William Monk 07 - Weighed in the Balance

clamber into hansoms, shouting the names of their newspapers and demanding to be taken there immediately. No one any longer knew what to think. Who was innocent? Who was guilty?
    Rathbone took Zorah by the arm and hurried her, half pushing her bodily, past the front row of public seats, towards the door and out into the corridor. Then he paced as rapidly as he could towards a private room and a discreet exit. Only afterwards was he surprised that she could keep up with him.
    He expected her to be exultant, but when he turned to face her he saw only a calm, guarded courage. He was confused.
    “Is this not what you thought?” he said, then instantly wished he had not, but it was too late not to go on. “That Friedrich was invited home on condition he left her behind, and she was so afraid he would take the offer, she killed him rather than be put aside? It does begin to look conceivable thatsomeone in her sympathy may have done it for her. Or that she may have connived with someone, each for his own purpose.”
    Her eyes filled with black humor, part self-mockery, part anger, part derision.
    “Gisela and Klaus?” she said contemptuously. “She to keep her status as one of the world’s great lovers, he to avoid a war and his own financial loss? Never! If I saw it with my own eyes I still wouldn’t believe it.”
    He was dumbfounded. She was impossible.
    “Then you have nothing!” He was almost shouting. “Klaus alone? Because she didn’t do it … that has been proved! Is that what you want … or are you trying to bring down the Queen for murder?”
    She burst into laughter, rich, deep-throated and totally sincere.
    He could happily have hit her, were such a thing even thinkable.
    “No,” she said, controlling herself with difficulty. “No, I do not want to bring down the Queen. Nor could I. She didn’t have anything to do with it. If she wanted Gisela dead she would have done it years ago, and done it more efficiently than this! Not that I think she mourns Friedrich’s death as she might have thirteen or fourteen years ago. I think in her mind he has been dead since he chose Gisela before his duty and his people.”
    “Count Lansdorff?” he asked.
    “No. I like you, Sir Oliver.” She seemed to say it simply because it occurred to her. “She killed him,” she went on. “Gisela killed him.”
    “No, she didn’t!” He was totally exasperated with her. “She is the only person who could not have. Haven’t you listened to the evidence at all?”
    “Yes,” she assured him. “I just don’t believe it.”
    And he could achieve nothing more with her. He gave up, and went home in a furious temper.
    *   *   *
    In the morning, Count Rolf Lansdorff took the stand. He did so grimly, but without protest. To show his displeasure would have been beneath the dignity of a man who was not only a soldier and a statesman, but brother to the most formidable queen in the German states, if not in Europe. Looking at him as he stood upright, head high, shoulders back, eyes level and direct, one was not likely to mistake him.
    “Count Lansdorff,” Rathbone began with the utmost politeness. The man was already an enemy, simply by the act of Rathbone’s having called him to stand witness and be questioned like a common man. He did not know whether it was a mitigating circumstance, or one which added to the offense, that it had not happened in the Count’s own country. It was not the law which had compelled him to be here, but the necessity of answering public opinion, of defending himself, and then his dynasty, before the bar of Europe’s history.
    Rolf was listening.
    “Mr. Barberini has told us that while you were at Wellborough Hall this spring you met a number of times with the late Prince Friedrich,” Rathbone began again, “in order to discuss the possibility of his returning to his country to lead a fight to retain independence, rather than be swallowed up in a unified Germany. Is this substantially correct?”
    Rolf’s muscles tightened even more until he was standing rigid, like a soldier on parade in front of a general.
    “It is …” he conceded. “Substantially.”
    “Are there details in which it is … inadequate or misleading?” Rathbone kept his tone almost casual.
    There was not a sound in the room.
    He turned and took a step or two, as though thinking.
    Gisela sat with an expressionless face. Rathbone was startled how strong it was in repose, how pronounced the bones.