Weighed in the Balance

chapter 8
On the long and tedious journey home, Monk turned over in his mind what he could tell Rathbone that could be of any service to him in the case. He reviewed it in his mind over and over again, but no matter how many times he did, mere was nothing of substance that could be used to defend Zorah Rostova. Whichever of the couple had been the intended victim, there was no way in which Gisela could be guilty.

The only mitigating fact was the extreme likelihood that Friedrich had indeed been murdered.

On arrival in London, Monk went straight to his rooms in Rtzroy Street and unpacked his cases. He had a steaming bath and changed his linen. He requested his landlady to bring him a hot cup of tea, something which he had not had since leaving home over two weeks before. Then he felt as ready as he could be to present himself at Vere Street. He dreaded delivering such news, but there was no alternative.

Rathbone did not pretend any of the usual preliminary courtesies. He opened his office door as soon as he heard Monk's voice speaking to Simms. He looked as perfectly dressed as always, but Monk saw the signs of tiredness and strain in his face.

"Good afternoon, Monk," he said immediately. "Come in."

He glanced at the clerk. "Thank you, Simms." He stood aside to allow Monk past him into the office.

"Shall I bring tea, Sir Oliver?" Simms asked, glancing from one to the other of them. He knew the importance of the case and of the news which Monk might bring. He had already read from Monk's manner that it was not good.

"Oh ... yes, by all means." Rathbone was looking not at Simms but at Monk. He searched Monk's eyes and saw defeat in them. "Thank you," he added, his voice carrying his disappointment, too heavy for his self-mastery to conceal it.

Inside, he closed the door and walked stiffly around his desk to the far side. He pulled his chair back and sat down.

Monk sat in the nearer one.

Rathbone did not cross his legs as usual, nor did he lean back. His face was calm and his eyes direct, but there was fear in them as he regarded Monk.

Monk saw no purpose in telling the story in chronological order. It would only spin out the tension.

"I think it very probable Friedrich was murdered," he said flatly. "We have every cause to raise the issue, and we may even be able to prove it, with good luck and considerable skill. But there is no possibility that Gisela is guilty."

Rathbone stared back without replying.

"There really is none," Monk repeated. He hated having to say this. It was the same feeling of helplessness again, carrying all the old sense of watching while someone you ought to save was suffering, losing. He owed Rathbone nothing, and it was entirely his own fault that he had taken such an absurd case, but all that touched his reason, not his emotions.

He took a deep breath. "Friedrich was her life. She did not have a lover, and neither did he. Friend and enemy alike knew that they adored each other. They did nothing apart. Every evidence I found indicates they were still as deeply in love as in the beginning."

"But duty?" Rathbone urged. "Was there a plot to invite him back to Felzburg to lead the fight for independence, or not?"

"Almost certainly - "

"Then..."

"Then nothing!" Monk said tartly. "He didn't bow to duty twelve years ago, and nothing whatever suggests there has been the slightest change."

Rathbone clenched his fist on the desk, his knuckles shining. 'Twelve years ago his country was not facing forced unification with the rest of the German states. Surely he had that much honor in him - that much patriotism and sense of who he was. Damn it, Monk, he was born to be king!"

Monk heard the rising desperation in Rathbone's voice. He could see it in his eyes, in the spots of color in his cheeks. He had nothing whatever with which to help. Everything he knew made it worse.

"He was a man who gave up everything for the woman he loved," he said clearly and levelly. "And there is nothing ... absolutely nothing ... to indicate that he ever, for a moment, regretted that decision. If his people wanted him back, then they would have to take his wife with him. The decision was theirs, and apparently he had always believed they would make it in her favor."

Rathbone stared at him.

The silence in the room was so heavy the clock seemed to bang out the seconds. The muffled clatter of the traffic beyond the windows came from another world.

"What?" Rathbone said at last. "What is it, Monk? What is it that you are not telling me?"

"That there seems to me every possibility that Friedrich was not the intended victim, but Gisela herself," he replied. He was about to go on, explaining why, but he saw the understanding of it already there in Rathbone's face.

"Who?" Rathbone said huskily.

"Perhaps Zorah herself. She is an ardent independent."

Rathbone paled.

"Or anyone else who was of the independent party," Monk went on. "The worst possibility - "

"Worst!" Rathbone's voice was high and sharp with sarcasm. "Worse than my own client?"

"Yes." Monk could not withhold the truth.

Rathbone glared at him with disbelief.

Monk struck the blow. "Count Lansdorff. The Queen's brother, acting on her behalf."

Rathbone tried to speak, but his voice failed him. His face was paper white.

"I'm sorry," Monk said inadequately. "But that is the truth. You can't fight without knowing it. Opposing Counsel will find it out, if he's any good at all. She'll tell him, if nothing else."

Rathbone continued to stare at him.

"Of course she will!" Monk banged the desk impatiently. "Queen Ulrike drove her out in the first place. If Ulrike had been for her, instead of against her, twelve years ago, Gisela might be crown princess now. She knows that. There can't be any love lost on either side. But this time Gisela held the winning hand. If they wanted Friedrich back, it would be on his terms ... which would include his wife."

"Would it?" Rathbone was clinging to straws. "You think he would insist, even in these circumstances?"

"Wouldn't you?" Monk demanded. "Apart from his love for her, which nobody anywhere questions, what would the world think of him if he abandoned her now? It is an ugly picture of a man setting aside a wife of twelve years, when anyone with brains can see that he doesn't have to. He can't plead duty when he has the power..."

"Unless Gisela is dead," Rathbone finished for him. "Yes, all right... I see the logic of it. It is unarguable. The Queen had every reason to want Gisela dead, and none at all to want to kill Friedrich. Oh, God! And the Lord Chancellor told me to handle the defense with suitable discretion." He started to laugh, but there was a bitterness in it which was close to hysteria.

