Hollow Crown

by David Roberts

  He looked round the table. The fellow Carstairs – Boy Carstairs – he had known Molly in Africa – might have been her lover at one time or another. He must be investigated. If there were reasons for Molly being murdered, which had nothing to do with Mrs Simpson and her carelessness with royal love letters, then Carstairs might know them. There was the husband who had killed himself and the lover who had been discarded, or who had discarded her, after the scandal of the suicide. Edward tried to recall what Molly had said to him as they had lain chastely in each other’s arms on the veldt. When he came to think about it, considering how reckless she was and how she had loved gossip, she had been surprisingly reticent about her own affairs and Edward had not questioned her closely. He had been trying to cheer her up – not encourage her to wallow in the miserable mess she had made for herself.

  He finished his fish and caught the eye of Sir Geoffrey Hepple-Keen. He couldn’t make much of him. Was he an out and out rogue – a supporter of Mosley and the Fascists? He made his wife miserable, that was certain. He must try to get to know him but he had the feeling it might be difficult.

  Inevitably, the topic of Spain was raised once again – this time by Lady Hepple-Keen who was apparently involved in the efforts of the Red Cross to bring succour to victims on both sides of the divide. She asked timidly if Verity had seen ‘horrors’ and Edward was relieved when she was able to speak calmly, but with feeling, of what she had seen. She dwelt on the human tragedy of the civil war, the ruin of the countryside, and described as neutrally as she could the siege of Toledo, praising the courage of the young officers who had held out in the fortress long after they must have given up hope of being relieved, and the incompetence of the Republicans – her own friends – who had allowed precisely this to happen. She told of how, in the savage hand-to-hand fighting, she had found a baby underneath the body of its mother who had been killed by a stray shot. She had taken the baby with her as she fled the Moorish troops swarming across the city.

  ‘What happened to it?’ Lady Hepple-Keen asked, fearing to hear it had suffered some terrible fate. ‘Was it a boy or a girl?’

  ‘A girl. I took her back with me to Madrid. What else could I do?’

  ‘And?’

  ‘And I handed her over to the Red Cross. They have set up orphanages but I don’t know . . . ’ Verity looked distressed.

  ‘The Red Cross is doing wonderful work in Spain,’ Lady Hepple-Keen said, looking at Verity nervously. ‘I expect you know that there’s a man called Dr Aurelio Romeo who is organizing relief work there.’

  ‘I met him,’ Verity said. ‘If I believed in saints, I would appoint him my patron saint. The trouble is, there is so little difference between civilian and soldier in Spain and there’s no question of exchanging prisoners or anything like that. The bitterness is too great.’

  ‘We’re trying to arrange for some of the children to be brought to England,’ Lady Hepple-Keen said.

  Verity was impressed. Perhaps this timid, put-upon woman had more to her than she had supposed. ‘If I can help in any way . . . ’

  ‘Oh, could you? Perhaps in the New Gazette . . . ?’

  ‘I’ll talk to Lord Weaver about it,’ Verity promised. ‘It’s just the sort of thing he might like to put his weight behind.’

  Harbin said, ‘You had a near miss at Toledo, I understand, Miss Browne?’

  ‘Oh, I was in very little danger.’

  ‘I don’t believe that, young lady. You were a woman among savages . . . ’ He looked ferocious, as if Verity had put herself in a position to be raped and killed deliberately to annoy him, but in fact he was jealous of her war. She had tested her courage and found it true. Like so many men who have never been in battle, Harbin had a sneaking fear that, were he put to the test, he might find himself a coward.

  ‘I don’t think anyone knew I was a woman,’ Verity said with a smile. ‘I wore the same clothes the men wore – baggy trousers, a shirt and a sort of military jacket I picked up somewhere. I’ve got a photograph a friend took of me beside my motor bike. I look rather absurd but no temptation to any self-respecting rapist.’

  Edward wanted to ask who the friend was who had taken the photograph but he did not dare. Instead he said, ‘I didn’t know you rode a motor bike.’

  ‘Oh yes,’ she said breezily. ‘It was the only way to get about. The roads hardly exist and I needed to see what was happening and then get somewhere I could file my report. The motor bike was essential.’

