William Monk 18 - A Sunless Sea

defend anyone accused of such a crime. Possibly they wondered why he was here at all.
    Coniston’s penitence was brief. He addressed Overstone again.
    “But you could ascertain the cause of her death, couldn’t you, sir?” he said respectfully.
    “Yes. A violent blow to the head,” Overstone answered. “It crushed her skull. She would have died instantly. The mutilation was done after her death, thank heaven. She can have known nothing about it.” There was a very slight defensiveness in Overstone’s face.
    “Thank you, Doctor,” he said calmly. He walked back toward his seat, then at the last moment turned around again and looked up. “Oh … one more thing. Would it have required great strength to have struck the blow that killed her?”
    “No, not if it were wielded with a swing.”
    “Did you ever find what it was that was used?”
    “They brought the body to me, man!” Overstone said irritably. “They didn’t take me onto the pier to look at it.”
    Coniston’s face remained impassive. “Just so. Have you any idea what the weapon was? What do you think most likely, if you please?”
    “A heavy piece of metal: a length of piping, something of that order,” Overstone answered him. “I doubt a wooden bar would have had the weight, unless it was hardwood, even ebony.”
    “And the mutilations? Would they have needed particular strength or skill?”
    “Just a sharp blade. There was nothing skilled about it.” Overstone said the words with loathing.
    “Would a woman have the strength to have done it?” Coniston finally asked what everyone in the room was thinking.
    “Yes.” Overstone did not add anything.
    Coniston thanked him and turned to Rathbone. “Your witness, Sir Oliver.”
    Rathbone tried desperately to think of anything to say that would make the slightest difference. Dinah must be wondering why on earth she had hired him. Her life was in his hands.
    “Was there anything about the injuries, anything at all, to indicate what manner of person had inflicted them?” he asked, looking up at Overstone.
    “No, sir,” Overstone replied.
    “Nothing to suggest their height?” Rathbone elaborated. “Strength? Whether they were left- or right-handed, for example. Male or female? Young or old?”
    “I said nothing at all, sir,” Overstone repeated. “Except perhaps, considering the power of the blow, it might have been two-handed.” He lifted both his own arms above his head, hands clenched together, and brought them down and sideways, as if holding a two-handed sword. “But that hardly helps. All it does is make height irrelevant.”
    “So it could have been anyone, except perhaps a child?”
    “Just so.”
    Rathbone nodded. There was nothing more he could ask. Overstone was dismissed.
    Next Coniston called Monk to the stand.
    Monk was immaculately dressed, as always, elegant even to his polished boots. But he climbed the stairs to the witness bar as if he were stiff, and stood with one shoulder a little higher than the other.
    To begin with, the court seemed less tense, not knowing what to expect from him. They thought the worst horror was past. Nevertheless the jurors watched him gravely, faces pale, several of them fidgeting with discomfort. They knew the people in the gallery were looking at them, trying to guess what they thought. Rathbone did not see a single one of them look toward Dinah Lambourn sitting high up in the dock, with burly woman jailers on either side of her.
    Coniston seemed aware this time that he was dealing with a potentially hostile witness, in spite of the fact that it was Monk who had arrested Dinah. Rathbone’s long friendship with Monk must be widely known. Coniston was far too clever not to have made certain he was aware of such things and the effect it might have on his case.
    “Mr. Monk,” he began softly. The gallery was silent, to be sure theymissed nothing. “You were with Sergeant Orme when you first discovered the body of this poor woman, that dawn at Limehouse Pier. You and he heard the screams of the woman who found her. Orme remained with her to guard the body, and you went to call the local police, in case they could identify her, and appropriate authorities to take care of the corpse?”
    “Yes,” Monk agreed, his face carefully expressionless.
    “Did the local police know who she was?” Coniston asked casually, as if he did not know the answer.
    “No,” Monk replied.
    Coniston looked a little startled. He stood motionless,