Funeral in Blue (22 page)

“He will need help.” She cut across his emotions gently, and only because time did not allow them. “Someone who knows the city and can interpret for him so that he can find the people he needs and ask what he has to in language precise and subtle enough for the answers to have meaning.”

“Yes, yes, of course,” he agreed with slight self-consciousness for his emotion. “Naturally. I shall write to the British ambassador. He is a friend of mine, not close, but we have done each other favors in the past. He will not hesitate to provide someone to assist. I daresay he will have friends who were there thirteen years ago and will be familiar with the circumstances of the uprising. Monk will not find it difficult. Elissa will never be forgotten.” His eyes shone, and for a moment the last few weeks were washed away. His voice was soft. “If he could bring back an account of how she was then, of her courage, her love of the people and how she inspired them to fight, to sacrifice anything for the cause of freedom, that may explain Niemann’s behavior.”

He blinked rapidly. “Tell Monk to find someone who will describe the fighting at the barricades, the camaraderie of danger, how they lived, their passions and loyalties. Make the court here see what she was truly like; it will be the best epitaph for her. She deserves that.” His voice cracked and he looked away. “Not the woman they will try to present who owed money to sordid little men who never knew anything of her as she really was, men who never had a cause to fight for but their own greed.”

He raised his eyes to look at her fully, intensely. “Bring back something that will make them understand how a man could lose his senses over her so that he never forgot her, even thirteen years later, when she was married to his friend, and how he could still feel for her so overwhelmingly that he lost all judgment and morality, so that her rejection of him made him feel as if his whole life were slipping out of his grasp. She was unique, irreplaceable by anyone else.” He stopped abruptly, recalling himself to the present only with the severest effort of will. His hands were trembling. He took a deep breath and steadied his voice. “I wish I could go myself, see the places, speak to the people, but I must stay here and prepare the case. I have been advised that it will be very soon. The Crown believe that they have all the evidence they require to proceed.”

He lifted one shoulder very slightly, barely a shrug. “I . . . I hardly know where to begin. Kristian is a fine man, but opinionated. He has made many enemies among those in power in the hospital authorities, and very few friends. Those he has served are the poor and the sick, and in many cases, I’m afraid, those already dead. No doubt they would swear he had the patience of a saint and limitless compassion, but they are beyond our reach.”

He stared at her steadily. “Impress upon Monk the utmost importance of his errand, Lady Callandra. And please permit me to assist in the cost of it.” He returned to the desk and opened one of the drawers. He produced several gold coins and a treasury note. He held them all out. “I shall transfer to your bank a hundred pounds, but in the meantime, take this for his immediate needs, with my deepest gratitude.”

She did not require it—her own funds were ample, and she would have given everything she possessed to defend Kristian—but she sensed his need to give as well, and she accepted it.

He returned to the desk and sat down, pulling pen and paper towards him to begin to write in a large, generous scrawl.

She waited, with the first lift of hope she had felt in days. Perhaps in Vienna, Monk would find the truth and prove Kristian’s innocence. Afterwards, when Kristian was free, she would bear the confusion of discovering Elissa Beck was a heroine, brave and beautiful, funny and kind.

“Thank you,” she said, taking the letter when it was finished. “Thank you very much.”

Monk went to see Kristian in prison to learn from him any information at all which might help, no matter how painful or how irrelevant it might seem.

He was not surprised to see him looking haggard, almost shrunken, as if the shock of Elissa’s murder and his own arrest had drained the heart out of him, and even something of the physical substance. Monk had seen it before in other men.

“I’m going to Vienna,” he said quickly, knowing they had only minutes. “I need all the help you can give me.”

Kristian shook his head. “I can’t believe Max would have killed her,” he said quietly. “Quarreled, perhaps, lost his temper with her for what she was doing, that she was . . . wasting herself.” The pain in his voice was like a razor edge. “And even what she was costing me, and the work I believe in. But he wouldn’t have hurt her!”

It was brutal to discuss it, but neither of them could afford to be gentle at the expense of reality.

