by Anne Perry
“Don’t be stupid!” Monk said angrily. “If they’d thought of poisoning someone before they came, they’d have brought the poison with them, not a saucepan to boil it. That’s idiotic!”
“Are we sure it’s a crime of impulse?” Rathbone asked no one in particular. “Could Rolf not have made provision to get rid of Gisela if Friedrich would not agree to his terms?”
“Possibly …” Monk conceded.
“Then he’s an incompetent,” Hester said with disgust. “And that would be idiotic. Why kill Gisela when he didn’t even know if Friedrich was going to recover or what his answer would be? He would have waited.”
“We’ve only Rolf’s word he hadn’t answered,” Monk pointed out. “Perhaps he did refuse.”
Hester started to think aloud. “Perhaps he already had someone else to take his place? And he needed Friedrich more as a martyr than as a prince who refused to come home?”
Again both men stared at her, but this time with dawning incredulity and then amazement.
“You could be right,” Monk said, his eyes wide. “That could be!” He turned to Rathbone. “Who else would he choose? With the natural heir gone, who is next? A political hero? A figurehead who has everyone’s love? Barberini? Brigitte?”
“Maybe … yes, maybe either of those. With their knowledge, do you think?” He put his hands up and ran them through his hair. “Oh, damn! That takes us right back to Zorah Rostova! I’d swear she would have the nerve to do that if she thought it right for her country … and then try to see Gisela hanged for it!”
Monk jammed his hands into his pockets and looked miserable. For once he refrained from telling Rathbone his opinion of having accepted such a client. In fact, from the set of his face, Monk looked to Hester as if he had even resisted making the judgment in his mind. His expression was one of trouble, even of pity.
“What does Zorah say herself?” she asked. “I haven’t even met her. It is strange to be talking about someone so central to everything when I have never spoken to her, or seen her face except fleetingly, as she turned around, and at a distance of at least twenty feet. And of course I’ve never spoken to Gisela either. I feel as if I know nothing about the people in this case.”
Monk laughed abruptly. “I’m beginning to think none of us do.”
“I’m going to leave personal judgments and try to apply my intelligence to reasoning it through.” Rathbone reached for the poker and prodded the fire. It settled with a crackle, and he carefully placed a few more coals onto it, using the brass fire tongs. “My judgments of people in this case do not seem to have been very perceptive.” He colored very slightly. “I really believed in the beginning that Zorah was right and that somehow or other Gisela had poisoned him.”
Monk sat down opposite Rathbone, leaning forward, elbows on his knees. “Let us consider what we know beyond question to be true and what we can deduce from it. Maybe we have been assuming things we should not have. Reduce to the unarguable, and let us start again from there.”
Rathbone responded obediently. It was another mark of his despair that he did not resent Monk’s giving him orders. “Friedrich fell and was injured very seriously,” he said. “He was treated by Gallagher.”
Monk ticked the points off on his fingers as Rathbone outlined them.
“He was cared for by Gisela,” Rathbone went on. “No one else came or went apart from servants—and one visit from the Prince of Wales.”
“He appeared to be recovering,” Monk interposed. “At least, as far as anyone could tell. They must all have thought so.”
“Important,” Rathbone agreed. “It must have seemed as if the plan were viable again.”
“But it wasn’t,” Hester contradicted. “His leg was broken in three places … shattered, Gallagher said. At that point Gisela had already won. He wouldn’t have served the independence party except as a figurehead, and they needed a lot more than that. An invalid, dependent, in pain, easily tired, would be no use to them.”
They both stared at her, then turned slowly to stare at each other.
Rathbone looked beaten. Even Monk looked suddenly exhausted.
“I’m sorry,” Hester said very quietly. “But it’s true. At the time he was killed, the only ones it makes sense should want him dead are the people of the independence party, so that they could legitimately find a new leader.”
They remained in silence for minutes. The fire burned up, and Monk rose and took a step away from it.
“But no one was alone with him, apparently,” he said finally. “The servants were there coming and going. The doors were not locked. Everyone agrees Gisela never left the suite.”
“Then the food was poisoned between the kitchen and the bedroom,” Rathbone said. “We knew that before. It may have been poisoned with yew. We knew that also. It could have been anyone in the house, except for the difficulty of knowing how they prepared it.”
“Unless they brought it with them,” Monk continued. “They might fairly safely assume that a large country house like Wellborough Hall would have a yew tree, either on the grounds or in a nearby churchyard. Unless if Rolf brought it with him, intending to use it if Friedrich refused … and then lay the blame on Gisela?”
“Only it is all going wrong,” Hester said quietly. “Because the court is insisting on having the chain of evidence, and that is going to lead back to Rolf … or Brigitte … or Florent or Zorah … and it could not have been Gisela! He is not nearly as clever, or as thorough, as he supposes.”
They sat in silence for several more minutes, Rathbone staring into the fire, Monk frowning in thought, Hester looking from one to another of them, knowing the fear was only just beneath the surface, as it was in her, tight and sick and very real.
They were engaging their minds in reason, but the knowledge of failure, and its cost, was ready to overwhelm them the moment they let go of that thin, bright light of logic.
