Traitors Gate - Anne Perry [39]
Anstruther pursed his lips and looked annoyed. He was obviously very loath to accede. He glanced once at the front bench. “He … er … he forgot what he had said,” he replied. “Repeated himself, don’t you know? Got his facts muddled now and then. Talked a lot of nonsense about Africa. Didn’t seem to understand.”
Matthew rose to his feet before Pitt could restrain him.
“You mean he disagreed with you?” he challenged.
“Sir Matthew!” the coroner warned. “I will not tolerate repeated interruption, sir. We are aware of your very natural grief, but there are limits to our patience. This inquest will be conducted in proper order and decorum, with respect both for the truth and for the dignity of the occasion. I am sure you would wish that as much as anyone.”
Matthew drew in his breath, possibly to apologize, but the coroner held up his hand to silence him.
Matthew sat back down again, to Pitt’s relief.
“General, please be good enough to elaborate upon what you mean.” The coroner turned to General Anstruther. “Did Sir Arthur merely disagree with you upon some matters? What precisely causes you to believe his reasoning was confused?”
The dark color washed up Anstruther’s cheeks, making his white whiskers seem even more pronounced.
“Talked a lot of nonsense about secret combinations of people plotting together to conquer Equatoria, or some such thing.” He glanced again at the front row, and then away. “Made a lot of wild accusations. Absolute nonsense of course. Contradicted himself half the time, poor devil. Terrible thing, to start losing your sense of … of … God knows, all your old loyalties, where your trust and decency lie, who your own people are, and what the values are you believed all your life.”
“You mean Sir Arthur had substantially changed from the man he had been in the recent past?”
“I wish you wouldn’t force me to say this!” Anstruther persisted angrily. “Let us bury him in peace, and his latter misfortunes with him. Let us forget this nonsense and remember him as he was a year or so ago.”
Matthew groaned so audibly that not only did Pitt hear him, the man on the far side of him heard as well. He looked around sharply, then flushed with discomfort at Matthew’s obvious emotion, and looked away again.
“Thank you, General,” the coroner said quietly. “I think you have told us enough for us to have some idea. You are excused.”
Anstruther took out a white handkerchief and blew his nose savagely, then left, looking to neither side of him.
The Honorable William Osborne was called next, who said much the same as Anstruther had, adding one or two instances of Arthur Desmond’s strange and irrational opinions, but he did not mention Africa. He was altogether a smoother and more assured man, and while he expressed regret in words, his manner did not suggest any emotion at all, except a slight impatience.
Matthew stared at him with implacable dislike, a growing bewilderment in his pain. It was more than possible that both Anstruther and Osborne were members of the Inner Circle. Pitt loathed to admit it, but it was also possible that Arthur Desmond had been somewhat irrational in his opinions, and that they were born more of emotion than a knowledge of fact. He had always been highly individual, even eccentric. It was possible that in old age he had become detached from reality.
Another regular club member was called, a thin man with a sallow face and a gold watch with which his fingers were constantly fiddling as if it gave him some kind of comfort. He repeated what Osborne had said, occasionally using the same phrases to describe what he apparently viewed as the disintegration of Arthur Desmond’s faculties of reason and judgment.
The coroner listened without interruption, and then adjourned the sitting until after luncheon. They had not begun until ten o’clock, and it was already well past midday.
Pitt and Matthew walked out into the brilliant sunlight side by side. Matthew was silent for several yards along the pavement, sunk in gloom. A