“He came over here to see Elissa . . . not you,” Monk said. “Several times.” He saw Kristian wince, and noted the confusion in his face.

Kristian shook his head. “He wouldn’t have hurt her,” he repeated, his voice hoarse.

“Her neck was broken in one movement,” Monk reminded him. “It was probably like this.” He put his arm in front of him, as if he were holding one hand over someone’s mouth, and crushing that person’s body to his chest with the other. He made a swift movement. “As if they had struggled and he had tried to hold her, wrenching around, perhaps one foot on hers.”

Kristian shuddered, and his mouth pulled strangely twisted.

“He probably didn’t mean to kill her,” Monk went on. “Perhaps only to stop her from crying out.”

Kristian closed his eyes. “And Sarah Mackeson?” he said in a whisper. “Whoever killed her meant to!” He shuddered convulsively. Imagination, or a memory too hideous to bear? Or the realization that Max Niemann could be guilty after all?

“Tell me about him,” Monk demanded tensely. “Kristian, for God’s sake, give me all you can! I need to find the truth. If it isn’t Niemann, then I need to know that. But someone killed them . . . both!”

Kristian made an effort to regain his composure and appeared to concentrate, but still he said nothing, as if the past enclosed him in its reality and the present ceased to be.

“Somebody’s going to the rope for it!” Monk said brutally. “If you didn’t kill them, don’t let it be you! Are you protecting someone?” He had no idea who. Why should Kristian die to save Max Niemann? Or to hide something that had happened in Vienna thirteen years ago? He couldn’t possibly think Callandra had any part in it. Did he even know how much she loved him? Monk doubted it.

“I’m not defending anyone!” Kristian said with startling force, almost anger. “I just don’t know what to tell you. I haven’t any idea who killed them, or why. Do you think I want to hang—or that I don’t realize that I almost certainly will?” He managed to say the words with superb control, but looking at his eyes, Monk saw the fear in them, black and bottomless, without faith to build a bridge over the void, nothing but courage. And when at the very last he was utterly alone, with his pain, and oblivion in front of him, all love and friendship and pity left behind, there would be nothing to hold on to.

“Tell me where to look,” Monk said, horrified by the vision himself, aware that the similarity between them was far more profound than any difference. “Where did you live? Who were your friends? Who do I look for to ask?”

Reluctantly, each one an effort, Kristian gave him half a dozen names and addresses in three different streets. There was no lift of hope in his voice, no belief. “She was beautiful,” he said softly. “They’ll all say that. I don’t mean her face.” He dismissed it as trivial, but Monk could not. He saw in his mind the haunting loveliness of the woman on Allardyce’s canvas. That face was full of passion, dreaming just beyond the grasp, inviting the onlooker to dare anything, imagine the impossible and love it, need it enough to follow her to the ends of the earth.

“I mean the heart of her,” Kristian went on. “The will to live, the courage to meet anything. She lit the fire that warmed us all.”

Was it memory speaking, or wish, or the kind of emotion that gilds the recollection of people who are loved and lost? Or was it guilt trying to make up for the gulf that had grown between them since then? Would Monk find in Vienna the truth about Kristian as well?

He wrote down what Kristian gave him, then tried to think of something to say in parting which would convey what he wanted to. It was impossible. Frustration. The hunger to believe that Kristian was innocent, not only for his sake but for Callandra’s, because she was in love with him, and Monk knew what it was to be in love. He had not wished to be; it laid one open to pain far out of any control.

He wanted Kristian’s innocence for Hester, because she believed in him, and would be so hurt for them all. Even for Pendreigh, because he would not be able to contain the disillusion about his daughter if it had been a tragic domestic crime after all. Perhaps also for the woman who stared out of Allardyce’s canvas, and surely deserved better than to end a crumpled heap on a studio floor, killed by accident or on purpose by a husband she had destroyed in her crazy compulsion, throwing away everything on the turn of a card or the roll of dice—not after she had fought for everything that mattered infinitely, known freedom and dignity, the right of strangers to govern their own destiny.

“I’ll do all I can,” he said to Kristian. “We all will.”

Kristian nodded, not trusting himself to speak.

