To some men whom Rathbone had overheard at his club, Dinah was the ultimate victim. To others she was the symbol of a hysterical woman seeking to limit all a man’s freedoms and to pursue his every move.
One writer had presented her as the heroine for all betrayed wives, for all women used, mocked, and then cast aside. The heat of emotion carried away reason like jetsam on a flood tide.
Rathbone had prepared everything he could for this defense, but he knew he had far too little. Neither Monk nor Orme had been able to find a witness who had seen Zenia with a man near the time of her death. The one person she had been seen with, briefly on the road by the river, was unquestionably a woman. He had no wish to draw attention to that.
All he really had to defend Dinah with was her past loyalties to both Lambourn and Zenia, and her character. He would rather not put her on the witness stand to testify. She was too vulnerable to ridicule because of her belief in a conspiracy for which there was no proof. But in the end he might have to.
Monk and Hester were still searching for solid evidence, as was Runcorn, when he had the chance. The trouble was, everything they had found so far could just as easily be interpreted as evidence of her guilt as her innocence.
The attack on Monk had been brutal, and well organized, but there was nothing to tie it to the murder of Zenia Gadney. There had been no second attack, so far.
Rathbone was glad when the clerk came to interrupt his growing sense of panic and call him to the courtroom. The trial was about to begin.
All the usual preliminaries were gone through. It was a ritual to which Rathbone hardly needed to pay attention. He looked up at the dock, where Dinah sat between two wardens, high above the floor of the court. On the left-hand wall, under the window, were jury benches, and ahead was the great chair in which the judge sat, resplendent in his scarlet robes and full-bottomed wig.
Rathbone studied them one by one while the voices droned on. Dinah Lambourn looked beautiful in her fear. Her eyes were wide, her skin desperately pale. Her thick, dark hair was pulled back a little severely to reveal the bones of her cheeks and brow, the perfect balance of her features, her generous, vulnerable mouth. He wondered if that would tell against her, or for her. Would the jury admire her dignity, or misunderstand it for arrogance? There was no way of knowing.
The judge was Grover Pendock, a man Rathbone had known for years, but never well. His wife was an invalid and he preferred to remain away from the social events to which she could not come. Was that in deference to her, or an admirable excuse to avoid a duty in which he had no pleasure? He had two sons. The elder, Hadley Pendock, was a sportsman of some distinction, and the judge was extremely proud of him. The younger one was more studious, it was said, and had yet to make his mark.
Rathbone looked up at Grover Pendock now and saw the general gravity of his rather large face, with its powerful jaw and thin mouth. This was a very public trial. He must know all eyes would be on his conduct of it, expecting-indeed, requiring-a swift and completely decisive conclusion. The sooner it was ended, the sooner the hysteria would die down and the newspapers turn their attention to something else. There must be no doubt as to justice being done, with no unseemly behavior, and above all, absolutely no chance for an appeal.
The counsel for the prosecution looked grim and full of confidence, as if already spoiling for a fight. Sorley Coniston was in his late forties, taller than Rathbone and heavier, smooth-faced. When he smiled there was a slight gap between his front teeth, which was not unattractive. He was almost handsome. Only a certain arrogance in his manner spoiled the grace with which he rose to call his first witness.
As expected, it was Sergeant Orme of the Thames River Police. Rathbone had known it would be, but it still puzzled him that Coniston had chosen Orme rather than Monk.
Then, as he saw Orme’s solid, calm face when he climbed the steps to the witness box and looked down at the floor of the court, he understood the choice. Monk was lean and elegant. He couldn’t help it. The air of command was in him: in the angle of his head, the bones of his face, his remarkable eyes. Orme was ordinary. No one would think him devious or overly clever. He would be believed. Anyone attacking his honesty would do more harm to themselves than to him.
Coniston walked out into the center of the floor and looked up at Orme, who was already sworn in and had given his name and his rank.
“Sergeant Orme,” Coniston began courteously, as if they were equals. “Will you please tell the court of your experience on the morning of the twenty-fourth of November, as you approached Limehouse Pier? Describe the scene for those of us who have not been there.”
Orme had been prepared for this, but he was uncomfortable nonetheless. It was obvious in his face, and the way he leaned forward a little, both hands gripping the rail. Rathbone knew it was the request for a description of something he was not used to putting into words for others, that made him behave so. To the jury it would look like distress at what he had seen. Coniston was already preparing them for the horror. Rathbone was impressed. He could easily have taken less trouble and assumed the mood would follow naturally.
“Mr. Monk and I were coming back from looking into a robbery farther up the river,” Orme began.
“Just two of you?” Coniston asked. “Were you rowing?”
“Both of us,” Orme answered. “One behind the other, sir, an oar each.”
“I see. Thank you. What time of day was it? What was the light?” Coniston asked.
“Early sunrise, sir. Lot of color in the sky, and across the water, too.” Orme was clearly unhappy.
“Were you close in to shore, or out in the current?” Coniston continued.
“Close in to shore, sir. Out in the stream an’ you’d be in the way of shipping, ferries an’ the like.”
“In the shadow of the docks and warehouses? Paint the picture for us, Sergeant Orme, if you please.”
Orme shifted his weight to the other foot. “About twenty yards out, sir. Buildings sort of … looming up, but we were not in their shadow. Water was smoother closer to shore. Out of the wind.”
“I see. You describe it well,” Coniston said graciously. “So you and Commander Monk were rowing back to Wapping after being called out before dawn. It was cool. The breeze made the river choppy except close to shore, almost in the shadow of the docks and the warehouses, rising sun spilling red light on the smooth, dark water around you?”
Orme’s face tightened as if the attention to beauty in the circumstances were distasteful to him. “Something like that, sir.”
“Did anything occur that caused you to stop?”
There was absolute silence in the courtroom, apart from the slight rustle of a skirt as someone shifted position.
“Yes, sir. We heard a woman crying out, on Limehouse Pier. She was screaming, and waving her arms. We couldn’t see why until we got right up to the pier and climbed the steps to the top. There was the body of a woman lying crumpled up on her side. Her … the body’d been ripped open and there was blood soaking her clothes …” He could not finish, not only because of his own emotion, but also because of the rising sound of gasps and groans from the body of the courtroom. In the gallery a woman was already crying, and there was a murmur of voices trying to offer comfort and telling others to be quiet.
“Order! Please, ladies and gentlemen,” Pendock said from the bench. “Let us continue. Allow Sergeant Orme to be heard.”
“Thank you, my lord,” Coniston said soberly, then turned again to Orme. “I assume you and Commander Monk examined this poor woman’s remains?”