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Monk had been thinking many of the same things. But there was the additional element that Hester had mentioned-the desperate dependence upon opium among those captured first by pain, then by addiction. “I’d like to know in more detail what Lambourn did in his last week alive.”
Runcorn saw the point instantly. “You mean what did he learn that provoked someone to kill him? Who did he speak to? How did this person know that he learned whatever it was?”
“Yes. And what the devil was it? What could be a danger to anyone here in London? What could Lambourn have discovered, and been able to prove? Proof is the point. It has to be something personal, something very precious to lose or it wouldn’t provoke a murder like that.”
“There was plenty of barbarity,” Runcorn said, his mouth drawn down, lips tight together. “I’ve heard that as many as twelve million Chinese people are addicted to opium.” He looked at Monk more closely. “Have you ever seen them here, in parts of Limehouse? Opium dens, I mean? Filthy houses in back alleys where people lie on beds smoking the stuff, tiers of them packed like cargo in a ship’s hold. Place is so full of smoke you can hardly see the walls. Like walking through a pea-soup fog. They just lie there. Don’t even know where they are, half the time. Like the living dead.” He shivered in spite of himself.
“I know,” Monk agreed quietly. He had seen it, too, although not often. “I could understand if some Chinamen had come over here and killed scores of us, especially the families that made their fortunes on it. But why Lambourn?”
“It doesn’t make sense,” Runcorn agreed. “He found out something else. But what?” He rubbed his hand across his face. There was a faint rasping sound, as if he had shaved badly, missed a bit where the stubble was gray, and in the cold morning light he had not noticed it.
“We should follow his path, as well as we can. I should have done that earlier. They told me it was all to do with the report being rejected, and I believed them.”
“Nothing on the report from Gladstone yet,” Monk responded. “Who did Lambourn give it to?”
“His brother-in-law, Barclay Herne,” Runcorn said. “He told me he passed it on before getting it back and destroying it.”
“Which may or may not be true,” Monk observed.
“He’d have to say that. If he didn’t, his own guilt in suppressing it would be obvious,” Runcorn pointed out.
“Perhaps he edited out whatever was the problem for him.” Monk was reasoning to himself as much as to Runcorn. Even as he spoke he did not really believe what he was saying.
Runcorn looked at him critically. “If it wasn’t to do with the labeling of opium and the damage it could do if that wasn’t correct, why would Lambourn even put it in the report? Even if Hester is right about these needles, and the addiction, it has nothing to do with the Pharmacy Act.”
Monk did not reply. Runcorn was right and they both knew it.
They finished their tea and sat in silence for several moments.
Then a different idea flashed into Monk’s mind, sharp and bright.
“Perhaps they destroyed the report because there was nothing wrong with it,” he said urgently.
Runcorn looked totally blank.
Monk leaned forward. “There was nothing in it that damaged anyone, nothing that didn’t make sense. Lambourn knew about the opium addiction and knew who was feeding it, but he didn’t include it in the report because it wasn’t relevant to it. It was Lambourn himself they needed to destroy, so he would never speak of it.”
“Ah!” Comprehension lit Runcorn’s face. “They needed to discredit him sufficiently to make a suicide believable. God in heaven, what a bloody wicked thing to do! Ruin the man’s reputation so when they murder him it can be accepted as suicide?” He ran his hand over his brow, pushing back the short, thick hair. “No wonder Dinah felt so helpless. I suppose she has no idea who it was? He wouldn’t have told her, for her safety, apart from anything else.”
“Exactly,” Monk agreed. “He found out who was involved while researching this paper, because …” He drew in a deep breath and let it out in a sigh. “Actually all we know for certain is that he found it out recently, too recently for him to have done anything about it before he was killed. So presumably it was during his research. And the people he gave his report to are connected to what Lambourn discovered somehow, because they suppressed his work.”
“We need to know exactly what he did, where he went, who he spoke with in his last week alive,” Runcorn said decisively. “Have you got any men you can spare? We haven’t long, a few days at most. Can Rathbone hold out until after Christmas?”
“He’ll have to!” Monk said desperately. “The trouble is that selling opium is not illegal, even with the syringe needles. Even if we find whoever it is, the law won’t touch him.”
Runcorn frowned. “Depends what else he’s doing,” he said thoughtfully. “Isn’t an easy thing, distributing things people are desperate for, especially if they can’t always pay.” He looked across at Monk, his eyes shadowed, mouth pulled tight.
Monk nodded slowly. “We need to know a lot more about it. Above all, we need to know if we’re right.”
“Hester?” Runcorn asked, almost as if he dared not even make the suggestion.
Monk met his gaze without flinching. “Maybe.”
He stood up and went to the door. “I’ll get Orme,” he answered. “We’ll start immediately.”
“I’ve got a couple I can trust,” Runcorn added, also standing. “Just for the details, anyway. Check with Lambourn’s household servants for times and dates. We may be able to get a ferryman who can help. Lambourn probably used the same ferries all the time. Most of us are creatures of habit.”
Two hours later, they had filled out several sheets of paper with what they already knew of Lambourn’s last week. The information came both from Runcorn’s original inquiry and from what Hester had told Monk about Lambourn’s visits with Agnes Nisbet and other sellers of opium-containing medicines. It was now a matter of honing it with more accurate details of times and places, in the hope of finding the one piece that did not fit,