"Stop it!" Monk snapped, panic rising inside him too. He was failing again. Rathbone was not only without a defense, he was losing his self-control as well. "It is not your duty to protect the Felzburg royal family. You must defend Zorah Ros-tova the best way you can ... now that you've said you will." His tone conveyed his opinion of that decision. "I assume you have done everything you can to persuade her to withdraw?"

Rathbone glared at him. "Quite. And failed."

"Well, we may at least be able to convince a jury that a reasonable person could believe it was murder," Monk said, watching Rathbone's face. "You will be able to put the doctor on the stand and question him pretty rigorously."

Rathbone shut his eyes. "An exhumation?" The words came out between stiff lips. "The Lord Chancellor will love that! Are you sure we have grounds for it? We will need something incontrovertible. The authorities will be very loath to do it. Abdicated or not, he was the Crown Prince of a foreign country."

"He is buried in England, though," Monk replied. "He died here. That makes him subject to British law. And he not only abdicated but was exiled. He was no longer a citizen of his own country." He leaned a little over the desk. "But it may not be necessary actually to exhume the body. Simply the knowledge that we could, and would, might be sufficient to provide some considerably more precise answers from the doctor and from the Wellboroughs and their servants."

Rathbone stood up and walked towards the window, his back to the room. He pushed his hands into his pockets, dragging them out of shape uncharacteristically. His body was rigid.

"I suppose proving that it was murder is about the only course left to me. At least that will show she was not merely mischievous, only grossly mistaken. If it is shown, beyond any doubt, that Gisela is innocent, perhaps she may still apologize. If she doesn't, there is nothing left I can do to help her. I will have taken on a madwoman as a client."

Monk intended to be tactful, and so refrained from comment, but his silence was just as eloquent.

Rathbone turned from the window, the sun at his back. He had regained some command of himself. His smile was rueful and self-mocking.

"Then perhaps you had better try Wellborough Hall again and see if you can find something in more detail than before. The only real victory left would be to discover who did kill him. It would not vindicate Zorah in law, but it might, to some extent, in public opinion, and that is what we are fighting almost as much. Please God it was not the Queen!"

Monk stood up. "Between now and next Monday?"

Rathbone nodded. "If you please."

Monk felt time closing in. He was being asked more than he could possibly do. It frightened him because he wanted to succeed. If he failed, Rathbone was going to lose a great deal, perhaps the glamour and the prizes of his profession. He would not recover his prestige after a loss not due to circumstance but to a misjudgment as grave as this. Zorah was not merely guilty of some crime, she was guilty of a social sin of monumental proportions. She would have offended the sensibilities and beliefs of both the aristocracy and the ordinary people who delighted in a love story and fairy tale come true, and who had believed it for twelve years. It tainted not only the royalty of Europe but their own royalty as well. It was one thing to criticize the establishment in the privacy of one's home or around the dinner tables of friends; it was something quite different to expose their faults in a courtroom for the world to behold. A man who caused that, and protected the woman who was at the root of it, could not easily be forgiven.

If it should turn out to be Ulrike, or someone acting in her interests, with her knowledge or not, it would be catastrophic. Rathbone would become a celebrity, remembered only for this one startling case. Everyone would know his name, but no respectable person would want to be associated with him. His professional reputation would be worthless.

He had no right to place Monk in the position of having to rescue him from his own stupidity. And Monk resented appallingly that he could not do it. It was the same failure over again, and it hurt.

"Perhaps it might help to know what you have learned and achieved over the last two weeks, while I have been chasing over half of Europe to discover Gisela's complete innocence," he said cuttingly. "Apart from failing to persuade Countess Rostova to withdraw her accusation, that is."

Rathbone looked at him with amazement and then intense dislike. "I employ you, Monk," he said icily. "You do not employ me. If the time comes when you do, then you may require me to report my doings to you, but not until."

"In other words, you've done nothing of use!"

"If you don't think you can discover anything useful at Wellborough Hall," Rathbone retaliated, "then tell me. Otherwise, don't waste what little time there is arguing. Get on your way. If you need money, ask Simms."

Monk was profoundly stung, not so much by the slight to his abilities, he could have foreseen that, and perhaps he deserved it, but the reference to money was cruel. It placed him on a level with a tradesman, which was precisely what Rathbone had intended. It was a reminder of their social and financial difference. It was also a mark of how frightened Rathbone was.

"I won't discover anything," Monk said through clenched teeth. "There isn't any damn thing to discover." And he swung on his heels and went out of the door, leaving it swinging on its hinges.

However, he was obliged to go to Simms and ask for more money, which galled his temper so much he almost did not do it, but necessity prevailed.

It was only when he was outside in the street that he cooled down sufficiently to remember just how frightened Rathbone was. That he would let himself lash out at Monk showed his vulnerability more than anything else he could have done or said.

Monk did not consciously decide to go to see Hester, it simply seemed the natural thing to do, given Rathbone's dilemma and Monk's own feelings of fury and helplessness. When things were at their worst, there was a gentleness in her he could trust absolutely. She would never fail.

He saw a hansom a dozen yards ahead of him along Vene Street as he was striding along the pavement. He increased his pace, calling out. The cab stopped, and he swung up into the seat, calling out the address on Hill Street where he knew Hester had been employed before he had left for Venice, assuming she would still be there. He disliked acknowledging a feeling of urgency to see her, but it filled him till no other thought was possible, and there was a perverse pleasure in the cleanness of it, after the memory of Evelyn.

It was a long way from the area of Lincoln's Inn Fields to Berkeley Square and Hill Street, and he settled back in his seat for the ride. It had been exciting to be in Europe, to see different sights, smell the utterly different smells of a foreign city, hear the sounds of other languages around him, but there was a unique pleasure in being home again amongst what was familiar. He realized only then how tense he had been when he did not understand most of what was being said and he had to concentrate for the occasional word which made sense and to deduce from actions and expressions what was meant. He had been very dependent upon the goodwill of others. There was a great freedom in being back in the surroundings where he had knowledge - and the power that gave.

