Hollow Crown

by David Roberts

  ‘Yes, thank you. Tommie has a friend who lives near here and we’re going to sleep on her floor.’

  ‘Good! I’ll see you in the morning. I think you’ll find tomorrow interesting.’

  ‘She’s the most wonderful woman,’ Tommie said reverently after she had departed. ‘“Indomitable” hardly does justice to her fortitude. Nothing seems to depress her – not rain or wind or the indifference of Parliament. You know Baldwin has let it be known he won’t see us when we present the petition to Parliament? And she certainly isn’t depressed by the attitude of the newspaper proprietors either.’

  ‘I gather the bishops haven’t been exactly supportive,’ Verity said tartly.

  ‘No,’ he sighed. ‘The Bishop of Durham called us revolutionaries and he made Bishop Gordon – Jarrow‘s bishop – apologize for blessing the marchers when they set off. I sometimes think they would ask Jesus to recant if he was foolish enough to come back to earth. They don’t seem to understand,’ he said unhappily, ‘that poverty is not an accident, a temporary difficulty, but the permanent state in which most people live.’

  ‘That’s what I’m always telling you – it’s the basis of the class struggle. Men are regarded as mere instruments of production and their labour a commodity to be bought and sold. That’s why the Communist Party is the only realistic alternative to capitalism.

  ‘Businessmen can destroy a town overnight and take no responsibility for the social consequences of their decisions. It’s iniquitous!’

  Tommie laughed. ‘You may be right but I still distrust your people.’

  ‘How can you? I was doing some research in the files: Palmer’s Shipyard in Jarrow employed ten thousand men at the end of the war. Almost twenty years later, a letter addressed to Palmer’s Shipyard, Ellison Street, Jarrow was returned marked “Not known. Gone away.”’

  In the morning, feeling tired and dirty, Verity splashed her face under the kitchen tap and joined Tommie for the march. Every bone in her body ached – the floor had been particularly hard – and it was good to be out in the fresh air. As they approached the assembly point, they heard a strange groaning sound.

  ‘What on earth is that?’ Verity inquired.

  ‘The mouth-organ band. The journalists with us, knowing that many of the men play the mouth-organ, got up a subscription to buy some. You can’t have a march without a band.’

  After a brief but highly effective call to arms from Ellen Wilkinson, the marchers set off – excited, but also full of trepidation. Many of the men Verity spoke to had never been out of Jarrow before and, to them, London was as foreign as Vienna or Berlin. They had no idea how they would be welcomed. The collective memory of the working class included being charged by mounted police, cut at with sabres, chained to railings and beaten. Although they had faith in their MP that nothing like that would happen today, they were still frightened – determined but frightened.

  It didn’t rain, for which Verity was profoundly thankful, and she felt she was in her rightful place, middle class though she was, and a woman at that – surrounded by gaunt, hollow-eyed men in cloth caps and threadbare coats, their boots often tied up with string or gaping at the toe. When she remarked on the state of their clothes, Tommie said that many towns had been generous with their support and the men were actually in better health than when they had started out. ‘People have been so kind,’ he went on. ‘In the last month, they have had better food than they are used to but, most important of all, Ellen has given them a sense of purpose. If you’ve been without a job for as long as these men have, your sense of worth has taken a fearful battering.’

  As the marchers neared Hyde Park more and more people joined them so that those who had started out from Jarrow twenty-seven days earlier were far outnumbered and only recognizable by their dress and the way they stared about them at London’s great buildings and wide thoroughfares. At Marble Arch, they were greeted by the Mayor of Jarrow and Verity was moved to see that he was weeping as he embraced Ellen Wilkinson. The Mayor announced that the marchers were to be given lunch at the London County Council Training Centre in Stepney, after which they would march through Mayfair to Hyde Park for the great final rally.

  Verity decided she had time to go to the New Gazette and write a piece about the march. She assumed the editor had other journalists covering it but she wanted to do something personal – a ringing denunciation of the government which had left towns like Jarrow to rot, out of sight and unimagined by the comfortable clubmen dozing in their leather chairs and the smug politicians in Westminster. As she made her way across Hyde Park, she suddenly felt a touch on her shoulder. She turned to find Major Stille at her elbow. For a moment, thinking of the article she was going to write and how she would hold up Ellen Wilkinson as the kind of MP she could honour, she did not recognize him.

