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“I thought not. Be so good as to oblige me and I shall write to him, and he can decide as he will.”
The pen and paper were forthcoming, and she wrote a brief note:
My dear Mr. Pendreigh,
I am about to dispatch William Monk to Vienna to trace all possible leads in the matter which concerns us both. This must be done with the greatest haste, for reasons you will appreciate as well as I.
Unfortunately, I have no friends in that city, and am therefore unable to call upon assistance for him myself. Therefore, if you have any advice or practical help to offer, I should be most profoundly grateful for it. I am in the outer room of your offices, and await your reply, in order to carry it to Monk before he departs tonight.
Yours most sincerely,
Callandra Daviot
The response was immediate. A very startled footman returned and conducted her to the study, where Pendreigh rose to his feet, coming around the desk to greet her. He had obviously dismissed another matter in order to see her again. There were papers all over his magnificent walnut desk. The room smelled of cigar smoke, almost dizzying Callandra with old memories of her husband and his friends, long evenings of argument and conversation, talk of war and medicine and the lunacy of politicians.
But that was the past. The present crowded in, dismissing everything else.
“So, Monk has agreed to go to Vienna?” he said eagerly. “That is the best news I have heard in. . days! I am loath to think it could be Niemann, but what other explanation is there? Runcorn assures me it is not debt,” he said, glossing over the euphemism. “And since apparently it cannot be Allardyce, it seems the only explanation left.” His face was tense, his eyes hot blue, as if emotions burned behind them he could neither hide nor share, but they seemed to consume him from within. “Lady Callandra, my daughter was an extraordinary woman.” His voice shook a little. “If Monk can learn the details of her time in Vienna, of those who loved her, and perhaps envied her, he may well find the key to what happened in Acton Street. She was a woman of the kind of brilliance, a fire that arouses-”
“He will need help.” She cut across his emotions gently, and only because time did not allow them. “Someone who knows the city and can interpret for him so that he can find the people he needs and ask what he has to in language precise and subtle enough for the answers to have meaning.”
“Yes, yes, of course,” he agreed with slight self-consciousness for his emotion. “Naturally. I shall write to the British ambassador. He is a friend of mine, not close, but we have done each other favors in the past. He will not hesitate to provide someone to assist. I daresay he will have friends who were there thirteen years ago and will be familiar with the circumstances of the uprising. Monk will not find it difficult. Elissa will never be forgotten.” His eyes shone, and for a moment the last few weeks were washed away. His voice was soft. “If he could bring back an account of how she was then, of her courage, her love of the people and how she inspired them to fight, to sacrifice anything for the cause of freedom, that may explain Niemann’s behavior.”
He blinked rapidly. “Tell Monk to find someone who will describe the fighting at the barricades, the camaraderie of danger, how they lived, their passions and loyalties. Make the court here see what she was truly like; it will be the best epitaph for her. She deserves that.” His voice cracked and he looked away. “Not the woman they will try to present who owed money to sordid little men who never knew anything of her as she really was, men who never had a cause to fight for but their own greed.”
He raised his eyes to look at her fully, intensely. “Bring back something that will make them understand how a man could lose his senses over her so that he never forgot her, even thirteen years later, when she was married to his friend, and how he could still feel for her so overwhelmingly that he lost all judgment and morality, so that her rejection of him made him feel as if his whole life were slipping out of his grasp. She was unique, irreplaceable by anyone else.” He stopped abruptly, recalling himself to the present only with the severest effort of will. His hands were trembling. He took a deep breath and steadied his voice. “I wish I could go myself, see the places, speak to the people, but I must stay here and prepare the case. I have been advised that it will be very soon. The Crown believe that they have all the evidence they require to proceed.”
He lifted one shoulder very slightly, barely a shrug. “I. . I hardly know where to begin. Kristian is a fine man, but opinionated. He has made many enemies among those in power in the hospital authorities, and very few friends. Those he has served are the poor and the sick, and in many cases, I’m afraid, those already dead. No doubt they would swear he had the patience of a saint and limitless compassion, but they are beyond our reach.”
He stared at her steadily. “Impress upon Monk the utmost importance of his errand, Lady Callandra. And please permit me to assist in the cost of it.” He returned to the desk and opened one of the drawers. He produced several gold coins and a treasury note. He held them all out. “I shall transfer to your bank a hundred pounds, but in the meantime, take this for his immediate needs, with my deepest gratitude.”
She did not require it-her own funds were ample, and she would have given everything she possessed to defend Kristian-but she sensed his need to give as well, and she accepted it.
He returned to the desk and sat down, pulling pen and paper towards him to begin to write in a large, generous scrawl.
She waited, with the first lift of hope she had felt in days. Perhaps in Vienna, Monk would find the truth and prove Kristian’s innocence. Afterwards, when Kristian was free, she would bear the confusion of discovering Elissa Beck was a heroine, brave and beautiful, funny and kind.
“Thank you,” she said, taking the letter when it was finished. “Thank you very much.”
Monk went to see Kristian in prison to learn from him any information at all which might help, no matter how painful or how irrelevant it might seem.
He was not surprised to see him looking haggard, almost shrunken, as if the shock of Elissa’s murder and his own arrest had drained the heart out of him, and even something of the physical substance. Monk had seen it before in other men.
“I’m going to Vienna,” he said quickly, knowing they had only minutes. “I need all the help you can give me.”
Kristian shook his head. “I can’t believe Max would have killed her,” he said quietly. “Quarreled, perhaps, lost his temper with her for what she was doing, that she was. . wasting herself.” The pain in his voice was like a razor edge. “And even what she was costing me, and the work I believe in. But he wouldn’t have hurt her!”
It was brutal to discuss it, but neither of them could afford to be gentle at the expense of reality.
“He came over here to see Elissa. . not you,” Monk said. “Several times.” He saw Kristian wince, and noted the confusion in his face.
Kristian shook his head. “He wouldn’t have hurt her,” he repeated, his voice hoarse.
“Her neck was broken in one movement,” Monk reminded him. “It was probably like this.” He put his arm in front of him, as if he were holding one hand over someone’s mouth, and crushing that person’s body to his chest with the other. He made a swift movement. “As if they had struggled and he had tried to hold her, wrenching around, perhaps one foot on hers.”
Kristian shuddered, and his mouth pulled strangely twisted.
“He probably didn’t mean to kill her,” Monk went on. “Perhaps only to stop her from crying out.”