“I think I shall go and see Zorah Rostova,” she said, rising to her feet. “I would like to talk to her myself.”
“Feminine intuition?” Monk mocked.
“Curiosity. But if you have both met her, and not had your judgment addled, why shouldn’t I? I can hardly do worse.”
* * *
She found Zorah in her extraordinary room with the shawl pinned on the wall, a roaring fire sending flames halfway up the chimney and reflecting on the blood red of the sofa. The bearskins on the floor looked almost alive.
Zorah remained seated where she was and surveyed Hester with only the slightest interest. “Who did you say you were? You mentioned Sir Oliver’s name to my maid, otherwise I would not have let you in.” She was perfectly candid without intending to be offensive. “I am really not in a disposition to be polite to guests. I have neither the time nor the patience.”
Hester was not put out. In the same circumstances, from what she knew of them, she would have felt the same. She had stood in the dock, where Zorah might yet stand if Rathbone were unsuccessful, which looked frighteningly like an inevitability now.
She looked at Zorah’s highly individual face with its beautiful green eyes too widely spaced, its nose too long and too prominent, its sensitive mouth, delicate lipped. She judged her to be a woman capable of consuming passion, but far too intelligent to allow it to sweep away her perception or her understanding of other people, of law, or of events.
“I said I was a friend of Sir Oliver’s because I am,” Hester answered. “I have known him well for some time.” She met Zorah’s gaze squarely, defying her to question precisely what that might mean.
Zorah looked at her with growing amusement.
“And you are concerned that this case will cause him some professional embarrassment?” she deduced. “Have you come to beg me, for his sake, to recant and say that I was mistaken, Miss Latterly?”
“No, I have not,” Hester replied tartly. “If you would not do it before, I cannot see any reason why you would now. Anyway, it would hardly help things as they are. If
Sir Oliver does not find who killed Friedrich, and prove it, you will be in the dock yourself, sooner or later. Probably sooner.”
She sat down without being invited. “And I can tell you, it is an extremely unpleasant place. You cannot imagine quite how unpleasant until you have been there. You may put a brave face on it, but inside you will be terrified. You are not stupid enough to fail to realize that losing there does not mean a financial loss or a little unpleasantness socially. It means the hangman’s rope.”
Zorah’s face tightened a little. “You don’t mince words, do you, Miss Latterly? Have you come on Sir Oliver’s behalf? What is it you want?” She still regarded her visitor with a faint contempt.
Hester did not know if that contempt was for her plainer, very conventional dress, so much more predictable and less dashing, less individual and certainly less flattering than Zorah’s own. Possibly it was a countess’s contempt for a woman of very moderate breeding who was obliged to earn her own living. If it was the contempt of a woman of courage and adventurous spirit for a woman who stayed at home and busied herself with suitable feminine occupations, she could match Zorah stride for stride any day.
“On the assumption that you are telling the truth, as far as you know it,” Hester responded, “I want you to exercise your intelligence, instead of merely your strength of will, and start trying to work out what happened at Wellborough Hall. Because if we do not succeed in that, it is not only Sir Oliver’s career which will suffer for having made a serious misjudgment in taking on a highly unpopular case, but it will be your life in jeopardy. And what I think may actually be more important to you, it will ruin the reputation and honor of that group of men and women in your country who are prepared to fight for Felzburg’s continued independence. Now, I need your attention. Countess Rostova?”
Slowly Zorah sat up, a look of surprise and dawning disbelief on her face.
“Do you often address people in this fashion, Miss Latterly?”
“I have not recently had occasion to,” Hester admitted. “But in the army I frequently exceeded my authority. Emergencies have that effect. One is forgiven for it afterwards, if one succeeds. If one fails, it is the least of one’s problems.”
“The army …” Zorah blinked.
“In the Crimea. But that is all quite irrelevant to this.” She brushed it away with a gesture of her hand. “If you would be good enough to turn your mind to Wellborough Hall?”
“I think I could like you, Miss Latterly,” Zorah said quite seriously. “You are eccentric. I had no idea Sir Oliver had such interesting friends. He quite goes up in my esteem. I confess, I had thought him rather dry.”
Hester found herself blushing, and was furious.
“Wellborough Hall,” she repeated, like a schoolmistress with a refractory pupil.
Obediently, and with a very tight smile, Zorah began to recount the events from the time of her own arrival. Her tongue was waspish, and at times extremely funny. Then, when she spoke of the accident, her voice changed and all lightness vanished. She looked somber, as if even at the time she had realized that it would lead towards Friedrich’s death.
Abruptly, she called the maid and requested luncheon, without referring to Hester or asking what she might like. She ordered thin toast, Beluga caviar, white wine, and a dish of fresh apples and a variety of cheeses. She glanced once at Hester to see her expression, then, finding satisfaction in it, dispatched the maid to carry out her duties.
She continued her tale.
Every so often Hester stopped her, asking to hear some point in greater detail, a room described, a person’s expression or tone of voice recollected more sharply.
When Hester left late in the afternoon her mind was in turmoil, her brain crowded with impressions and ideas, one in particular which she needed to inquire into in minute detail, and for it she must see an old professional colleague, Dr. John Rainsford. But that would have to wait until tomorrow. It was too late now. It was nearly dark, and she needed to order her thoughts before she presented them to anyone else.