  ‘Have you decided yet?’ The German spoke perfect English.

  ‘What? Decided what?’

  Verity had no desire to speak to this man whom she hated and despised and who she knew hated her. She recalled the dinner party in the German Embassy. He had been fooled then, not knowing she was a member of the Communist Party, and he had not liked being made to look foolish. He had taken his revenge in a particularly spiteful way by killing the little dog she doted on. It was clear he had by no means finished with her.

  ‘Decided if you’re going to use the letters Dannie brought you.’

  ‘How did you . . . ?’ she began, unwisely, before checking herself. She knew that the first rule of engagement was never to admit anything.

  ‘Dannie is a naughty girl.’ He wagged his finger at her in mock exasperation. ‘Germany has no wish to see the letters used to embarrass the King, but we have need of them. When I catch up with her – and I will catch up with her – she will be . . . reprimanded. Now, if you would be kind enough to return them to me . . . ’

  Verity shivered and felt momentarily sorry for Dannie. Here was a man as deadly as sin and to cross him was to make a terrible enemy.

  ‘I don’t know what you mean,’ she said. ‘I have nothing to say to you, Major Stille. If you harass me, I shall call rape and have the police arrest you.’

  Stille laughed, almost heartily. Looking around her for assistance, Verity saw that they were quite alone. Hyde Park, which had seemed so crowded a moment ago, was now deserted.

  ‘What letters?’ she said again. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

  It occurred to her – rather late – that Stille might not be sure Dannie had passed the letters to her and, whatever she decided to do with them, she certainly was not going to give them up to him.

  ‘Well, have it your own way – isn’t that what you English say? – but it’s a pity you don’t trust me.’

  ‘Trust you! When you have haunted me, disrupting my lectures and pretending to be what you’re not. In Spain, we know all about spies and traitors.’

  ‘Ah, Spain. I wish I had been at Toledo. I have a friend there who says it was most amusing. I probably should not tell you this but Toledo was only the beginning. Kindergarten! We shall test our weapons on the peasants and make the necessary improvements before we use them in earnest.’

  Verity, who had been walking fast to get away from the man, turned suddenly to face him. ‘We shall win, I promise you, Major Stille. Perhaps not this year, but in the end. Your world ends in the dustbin of history – what do you call it? – Der Mülleimer, the rubbish dump . . . ’

  For a moment she thought he might attack her but a group of young people from the march came into view and he obviously thought better of prolonging the conversation.

  ‘I give you till tonight to return the letters to the German Embassy. Otherwise . . . ’

  Verity gave a shout. She had noticed that Tommie Fox was among the group strolling towards her. ‘Tommie, am I glad to see you . . . ’

  She looked round, but Stille had vanished as silently as he had arrived. She shivered.

  ‘What is it, V?’ Tommie said, concer
ned. ‘You look as if you’ve seen a ghost. Who was that man you were talking to? Was he worrying you?’

  ‘Oh, no,’ she said, pulling herself together, ‘but it is good to see you. Walk with me to the bus stop, will you? I’m just going to the Gazette to write a piece on the march. You can tell me what to say.’

  She put her arm through his and together, surrounded by his friends who chattered amongst themselves like excited children, they strolled across the park. Verity held on to Tommie so tightly he was almost driven to protest, but then he saw she needed him and he liked to be needed.

  At the New Gazette, she ran into the newspaper’s proprietor who was about to be wafted up in his elevator to his eyrie.

  ‘Verity!’ Weaver called. ‘That little woman – Daphne Hepple-Keen – is quite something. I admit it, I was mistaken. I thought she was a milk-and-water sort of woman. Kinder, kirche, küche – you know what I mean?’ He took the cigar out of his mouth. ‘She’s really got things moving. Don’t know how she’s done it but both sides have agreed to let us organize a mercy mission to rescue the abandoned children of the war. She got Ribbentrop, no less, to talk Franco’s people into giving her neutral Red Cross status, and the government is eating out of her hand. I’ve told Godber to make a big thing of it. Anway, where have you been?’

