Weighed in the balance - Anne Perry [116]
“Why?” Monk said slowly. “Friedrich is dead. He can’t go back now, whatever happens. If she, or one of the unification party, murdered him to prevent him going back, she has accomplished her aim. Why this? Why not simply accept victory?”
“Because someone else could take up the torch,” Rathbone replied. “There must be someone else, not as good, maybe, but adequate. This could discredit the party for as long as matters. By the time a new party can be forged and the disgrace overcome, unification could be a fait accompli.”
Hester looked from one to the other of them. “But was he going back?”
Rathbone looked at Monk. “Was he?”
“I don’t know.” He faced the two of them, standing unconsciously close together—and, incidentally, entirely blocking the fire. “But if you are even remotely close to the truth, then if you do your job with competence, let alone skill, it will emerge. Someone, perhaps Zorah herself, will make certain it does.”
But Rathbone was far from comforted when he entered court the next day. If Zorah were harboring some secret knowledge which would bring about her purposes, whatever they were, there was no sign of it in her pale, set face.
Zorah had taken her seat, but Rathbone was still standing a few yards from the table when Harvester approached him. When he was not actually in front of a jury his face was more benign. In fact, had Rathbone not known better, he would have judged it quite mild, the leanness of bone simply a trick of nature.
“Morning, Sir Oliver,” he said quietly. “Still in for the fight?” It was not a challenge, rather more a commiseration.
“Good morning,” Rathbone replied. He forced himself to smile. “Isn’t over yet.”
“Yes, it is.” Harvester shook his head, smiling back. “I’ll stand you the best dinner in London afterwards. What the devil possessed you to take such a case?” He walked away to his own seat, and a moment later Gisela came in wearing a different but equally exquisite black dress with tiered skirts and tight bodice, fur trim at the throat and wrists. Not once did she glance towards Zorah. She might not have known who she was for any sign of recognition in her totally impassive face.
The shadow of a smile flickered across Zorah’s mouth and disappeared.
The judge brought the court to order.
Harvester rose and called his first witness, the Baroness Evelyn von Seidlitz. She took the stand gracefully in a swish of decorous pewter-gray skirts trimmed with black. She managed to look as if she were decently serious, not quite in mourning, and yet utterly feminine. It was a great skill to offend no one and yet be anything but colorless or self-effacing. Rathbone thought she was quite lovely, and was very soon aware that every juror in the box thought so too. He could see it written plainly in their faces as they watched her, listening to and believing every word.
She told how she too had heard the accusation repeated as far away as both Venice and Felzburg.
Harvester did not press the issue of reaction in Venice, except that it was at times given a certain credence. Not everyone dismissed it as nonsense. He proceeded quite quickly to reactions in Felzburg.
“Of course it was repeated,” Evelyn said, looking at him with wide, lovely eyes. “A piece of gossip like that is not going to be buried.”
“Naturally,” Harvester agreed wryly. “When it was repeated, Baroness, with what emotion was it said? Did anyone, for example, consider for an instant that it could be true?” He caught Rathbone’s movement out of the corner of his eye and smiled thinly. “Perhaps I had better phrase that a little differently. Did you hear anyone