A lot depended upon the judgment she had formed of Zorah. If Zorah was right, then the whole case hung on that one tiny recollection of fact. Hester must verify it.
She returned to Rathbone’s rooms on Sunday evening. She had sent a note by a messenger asking that Monk be there also. She found them both awaiting her, tense, pale-faced and with nerves strained close to the breaking point.
“Well?” Monk demanded before she had even closed the door.
“Did she tell you something?” Rathbone said eagerly, then swallowed the next words with an effort, trying to deny his hope before she could destroy it for him.
“I believe so,” she said very carefully. “I think it may be the answer, but you will have to prove it.” And she told them what she believed.
“Good God!” Rathbone said shakily. He swallowed hard, staring at her. “How … hideous!”
Monk looked at Hester, then at Rathbone, then back to Hester again.
“Do you realize what he is going to have to do to prove that?” he said huskily. “It could ruin him! Even if he succeeds … they’ll never forgive him for it.”
“I know,” she said softly. “I didn’t create the truth, William. I merely believe I may have found it. What would you prefer? Allow it to go by default?”
They both turned to Rathbone.
He looked up at them from where he was sitting. He was very white, but he did not hesitate.
“No. If I serve anything at all, it must be the truth. Sometimes mercy makes a claim, but this is most certainly not one of those times. I shall do all I can. Now tell me this again, carefully. I must know it all before tomorrow.”
She proceeded to repeat it detail by detail, with Monk occasionally interrupting to clarify or reaffirm a point, and Rathbone taking careful notes. They sat until the fire burned low and the wind outside was rising, gusting with blown leaves against the window, and the gas lamps made yellow pools in the room with its browns and golds and burnt sugar colors.
On Monday morning the court was filled and people were crowded fifteen and twenty deep outside, but this time they were silent. Both Zorah and Gisela came in under heavy escort, for their own protection and to avoid the likelihood that an eruption of emotion would turn into violence.
Inside also there was silence. The jurors looked as if they too had slept little and were dreading the necessity of making a decision for which they still could see no unarguable evidence. They were harrowed by emotions, some of them conflicting, shattering their beliefs of a lifetime, the assumptions about the world, and people, upon which their evaluations were based. They were profoundly unhappy and aware of a burden they could not now evade.
Rathbone was quite candidly afraid. He had spent the night awake as much as asleep. He had dozed fitfully, every hour up and pacing, or lain staring at the dark ceiling, trying to order and reorder in his mind the possibilities of what he would say, how he would counter the arguments which would arise, how to defend himself from the emotions he would inevitably awaken, and the anger.
The Lord Chancellor’s warning was as vivid in his mind as if he had heard it yesterday, and he needed no effort to imagine what his reaction would be to what Rathbone must do today. For the first time in twenty years he could see no professional future clearly ahead.
The court had already been called to order. The judge was looking at him, waiting.
“Sir Oliver?” His voice was clear and mild, but Rathbone had learned there was an inflexible will behind the benign face.
He must make his decision now, or the moment would be taken from him.
He rose to his feet, his heart pounding so violently he felt as if they must see his body shake. He had not been as nervous as this the very first time he stood up before a court. But he had been far more arrogant then, less aware of the possibilities of disaster. And he had had immeasurably less to lose.
He cleared his throat and tried to speak with a resonant, confident
tone. His voice was one of his best instruments.
“My lord …” He was obliged to clear his throat again. Damnation! Harvester must know how frightened he was. He had not even begun, and already he had betrayed himself. “My lord, I call the Countess Zorah Rostova to the stand.”
There was a murmur of surprise and anticipation around the gallery, and Harvester looked taken aback but not alarmed. Perhaps he thought Rathbone foolish, or knew he was desperate, probably both.
Zorah rose and walked across the short space of floor to the steps with an oddly elegant stride. And it was a stride, as if she were in open country, not inside a public hall. She moved as if she were in a riding habit rather than a crinoline skirt. She seemed unfeminine compared with the fragility of Gisela, and yet there was nothing masculine about her. As on every day of the trial before, she wore rich autumnal tones, reds and russets which flattered her dark skin but were highly inappropriate to such a somber occasion. Rathbone had failed at the outset to persuade her to look and behave with decorum. There was no point in adopting such a pattern now. No one would believe it.
For an instant, clear as sunlight on ice, she looked at Gisela, and the two women’s eyes met in amazement and hatred; then she faced Rathbone again.
In a steady voice, she swore as to her name and said she would tell the truth and the whole truth.
Rathbone plunged in before he could lose his courage.
“Countess Rostova, we have heard several people’s testimony of the events at Wellborough Hall as they saw them or believed them to be. You have made the most serious charge against Princess Gisela that one person can make against another, that she deliberately murdered her husband while he lay helpless in her care. You have refused to withdraw that charge, even in the face of proceedings against you. Will you please tell the court what you know of the events during that time? Include everything you believe to be relevant to the death of Prince Friedrich, but do not waste your time or the court’s with that which is not.”
