William Monk 07 - Weighed in the Balance

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 that’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.

9
    L
ATE IN O CTOBER
, the day before the trial began, Rathbone was joined at his club by the Lord Chancellor.
    “Afternoon, Rathbone.” He sank gently into the seat opposite and crossed his legs. Immediately, the steward was at his elbow.
    “Brandy,” the Lord Chancellor said agreeably. “Got some Napoleon brandy, I know. Bring a spot, and for Sir Oliver, too.”
    “Thank you,” Rathbone accepted with surprise—and a little foreboding.
    The Lord Chancellor