Weighed in the Balance (30 page)

“Unfortunately, terrible things sometimes do happen, Lady Wellborough,” he replied almost without emotion. “There was a great deal at stake in his returning to his own country. Perhaps you were not aware how much.”

“I didn’t know he was going to return,” she said, staring at him. “Nobody said anything about it to me.”

“It was probably still secret, if it was finally decided at all. It may have been only on the brink of decision.”

She still looked anxious and a little confused.

“And you think someone murdered him to prevent him going home? I thought he couldn’t anyway, after he deliberately abdicated. After ail, he chose Gisela instead of the crown. Is that not what it was all about?” She shook her head and gave a little shrug, still standing in the middle of the floor, refusing or unable to be comfortable, as if it might prolong an interview in which she was unhappy.

“I really can’t believe he would have returned without her,
Mr. Monk, even to save his country from unification into a greater Germany, which people say will almost certainly happen one day anyway. If you had seen them here you wouldn’t even have had such an idea.” Her voice dismissed it as ridiculous; there was even regret in it and a note of envy. “I’ve never known two people to love each other so much. Sometimes it was almost as if they spoke with one voice.” Her blue eyes were focused on something beyond his head. “She would finish what he was saying, or he would finish for her. They understood each other’s thoughts. I can only imagine what it would be like to have such utter companionship.”

He looked at her and saw a woman who had been married several years, beginning to face the idea of maturity, the end of dreams and the beginning of the acceptance of reality, and who had newly realized that her own inner loneliness was not necessarily a part of everyone’s life. There were those who had found the ideal. Just when she had accepted that it did not exist, and came to terms with it, there it was, played out in front of her, in her own house, but not for her.

And then the thought of Hester came to him with startling vividness, the sense of trust he knew towards her. She was opinionated and abrasive. There was much in her that irritated him like torn skin, catching every touch. The moment he thought it was healed, there it was again. But he knew her courage, her compassion and her honesty better than he knew his own. He also knew, with a sense of both anger and infinite value, that she would never intentionally hurt him. He did not want anything so precious. He might break it. He might lose it.

But she might hurt him irreparably, beyond her power to help, if she loved Rathbone other than as a friend. That was something he refused to think about.

“Possibly,” he said at last. “But it is most important, for reasons Lord Wellborough no doubt explained to you, that we learn the truth of precisely what did happen and find proof of it.
The alternative is to have the investigation of it forced upon us at the trial.”

“Yes,” she conceded. “I can see that. You have no need to labor the point, Mr. Monk; I have already instructed all the staff to answer your questions. What is it you believe I can tell you? I have been called by the Princess Gisela’s solicitors to testify to Countess Rostova’s slander.”

“Naturally. During their stay here, did Count Lansdorff see Friedrich alone for any length of time?”

“No.” It was plain from her face she understood the implication. “Gisela did not allow him to have visitors. He was far too ill.”

“I mean before the accident.”

“Oh. Yes. They spoke together quite often. They appeared to be healing some of the rift between them. It was rather prickly and uncomfortable to begin with. They had barely spoken in the twelve years since the abdication and Friedrich’s leaving the country.”

“But they were at least amicable before the accident?”

“They seemed so, yes. Are you saying Rolf asked him to return and he agreed? If he did, it would have been with Gisela, not without.” She said it with complete certainty, and at last she moved over to the large sofa and sat down, spreading her huge skirts with automatic grace. “I saw them too closely to be mistaken.” She smiled, biting her lip a little. “That may sound overconfident to you, because you are a man. But it is not. I saw her with him. She was a very strong woman, very certain of herself. He adored her. He did nothing without her, and she knew that.”

She looked at him, and a shadow of amusement crossed her eyes. “There are dozens of small signs when a woman is uncertain of a man or when she feels she needs to make tiny efforts, listen, be obedient or flattering in order to hold him. She loved him, please do not doubt that for an instant. But she also knew the depth of his love for her, and that she had no
cause to question any part of it.” She shook her head a little. “Not even duty to his country would have made him leave her. I would even say he needed her. She was very strong, you know. I said that before, didn’t I? But she was.”

“You say it in the past,” he observed, sitting as well.

“Well, his death has robbed her of everything,” she pointed out, her blue eyes wide. “She has been in seclusion ever since.”

Monk realized with surprise that he did not even know where Gisela was. He had heard nothing about her since Friedrich’s death.