He had very little idea of what he wanted to say to Hester. It was a turmoil in his mind, a matter of emotion rather than thought. It would fall into order when he needed it to. He was not ready yet.

The cab reached Hill Street, and the driver pulled up the horse and waited for Monk to alight and pay him.

"Thank you," Monk said absently, handing over the coins and tuppence extra. He walked across the footpath and went up the steps. It crossed his mind that it might be inconvenient for Hester to receive callers, especially a man. It might even be embarrassing if her employers misunderstood. But he did not even hesitate in his stride, much less change his mind. He pulled the bell hard and waited.

The door opened, and a footman faced him.

"Good afternoon, sir?"

"Good afternoon." Monk did not feel like exchanging pleasantries, but experience had taught him that it was frequently the fastest way to obtain what he wished. He produced a card and laid it on the salver. "Is Miss Hester Latterly still residing in this house? I have just returned from abroad and must leave again this evening for the country. There is a matter of urgency concerning a mutual friend about which I would like to inform her and perhaps ask her advice." He had not lied, but his words implied a medical emergency, and he was happy to leave the misunderstanding.

"Yes, sir, she is still with us," the footman replied. "If you care to come in, I will inquire if it is possible for you to see her."

Monk was shown to the library, a most agreeable place to wait. The room was comfortably furnished in a rather old-fashioned manner. The leather upholstery was worn where arms had rested on the chairs, and the pattern in the carpet was brighter around the edges, where no one had trodden. A fire burned briskly in the grate. There were hundreds of books from which he could have chosen to read, had he wished, but he was too impatient even to open one, let alone concentrate on the words inside. He paced back and forth, turning sharply every seven paces.

It was over ten minutes before the door opened and Hester came in. She was dressed in deep blue, which was unusually becoming to her. She looked nothing like as tired as the last time he had seen her. In fact, she looked very fresh; there was color in her complexion and a rich sheen on her hair. He was instantly annoyed. Did she not care that Rathbone was on the brink of disaster? Or was she too stupid to appreciate the magnitude of it?

"You look as if you are to have the day off," he said abruptly.

She surveyed his perfectly cut jacket and trousers, his immaculate cravat and extremely expensive boots.

"How nice to see you safely home," she said with a sweet smile. "How was Venice? And Felzburg? That was where you were, was it not?"

He ignored that. She knew perfectly well that it was.

"If your patient is recovered, what are you doing still here?" he asked. His tone of voice made it a challenge.

"He is better than he was," she replied very gravely, looking straight at him. "He is not recovered. It takes some time to accustom yourself to the fact that you will not walk again. There are times when it is very hard. If you cannot imagine the chronic difficulties of someone who is paralyzed from the waist downwards, I shall not violate what is left of his privacy by explaining them to you. Please stop indulging your temper and tell me what you learned that will help Oliver."

It was like a slap in the face, swift and hard, the reminder that she had been dealing with one of the most painful of realities while he was away, the end of a major part of the life and hope of a young man. And yet harder still, and more personal, was the hope in her face that he had been able to accomplish something to help Rathbone, her belief in him that he could, and his own now so familiar knowledge that he had not.

"Gisela did not kill Friedrich," he said quietly. "It was not possible physically, and she had even less reason when it happened than ever before. I can't help Rathbone." As he said it his fury was raw in his voice. He loathed Rathbone for being vulnerable, for being so stupid as to put himself in this position, and for hoping that Monk could get him out of it. He was angry with Hester for expecting the impossible of him, and also for caring so much about Rathbone. He could see it in her face, the endless ability to be hurt.

She looked stunned. It was several seconds before she found words to say anything.

"Was it really just - just his accident?" She shook her head a little, as if to brush away an annoyance, but her face was creased with anxiety and her eyes were frightened. "Isn't there anything which can help Oliver? Some sort of excuse for the Countess? If she believed it... there must have been a reason. I mean - " She stopped.

"Of course she had a reason," he said impatiently. "But not necessarily anything she would benefit from announcing in court. It looks more and more like an old jealousy she was never able to forget or forgive, and she had taken this moment of vulnerability to try to settle an old score. That is a reason, but it is an ugly and very stupid one."

Temper flashed in her face. "Are you saying he died by accident, and that is all you have learned? It took you two weeks, in two countries, to discover that? And I assume you used Zorah's money to pay your way?'

"Of course I used Zorah's money," he retorted. "I went in her cause. I can only discover what is there, Hester, just as you can. Do you cure every patient?" His voice was rising with his own hurt. "Do you give back your wages if they die? Perhaps you'd better give them back to these people, since you say their son will never walk again."

"This is stupid," she said, turning away from him in exasperation. "If you cannot think of anything more sensible to say, you had better go!" She swung to face him again, "No!" She took a deep breath and lowered her voice again. "No, please don't. What we think of each other is immaterial. We can quarrel later. Now we must think of Oliver. If this comes to trial and he has nothing with which to defend her, or at least offer an explanation and excuse, he is going to face a crisis in his reputation and career. I don't know if you have seen any of the newspapers lately, I don't suppose you have, but they are very strongly in support of Gisela and already painting Zorah as a wicked woman who is bent not only on injuring an innocent and bereaved woman but also on attacking the good qualities in society in general."

She moved forwards, closer to him, her wide skirt catching on the chairs. "Several of them have already suggested a very lurid life, that she has taken foreign lovers and practiced all sort of things which are better left to the imagination."

He should have thought of that, but somehow he had not. He had seen it only in political terms. Of course, there would be ugly speculation about Zorah and her life and her motives. Sexual jealousy was the first thing that would leap to many people's minds.

It was on his tongue to tell Hester that there was nothing anyone could do to prevent that, but he saw the hurt and the hope in her face. It caught at him as if it had been his own, taking him by surprise. It had nothing to do with her life, and yet she was absorbed in it. Her whole mind was bent towards fighting the injustice - or, in Rathbone's case, even if it should prove just, of trying to prevent the wound and do something to ease the harm.

