AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Monk waited.
Herne was tense. His hands were rigid so that his knuckles shone white. “It is only recently that I myself began to appreciate that Joel was a far more complicated person than he appeared to be to his friends and admirers. Oh, he was certainly charming, in a very quiet way. He had a phenomenal memory and could be most entertaining with bits and pieces of unusual information.” He smiled uncomfortably, as if it were some kind of apology. “And of course jokes. Not the sort you laugh loudly at, more quiet jests in amusement at the absurdity of life.” He stopped again. “He was very easy to like.”
Monk drew in a breath to ask him what this had to do with either Joel’s or Zenia’s deaths, but then changed his mind. He might learn more if he allowed Herne simply to ramble a little longer.
Then suddenly Herne looked very directly at Monk. “But he was not the man poor Dinah chose to see him as.” He lowered his voice. “He had a lonely, much darker side,” he confided. “I knew he had this woman he kept in Limehouse. He visited her frequently. I don’t know exactly when, or how often. I’m sure you will understand that I preferred not to. That was some ugly corner of his nature I would honestly have been happier not to know about.” He made a slight gesture of distaste, perhaps for what he imagined of Lambourn, or possibly only for the fact that he had unintentionally learned more of another man’s private life than he wished to.
“How did you find out, Mr. Herne?” Monk asked.
Herne looked rueful. “It was something Dinah said, actually. I only realized the implication afterward. It was really rather embarrassing.” He shifted uncomfortably. “Joel always seemed so … unimaginative-rather staid, in fact. I couldn’t even picture him with a middle-aged whore in the backstreets of a place like West India Dock Road.” He frowned. “But since the poor man died before this unfortunate creature was killed, he couldn’t possibly have been implicated in the horror. I can only presume she became desperate for money, and because he had looked after her for so long, she had lost her sense of self-preservation and become careless.”
Monk was inclined to think the same thing, but he waited for Herne to complete what he wanted to say.
“My family …” Herne seemed to be finding it difficult to ask. “I would appreciate it very much if you did not publicly make any connection between Joel and this woman. It is hard enough for Dinah that she has to be aware of his … weakness, and, God help us, deal with his professional failure and his suicide. And of course for my wife; they were not close, but he was still her brother. Please … don’t make his connection with this woman public. It can have no bearing on her murder.”
Monk did not have to weigh it in his mind. “If it has nothing to do with convicting her killer, then we would have no reason to mention Dr. Lambourn,” he answered.
Herne smiled and appeared at last to relax. “Thank you. I … we are greatly obliged to you. It’s been hard for all of us, but most especially Dinah. She is a … a very emotional woman.” He rose to his feet and held out his hand. “Thank you,” he repeated.
It was only after Monk had left the office and was in a hansom on his way back to the River Police Station at Wapping, stuck in heavy traffic where the Strand becomes Fleet Street, that he realized exactly what Barclay Herne had told him. Dinah Lambourn had admitted that she was aware that her husband had an interest in another woman, but she had deliberately chosen to know no more of it than that. She had told him that she did not know where he went, or the woman’s name.
Herne had told Monk that he had learned of the affair from Dinah, and then gone on to speak not just of Limehouse in general, but quite specifically of the West India Dock Road, which was a matter of yards from where Zenia Gadney had lived. Unintentionally, he had betrayed that Dinah knew exactly where Zenia Gadney lived, and thus he had exposed Dinah’s lie.
The thought was repulsive. He tried to shut it out of his mind, but his imagination raced, painting picture after picture. Dinah had loved Lambourn almost obsessively. She had thought too well of him, set him on a pedestal that perhaps no man could remain on. Everyone has weaknesses, things over which they stumble. To ignore that, or deny it, places a burden too heavy to carry from day to day.
Love accepts the scars and the blemishes as well as the beautiful. Sooner or later the weight of impossible expectation produces evasions: perhaps only small ones to begin with, then larger ones, as the burden grows heavier The hansom was barely moving in the traffic. It was raining harder now. Monk could see the drops bouncing up from the road, and the water swirling in the gutter
s. Women’s skirts were sodden. Men jostled one another, umbrellas held high.
Had Dinah felt as if Joel had betrayed her? She had made an idol of him, only to discover he had feet of material even less pure than clay. Had the murder of Zenia Gadney been her revenge on a fallen god?
Or maybe that was complete nonsense? He hoped so. He wanted profoundly to be wrong. He had liked Dinah, even admired her. But it was inescapable that he must now find out.
He leaned forward and redirected the driver to take him to the Britannia Bridge, where Commercial Road East crossed the Limehouse Cut and became West India Dock Road. He must visit the shops again: the general hardware store, the grocer, the baker, and all the houses along Copenhagen Place.
By the time he got there the rain had stopped. There were a dozen or more children playing hopscotch on the pavement when he turned the corner from Salmon Lane into Copenhagen Place. A couple of washerwomen were standing with huge bundles of laundry on their hips, talking to each other. A dog was rooting hopefully in a pile of rubbish. Two young women haggled with a man beside a barrow of vegetables. A youth with a cap on sideways strolled along the edge of the pavement, whistling. It was a music hall song, cheerful and well in tune.
Monk hated what he was about to do, but if he did not test the idea, the possibility of it would haunt him. He began with the washerwomen. How would Dinah have dressed, if she had come here looking for Zenia Gadney? Not fashionably. She might even have borrowed a maid’s shawl to conceal the cut and quality of her own clothes. Who would she have approached, and what questions would she have asked?
“Excuse me,” Monk said to the washerwomen.
“Yer found ’oo done ’er in yet, then?” one of them said aggressively. She had fair hair, bright where the pale winter sun shone on it, and a heavy but still handsome face.
He was startled that they knew who he was. He wore no kind of uniform. But perhaps he should have expected it. He had learned that he was memorable. His lean face, the cut of his clothes, the upright stance, and the manner of his walk marked him as unusual.
“Not yet,” he answered. “But we’re closer to knowing who might have seen something.” That was an evasion of the truth, but it did not trouble him at all. “Did either of you observe a woman around this area, looking for Mrs. Gadney, maybe asking questions? She would be tall, dark hair, maybe dressed quite ordinarily, but with the air of a lady.”
They both looked at him narrowly, then at each other.
“Ye’re soused as an’ ’erring,” the older of the two replied. “An’ ’oo like that’d be lookin’ fer the likes of ’er, then?”
“Someone whose husband she had been taking money from,” Monk replied without hesitation.
“There y’are, Lil!” the fair-haired woman said jubilantly. “Told yer, din’t I? She weren’t up ter no good. I knew that, an’ all!”
Monk felt his throat tighten. He would so much rather have been wrong.
“You saw her then?” he asked. “A woman looking for Mrs. Gadney? Are you certain?”
