Greenwich Park, didn’t it? Or is that where the discretion comes in?”
Coniston stood up, exasperation clear in his face and his manner. “My lord, Sir Oliver is simply trying to embarrass the witness because he has no useful questions to ask him. May we not, in decency, leave Dr. Lambourn’s final tragedy in the little privacy it has left? It has no bearing on Zenia Gadney’s murder.”
Rathbone swung around. “Has it not? Then it appears you have been given a great deal of information about it that I have not. Your whole prosecution rests on the fact that you believe Mrs. Lambourn killed Zenia Gadney over something to do with Dr. Lambourn.” His voice dripped sarcasm. “Are you suggesting some other connection between the two women, one of whom is a highly respected doctor’s widow in Greenwich, the other a middle- aged prostitute across the river in Limehouse?”
“Of course he is the connection!” Coniston said with some heat. “But his life, not his death.”
“Are they totally separate matters?” Rathbone asked incredulously.
There were several rustles of movement in the gallery as people craned forward, afraid of missing something.
In the jury box the members looked from side to side, and then up at the judge.
“Yes,” Coniston said boldly. “Insofar as the professional despair that caused his suicide was completely separate from the domestic jealousy that caused his wife to murder Mrs. Gadney.” He too looked up to the judge. “My lord, the defense is seeking to muddy the case by raising issues that considerably precede Mrs. Gadney’s murder and have nothing to do with it. Mrs. Lambourn had no involvement in her husband’s work for the government; therefore it cannot have had anything to do with the murder of Zenia Gadney.”
Rathbone rose to protest. The conclusion was totally unwarranted.
“My lord-”
“Your point is very well taken, Mr. Coniston,” Pendock cut across him. “Sir Oliver, if you have no relevant questions to ask Commissioner Appleford, the court excuses him, and we will proceed to the next witness. If you please, Mr. Coniston?”
Rathbone sat down feeling as if he had been crushed by a weight he should have seen falling on him, and yet he had not. He had no idea where he could turn next. The ruling was unfair, and yet if he protested again he would earn Pendock’s fury without being able to prove anything in Dinah’s favor, because frankly, he did not have anything.
He felt suddenly very close to despair.
CHAPTER 13
As the trial of Dinah Lambourn was beginning, Hester set out on her own investigation. The whole issue of the sale of opium was one that drew her in with increasing urgency with every new piece of information she found. Because most of her nursing experience had been with soldiers suffering from appalling injuries, or from the fevers and dysentery of war, she was familiar only with the advantages of opium as a means to reduce pain.
Her later work in the clinic on Portpool Lane had been with prostitutes. Some were as young as twelve or thirteen; but she hadn’t known of the devastation inflicted on smaller children from remedies containing opium before Dr. Winfarthing had told her.
However, as far as Dinah Lambourn was concerned, there was no time now to justify Lambourn’s report to the government. Before anything else, they must find out who killed Zenia Gadney. To do that, they needed to learn more about Gadney than the bare facts of her life in Copenhagen Place.
Most of the street women who came to the clinic in Portpool Lane were from within a mile or two of the clinic itself, but some with more chronic diseases had come now and again from farther away. There was usually not much Hester could do for them, but anything to ease their distress even a little was a help. Now she set out to find one woman in particular with whom she had sat up many nights, nursing her through pneumonia and back into sufficient health for her to return to the streets, until next time. That would probably be this winter when hunger, exposure, and exhaustion might well kill her.
Gladys Middleton was nearly forty, and had been bought and sold since she was twelve, but she was still surprisingly handsome. Her hair was thick and unmarked by gray. Her skin was fading, but there were no visible blemishes, at least in candlelight. The last illness had reduced her weight, but at this point, the loss was flattering. She still had generous curves, and walked with surprising grace.
It took Hester most of the day to find where Gladys now lived. Even after she had discovered the right lodging house, she had to wait, standing as discreetly as possible in a doorway, until Gladys returned from the public house on the corner.
Hester followed her at almost fifty yards’ distance until Gladys went through the door, and then she went in after her. She made a couple of mistakes, having to apologize before she knocked at the right room.
Gladys opened it cautiously. It was early to expect custom. There was still daylight outside, and a prospective client might far too easily meet someone he knew on the street. His presence here might be difficult to explain.
“Hello, Gladys,” Hester said with a quick smile. There was no point in pretending she had come other than for a favor. Gladys knew the way of survival and would not appreciate being patronized by lies.
Hester held up a bottle of the tonic cordial she knew was Gladys’s favorite.
Gladys regarded it with pleasure, then suspicion. “I ain’t sayin’ as I’m not grateful, nor pleased ter see yer, but wot d’yer want?” she said skeptically.
“Not to stand at the door, for a start,” Hester replied, still smiling.
Gladys backed in reluctantly.
Hester followed her. The room was cleaner than she had expected. There were no signs of trade here, only a faint odor of sweat, and recently eaten food.
“Thank you.” Hester sat down on the edge of one of the chairs. She kept the bottle of cordial in her hand. It should be understood that this was a bargain, not a gift.
Gladys sat down opposite her, also on the edge of her chair, uneasily.
“Wot d’yer want, then?” she repeated.
“Information.”
“I dunno nothin’.” The response was instinctive and immediate.
“Rubbish,” Hester said briskly. “Women who know nothing don’t survive very long. Don’t lie to me, and I won’t lie to you.”
Gladys shrugged, admitting at least a degree of defeat. “Wot are yer askin’?”
“Did you know Zenia Gadney?” Hester replied.
The color drained out of Gladys’s face, leaving her ashen. “Gawd! I don’t know nothin’ about that, I swear!”
“I’m sure you don’t know anything about the murder,” Hester agreed, telling something close to the truth. “I want to know what she was like.”
“Wot d’yer mean, wot she were like?” Gladys blinked in confusion.
Was she playing for time, or did she really not understand? Hester put her hand lightly on the cordial bottle. “This stuff is quite good for your health,” she remarked.
“Well, it in’t goin’ ter cure a slit throat!” Gladys said huskily. “Or yer guts torn out an’ tied around yer waist, is it!”
“Why should anyone do that to you?” Hester raised her eyebrows. “Anyway, her throat wasn’t slit. She was hit on the back of her head. She wouldn’t have known anything that happened after that, poor soul. You didn’t have an affair with Dr. Lambourn, did you?”
Gladys was startled. “Course I din’t! ’E weren’t like that. All ’e wanted were ter know ’ow easy it were ter buy opium, an’ if I knew wot was in the stuff I got ter ’elp me sleep, or when I got a bellyache.”
“And did you?” Hester tried to keep some of the eagerness out of her voice. She could not afford to have Gladys sense how much she needed the information. “Did you know what was in it, and how much to take? Or how long before you could take more?”
