Anne Perry - Traitors Gate

“And then we try,” Pitt finished.

Matthew smiled. “How very literal of you. Absolutely exact. You haven’t changed, have you, Thomas?”

Pitt thought of apologizing, and then realized there was no need.

Matthew appeared to be on the point of asking him something further, but decided against it and bit into his own sandwich. He ate it with surprising appetite, and did not speak again until it was time to leave.

The first witness of the afternoon was the medical examiner, who gave his evidence in detail, but he was very practiced at this unhappy task and avoided scientific terms. Quite simply, Arthur Desmond had died of an overdose of laudanum, administered within the hour. It was sufficiently large to have killed anyone, but there was a certain amount of brandy in his stomach, and that might well have masked the flavor. Personally he thought the laudanum would have tainted the brandy. He favored a very good cognac himself, but that was a matter of taste.

“Did you find any other signs of illness or deterioration?” the coroner asked.

The medical examiner pulled a long face. “Of course there was deterioration. The man was seventy! But that taken into account, he was in excellent health. I’ll be happy to be as fit if I reach that age. And no, there was no other sign of illness whatever.”

“Thank you, Doctor. That is all.”

The medical examiner gave a little grunt and left the stand.

Pitt would have wagered that he was not a member of the Inner Circle. Not that he could think how that fact would be of any use.

The next witness was also a doctor, but an utterly different man. He was serious, attentive, polite, but he knew himself to be of great importance. He acknowledged his name and his qualifications and addressed himself to the matter in hand.

“Dr. Murray,” the coroner began, “I believe you were Sir Arthur’s physician; is that correct?”

“I was indeed.”

“For some time.”

“The last fourteen years, sir.”

“Then you were very familiar with the state of his health, both in mind and body?”

Beside Pitt, Matthew was sitting forward, his hands clenched, his face tense. Pitt found himself also straining to hear.

“Naturally,” Murray agreed. “Although I must confess I had no idea the deterioration had gone so far, or I should not have prescribed laudanum for him. I am speaking of the deterioration in his mood, his frame of mind.”

“Perhaps you would explain further, Dr. Murray. What precisely are you referring to? Was Sir Arthur depressed, worried over some matter, or anxious?”

Now there was a breathless silence in the room. Journalists sat with pencils poised.

“Not in the sense you mean, sir,” Murray replied with confidence. “He had bad dreams, nightmares, if you will. At least that is what he told me when he came to see me. Quite appalling dreams, you understand? I do not mean simply the usual unpleasant imaginings we all suffer from after a heavy meal, or some disagreeable experience.” He shifted his position slightly. “He seemed to be increasingly disoriented in his manner, and had developed suspicions of people he had trusted all his life. I admit, I assume that he was suffering some senile decay of his faculties. Regrettably, it can happen to even the most worthy people.”

“Very sad indeed,” the coroner said gravely.

Matthew could bear it no longer. He shot to his feet.

“That’s absolute nonsense! He was as lucid and in command of his mind as any man I know!”

A flash of anger crossed Murray’s face. He was not accustomed to being contradicted.

The coroner spoke quite quietly, but his voice carried across the entire room, and everyone turned to stare.

“Sir Matthew, we all understand your grief and the very natural distress you feel at the loss of your father, and especially at the manner of it, but I will not tolerate your interruptions. I will question Dr. Murray as to his evidence.” He turned to look at Murray again. “Can you give any instance of this behavior, Doctor? Were it as strange as you suggest, I am surprised you gave him laudanum in sufficient quantities to allow the event which brings us here.”

Murray did not seem in the least contrite, and certainly not guilty. His words, like Osborne’s, were full of apology, but his face remained perfectly composed. There were the marks of neither pain nor humor in it.

“I regret this profoundly, sir,” he said smoothly, and without looking towards Matthew. “It is a sad thing to have to make public the frailties of a good man, especially when we are met to ascertain the causes of his death. But I understand the necessity, and the reason for your pressing the point. Actually I was not aware of all these things myself at the time I prescribed the laudanum, otherwise, as you say, it would have been a questionable act.”

He smiled very faintly. One of the men in the front now nodded.

“Sir Arthur told me of his nightmares and his difficulty in sleeping,” Murray resumed. “The dreams concerned wild animals, jungles, cannibals and similar frightening images. He seemed to have an inner fear of being overwhelmed by such things. I was quite unaware of his obsession with Africa at that time.” He shook his head. “I prescribed laudanum for him, believing that if he would sleep more easily, and deeply, these thoughts would trouble him less. I only learned afterwards from some of his friends how far his rational thoughts and memory had left him.”

“He’s lying!” Matthew hissed, not looking at Pitt, but the words were directed to him. “The swine is lying to protect himself! The coroner caught him out so he twisted immediately to excuse himself.”

“Yes, I think he is,” Pitt said under his breath. “But keep your counsel. You’ll never prove it here.”

“They murdered him! Look at them! Sitting together, come to blacken his name and try to make everyone believe he was a senile old man who had so lost his wits he accidentally killed himself.” Matthew’s voice was cracking with the bitterness which overwhelmed him.

The man on the far side of him looked uncomfortable. Pitt had the distinct impression he would have moved away were it not that it would have drawn such attention to him.

“You won’t succeed by attacking him face-to-face,” Pitt said harshly between his teeth, aware-with a chill in his stomach-of a new fear: that they had no way of knowing who was involved, who was friend and who enemy. “Keep your powder dry!”

“What?” Matthew swung around, incomprehension in his eyes. Then he understood the words, if not the weight of all that was behind them. “Oh. Yes, I’m sorry. I suppose that’s exactly what they’d expect, isn’t it? Me to get so angry I lose my sense of tactics.”

“Yes,” Pitt said bluntly.

Matthew lapsed into silence.

Dr. Murray had been excused and the coroner had called a man named Danforth who was a neighbor of Arthur Desmond’s in the country, and he was saying, with some sadness, that indeed Sir Arthur had been extraordinarily absentminded lately, quite unlike his old self. Yes, unfortunately, he seemed to have lost his grasp on matters.

“Could you be more specific, sir?” the coroner suggested.

Danforth looked straight ahead of him, studiously avoiding the public benches where he might have met Matthew’s eyes. “Well sir, an instance that comes to mind was approximately three months ago,” he replied quietly. “Sir Arthur’s best bitch had whelped, and he had promised me the pick of the litter. I had been over to look at them, and fine animals they were, excellent. I chose the two I wanted and he agreed, approved of it in fact.” He bit his lip doubtfully for a moment before continuing, his eyes downcast. “We shook hands on it. Then when they were weaned I went over to collect them, only to find Arthur had gone up to London on some errand. I said I’d come back in a week, which I did, and he was off somewhere else, and all the pups had been sold to Major Bridges over in Highfield. I was very put out.” He looked at the coroner, frowning. There was a slight movement in the room, a shifting of position.