A Sunless Sea wm-18

by Anne Perry

  Coniston stood. “Then the poor woman cannot have been murdered for it, except by Dinah Lambourn, which is our contention. All Sir Oliver has done is provide the accused with a second motive, my lord.”

  Pendock looked at Rathbone with a faint smile on his face.

  “You appear to have shot yourself in the foot, Sir Oliver,” he observed.

  Runcorn drew in a sharp breath, looked at Rathbone, and then beyond him into the body of the gallery.

  Rathbone understood instantly what Runcorn meant. He gave him the slightest of nods, then smiled back at Pendock.

  “If Dinah Lambourn were the only one to have known the truth, that would be so, my lord. Perhaps you are unaware that both Barclay Herne and his wife, Amity Herne, Joel Lambourn’s sister, both knew of his first marriage.” Rathbone allowed his voice to take on a slightly sarcastic tone. “I believe they … forgot to mention this in their earlier testimony, though they have both confessed as much to me in the privacy of their own home.”

  Again the color drained from Pendock’s face and he sat rigid, his hand in front of him, a closed fist on his great carved bench.

  “Are you suggesting that one of them murdered this unfortunate woman, Sir Oliver?” he said very slowly. “I assume you have ascertained their whereabouts at the time in question?”

  Rathbone felt as if he had been physically struck. In a matter of seconds victory had turned to defeat.

  “No, my lord,” he said quietly. “I was pointing out that Dinah Lambourn was not the only person aware of the fact that Joel Lambourn was married to Zenia Gadney, and visited her once a month, that we know of. It is always possible that either Barclay or Mrs. Herne may have told other people, perhaps their acquaintances from that earlier time when Dr. Lambourn was still together with Zenia Gadney, or should I say Zenia Lambourn?”

  “Why on earth would either of them do such a thing?” Pendock asked incredulously. “Surely it is something no one would wish to make public? It would be most embarrassing. Your suggestion is eccentric, to put it at its kindest.”

  Rathbone made one last attempt.

  “My lord, we are uncertain whether Dr. Lambourn’s report contained references to the sale of opium and these needles, with details of the horror of the addiction such methods cause. Whether the stories are entirely true or not we do not know. But it remains likely that people’s names are mentioned, either as dealers of this poison or addicts to it. Finding every copy of these papers and making certain they do not fall into the wrong hands could be regarded as a service to anyone mentioned in them-and perhaps the country in general. Opium, used properly, and under medical supervision, remains the only ease we have for mortal pain.”

  Pendock was silent for a long time.

  The court waited. Every face in the gallery and in the jury box was turned toward the judge. Even Runcorn in the witness box turned to watch and wait.

  Seconds ticked by. No one moved.

  Finally Pendock reached a decision.

  “Do you have any evidence of this, Mr. Runcorn?” he said quietly. “Evidence, not supposition and scandal?”

  “Yes, my lord,” Runcorn answered. “But it is all in bits and pieces, scattered among the accounts of tragic infant deaths that Dr. Lambourn was looking for. He came across this other evidence by accident and we think he only pieced together who was behind it in the last few days of his life.”

  Rathbone took a step forward.

  “My lord, if we might have the rest of the day to assemble it sensibly, and make certain that no innocent person is unintentionally slandered, we might be able to present it to the court, or to your lordship in chambers, and see what the value of it may be.”

  Pendock sighed heavily. “Very well. The court is adjourned until Tuesday morning.”

  “Thank you, my lord.” Rathbone inclined his head, suddenly almost sick with relief.

  Runcorn came down from the stand and walked toward him.

  “Sir Oliver, Mr. Monk would like to see you, as soon as possible,” he said quietly. “We have more.”

  CHAPTER 21

  While Rathbone was in court questioning Runcorn, and Monk was endeavoring to learn more about Barclay Herne and Sinden Bawtry, Hester quietly returned to see Dr. Winfarthing.

  As always, Winfarthing was pleased to see her, but after he had greeted her with his usual warmth, he sat back in his chair and the heaviness of apprehension was too clear for her to miss.