  ‘What did you see of that novelist fellow – what’s his name – Belasco? Was he in the front line? You were pretty thick with him, weren’t you?’ Hepple-Keen asked.

  ‘How did you know that?’ she said, surprised.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said, rather uncomfortably Edward thought. ‘Didn’t you say something about him in one of your articles?’

  ‘Actually, I rather got one over on him,’ Verity said, grinning. ‘Press weren’t allowed on the front line and women weren’t allowed within miles of it in theory. That’s one of the reasons why, as I told you, I disguised myself in men’s clothes.’

  ‘You fought as a soldier?’ Scannon asked, scandalized.

  ‘I did have a pistol for self-defence but I never used it. I was a journalist . . . an observer . . . ’

  ‘Doesn’t sound that way,’ Scannon said drily.

  Harbin said, ‘Gee, I envy you that, Miss Browne, being at “the hot gates”. I guess I’m not made to be a military man – ain’t got the physique for it, as you can see, but before I close my eyes and enter Elysium – or maybe the other place, who knows? – I would dearly like to be involved in battle.’

  Verity looked at him speculatively. ‘I have to tell you, Mr Harbin, that battle’s not what it’s cracked up to be. I found it more like your Hart Crane described it in The Red Badge of Courage – much waiting around for something to happen followed by a confusing mêlée and, in my case, ignominious flight.’

  ‘Still,’ Harbin said reflectively, ‘I guess a man who has never fought is not quite a man.’

  Rather unexpectedly Benyon broke in to say, ‘I can’t agree with that. In fact, it’s just the kind of nonsense that made all those poor boys join Kitchener’s army in 1914. They thought it would be a great adventure and they would come back to their girls as heroes but, of course, for the most part they didn’t come back.’

  Edward thought the conversation might have got interesting if they had gone on to discuss the nature of courage. He would have particularly liked to have Carstairs’ notion of it. The hunter had been in many tight corners in his life but now he seemed oddly reluctant to join in the conversation and Scannon had something else on his mind. ‘The Inspector wants to talk to us tomorrow at about eleven in the drawing-room. After that, I gather, we are all free to go. He apologizes for the inconvenience, knowing that most of us . . . all of us have other things to do, but I thought we owed it to him, and of course to Molly, to do what we can to sort this out. So far, we have managed to avoid anything appearing in the press and I would be grateful if we could keep it all quiet a little longer. Of course, there will have to be an inquest.’

  ‘Why is Miss Browne here then?’ Carstairs asked in his lazy drawl. ‘Isn’t she a journalist? I don’t see what she has to do with all this anyway.’

  ‘Verity’s a friend of mine and she’s not wearing her journalist’s hat, Carstairs,’ Edward said hurriedly.

  ‘And I wanted to meet her,’ Dannie chimed in.

  Carstairs grunted, clearly unsatisfied, and Verity found herself trying not to blush.

  All through dinner Edward was nervous that Verity would make a fuss when the ladies had to leave the table to let the gentlemen smoke their cigars and drink their port but, to his surprise and relief, she rose meekly from the table and went off with Dannie. As Edward chewed on his cigar and half listened to Boy Carstairs telling big-game stories, a new worry surfaced in his mind: how were Dannie and Verity getting along? He half expected to hear screams and to have
to break up fisticuffs but no such refereeing exercise was called for. He was not vain enough to think he would be their sole topic of conversation but he had an idea that at this moment his reputation might be being savaged by two extremely strong-minded women and it made the hairs on the back of his neck prickle.

  The men did not linger long at table but Edward stirred himself to say in a low voice to Hepple-Keen, ‘I still don’t understand what you were doing at the Mosley march.’

  Hepple-Keen shrugged his shoulders. ‘I was a friend of Mosley in his younger and wiser days and I’m still curious as to what sent him off the rails. Call it “human interest”.’ And with that Edward had to pretend to be satisfied.

