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“How did they do it?” she said aloud.
“Simple enough,” Monk replied impatiently. “Distract the servant carrying the tray. Have the distillation of yew in a small vial or whatever you like. A hip flask would serve. Just pour it into the beef tea, or whatever was on the tray that you know is for either Friedrich or Gisela, depending on which one you mean to poison. He was too ill to have been eating the same food as she did. He had mostly infusions, custards and so on. She ate normally, if not very much. The kitchen staff and the footmen all testify to that.”
“Have you ever tried to make an infusion of leaves or bark?” she asked with a frown.
“No. Why? I know it must have been boiled.” A crease furrowed his brow. “I know the cook says it wasn’t done in the kitchen. It must have been done over a bedroom fire. All the bedrooms have fires, and in spring they will have been lit. Anyone would have had all night to do it in privacy. That’s what must have happened.” His body relaxed again as he concluded. He became aware and moved away a step. “Anyone could have picked the leaves. They all went up and down the yew walk. I did myself. It’s the natural way to go if you want to take the air for any distance.”
“In what?” Hester asked, refusing to be satisfied.
Both men were staring at her.
“Well, if you are going to boil something half the night on your bedroom fire, you have to do it in something,” she explained. “No pans were taken from the kitchen. Do you suppose somebody just happened to bring a saucepan along in their luggage … in case they might need it?”
“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.”
