William Monk 18 - A Sunless Sea

use of opium—someone who was making a vast profit, first causing people to become addicted to the drug by their taking it directly into the blood for the relief of pain from broken bones and the like, and then becoming so dependent on it they couldn’t live without it. Then he can charge them whatever he likes—”
    Coniston was on his feet. “My lord, can Mr. Runcorn, or anyone else, offer even a shred of proof as to this supposed poison? It’s a fairytale! Speculation without any proof at all.” He took a hasty breath and changed the subject. “And as to anyone swearing that Mrs. Lambourn did not leave the house again that night—we have heard nothing whatever to substantiate any of this except the word, reported secondhand, of a fourteen-year-old girl, very naturally loyal to her mother. What child of this age would be willing to believe that her mother could have cold-bloodedly slit her father’s wrists and then watched him until he bled to death?”
    Rathbone felt as if the ground had suddenly lurched beneath him, pitching him off balance, and he was left struggling to regain his posture.
    “Sir Oliver,” Pendock said with evident relief, “you are risking becoming absurd. This is all a rather desperate attempt to waste time, I don’t know for what purpose. Who are you imagining will ride to your rescue? You have provided absolutely nothing to support this fantasy of conspiracy that you are asking us to believe in. Either produce it, sir, or provide us with some credible defense. If you have none, then save this fruitless distress to your client and allow her to plead guilty.”
    Rathbone felt the blood burn up his face. “My client has told me she is not guilty, my lord,” he said, the bitterness harsh in his voice. “I cannot ask her to say that she beat to death and then eviscerated a woman, in order to save the court’s time!”
    “Be very careful, Sir Oliver,” Pendock warned, “or I shall hold you in contempt.”
    “That would only delay the trial even longer, my lord,” Rathbone retorted, then the instant after regretted it, and knew it was too late. He had made an irrevocable enemy of Pendock.
    There was a ripple of excitement in the gallery. Even the jurors were suddenly intensely alive, their eyes moving from Rathbone to Pendock, then to Coniston, lastly to Runcorn, still waiting for further questions.
    Dinah Lambourn was not the only one on trial. Perhaps in one way or another, everyone in the court was. They each had a part to play in finding justice.
    Rathbone now chose his words with meticulous care. Dinah Lambourn’s life might hang on his skill, and his ability to forget his ownvanity or temper and think only of her, and whatever truth he could force the jury to hear.
    He had no idea what else Runcorn knew. Staring at his face now, he wondered what on earth the man wanted him to ask. What could it concern that he could not raise without Pendock stopping him again? What tied Zenia Lambourn to the sale of opium and needles, except Lambourn and his research?
    “Mr. Runcorn, did you have occasion to consider the possibility that Zenia Gadney might have known something of Dr. Lambourn’s research into crimes involving, or following from, the sale of opium pure enough to inject into the blood, and the degeneration into madness or death that can result from it?”
    Now the jurors were craning forward to listen, faces tense, fascinated and frightened.
    Runcorn seized the chance. “Yes, sir. We thought it possible that Dr. Lambourn made more than one copy, at least of the most controversial parts of his report. Since it was not found in his own home, we thought he might well have left it with his first wife, Zenia Gadney. He may have believed that no one else, apart from Dinah Lambourn, knew of her existence.”
    Coniston stood. “Then the poor woman cannot have been murdered for it, except by Dinah Lambourn, which is our contention. All Sir Oliver has done is provide the accused with a second motive, my lord.”
    Pendock looked at Rathbone with a faint smile on his face.
    “You appear to have shot yourself in the foot, Sir Oliver,” he observed.
    Runcorn drew in a sharp breath, looked at Rathbone, and then beyond him into the body of the gallery.
    Rathbone understood instantly what Runcorn meant. He gave him the slightest of nods, then smiled back at Pendock.
    “If Dinah Lambourn were the only one to have known the truth, that would be so, my lord. Perhaps you are unaware