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“Thank you.”
“Why?” she said again. Her voice was so dry it rasped in her throat. “Joel couldn’t have had anything to do with her death.”
“Could she have had anything to do with his?” he asked.
“You mean …?” Suddenly her eyes were wide, filled with anger, glaring at him. “You mean did she threaten to tell someone of their affair? Was she that kind of woman? Was she greedy, conniving, and destructive? Joel wasn’t a very good judge of character. He often thought better of people than they deserved.”
Monk recalled their earlier conversation vividly. “But you said that you believed he was murdered, because his report on the opium use was correct,” he pointed out. “That would have had nothing to do with Zenia Gadney, right?”
She leaned forward and covered her face with her hands. She remained frozen for several moments. The seconds ticked by on the clock above the fireplace. Her shoulders did not shake, nor did she make any sound.
He waited, acutely unhappy. He would have to go to Blackheath and find Helena Moulton. He hoped intensely that she would agree that Dinah had spent the day with her-and that there would be others who would substantiate it. But he did not expect there to be.
At last Dinah straightened up. “I don’t know, Mr. Monk. All that matters to me is that Joel is dead, and now this woman is dead also. You will have to find out how these things happened, and who is answerable.” She looked exhausted, too tired to even be frightened anymore.
He rose to his feet. “Thank you. I’m sorry to have had to trouble you again.”
Now she met his eyes fully, without flinching. “You have to do your job, Mr. Monk, whatever it entails. We must know the truth.”
Monk walked some distance before he found a hansom and rode the rest of the way to the Glebe, on the edge between the town and the open country toward the Health itself. It was not a long road, and he soon found the home of Mr. and Mrs. Wallace Moulton.
He had to wait a half an hour before Mrs. Moulton returned from visiting a friend and he was able to speak with her.
“Mrs. Lambourn?” she said with some surprise. She was a pleasant-looking woman, carefully dressed. Her expression now showed complete puzzlement.
“Yes. Did you see her on the twenty-third of November?”
“For goodness’ sake, why? I shall have to look at my diary. Did something important happen?”
“I’m not certain.” He tried to keep the impatience out of his voice. “Your help would possibly answer that question for me.”
She was very grave. “I’m not certain that I am willing to discuss my movements with you, Mr. Monk, or more particularly, Mrs. Lambourn’s movements. She is a friend of mine, and she has been through a great deal of tragedy lately. If something unpleasant has happened, something even further than the terrible loss of her husband, I am not prepared to add to it.”
“I will find out either way, Mrs. Moulton,” he told her gravely. “It will take me a great deal longer than if you simply tell me, and of course it will involve questioning a number of other people. However, if that is what I am obliged to do, then I will. I find it distasteful as well. I have some regard, and a great deal of sympathy for Mrs. Lambourn, but circumstances leave me no choice. Will you tell me, or must I ask as many other people as it requires in order to find out?”
She was clearly distressed, and angry. Her eyes were sharp and bright, and the color a high pink in her cheeks. “Wherever Mrs. Lambourn said she was, then I have no doubt that it is the truth,” she answered icily.
Monk’s mind raced for a moment.
“She said you were at an art exhibition in Lewisham all afternoon, then had tea and discussed the work until early evening,” he lied. He felt terrible doing it, but he didn’t see another way to discern the truth.
“Then you know where she was,” Helena Moulton said with a tight smile. “Why are you bothering to question me about it?”
“So she was telling the truth?” he said very quietly, feeling a coldness creep up inside himself.
“Of course.” Hele
na was pale.
“Would you be prepared to testify to that in court, before a judge, if it should be necessary?” He felt brutal.
She gulped, and remained silent.
He rose to his feet. “Of course you won’t, because you were not with Mrs. Lambourn.”
“Yes, I was,” she whispered, but she was trembling.
“She said you were at a soirée, not an art exhibition, and not in Lewisham.” He shook his head. “You are a good friend, Mrs. Moulton, but this is beyond your ability to help.”