"There is quite a strong possibility he was murdered," he said grudgingly. "Not by Gisela, poor woman, but by one of the political factions." He could not resist adding, "Perhaps the Queen's brother."

She winced but refused to be crushed. "Can we prove he was murdered?" she said quickly. She used the plural as if she were as much involved as he. "It might help. After all, it would show that she was mistaken as to the person who did it but that she was not imagining there really was a crime. And only her accusation has brought it to light." Her voice was getting faster and rising in tone. "If she had stayed silent, then their prince could have been murdered and no one would have known. That would have been a terrible injustice."

He looked at her eagerness, and it cut him.

"And do you think they would really prefer to have the world know that one of the royal family, possibly at the instigation of the Queen herself, murdered the Prince?" he said bitterly. "If you think anyone is going to thank her for that, you are a great deal stupider even than I thought you!"

This time she was crushed, but not utterly.

"Some of her own people may not thank her," she said in a small voice. "But some of them will. And the jury will be English. We still think it very wrong to murder anyone, especially an injured and helpless man. And we admire courage. We will not like what she has said, but we will know that it has cost her dearly to say it, and we will respect that." She looked straight at him, daring him to contradict her.

"I hope so," he agreed with a lurch of emotion inside him as he realized yet again how intensely she cared. She had never even met Zorah. She probably knew nothing of her, except this one event of her life. It was Rathbone who filled her thoughts and whose future frightened her. He felt a sudden void of loneliness. He had not appreciated that she was so fond of Rathbone. Rathbone had always seemed a trifle aloof towards her, even patronizing at times. And Monk knew how she hated being patronized. He had had a taste of her temper when he had done it himself.

"They are bound to." She sounded positive, as though she were trying to convince herself. "You will be able to prove it, won't you?" she went on anxiously, a furrow between her brows. "It was poison - "

"Yes, of course it was. It would hardly be mistaken for a natural death if he'd been shot or hit over the head," he said sarcastically.

She ignored him. "How?"

"In his food or medicine, I presume. I'm going back to Well-borough Hall tonight to see if I can find out."

"Not how was he poisoned," she corrected impatiently. "Naturally, it was disguised in something he ate. I mean how are you going to prove it? Are you going to have the body dug up and examined? How will you get that done? They'll try to prevent you. Most people feel very strongly about that sort of thing."

He had very little idea how he was going to do it. He was as confused and as worried as she was, except that he did not feel as personally involved with Rathbone as she seemed to. He would be sorry, of course, if Rathbone fell from grace and his career foundered. He would do all he could to prevent it. They had been friends and battled together to win other cases, sometimes against enormous odds. They had cared about the same things and trusted each other without the necessity for words or reasons.

"I know," he said gently. "I hope to persuade them to tell me the truth and avoid that. I think the political implications may be powerful enough to accomplish it. Suspicion can do a great deal of damage. People will do a lot to avoid it."

She met his eyes steadily, her anger vanished. "Can I help?"

"I can't think of any way, but if I do, I shall tell you," he promised. "I don't suppose you have learned anything of relevance about Friedrich or Gisela? No, of course not, or you would have said so." He smiled bleakly. 'Try not to worry so much. Rathbone is a better courtroom lawyer than you seem to be giving him credit for." It was an idiotic thing to say, and he winced inwardly as he heard himself, but he wanted to comfort her, even if comfort was meaningless and temporary. He hated to see her so frightened - for her own sake, apart from anything he might feel towards Rathbone, which was a confusion of anxiety, friendship, anger and envy. Rathbone had all Hester's attention; her entire mind was taken up with her care for him. She had barely noticed Monk, except as he might be of help.

"He may be able to elicit all sorts of information on the witness stand," he went on. "And we certainly have enough to compel all the people who were at Wellborough Hall that week to testify."

"Have we?" She seemed genuinely cheered. "Yes, of course you are right. He has made such a disastrous judgment in taking the case that I forget how brilliant he is in the courtroom." She let out her breath in a sigh and then smiled at him. "Thank you, William."

In a few words she had betrayed her awareness of Rathbone's vulnerability and her willingness to defend him, her admiration for him, and how much she cared. And she had thanked Monk so earnestly it twisted like a knife inside him as, startlingly, he perceived in her a beauty far brighter and stronger than the charm of Evelyn which had faded so easily.

"I must go," he said stiffly, feeling as if his protective mask had been stripped from him and she had seen him as nakedly as he had seen himself. "I have a train to catch this evening if I am to be in Wellborough in time to find lodgings. Good night." And almost before she had time to answer, he turned on his heel and marched to the door, flinging it open and walking out.

In the morning, after a poor night spent at the village inn during which he tossed and turned in an unfamiliar bed, he hired a local coachman to take him out to Wellborough Hall and alighted with his case. He had no intention of lying about himself or his purpose this time, whatever Lord Wellborough should say.

"You are what?" his lordship demanded, his face icy, when Monk stood in the morning room in the center of the carpet.

Wellborough straightened up from where he had been leaning against the mantel, taking the largest share of the fire.

"An agent of inquiry," Monk repeated with almost equal chill.

"I had no idea such a thing existed." Wellborough's broad nose flared as if he had swallowed something distasteful. "If one of my guests has committed an indiscretion, I do not wish to know. If it was in my house, I consider it my duty as host to deal with the matter without the like of a... whatever it is you call yourself. The footman will show you out, sir."

"The only indiscretion I am interested in is murder!" Monk did not move even his eyes, let alone his feet.