  “I assume you are here about that poor woman Dinah Lambourn,” he said bleakly.

  “Yes. We haven’t long before they’ll bring in a verdict,” she replied. “You knew Joel Lambourn-you worked with him.”

  He grunted. “So what do you want of me, girl? If I had any proof he didn’t kill himself, don’t you think I’d have said so at the time?”

  “Of course. But things are different now. What do you know about opium and syringes?”

  His eyes opened very wide and he let his breath out slowly.

  “Is that what you’re thinking about? That he stumbled onto someone selling needles, and opium pure enough to put directly into the blood? Can kill people with that, if you don’t get it exactly right. At best, you’re likely to get them addicted unless you keep it to just a few days.”

  “I know,” she agreed. “Some of the doctors in the American Civil War have used morphine to help the badly injured. Thought it wouldn’t be so addictive. They were wrong. But they were doing it for the best of reasons. What if someone was doing it for money, and worse, for power?”

  Winfarthing nodded very slowly. “God Almighty, girl! Are you sure? What a monstrous evil. Have you ever seen what opium addiction does to a man? Have you seen the withdrawal, if he doesn’t get his supply?” His face was pinched with misery at the memory of it in his mind.

  “No, I haven’t.”

  “There’s pain,” he told her. “And nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, panic, depression, anxiety, sleeplessness, muscle twitching, cramps, chills, tremors, headaches, gooseflesh, lack of appetite-and other things as well, if you’re really unlucky.”

  She felt her body clenching, as if she were threatened herself. “For how long?” she asked huskily.

  “Depends,” he said, watching her with his face squashed up in pity. “As little as two days-as long as two months.”

  She rubbed her hand over her face. “And it isn’t even illegal, what this person is doing! Getting people addicted. Taking away their free will.”

  “Don’t you think I know that?” he said wearily. “There’s a big profit in it for the seller. Once you’re on the opium you’ll pay anything you have or do anything you’re told to in order to keep on getting your supply. It’s the doing anything that’s the bigger problem. If you’re right, and that’s what Lambourn found, then you’re dealing with a very wicked man.”

  She frowned. “But why did they kill Lambourn?” she asked. “What could he do to them?”

  Winfarthing sat totally still, staring at her as if seeing her more clearly than ever before.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  “Did he see anyone in withdrawal?” he demanded.

  “I don’t know …” Then she saw what he was thinking. “You mean that was what was in his report? A description of addiction to opium through the syringe, and then the severity of the withdrawal process-and the request that that be dealt with in the bill? Made illegal?”

  “Exactly! It has to be possible to draft a bill to allow the use of a restricted and labeled amount in medicines to be swallowed, as it is now,” he agreed. “But against the law to give it or take it by needle, except when given by a doctor, and even then carefully watched. That would make our mystery man a criminal of the worst kind. Changes everything.”

  “Then how can we get that into court to clear Dinah Lambourn?” she said urgently. “We have only days! Will you testify?”

  “Of course I will, but we’ll need more than me, girl. We’ll need the man your nurse Agatha spoke of. Who is he? Do you know
?”

  “No … although I have a guess. But I don’t know how to make him come to court. He might … if …” She stopped, too uncertain to make it sound like a real hope.

  “Do it,” he insisted. “I’ll come with you. God in heaven, I’ll do any damn thing I can to stop this. If you’d seen a man in withdrawal, heard him scream and retch as the cramps all but tore him apart, so would you.”

  “To see Dinah hanged for a crime she didn’t commit is enough for me,” Hester answered. “But nobody believes that. We must make sense of it … and this will. I’ll see that Oliver Rathbone calls you to testify. Now I must go and see Agatha Nisbet.”

  “Do you want me to come with you?” he offered anxiously.

  She considered for a moment. It would be safer, more comfortable if he did, and yet she knew that it would also make Agatha far less likely to agree.

  “No, thank you. But I’m grateful.”

  He scowled at her. “You’re a fool. I should insist.”

  “No, you shouldn’t. You know as well as I do that this must be done, and she’ll refuse if you go.”

