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“Sir Oliver.” Pendock was exasperated. “This seems to be a completely pointless exercise. If you have some conclusion to all this … farrago, please let the court know what it is.”
Rathbone was being hurrie
d far more than he wished, but he could see in Pendock’s face that he was going to get no more latitude. Now was the moment to tell them Dinah’s brave and desperate gamble.
“My lord, I am trying to show the jury that Dinah Lambourn believed that her husband had been defamed by having his report refused, and his professional ability slandered. Then when he would not accept that and go away quietly, denying what he knew to be true, he was murdered, and his death made to appear as suicide.”
There was a burst of noise from the gallery. Someone shouted out abuse. Another cheered. The jury swung round in their seats, looking one way and then another.
Pendock demanded order.
Coniston appeared impatient and then disgusted.
As soon as he could be heard, Rathbone continued, raising his voice above the rustle of movement and mutter of voices. “She was willing to face trial for a murder she did not commit,” he said loudly. “In order to gain a public hearing for her husband’s contrived disgrace and to oblige at least someone to investigate his death again.” He turned to face the astonished jury. “She is willing to risk her own life so that you, as representatives of the people of England, can hear the truth of what Joel Lambourn discovered, and judge for yourselves whether he was a good man, honest and capable, trying to serve the people of this country, or whether he was deluded, vain, and in the end suicidal.”
He pointed up toward the dock. “That is how much she loved him-still loves him. She killed no one-nor does she know who did-either Joel Lambourn, or the unfortunate Zenia Gadney. And, by the grace of God, and the laws of England, I will prove that to you.”
There was uproar in the gallery and this time Pendock’s calls for order were useless. He cleared the court, ordering an early adjournment for the day. Then he rose to his feet and strode out, his great red gown flying out behind him like broken scarlet wings.
The next day, Rathbone was prepared to call both Adah and Marianne Lambourn if necessary, simply to stretch out the time and give Monk every chance to find at least some element of truth that would raise doubt. Originally, Rathbone had hoped to learn who had killed Zenia, and be able to prove it. If he could even prove Lambourn did not commit suicide, it would make Dinah look rational, sympathetic, but so far he had been blocked in that at every step. Now there was only the suggestion of a manipulative figure behind the murder that he must give flesh to.
Perhaps he should not have been surprised. If Dinah was right then someone with power had a great deal to hide, and both Coniston and Pendock had been advised of it. There must also have been the threat that his exposure would damage someone’s reputation irrevocably, and with it, perhaps, the honor of the government.
He admitted to himself he was depending on proving reasonable doubt: the possibility of there being any other answers, no matter how vague, whose existence he could prove. He just had to last today and tomorrow, then the courts were closed for Christmas, which would give them a brief reprieve, until Tuesday. But he also knew that darkening Christmas with the necessity to return immediately after would not endear him to anyone. He would not have done it had he any other choice.
In the morning he called Dinah Lambourn’s servants, who had nothing to reveal of their mistress’s behavior on the nights her husband and Zenia Gadney died that would implicate her in any way.
Rathbone’s first witness of the afternoon was the shopkeeper who had described Dinah’s visit to Copenhagen Place, and the extreme emotion she had exhibited, so much so that most of the shoppers in the street now felt as if they had seen her, and should have realized who and what she was.
But Rathbone knew that the mind can deceive the eye. He hoped that his discussion with Mr. Jenkins had shown the man how much had been suggested by circumstance, and that what he was experiencing was not in fact memory but hindsight. It was something of a risk to put him on the stand where Coniston could question him immediately afterward, but he had nothing left to lose. Please God, Monk or Runcorn had learned something of value, however fragile.
Mr. Jenkins took the stand looking very nervous to be out of the security of his own shop and the trade with which he was familiar. He gripped the rail as though he were at sea and the whole stand was tossing like the bridge of a ship. Was that the very understandable anxiety of a man in extraordinary surroundings, knowing that a woman’s life might rest on what he said? Or did he plan now to go back on what he had told Rathbone, and he was afraid of Rathbone’s anger-or of Coniston’s anger, and the weight of the established law should he displease them?
Rathbone must set him at his ease as much as he could. He walked forward to be close enough to the witness stand not to have to raise his voice to be heard.
“Good afternoon, Mr. Jenkins,” he began. “Thank you for giving us your time. We appreciate that you have a business to run and that your customers require you every day but Sunday. I will not keep you long. You have a general grocery shop in Copenhagen Place, Limehouse, is that correct?”
Jenkins cleared his throat. “Yes, sir, I do.”
“Are most of your customers local people, living, say, within half a mile or so of your shop?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Because people need groceries of one sort or another almost every day and naturally would not wish to carry them farther than necessary?” Rathbone asked.
Coniston shifted impatiently in his seat.
Pendock looked annoyed.
Only the jury were listening with attention, believing something pertinent and perhaps controversial was coming. Rathbone was famous, his reputation formidable. If they had not known that before the trial began, they knew it now.
“Yes, sir,” Jenkins agreed. “I know ’em, like. I keep the things they need. They don’t ’ave ter ask.”
“So you would notice a stranger in your shop?” Rathbone smiled as he said it. “Someone who did not live locally, perhaps whose needs you did not know.”
Jenkins gulped. He knew the importance of the question. “I reckon so.” Already he was less sure, an equivocation in his words, not a certainty.
“Say, a well-dressed woman who was not from Limehouse, who had never bought her groceries from you, and who carried no bag or basket in which to put whatever she bought,” Rathbone elaborated.