"I cannot help you," Wellborough replied. "I know of no one who has been murdered. There is no one dead to my knowledge. As I have said, sir, the footman will show you to the door. Please do not return. You came here under false pretenses. You abused my hospitality and imposed upon my other guests, which is inexcusable. Good day, Mr. Monk. I presume that is your real name? Not that it matters." Monk did not look away, let alone move. "Prince Friedrich died in this house, Lord Wellborough. There has already been a very public accusation that it was murder - "

"Which has been vigorously denied," Wellborough cut across him. "Not that anyone worth anything at all gave it a moment's credence. And as you are no doubt aware, the wretched woman, who must be quite mad, is to stand trial for her slander. I believe in a week or so's time."

"She is not standing trial, sir," Monk corrected. "It is a civil suit, at least technically. Though the matter of murder will be exhaustively explored, naturally. The medical evidence will be examined in the closest detail - "

"Medical evidence?" Wellborough's face dropped. He was at once appalled and derisive. "There isn't any, for God's sake! The poor man was dead and buried half a year ago."

"It would be most unfortunate to have to have the body exhumed," Monk agreed. He ignored the expression of disbelief and then horror on Wellborough's face. "But if suspicion leaves no other alternative possible, then it will have to be done, and an autopsy performed. Very distressing for the family, but one cannot allow an accusation of murder to fly around unanswered..."

Wellborough's skin-was mottled dark with blood, his body rigid.

"It has been answered, man! Nobody in their right mind believes for an instant that poor Gisela would have harmed him in any way whatever, let alone killed him in cold blood. It's monstrous ... and totally absurd."

"Yes, I agree, it probably is," Monk said levelly. "But it is not so absurd to believe that Klaus von Seidlitz might have killed him to prevent him from returning home and leading the resistance against unification. He has large holdings of land in the borders, which might be laid waste were there fighting. A powerful motive, and not in the least difficult to credit... even if it is, as you say, monstrous."

Wellborough stared at him as if he had risen out of the ground in a cloud of sulfur.

Monk continued with some satisfaction. "And the other very plausible possibility is that actually it was not Friedrich who was intended as the victim but Gisela. He may have died by mischance. In which case there are several people who may have been desirous of killing her. The most obvious one is Count Lansdorff, brother of the Queen."

"That's ..." Wellborough began, then trailed off, his face losing its color and turning a dull white. Monk knew in that moment that he had been very well aware of the designs and negotiations that preceded Friedrich's death.

"Or the Baroness Brigitte von Arlsbach," Monk went on relentlessly. "And regrettably, also yourself."

"Me? I have no interest in foreign politics," Wellborough protested. He looked genuinely taken aback. "It matters not a jot to me who rules in Felzburg or whether it is part of Germany or one of a score of independent little states forever."

"You manufacture arms," Monk pointed out. "War in Europe offers you an excellent market - "

"That is iniquitous, sir!" Wellborough said furiously, his jaw clenched, his lips thinned to invisibility. "Make that suggestion outside this room and I shall sue you myself."

"I have made no suggestion," Monk replied. "I have merely stated facts. But you may be quite certain that people will make the inference, and you cannot sue all London."

"I can sue the first person to say it aloud!"

Monk was now quite relaxed. He had at least this victory in his hand.

"No doubt. But it would be expensive and futile. The only way to prevent people from thinking it is to prove it untrue."

Wellborough stared at him. "I take your point, sir," he said at last. "And I find your method and your manner equally despicable, but I concede the necessity. You may question whom you please in my house, and I shall personally instruct them to answer you immediately and truthfully... on the condition that you report your findings to me, in full, at the end of every day. You will remain here and pursue this until you come to a satisfactory and irrefutable conclusion. Do we understand each other?"

"Perfectly," Monk replied with an inclination of his head. "I have my bag with me. If you will have someone show me to my room, I shall begin immediately. Time is short."

Wellborough gritted his teeth and reached for the bell.

Monk thought it both polite and probably most likely to be efficient to speak first to Lady Wellborough. She received him in the morning room, a rather ornate place furnished in the French manner with a great deal more gilt than Monk cared for. The only thing in it he liked was a huge bowl of early chrysanthemums, tawny golds and browns and filling the air with a rich, earthy smell.

Lady Wellborough came in and closed the door behind her. She was wearing a dark blue morning dress which should have become her fair coloring, but she was too pale and undoubtedly surprised and confused, and there was a shadow of fear in her eyes.

"My husband tells me that it is possible Prince Friedrich really was murdered," she said bluntly. She must have been in her mid-thirties, but there was a childlike unsophistication about her. "And that you have come here to discover before the trial who it was. I don't understand at all, but you must be wrong. It is too terrible."

He had come prepared to dislike her because he disliked and despised her husband, but he realized with a jolt how separate she was, pulled along in his wake, perhaps unable through circumstance, ignorance or dependence to take a different course, and that this lack had little to do with her will or her nature.

"Unfortunately, terrible things sometimes do happen, Lady Wellborough," he replied almost without emotion. "There was a great deal at stake in his returning to his own country. Perhaps you were not aware how much."

"I didn't know he was going to return," she said, staring at him. "Nobody said anything about it to me."

"It was probably still secret, if it was finally decided at all. It may have been only on the brink of decision."

She still looked anxious and a little confused.

"And you think someone murdered him to prevent him going home? I thought he couldn't anyway, after he deliberately abdicated. After all, he chose Gisela instead of the crown. Is that not what it was all about?" She shook her head and gave a little shrug, still standing in the middle of the floor, refusing or unable to be comfortable, as if it might prolong an interview in which she was unhappy.

"I really can't believe he would have returned without her, Mr. Monk, even to save his country from unification into a greater Germany, which people say will almost certainly happen one day anyway. If you had seen them here you wouldn't even have had such an idea" Her voice dismissed it as ridiculous; there was even regret in it and a note of envy. "I've never known two people to love each other so much. Sometimes it was almost as if they spoke with one voice." Her blue eyes were focused on something beyond his head. "She would finish what he was saying, or he would finish for her. They understood each other's thoughts. I can only imagine what it would be like to have such utter companionship."

