A Sunless Sea Read online

  “It gets worse,” Runcorn said grimly. “It was about five years before he appeared to have married Dinah.”

  “Why is that worse?” Monk did not want to hear the answer.

  “I looked hard, believe me. I searched everything twice,” Runcorn said miserably. “There was no divorce.”

  “Then … then the marriage to Dinah wasn’t legal. Damn!” Monk buried his head in his hands. That was the last thing he wanted to hear. “Do you think Dinah found out?” he asked, raising his eyes slowly and meeting Runcorn’s.

  “There’s no record of a marriage between Joel Lambourn and Dinah,” Runcorn told him. “I should think she always knew.”

  “That’s it,” Monk said quietly. “That’s the lie Rathbone sensed. He knew she wasn’t telling him the complete truth. Lambourn was providing for his wife, not visiting a prostitute at all. Dinah knew that, too. She had no cause to be jealous.”

  Runcorn looked wretched. “But she had every cause to wish Zenia Gadney dead,” he said, biting his lip.

  Monk realized the truth of this the moment he spoke. “So Zenia Gadney was the legal heir to whatever he possessed. She was still his wife. Dinah is the mistress, and the children are illegitimate. What a bloody mess!”

  “It is,” agreed Runcorn soberly.

  “Maybe Dinah went to Copenhagen Place to keep up the payments?” Monk suggested, grabbing desperately for any straw at all.

  “A bit late, wasn’t she?” Runcorn said drily. “Zenia’d already taken to the streets.”

  “Had she?” Monk questioned him. “We only assumed that because she was killed in the street, and other people hadn’t seen Lambourn in the area. They assumed she was out of money because she was later than usual with a few bills, and because she had taken in bits of sewing and mending. But she’d always done that.

  “Dinah was devastated by Lambourn’s death,” he went on. “She must have had a lot of other things on her mind more urgent than seeing that Zenia was all right. And she would not have had much money to spare, until the estate was probated—maybe no more than she needed to feed herself and her children. Her children would come first, long before Zenia.”

  “We need to find out how much estate there is,” Runcorn said unhappily. “You’ll have the right to ask that.”

  Monk nodded. “I’m going to ask quite a lot of things—including how much did Amity Herne actually know about her brother, and she lied on the stand saying that he told her Zenia was a prostitute he went to because Dinah refused to meet his needs.”

  “Maybe she knows a great deal,” Runcorn said with disgust. “Like the fact that Dinah won’t inherit and Zenia would, if she were still alive. But since she isn’t, Amity Herne herself is the next of kin!”

  Monk stared at him. “I don’t even know if this makes it better or worse!” he said hoarsely.

  “Depends on the estate.” Runcorn stared at him, his face bleak. “Both what it really is, and what either Dinah or Amity Herne thought it was.”

  “Herne is already wealthy enough,” Monk pointed out.

  “What’s wealthy enough?” Runcorn asked. “For some people there’s no such thing. You don’t always kill because you’re desperate—sometimes you kill because you want more than you have.” He stood up slowly. “I’ll get you a pint. You should have something to eat. They have really good pork pies.”

  “Thank you,” Monk said with profound gratitude. “Thank you very much.”

  Runcorn gave him a sudden smile—there and then gone again—before he turned to make his way over to the bar with its gleaming tankards and the well-polished handles for pumping up the ale from the barrels.

  “YES, SIR,” THE SOLICITOR said grimly to Monk’s inquiry the following day. “A very considerable amount. Can’t tell you exactly, but very wise, very prudent, Dr. Lambourn was. Always lived within his means.”

  “To whom did he leave his estate, Mr. Bredenstoke?” Monk asked.

  Bredenstoke’s face did not change in the slightest, nor did his blue eyes blink. “To his natural daughters, sir. Marianne and Adah.”

  “All of it?”

  “Less a few small bequests, yes, sir.”

  “Not to his wife?”

  “No, sir. She has only sufficient to care for her children.”

  Monk felt an unexpected glow of warmth. “Thank you.”

  CHAPTER

  16

  IT WAS A SATURDAY morning and the court was not sitting, a fact that gave Rathbone a most welcome respite. He wrote several letters with good wishes for Christmas, now only days away, and put them in the hall for Ardmore to post.

  The silence of the house did not trouble him as much as usual. He was not even conscious of the thought that it was not the peace of hopeful waiting, temporary before the return of one he loved. It was an emptiness that stretched before him endlessly, and now that disillusion had bitten so deep, in some way it stretched behind also.

  Had he and Margaret ever been as happy as he had imagined? Or had he loved only who he believed she was—as it turned out, so terribly wrongly? Did she feel the same: that she had given her life and herself to a man who was so much less than she thought, and whom she had trusted blindly—and mistakenly also?

  Surely neither of them had intended deception, just made assumptions? Had they seen what they wanted and expected to see? If he had really loved her, would he have acted the same way or not? He had thought so at the time, but with hindsight, and the reality of loss, he questioned it now. Did love require more generosity than he had? Did it forgive regardless?

  If it had been Hester, would he have forgiven her for acting the same way? For what? Weakness because she could not face the truth about her father? The sheer inability to see the truth in the first place? Or simply that she was not what he had believed her to be, had needed her to be for his own happiness?

  But Hester would not have placed anyone before what she knew was right. It would have bruised her emotions, even broken her heart, but she would have expected people to answer for their mistakes, whatever they were, whoever made them. She would not have withdrawn her love, but she would have been honest with herself and to the best she knew and believed.

  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, lo
oking 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.

  IT 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.”