William Monk 18 - A Sunless Sea
relief for pain, turning it into blood money in another’s hands. But if we want to be counted as men of virtue, or even of honor—indeed, to be included in the bonds of humanity—then we do not have the luxury or the right to say we prefer not to distress ourselves by listening to the truth.” Then he swiveled around a quarter turn, gripping the rails, and glared equally fiercely at the twelve men of the jury.
The jury gave him not only their attention but their obvious respect.
Pendock was very clearly taken aback. He avoided looking at Winfarthing, glanced at Coniston and saw nothing that helped him, and turned at last to Rathbone.
“Will you keep your witness in order, Sir Oliver,” he said angrily. “I will not have chaos in my courtroom. If you have something to ask that is relevant to the murder of Zenia Gadney, and I warn you to be careful that it is so, then please get to it without further rambling or delay.”
“Rambling?” Winfarthing hissed a stage whisper so loud it must have been audible at the back of the gallery.
Rathbone could feel the last shred of control slipping out of his grasp. He looked back at Winfarthing. He could see why Hester liked the man; he was totally ungovernable. That would appeal to her own anarchic nature.
“Dr. Winfarthing,” he said sternly, “did you give Dr. Lambourn any information that he might have included in his report, and with which, at that point, he was unfamiliar? I am asking specifically about something that might have disturbed him sufficiently to account for his deep concern shortly before his death, but which he refused to confide in the accused, because it was too distressing?”
Winfarthing regarded him with amazement. “Of course I did!” he said loudly. “I told him that opium you swallow, even the damn stuff you smoke, is less than half your problem. The Pharmacy Act, if it sees the light of day, will be a toothless hag to deal with the problem that is now beginning—”
Pendock leaned forward, his hatchet face pale. “Sir Oliver, if you cannot keep your witness to the point, then I—”
“The needle!” Winfarthing said very loudly, his voice sharp with exasperation. He held up both huge hands, looking now straight at the jury. “A little contraption with a hollow down the middle and a point sharp enough to prick the human skin all the way to the veins. They attach the other end of it to a kind of vial or tiny bottle, with a solution of opium in it. Has to be pure, no cough mixture or stomach remedies. They push the plunger …” He made a dramatic gesture, closing his huge fist as if there were something inside it. “And the opium is in the blood in your veins, carried throughout your body, into your heart and lungs, into your brain! You see? Ecstasy—and then madness. The beastbites you once, and slowly, through tortures you cannot imagine—agony, vomiting, cramps, cold sweats, trembling and gooseflesh and chills—brings on nightmares no sane man has to endure. Of course you don’t want to hear it.”
He leaned forward over the railing as if peering into the jury’s faces.
“But what you really don’t want, my friends, is to live it! Or your children to live it … or, if you claim to be God-fearing men, any fellow human being on the face of this fair earth.”
He ignored Pendock, who seemed about to speak, and Coniston now standing, ready to interrupt.
“I know! I know.” Winfarthing would not be stopped. “Not relevant to the death of this wretched woman in Limehouse—Gadney, or whatever her name was, poor creature.” He leaned forward over the railing, peering at Rathbone. “But maybe it was, you see? Uncomfortable to talk about it. Makes us face the fact that we are responsible. My God, if you’re man enough to allow it, for the love of heaven, be man enough to stand up and look at what it is!” His voice had risen until the volume of it, and the outrage in it, filled the room.
“We brought opium into this country. We take the money for its sale. We use it to ease our own pain when we are injured. We drink it to stop our coughs, our bellyaches, and our sleeplessness. Thank God for it—used wisely.”
His voice sank to a growl. “But that does not give us the right to turn away from the misuse, the horrific knowledge of what it is like for those whose ignorance allows them to stumble into the living death of addiction. They’re drowning in it! A great ocean of gray, endless half-life.
“And
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