William Monk 18 - A Sunless Sea

to her husband than to her brother.”
    “Her husband is still alive,” Monk pointed out a little cynically.
    Rathbone’s face tightened but he made no comment on it. “Sinden Bawtry was in court for the second time.”
    “Protecting the government’s interest in the Pharmacy Act?” Monk asked.
    “Possibly. The judge is ruling against me every time he can, even stretching it a bit. I can’t help feeling he’s been instructed.” He continued pacing, too restless to sit himself. “Monk, I’ve suddenly realized what this is about. I don’t know how I can have been so blind! Well, I do. But that’s all irrelevant now.” He paced from Monk’s chair to the door, turned, and came back again.
    “Dinah lied about being at the soirée precisely in order that you should arrest her, and she would beg you to have me to defend her!” He watched Monk’s face intently.
    Monk was incredulous. Rathbone’s grief over Margaret had damaged his judgment even more than he had feared.
    “Dinah Lambourn implicated herself in a particularly obscene murder simply in order to create the opportunity for you to defend her?” he said, unable to keep the disbelief out of his face. “Why, for God’s sake? Couldn’t she simply have contrived an introduction?”
    “Not to meet me, you fool!” Rathbone said with a glimmer of bitter amusement. “To get the story of Joel’s death into open court. She saw the opportunity in Zenia Gadney’s murder, and took it. She is willing to risk being condemned to death in order to clear her husband’s name and restore the reputation he earned for diligence and honor.”
    Monk’s understanding came when he saw the light in Rathbone’s face, the softness and the grief in his eyes. His body was stiff, and he was thinner than he had been only a few months ago, before the end of the Ballinger case. But this morning there was a vitality in him; he had a great cause to fight for.
    Monk had no idea if Rathbone was right or not, but he did not want to crush the possibility.
    “What is it you want me to do?” he asked, dreading the answer would be impossible to meet.
    “Dinah said Lambourn supported Zenia because she was the widow of a friend of his,” Rathbone answered. “Dinah knew about it almost from the beginning. The money went from the household ledgers, under the initials Z.G. on the twenty-first of every month. If we can prove that’s true, then her principal motive is gone.”
    Monk felt his heart sink. “Oliver, that’s what he told her—or else she’s just thought of a very clever excuse for his behavior. It’s—”
    “Capable of proof!” Rathbone cut across him urgently. “Trace back where Zenia came from. Look at the records. We know her age—she must have been married within the last twenty-nine years. Find the husband.” He was lit with eagerness now, his voice low and keen. “Find his connection to Joel Lambourn. Perhaps they studied together, practiced medicine together. Somewhere their paths crossed and they becamesuch close friends that Lambourn supported his widow all his life. Even went to see her once a month, unfailingly. That’s a hell of a loyalty. There’ll be ways of tracing it.”
    Monk said nothing.
    “Find it!” Rathbone repeated more sharply.
    “You believe it?” Monk asked, wishing he did not have to.
    Rathbone hesitated, a split second too long. “
Basically
, yes,” he said with a faint smile of self-mockery. “She’s lying about something, I don’t know what. I do believe that she implicated herself deliberately by lying as to where she was, in order to stand trial, hoping that the whole issue of Joel’s suicide would have to be examined again, and somehow we would prove that it was murder, because his work was totally valid, and somebody wants it concealed.”
    Monk pushed himself up onto his feet. “Then I’ll reopen my investigation,” he said quietly. “And I’ll get Runcorn to reopen his.”
    Rathbone smiled, the ease relaxing his body, hope in his eyes. “Thank you.”
    Monk went directly to Runcorn’s office. It was still a long journey eastward and back across the river in a rising wind with sleet on the edge of it. Maybe it would snow for Christmas.
    He met Runcorn at the door, just as he was leaving.
    Runcorn saw his face and, without speaking, he turned back and went up the stairs to his office, motioning Monk to follow him. As soon as he closed the door, Monk repeated the essence of what Rathbone had told him.