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“The government people took it,” Daventry said simply.
“But you have copies, working notes, something?” Monk insisted.
“I haven’t.” Daventry shook his head. “There’s nothing here. I know because I’ve looked. If he kept it at home, they’ll have taken that, too. I told you, there’s a lot of money at stake-and a lot of people’s reputations as well.”
Several answers rose to Monk’s lips, but he did not make any of them. He could see in Daventry’s eyes that he did not know where Lambourn’s papers were, and he was even more distressed by it than Monk was.
“How did Dr. Lambourn take the government rejection of his research?” he asked instead. That was what he needed to know. Was that the reason Lambourn had taken his life? Was the disgrace deeper than Monk had at first assumed it to be? Was it not just this report, but his whole reputation in other fields that was ruined?
Daventry did not reply.
“Mr. Daventry? How did he take the rejection? How important was it to him?” Monk insisted.
Daventry’s expression hardened. “If he really took his own life over it, then something happened between the last time I saw him and that night,” he answered fiercely, his voice charged with emotion. “When he left here, he was determined to fight them all the way. He was certain his facts were right and that a pharmaceutical act is absolutely necessary. I don’t know what happened. I can’t think of anything anyone could say to him that would have made it different.”
“Could he have found a mistake in his figures that altered their validity?” Monk suggested.
“I don’t see how.” Daventry shook his head. “But if he really had been wrong, he’d have admitted it. He wouldn’t have gone out to One Tree Hill and killed himself! He just wasn’t that sort of man.”
“I’m afraid he wasn’t nearly as good as he believed himself to be,” one of Lambourn’s more senior assistants said unhappily, half an hour later. Nailsworth was a good-looking young man, and very confident. He smiled at Monk with a down-curved twist to his lips as if in apology. He shrugged. “He formed a theory and then looked for evidence to prove it, ignoring anything that called it into question.” He smile
d again, too easily. “Really, he should have known better. He used to be excellent. Perhaps he had a health difficulty we weren’t aware of?”
Monk looked at the man with dislike. “Yes,” he agreed a trifle acidly. “It is totally unscientific, in fact not even strictly honest, to create your theory and then look only at the facts that fit it. Even worse to bend the facts to make them fit, and then claim to have been impartial.”
Monk was being sarcastic and expected a quick defense, but he was disappointed.
Nailsworth nodded. “I see you understand. I suppose there’s a certain logical pattern to solving crimes as well.”
“Indeed.” Monk was unexpectedly angry. “Perhaps you would guide me through the logical steps you followed before deciding that Dr. Lambourn’s research was in error, and that he was unable to accept that fact.”
“Well, it’s tragically clear that he was unable to accept his own failure,” Nailsworth said tartly. “Unfortunately one can hardly avoid that conclusion!”
Monk stopped him. “Undeniably he is dead. But please start at the beginning, not at the end.” His smile was more a baring of the teeth. “As you would if you were creating a theory yourself. Facts first.”
Nailsworth’s eyes were hard and bright. “Dr. Lambourn collected a great number of facts and figures about the sale of opium in different parts of the country and wrote them up in a report,” he said icily. “The government compared them with other information they had, from several other sources, and found that Lambourn was in error in too many instances, and that his conclusions were flawed. They rejected his report and he took it very hard. It questioned his standing as a scientist and as a doctor. For some reason this whole issue of opium was one he took far too personally. He staked his reputation in it, and lost. Ending in the one fact you don’t dispute, he is now dead, having cut his own wrists.”
His eyes never moved from Monk’s face. “I’m sorry. He was a very agreeable man, and I think he had every intention of being honest, but he allowed his emotions to govern his thought.” He sounded anything but sorry. There was condescension perhaps, but not grief. Monk wondered what Lambourn had done to sting Nailsworth’s vanity so deeply.
“His recommendations were both restrictive and completely unnecessary,” Nailsworth continued. “ ‘Overblown’ was the word they used about his results. He was humiliated, and he couldn’t face it. Now if you have any compassion at all for his family, you’ll leave the matter alone.”
Monk watched and listened. Nailsworth was deeply angry, but the sharp edge in his voice betrayed something else. Something he dared not show? Some private concern over the opium issue? Jeopardy to his future career, should he speak out of turn?
As Monk thanked him and walked away, he thought it more likely to be the latter. Would Nailsworth have been in danger had he come forward as sympathetic to Dr. Lambourn?
Or, Monk wondered, was he now twisting the facts about Nailsworth to fit a theory of his own, already adopted, out of a wish for Dinah Lambourn to have some shred of comfort? Perhaps he was as guilty as any of them of selecting and interpreting the facts to fit the outcome he wanted.
CHAPTER 7
Hester stood at the kitchen bench chopping onions to fry with the leftover potatoes from yesterday, and quite a large portion of cabbage. It would make bubble and squeak, one of Scuff’s favorite meals, and-with sausages-one even Monk seemed never to grow tired of.
She had come home early enough to prepare a pudding as well, for the first time in several days. She ran a clinic for street women, in Portpool Lane, and she had been extremely busy. Lately there seemed to have been even more than usual to attend to.
The clinic was funded by charity, and Margaret Rathbone had been by far the best volunteer at raising money. But since the trial and death of her father, she had not been to the clinic at all. She regarded Hester as having betrayed her as much as Oliver had, and their friendship was broken-it seemed irredeemably.
Hester could not change her views. She had thought about it long and painfully, wanting to salvage a friendship that mattered to her. But what Arthur Ballinger had done was not possible for her to overlook just because he was Margaret’s father. Especially the second murder he had committed, a young woman Hester had tried so hard to help. The grief of it still haunted her.
Finances for medicine, food, and fuel had all been more difficult to find since Margaret had withdrawn her help. Asking for money was not a gift Hester possessed. It required not only charm, but tact, and she had never mastered that art. She had no tolerance of hypocrisy or genteel excuses, and there always came the moment when she spoke too much of the truth. However, Claudine Burroughs had just the other day found the clinic a new patron, so the emergency had passed.
