Death on a Pale Horse by Donald Thomas

must have been a charge?”
    â€œConduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman, I should think. It doesn’t sound much on its own, but they can tie a lot more to it.”
    â€œSuch as?”
    â€œIs there such a thing as constructive murder in the common law?”
    â€œI daresay.”
    â€œLook,” said Frank, “why should it matter what they called it? Her death was his crime. Of course, it could have gone to a general court-martial. But what good would that do? He might have got off Scot-free. Whatever old Josh Sellon thinks, better deal with it quietly and not let the poor woman’s name be dragged through a court. As though the inquest wasn’t bad enough.”
    There was a horrible fascination in the tale, if it was true. I looked at Jock.
    â€œWhat could they do to him? They couldn’t sentence him to death or imprisonment.”
    I then listened to an extraordinary account. It was easy to picture the closed velvet curtains drawn against the deep silence of a sleeping world, oil lamps casting their glow on regimental portraits and silver. Elegant dining chairs were set at long tables draped in green baize. The five members of the court in dark blue mess jackets, with Captain Canning as president, sat along the top table, the prosecution and defence on either side. Volumes of military law. Decanters of water and glasses. The president’s gavel and “Colonel” Moran’s surrendered sword. All these made up the high table’s setting. A junior second lieutenant sat by the door to the ante-room, beyond which the witnesses waited.
    As my two informants described it, the outcome of the case was never in doubt. Captain Learmont had been left to construct a defence of bricks without straw. Moran refused to answer for his association with Mrs. Putney-Wilson, but he had boasted of it to his toadies. To them he preached a simple gospel of worldly experience—all men are scoundrels at heart and every woman will sell herself if the price is high enough.
    I shall have so much to say of “Colonel” Rawdon Moran that I had better describe him at once as my two lieutenants depicted him to me.
    He was plainly older than the misguided young men who looked to him for wisdom. Perhaps about forty, with dyed whiskers. He posed as a jolly, rollicking fellow who had knocked about the world. He took little care to hide his viciousness. In appearance, he was tall with a well-developed chest, broad shoulders, muscular arms, and heavy square hands, a vigorous growth of fiery red hair on the backs of his fingers. It was his prematurely wrinkled face that betrayed the coarseness under the easy manner and jovial laugh.
    No one got the better of him, he promised them that. Good old Randy Moran could turn his hand to anything. He had been everywhere and knew everything—and everyone. Was there a successful West End play? He knew the leading actress. Was there a sensational divorce suit or a murder trial? He knew the leading counsel on both sides. In any conversation about game-hunting, foreign cities, money, the law, great families and their houses, he was there before you, always knowing more than you did.
    Moran had several times lent money to younger officers, perhaps to keep them under his influence, but those who accepted his good-natured offer would never have dared to delay repayment. There was something within the good-humoured look that inspired fear—no less than that. The very way in which he cut a cigar or scraped his boot suggested the act of a man who would stick at nothing, once he felt himself cornered. As for meeting women, however playful his introduction, it was not long before his arm was round their waists.
    Such was the defendant in the subalterns’ court. The evidence against him was proven. He never bothered to deny that he had taken his pleasure with a foolish, lonely wife who was flattered by his notice. She was not an innocent child, after all. All