Traitors Gate - Anne Perry [2]
“I … I’m sorry,” he said to Matthew.
Matthew tried to smile, at least in acknowledgment, but it was a poor effort. His face still looked haunted.
“Thank you for coming to tell me,” Pitt went on. “That was … very good of you.” It was also far more than he deserved, and he knew it in a flush of shame.
Matthew dismissed it almost impatiently with a wave of his hand.
“He …” He swallowed and took a deep breath, his eyes on Pitt’s face. “He died at his club, here in London.”
Pitt was going to say he was sorry again, but it was pointless, and he ended saying nothing.
“Of an overdose of laudanum,” Matthew went on. His eyes searched Pitt’s face, seeking understanding, assurance of some answer to pain.
“Laudanum?” Pitt repeated it to ascertain he had heard correctly. “Was … was he ill? Suffering from—”
“No!” Matthew cut him off. “No, he was not ill. He was seventy, but he was in good health and good spirits. There was nothing wrong with him at all.” He looked angry as he said it and there was a fierce defensiveness in his voice.
“Then why was he taking laudanum?” Pitt’s policeman’s mind pursued the details and the logic of it in spite of his emotions, or Matthew’s.
“He wasn’t,” Matthew said desperately. “That’s the point! They are saying he was old and losing his wits, and that he took an overdose because he no longer knew what he was doing.” His eyes were blazing and he was poised ready to fly at Pitt if he even suspected him of agreeing.
Pitt remembered Arthur Desmond as he had known him: tall, ineffably elegant in the casual way of those who have both confidence and a natural grace, and yet at the same time almost always untidy. His clothes did not match each other. Even with a valet’s best attention, he managed to select something other than whatever was put out for him. Yet such was his innate dignity, and the humor in his long, clever face, that no one even noticed, much less thought to criticize. He had been highly individual, at times eccentric, but always with such a basic sanity, and tolerance of human frailty, that he should have been the last man on earth to resort to laudanum at all. But if he had, then he was quite capable of absentmindedly dosing himself twice.
Except that surely once would have sent him to sleep anyway?
Pitt had vague memories of Sir Arthur’s having long wakeful spells even thirty years ago, when Pitt had stayed overnight in the hall as a child. Then Sir Arthur had simply got up and wandered around the library until he found a book he fancied, and sat in one of the old leather chairs and gone to sleep with it open in his lap.
Matthew was waiting, staring at Pitt with mounting anger.
“Who is saying this?” Pitt asked.
Matthew was taken aback. It was not the question he was expecting.
“Uh—the doctor, the men at the club …”
“What club?”
“Oh—I am not being very clear, am I? He died at the Morton Club, in the late afternoon.”
“In the afternoon? Not at night at all?” Pitt was genuinely surprised; he did not have to affect it.
“No! That’s the point, Thomas,” Matthew said impatiently. “They are saying he was demented, suffering from a sort of senile decay. It’s not true, not even remotely! Father was one of the sanest men alive. And he didn’t drink brandy either! At least, hardly ever.”
“What has brandy to do with it?”
Matthew’s shoulders sagged and he looked exhausted and utterly bewildered.
“Sit down,” Pitt directed. “There is obviously more to this than you have told me so far. Have you eaten? You look terrible.”
Matthew smiled wanly. “I really don’t want to eat. Don’t fuss over me, just listen.”
Pitt conceded, and sat down opposite him.
Matthew sat on the edge of his chair, leaning forward, unable to relax.
“As I said, Father died yesterday. He was at his club. He had been there most of the afternoon. They found him in his chair when the steward went to tell him the time and ask if he wished for dinner. It was getting late.” He winced. “They said he’d been drinking a lot of brandy,