AllFreeNovel
Share Us
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 voic
e 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?”
