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“Those of the man who found him, and by the time I got there, other police, and the police surgeon,” Runcorn replied. “There could have been anyone else’s and I wouldn’t have seen. And to be honest, at that time I assumed it was suicide, too. I didn’t think of alternatives. I should have.” He looked wretched, filled with guilt for an irresponsible oversight.
Rathbone glanced at Monk and saw the pity in his face. This was something that would have been unimaginable only a year or two ago.
“Actually we know it wasn’t either Herne or Bawtry in person, because there are people who’ll swear they were elsewhere, lots of people,” Hester said. “So if it was one of them who was selling the opium, then he had somebody else actually kill Lambourn. But they can’t account for their time when Zenia Gadney was killed. They wouldn’t think to, because as far as anyone else knew, there was no connection.”
“They paid someone to kill Lambourn?” Rathbone asked. “Zenia? Is that possible? And then killed her so she couldn’t betray them, or blackmail them?”
“Why wait two months?” Monk asked.
“Perhaps she didn’t try blackmail until then?” Rathbone suggested.
“Or perhaps it isn’t either Herne or Bawtry anyway?” Runcorn put in. “Where do we go if it’s someone else altogether?”
Monk sighed. “Let’s look at who it has to be.” He ticked off the points on his fingers, one by one. “Someone Lambourn knew, and who had the power to have his report rejected, and his name blackened for incompetence.” He went to the second finger. “Someone who had access to raw opium of pure quality in order to sell it.” He touched the third. “Someone who knew of Lambourn’s connection with Zenia Gadney, and was in a position to make it look as if Dinah had killed her.”
“One more,” Hester added.
“What?”
“Someone who knew a woman who could pose as Dinah in the shop in Copenhagen Place. She could have worn a wig to imitate Dinah’s hair, but it had to be a woman,” she answered.
“Unless it really was Dinah?” Monk looked from one to the other of them to see what they thought.
Suddenly an idea came to Rathbone’s mind. He looked up quickly.
“I … I think I know.” The words seemed absurd, not courageous but idiotic and desperate. “I want to have Bawtry in court tomorrow, and Herne and his wife. I think I know how I might trick them on the stand.”
“Think?” Monk said softly.
“Yes … I think. Do you have a better idea?”
Monk pushed his hands through his hair again. “No.” He looked at Runcorn.
“We’ll do whatever you want,” Runcorn promised. “God help us.”
“Thank you,” Rathbone answered almost under his breath, wondering if he could be right, and if he could possibly pull it off.
CHAPTER 24
Rathbone slept badly. There was too much racing through his mind, too many possibilities for success, and for failure. His plans were made, but everything rested in the balance of his one last, great gamble. In his mind he turned over everything he could say, every disaster he might avert, or rescue if it came down to it.
He drifted off into fitful sleep, still troubled. If he lost, Dinah would be hanged. Either way, in using the photograph to dictate Pendock’s behavior, to force him into decisions he would not have otherwise made, what had Rathbone done to himself?
Would Pendock ever forgive him? Rathbone knew that if he were certain of the decision he had made in his own mind, that should not matter. But how could one ever be certain when it came to using such methods?
Was he sure Dinah was innocent? Was he seeing her as a woman who would risk anything and everything to save her dead husband’s name because that was what he wanted to see, needed to believe someone would do? And did it ease any of the pain he felt from the bitter end of his own marriage?
He woke late, with a jolt of panic; what if he did not get to the Old Bailey in time? The day was jarringly cold; the sky was dark and the easterly wind carried a sleety edge of worse to come. The pavements were icy, and keeping balance was hard as he strode along.
Runcorn, his first witness, was already waiting for him in the hallway as he went toward his chambers to put on his wig and gown. He had never imagined he would find Runcorn’s figure reassuring, but it was acutely so today. The man had a solidity to him, a certainty of the things he believed in.
“All present and correct, Sir Oliver,” Runcorn said quietly.
For a moment Rathbone was puzzled. It seemed an oddly inclusive expression to use referring to himself.
“Mr. and Mrs. Herne, Bawtry, and the police surgeon, sir,” Runcorn explained. “And Mrs. Monk says she’ll do the best to fetch Dr. Doulting again, just as you said. Could be that the poor man’s too ill.”
Rathbone drew a deep breath and let it out in a sigh of overwhelming relief. “Thank you.”
