Traitors Gate - Anne Perry [61]
Somewhere outside a horse whinnied, and Pitt heard the familiar sound of hooves on the cobbled stableyard.
“Yes. He seemed to think it was not an accident.” He did not want to put words into Sturges’s mouth by saying it had been devised as a threat.
“Not an accident?” Sturges looked puzzled but not dismissive of the idea. “Well, in a manner o’ speaking, o’ course, it wasn’t. Fool came down the road like Jehu. Man like that should never ’ave bin on a horse in the first place. I look on an accident as something as couldn’t be helped, ’cept by the Almighty. Two ha’pence worth o’ sense ‘d helped this. Came galloping down the street like a clergyman, by all accounts, whip flyin’ all over the place. It was a mercy no one else was hurt but Sir Arthur, and the animal he was ridin’ at the time. Caught the poor beast a fair lashin’ ’round the head and shoulders. Took us weeks to get ’im right again. Still scared o’ the whip, it is. Probably always will be.”
“Who was the rider?”
“God knows,” Sturges said with disgust. “Some idiot from the far side of the country, seems like. No one ’round here knew him.”
“Did anybody know who he was? Do you know now?” Pitt pressed.
The sunlight was warm through the apple room door. A yellow-haired retriever poked its head in and wagged its tail hopefully.
“‘Course I don’t know,” Sturges answered angrily. “If I knew who he was I’d have had him on a charge.” It was a brave statement, more wish than actuality, but Pitt was quite sure he would have tried.
“Who else saw it happen?” Pitt asked him.
The dog came in and Sturges patted it automatically. “Nobody, far as I know. Wheelwright saw the man go past. So did the smith, but didn’t see him hit Sir Arthur. Why? What are you saying? That it was Sir Arthur’s fault? He got in the way?”
“No.” Pitt did not resent his anger, or the defensiveness in his face. “No, I’m saying it may not have been an accident in any sense. The man may have spurred his horse to a gallop intentionally, meaning to catch Sir Arthur with the whip….”
Sturges’s face was full of amazement and disbelief.
“Why would anybody want to do that? It don’t make sense. Sir Arthur had no enemies.”
Pitt was not sure how far he should go in telling Sturges the truth. Perhaps the Inner Circle would be straining his belief a little far.
“Who would it be then?”
“Sir Arthur had no enemies. Not around here.” Sturges was watching him closely.
“Is that what he thought?”
Sturges stared at Pitt. “What have you heard, Tom? What are you trying to say?”
“That Sir Arthur was a danger to a certain group he had joined, and about whom he had discovered some very unpleasant truths, and was bent on exposing them. They caused this accident as a warning to him to keep his covenants of silence,” Pitt answered him.
“Oh aye, this Circle he spoke about.” Sturges blinked. “Pretty dangerous to go that far though. Could have killed him!”
“You know about the Circle?” Pitt said with surprise.
“Oh yes, he talked about it. Evil men, from what he said, but from up London.” He hesitated, searching Pitt’s face. “You mean what I think you mean, Tom?”
“Well, was he wandering in his mind, imagining things?”
“No he was not! Upset, maybe, pretty angry about some of the things he said was going to happen abroad, but as sane as you or me.” There was no pretense in his voice, no effort to convince himself of something that in his heart he had doubted. It was the quality of his tone as much as any words that drove away Pitt’s last reservations. He was filled with a sudden and intense gratitude, almost a kind of happiness. He found himself smiling at Sturges.
“Then, yes,” he replied firmly, “I mean what you think I do. It was a warning, which he was too angry and too honest to heed, and so they murdered him. I don’t know how it was done yet, or if there is any way I can prove it, but I shan’t stop trying until I do.”
“I’m glad of