He looked at her and saw a woman who had been married several years, beginning to face the idea of maturity, the end of dreams and the beginning of the acceptance of reality, and who had newly realized that her own inner loneliness was not necessarily a part of everyone's life. There were those who had found the ideal. Just when she had accepted that it did not exist, and came to terms with it, mere it was, played out in front of her, in her own house, but not for her.

And then the thought of Hester came to him with startling vividness, the sense of trust he knew towards her. She was opinionated and abrasive. There was much in her that irritated him like torn skin, catching every touch. The moment he thought it was healed, there it was again. But he knew her courage, her compassion and her honesty better than he knew his own. He also knew, with a sense of both anger and infinite value, that she would never intentionally hurt him. He did not want anything so precious. He might break it. He might lose it.

But she might hurt him irreparably, beyond her power to help, if she loved Rathbone other than as a friend. That was something he refused to think about.

"Possibly," he said at last. "But it is most important, for reasons Lord Wellborough no doubt explained to you, that we learn the truth of precisely what did happen and find proof of it.

The alternative is to have the investigation of it forced upon us at the trial."

"Yes," she conceded. "I can see that. You have no need to labor the point, Mr. Monk; I have already instructed all the staff to answer your questions. What is it you believe I can tell you? I have been called by the Princess Gisela's solicitors to testify to Countess Rostova's slander."

"Naturally. During their stay here, did Count Lansdorff see Friedrich alone for any length of time?"

"No." It was plain from her face she understood the implication. "Gisela did not allow him to have visitors. He was far too ill."

"I mean before the accident."

"Oh. Yes. They spoke together quite often. They appeared to be healing some of the rift between them. It was rather prickly and uncomfortable to begin with. They had barely spoken in the twelve years since the abdication and Friedrich's leaving the country."

"But they were at least amicable before the accident?"

"They seemed so, yes. Are you saying Rolf asked him to return and he agreed? If he did, it would have been with Gisela, not without." She said it with complete certainty, and at last she moved over to the large sofa and sat down, spreading her huge skirts with automatic grace. "I saw them too closely to be mistaken." She smiled, biting her lip a little. "That may sound overconfident to you, because you are a man. But it is not. I saw her with him. She was a very strong woman, very certain of herself. He adored her. He did nothing without her, and she knew that."

She looked at him, and a shadow of amusement crossed her eyes. "There are dozens of small signs when a woman is uncertain of a man or when she feels she needs to make tiny efforts, listen, be obedient or flattering in order to hold him. She loved him, please do not doubt that for an instant. But she also knew the depth of his love for her, and that she had no cause to question any part of it." She shook her head a little. "Not even duty to his country would have made him leave her. I would even say he needed her. She was very strong, you know. I said that before, didn't I? But she was."

"You say it in the past," he observed, sitting as well.

"Well, his death has robbed her of everything," she pointed out, her blue eyes wide. "She has been in seclusion ever since."

Monk realized with surprise that he did not even know where Gisela was. He had heard nothing about her since Friedrich's death.

"Where is she?" he asked.

"Why, in Venice, of course." She was surprised at his ignorance.

He should have known, but he had been too occupied with learning about the past to think of Gisela as she was now. He wondered who had reported Zorah's slander to her. Not that it was important.

"When he was being nursed here, how was his food prepared?" he asked. "Who brought it to him? I presume he always ate in his rooms?"

"Yes, of course. He was too ill to leave his bed. It was prepared in the kitchen ..."

"By whom?"

"Cook ... Mrs. Bagshot. Gisela never left his side, if that is what you are thinking."

"Who else visited him?"

"The Prince of Wales was here for dinner one evening." In spite of the nature of the conversation, and her fear for her reputation as a hostess and the notoriety that was about to beset her, there was still a lift of pride in her voice when she spoke his name, or perhaps more accurately, his title. "He went up briefly to visit him."

Monk's heart sank. It was another board for Rathbone's professional coffin.

"No one else?" he pressed. Not that it was really relevant. It would have been simple enough, in all probability, to waylay a maid on the stairs and slip something unseen into a dish or a glass. A tray might even have been left on a side table for a few moments, giving someone the opportunity to drop in a distillation of yew. Anyone could have walked in the garden and picked the leaves - except Gisela.

Making the leaves or bark into a usable poison presented rather more difficulty. They would have to be boiled for a long time and the liquid taken off. It could hardly be done in the kitchen, except at night, when all the staff were in their beds, and then the evidence would have to have been completely removed. Finding anything to indicate that someone had been in the kitchen at night, or that a saucepan had been used by someone other than the cook, would be helpful but probably give no indication as to by whom.

Lady Wellborough had already answered him and was waiting for his next question.

"Thank you," he said, rising to his feet. "I think I will speak to the cook and the kitchen staff."

She paled and almost lurched forward, grasping his arm.

"Please do be careful what you say, Mr. Monk! Good cooks are fearfully hard to come by, and they take offense easily. If you imply she was in even the remotest way possible ..."

"I shan't," he assured her. He smiled fleetingly. What a totally different world it was where the loss of a cook could create such anxiety and almost terror. But then he did not know Lord Wellborough, and how Lady Wellborough's happiness depended upon his temper, and how that in turn was dependent upon the good cook's remaining. Perhaps she had cause for her fear.

"I shall not insult her," he promised more decidedly.

And he kept his word. He found Mrs. Bagshot, far from his conception of the average cook, standing at the large, scrubbed, wooden kitchen table with the rolling pin in her hand. She was a tall, thin woman with gray hair screwed back into a tight knot. The orderliness of her kitchen spoke much of her nature. Its warm smells were delicious.

"Well?" she demanded, looking him up and down. "So you think that foreign prince was poisoned in this house, do you?" Her voice already bristled with anger.

"Yes, Mrs. Bagshot, I think it is possible," he replied, looking at her steadily. "I think most likely it was done by one of his own countrymen for political reasons."

"Oh." Already she was somewhat mollified, though still on her guard. "Do you, indeed. And how did they do that, may I ask?"

