A Sunless Sea (49 page)

This time Coniston did not hesitate. He was on his feet and striding out into the main space of the floor before he even began to speak.

“My lord! We have already established that it is possible for the unskilled or ignorant to misuse opium, probably any other medicine, and your lordship has ruled that raking it up here in this trial, which has nothing to do with opium except in the most oblique way, is irrelevant. It is a waste of time; it will frighten the public unnecessarily, and may well be slanderous to doctors who are not here to defend themselves, their honor and their good name.”

Pendock was ashen gray, and he controlled himself with a difficulty that was clearly visible to everyone.

“I think we must allow Miss Nisbet to tell us what troubled Dr. Lambourn so much, if indeed she knows,” he answered. “I will warn her that no names are to be mentioned, unless she has proof of what she says. That should allay your anxieties about slander.” He looked at Rathbone. “Please continue, Sir Oliver, but arrive at something relevant as soon as you can, preferably before luncheon.”

“Thank you, my lord.” Rathbone inclined his head graciously. Even before Coniston had returned to his seat, confused and angry, he asked Agatha Nisbet to continue.

“ ’E asked me a lot o’ questions about addiction,” she said quietly. “An ’ow yer can get over it. I told ’im that for most people, yer can’t.”

Now the silence in the room was intense, as if every man and woman in it were holding his or her breath, afraid to move in case the slightest rustle of fabric distorted a word.

The moment was here. Rathbone hesitated, breathed in and out slowly, then asked the question, his voice a trifle husky.

“And what was his response, Miss Nisbet?”

“ ’E were gutted,” she said simply. “ ’E asked me if I would show ’im some proof of it, so ’e would know what ’e were talkin’ about, an’ so ’e could put it in ’is report for the government.”

“Did he say why he wanted to put it in his report?”

“Course ’e didn’t, but I ain’t bleedin’ stupid! ’E wanted to ’ave the government make a law so it would be a crime ter sell people that kind of opium, wi’ needles to put it inter their blood. ’E wanted it so only doctors ’oo really knew what they was doin’ could give it ter anyone.” She looked back at him with a rage so deep, words seemed inadequate to serve it. She blinked several times. “ ’E wanted ter see what it really did to anyone … to know everything about it.”

“And did you agree to do that?” Rathbone said softly.

“Course I did,” she answered witheringly, but there was pain in her voice, and Rathbone felt a sense of guilt himself for what he was about to do. But there was no choice. He was not only at the last, desperate point of his defense of Dinah Lambourn; he knew this was what Joel Lambourn had died for, and unequivocally, what was right. There was a horror waiting to destroy thousands, tens of thousands of people over time. He could not balk at causing this one person’s pain.

Coniston was on his feet. “My lord, Miss Nisbet may be a very worthy woman, and I don’t mean to belittle her efforts in any way, but all this is still hearsay. I assume she is not addicted to opium herself? If so, she seems to be managing with extraordinary ability to hide it. It would be flippant to suggest it is doing her good, but I do suggest she is an observer, and not a professionally skilled one at that. If we are to believe this of opium, then we must have doctors tell us so, not Miss Nisbet, for all her charitable work.”

Pendock looked at Rathbone with the question in his face, the panic in his hollow eyes.

Rathbone turned to the witness stand. “Who did you take Dr. Lambourn to see, Miss Nisbet?”

“Dr. Alvar Doulting,” she said hoarsely. “I’ve known ’im for years. Known ’im when ’e were one o’ the best doctors I ever seen.”

“And he is not now?” Rathbone asked.

Her look was bitter and filled with grief. “Some days ’e’s all right. Will be today, most likely.”

“He is ill?” Rathbone asked.

Coniston stood up again. “My lord, if the witness is not coming, for reasons of ill health or whatever else”—he used the terms scathingly—“then what is the purpose of this hearsay?”

“He is coming, my lord,” Rathbone stated, hoping to heaven he was correct. Hester was supposed to be bringing him, with Monk’s help, if that should prove necessary.

Coniston looked around him as if searching for the missing doctor. He gave a very slight shrug. “Indeed?”

Rathbone was desperate. Neither Monk nor Hester had come into the courtroom to indicate that Doulting was safely here. If Rathbone called him and he failed to appear, Coniston would demand they begin their summing up and Pendock would not have any excuse to refuse him.

