Incredible delusion

There followed a brief silence during which I kept a straight face. Suddenly it became plain that they were under the incredible delusion that I shot Theodore, but they didn’t care to say so in as many words, which was vastly diverting. Of course it was what they’d wanted, and had hinted to me through Prideaux, and Speedy, having seen the pistol in my hand and Theodore stark and stiff, had concluded that I’d done the dirty deed to save H.M.G. the painful embarrassment of having to try and possibly hang the black bugger. (“But no one must ever know, Sir Robert . . . controversy . . . press gang, scoundrel Stanley . . . questions in the house . . . uproar . . . regicide . . . scandalum magnatum . . . honour of the Army . . . “)


Flashman on the March, p.273, Harper Collins, paperback edition 2005.


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