Weighed in the balance - Anne Perry [97]
Wellborough’s skin was mottled dark with blood, his body rigid.
“It has been answered, man! Nobody in their right mind believes for an instant that poor Gisela would have harmed him in any way whatever, let alone killed him in cold blood. It’s monstrous … and totally absurd.”
“Yes, I agree, it probably is,” Monk said levelly. “But it is not so absurd to believe that Klaus von Seidlitz might have killed him to prevent him from returning home and leading the resistance against unification. He has large holdings of land in the borders, which might be laid waste were there fighting. A powerful motive, and not in the least difficult to credit … even if it is, as you say, monstrous.”
Wellborough stared at him as if he had risen out of the ground in a cloud of sulfur.
Monk continued with some satisfaction. “And the other very plausible possibility is that actually it was not Friedrich who was intended as the victim but Gisela. He may have died by mischance. In which case there are several people who may have been desirous of killing her. The most obvious one is Count Lansdorff, brother of the Queen.”
“That’s …” Wellborough began, then trailed off, his face losing its color and turning a dull white. Monk knew in that moment that he had been very well aware of the designs and negotiations that preceded Friedrich’s death.
“Or the Baroness Brigitte von Arlsbach,” Monk went on relentlessly. “And regrettably, also yourself.”
“Me? I have no interest in foreign politics,” Wellborough protested. He looked genuinely taken aback. “It matters not a jot to me who rules in Felzburg or whether it is part of Germany or one of a score of independent little states forever.”
“You manufacture arms,” Monk pointed out. “War in Europe offers you an excellent market—”
“That is iniquitous, sir!” Wellborough said furiously, his jaw clenched, his lips thinned to invisibility. “Make that suggestion outside this room and I shall sue you myself.”
“I have made no suggestion,” Monk replied. “I have merely stated facts. But you may be quite certain that people will make the inference, and you cannot sue all London.”
“I can sue the first person to say it aloud!”
Monk was now quite relaxed. He had at least this victory in his hand.
“No doubt. But it would be expensive and futile. The only way to prevent people from thinking it is to prove it untrue.”
Wellborough stared at him. “I take your point, sir,” he said at last. “And I find your method and your manner equally despicable, but I concede the necessity. You may question whom you please in my house, and I shall personally instruct them to answer you immediately and truthfully … on the condition that you report your findings to me, in full, at the end of every day. You will remain here and pursue this until you come to a satisfactory and irrefutable conclusion. Do we understand each other?”
“Perfectly,” Monk replied with an inclination of his head. “I have my bag with me. If you will have someone show me to my room, I shall begin immediately. Time is short.”
Wellborough gritted his teeth and reached for the bell.
Monk thought it both polite and probably most likely to be efficient to speak first to Lady Wellborough. She received him in the morning room, a rather ornate place furnished in the French manner with a great deal more gilt than Monk cared for. The only thing in it he liked was a huge bowl of early chrysanthemums, tawny golds and browns and filling the air with a rich, earthy smell.
Lady Wellborough came in and closed the door behind her. She was wearing a dark blue morning dress which should have become her fair coloring, but she was too pale and undoubtedly surprised and confused, and there was a shadow of fear in her eyes.
“My husband tells me that it is possible Prince Friedrich really was murdered,” she said bluntly. She must have been in her mid-thirties, but there was a childlike unsophistication about her. “And that you have come here to discover before the trial who it