  Winfarthing grimaced and eased his weight back into his chair. “Be careful,” he warned. “If she agrees, give me your word that you’ll take her with you? Otherwise I’m coming, regardless.”

  “I give you my word,” she promised.

  He gave her a sudden, beaming smile. “I’ll see you in court!”

  Two hours later Hester stood in Agony Nisbet’s cramped office.

  “No,” Agatha said flatly. “I’ll not do that to him.”

  Hester stared at her, ignoring the fury in her eyes. “What gives you the right to make that decision for him? You said he was a good man once, and it was the opium seller with the syringe that changed him. Give him the chance to be that good man again. If he won’t take it, then there’s nothing we can do. Lambourn will go down as a suicide, Dinah will hang, and nobody will stop the opium sellers, or even punish the ones we catch.”

  Agatha did not answer.

  Hester waited.

  “I won’t try to make ’im,” Agatha said at last. “You ’aven’t seen what the withdrawal’s like, or you wouldn’t ask. You wouldn’t put anyone through it, let alone someone you cared about … a friend.”

  “Maybe not,” Hester conceded, “but I wouldn’t make the decision for them, either.”

  “It’d be the man who gives ’im the opium ’e needs,” Agatha pointed out. “Without it ’e’ll be in withdrawal for months-maybe on an’ off forever.”

  “Can’t you get it for him?”

  “I’ve ’ardly got enough for the injured. You want me to give ’im yours? D’yer know ’ow much it takes ter keep an addict going?”

  “No. Does it make any difference?”

  “You’re a hard bitch!” Agatha said between her teeth.

  “I’m a nurse,” Hester corrected her. “That means I’m a realist … like you.”

  Agatha snorted, was silent for a few moments, then straightened her huge shoulders. “Well, come on then! By the sound of it, you ’aven’t got time ter waste!”

  Hester relaxed and smiled at last, then turned for the door.

  Alvar Doulting knew as soon as he saw Agatha what they had come for. He shook his head, backing into the room as if there were a form of escape in the stacks of shelves behind him.

  Agatha stopped and her raw-boned hand clasped Hester so hard it bruised the flesh of her arm. She had to bite her lip not to cry out.

  “You don’t ’ave ter do it,” Agatha said to Doulting.

  “If you don’t, Dinah Lambourn will hang,” Hester told him. “And Joel Lambourn’s report will never be seen. In particular the part about opium needles. There’ll still be people addicted, whatever we do, but if it’s made illegal, there’ll be fewer. It’s time to decide what you want to do … to be.”

  “You don’t ’ave ter!” Agatha said again. Her face was pale, her voice strained. Her fingers were like a vise on Hester’s arm.

  Doulting looked from one to the other of them as the seconds ticked by. He seemed beaten, as if he could no longer fight. Perhaps he knew there was nothing left that he could gain, except the last shred of the man he used to be.

  “Don’t stop me, Agatha,” he said quietly. “If I can find the courage, I’ll do it.”

  “You’ll testify that you told Joel Lambourn about the addiction that taking opium by needle causes, and he included it in his report?” Hester said it clearly. “And you’ll tell them what it’s like, and how it affects those it captures?”

  Doulting looked at her and very slowly nodded.

  She did not know whether she dared believe him. “Thank you,” she whispered. “I’ll tell Sir Oliver Rathbone.”

  He sank back against the bench, turning to Agatha.

  “I’ll get you enough,” she promised rashly, yanking at Hester’s arm. “Come on. We done enough ’ere.” She looked at Doulting again. “I’ll be back.”

  Rathbone sat in Monk’s kitchen, untouched tea steaming gently in front of him. There were pastries cooling on a rack, sweetmeats ready for Christmas.

  “Are you certain?” Rathbone pressed, looking at Monk, then at Runcorn. “Is the evidence absolutely irrefutable?”

  Hester nodded her head. “Yes. Dr. Winfarthing will come first, then Alvar Doulting. They’ll confirm that Joel Lambourn came to Winfarthing, who told him about the selling of opium and needles, and then Doulting will tell the court that Lambourn came to him, and repeat what he told him. Lambourn put it in his report. That was why he was killed. If they made it illegal to take opium that way, the sellers would lose a fortune. It was worth murdering Lambourn for, and Zenia Gadney.”

