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“The symptoms …” Monk prompted, this time quite softly. Whatever the cause of it, or whoever, he could not help feeling pity for the man whose death he was trying to examine so clinically. All he had heard of him suggested he was a man of courage and character, willing to follow his heart and pay the cost without complaint, a man capable of immense love and sacrifice, perhaps, in the last, a man torn by duty—and murdered for it.
“Coldness,” Gallagher replied. “Clamminess of the skin.” He swallowed; his hands tightened on his lap. “Pains in the abdomen, nausea. I believe that was the site of the bleeding. That was followed by disorientation, a sense of giddiness, numbness in the extremities, sinking into a coma, and finally death. Very precisely, heart failure. In short, sir, the symptoms of internal bleeding.”
“Are there any poisons which produce the same symptoms?” Monk asked, frowning, disliking having to say it.
Gallagher stared at him.
Monk thought of the yew trees at the end of the hornbeam hedge, the stone urn pale against their dark mass. Everyone knew that the needlelike yew leaves were bitterly poisonous. Everyone in the house had access to them; one simply had to take a walk in the garden, the most natural thing in the world to do.
“Are there?” he repeated.
Stephan shifted his weight.
“Yes, of course,” Gallagher said reluctantly. “There are thousands of poisons. But why in heaven’s name should such a woman poison her husband? It makes no conceivable sense!”
“Would the leaves of the yew trees produce such symptoms?” Monk pressed.
Gallagher thought for so long Monk was about to ask him again.
“Yes,” he said at last. “They would.” He was white-faced.
“Exactly those symptoms?” Monk could not let it go.
“Well …” Gallagher hesitated,
his face filled with misery. “Yes … I am not an expert in such matters, but one does occasionally find village children put the leaves in their mouths. And women have been known to—” He stopped for a moment, then continued unhappily. “To use it in an effort to procure an abortion. A young woman died in the next village about eight years ago.”
Stephan shifted his weight again. “But Gisela never left Friedrich’s rooms,” he said quietly. “Even if he was poisoned, she is about the only one in the house who could not possibly have done it. And believe me, if you knew Gisela you would not even entertain the idea of her having someone else provide the poison for her. She would never put herself so fatally in someone else’s power.”
“This is monstrous,” Gallagher said miserably. “I hope you will do everything in your ability to fight such a dreadful shadow and at least clear that poor woman’s name.”
“We will do everything we can to find the truth—and prove it,” Monk promised ambiguously.
Gallagher did not doubt him for a moment. He rose to his feet and clasped Monk’s hand. “Thank you, sir. I am most relieved. And if there is anything further I can do to assist you, you have but to say. And you too, of course, Baron von Emden. Good day to you, gentlemen, good day.”
“That hardly helps us at all,” Stephan said as they climbed into the gig and Monk took the reins. “Perhaps it was yew poison … but it wasn’t Gisela!”
“So it would seem,” Monk agreed. “I am afraid we still have rather a long way to go.”
3
HESTER LATTERLY, about whom Monk and Rathbone had both thought so recently, was unaware of their involvement in the case of Princess Gisela and the Countess Rostova, although she had heard murmurs of the affair in general.
Since her return from nursing in the Crimea with Florence Nightingale, she had held several posts in that profession, mostly private. She had just completed the care of an elderly lady recuperating from a nasty fall, and was presently not engaged. She was delighted to receive a call from her friend and sometimes patroness Lady Callandra Daviot. Callandra was well into her fifties. Her face was full of wit and character, but even her most ardent admirer would not have said she was beautiful. There was too much strength in her, and far too much eccentricity. She had a very agreeable lady’s maid who had years ago given up trying to do anything elegant with Callandra’s hair. If it stayed more or less within its pins, that was victory enough.
On this day she was even untidier than usual, but she swept in with an armful of flowers and an air of excited purpose.
“For you, my dear,” she announced, placing the flowers on the side table in Hester’s small sitting room. There was no purpose in Hester’s renting more spacious accommodation, even could she have afforded it; she was hardly ever there. “Although I hope you will not be here long enough to enjoy them. I simply brought them because they are so lovely.” Callandra sat down on the nearest chair, her skirts crooked, hoops at an angle. She slapped at the skirt absently and it remained where it was.
Hester sat opposite her, listening with attention she did not have to feign. “Thank you anyway,” she said, referring to the flowers.
“There is a case I should be most grateful if you would take. A young man with whom I have a very slight acquaintance. He first introduced himself to me as Robert Oliver, an Anglicism he affected, possibly because he was born in this country and feels utterly at home here. However, his name is actually Ollenheim, and his parents, the Baron and Baroness, are expatriates from Felzburg …”
“Felzburg?” Hester said in surprise.
Callandra’s face suddenly lost all its humor and became filled with profound pity. “Young Robert contracted a very serious illness, a fever which, when the worst of it passed, left him without movement in his lower body and legs. His natural functions are unimpaired, but he is helpless to leave his bed and needs the constant care of a nurse. He has been attended so far by the doctor daily, and his mother, and the household servants, but a professional nurse is required. I took the liberty of suggesting your name for a number of reasons.”
Hester listened in silence, but with growing interest.
