Weighed In The Balance Part 2

"But it is you who have to defend yourself. You are the one accused."

"By the law, yes, but she is accused by me, and in order to appear innocent to the world, she will have to prove me a liar." Her expression suggested that hers had been the most reasonable of acts, as should be plain enough to anyone.

"No, she doesn't," he contradicted. "She simply has to prove that you have said these things about her and that they have damaged her. It is you who have the burden of proof as to whether they are true. If you leave any doubt, the case is hers. She does not have to prove them untrue."

"Not in law, Sir Oliver, but before the world, of course she does. Can you see her, or anyone, leaving court with the question still open?"

"I confess it is unlikely, although it is possible. But she will almost certainly counter by attacking you, accusing you of motives of your own for having made the charge in the first place," he warned. "You must be prepared for a very ugly battle which will become as personal to you as you have made it to her. Are you prepared for that?"

She took a deep breath and straightened her thin shoulders.

"Yes, I am."

"Why are you doing this, Countess?" He had to ask. It was bizarre and dangerous. She had a unique and reckless face, but she was not foolish. She might not know the law, but she certainly knew the ways of the world.

Her face was suddenly totally serious, naked of all humor or contention.

"Because she has used a man to his destruction, and that man, for all his folly and self-indulgence, should have been our king. I will not allow the world to see her as one of the great lovers, when she is an ambitious and greedy woman who loves herself before anyone, or anything, else. I hate hypocrisy. If you cannot believe I love justice, perhaps you can believe that?"

"I can believe it, madam," he said without hesitation. "So do I. And so, I profoundly believe, does the average British jury." He meant that with a pa.s.sion and total sincerity.

"Then you will take my case?" she urged. It was a challenge, defying his safety, his correctness, his years of brilliant but always appropriate behavior.

"I will." He accepted without even hesitating. There was the moral point that if the case were to be tried in an English court, then for the reputation both of Gisela, if she was innocent, and, more precious to him, of the law, both sides must be represented by the best counsel possible. Otherwise the issue would never be settled in the public mind. Its ghost would arise again and again.

There was a danger in it, certainly, but of the kind which quickened the blood and made one aware of the infinite value of life.

Zorah had left her card with him. He called upon her in her London rooms the following afternoon, having sent a note in advance to inform her of his intention.

She received him with an enthusiasm most well-bred ladies would have considered unbecoming. But he had long ago learned that people who are facing trial, civil or criminal, frequently wear their fear in ways that might lie outside their usual character. If one looked carefully, it was always a facet of something that was there, perhaps hidden in less stressful times. Fear was the most universal stripper of disguise and the self-protection of contrived att.i.tudes.

"Sir Oliver! I am delighted you have come," she said immediately. "I took the liberty of asking Baron Stephan von Emden to join us. It will save having to send for him, and I am sure you have no time to waste. If you should wish to speak privately, I have another chamber where we may do so." And she turned and led him through a vestibule of rather formal and uninteresting character into a room of so extraordinary a decor he drew in his breath involuntarily. The farther wall was hung with a gigantic shawl woven in russets, Indian reds, bitter chocolate browns and stark black. It had a long, silk fringe which hung in complicated woven knots. There was a silver samovar on an ebony table, and on the floor a series of bearskin rugs, again of warm browns. A red leather couch was swamped in embroidered cushions, each different.

By one of the two tall windows stood a young man with fair brown hair and a charming face, at the moment filled with concern.

"Baron Stephan von Emden," Zorah said almost casually. "Sir Oliver Rathbone."

"How do you do, Sir Oliver." Stephan bowed from the waist and brought his heels together, but almost silently. "I am enormously relieved that you are going to defend the Countess Rostova." The sincerity of this remark was apparent in his face. "It is an extraordinarily difficult situation. Anything I can do to help, I will, gladly."

"Thank you," Rathbone accepted, uncertain if this was merely a show of friendship or if there could be anything whatever the young baron might achieve. Remembering Zorah's own candor, he spoke directly. It was a room in which it was impossible to be halfhearted. One would either be honest, whatever the consequences, or else be appalled and retract entirely. "Do you believe the Princess to be guilty of having murdered her husband?"