  “And hanging Dinah Lambourn,” Runcorn added grimly.

  “Then who actually killed Lambourn?” Monk asked.

  “The seller of opium pure enough to inject without killing people, and the needles to do it,” Hester said quietly. “Or someone he paid. Morally, it’s him.”

  “Who? Barclay Herne?” Rathbone asked, looking from one to the other of them.

  This time it was Monk who answered him. “Possibly, but from what we can tell, he hasn’t the sort of money such a trade would bring. Apart from the bestiality of it, it’s too dangerous to do for small reward.”

  “Then who? Sinden Bawtry? My God, that would be appalling,” Rathbone exclaimed, the full enormity of it burgeoning to fill his imagination. “Word is that he’s about to fill a very high cabinet post. If that’s possible, then no wonder Joel Lambourn was desperate to expose him. He could have had the power to stop that provision from being included in the Pharmacy Act.” He took a deep breath, his tea still ignored. “But Bawtry and Herne were dining at the Atheneum that night. There are witnesses. And that was miles away, on the other side of the river.”

  “Is Herne involved?” Rathbone asked doubtfully. “Organizing everything for Bawtry? For a suitable reward afterward?” He could not see Barclay Herne with the fire or the courage to do anything dangerous, or requiring that kind of ruthless and passionate greed, unless he was an addict, too. He remembered the confidence one day, and the pasty skin and nervousness the Sunday he had called unexpectedly. “We can’t afford a mistake. If I say something I have to be right and be able to prove it-at least as probable, even if not certain,” he finished.

  Runcorn bit his lip. “That isn’t going to be easy. The judge may not know what he’s defending, but he’s been told there’s something. He may think it’s to do with England’s reputation, and nothing more personal than that, but I dare say his future’s dependent on keeping it quiet.”

  “I’m damned sure of it,” Rathbone agreed. He turned to Hester. “Are you certain this Agatha Nisbet will turn up? And what about Doulting? He could be drugged out of his senses, or dead in an alley by then.”

  They all looked at Hester, faces tense, bodies stiff.

  “I don’t know,” she admitted. “We can only try.”

  “We haven’t much to lose,”
Rathbone said to all of them. “As it is now, they’re going to find Dinah guilty. I have no one else left to put on the stand. She’s lied to me before, and I’m not sure if she knew anything at all about what Lambourn found out. I don’t think her belief in him is going to be enough to change this outcome.”

  He looked at Hester. “Do you believe this Agatha Nisbet?”

  She did not hesitate. “Yes. But it won’t be so easy with Alvar Doulting. She’ll bring him if he’s all right, but she won’t force him. You may have to string it out at least another day. I’ll help her to get him as strong as we can.”

  “I’ve no one else,” Rathbone told them.

  “Then you must call Dinah,” Hester said, her voice uncertain, a little husky. “Immediately after Christmas.”

  The more Rathbone heard of what Hester had learned, and the further disclosures it threatened, the more certain he was that both Coniston and Pendock knew at least of the existence of a scandal that they had been warned must be kept a secret, even at the cost of hanging a woman without exhausting the last possibility that she was innocent. Who else was addicted to the pervasive poison? Who else’s fortune relied on its sale?

  He looked across at Monk. It was a gamble. They were all painfully aware of it.

  “I’ll speak to Dinah,” he said. He had not had time to talk to her since the revelation that she had never actually been Lambourn’s wife. “But we’ve got to provide an alternative better than some shadowy form of an opium seller we also can’t name.”

  Monk glanced at Hester, then back at Rathbone. “I know. We won’t stop trying to prove who’s behind it. But we need time. Can you stretch it out another day?”

  Rathbone wanted to say yes, but he doubted it. If he could not, and the court could see that he was increasingly desperate, asking questions to which they all knew the answer, Coniston would object that he was wasting the court’s time, and Pendock would very justifiably uphold him. Most important, the jury would know he had no defense left, or else he would have used it.