said crossly. "She's a patriot, all for independence. She was probably part of it."
"Oh, I'm sure!" Now Hester was sarcastic. "That's why when it all went wrong and Friedrich died instead, she started to draw everyone's attention to the fact that it was murder, not natural death, as everyone had been quite happy to believe until then. She wants to commit suicide but hasn't the nerve to pull the trigger herself. Or has she changed sides, and now she wants the whole thing exposed?" Her eyebrows rose. Her voice was growing harsher with every word, carrying her own pain. "Or better still - she's a double agent. She's changed sides. Now she wants to ruin the independence party by committing a murder in their name and then being hanged for it."
Monk looked at her with intense dislike.
Rathbone turned sharply, an idea bursting in his mind.
"Perhaps that is not so lunatic as it sounds," he said with urgency. "Perhaps it did all go wrong. Perhaps that is why Zorah is making a charge she knows she cannot prove. To force an examination of the whole affair so the truth can come out, and perhaps she is now prepared to sacrifice herself for it, if she believes it is for her country." He was talking more and more rapidly. "Maybe she sees a fight for independence as a battle that cannot be won but can only lead to war, destruction, terrible loss of life, and in the end assimilation not as an ally but as a beaten rebel, to be subjugated, and her own customs and culture wiped out." The idea seemed cleaner and more rational with every moment. "Isn't she the sort of idealist who might do exactly that?" He stared at Monk, demanding the answer from him.
"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