Weighed In The Balance Part 16

He dressed with care, but also with a sense of satisfaction, almost delight. He surveyed himself in the gla.s.s and smiled at his reflection. It was elegant and at ease in its beautiful clothes. The face that looked back at him had no diffidence, no anxiety. It was smooth, slightly amused, very sure of itself.

He knew Evelyn found him exciting. He had told her just enough to intrigue her. He was different from any other man she knew, and because she could not understand him, or guess what was really behind the little she could see, he was dangerous.

He knew it as clearly as if she had said it to him in words. It was a game, a delicately played and delicious game, the more to be savored because the stakes were real: not love, nothing so painful or so demanding of the self, but emotion for all that, and one that would not be easily forgotten when he had to leave. Perhaps from now on something of it would be echoed in every woman who woke a hunger and a delight in him.

He arrived at the magnificent home of the host for the ball and strode up the steps. Only a sense of dignity stopped him from racing up two at a time. He felt light-footed, full of energy. There were s.h.i.+mmering lights everywhere: torches in wrought iron holders outside, chandeliers inside blazing through the open doors and beyond the tall windows. He could hear the hum of conversation almost as if the music were already playing.

He handed in his invitation and hurried across the hallway and up the stairs to the reception room. His eyes swept over the crowded heads to find the thick, dark hair of Klaus von Seidlitz. It took him a moment or two. Then someone turned, taller than the others, and he saw Klaus's face with its broken nose and heavy features. He was talking to a group of soldiers in bright uniform, recounting some tale which amused him. He laughed, and for a few moments he was a different man from the brooding, almost sullen person Monk had seen in England. In repose his face had seemed cruel; now it was genial, and merely crooked.

Monk searched for Evelyn and could not see her.

Rolf was standing not more than a dozen yards from him. He looked polite and bored. Monk guessed he was there from duty rather than pleasure, perhaps courting a political interest. Now that Friedrich was dead, where did the independence party pin its hopes? Rolf had the intelligence to lead it. Perhaps he would have been the person behind the throne if a plan to reinstate Friedrich had succeeded. Maybe he had always intended to rule.

Who would be the rallying point now, the person with the popularity, the image people would follow, would sacrifice their money, their houses, even their lives for? That kind of loyalty attaches only to someone with either a royal birthright or a character of extraordinary valor and pa.s.sion-or to someone who can be seen as a symbol of what the people most desire. It does not matter whether that loyalty is born of truth or fiction, but it must ignite a belief in victory that overrides the defeats and the disappointments, the weariness and the loss.

Rolf had not that magic. Standing on the last step and looking across the heads of the guests at his strong, careful face, Monk knew it, and he imagined Rolf did too.

How deep did Rolf's plans run? Staring at his steady, fixed gaze, his square shoulders and ramrod back, Monk could believe they might well be deep enough to have murdered Gisela and created out of Friedrich the hero he needed-the rightful heir, bereaved, repentant, returned to lead his people in their hour of greatest peril.

Only the plans had gone disastrously wrong; it was not Gisela who had died, but Friedrich himself.

"Mr. Monk?"

It was a woman's voice, soft and low, very pleasing. He turned around slowly to see Brigitte smiling at him with interest.

"Good evening, Baroness von Arlsbach," he said a little more stiffly than he had intended. He remembered feeling sorry for her at Wellborough Hall. She had been very publicly rejected by Friedrich. Hundreds of people must have known how deeply the royal family had wanted him to marry her, and that she had been willing, even if only as a matter of duty. But he had steadfastly refused, and then had been prepared to sacrifice everything for love of Gisela.

And Brigitte was still unmarried, a most unusual circ.u.mstance for women of her age and station. He looked at her now, standing a few feet away from him. She was not beautiful, but there was a serenity in her which had a loveliness that was perhaps more lasting than regularity of feature or delicacy of coloring. Her eyes were steady and straight but had none of the ice of Ulrike's.

"I did not know you were in Felzburg," she continued. "Have you Mends here?"

"Only new friends," he replied. "But I am finding the city most exhilarating." It was true, even if it was due to Evelyn's presence in it rather than any qualities of the city itself. The industrial cities of northern England would have been exhilarating for him had Evelyn been there.

"That is the first time I have heard it described so," she said with amus.e.m.e.nt. She was a big woman with broad shoulders, but utterly feminine. He noticed how flawless her skin was, and how smooth her neck. She was wearing a king's ransom in jewels, an unusual necklace of cabochon star rubies and pearls. She must hate Gisela, not only for the personal humiliation but also for what she had taken from the country in luring away Friedrich, who would fight for independence, and leaving Waldo, who seemed genuinely to believe in unification. And she had been at Wellborough Hall.