Stephan looked startled, then a flash of humor lit his eyes.

Zorah let out her breath in a sigh, possibly of approval.

"I've no idea," Stephan replied, his eyes wide. "But I have no doubt whatever that Zorah believes it, so I expect it is true. I am sure she did not say it either lightly or maliciously."

Rathbone judged he was in his early thirties, probably ten years younger than Zorah, and he wondered what their relationship might be. Why was he prepared to risk his name and reputation supporting a woman who made such a claim? Could it be that he was sure, not only that she was correct, but also that it could be proved? Or had he some more emotional, less rational motive, a love or a hate of someone in this tragedy?

"Your confidence is very a.s.suring," Rathbone said politely. "Your help will be greatly appreciated. What have you in mind?"

If he had expected Stephan to be thrown off balance, he was disappointed. Stephan straightened up from the rather relaxed att.i.tude he had adopted and walked towards the chair in the center of the room. He sat sideways on it and looked at Rathbone intently.

"I thought you might wish to send someone-discreetly, of course-to the Wellboroughs' to ask questions of all the people who were there at the time. Most of them will be there again because of this furor, of course. I can tell you everything I can remember, but I imagine my evidence would be considered biased, and you'll need a great deal more than that." He shrugged his slim shoulders. "Anyway, I don't know anything useful, or I would have told Zorah already. I don't know what to look for. But I do know everyone, and I would vouch for anyone you cared to send. Go with him, if you wish."

Rathbone was surprised. It was a generous offer. He could see nothing in Stephan's hazel-gold eyes but candor and a slight concern.

"Thank you," he accepted. "That might be an excellent idea." He thought of Monk. If anyone could find and retrieve evidence of the truth, good or bad, it would be he. Nor would the magnitude of the case and its possible repercussions frighten him. "Although it may not be sufficient. This will be an extremely difficult case to prove. A great many vested interests lie against us."

Stephan frowned. "Of course." He regarded Rathbone very seriously. "I am most grateful you have the courage, Sir Oliver. Many a lesser man would have balked at trying. I am completely at your service, sir, at any time."

He was so utterly serious Rathbone could only thank him again and turn to Zorah, who was now sitting on the red sofa, leaning back against the arm of it, her body relaxed amid her billowing, tawny skirts, her face tense, her eyes on Rathbone's. She was smiling, but there was no laughter in her, no brilliance or ease.

"We will have other friends," she said in her slightly husky voice. "But very few. People believe what they need to, or what they have committed themselves to. I have enemies, but so has Gisela. There are many old scores to settle, old injuries, old loves and hates. And there are those whose only interest will be in the politics of the future, whether we remain independent or are swallowed up in a greater Germany, and who will win the profits of that battle. You will need to be both brave and clever."

Her remarkable face softened till she looked more than beautiful. There was a radiance in her. "But, then, if I had not believed you to be both, I should not have come to you. We shall give them a great fight, shall we not? No one shall murder a man, and a prince, while we stand by and allow the world to think it an accident. G.o.d, I hate a hypocrite! We shall have honesty. It is worth living and dying for, isn't it?"

"Of course," Rathbone said with absolute conviction.

That evening in the long summer twilight he went out to see his father, who lived to the north of London in Primrose Hill. It took him some time, and he did not hurry. He traveled in an open gig, light and fast, easy to maneuver through the traffic of barouches and landaus as people took the air in the dappled sunlight of tree-lined avenues or made their way home after the heat of a day in the city. He seldom drove, he had not the time, but he enjoyed it when he did. He had a light hand, and the pleasure was well worth the price of the hire from a local stable.

Henry Rathbone had retired from his various mathematical and inventive pursuits. He still occasionally looked through his telescope at the stars, but merely for interest. On this evening, when Oliver arrived he was in his garden, standing on the long lawn looking towards the honeysuckle hedge at the bottom and the apple trees in the orchard beyond. It had been rather a dry season, and he was pondering whether the fruit would swell to an acceptable quality. The sun was still well above the horizon, blazing gold and sending long shadows across the gra.s.s. He was a tall man, taller than his son, square-shouldered and thin. He had a gentle, aquiline face and farsighted blue eyes. He was obliged to remove his spectacles to study anything closely.