CHAPTER TEN

Monk left London on the last train to Dover, so he could catch the first boat of the morning across to Calais and on through Paris to Vienna. It was a journey which would take him three days and eight hours, assuming all went well and he at no time got lost or met with any delays or mechanical faults. A second-class ticket cost eight pounds, five shillings, six pence.

At any other time the journey would have fascinated him. He would have been absorbed by the countryside, the towns he passed, the architecture of the buildings, and the dress and manners of the people. His fellow passengers would have interested him particularly, even though he did not understand their conversation and could deduce only what observation and knowledge of human nature told him. But his mind was intent upon what he would find in Vienna, and upon trying to formulate the questions he should ask in order to learn some truth through the mist of heroic memory.

The journey seemed endless, and he lost the sense of time and place. He was imprisoned with strangers in a padded iron room which swayed and jolted through alternate gray daylight and intense darkness as the late autumn evenings closed in. Sometimes it was clear, sometimes rain pattered against the windows, blurring the view of farmland, villages, bare forests.

He slept fitfully. He found it difficult because there was no space to lie, and after the first night and day his muscles protested against the constant inactivity. He could speak to no one because it seemed all the other passengers in his coach understood only French or German. He exchanged polite nods and smiles, but it did little to break the monotony.

His mind raced over possibilities of success and failure, all the difficulties that might arise to prevent his learning anything of use, above all that he was ignorant not only of the language but of the culture of the people.

And what would success be? That he could prove Niemann guilty? That he could find and take back to London something at least to raise a reasonable doubt? What, for example? No one was going to confess, not in any form that could be used. Sworn testimony of a quarrel, money, or revenge? Would that be sufficient, along with the evidence that Niemann had been in London?

And was Monk taking the chance of accusing and perhaps slandering a man who was innocent?

All that turned over and over in his mind during the long days and interrupted nights as the train crossed France and made its way over the border into Austria, and finally through the city outskirts into the heart of Vienna.

Monk climbed to his feet and retrieved his luggage. His back and legs ached, his mouth was dry and his head pounded with weariness. He longed to smell fresh air and to be able to walk more than a few swaying steps without bumping into everything and having to stand aside as someone passed him.

He alighted onto the platform amid clouds of steam and the rattle and clang of doors, shouted orders, greetings, demands for porters and assistance, little of which he could understand. He grasped his single case and, feeling profoundly lost, he started to walk along the platform, patting his inside pocket again to assure himself his money and letters from Callandra and Pendreigh were still there. He looked for the way out to the street, to begin the struggle to find a cab of some sort with a driver who would understand his request to be taken to the British Embassy.

He was crumpled and dirty, which he loathed, and tired beyond the point of thinking clearly, when at last he was deposited on the steps of Her Britannic Majesty’s Embassy to the Court of the Emperor Franz Josef of Austro-Hungaria. He paid the driver in Austrian shillings; from the startled look on his face, Monk gave him far more than he deserved. He climbed up the steps, his case in his hand, knowing he looked like some desperate Englishman fallen on hard times and begging for assistance. It galled his pride.

It was another hour and a half before his letters gained him an audience with a senior aide to the ambassador, who explained that His Excellency was heavily engaged in matters of state for the next two days at the least. However, if a guide and interpreter were all Monk required, no doubt something could be done. He looked down at Pendreigh’s letter, spread open on the desk in front of him, and Monk thought he saw more respect in the man’s face than affection. It did not surprise him. Pendreigh was a formidable man, a good friend perhaps, but a bad enemy for certain. But then, no doubt the same would have been said of Monk himself. He recognized the impatience, the ambition to assess and to judge.

“Thank you,” he accepted stiffly.

“I will send someone in the morning,” the aide replied. “Where are you staying?”

Monk glanced down at his suitcase and then at the man, his eyebrows raised very slightly. The question had been intended as patronizing, and they both knew it.

The aide blushed very slightly. “The Hotel Bristol is very good. It is not inspiring from the outside, but it is beautiful inside, especially if you like marble. The food is excellent. It is first in the Karntner Ring. They speak excellent English, and will be delighted to help you.”