The thought was repellent, but it could not be swept away, no matter how hard it was to believe, standing there on the steps overlooking the ballroom and seeing the peace in her face.

"You don't find it so?" he asked. He thought of sounding surprised, then changed his mind. She would think it affected, perhaps even sarcastic. She was as aware as he, perhaps more so, that it was a very small city compared with the great capitals of Europe, and almost provincial in nature.

As if reading his thoughts, she answered. "It has character and individuality." Her smile widened. "It has a vigor of life. But it is also old-fas.h.i.+oned, a little resentful of sophisticated people from our larger neighbors, and too often suspicious because we dread being overshadowed. Like most other places, we have too many officials, and they all seem to be related to one another. Gossip is rampant, as it is in all small cities. But on the other hand, we are hospitable and generous, and we do not have armed soldiers in the streets." She had not said she loved it, but it was there far more eloquently in her eyes and her voice. If he had been uncertain of her loyalty to independence before, he was not now.

Suddenly exhilarating exhilarating seemed a false word to have used. He had been thinking of Evelyn, not the city, and it was patronizing to speak falsely of thousands of people's lives and homes. seemed a false word to have used. He had been thinking of Evelyn, not the city, and it was patronizing to speak falsely of thousands of people's lives and homes.

She was looking at him curiously. Perhaps she saw something of his thoughts reflected in his face.

"I wish I could stay longer," he said, and this time he was sincere.

"Must you leave?"

"Yes. Unfortunately, I have business in London which will not wait." That was truer than she could know. "Perhaps you will do me the honor of allowing me to accompany you in?"

"Thank you." She took his proffered arm and began down the steps. He was about to tell the footman who he was when the man bowed deferentially to Brigitte and took Monk's card.

"The Baroness von Arlsbach...and Mr. William Monk," he announced.

Immediately there was a hush as heads turned, not to Monk, but to Brigitte. There was a murmur of respect. A way parted for them to enter the crowd. No one pushed forward or resumed their previous conversation until the couple had pa.s.sed.

Monk realized with a rush of heat to his face how presumptuous he had been. Brigitte had very possibly not aspired to be queen, as apparently Gisela had, but her people had wished it. She was revered next only to Ulrike, and perhaps better loved.

His earlier pity for her faded. To be one man's pa.s.sionate love was perhaps a quirk of nature no one could create or foresee. To be loved by a country was a mark of worth. No one who held it should be thought of slightly.

The music was beginning in the room beyond. Should he invite her to dance? Would it be insulting now if he did not, or would it be a further presumption if he did? He was not used to indecision. He could not remember ever having felt so gauche before.

She turned to face him, holding out her other hand. It was gracefully done, an unspoken acceptance before he had time to make either mistake.

He found himself smiling with relief, and led her onto the floor.

It was another half hour before he was able to find Evelyn. She was as light in his arms as a drift of silk, her eyes full of laughter. They danced as if there were no one else in the huge room. She flirted outrageously, and he reveled in it. The night would be far too short.

He saw Klaus looking melancholy and rather bad tempered, and all he could feel was a vague distaste. How could such a miserable man expect to hold a creature like Evelyn, who was all wit and happiness?

An hour later, dancing with her again, he saw Klaus talking earnestly with an elderly man Evelyn told him was a Prussian aristocrat.

"He looks like a soldier," Monk agreed.

"He is," she replied, shrugging her lovely shoulders. "Almost all Prussian aristocrats are. For them it is practically the same thing. I dislike them. They are terribly stiff and formal, and have not an atom of humor between them."

"Do you know many of them?"

"Far too many!" She made a gesture of disgust. "Klaus often has them in the house, even to stay with us in our lodge in the mountains."

"And you don't care for them?"

"I can't bear them. But Klaus believes we will ally with Prussia one day quite soon, and it is the best thing to make them your friends now, before everyone else does and you have lost your advantage."

It was a peculiarly cynical remark, and for a moment the laughter faded a little, the lights seemed sharper, glittering with a harder edge, the noise around him shriller.

Then he looked at her face, and the laughter in it, and the moment pa.s.sed.

But he did not forget her story of Klaus's deliberate courting of the Prussians. Klaus was for unification, perhaps not for his country's sake but for his own. Did he hope to emerge from such forced union with greater power than he now held? Friedrich's return would have compromised that. Had he feared it, and killed Friedrich to prevent it? It was not impossible. The more Monk considered the idea, the more feasible did it seem.