"Good evening, Father." Rathbone walked down the lawn to join him. The butler had conducted him through the house and out of the open French doors.

Henry turned with slight surprise. "I wasn't expecting you. I've only got bread and cheese for dinner, and a little rather good pate. Got a decent red wine, though, if you feel like it."

"Thank you," Oliver accepted immediately.

"Bit dry for the fruit," Henry went on, turning back to the trees. "But still got a few strawberries, I think."

"Thank you," Oliver repeated. Now that he was here, he was not quite sure how to begin. "I've taken a slander case."

"Oh. Is your client plaintiff or defendant?" Henry started to amble gently back towards the house, the sun casting long shadows in the gold-green gra.s.s and making the spires of the delphiniums almost luminous.

"Defendant," Oliver replied.

"Who did he slander?"

"She," Oliver corrected. "Princess Gisela of Felzburg."

Henry stopped and turned to face him. "You haven't taken up the Countess Zorah's defense, have you?"

Oliver stopped also. "Yes. She's convinced Gisela killed Friedrich and that it can be proved." He realized as he said it that that was rather an overstatement. It was a belief and a determination. There was still doubt.

Henry was very grave, his brow wrinkled.

"I do hope you are being wise, Oliver. Perhaps you had better tell me more about it, a.s.suming that it is not in confidence?"

"No, not at all. I think she would like it as widely known as possible." He started to walk again up the slight slope towards the French doors and the familiar room with its easy chairs by the fireplace, the pictures and the case full of books.

Henry frowned. "Why? I a.s.sume you have some idea of her reasons for this? Insanity isn't a defense for slander, is it?"

Oliver looked at him for a moment before he was quite sure there was a dry, rather serious humor behind the remark.

"No, of course not. And she won't retract. She is convinced that Princess Gisela murdered Prince Friedrich, and she won't allow the hypocrisy and injustice of it to pa.s.s unchallenged." He took a breath. "Neither will I."

They went up the steps and inside. They did not close the doors; the evening was still warm, and the air smelled sweet from the garden.

"That is what she told you?" Henry asked, going to the hall door and opening it to tell the butler that Oliver would be staying to dinner.

"You doubt it?" Oliver asked, sitting in the second-most comfortable chair.

Henry returned. "I take it with circ.u.mspection." He sat down in the best chair and crossed his legs, but he did not relax. "What do you know of her relationship with Prince Friedrich, for example, before Gisela married him?" he asked, looking gravely at Oliver.

Oliver repeated what Zorah had told him.

"Are you sure that Zorah didn't want to marry Friedrich?"

"Of course she didn't," Oliver said. "She is the last sort of woman to wish to be restricted by the bounds of royal protocol. She has a hunger for freedom, a pa.s.sion for life far too big for ..." He hesitated, aware from the look in his father's eyes that he was betraying himself.

"Perhaps," Henry said thoughtfully. "But it is still possible to resent someone else taking something from you, even if you don't especially want it yourself."

.2.

MONK RECEIVED THE LETTER from Oliver Rathbone with interest. It came with the first post when he had only just finished breakfast. He read it still standing by the table. from Oliver Rathbone with interest. It came with the first post when he had only just finished breakfast. He read it still standing by the table.

Rathbone's cases were always serious ones, frequently involving violent crime, intense emotions, and they tested Monk's abilities to the limit. He liked finding the outer limits of his skill, his imagination, and his mental and physical endurance. He needed to learn about himself far more than most men because a carriage accident three years before had robbed him of every shred of his memory. Except for the flickers, the remnants of light and shadow which danced across his mind, elusively, without warning every now and then, there was nothing. Occasionally those memories were pleasant, like the ones from childhood of his mother, his sister, Beth, and the wild Northumberland coast with its bare sands and infinite horizon. He heard the sound of gulls and saw in his mind's eye the painted wood of fishing boats riding the gray-green water, and smelled the salt wind over the heather.

