A Sunless Sea (46 page)

“Not at all,” she answered. “It was a report. The rejection distressed him, but it certainly did not drive him to despair.”

“Did he mention to you having discovered anything else distressing during his research?” Rathbone asked.

Coniston stood again. “My lord, the details of Dr. Lambourn’s research and what may have saddened him or not are hardly relevant. We are trying the accused for the murder of Dr. Lambourn’s first wife—”

“I take your point, Mr. Coniston.” Pendock turned to Rathbone.

Before he could speak, Rathbone swung around to face Coniston, as if he were unaware of the judge.

“On the contrary,” Rathbone said loudly. “You claim that Dr. Lambourn took his own life in despair at something that occurred during this period of time. At first you said that it was some sexual deviancy and his consequent use of a prostitute in Limehouse, and the possibility that his wife would find this out. Now that you know the ‘prostitute,’ as you called her, was in fact a perfectly respectable woman who was once, and legally still was, Dr. Lambourn’s wife, you have had to withdraw that!”

Coniston looked startled, even discomfited.

“Then you said that the accused killed the victim out of jealousy because she had just discovered Dr. Lambourn’s visits to her,” Rathbone went on. “Only as soon as you said that, you discovered that she had known of his visits for the last fifteen years; so that reasoning was clearly absurd. Now you are saying that he killed himself because an important but very detailed report he made was refused, and he had to go back and write it again. I am trying to establish whether or not that was actually so. I intend to call other professional witnesses in that field to give evidence on the subject.”

“Sir Oliver!” Pendock’s voice was so forceful there was a sudden, total silence in the courtroom. “We are trying the accused for the murder of Zenia Gadney Lambourn, not for the death of Joel Lambourn, which has already been ruled by the courts to be suicide. His reasons for taking his life, however tragic, are not relevant here.”

“I submit, my lord, that they are acutely relevant, and I shall show the jury that that is so,” Rathbone said recklessly.

“Indeed,” Pendock replied skeptically. “We wait impatiently. Please proceed.”

Heart pounding, Rathbone turned back to Dinah.

“I know that you find it hard to believe that Dr. Lambourn took his own life,” he began, “but during the last week before his body was found, was he at any time unusually distressed, angry, at a loss to know what to do? Was he different from his normal self?”

Coniston moved in his seat, but he did not rise, although he made ready to.

Reading Rathbone’s cue, Dinah replied. “Yes. He returned home from questioning people in the dockside areas, about two or three days before his death. He was most distraught by something he had learned.”

“Did he tell you what that was?” Rathbone asked.

There was total silence in the room. The gallery seemed to be holding their breath. Not a juror moved so much as a hand.

“No.” Dinah sighed the word, then made an effort to speak more clearly. “I asked him, but he said it was something too terrible to tell anyone until he knew who was behind it. I asked him again, but he said it was something I should not know about, for my own sake, since such suffering was involved. Once it was in my mind, I would never be able to forget it, he said. It would haunt my dreams, waking and sleeping, for the rest of my life.” The tears were running down her face unchecked now. “I saw the grief in him, and I knew that he spoke the truth. I didn’t ask him again. I don’t know which was easier for him, my knowing, or not knowing. I never learned, because two days later he was dead.”

“Could it have been the number of deaths caused by accidental overdose of opium in some new area he was researching?” he asked.

She shook her head. “I don’t see how. Had there been something appalling, a large number of deaths in one place, then surely that would have been something Mr. Herne would have wished to know about, and it would not have been secret. It must have been something else.”

“Yes, I see what you mean,” Rathbone agreed. “Did he at any time say to you what he intended to do about this terrible thing that brought about so much suffering?”

Dinah was silent for several moments.

One of the jurors moved uncomfortably; another leaned forward as if to look at her more closely.

Coniston stared at Rathbone, then looked up at the judge.

Rathbone wanted to know if Barclay Herne was in the court or not. He had his back to the gallery and did not dare disturb his concentration to look.

“I am trying to think back on what he said,” Dinah replied at last. “To think of his words, and what he might have meant. He was very disturbed by it, very distressed.”