“Thank you,” Monk said graciously, relieved to have Callandra’s money, and Pendreigh’s, so that the charge was immaterial to him. “I shall be obliged if whoever is good enough to assist me would present themselves there at nine o’clock at the latest, so I can begin this extremely urgent matter as soon as possible. You are no doubt aware of the tragic death of Mr. Pendreigh’s daughter, Elissa von Leibnitz, who was something of a heroine in this city.” He was highly satisfied to see from the man’s blush that he was not.

“Of course,” the aide said soberly. “Please convey my condolences to the family.”

“Of course,” Monk muttered, picking up his case and going out into the distinctly chilly night air, aware of the sharp east wind like a slap on his skin.

He was up and breakfasted early the next morning, and was waiting, his temper already raw, when a fair-haired youth of no more than fourteen or fifteen approached him in the magnificent marble lobby of the hotel. He was slender, and his face had a freshly scrubbed look, probably occasioned by the weather outside. He looked more like a schoolboy than a servant on an errand.

“Mr. Monk?” he asked with a certain eagerness which instantly confirmed Monk’s impression. He had probably come from the embassy to say that his father, or brother, could assist Monk in the afternoon, or worse still, tomorrow.

Monk answered him rather curtly. “Yes? Have you a message for me?”

“Not exactly, sir.” His blue eyes were bright but he maintained his self-possession. “My name is Ferdinand Gerhardt, sir. The British ambassador is my uncle. I believe you would like someone to guide you around Vienna and interpret for you on occasion. I should be glad to offer my services.” He stood to attention, polite, eager, a curious mixture of English schoolboy and young Austrian aristocrat. He did not quite click his heels.

Monk was furious. They had sent him a child, as if he wished to while away a week or so seeing the sights. It would be inexcusable to be rude, but he could not waste either time or Callandra’s money in evasion.

“I am not sure what you were told,” he said with as much good grace as he could manage. “But I am not here on holiday. A woman has been murdered in London, and I am seeking information about her past here in Vienna, and friends of hers who may be able to lead me to the truth of what happened. If I fail, an innocent man may be hanged, and soon.”

The boy’s eyes widened, but he did his best to maintain the sort of calm his imagination told him was dignified. “I’m very sorry, sir. That sounds a terrible thing. Where would you like to begin?”

“How old are you?” Monk said, trying to conceal his mounting anger and sense of desperation.

A couple of very pretty women walked past them, giving them a curious glance.

Ferdinand stood very straight. “Fifteen, sir,” he said softly. “But I speak excellent English. I can translate anything you wish. And I know Vienna very well.” There was a definite touch of pink in his cheeks.

Monk had no memory whatever of having been fifteen. He was embarrassed and angry, and he had no idea where to begin. “The events I need to enquire about took place when you were two years old!” he said between clenched teeth. “Which is going to limit your abilities considerably, no matter how excellent your English.”

Ferdinand was embarrassed also, but he did not give up easily. He had been handed an adult job to do, and he intended to discharge it with honor. His eyes did not waver from Monk’s, even though Monk’s were distinctly challenging and unhappy. “What year exactly, sir?”

“Eighteen forty-eight,” Monk replied. “I expect you learned about it in school.” It was not a question, simply a rather tart observation.

“Actually, not very much,” Ferdinand admitted with a slight tightening of his lips. “Everybody says something different. I’d jolly well like to know the truth! Or rather more of it, anyway.” He glanced around at the marble-faced hotel lobby where a small group of well-dressed gentlemen had come in and were talking. Two ladies seated on well-upholstered chairs exchanged a piece of entertaining gossip, bending towards each other very slightly to bridge the gap between them created by the billowing of their skirts.

“Are you going to stay in Vienna for a while?” Ferdinand asked. “If you are, maybe you’d be better to find rooms over in the Josefstadt, or somewhere like that. Cheaper, too. That’s where people sit around in cafés and talk about ideas and . . . and plan sedition. At least, so I’ve heard,” he added quickly.

