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“Slow, but he did not believe his life to be in danger, unless there were injuries that he had not yet determined.”
“How old was Friedrich?”
“Forty-two.”
“And Gisela?”
“Thirty-nine. Why?”
“So he was not a young man, for such a heavy fall.”
“He did not die of his injuries. He was poisoned.”
“How do you know?” For the first time she hesitated.
He waited, looking at her steadily.
After a while she gave a very slight shrug. “If I could prove it, I would have gone to the police. I know it because I know the people. I have known them for years. I have watched the whole pattern unfold. She is performing the desolated widow very well … too well. She is in the center of the stage, and she is loving it.”
“That may be hypocritical and unattractive,” he replied. “But it is not criminal. And even that is still only belief, your perception of her.”
She looked down at last. “I know that, Mr. Monk. I was there in the house all the time. I saw everyone who came and went. I heard them speak and saw their looks towards one another. I have been part of the court circle since my childhood. I know what happened, but I have not a shred of proof. Gisela murdered Friedrich because she was afraid he would hear the voice of duty at last and go home to lead the fight against unification into greater Germany. Waldo would not do it, and there is no one else. He might have thought he could take her, but she knew the Queen would never permit it, even now, on the brink of dissolution or war.”
“Why did she wait for days?” he asked. “Why not kill him immediately? It would have been safer and more readily accepted.”
“There was no need, if he was going to die anyway,” she responded. “And to begin with we all thought he would.”
“Why does the Queen hate her so much?” he probed. He could not imagine a passion so virulent it would overshadow even this crisis. He wondered whether it was the character of the Queen which nurtured it or something in Gisela which fired such a fierce emotion in Friedrich and the Queen—and seemingly in this extraordinary woman in front of him in her vivid, idiosyncratic room with its burnished shawl and unlit candles.
“I don’t know.” There was a slight lift of surprise in her voice, and her eyes seemed to stare far away to some vision of the mind. “I have often wondered, but I have never heard.”
“Have you any idea of the poison you believe Gisela used?”
“No. He died quite suddenly. He became giddy and cold, then went into a coma, so Gisela said. The servants who were in and out said the same. And, of course, the doctor.”
“That could be dozens of things,” he said grimly. “It could perfectly well be bleeding to death from internal injuries.”
“Naturally!” Zorah replied with some asperity. “What would you expect? Something that looked like poison? Gisela is selfish, greedy, vain and cruel, but she is not a fool.” Her face was filled with deep anger and a terrible sense of loss, as if something precious had slipped away through her fingers, even as she watched it and strove desperately to cling on. Her features, which had seemed so beautiful to him when he first came in, were now too strong, her eyes too clever, her mouth pinched hard with pain.
He rose to his feet.
“Thank you for your frank answers, Countess Rostova. I will go back to Mr. Rathbone and consider the next steps to be taken.”
It was only after taking his leave, when he was outside in the sun, that he remembered he had omitted Rathbone’s new title.
“I can’t imagine why you took the case!” he said abruptly to Rathbone when he reported
to him in his office an hour later. The clerks had all gone home, and the dying light was golden in the windows. Outside in the street the traffic was teeming, carriage wheels missing each other by inches, drivers impatient, horses hot and tired and the air sharp with droppings.
Rathbone was already on edge, aware of his own misjudgment.
“Is that your way of saying you feel it is beyond your ability to investigate?” he said coldly.
“If I had meant that, I would have said it,” Monk replied, sitting down unasked. “When did you ever know me to be indirect?”
“You mean tactful?” Rathbone’s eyebrows shot up. “Never. I apologize. It was an unnecessary question. Will you investigate her claim?”
That was more bluntly put than Monk had expected. It caught him a little off guard.
