that if he had betrayed himself to do what Margaret wanted of him, he would have forfeited Hester’s respect and a level of her friendship he would perhaps never regain. He knew also that that was a price he was not willing to pay: not at the time, and not now.

Monk’s friendship he would miss also, but in a different way, and a little less.

He was still turning these thoughts over in his mind when the maid came to tell him that Monk was in the morning room. He put away the pen and closed the inkwell, then stood up and went across the hall to meet Monk.

Monk was facing the door. He looked grave and tense, and a little out of breath, as if he had hurried.

“What is it?” Rathbone asked without bothering with the usual niceties.

“You were right,” Monk replied. “She was lying, by omission at the very least.”

Rathbone’s stomach lurched. He realized how much he had wanted Dinah to be innocent, and this was a blow he had not prepared himself to meet.

“There was nothing wrong with Lambourn,” Monk went on. “No peculiar tastes at all, so far as I know. In fact, in all respects except one, he was a highly honorable man, more than he needed to be.”

Rathbone forced the words out. “And the one?”

“He did not divorce his wife in order to marry Dinah. Dinah must
have accepted it, because there is no record of a marriage between Lambourn and her.”

“What …? You mean …?” Rathbone stammered, still not really understanding.

“His only marriage on record was to Zenia Gadney,” Monk replied. “More accurately, Zenia Lambourn. That’s why he supported her out of loyalty, and compassion. It seems that for a while she was addicted to opium, because of the pain of some old injury. If Dinah went to Copenhagen Place at all, looking for Zenia, it may well have been to continue supporting her. If she missed the first month after Joel’s death, that would have been from grief, or the practical difficulty of obtaining the finances while the will was still in probate.”

Rathbone’s relief burst out in anger. “Then why the devil are you standing there looking like a funeral director?” he demanded. “That means she’s innocent, for God’s sake! She has no motive!”

“Of course she has!” Monk snapped, his face flushed, equally angry. “With Lambourn dead, she has nothing! Zenia was the widow, and the estate is apparently very considerable.”

Rathbone’s mind raced to make sense of it, and to salvage some kind of redeeming solution from the tangle. “Did she know that?” he asked.

“She must have known the estate was considerable,” Monk replied. “And she certainly knew she wasn’t married to Lambourn. Whatever she wanted for herself, or didn’t, she would have needed money to provide for her children. Actually the question is, did she know what was in his will at all?”

“Do you?” Rathbone shot back.

“Yes. After a few small bequests, the bulk of his estate is left to his two daughters, Adah and Marianne.”

“Damn it, Monk! Why didn’t you say that?” Rathbone snapped.

“Because I don’t know whether Dinah knew that or not,” Monk answered him. “It depends on whether he told her. She was no party to the will, according to the lawyer. Whether he asked Lambourn what he was doing, or why he was not leaving any money to Dinah, he wouldn’t tell me.”

Rathbone sat down hard, the deep upholstery of the chair enveloping
him. “So what are we left with? Lambourn wasn’t keeping a mistress, or a whore, he was supporting his wife, and living with the woman he loved—and who is now willing to risk being hanged in order to clear his professional name, and his personal reputation.”

Monk sat down in the other chair opposite him. “And the fact that Amity Herne lied through her teeth from the witness box to convince the court that her brother was an incompetent who committed suicide because of his professional failure and his personal sexual deviancy,” he added. “Not to mention clearing his wife of murdering and eviscerating the woman with whom he was betraying her. Which raises the question as to what the whole blood-soaked nightmare is about! Is it really about opium, and the right to import it and sell it at immense profit without the restrictions that the proposed Pharmacy Act would enforce?”

“It’s looking more and more that way, isn’t it?” Rathbone concluded. “Someone with a vested interest in opium killed Lambourn in a way intended to disgrace him, and therefore his report. Then when Dinah tried to defend him, they killed Zenia Gadney in the most hideous way imaginable and blamed her, so they could silence her also. That’s monstrous. Is anyone in our government really so profoundly corrupt? God, I hope not!” He remembered the courtroom, the gallery, and Sinden Bawtry sitting on the end of the row, almost concealed by the shadow of the pillar and the roof. What was he there for? To guard the Pharmacy Act, or to sabotage it?

