Page 57 of A Sunless Sea (William Monk 17)

“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 they missed 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, stopped in mid-stride. “They had never had occasion to arrest her, or at least caution her regarding her activities as a prostitute?”

“That is what they said,” Monk agreed again.

“If she was indeed a prostitute, do you not find that remarkable?” Coniston asked with a lift of surprise in his voice.

Monk’s face was expressionless. “People often don’t recognize someone when they have died violently, especially if there is a lot of blood involved. People can look smaller than you remember them when they were alive. And if they are not dressed as you know them, or in a place where you expect to see them, you do not always realize who they are.”

Coniston looked as if that was not the answer he had wanted. He moved on. “Did you then make inquiries to find out who she was?”

“Of course.”

“Where did you inquire?” Coniston spread his hands, encompassing an infinity of possibilities.

“We spoke to local residents, shopkeepers, other women who lived in the area and with whom she might have been acquainted,” Monk answered, still hardly any emotion in his voice.

“When you say ‘women,’ do you mean prostitutes?” Coniston pressed.

Monk’s face was bland. Probably only Rathbone could see the tiny muscle ticking in his cheek.

“I mean laundresses, factory workers, peddlers, anyone who might have known her,” he said.

“Were you successful?” Coniston inquired courteously.

“Yes,” Monk told him. “She was identified as Zenia Gadney, a middle-aged woman who lived quietly, by herself, at Fourteen Copenhagen Place, just beyond Limehouse Cut. She was known to several other people in the street.”

“How did she support herself?” Coniston was still calm and polite, but the tension in him was not missed by the jury. Watching them, Rathbone could feel it himself.

“She didn’t,” Monk answered. “There was a man who called on her once a month, and gave her sufficient funds for her needs, which appeared to be modest. We found no evidence of her having earned any money other than that, except for the very occasional small sewing job, which might have been as much for goodwill and companionship as for money.” Monk’s face was somber, his voice quiet, as if he too mourned not only her terrible death, but the seeming futility of her life.

Knowing him as he did, Rathbone had no difficulty reading the emotions in his face and his choice of words. He wondered if Coniston read it also. Would he judge him with any accuracy?

Coniston hesitated a moment, then went on. “I assume that, as a matter of course, you attempted to identify this man, and the kind of relationship he had with her?”

“Of course,” Monk answered. “He was Dr. Joel Lambourn, of Lower Park Street, Greenwich.”

“I see,” Coniston said quickly. “That would be the late husband of the accused, Mrs. Dinah Lambourn?”

Monk’s face was a blank slate. “Yes.”