  When they joined the ladies in the drawing-room, there was no sign that Dannie and Verity had been doing more than chatting on neutral subjects but Verity avoided him when he crossed the room to talk to her. The fire was lit but it was still too cold for comfort. It wasn’t long before the Benyons announced that they were going to bed and this broke up the party. Verity was sleeping in Molly Harkness’s room and it occurred to Edward she might be nervous. When he walked over to say goodnight and, if necessary, reassure her, she again avoided him and he was left looking rather foolish as she swept past him. He saw Scannon wink at Carstairs which annoyed him. However, no sooner was he in his own room with Fenton taking charge of his dinner jacket than he heard a scream. He looked at Fenton and Fenton looked at him. Without a word, they made for the door which linked his room with Verity’s. It was locked. They both went into the passage, Edward grabbing his dressing gown as he stumbled past the bed. Harbin arrived at the same moment and Edward had a horrible sense of déjà vu. Could it be that he was going to find Verity dead as they had found Molly?

  He knocked noisily on the door and with relief heard Verity turning the key and trying to open it. When at last she succeeded, he was confronted by a red-faced, irate young woman dressed in a fetching silk kimono holding in her left hand, by the tail, a very dead rat.

  ‘What took you so long and what on earth are you doing with that, V?’ he inquired vacuously. ‘It’s a rat, isn’t it?’

  Verity stared at him and said through pursed lips, ‘Yes, Edward, as you say, it is a rat. I discovered it when I got into bed.’

  ‘Good lord, I say, what a stunt!’ Carstairs said, arriving just at this moment with Pickering. ‘I mean, how revolting!’ he corrected himself. ‘I say, Leo,’ Scannon had appeared clad in a green dressing gown and slippers, ‘is it your custom to put dead rats in your guests’ beds? It beats me, doesn’t it you, Harbin? Have you looked in your bed? I expect there’s something exciting there for you as well.’

  Scannon looked at Carstairs with disgust. ‘I need hardly say, Verity, that it’s nothing to do with me. Someone has played a nasty trick on you and I do apologize. Here, Pickering, Miss Browne has found a dead rat in her bed. Do you know anything about it?’

  ‘Nothing at all, sir.’ He took the rat from Verity. ‘I shall dispose of this, madam, and if you can wait for a few minutes I will have your bed made up with clean sheets.’

  ‘Pickering, presumably Gladys turned down the beds while we were in the dining-room?’ Scannon said. ‘Send for her, if you please, so we may question her.’

  ‘Yes, sir, but I don’t think . . . ’

  ‘Nor do I, man,’ Scannon said irritably. He turned to Verity. ‘Gladys has been with us for fifteen years at least and I have no doubt that, whoever played this trick on you, it wasn’t her.’

  ‘Please, it’s late. Don’t send for Gladys. We can ask her in the morning if she noticed anything. If I could just have some clean sheets, let’s all go back to bed. It was silly of me to scream like that. As you say, it was no more than a silly joke. Nothing to be alarmed about.’

  7

  ‘We have completed our investigations and we have found no evidence of foul play.’

  A shocked silence followed Inspector Lampfrey’s words. They had all gathered in the drawing-room expecting the Inspector to tell them they were all suspects in a murder investigation but here he was telling them that Molly Harkness had not been murdered. Edward said at last, ‘Might I ask in that case, Inspector, if you have come to a conclusion as to how Mrs Harkness died?’

  ‘That will be for the inquest jury and the coroner to decide. All I can say is there is no evidence of anyone else being involved in her death. Whether she died accidentally or took an overdose deliberately it is in my view impossible to say.’

  Carstairs said, ‘So we will not have to give evidence at the inquest?’

  ‘Mr Scannon and Lord Edward will be called to give evidence of Mrs Harkness’s state of mind the evening before she died but, at this stage, there appears to be no necessity for inconveniencing anyone else.’

  The faint West Country burr in the Inspector’s voice was rather more pronounced than usual and Edward guessed that, despite his cool exterior, the Inspector was under considerable strain.

  Verity had not been invited to hear the Inspector address the household and she had not been at breakfast – Scannon said she had ‘gone out walking’ – and Edward had to assume he was still persona non grata. However, the Inspector’s announcement was so unexpected he decided he had to talk it over with her. Pickering said she was in the garden and he found her examining the rhododendrons with exaggerated interest.

  ‘Oh, it’s you,’ she said as he came up to her.

  ‘Were you expecting someone else?’ he inquired. ‘Perhaps anyone else?’

