William Monk 18 - A Sunless Sea

provide for her children. Actually the question is, did she know what was in his will at all?”
    “Do you?” Rathbone shot back.
    “Yes. After a few small bequests, the bulk of his estate is left to his two daughters, Adah and Marianne.”
    “Damn it, Monk! Why didn’t you say that?” Rathbone snapped.
    “Because I don’t know whether Dinah knew that or not,” Monk answered him. “It depends on whether he told her. She was no party to the will, according to the lawyer. Whether he asked Lambourn what he was doing, or why he was not leaving any money to Dinah, he wouldn’t tell me.”
    Rathbone sat down hard, the deep upholstery of the chair envelopinghim. “So what are we left with? Lambourn wasn’t keeping a mistress, or a whore, he was supporting his wife, and living with the woman he loved—and who is now willing to risk being hanged in order to clear his professional name, and his personal reputation.”
    Monk sat down in the other chair opposite him. “And the fact that Amity Herne lied through her teeth from the witness box to convince the court that her brother was an incompetent who committed suicide because of his professional failure and his personal sexual deviancy,” he added. “Not to mention clearing his wife of murdering and eviscerating the woman with whom he was betraying her. Which raises the question as to what the whole blood-soaked nightmare is about! Is it really about opium, and the right to import it and sell it at immense profit without the restrictions that the proposed Pharmacy Act would enforce?”
    “It’s looking more and more that way, isn’t it?” Rathbone concluded. “Someone with a vested interest in opium killed Lambourn in a way intended to disgrace him, and therefore his report. Then when Dinah tried to defend him, they killed Zenia Gadney in the most hideous way imaginable and blamed her, so they could silence her also. That’s monstrous. Is anyone in our government really so profoundly corrupt? God, I hope not!” He remembered the courtroom, the gallery, and Sinden Bawtry sitting on the end of the row, almost concealed by the shadow of the pillar and the roof. What was he there for? To guard the Pharmacy Act, or to sabotage it?
    “Then who?” Monk asked. “And there’s a very serious question as to whether Dinah Lambourn is guilty and, personally, I no longer think she is. Certainly it is not beyond a serious doubt.”
    “I need to know a great deal more about this Pharmacy Act, who is for it and who against,” Rathbone said, forcing himself to think coherently. “And what results there will be if it is passed. Who will lose? Would any sane man, however greedy, really go to these lengths to delay an act of Parliament that is bound to be passed in a year or two?”
    “No,” Monk admitted, shaking his head a little. “There must be more than the Pharmacy Act involved. But you haven’t time to waste on this.”
    Rathbone stood up. “I can’t afford not to have. It may not be the Pharmacy Act, or even the Opium Wars, but it’s tied to them. Otherwisewhy destroy Lambourn and his report? Come with me.” It sounded like an instruction, and that was how he meant it.
    “Where are we going?” Monk rose obediently.
    “To see Mr. Gladstone, the chancellor of the Exchequer,” Rathbone replied. “At least I hope so. He’s the coming man, a great believer in reform and the welfare of ordinary people.” As he went to the door and out into the hall he was already absorbed in plans to speak to people he knew: to one man in particular for whom he had done a remarkable favor. That man could gain him entrance to Number 11 Downing Street, and Gladstone’s attention, even on a Saturday morning, if he believed the matter urgent enough.
    Monk, at his heels, was impressed into silence.
    I T WAS MID-AFTERNOON BY the time all the favors had been called in, and William Ewart Gladstone had made a space in his day to receive Rathbone and Monk. They were shown into the study, where the chancellor stood by the hearth. He was a solid, imposing figure with muttonchop whiskers and an oddly familiar face, as if a newspaper picture had come to life.
    “Well, gentlemen?” he said, staring first at one, then the other. “This must be of remarkable importance. Please be brief. I can give you half an hour, precisely.”
    “Thank you, sir.” Rathbone had been summarizing in several different forms what he had to say, omitting one thing and then another, trying to find