"I don't know," he admitted, governing his voice and his expression. This was a woman more than ready to take umbrage. "My guess would be by someone adding something to his food as it was taken upstairs to his bedroom."

"Then what are you doing here in my kitchen?" Her chin came up. She had an unarguable point, and she knew it. "It weren't one o' my girls. We don't have no truck wi' foreigners, 'ceptin' as guests, an' we serve all guests alike."

Monk glanced around at the huge room with its spotlessly blacked cooking range, big enough to roast half a sheep and boil enough vegetables or bake enough pies and pastries to feed fifty people at a sitting. Beyond it were rows of copper saucepans hung in order of size, every one shining clean. Dressers held services of crockery. He knew that beyond the kitchen there were sculleries, larders ... one specifically for game; small rooms for the keeping of fish, ice, coal, ashes; a bake house; a lamp room; a room for knives; the entire laundry wing; a pantry; a pastry room; a stillroom and a general storeroom. And that was without trespassing into the butler's domain.

"A very orderly household," he observed. "Everything in its place."

"O' course." She bristled. "I don't know what you're used to, but in a big house like this, if you don' keep order you'd never turn out a dinner party for people what come 'ere."

"I can imagine - "

"No, you can't," she contradicted him with contempt. "No idea, you 'aven't." She swung around to catch sight of a maid. " 'Ere, Nell, you get them six dozen eggs I sent for? We'll need them fer tomorrow. An' the salmon. Where's that fish boy? Don't know what day it is, 'e don't Fool, if ever I saw one. Brought me plaice the other day w'en I asked fer sole! Not got the wits 'e were born with."

"Yes, Mrs. Bagshot," Nell said dutifully. "Six dozen 'en's eggs like you said, an' two dozen duck eggs in the larder. An' I got ten pounds o' new butter an' three o' them cheeses."

"All right then, off with yer about yer business. Don't stand there gawpin' just 'cos we got a stranger in the kitchen. It isn't nothing to do with you!"

"Yes, Mrs. Bagshot!"

"So what is it you want from me, young man?" Mrs. Bagshot looked back at Monk. "I got dinner to get. Put the pheasant in the larder, George. Don't hang 'em in 'ere for 'eaven's sake!"

"Thought you might want to see them, Mrs. Bagshot," George replied.

"What for? Think I never seen a pheasant? Out with yer, before yer get feathers everywhere! Fool," she added under her breath. "Well, get on with it!" she said to Monk. "Don't stand there all day with yer foot in yer mouth. We got work, even if you don't."

"If anyone came into your kitchen at night and used one of your saucepans, would you know about it?" Monk said instantly.

She considered the matter carefully before replying.

"Not if they cleaned it proper and put it back 'zactly where they found it," she said after a moment "But Lizzie'd know if anyone'd stoked the fires. Can't cook nothin' on a cold stove, if cookin's what yer thinkin' of. What you think was cooked, then? Poison?"

"Yew leaves or bark to make a poisonous liquor," he agreed.

"Lizzie!" she shouted.

A dark-haired girl appeared, wiping her hands on her apron.

"How many times have I told you not to do that?" the cook demanded crossly. "Dirty 'ands shows on white! Wipe 'em on yer dress. Gray don't show! Now, I want yer to think back to when that foreign prince was 'ere, him what died when he fell off 'is "orse."

"Yes, Mrs. Bagshot."

"Did anyone stoke up your stove at night, like they might 'ave cooked summink on it, boiled summink? You think real careful."

"Yes, Mrs. Bagshot. Nobody done that. I'd 'a knowed 'cos I know 'zactly 'ow much coals I brung in."

"You sure, now?"

"Yes, Mrs. Bagshot."

"Right. Then get back to them potatoes." She turned to Monk. "Them coals is 'eavy. Takes sticks and coals to light fires, an' yer got to know just 'ow to do it. Isn't a matter o' just pushing it all in an' 'oping. Don't always draw first time, and the damper's 'ard to reckon right if yer in't used to it. There's not a lady nor a gentleman yet what could light a decent fire. And there isn't one born 'oo'H shovel coals nor replace what 'e's used." She smiled grimly. "So your poison weren't cooked in my kitchen."

Monk thanked her and took his leave.

He questioned the other servants carefully, going over and over details. A sharper picture of life at Wellborough Hall emerged than he had seen before. He was amazed at the sheer volume of food cooked and wasted. The richness and the choice awoke in him a sharp disapproval. With bread and potatoes added, it would have fed a middle-sized village. What angered him more was that the men and women who cooked it, served it and cleaned away afterwards, accepted all the waste without apparently giving it thought, much less question or rebellion. It was taken by everyone as a matter of course, not worthy of observation. He had done so himself when he had stayed there before. He had certainly done it in Venice and again in Felzburg.

He also heard from each servant individually of the glamour, the laughter and the excitement of the weeks Prince Friedrich had been staying.

"Terrible tragedy, that was," Nell, the parlormaid, said with a sniff. "Such a beautiful gentleman, he were. Never saw a man with such eyes. An' always lookin' at 'er 'e was. Melt your 'eart, it did. Ever so polite. Please an' thank you for everything, for all 'e were a prince." She blinked. "Not that the Prince o' Wales in't ever so gracious too, o' course," she added quickly. "But Prince Friedrich were ... such ... such a gentleman." She stopped again, realizing she had made it worse rather than better.

"I'm not going to repeat what you say," Monk assured her. "What about the Princess Gisela? Was she as gracious?"

"Oh, yes ... well..." She looked cautiously at him.

"Well?" he prompted. "The truth, please, Nell."

"No, she weren't Actual, she were a right cow. Oh!" She looked mortified. "I shouldn't 'a said that ... the poor lady being bereaved, an' all. I'm terrible sorry, sir. I did'n' mean it."

"Yes you did. In what way was she a cow?"