“I still have further questions for Miss Nisbet,” Rathbone said, his mind racing to think how he could string this out any further. There really was little else Agatha Nisbet could say that would not be obvious even to the jury as playing for time.

“My lord”—Coniston’s weariness was only slightly an exaggeration—“the court is being indulgent enough to the accused in allowing this doctor to testify at all. If the man cannot even appear, then—”

Pendock took it out of his control. “The court will adjourn for an hour, to allow everyone to compose themselves, perhaps take a glass of water.” He rose stiffly, as if all his joints hurt, and walked from the room.

As soon as he was gone Coniston came over to Rathbone. His face was very pale and for the first time Rathbone had ever seen it, his collar was a trifle askew.

“Can we talk?” he asked urgently.

“I’m not sure what there is to say,” Rathbone answered.

Coniston moved his hand as if to take Rathbone by the arm, then changed his mind and let it fall again. “Please? This is very serious. I’m not sure if you understand the full implications.”

“I’m not sure they’re going to make any difference,” Rathbone told him frankly.

“Well, I could do with a drink anyway,” Coniston replied. “I feel like hell, and you look like it. What the devil have you done to Pendock? He looks like a corpse dug up!”

“That’s none of your concern,” Rathbone replied with a brief smile to rob the words of their sting, although he meant them. “If he wants to tell you, that is up to him.”

They were out in the hall now and Coniston stopped abruptly, staring at Rathbone. For the first time he realized that something really had changed, and he was no longer in control.

Rathbone led the way now, going out of the courthouse and down the steps to the street. They went to the nearest decent public house and ordered brandy, in spite of the early hour.

“You’re playing with fire,” Coniston said very quietly after he had taken the first sip of his drink and allowed its burning warmth to slide down his throat. “Do you know what sort of restrictions Lambourn was going to advocate, and who would be made into a criminal because of it?”

“No!” Rathbone said quietly. “But I’m beginning to have a rather strong idea that you do.”

Coniston looked grim. “You know better than to ask me that, Rathbone. I can’t reveal anything told me in confidence.”

“That rather depends on by whom,” Rathbone pointed out. “And whether it conceals the truth of Lambourn’s death, and consequently protects whoever murdered and then eviscerated Zenia Lambourn.”

“It doesn’t,” Coniston’s eyes widened. “You know me better than that.”

“Are you sure?” Rathbone asked, meeting Coniston’s gaze and holding it. “What about the effective murder of Dinah Lambourn? And that is what it will be if we deliberately allow her to be hanged for a crime she did not commit. I think you can see as well as I can that there is a great deal more to this case than domestic jealousy between two women who have known about each other for the best part of fifteen years.”

Coniston was silent for several moments, sipping his brandy again. His hand around the glass was white-knuckled.

“Lambourn’s death was the catalyst,” he said finally. “Suddenly his money was at stake, Dinah’s whole life as she knew it, and that of her children.”

“Rubbish,” Rathbone replied. “Her life as she knew it ended with his death because she loved him. He was murdered because of his proposal to add restrictions to the sales of opium because of what he discovered about the effects of taking it by needle. She is willing to risk being hanged in order to clear his name of suicide and professional incompetence, and perhaps even to see his work completed simply because he believed in it. Even though she didn’t, and still doesn’t, know what it really is.”

“For God’s sake, Rathbone!” Coniston exclaimed. “She’s facing the hangman because the evidence says she’s guilty. She lied to Monk and he caught her in it. From the evidence you’ve provided, if Lambourn didn’t kill himself, it’s even possible she killed him also. We have only her own, and her sister-in-law’s, word for it that she knew about Zenia Gadney. There’s a very reasonable case to say that she only learned about Zenia just before Lambourn’s death, and that’s the connection.” He smiled with a bitter irony. “You might just have proved her guilty of both murders.”

Rathbone sat staring at Coniston. He realized now how shallow his knowledge of the man was. Good family; excellent education; good career, improving all the time. Fortunate, if possibly dull marriage. Three daughters and a son. But he knew nothing of the inner man, the hopes or the dreams. What hurt him, or made him laugh? What was he afraid of, apart from poverty or failure? Was he afraid of making a mistake, convicting an innocent person? Was he ever lonely? Did he doubt the best in himself, or fear the worst? Had he ever loved someone, and been proved hideously wrong, as Rathbone had?

