William Monk 12 - Funeral in Blue

anything about how Callandra would feel, or Hester, about loyalties, or pain, or compromise, but it had already torn dreams apart inside Monk as he walked towards the door, and he could not even imagine the hurt that lay ahead.
    At the front door they looked at each other for only a moment, and then Monk stepped out into the rain.
     
     
    The judge allowed a slight delay for Pendreigh to speak alone to Max Niemann. He had already given the judge notification that he would call Niemann as a witness, in the hope that Monk would be able to bring him back from Vienna. However, he still needed to have a clearer idea of what Niemann could contribute to the defense.
    It was nearly half past ten when, in a hushed and crowded courtroom, Max Niemann walked across the empty space of floor, climbed up the steep steps to the witness stand and swore to his name and that he lived in Vienna.
    Pendreigh stood below him, picked out as in a spotlight by the sudden blaze of sunlight through the high windows above the jury. Every eye in the room was upon one or the other of them.
    “Mr. Niemann,” Pendreigh began. “First let us thank you for coming all the way to London in order to testify in this trial. We greatly appreciate it.” He acknowledged Niemann’s demur, and continued. “How long have you known the accused, Dr. Kristian Beck?”
    “About twenty years,” Niemann replied. “We met as students.”
    “And you were friends?”
    “Yes. Allies during the uprisings in ’48.”
    “You are speaking of the revolutions which swept Europe in that year?”
    “Yes.” A strange expression crossed Niemann’s face, as if the mere mention of the time brought all kinds of memories sweeping back, bitter and sweet. Hester wondered if the jury saw it as clearly as she did. Monk was not permitted in the room because Pendreigh had reserved the right to call him as witness.
    “You fought side by side?” Pendreigh continued.
    “Yes, figuratively, not always literally,” Niemann answered.
    “Most of us in the room”—Pendreigh waved an arm to indicate the crowd—“but principally the jury, have never experienced such a thing. We have not found our government sufficiently oppressive to rise against it. We have not seen barricades in the street, nor had our own armies turned upon us.” His voice was outwardly quite calm, but there was an underlying passion in it, not in the tone, but in the timbre. “Would you tell us what it was like?”
    Mills rose to his feet, his face puckered with assumed confusion. “My lord, while we sympathize with the Austrian people’s desire for greater freedom, and we regret that they did not succeed in their aim, I do not see the relevance of Mr. Niemann’s recollections to the murder of Mrs. Beck in London this year. We concede that the accused was involved, and that he fought with courage. Nor do we doubt that Mr. Niemann was his friend, and still is, and is prepared to put himself to considerable trouble and expense to attempt to rescue him from his present predicament. Old loyalties die hard, which is in many ways admirable.”
    The judge looked at Pendreigh enquiringly.
    “Mr. Niemann has a long friendship with the accused
and
the deceased, my lord,” Pendreigh explained. “He can tell us much of their feelings for one another. But he was also in London at the time of the murder, and was in Swinton Street immediately before that event—” He was interrupted by a buzz of amazement from the crowd, and the rustle and creak of two hundred people shifting position, sitting more upright, even craning forward.
    “Indeed?” the judge said with some surprise. “Then proceed. But do not drag it out with irrelevancies, Mr. Pendreigh. I have already given you a great deal of latitude in that direction.”
    “Thank you, my lord.” Pendreigh bowed very slightly and turned to Niemann again. “Can you tell us, as briefly as possible without sacrificing truth, the parts each of them played in the uprising, and their relationship to each other?”
    “I can try,” Niemann said thoughtfully. “They were not married then, of course. Elissa was a widow. She was English, but she fought for the Austrian cause with a passion I think greater than many of us who were native had.” His voice was soft as he spoke, and both the tenderness and the admiration he felt were apparent. “She was tireless, always encouraging others, trying to think of new ways to confront the authorities and draw the sympathy