“Then who?” Monk asked. “And there’s a very serious question as to whether Dinah Lambourn is guilty and, personally, I no longer think she is. Certainly it is not beyond a serious doubt.”

“I need to know a great deal more about this Pharmacy Act, who is for it and who against,” Rathbone said, forcing himself to think coherently. “And what results there will be if it is passed. Who will lose? Would any sane man, however greedy, really go to these lengths to delay an act of Parliament that is bound to be passed in a year or two?”

“No,” Monk admitted, shaking his head a little. “There must be more than the Pharmacy Act involved. But you haven’t time to waste on this.”

Rathbone stood up. “I can’t afford not to have. It may not be the Pharmacy Act, or even the Opium Wars, but it’s tied to them. Otherwise
why destroy Lambourn and his report? Come with me.” It sounded like an instruction, and that was how he meant it.

“Where are we going?” Monk rose obediently.

“To see Mr. Gladstone, the chancellor of the Exchequer,” Rathbone replied. “At least I hope so. He’s the coming man, a great believer in reform and the welfare of ordinary people.” As he went to the door and out into the hall he was already absorbed in plans to speak to people he knew: to one man in particular for whom he had done a remarkable favor. That man could gain him entrance to Number 11 Downing Street, and Gladstone’s attention, even on a Saturday morning, if he believed the matter urgent enough.

Monk, at his heels, was impressed into silence.

I
T WAS MID-AFTERNOON BY
the time all the favors had been called in, and William Ewart Gladstone had made a space in his day to receive Rathbone and Monk. They were shown into the study, where the chancellor stood by the hearth. He was a solid, imposing figure with muttonchop whiskers and an oddly familiar face, as if a newspaper picture had come to life.

“Well, gentlemen?” he said, staring first at one, then the other. “This must be of remarkable importance. Please be brief. I can give you half an hour, precisely.”

“Thank you, sir.” Rathbone had been summarizing in several different forms what he had to say, omitting one thing and then another, trying to find not only the essence of the matter, but also that part of it that would most appeal to the crusader in Gladstone, the moral preacher that was so often at the forefront of his character.

“I am defending the widow of Joel Lambourn, who is charged with a repulsive murder, of which I believe her innocent,” he began. He saw the distaste in Gladstone’s face and made his decision immediately. It was something of a risk, knowing Gladstone’s puritanical streak, but he was used to watching the expressions of juries and surmising whether he was winning or losing them, and what line of argument would serve him best.

“She is a woman of intense loyalty, especially to her late husband,”
he continued. “I have just this morning discovered from Commander Monk”—he gestured in Monk’s direction—“that they were not actually married, because he was still married to the murder victim, Zenia Gadney. His visits to see her in Limehouse were not sexual liaisons, as everyone is claiming, but in order to continue in his support for her financially, and to do what he could to ensure her comfort. That was in spite of her previous terrible addiction to opium, from which he helped her to recover.”

He saw the sudden pity in Gladstone’s eyes, and a wave of anger. “The addiction to opium is one of the greatest curses of our age,” he said quietly. “And yet the good it can do for those in agonies of pain, we cannot forfeit. God help us, we must be very careful what we do in this pharmacy bill.”

“Dinah Lambourn intentionally implicated herself in Zenia Gadney’s death,” Rathbone went on hastily. “When the police questioned her, she did so because she wanted to stand trial in a hugely publicized murder.”

“Why?” Gladstone said incredulously, his craggy face momentarily slack as he struggled to understand.

“To bring to light her husband’s work on the medical facts of opium deaths,” Rathbone replied, using the word husband intentionally. “Especially in children. He had given his report to the government, and they had rejected it as incompetent, and then blackened his name by accusing him of taking his own life.”

“I remember the case.” Gladstone shook his head. “A sin of despair, poor man.”

“With respect, sir,” Rathbone said as hastily as he could without rudeness, “I am beginning to believe that it was not a suicide, but actually a very clever murder.” He turned toward Monk, inviting him to explain.

Monk picked up the story.

“To begin with, sir, it appeared to be suicide,” he agreed. “But the police inspector in charge was in some respects overridden by government officers claiming to be acting in the best interests of Lambourn’s family, as a matter of loyalty and discretion. Certain evidence in the murder of Zenia Gadney led me to Dinah Lambourn. When I was questioning
her, she brought up Lambourn, and denied passionately that his death was suicide, or that his report was incompetent.” Monk was speaking hastily, before he could be interrupted. Rathbone heard him deliberately slow his pace.