  ‘The Jarrow marchers have reached London. I’m just going to write it up. There’s going to be a big rally in Hyde Park this afternoon. Will you make it front page?’

  Weaver looked doubtful. ‘That’s not for me to say. It’s up to Godber.’

  ‘Come off it, Joe. It’s your decison.’

  ‘I don’t know. There’s not much to say – page two, perhaps.’

  ‘Page two! But Joe, these men have achieved a most extraordinary thing. They’ve brought the situation in the north to the attention of the south and the support they have had . . . it’s very moving. The stories they have to tell . . . ’

  ‘We’ll see. If there’s a riot in Hyde Park, perhaps.’

  ‘So what will you lead with?’

  ‘HMS London’s back from her mercy mission to Spain packed with refugees. Oh, and Queen Mary has a slight cold . . . ’

  ‘Bah!’ Verity exclaimed.

  ‘And Edgar Wallace’s books have been banned in Germany because they say he’s a Jew, but his daughter says he’s not a Jew . . . ’

  ‘Please, Joe, spare me the rest. I thought this was a newspaper not Tatler!’

  ‘Well, if you don’t like it, Verity . . . Godber’s always begging me to fire you. And where’s the book? If you want it serialized, I’ll need it yesterday. I told Gollancz he might as well give it up if it isn’t published soon. The King – I’m seeing him tomorrow at Fort Belvedere . . . it’s all coming to a head.’

  ‘Come on, Joe, be fair. I haven’t had time . . . Anyway, you just said that I’ve given you a great campaign, courtesy of Daphne Hepple-Keen.’

  ‘Was it you introduced me to Daphne?’ he said, waving his cigar in the air. ‘My memory isn’t what it used to be.’

  ‘Joe!’ Verity exclaimed but, before she could say anything more, the lift gates clanged shut and she found herself watching Lord Weaver’s feet disappear into the ether, leaving only the aroma of a half-smoked Havana cigar to proclaim that he had been there at all.

  She sat in front of her typewriter and tried to think. She needed to write this article and it had to be so powerful that Joe wouldn’t be able to ‘spike’ it. She had to write her book – she had to . . . . And then there were the letters. What should she do with them? Give them to Edward to return to Mrs Simpson, or should she give them to the Party after all? That was what she ought to do. As a Party member, it was her duty and if anyone found out she had not done so . . . well, she might have to fall on her sword. In any case, she believed – she truly believed – that the monarchy ought to be shown up as the rotten heart of a corrupt capitalist system which these letters demonstrated it was.

  She hardly bothered to consider Major Stille’s demands. Then she gasped as a thought struck her. Where were the letters? It was madness but she really couldn’t remember what she had done with them. Had she left them on her desk or had she tossed them in a corner? The latter, she thought. But shouldn’t she go back and retrieve them? Put them somewhere safe? Yes, but first she had to write this article.

  15

  Edward had telephoned Lampfrey and the Inspector had obligingly agreed to acompany him to Devizes to, as he put it, ‘have a chat with Ruth Conway’.

  ‘You’ll have me carpeted,’ Lampfrey said with gloomy relish.

  ‘Don’t worry, it’ll be worth it. I think she’ll have something to say which will make the trip worthwhile.’

  Edward’s confidence was not misplaced. Ruth Conway had got things to tell them – things she ought to have told Chief Inspector Pride, but had not.

  ‘He was such a bully and so sure of himself,’ she said angrily. ‘He didn’t give me time to tell him what I knew. I thought he believed I had killed Leo but I imagined he was clever enough to work out who had really done it. It never occurred to me that he’d have me arrested.’

  ‘I’m sorry about that,’ said Lampfrey, but Edward had the feeling he wasn’t that sorry.

  It turned out she had actually seen Hepple-Keen on Wednesday lunch-time, the day after Leo had left Haling to go to London. It was Pickering’s day off, and she was alone in the house reading a novel in the drawing-room, when he had appeared at the front door quite without warning. She had been surprised to see him, of course, but it was lonely in that big house by herself and Hepple-Keen was, she thought, an attractive man. She had offered him refreshment, but he had explained he was in a hurry. He thought he might have left some papers behind in his room.