But it hardly helped Rathbone. Then again, nothing that seemed even possible, let alone likely, would help Rathbone. The only person who seemed to care about Zorah was Ulrike. That curious remark of hers came back to his mind.

At midnight he was drinking champagne. The music was lilting again, strictly rhythmic, almost willing him to dance. Until he could find Evelyn, he asked the nearest woman to him, and drifted out onto the floor, swirled and lost in the pleasure of it.

It was nearly one when he saw Evelyn and contrived to end the dance close enough to her, and she had equally contrived to be away from Klaus and had laughingly pa.s.sed by her previous partner before he could invite her again.

They came together moving to the music as if it were an element of nature and they simply were carried upon it, as foam upon a current of the sea. He could smell the perfume of her hair, feel the warmth of her skin, and as they spun and parted and came together again, see the glow in her cheeks and the laughter in her eyes.

When at last they stopped for breath, he lost count of how many dances later, it was at the edge of a group of others, some fresh from the floor, some sipping champagne, light winking in the gla.s.ses, flas.h.i.+ng fire on diamonds in hair and on ears and throats.

Monk felt a sudden surge of affection for this tiny, independent state with its individual ways, its quaint capital, and its fierce desire to remain as it was. Maybe the only common sense, the only provident way forward, was to unite with all the other states into one giant nation. But if they did so then something irreparable would be lost, and he mourned its pa.s.sing. How much more must these for whom it was their heritage and their home mourn?

"You must hate the thought of Prussia marching in here and taking over," he said impulsively to Evelyn. "Felzburg will be simply a provincial city, like any other, ruled from Berlin, or Munich, or some other state capital. I can understand why you want to fight, even if it doesn't seem to make sense."

"I can't!" she replied with a flicker of irritation. "It's a lot of effort and sacrifice for nothing. We can always go to Berlin. It will be just as good there...maybe better."

A footman pa.s.sed by with a tray of champagne, and she took a gla.s.s and put it to her lips, Monk was stunned. He looked beyond Evelyn to Brigitte, who was smiling with her mouth, but her eyes were aching with sadness, and even as Monk watched she blinked and he saw her breast rise as she breathed in deeply, and the moment after turned to the woman next to her and spoke.

Surely Evelyn must see that. She could not be as shallow as she had sounded.

"When are you going back to London?" Evelyn asked, her head a little on one side.

"I think tomorrow, perhaps the next day," Monk answered with regret.

Evelyn looked at him, her brown eyes wide. "I suppose you have to go?"

"Yes," he replied. "I have a moral obligation to a friend. He is in considerable difficulty. I must be there when his time of crisis comes."

"Can you help him?" It was almost a challenge in her voice.

Beyond her a woman laughed, and a man proposed a toast to something or other.

"I doubt it, but I can try," Monk replied. "At the very least I can be beside him."

"What purpose is there, if you can't help?" Evelyn was looking very directly at him, and there was an edge of ridicule in her voice.

He was puzzled. It seemed a pointless question. It was simply a matter of loyalty. One did not leave people to suffer alone.

"What sort of trouble is he in?" she pressed.

"He made a misjudgment," he replied. "It seems as if it will cost him very dearly."

She shrugged. "Then it is his own fault. Why should you suffer for it?"

"Because he is my friend." The answer was too simple to need elaboration.

"That's ridiculous!" She was half amused, half angry. "Wouldn't you rather be here with us-with me? At the weekend we go to our lodge in the forest. You could come. Klaus will be busy with his Prussians most of the time, but you shall find plenty to do. We ride in the forest, have picnics and wonderful nights by the fire. It is marvelously beautiful. You can forget the rest of the world."

He was tempted. He could be with Evelyn, laugh, hold her in his arms, watch her beauty, feel her warmth. Or he could return to London and tell Rathbone that if Friedrich had been the intended victim, then Gisela could not have killed him, but Klaus could have. However, it was far more likely that actually it was Gisela who was meant to be the one who died, and it was only mischance that it had been Friedrich, which doubly proved her innocence. Lord Wellborough could have been guilty, or someone acting for Brigitte or, far worse, for the Queen. Or Zorah could have done it herself.

He could attend the trial and watch Rathbone struggle and lose, watch helplessly as the lawyer damaged his reputation and lost all he had so carefully built in his professional life.

Of course, Hester would be there. She would be trying every last instant there was, racking her brain for anything to do to help, lying awake at night, worrying and hurting for him.