“Did he know who was involved in this abomination?” Rathbone asked. “Or anything about the nature of it?”

“Only that it concerned opium,” she replied quietly. “And that he cared about it passionately.”

This time Coniston did rise to his feet. “My lord! We have not in any way whatever established that there was any abomination to discover, only that something happened that Dr. Lambourn was disturbed about.” He spread his hands out wide. “It could have been an accident, a misfortune of nature, anything at all. Or for that matter, it could have been nothing. We have only the accused’s word that we are talking about anything more than an excuse to drag this trial out as long as possible.”

“You are quite right, Mr. Coniston,” Pendock agreed. “I have no more patience with your time-wasting, Sir Oliver. If you have no further evidence to bring forward, then we shall put the matter to the jury.”

Rathbone was desperate. He had nothing else to ask Dinah. She had pleaded not guilty when she was charged. There was not even a denial to add.

“I have two more witnesses, my lord,” he said, hearing his own voice sound hollow, even faintly ridiculous. Where the devil was Monk? Where were Hester and her Dr. Winfarthing?

Pendock turned to Coniston. “Have you any questions to ask the accused, Mr. Coniston?”

Coniston hesitated, then either in cowardice not to take any chances, or in mercy not to drag out the pointless ritual, he answered quietly.

“No, my lord, thank you.”

Rathbone was beaten. “I wish to call Dr. Gustavus Winfarthing, my lord, but he is not yet in court. I apologize, and ask—”

The doors at the back of the court burst open and a huge figure strode through, jacket flying, his mane of graying hair standing on end as if he had come in from a high wind.

“Don’t you dare apologize on my behalf!” he cried loudly. “I most certainly am here. Good heavens, sir, a blind man on a galloping horse could not miss me.”

There was a ripple of laughter around the gallery, perhaps as much a release of tension as any amusement. Even one or two of the jurors smiled widely, then suddenly realized that perhaps it was inappropriate, and forced their faces into expressions of gravity again.

Winfarthing walked right up to the edge of the table where Rathbone sat, and then stopped.

“Are you ready for me, Sir Oliver? Or shall I wait outside again?”

“No!” Rathbone controlled his relief and his anxiety with an effort. “We are perfectly ready for you, Dr. Winfarthing. If you would take the stand, sir, you will be sworn in.” He was not at all ready for him. He needed to speak to him alone, learn what he had to say and keep some grasp on the testimony, but he dared not try Pendock’s patience, or he might lose even this chance.

Winfarthing obeyed, climbing with some difficulty up the narrow, curving steps to the witness box, finding it awkward to get his bulk between the railings. He swore to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, then stood meekly waiting for Rathbone to begin.

Rathbone had never seen the man before. In fact he knew nothing of him except the little that Hester had told him, and the rather larger amount he deduced from the warmth with which she had spoken. Even the mention of his name had made her smile. Rathbone now had almost nothing left to lose. He set out with a bravado he was far from feeling.

“Dr. Winfarthing, were you acquainted with Joel Lambourn?”

“Of course I was,” Winfarthing replied, raising his eyebrows and staring at Rathbone as if he were a peculiarly inept student in front of him for some childish prank. “Excellent man, both professionally and personally.” Then, as if anticipating Coniston’s objection to the fact that he had not been asked to assess Lambourn’s character, he turned toward him and glared ferociously.

“Thank you,” Rathbone said quickly. “Did he seek your opinions or experiences regarding the use of opium when he was doing research for his report in the three or four months before he died?”

“Of course he did,” Winfarthing said with surprise in his face and his voice again, as if the question were redundant.

Already the gallery was silent. Behind him Rathbone could not hear even the rustle of movement in the seats. Please heaven, Winfarthing had something to say, more than the details, with which he could take the afternoon until Monk would find and bring Agatha Nisbet.

“Why, Dr. Winfarthing?” Rathbone prompted. “Have you some expertise in the study of infant deaths from opium overdose?”

“Tragically, yes,” Winfarthing replied. “I was able to confirm a good deal of what he had found, and add my own figures to his, which incidentally were almost exactly the same.”