Other memories were less agreeable: his quarrels with Runcorn, his superior while he was on the police force. He had sudden moments of understanding that Runcorn's resentment of him was in large part provoked by his own arrogance. He had been impatient with Runcorn's slightly slower mind. He had mocked his boss's social ambition, and had used his knowledge of the vulnerability which Runcorn had never been able to hide. Had their roles been reversed, Monk would have hated Runcorn just as much as Runcorn hated him. That was the painful part of it: he disliked so much of what he learned of himself. Of course, there had been good things as well. No one had ever denied he had courage and intelligence, or that he was honest. Sometimes he told the truth as he saw it when it would have been kinder, and certainly wiser, to have kept silence.

He had learned a little of his other relationships, particularly with women. None of them had been very fortunate. He seemed to have fallen in love with women who were softly beautiful, whose loveliness and gentle manners complemented his own strength and, in the end, whose lack of courage and pa.s.sion for life had left him feeling lonelier than before, and disillusioned. Perhaps he had expected the things he valued from the wrong people. The truth was, he knew their relationships only from the cold evidence of facts, of which there were few, and the emotions of memory stirred by the women concerned. Not many of them were kind, and none explained.

With Hester Latterly it was different. He had met her after the accident. He knew every detail of their friendship, if that was the term for it. Sometimes it was almost enmity. He had loathed her to begin with. Even now she frequently angered him with her opinionated manner and her stubborn behavior. There was nothing romantic about her, nothing feminine or appealing. She made no concession to gentleness or to the art of pleasing.

No, that was not entirely true. When there was real pain, fear, grief or guilt, then no one on earth was stronger than Hester, no one braver or more patient. Give the devil her due-there was no one as brave...or as willing to forgive. He valued those qualities more than he could measure. And they also infuriated him. He was so much more attracted to women who were fun, uncritical, charming; who knew when to speak, how to flatter and laugh, how to enjoy themselves; who knew how to be vulnerable in the little things it was so easy to supply, and yet not discard the great things, the sacrifices which cost too much, asked of the fabric of his nature and his dreams.

He stood in his room, which Hester had arranged so as to be more inviting to prospective clients for his services, now that he had acrimoniously departed from the police force. Investigation, so far as he knew, was his only art. He read Rathbone's letter, which was short and lacking in detail.

Dear Monk,I have a new case in which I require some investigation which may be complicated and delicate. The case, when it comes to trial, will be hard fought and most difficult to prove. If you are willing and able to undertake it, please present yourself at my chambers at the soonest possible moment. I shall endeavour to make myself available.Yours, Oliver Rathbone

It was unlike Rathbone to give so little information. He sounded anxious. If the urbane and so very slightly condescending Rathbone was worried, that in itself was sufficient to intrigue Monk. Their relationship was of grudging mutual respect tempered by spasms of antipathy born of an arrogance, an ambition, and an intelligence in common, and temperaments, social background, and professional training entirely different. It was added to by the very specific thing they shared, cases they had fought together and in which they had believed pa.s.sionately, disasters and triumphs; and by a deep regard for Hester Latterly, denied by each of them as anything more than a sincere friendship.Monk smiled to himself and, collecting his jacket, went to the door to find a hansom cab from Fitzroy Street, where he lodged, to Vere Street and Rathbone's offices.

Monk, duly engaged by Rathbone, went to the Countess's apartments off Piccadilly just before four o'clock in the afternoon. He thought it a likely time to find her at home. And if she were not there, then she would almost certainly return in time to change for dinner-if she still continued to go out for dinner after having publicly made such a startling accusation. She would hardly be on most people's guest lists anymore.

The door was opened by a maid he a.s.sumed to be French. She was small and dark and very pretty, and he remembered from somewhere that fashionable ladies who could afford it had French maids. Certainly this girl spoke with a decided accent.

"Good afternoon, sir."

"Good afternoon." Monk did not feel it necessary to try to win anyone's liking. The Countess was the person in need of help, if she had not already placed herself beyond it. "My name is William Monk. Sir Oliver Rathbone"-he recalled the "sir" only just in time to include it-"asked me to call upon the Countess Rostova to see if I could be of a.s.sistance."

The maid smiled at him. She really was very pretty indeed.

"But of course. Please come in." She opened the door wider and held it while he pa.s.sed her and walked into a s.p.a.cious but unremarkable vestibule. There was a large urn of daisies of some sort on a jardiniere. He could smell the rich summery aroma of them. She closed the door, then led him straight into a farther room and invited him to wait while she summoned her mistress.

