William Monk 18 - A Sunless Sea

young doctor named Daventry, somewhat unhappy at now working for Lambourn’s replacement, who was a stiff, busy man who had no time to speak with Monk himself, and was only too happy to find an excuse to send him to someone else.
    Monk did not phrase his question quite so boldly. He was standing in a brightly lit laboratory full of jars and bottles, vials, burners, basins, and retorts. All kinds of glass and metal equipment stood around on surfaces. One complete wall was obscured by stacks of files.
    “You worked closely with Dr. Lambourn before his death?” Monk began.
    “Yes,” Daventry answered, pushing his wild, dark hair out of his eyes and looking at Monk aggressively. “What are you after now? Why can’t you leave him alone? He was a good doctor, better than that—” He stopped abruptly. “Don’t waste my time. What is it you want?”
    Monk was pleased he found someone loyal to Lambourn, even if it might make his own task more difficult.
    “I’m River Police, not government,” he said.
    “What difference does that make?” Daventry challenged him. Then he peered forward to look more closely at Monk. “Sorry,” he apologized. “I’m just tired of hearing Dr. Lambourn run down by a lot of people who didn’t know him and didn’t believe his findings.”
    Monk changed his approach instantly. “You did believe in them?” he asked.
    “I don’t know for myself.” Daventry was scrupulously honest. “Except bits here and there. I collected some of the figures for him. But hewas meticulous, and he never included anything he couldn’t verify. Even cut some of my findings because I didn’t double-check it with at least two sources.”
    “About opium?”
    “Among other things. He worked on all kinds of medicines. But, yes, that was the one he cared about most recently.”
    “Why?”
    Daventry’s eyebrows shot up. “Why?” he said incredulously.
    “Yes. What was he researching, and for whom?”
    “The public’s use of opium, because it’s killing too many people. For the government, who else?” Daventry looked at Monk as if he were a particularly stupid schoolchild. He saw the confusion in Monk’s face. “The government is looking to pass a bill to regulate the use of opium in medicines,” he explained a little wearily, as if he had already said it too many times, to too many people who were apparently incapable of understanding.
    “To stop people buying it?” Now it was Monk who was incredulous. A small dose of opium, as in a “penny twist,” was the only way to kill pain, other than to drink oneself insensible to it, and to everything else. “Why, for heaven’s sake?” he asked. “Nobody’ll pass an act like that, and it would be impossible to police. You’d have two-thirds of the population in jail.”
    Daventry looked at him with heavy exasperation. “No, sir, just to regulate it, so that if you go to buy something with opium in it—such as Battley’s Sedative, which is much like laudanum, except it’s with calcium hydrate and sherry, not distilled water and alcohol—you’ll know for sure how much opium it contains. And that it’s pure opium, not opium cut with something else.”
    “Opium cut with something else?” Monk was puzzled.
    “Do you know what’s in Dover’s Powder, sir?” Daventry asked.
    Monk had no idea. “Apart from opium? No,” he admitted.
    “Saltpeter, tartar, licorice, and ipecacuanha,” Daventry told him. “What about chlorodyne?”
    Monk did not bother to answer this time. He waited for Daventry to list that as well.
    “Chloroform and morphine,” Daventry said. “But that’s not whatmatters the most. If your child is crying with toothache, or a bad stomach, which one are you going to give him: Godfrey’s Cordial, Street’s Infant Quietness, Winston’s Soothing Syrup, or Atkinson’s Infant Preservative? How much opium is in each of them, and what else is in them?” He shrugged. “You don’t know, do you? Neither does your average harassed mother who’s getting half the sleep she needs, and probably half the food, and maybe she can’t read well or understand figures, either. What would you say to having them regulated so she doesn’t have to worry about it?”
    “Is that what they’re proposing?” Now Monk’s interest was sincere and sharp, almost as sharp as Daventry’s own.
    “Part of it, yes.”
    “And Lambourn was getting the facts for them?”
    “Yes,” Daventry agreed, warming to it as he realized