“Where is she?” he asked.

“Why, in Venice, of course.” She was surprised at his ignorance.

He should have known, but he had been too occupied with learning about the past to think of Gisela as she was now. He wondered who had reported Zorah’s slander to her. Not that it was important.

“When he was being nursed here, how was his food prepared?” he asked. “Who brought it to him? I presume he always ate in his rooms?”

“Yes, of course. He was too ill to leave his bed. It was prepared in the kitchen …”

“By whom?”

“Cook … Mrs. Bagshot. Gisela never left his side, if that is what you are thinking.”

“Who else visited him?”

“The Prince of Wales was here for dinner one evening.” In spite of the nature of the conversation, and her fear for her reputation as a hostess and the notoriety that was about to beset her, there was still a lift of pride in her voice when she spoke his name, or perhaps more accurately, his title. “He went up briefly to visit him.”

Monk’s heart sank. It was another board for Rathbone’s professional coffin.

“No one else?” he pressed. Not that it was really relevant. It
would have been simple enough, in all probability, to waylay a maid on the stairs and slip something unseen into a dish or a glass. A tray might even have been left on a side table for a few moments, giving someone the opportunity to drop in a distillation of yew. Anyone could have walked in the garden and picked the leaves—except Gisela.

Making the leaves or bark into a usable poison presented rather more difficulty. They would have to be boiled for a long time and the liquid taken off. It could hardly be done in the kitchen, except at night, when all the staff were in their beds, and then the evidence would have to have been completely removed. Finding anything to indicate that someone had been in the kitchen at night, or that a saucepan had been used by someone other than the cook, would be helpful but probably give no indication as to by whom.

Lady Wellborough had already answered him and was waiting for his next question.

“Thank you,” he said, rising to his feet. “I think I will speak to the cook and the kitchen staff.”

She paled and almost lurched forward, grasping his arm.

“Please do be careful what you say, Mr. Monk! Good cooks are fearfully hard to come by, and they take offense easily. If you imply she was in even the remotest way possible …”

“I shan’t,” he assured her. He smiled fleetingly. What a totally different world it was where the loss of a cook could create such anxiety and almost terror. But then he did not know Lord Wellborough, and how Lady Wellborough’s happiness depended upon his temper, and how that in turn was dependent upon the good cook’s remaining. Perhaps she had cause for her fear.

“I shall not insult her,” he promised more decidedly.

And he kept his word. He found Mrs. Bagshot, far from his conception of the average cook, standing at the large, scrubbed, wooden kitchen table with the rolling pin in her hand. She was a tall, thin woman with gray hair screwed back
into a tight knot. The orderliness of her kitchen spoke much of her nature. Its warm smells were delicious.

“Well?” she demanded, looking him up and down. “So you think that foreign prince was poisoned in this house, do you?” Her voice already bristled with anger.

“Yes, Mrs. Bagshot, I think it is possible,” he replied, looking at her steadily. “I think most likely it was done by one of his own countrymen for political reasons.”

“Oh.” Already she was somewhat mollified, though still on her guard. “Do you, indeed. And how did they do that, may I ask?”

“I don’t know,” he admitted, governing his voice and his expression. This was a woman more than ready to take umbrage. “My guess would be by someone adding something to his food as it was taken upstairs to his bedroom.”

“Then what are you doing here in my kitchen?” Her chin came up. She had an unarguable point, and she knew it. “It weren’t one o’ my girls. We don’t have no truck wi’ foreigners, ’ceptin’ as guests, an’ we serve all guests alike.”

Monk glanced around at the huge room with its spotlessly blacked cooking range, big enough to roast half a sheep and boil enough vegetables or bake enough pies and pastries to feed fifty people at a sitting. Beyond it were rows of copper saucepans hung in order of size, every one shining clean. Dressers held services of crockery. He knew that beyond the kitchen there were sculleries, larders … one specifically for game; small rooms for the keeping of fish, ice, coal, ashes; a bake house; a lamp room; a room for knives; the entire laundry wing; a pantry; a pastry room; a stillroom and a general storeroom. And that was without trespassing into the butler’s domain.

“A very orderly household,” he observed. “Everything in its place.”

“O’ course.” She bristled. “I don’t know what you’re used
to, but in a big house like this, if you don’ keep order you’d never turn out a dinner party for people what come ’ere.”

