William Monk 07 - Weighed in the Balance

accusation is false, and she knows it as well as we do!”
    *   *   *
    Henry Rathbone had been in court that day, as he had the day before. Oliver visited him in the evening. He had an intense desire to get out of the city and as far away as was practical from the courtroom and all that had happened in it. He rode through the sharp, gusty late autumn evening towards Primrose Hill. The traffic was light, and his hansom made swift progress.
    He arrived a little after nine and found Henry sitting beside a blazing fire and looking at a book on philosophy, upon which he seemed unable to concentrate. He put it down as soon as Oliver entered the room. His face was bleak with concern.
    “Port?” he asked, gesturing towards the bottle on the small table beside his chair. There was only one glass, but there were others in the cabinet by the wall. The curtains were drawn against the rain-spattered night. They were the same brown velvet curtains that had been there for the last twenty years.
    Oliver sat down. “Not yet, thank you,” he declined. “Maybe later.”
    “I was in court today,” Henry said after a few moments. “You don’t need to explain it to me.” He did not ask what Oliver was going to do next.
    “I didn’t see you. I’m sorry.” Oliver stared into the fire. Perhaps he should have taken the Port. He was colder than he had thought. The taste would have been good, its heat going down his throat.
    “I didn’t want to distract you from your task,” Henry replied. “But I thought you might want to talk about it later. Easier if I had been there. It isn’t only what is said, it’s the way people react to it.”
    Oliver looked across at him. “And you are going to tell me that the crowd is with Gisela … the poor bereaved widow. I know. And as far as I can see, they are right. Monk thinks it is political and whoever did it actually intended to kill Gisela, to free Friedrich to return home and lead the party forindependence, but somehow the plan misfired and the wrong person took the poison.”
    “Possibly,” Henry said with a frown puckering his forehead. “I hope you aren’t going to say anything so foolish in court?”
    “I don’t think it’s foolish,” Oliver said immediately. “I think he’s probably right. The Queen hated Gisela with a passion, but she had an equal passion to have Friedrich back, both to lead the party of independence and to marry a wife who would give him an heir to the throne. The other son has no children.”
    Henry looked puzzled. “I thought Friedrich had several sisters.”
    “Doesn’t pass through the female line,” Oliver replied, easing himself a little more comfortably in the chair.
    “Then change it till it does!” Henry said impatiently. “A lot simpler and less dangerous than murdering Gisela and trying to deal with a bereaved Friedrich and put more backbone into him to make him lead a battle which will take all the courage and skill and determination anyone could have. And even then which may be a lost cause. You need a miracle for that, not a man who has just lost the love of his life and who may well be intelligent enough to realize who was responsible for that.”
    Oliver stared at his father speechlessly. He had not thought so far ahead. If they had succeeded in killing Gisela, surely Friedrich would have at the very least been suspicious of them?
    “Maybe it was not the Queen, or Rolf, but some fanatic without the brains to foresee what would happen?” he said hesitantly.
    Henry raised his eyebrows. “And were there many of them at Wellborough Hall with access to the Prince’s food?”
    Oliver did not bother to reply.
    The fire caved in with a shower of sparks, and Henry picked up the tongs and placed several more coals in it, then sat back again.
    “Who will Harvester call tomorrow?” he asked, fishing forhis pipe and putting it absentmindedly into his mouth without even pretending to light it.
    “I don’t know,” Oliver replied, his mind almost numb.
    “Could Gisela be guilty?” Henry pressed. “Is there any way in which it is possible … even supposing she did indeed have motive?”
    “The servants,” Oliver said, answering the earlier question. “Harvester’ll call the household servants from Wellborough Hall. They’ll almost certainly testify that after the accident Gisela never left the suite of rooms they had.”
    “Truthfully?”
    “Yes … I think so.”
    Henry took the pipe out of his mouth. His