He had no idea.

“Do you give a damn what the truth is?” he said quietly.

Coniston leaned forward across the table, his face tense, the skin drawn suddenly tight with his own urgency. “Yes, I do! And I care like hell that we don’t betray our country’s laws and freedoms, the tolerance of individuals’ rights to take whatever medicines they choose, how they
choose. Information is one thing, and I’m all for that. But making opium illegal and the sellers of it criminals is quite another. You can’t prove anything at all from this Nisbet woman’s words.”

“We may not be able to affect what the Pharmacy Act says, and whether opium sales are restricted, or not. That is not our decision,” Rathbone argued. “But we can and must affect what happens in the Old Bailey this week. You’d better choose where you stand, Coniston, because you aren’t going to be able to play the middle any longer. Are you sure, beyond reasonable doubt, that what this Nisbet woman says isn’t true, and doesn’t have any bearing on why Lambourn was killed?”

Coniston blinked. “What are you saying? That someone selling pure opium here in London, now, killed Lambourn, and then Zenia Gadney?”

“Are you saying that isn’t a possibility?” Rathbone watched Coniston’s face, and the realization hit him. He drew in his breath and let it out very slowly. His heart was pounding so violently he felt as if it must be making his body shake. “My God. You know who is behind this, don’t you!” It was a statement, not a question, in fact all but an accusation.

“He did not kill either Lambourn or Zenia Gadney,” Coniston said so softly, Rathbone barely heard him. “Do you really think I didn’t make certain of that myself?”

“Did you? Are you saying that out of knowledge or belief?” Rathbone asked. Was it all slipping away from him again, in his grasp, and then gone, like mist from empty hands?

“Knowledge,” Coniston answered. “Give me that much credit. He believes Lambourn’s response to what Agatha Nisbet told him was hysterical and completely disproportionate. He wanted that part of his report excluded. He’s not guilty of this. Lambourn was a fanatic and he took his own life. His wife couldn’t accept that and chose this insane and terrible way of trying to force the government’s hand.” His glance wavered, but only for an instant.

“What?” Rathbone demanded.

“Bring in your witness.” Coniston’s voice was a whisper, all but caught in his throat. He sighed. “Play it out. I imagine you’re going to
anyway. But be warned, if you somehow manage to ruin an innocent man, I’ll personally see that you pay for it with your career. I don’t care how damn clever you are.”

“An innocent man? What is he innocent of? Murder of Lambourn and Zenia Gadney, or of selling people a one-way ticket to hell?”

“Just stop dancing around and prove something!” Coniston answered.

“I mean to.” Rathbone finished the last of his brandy. “But don’t forget, reasonable doubt is enough.” He put the empty glass down and rose to his feet. He walked away without looking back.

R
ATHBONE SAW NO SIGN
of either Monk or Hester in the hallways as he returned. His muscles locked tight with tension.

The court resumed with Agatha Nisbet back on the stand again. The jurors looked pale and unhappy, but not one of them averted his eyes or his attention from her.

“You have described some of the most terrible suffering any of us here has heard,” Rathbone began. “Did you describe these things also to Dr. Joel Lambourn?”

“Yes, I did,” she said simply. “I took ’im an’ I showed ’im.”

“And what was Dr. Lambourn’s reaction?” he asked, looking up at Agatha again.

“ ’E were sick,” she answered. “Looked like a man with the ague. At first ’e were just revolted, like anyone would be, then as we saw more, ’e got gray in the face an’ I were afraid ’e were going to ’ave a seizure or an ’eart attack. I even fetched ’im brandy.”

“And that revived him?”

“Not a lot. ’E looked like a man as ’ad seen death in front of ’im. Reckon as perhaps ’e ’ad, save it weren’t more’n a few days before ’e were found with ’is wrists cut, poor sod.” Her language was coarse, but the pity in her face, even the grief, was too powerful to belittle or ignore.

Rathbone deliberately took a risk, but time was pressing hard on him. “Did he seem to you suicidal?”

“The doctor?” she said incredulously. “Don’t be a fool! ’E were ’ell-bent
on stoppin’ it, whatever it cost. Never reckoned as it’d cost ’im ’is life. Not ter even think of ’is wife too.”