Coniston rose to his feet. “My lord, if it will save the court’s time, I am willing to agree that Dr. Lambourn’s figures were honestly obtained, and may well have been accurate regarding the misuse of opium in dosing children. Whether that is a tragedy that can be overcome by better dispensing is not within our remit. But since Sir Oliver himself has implied, properly or not, that the reason for Dr. Lambourn’s death had nothing to do with his report on opium labeling, I do not see how it has even the remotest relevance to the murder of Zenia Gadney, even in the unlikely, and totally unproven, event that she was privy to any part of this report. Or, for that matter, that she could have had a copy of part of it in her keeping.”

“Your point is well taken, Mr. Coniston,” Pendock replied. “Sir Oliver, you are wasting time again. I will not allow it. If Dr. Winfarthing has nothing to add except his opinion that Lambourn was a good doctor, then we have heard it, and it is, as Mr. Coniston has said, irrelevant. If Mr. Coniston has no questions of this witness, call your next witness, whoever it is, and let us proceed.”

Winfarthing’s eyes widened and his large face flushed red with anger. He swung around in the confines of the witness box with some difficulty, and glared at the judge in his scarlet robes and white, full-bottomed wig.

“Sir, I have a great deal of evidence to give,” he thundered, “though I am very aware that it may not be pleasant to hear, since it concerns the most exquisitely degrading and painful ways of abusing the human body and spirit known to man. It concerns the abuse of the relief for pain, turning it into blood money in another’s hands. But if we want to be counted as men of virtue, or even of honor—indeed, to be included in the bonds of humanity—then we do not have the luxury or the right to say we prefer not to distress ourselves by listening to the truth.” Then he swiveled around a quarter turn, gripping the rails, and glared equally fiercely at the twelve men of the jury.

The jury gave him not only their attention but their obvious respect.

Pendock was very clearly taken aback. He avoided looking at Winfarthing, glanced at Coniston and saw nothing that helped him, and turned at last to Rathbone.

“Will you keep your witness in order, Sir Oliver,” he said angrily. “I will not have chaos in my courtroom. If you have something to ask that is relevant to the murder of Zenia Gadney, and I warn you to be careful that it is so, then please get to it without further rambling or delay.”

“Rambling?” Winfarthing hissed a stage whisper so loud it must have been audible at the back of the gallery.

Rathbone could feel the last shred of control slipping out of his grasp. He looked back at Winfarthing. He could see why Hester liked the man; he was totally ungovernable. That would appeal to her own anarchic nature.

“Dr. Winfarthing,” he said sternly, “did you give Dr. Lambourn any information that he might have included in his report, and with which, at that point, he was unfamiliar? I am asking specifically about something that might have disturbed him sufficiently to account for his deep concern shortly before his death, but which he refused to confide in the accused, because it was too distressing?”

Winfarthing regarded him with amazement. “Of course I did!” he said loudly. “I told him that opium you swallow, even the damn stuff you smoke, is less than half your problem. The Pharmacy Act, if it sees the light of day, will be a toothless hag to deal with the problem that is now beginning—”

Pendock leaned forward, his hatchet face pale. “Sir Oliver, if you cannot keep your witness to the point, then I—”

“The needle!” Winfarthing said very loudly, his voice sharp with exasperation. He held up both huge hands, looking now straight at the jury. “A little contraption with a hollow down the middle and a point sharp enough to prick the human skin all the way to the veins. They attach the other end of it to a kind of vial or tiny bottle, with a solution of opium in it. Has to be pure, no cough mixture or stomach remedies. They push the plunger …” He made a dramatic gesture, closing his huge fist as if there were something inside it. “And the opium is in the blood in your veins, carried throughout your body, into your heart and lungs, into your brain! You see? Ecstasy—and then madness. The beast
bites you once, and slowly, through tortures you cannot imagine—agony, vomiting, cramps, cold sweats, trembling and gooseflesh and chills—brings on nightmares no sane man has to endure. Of course you don’t want to hear it.”

He leaned forward over the railing as if peering into the jury’s faces.

“But what you really don’t want, my friends, is to live it! Or your children to live it … or, if you claim to be God-fearing men, any fellow human being on the face of this fair earth.”