herself? What consuming passion lay behind her words?
She was talking about the following day now.
"It was mid-morning." She looked at him curiously, aware he was only half listening. "We were to have a picnic luncheon. The servants were bringing everything in the pony trap. Gisela and Evelyn were coming in a gig."
"Who is Evelyn?' he interrupted.
"Klaus von Seidlitz's wife," Zorah replied. "She doesn't ride either."
"Gisela doesn't ride?"
Amusement flickered over her face. "No. Did Sir Oliver not tell you that? There is no question of the accident's being deliberate, you know. She would never do anything so bold or so extremely risky. Not many people die in riding falls. One is far more likely to break a leg, or even one's back. The last thing she wanted was a cripple!"
"It would stop him returning home to lead the resistance to unification," he argued.
"He wouldn't have to lead them physically, riding on a white horse, you know," she said with dismissive laughter. "He could have been a figurehead for them even in a Bath chair!"
"And you believe he would have gone, even in those circumstances?"
"Certainly he would have considered it," she said without hesitation. "He never abandoned the faith that one day his country would welcome him back and that Gisela would have her rightful place beside him."
"But you told Rathbone that they would not accept her," he pointed out. "You could not be mistaken about that?"
"No."
"Then how could Friedrich still believe it?"
She shrugged very slightly. "You would have to know Friedrich to understand how he grew up. He was born to be king. He spent his entire childhood and youth being groomed for it, and the Queen is a rigid taskmistress. He obeyed every rule, and the crown was his burden and his prize."
"But he gave it all up for Gisela."
"I don't think until the very last moment he believed they would make him choose between them," she said with faint surprise in her eyes. "Then, of course, it was too late. He could never understand the finality of it. He was convinced they would relent and call him back. He saw his banishment as a gesture, not something to last forever."
"And it seems he was right," Monk pointed out. "They did want him back."
"But not at the price of bringing Gisela with him. He did not understand that - but she did. She was far more of a realist."
"The accident," he prompted.
"He was taken back to Wellborough Hall," she resumed. "The doctor was called, naturally. I don't know what he said, only what I was told."
"What were you told?" Monk asked.
"That Friedrich had broken several ribs, his right leg in three places, his right collarbone, and that he was severely bruised internally."
"Prognosis?"
"I beg your pardon?"
"What did the doctor expect of his recovery?"
"Slow, but he did not believe his life to be in danger, unless there were injuries that he had not yet determined."
"How old was Friedrich?"
"Forty-two."
"And Gisela?"
"Thirty-nine. Why?"
"So he was not a young man, for such a heavy fall."
"He did not die of his injuries. He was poisoned."
"How do you know?"
For the first time she hesitated.
He waited, looking at her steadily.
After a while she gave a very slight shrug. "If I could prove it, I would have gone to the police. I know it because I know the people. I have known them for years. I have watched the whole pattern unfold. She is performing the desolated widow very well... too well. She is in the center of the stage, and she is loving it."
"That may be hypocritical and unattractive," he replied. "But it is not criminal. And even (hat is still only belief, your perception of her."
She looked down at last. "I know that, Mr. Monk. I was there in the house all the time. I saw everyone who came and went. I heard them speak and saw their looks towards one another. I have been part of the court circle since my childhood. I know what happened, but I have not a shred of proof. Gisela murdered Friedrich because she was afraid he would hear the voice of duty at last and go home to lead the fight against unification into greater Germany. Waldo would not do it, and there is no one else. He might have thought he could take her, but she knew the Queen would never permit it, even now, on the brink of dissolution or war."
"Why did she wait for days?" he asked. "Why not kill him immediately? It would have been safer and