“She said he had been murdered, in order to discredit him,” he continued. “I was obliged to investigate what she had said, as a matter of fairness, and I found several unexplained discrepancies in the story as told by the police looking into the matter. I can tell you of them all if you wish; for example, the fact that there was no knife or blade found anywhere near him, even though he slit his wrists.”

Rathbone was watching Gladstone’s face and he saw his interest suddenly sharpen.

“Do you believe he was murdered, sir?” he asked Monk.

“Yes, Mr. Gladstone,” Monk said immediately. “I think there are people with certain interests who were willing to kill Lambourn to silence him, and then kill the unfortunate Zenia Gadney in order to blame Dinah Lambourn and thus silence her also. That way the whole report on the dangers of opium could be buried.”

“What interests, exactly?” Gladstone asked.

“I don’t know, sir,” Monk admitted. “We haven’t been able to find any copies of Dr. Lambourn’s report, even though we searched both his house and Mrs. Gadney’s, so we don’t know what new information or conclusions he offered, or whose interests he endangered.”

“A very slender case, Commander Monk,” Gladstone said grimly. “What is it you wish of me?”

Monk took a deep breath. He had much to gain, and to lose.

“A summary of what the bill will contain, and anything in the way of letters or notes Dr. Lambourn may have offered ahead of his full report,” he answered.

“Quite a lot,” Gladstone observed drily. “Do you really believe this woman is innocent?”

“I do believe it,” Monk answered, sweat breaking out on his skin at the risk he was taking. What had he done to his own career if Dinah was guilty?

Gladstone pondered for several moments. “That seems both remarkable, and very foolish. The bill will pass. It is necessary for the
welfare of the people that it should. I can have a summary of it delivered to you easily enough. Anything on Lambourn’s report may be more difficult, but I will do what I can.”

“Thank you, sir,” Rathbone said warmly, then bit his lip and looked at Gladstone. “There is probably no more than one day left of prosecution evidence; then I will have to begin the defense. I can stretch that out for three or four days at best. Once the verdict is in—and at the moment there is hardly any doubt that they will convict her—then sentence of death will be passed and that may prove all but impossible to overturn.”

He glanced at Monk, then back at the chancellor. “It is not only that an innocent woman will pay with her life for her loyalty to her husband, but the Pharmacy Act may be delayed, or diluted in its efficacy. No one can measure how many people will die unnecessarily if that were to happen, perhaps most of them children.”

Gladstone’s face was tight and grim. He was clearly laboring under some great emotion. He did not look at them when he spoke, but into some place in the depth of his own memory.

“It is to our shame that we have many stains in our history, gentlemen, but one of the most shameful episodes in all of our nation’s long life is that of the Opium Wars. There have been glorious times of courage and honor, intellectual genius and Christian humanity. The wars embody the opposite: greed, dishonor, and barbarous cruelty. Britain is addicted to tea, which at the time of those conflicts we could buy only from China. We are also very fond of porcelain, and of silk, similarly purchased largely from China. The only currency they will accept in exchange is silver bullion, of which we have very little.”

Rathbone glanced across at Monk, but neither of them interrupted.

Gladstone’s voice was edged with shame when he continued. “We responded with arguments and pleas, and when those failed to influence the Chinese, we began to sell them opium from India. They may have begun to use it for the relief of pain, but that swiftly changed to smoking it for pleasure. I have not the time, or desire, to spell out the progress of that abomination for you, but within a few years tens of thousands of Chinese became so addicted to it that they were incapable of work, or even of sustaining themselves or their families.

“We brought in ever more, smuggled it in, despite every effort on the part of the Chinese government to prevent the trade. Finally we poisoned a nation and reduced much of it to a state of helplessness, even death. Of course, many of us choose to deny it. It is peculiarly powerful to acknowledge that your country has behaved with dishonor. There are many who believe it is patriotism to deny it, conceal it, even to lie and blame others. Men have been murdered to cover up less, and those who did it felt justified.” His voice was low and hoarse. “ ‘My family, my country—right or wrong.’ It is the ultimate betrayal of God.”