“I can imagine—”

“No, you can’t,” she contradicted him with contempt. “No idea, you ’aven’t.” She swung around to catch sight of a maid. “ ’Ere, Nell, you get them six dozen eggs I sent for? We’ll need them fer tomorrow. An’ the salmon. Where’s that fish boy? Don’t know what day it is, ’e don’t. Fool, if ever I saw one. Brought me plaice the other day w’en I asked fer sole! Not got the wits ’e were born with.”

“Yes, Mrs. Bagshot,” Nell said dutifully. “Six dozen ’en’s eggs like you said, an’ two dozen duck eggs in the larder. An’ I got ten pounds o’ new butter an’ three o’ them cheeses.”

“All right then, off with yer about yer business. Don’t stand there gawpin’ just ’cos we got a stranger in the kitchen. It isn’t nothing to do with you!”

“Yes, Mrs. Bagshot!”

“So what is it you want from me, young man?” Mrs. Bagshot looked back at Monk. “I got dinner to get. Put the pheasant in the larder, George. Don’t hang ’em in ’ere for ’eaven’s sake!”

“Thought you might want to see them, Mrs. Bagshot,” George replied.

“What for? Think I never seen a pheasant? Out with yer, before yer get feathers everywhere! Fool,” she added under her breath. “Well, get on with it!” she said to Monk. “Don’t stand there all day with yer foot in yer mouth. We got work, even if you don’t.”

“If anyone came into your kitchen at night and used one of your saucepans, would you know about it?” Monk said instantly.

She considered the matter carefully before replying.

“Not if they cleaned it proper and put it back ’zactly where they found it,” she said after a moment. “But Lizzie’d know if anyone’d stoked the fires. Can’t cook nothin’ on a cold stove,
if cookin’s what yer thinkin’ of. What you think was cooked, then? Poison?”

“Yew leaves or bark to make a poisonous liquor,” he agreed.

“Lizzie!” she shouted.

A dark-haired girl appeared, wiping her hands on her apron.

“How many times have I told you not to do that?” the cook demanded crossly. “Dirty ’ands shows on white! Wipe ’em on yer dress. Gray don’t show! Now, I want yer to think back to when that foreign prince was ’ere, him what died when he fell off ’is ’orse.”

“Yes, Mrs. Bagshot.”

“Did anyone stoke up your stove at night, like they might ’ave cooked summink on it, boiled summink? You think real careful.”

“Yes, Mrs. Bagshot. Nobody done that. I’d ’a knowed ’cos I know ’zactly ’ow much coals I brung in.”

“You sure, now?”

“Yes, Mrs. Bagshot.”

“Right. Then get back to them potatoes.” She turned to Monk. “Them coals is ’eavy. Takes sticks and coals to light fires, an’ yer got to know just ’ow to do it. Isn’t a matter o’ just pushing it all in an’ ’oping. Don’t always draw first time, and the damper’s ’ard to reckon right if yer in’t used to it. There’s not a lady nor a gentleman yet what could light a decent fire. And there isn’t one born ’oo’ll shovel coals nor replace what ’e’s used.” She smiled grimly. “So your poison weren’t cooked in my kitchen.”

Monk thanked her and took his leave.

He questioned the other servants carefully, going over and over details. A sharper picture of life at Wellborough Hall emerged than he had seen before. He was amazed at the sheer volume of food cooked and wasted. The richness and the choice awoke in him a sharp disapproval. With bread and potatoes added, it would have fed a middle-sized village. What angered him more was that the men and women who cooked it,
served it and cleaned away afterwards, accepted all the waste without apparently giving it thought, much less question or rebellion. It was taken by everyone as a matter of course, not worthy of observation. He had done so himself when he had stayed there before. He had certainly done it in Venice and again in Felzburg.

He also heard from each servant individually of the glamour, the laughter and the excitement of the weeks Prince Friedrich had been staying.

“Terrible tragedy, that was,” Nell, the parlormaid, said with a sniff. “Such a beautiful gentleman, he were. Never saw a man with such eyes. An’ always lookin’ at ’er ’e was. Melt your ’eart, it did. Ever so polite. Please an’ thank you for everything, for all ’e were a prince.” She blinked. “Not that the Prince o’ Wales in’t ever so gracious too, o’ course,” she added quickly. “But Prince Friedrich were … such … such a gentleman.” She stopped again, realizing she had made it worse rather than better.