Page 123 of A Sunless Sea (William Monk 17)

“No, sir. Looked for that, too.”

“Or a syringe with a needle?” Rathbone asked.

“No, sir, nothing.”

“Nevertheless, at first you concluded that his death was suicide?”

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“At first, yes, sir,” Runcorn agreed. “But the more I thought about it, the unhappier I got. Still, there was nothing I could do until Mr. Monk came along about a second death, which was very definitely a murder, and asked me to look into Dr. Lambourn’s death a little harder.”

“But you had been told to leave the matter as it was, had you not?” Rathbone pressed.

“Yes, sir. I did it in my own time, but I’m aware I’d been ordered to leave it,” Runcorn admitted. “But I began to think he was murdered. I can’t leave that to rest without knowing for sure.”

Coniston stood up abruptly.

“Yes, yes,” Pendock said quickly. “Mr. Runcorn, please do not give us any conclusions you may have come to unless you have proof that they are correct.”

“Sorry, my lord,” Runcorn said contritely. He did not argue, although Rathbone could see from his face that his silence was not easy.

“Mr. Runcorn, did you see any marks of struggle on the ground, or on Dr. Lambourn’s person?” Rathbone asked. “Were his clothes torn or in disarray, for example? Were his shoes scuffed, his hair tangled or his skin bruised?”

“No, sir. He looked fairly peaceful.”

“As a man might who had committed suicide?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Or been brought there, dosed with opium he took to be something else?” Rathbone suggested. “Given to him by someone he trusted, causing him to be insensible when that person carefully slit his wrists and left him there to bleed to death, alone in the night?”

Runcorn’s face showed his imagination of the tragedy. “Yes, sir,” he said quietly, his voice a little husky. “Exactly like that.”

Coniston looked up at Pendock, but this time kept his silence with grim resignation.

“Thank you, Mr. Runcorn,” Rathbone said courteously. “Please wait until Mr. Coniston has asked you whatever he wishes to.”

Coniston stood up and walked toward the witness stand. “Mr. Runcorn, did you see anything whatsoever to prove that Dr. Lambourn was in the company of anyone when he went up One Tree Hill in the middle of the night?”

“It isn’t so much what I saw as what I didn’t see,” Runcorn replied. “No knife to cut his wrists, nothing with which to take opium.”

“And from that you deduce that it was someone he knew, and trusted, this mystery companion?” Coniston pursued.

“Yes, sir. Seems to make sense. Why would you go up a hill in the dark with someone you didn’t trust? And there were no signs of a fight. Anyone fights for their life, when it comes down to it.”

“Indeed.” Coniston nodded. “Then it could even have been a woman, for example the accused, his … mistress, with whom he lived as if she were his wife, and pretended to the world that she was, who was with him?”

There was a gasp in the gallery at Coniston’s blunt statement. Several jurors actually looked up at the dock, where Dinah sat white-faced.

“Could’ve been,” Runcorn agreed quietly. “But then, it could’ve been the lady who really was his wife.”

One of the jurors blasphemed-and immediately clapped his hand over his mouth and blushed scarlet.

Pendock glanced at him but said nothing.

“Thank you, Mr. Runcorn. I think we have heard enough of your remarkable suppositions.” Coniston returned to his seat.

“Anything further, Sir Oliver?” Pendock inquired.