"Please, sir, I shouldn't never 'ave said that!" she begged. "I daresay where she come from folks are different. An' she is a royal princess, an' all, an' them people in't like us."

"Yes they are," he said angrily. "She's born just the same way you are, naked and screaming for breath - "

"Oh, sir." She gasped. "You shouldn't ought to say things Like that about them as is quality, let alone royal!"

"She's only royal because a petty European prince married her," he said. "And gave up his crown and his duty to do it. What has she ever done in her life that was of use to anyone? What has she made or built? Who has she helped?"

"I dunno what yer mean, sir." She was genuinely confused. "She's a lady."

That, apparently, was sufficient explanation to her. Ladies did not work. They were not expected to do anything except enjoy themselves as they saw fit. It was not only improper, it was meaningless to question that.

"Did the other servants like her?" he asked, changing his approach.

"In't up to us to like nor dislike houseguests, sir. But she weren't no favorite, if that's what you mean."

It seemed a moot point. He did not quibble.

"What about the Countess Rostova?" he asked instead.

"Oh, she were fun, sir. Got a tongue on 'er like a navvy what mends the railways, she 'as, but fair. Always fair, she were."

"Did she like the Princess?"

"I should say not." The idea seemed to amuse her. "Look daggers at each other, them two. Not but what the Princess usually got the best of it, one way or another. Made people laugh, she did. Got a wicked way wi' mocking people. Knew what their weaknesses was and made fun o' them."

"What was the Countess's weakness?"

She did not hesitate. "Oh, 'er fondness for the young Italian gentleman - Barber something."

"Florent Barberini?"

"Yes, that's right. Terrible 'andsome, 'e were, but taken with the Princess, like 'e thought she were something out of a fairy story ... which I suppose she were." For a moment her eyes softened. "Must be wonderful to fall in love like that. I suppose the Prince and Princess'll be remembered through all 'istory - like Lord Nelson and Lady 'Amilton, or Romeo and Juliet - tragic lovers what gave up the world for each other."

"Stuff and nonsense," Lady Wellborough's maid said briskly. "She's bin reading them penny books again. I dunno why the mistress lets 'em into the house. Fill young girls' heads with a lot of silliness. Bein' married in't all gin an' gaspers, like my mother used to say. There's the good an' the bad. Men is real, just like women is. They get sick an' 'ave ter be looked after." She sniffed. "They get tired and bad tempered, they get frightened, they're mortal untidy, half o' them snore enough to wake the dead. And once you're in marriage there in't no getting out of it - no matter what. Them daft young girls wants to think a bit before they go chasin' dreams because they read a silly book. Don't do to teach some o' them reading."

"But surely the Prince and Princess were ideally happy?" Monk pressed, not hoping for a reply of any value, just being argumentative.

They were standing at the stairhead, and below them in the hall a parlormaid giggled and a footman said something under his breath. There was a sound of rapid footsteps.

"I expect so, but they 'ad their quarrels like anyone else," the lady's maid said briskly. "Leastways, she did. Ordered 'im about something chronic when they were alone, an' even sometimes when they wasn't. Not that 'e seemed to mind, though," she added. " 'E'd rather 'ave been sworn at by 'er than treated to sweetness by someone else. I s'pose mat's what bein' in love does to you." She shook her head. "For me, I'd 'ave given a piece o' my mind to anyone who spoke to me like that. An' maybe paid the consequences for it." She smiled ruefully. "Maybe as well fallin' in love in't for the likes o' me."

It was the first Monk had heard of any quarrels, apart from the brief episode of the Verdi performance in Venice, which seemed to have been over almost before it began - with unqualified victory to Gisela, and apparently without rancor on either side.

"What did they quarrel about?" He was unashamedly direct. "Was it to do with returning to Felzburg?"

'To where?" She had no idea what he was talking about.

"Their own country," he explained.

"No, nothing of that sort." She dismissed the idea with a laugh. "Weren't about anything particular. Just plain bad temper. Two people on top of each other all the time. Quarrel about anything and nothing. Couldn't stand it, meself, but then I'm not in love."

"But she didn't flirt or pay attention to anyone else?"

"Her? She flirted something rotten! But never like she meant to be taken up on it. There's a bit o' difference. Everyone knew she were just 'avin' fun. Even the Prince knew that." She looked at Monk with patient contempt. "If you're thinking as she murdered him 'cos she was fancying someone else, that just shows how much you don't know. Weren't nothing like that at all. There's plenty as did. Right high jinks went on here. I could tell you a story or two, but it'd be more 'an my job's worth."

"I would prefer not to know," Monk said sourly, and he meant it.

He questioned the other servants and learned only the same facts as before, corroborated by a dozen other serious and frightened people. Gisela had never left their suite after Friedrich's accident. She had stayed with him, at his side, except for brief respites taken for a bath or a short nap in the nearby bedroom. The maid had always been within earshot. Gisela had ordered his food in meticulous detail, but she had never gone to the kitchen herself.

However, almost everyone else in the house had moved about freely and could have found a dozen opportunities to pass a servant on the stairs carrying a tray and divert the servant's attention long enough to slip something into the food. Friedrich had eaten only beef broth to begin with, then bread and milk and a little egg custard. Gisela had eaten normally, when she had eaten at all. A footman remembered passing Brigitte on the landing when he was carrying a tray. A parlormaid had left a tray for several minutes when Klaus was present. She stared at Monk with dark, frightened eyes as she told him.

It all added to Rathbone's dilemma and Zorah's condemnation. Gisela physically could not be guilty, and nothing Monk had heard altered his conviction that she had no motive.

Nor was there proof beyond doubt that any other specific person had murdered Friedrich, but suspicion pointed an ugly finger at either Brigitte or Klaus. Once Monk would have been satisfied by that for Evelyn's sake; now that hardly mattered. As he left Wellborough to return to London, his thoughts were filled with Rathbone and how he would have to tell Hester that he had failed to find any real answer.