  Miss Conway had seen it as the thinnest of pretexts for being admitted to the house but she had managed to persuade herself that he had come to see her. He had made a pretty speech – perfunctory enough, Edward imagined, reading between the lines, but sufficient to convince this plain, lonely woman that he had an interest in her. He had made her promise not to mention his visit to anyone and she hadn’t.

  She again made clear her dislike of Chief Inspector Pride. Lampfrey felt that, if he had interviewed her, he might have got her to tell him about Hepple-Keen’s visit.

  ‘The Chief Inspector shouted at me and I got flustered,’ she said defensively. ‘He’s a rude, bad-mannered man. Geoffrey’s a gentleman. He said he would come and see me again, but he hasn’t yet,’ she added mournfully.

  It was hardly surprising as she was in prison, Edward thought grimly. He imagined Hepple-Keen’s satisfaction when he heard she had been arrested. Even if she had confessed to the police that he had been to Haling that Wednesday, he could have denied it, said she was infatuated with him and, when he had told her he wasn’t interested in her, had tried to throw suspicion on him by saying he had killed Scannon in a feeble attempt to save herself.

  ‘But surely, Miss Conway, when Mr Scannon was poisoned you must have suspected something?’ Lampfrey said disbelievingly.

  ‘I did but . . . I had promised and . . . well, to tell the truth, I was frightened what Geoffrey might do. I mean, he trusted me but if I had betrayed him . . . ’

  Edward thought she had every right to be frightened. Hepple-Keen was not a man to cross. He must have thought he had her under his thumb but, the moment she gave any hint of causing trouble, he would have acted – and acted ruthlessly. This was a murderer who wouldn’t have thought twice about killing again to save his neck.

  ‘That was what I suspected,’ Edward said, ‘and why I was glad when I heard you were in prison. I feared that, once he had thought about it, he would have seen that to be safe he would have to kill you too. The problem was he had to get Leo’s diary and poison the whisky. Perhaps he hoped you would drink from the decanter as well.’

  ‘I don’t drink spirits,’ she said virtuously. ‘Anyway, he wouldn’t have hurt me . . . I think . . . ’

  ‘But h
ow did he know about the diary?’ Lampfrey inquired. ‘He could hardly have known Scannon had named him as Mrs Harkness’s murderer.’

  ‘He might have guessed it,’ Edward said. ‘It was well known among his friends that Leo kept a highly indiscreet diary. He used to boast about it. In any case, my bet is that Leo was blackmailing him and had actually told him he had put it all down in the diary.’

  ‘Blackmailing him?’ Miss Conway said. ‘About what?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Edward confessed, ‘but it must be something political. Perhaps Hepple-Keen had got too close to Mosley, or perhaps Leo wanted him to get closer – to do something for the BUF he didn’t want to do. There must have been something which would have damaged his political career if it became known. You’re going to have to ask him that, Lampfrey.’

  ‘But why poison his whisky? He’d got the diary so why kill Leo?’ Miss Conway asked.

  ‘Because Leo had some evidence against him. Reading the diary, he realised Leo knew too much to be allowed to live. He had to be silenced.’

  ‘All right,’ Lampfrey conceded, ‘let’s accept that for the moment. But how could he poison the whisky? It was in the tantalus and that was locked.’

  ‘I think he said his goodbyes to you, Miss Conway,’ Edward said, ‘and then went to the gardener’s shed, took some of the rat poison, re-entered the house and did the dirty work on the tantalus. You see, he had been in the secret police and I’m sure opening a simple lock like the one on the tantalus would have been child’s play.’

  ‘But that suggests killing Scannon was unpremeditated,’ Lampfrey said slowly. ‘Otherwise he would have come prepared with poison.’

  ‘I would guess he read the diary and then decided he could not afford to let Leo live. And don’t forget the episode of Miss Browne and the rat in her bed. He knew where the rat poison was kept without having to bring it with him. I imagine he wouldn’t have had any trouble re-entering the house without being seen, Miss Conway? He would have needed at least ten minutes to tamper with the whisky – probably nearer twenty.’