There was no better alternative offering, except wandering around alone, unable to understand more than a few words, so with as much gratitude as he could assume, Monk accepted. He checked out of his room, settled the bill, and with his case in his hand, followed Ferdinand down the steps of the hotel and into the busy street of a strange city with very little idea of what to do or where to begin in what was looking like an increasingly hopeless task.

“You may call me Ferdi, if you don’t mind, sir,” the boy said, watching carefully as if Monk had been not only a stranger in the city but one lacking in the ordinary skills of survival, such as watching for traffic before crossing the road, or paying attention so as not to become separated from his guide and thus getting lost. Perhaps he had younger brothers or sisters and was occasionally put in charge of them. With a considerable effort, Monk schooled himself to be amused rather than angry.

Most of the morning was taken up in finding a more suitable accommodation in a very small guest house in the less-expensive quarter, where it seemed students and artists lived. “Revolutionaries,” Ferdi informed Monk in a discreet manner, making sure he was not overheard.

“Are you hungry?” Monk asked him.

“Yes sir!” Ferdi responded instantly, then looked uncomfortable. Perhaps a gentleman did not so readily admit to such needs, but it was too late to take it back. “But of course I can wait a while, if you prefer to ask questions first,” he added.

“No, we’ll eat,” Monk said unhappily. This whole thing was abortive. He had made Callandra believe he could learn something of use when it was beyond his capabilities even to ask for a slice of bread or a cup of tea—or, as it was far more likely to be, coffee.

“Very good,” Ferdi said cheerfully. “I suppose you have some money?” he added as an afterthought. “I’m afraid I haven’t much.”

“Yes, I have plenty,” Monk said without relish. “I think it is perfectly fair that the least I do is offer you dinner.”

Ferdi duly found a small café, and with his mouth full of excellent steak, he asked Monk who, precisely, it was that he was looking for.

“A man named Max Niemann,” Monk replied, also with his mouth full. “But I need to learn as much as possible about him before he is aware that I am looking for him.” He had decided to trust Ferdi with a reasonable portion of the truth. He had very little to lose. “It is possible that it was he who killed the woman in London.” Then, seeing Ferdi’s face, he realized that he had no right whatever to endanger him, even slightly. Perhaps his parents would prefer that he did not even know about such subjects as murder. Although that consideration was rather late. “If you are to help me, you must do exactly what I say,” he said sternly. “If I allow any harm to come to you, I daresay the Viennese police will throw me in prison and I shall never find my way out.”

“That would be very unfortunate,” Ferdi agreed gravely. “I gather what we are about to do is a trifle dangerous.”

It was completely idiotic. Monk was foundering out of his depth and trying very hard not to let despair drown him.

Ferdi looked keen and attentive. “What would you like me to ask someone, sir? What is it you really need to know, other than who killed this poor lady?”

There was nothing to lose. “Say that I am an English novelist, writing a book about the uprising in ’48,” he began, the ideas forming in his head as he spoke. “Ask for as many firsthand stories as you can find. The names I am concerned with are Max Niemann, Kristian Beck and Elissa von Leibnitz.”

“Absolutely!” Ferdi said fervently, his eyes bright with admiration.

The rest of that day was largely a matter of asking people tentatively and being more or less dismissed. By the time Monk went to bed in his new lodgings, saying thank-you in some approximation of German, he felt lost and inadequate. He lay in the dark, acutely conscious that Hester was not beside him. She was in London, trusting that he would bring back weapons of truth to defend Kristian. And Kristian would be lying awake in a narrow prison cot. Was he also trusting Monk to find some element which would be a key to make sense of tragedy? Or did he know it already, and trusted with just as much passion that Monk would wander pointlessly around a strange city where all speech was a jumble of noise, everybody else was rushing about their business, or strolling in fashionable idleness, but belonging, understanding?

Damn them! He would seek out the past! He would find it, whether it meant anything or not. If nothing else, Max Niemann would be able to tell him about Kristian as he had been then. But before he approached him, he would hear the same stories from other people, so he could judge the truth of Niemann’s account. What he needed was another member of that group from sixteen years ago, from Kristian’s list.