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“No. There is no one you can ask, because no one else knows of it, and I cannot speak of it any further. I am sorry.” He lifted his chin a little. “But if you imagine it has to do with Elissa’s death, I believe you are wrong. I alone know what happened, and I have told no one.” A little smile touched his lips. “Nor does anyone else ever come to me with guesses, such as you have.”
Monk waited.
Geissner leaned forward a little. “Kristian’s guilt was for himself. He did not hold anyone else responsible. He understood not only what he had done in sending Hanna, but why. They did not. The difference was one of understanding, and he did not expect it of Elissa or of Max.” He looked at Monk with intensity. “One does not have to imagine people perfect in order to love them, Mr. Monk. Love acknowledges faults, weaknesses, even the need now and again for forgiveness where there is no repentance and no understanding of fault. We learn at different speeds. Elissa had many strengths, many virtues, and she was unflinchingly brave. I think she was the bravest woman I ever knew. I am truly sorry she is dead, but I cannot believe Kristian killed her, unless he has changed beyond all recognition from the man I knew.”
“I think he has,” Monk said slowly. “But to someone even less likely to have killed anyone at all. . even a soldier of the Hapsburg army.”
“That does not surprise me.”
“What about Max Niemann?”
“Max? He was in love with Elissa. I am not telling you anything that is a confidence. It was no secret then, or now. He never married. I think no one could take her place in his mind. No other woman could be as brave, as beautiful, or as passionate in her ideals. She was so intensely alive that beside her anyone else would seem gray.”
“Did Hanna Jakob have family?”
Geissner looked surprised. “You think one of them might have traveled to London after all these years and exacted some kind of revenge?”
“I’m looking for anything,” Monk admitted.
“Her parents still live here, in Leopoldstadt. On Heinestrasse, I believe. You could ask.”
“Thank you.” Monk rose to his feet. “Thank you for your frankness, Father Geissner.”
Geissner stood also. “If there is anything I can do to help Kristian, please let me know. I shall pray for him, and say a mass for Elissa’s soul, and her abiding peace at last. There will be many who revere her memory and would wish to come. Godspeed to you, Herr Monk.”
Monk went out into the street, deep in troubled and painful thought.
In London, the trial of Kristian Beck continued, each day seeming worse than the last, and more damning. Mills was spending less time with his witnesses for the prosecution, sensing that Pendreigh was desperate to stretch out the evidence.
Sitting in the seats reserved for the general public, not daring to look at Callandra in case she should read her growing sense of despair, Hester tried to tell herself that that was ridiculous. Mills could not know that Monk was in Vienna. He was amply experienced and intelligent enough to have read the signs that the defense had no case, no disproof, not even a serious doubt to raise that any jury would be obliged to consider. One did not need any more than observation of human nature to know that; an eye to see Pendreigh’s face, the concentration, the slightly exaggerated gestures as he strove to keep the jury’s attention, the increasing sharpness in his voice as his questions grew longer and more abstruse.
Mills had already called all the police and medical evidence, and Pendreigh had argued anything that was even remotely debatable, and several things that were not. Mills had called witnesses who said that Kristian had originally told the police he had been with patients at the time that Elissa and Sarah had been killed, then more witnesses to prove that he had lied.
Pendreigh had tried to show that it was an error, the mistake of a man hurrying from one sick person to another, preoccupied with suffering and the need to alleviate it.
Hester had looked at the faces of the jurors. For a moment she convinced herself she saw genuine doubt. She looked up to Kristian. He was so pale he appeared ghostly. Even the full curve of his cheek, the sensuous line of his lips, could not give his face life. He may have known that what Pendreigh said was true, but there was no hope in his eyes that the jury would believe it.
She could not look at Callandra. Perhaps it was cowardly of her, possibly it was a discretion not to intrude on what must be a double agony. No matter what courage she had, she could not deny the possibility-the probability-that Kristian would be found guilty, unless Monk returned with a miracle. Did she also now begin to wonder in her shivering, darkest fears if perhaps he was? Who could say what emotions had filled Kristian when he was faced with ruin, not only personally, but of all the good he could do for those who suffered poverty and disease, pain, loneliness and bereavement? He had done so much, and it would all come to an end if he were ruined by debt.
Of course, killing Elissa was no sensible solution. He could not ever, in a sane, rational moment, have thought it was. But in the heat of desperation, knowing what she was doing, perhaps being told of a new and even more crippling loss, that the gamblers were after her and perhaps even the house would have to go, maybe he had finally lost control, and
his violent, revolutionary past had swept back to him. One quick grasp, a twist of the arms, and her neck was broken.
And then Sarah the same?
No! Nothing made that understandable. She shivered convulsively, even though in the press of bodies the courtroom was warm. Kristian could surely never have done that!
Pendreigh’s voice filled her ears as he called yet another witness as to Kristian’s character, and the jury were already bored. They knew he was a good doctor. They had heard a dozen witnesses say so, and they had believed them. It was irrelevant. The defense was fumbling, and they saw it. It was in the air like the echo of a sound just died away.
Hester sat through day after day longing for Monk to return, wondering what he was doing, even if he was safe. She tried to imagine where he was, what kind of rooms he had, if he was well cared for, if he was cold or ill-fed, if Callandra had given him sufficient money. It was all only a way of avoiding thinking about the real issue: what he was learning about Kristian. Even the loneliness of missing him with an almost physical pain was better than the fear and the bitter disillusion, the inability to offer any help at all.
She tried not to turn and stare up at the dock, and felt intrusive. What would Kristian see in her face if he looked? Doubt. Fear for him, and for Callandra. She was terrified of the hurt Callandra would feel if he were found guilty. Would she go on believing in his innocence, make herself believe it no matter what happened? Or would she finally yield and accept that he could have been guilty, with all the terrible shattering of faith that that would bring?
Then would she ever be the same again? Or would something inside her be broken, some hope, an ability to trust not only people, but life itself?
Hester sat on the hard seat, pressed in on either side by the curious and critical, aware of their breathing, of their slight movement, the creak of corsets and faint rustle of fabric, the smell of damp wool and the sweat of tension and excitement.
She looked across at Callandra and saw the exhaustion in her face. Her skin was papery and without any color, gray, almost as if it were dirty. The lines between nose and mouth were deeply etched. As almost always, her hair was escaping its pins. She looked every day of her years.