And when it was all over, even if he was criticized, ridiculed and disgraced for his foolishness, his alliance against the establishment, she would be there to stand beside him. She would help to defend him to others, even if in private she castigated him with her tongue. She would urge him to get up and fight again, face the world regardless of its anger or contempt. The greater his need, the more certainly would she be there.

He recalled with a surge of warmth how she had knelt in front of him in his own worst hour, when he was terrified and appalled, how she had pleaded with him, and browbeaten him into the courage to keep on struggling. Even at the very darkest moment, when she must have faced the possibility of his guilt, it had never entered her mind to abandon him. Her loyalty went beyond trust in innocence or in victory, it was the willingness to be there in defeat, even in one which was deserved.

She had none of Evelyn's magic, her beauty or glorious charm. But there was something about her clean courage and her undeviating honor which now seemed infinitely desirable-like ice-cold pure water when one is cloyed with sugar and parched with thirst.

"Thank you," he said stiffly. "I am sure it is delightful, but I have a duty in London...and friends...for whom I care." He bowed with almost Germanic formality, touching his heels. "Your company has been utterly delightful, Baroness, but it is time I returned to reality. Good night...and good-bye."

Her face dropped slack with amus.e.m.e.nt, then tightened into a blazing, incredulous rage.

Monk walked back towards the staircase and the way out.

.8.

ON THE LONG and tedious journey home, Monk turned over in his mind what he could tell Rathbone that could be of any service to him in the case. He reviewed it in his mind over and over again, but no matter how many times he did, there was nothing of substance that could be used to defend Zorah Rostova. Whichever of the couple had been the intended victim, there was no way in which Gisela could be guilty. and tedious journey home, Monk turned over in his mind what he could tell Rathbone that could be of any service to him in the case. He reviewed it in his mind over and over again, but no matter how many times he did, there was nothing of substance that could be used to defend Zorah Rostova. Whichever of the couple had been the intended victim, there was no way in which Gisela could be guilty.

The only mitigating fact was the extreme likelihood that Friedrich had indeed been murdered.

On arrival in London, Monk went straight to his rooms in Fitzroy Street and unpacked his cases. He had a steaming bath and changed his linen. He requested his landlady to bring him a hot cup of tea, something which he had not had since leaving home over two weeks before. Then he felt as ready as he could be to present himself at Vere Street. He dreaded delivering such news, but there was no alternative.

Rathbone did not pretend any of the usual preliminary courtesies. He opened his office door as soon as he heard Monk's voice speaking to Simms. He looked as perfectly dressed as always, but Monk saw the signs of tiredness and strain in his face.

"Good afternoon, Monk," he said immediately. "Come in." He glanced at the clerk. "Thank you, Simms." He stood aside to allow Monk past him into the office.

"Shall I bring tea, Sir Oliver?" Simms asked, glancing from one to the other of them. He knew the importance of the case and of the news which Monk might bring. He had already read from Monk's manner that it was not good.

"Oh...yes, by all means." Rathbone was looking not at Simms but at Monk. He searched Monk's eyes and saw defeat in them. "Thank you," he added, his voice carrying his disappointment, too heavy for his self-mastery to conceal it.

Inside, he closed the door and walked stiffly around his desk to the far side. He pulled his chair back and sat down.

Monk sat in the nearer one.

Rathbone did not cross his legs as usual, nor did he lean back. His face was calm and his eyes direct, but there was fear in them as he regarded Monk.

Monk saw no purpose in telling the story in chronological order. It would only spin out the tension.

"I think it very probable Friedrich was murdered," he said flatly. "We have every cause to raise the issue, and we may even be able to prove it, with good luck and considerable skill. But there is no possibility that Gisela is guilty."

Rathbone stared back without replying.

"There really is none," Monk repeated. He hated having to say this. It was the same feeling of helplessness again, carrying all the old sense of watching while someone you ought to save was suffering, losing. He owed Rathbone nothing, and it was entirely his own fault that he had taken such an absurd case, but all that touched his reason, not his emotions.

He took a deep breath. "Friedrich was her life. She did not have a lover, and neither did he. Friend and enemy alike knew that they adored each other. They did nothing apart. Every evidence I found indicates they were still as deeply in love as in the beginning."

"But duty?" Rathbone urged. "Was there a plot to invite him back to Felzburg to lead the fight for independence, or not?"

"Almost certainly-"

"Then..."

"Then nothing!" Monk said tartly. "He didn't bow to duty twelve years ago, and nothing whatever suggests there has been the slightest change."