  ‘Look, Edward, you made an utter fool of me last night and, I am tempted to think, deliberately.’

  ‘Verity, really! I just forgot to pass on the message. Anyway, you looked . . . spiffing.’

  ‘Spiffing!’ she sneered. ‘Do grow up. You’re not at your preparatory school now.’

  ‘You looked stunning,’ he amended. ‘Don’t you want to hear what Inspector Lampfrey said?’

  ‘I suppose he accused you of murder. It would be perfectly reasonable.’

  ‘No, he said she had died by accident. I ask you! The man’s been got at. That’s the only possible explanation.’

  ‘What on earth do you mean?’

  ‘Lampfrey knows Molly wasn’t in any mood to kill herself so he says it was an accidental overdose.’

  ‘It could have been, and we both know there’s not an atom of evidence to show she was murdered.’

  Edward refused to be deflated. ‘I had a few words with him after his announcement and he more or less admitted he had had orders from the Chief Constable to give up the case.’

  ‘What did he say exactly?’

  ‘There was a lot going on and he was needed to investigate an attempted rape and the Chief Constable had told him he could not afford to let him spend more time on this.’

  ‘It may all be true.’

  ‘Yes, but I’m sure the Inspector knows he hasn’t got to the bottom of the case. No, Verity, he’s been shut up. Someone’s afraid the inquiry might throw something up – bad publicity for the King. We’ve seen it all before. The powers-that-be don’t like anyone rocking the boat. The public must not see their rulers with their trousers down.’

  ‘So there’s nothing much left to do? We can all go back to London? I must do some work on my book, in any case.’

  Verity sounded cold, unsympathetic, and Edward wondered what, if anything, Dannie had said to her.

  ‘Yes, you go back and get on with your book,’ he said nastily. ‘I’m going to find out why Molly was killed. I know she was. She was pregnant, she had stolen incriminating letters which could only make a delicate situation more delicate. Molly was a nuisance. Of course she was killed.’

  ‘You’re just going to make a fool of yourself. Talk to Joe. See what he says, though I can tell you what he will say: “Shut up and take your nose out of other people’s business.” ’

  ‘Well,’ said Edward haughtily, ‘I’m disappointed in you. You do what you like. Molly was my friend . . . ’

  ‘She
was your lover; Dannie was telling me – one of your other lovers.’

  ‘Molly was my friend,’ he repeated, ‘and I’m not going to be shut up.’

  ‘I thought you said you were hoping to get some sort of job with the Foreign Office. I can’t think you’ll improve your chances of employment by making a stink about this.’

  ‘Verity! I’m ashamed of you. Have you no principles?’

  ‘Damn you!’ She turned on him fiercely and Edward, angry as he was, recoiled at her fury. ‘Don’t you dare say anything to me about principles. You’re a rat and I never want to see you again.’

  Verity stormed off towards the house and Edward strode in the other direction, furious with her, with the Inspector and, most of all, with himself. He walked off his irritation in half an hour but when he got back to the house – as the gong was going for luncheon – his host informed him that Verity had asked Carstairs to take her to the station as she had remembered an important engagement in London, ‘which she was anxious to miss’.

  Edward looked at Scannon, for a moment not understanding.

  ‘I was joking. I suppose you two had a row?’

  ‘Not at all. By the way, Leo, now that we have the Inspector’s leave to depart I think I, too, ought to get back to town.’

  ‘As you wish,’ Scannon said airily. ‘Perhaps you can give Harbin a lift. He is also anxious to be in town tonight. I feel rather insulted. It seems none of you can wait to leave Haling – I can’t think why.’

  The Lagonda cut through the gathering dusk, the throb of its six-cylinder engine discouraging conversation. Savernake Forest encroached on the road and roe deer peered at them from behind the trees, their eyes yellow in the headlights. Edward liked this sort of driving. The roads were almost empty and he sped through Newbury and reached Reading in record time. His passenger was almost invisible under a heap of travelling rugs and a heavy ulster he had borrowed off his host. Edward had left Fenton at Haling to take the luggage on the train.

  He glanced at Harbin and said conversationally, ‘Looks like rain. I think I’ll stop and put up the hood. No sense in getting soaked.’