William Monk 18 - A Sunless Sea

Monk’s understanding. “And on other things, but opium was the chief thing.”
    “Why would anyone be against it?” Monk was puzzled.
    “Lot of money in opium,” Daventry replied. “Start telling people what they can and can’t sell, you’ll get their backs up. Also it means the government knows about it all. Under the counter as well as over. People who sell opium—and you’d be surprised at who some of them are—are very happy to hear how many people’s lives are made easier by it, but not how many children die of overdoses, or how many people get dependent and then can’t do without it. They don’t want to be blamed for those unfortunate side effects.”
    He waved his hands around to encompass everyone in general. “Nobody wants to remember the Opium Wars. You’d be surprised whose fortunes were built on the opium trade. Don’t want to rake all that up. Make yourself a lot of enemies.”
    “Do you know this for yourself, or did Dr. Lambourn tell you?” Monk asked gently.
    The blush burned hot up Daventry’s young face. “Dr. Lambourn told me most of it,” he replied, so quietly Monk barely heard him. “But I believe it. He never lied.”
    “So far as you know …” Monk smiled to rob the words of some of their sting.
    Daventry’s expression was bleak, but he did not argue.
    “Why do you think he took his own life?” Monk asked.
    Daventry’s face filled with a deep distress. “I don’t know. It doesn’t make sense.”
    “Do you know Mrs. Lambourn?”
    “I’ve met her. Why?”
    “She thinks he was murdered.”
    Daventry’s eyes were brilliant. He caught his breath in sharply. “To hide his research? That would make sense. I can believe it. Are you going to find out who did it?” That was a very definite challenge, with all the sting of contempt if the answer were no.
    “I’m going to find out if it’s so, first of all,” Monk told him. “Where is this research now?”
    “The government people took it,” Daventry said simply.
    “But you have copies, working notes, something?” Monk insisted.
    “I haven’t.” Daventry shook his head. “There’s nothing here. I know because I’ve looked. If he kept it at home, they’ll have taken that, too. I told you, there’s a lot of money at stake—and a lot of people’s reputations as well.”
    Several answers rose to Monk’s lips, but he did not make any of them. He could see in Daventry’s eyes that he did not know where Lambourn’s papers were, and he was even more distressed by it than Monk was.
    “How did Dr. Lambourn take the government rejection of his research?” he asked instead. That was what he needed to know. Was that the reason Lambourn had taken his life? Was the disgrace deeper than Monk had at first assumed it to be? Was it not just this report, but his whole reputation in other fields that was ruined?
    Daventry did not reply.
    “Mr. Daventry? How did he take the rejection? How important was it to him?” Monk insisted.
    Daventry’s expression hardened. “If he really took his own life over it, then something happened between the last time I saw him and that night,” he answered fiercely, his voice charged with emotion. “When he left here, he was determined to fight them all the way. He was certainhis facts were right and that a pharmaceutical act is absolutely necessary. I don’t know what happened. I can’t think of anything anyone could say to him that would have made it different.”
    “Could he have found a mistake in his figures that altered their validity?” Monk suggested.
    “I don’t see how.” Daventry shook his head. “But if he really had been wrong, he’d have admitted it. He wouldn’t have gone out to One Tree Hill and killed himself! He just wasn’t that sort of man.”
    “I ’ M AFRAID HE WASN ’ T nearly as good as he believed himself to be,” one of Lambourn’s more senior assistants said unhappily, half an hour later. Nailsworth was a good-looking young man, and very confident. He smiled at Monk with a down-curved twist to his lips as if in apology. He shrugged. “He formed a theory and then looked for evidence to prove it, ignoring anything that called it into question.” He smiled again, too easily. “Really, he should have known better. He used to be excellent. Perhaps he had a health difficulty we weren’t aware of?”
    Monk looked at the man with dislike. “Yes,” he agreed a trifle acidly. “It is totally unscientific, in fact not even strictly