He stood and stared around him. The room was utterly alien to his taste or experience, and yet he did not feel uncomfortable. He wondered what Rathbone had made of it. It obviously belonged to someone who did not give a fig for convention. He walked over to look more closely at the ebony-fronted bookcase. The books inside were in several languages: German, French, Russian and English. There were novels, poetry, accounts of travels, and some philosophy. He took out one or two and saw that they all opened quite easily, as if they had been well handled. They were not there for effect, but because someone liked to read them.

The Countess seemed in no hurry. He was disappointed. She was going to be one of those women who kept a man waiting in order to feel some kind of mastery of the situation.

He swung around towards the room and was startled to see her standing in the doorway, absolutely still, watching him. Rathbone had not said that she was beautiful, which was an extraordinary omission. Monk did not know why, but he had imagined someone plain. She had dark hair, tied very loosely. She was of roughly average height, and had no figure to speak of, but her face was extraordinary. She had long, slightly slanted eyes of golden green above wide cheekbones. It was not so much a thing of form or color which made her so arresting as the laughter and the intelligence in her-and the sheer vibrancy of her character. She made anyone else seem slow and apathetic. He did not even notice what she was wearing; it could have been anything, fashionable or not.

She was looking at him with curiosity. She still did not move from the doorway.

"So you are the man who is going to a.s.sist Sir Oliver." She was on the brink of smiling, as if he interested and amused her. "You are not what I expected."

"Which, no doubt, I should take as a compliment," he said dryly.

This time she did laugh, a rich, slightly husky sound full of pleasure. She came in and walked easily over to the chair opposite where he stood.

"You should," she agreed. "Please sit down, Mr. Monk, unless standing makes you feel more comfortable?" She sank, in a single, graceful movement, onto the chair and sat, straight-backed, her feet sideways, staring at him. She managed her skirt as if it were only the slightest hindrance to her. "What do you wish to know from me?"

He had considered this carefully on his way over. He did not wish for emotions, opinions, convictions as to other people's motives or beliefs. There might be a time for that later, as indications of which way to look for something or how to interpret ambiguous information. From what Rathbone had told him, he had expected someone far less intelligent, but all the same he would proceed with his original plan.

He sat down on the leather-covered sofa and relaxed as if he were utterly comfortable too.

"Tell me what happened from the first incident or occasion you believe relevant. I want only what you saw or heard. Anything that you suppose or deduce can wait until later. If you say you know something, I shall expect you to be able to prove it." He watched her carefully to see irritation and surprise in her face, and did not find it.

She folded her hands, like a good schoolgirl, and began.

"We all dined together. It was an excellent party. Gisela was in good spirits and regaled us with anecdotes of life in Venice, which is where they live most of the time. The exile court is there, in so much as it is anywhere at all. Klaus von Seidlitz kept turning the conversation to politics, but we all find that a bore and no one listened to him, least of all Gisela. She made one or two rather cutting remarks about him. I can't remember now what she said, but we all thought it was funny, except Klaus himself, of course. No one likes being the b.u.t.t of a joke, especially a truly amusing one."

Monk was watching her with interest. He was tempted to let his imagination wander and think what kind of woman she was when not pressed by circ.u.mstances of death, anger and a lawsuit which could ruin her. Why on earth had she chosen to speak out about her suspicions? Had she no idea what it would cost her? Was she such a fanatic patriot? Or had she once loved Friedrich herself? What consuming pa.s.sion lay behind her words?

She was talking about the following day now.

"It was mid-morning." She looked at him curiously, aware he was only half listening. "We were to have a picnic luncheon. The servants were bringing everything in the pony trap. Gisela and Evelyn were coming in a gig."

"Who is Evelyn?" he interrupted.

"Klaus von Seidlitz's wife," Zorah replied. "She doesn't ride either."

"Gisela doesn't ride?"

Amus.e.m.e.nt flickered over her face. "No. Did Sir Oliver not tell you that? There is no question of the accident's being deliberate, you know. She would never do anything so bold or so extremely risky. Not many people die in riding falls. One is far more likely to break a leg, or even one's back. The last thing she wanted was a cripple!"