Hollow Crown (17 page)

‘Dash it. Yes, thank you, Fenton. I had better go to the
New Gazette
first. I say, V, if you’re not doing anything urgent, why not come down to Haling with me. When I’ve
had my meeting with Joe, I can pick you up from the Hassels’ and tell you all about it on the way.’

‘Oh, I don’t know. What business have I got at Haling? Anyway, I’ve got to be here when the Jarrow marchers arrive.’

‘But that won’t be for another few days, will it?’

‘No, but . . . ’

‘But what?’

‘I’ve got my book to do.’

‘Surely a couple of days won’t make a difference?’

‘Leo Scannon, he’s frightfully anti-us. He won’t want a CP member like me cluttering up his hallway.’

Edward hesitated. ‘Yes, I see your point. Half a minute. I’ll telephone him and see what he says. Fenton, would you be good enough to get Mr Scannon on the line?’

Left to herself again, Verity fell into what her father called ‘a brown study’. It was not usual for her to be uncertain where she was going and what she wanted out of life. Just a
year ago it had all seemed so obvious. She was to be a famous foreign correspondent and help alert the world to the perils it faced from Fascism. Now . . . now it all seemed more ambiguous; the
rights and wrongs less clear cut. Just at this particular moment she wanted to relax into the care and unqualified love which she knew – without any words having passed between them –
the man in whose rooms she now sat was prepared to offer her. When he came back from telephoning she would hint at it.

However, when he did return he had something to tell her which put all thoughts of offering herself to him out of her mind.

‘It’s all fixed,’ he said with a geniality she found unconvincing. ‘I spoke to Dannie who said you must come. Dannie’s a great admirer of yours and longing to meet
you.’

‘Dannie? Who’s he? A friend of yours? I don’t remember you mentioning him before.’

‘She, not he. Dannie’s Catherine Dannhorn. She’s a famous mannequin. A friend of Joe Weaver’s. I met her at Joe’s, you know – when he had me to dine with Mrs
Simpson. To tell you the truth, I think she might be Joe’s mistress.’

Edward was trying to sound breezy but failing. He saw Verity hesitate. ‘Please do say you’ll come. Molly was my friend and she’s been murdered. I can’t sleuth properly
without you.’

He wisely stopped himself saying, ‘After all, you’ve nothing better to do,’ and instead added, ‘There may be a scoop there – “Conservative MP involved in
society girl’s death”.’

Despite herself Verity’s ears pricked. It was perfectly true that, if Molly Harkness had been murdered, it was news. Her friendship with the Prince of Wales had been chronicled in all the
illustrated papers and the association was enough to make her death of considerable interest to the ‘yellow press’.

‘But you’ll say I can’t report anything we discover.’

‘Perhaps not everything but I’m sure, if we can find out what happened to the poor girl, there’ll be enough for a good story. Come on, V, I’m serious. I need you.
We’ll pop Fenton in the dickey and have a good old chin-wag in the car.’

He wasn’t sure himself if he was just being kind – trying to cheer her up and distract her – or if he really did need her. If the latter, he really ought to do something about
it.

‘Ass,’ Verity said automatically and gathered up her things. ‘I suppose I’ll have to brave your Fascist friends being boorish to help you but I warn you, if I get tried
too much I do tend to bite.’

‘Don’t I know it,’ Edward said with a theatrical shudder.

‘I can’t believe it!’ Lord Weaver was not his usual self, in control of the world. He was edgy and irritable and paced up and down on the carpet flicking ash
from his cigar all over the place. ‘I can’t believe it. I really don’t think you understand how serious the situation is. Mrs Simpson relied on you and you’ve let her down.
God knows where her letters are now. We’ll probably be reading them in the
Daily Mail
tomorrow.’

‘Hey, I say,’ Edward interjected. ‘Don’t blame me. I had a perfectly reasonable conversation with her and, if I had been able to continue it, I think I might have
persuaded her to give them up. Instead of which she was killed. I don’t know who by but I intend to find out and, if I do, I will probably find the wretched letters.’

‘And if not?’

‘Then whatever happens, happens.’

“You realize it may mean the King having to abdicate?’

‘Would that be altogether a bad thing? I mean, he seems to be hand in glove with the Nazis.’

‘That’s an exaggeration. But who is there if he did have to go? His brother is a half-wit stammerer.’

‘Wait a bit, Joe. All I’ve heard of him makes me think he’s a sound man. Not a Hollywood film star like the present one but do we really want glamour? With a war coming we want
steady leadership – nothing flashy. Anyway, it may not come to that. Have you told Baldwin what’s happened?’

‘I have and he accused me of – how did he put it? – “having fumbled the catch”. He wasn’t pleased. Not pleased at all. He always seems to think I have some
scheme on to do him down. I don’t know why.’

‘Does the King know about the theft yet?’

‘Wally was going to tell him today but I told her to hold off for a few days. I said you were going to Haling and that Inspector Lampfrey was a good man – discreet, too. You’ve
got a week,’ he said, stabbing his cigar in Edward’s direction. ‘A week and then it all blows up in our faces.’

On the way down to Haling, Edward told Verity everything . . . or almost everything. He had already given her the bare outline but now he told her in detail while trying to
make sense of it himself. She whistled.

‘Heavens, I can see why the poor woman was killed. She threatened the whole rotten structure. It confirms my opinion that the monarchy ought to be done away with.’

‘I say, V, steady on,’ Edward said in alarm, swerving to avoid a tree which seemed to jump out of the side of the road at him. ‘You really will get us thrown out of Haling if
you say things like that!’

‘I’ll be good, don’t worry. I’ll save all my spleen until I can get you alone.’

‘You never know, I might like that,’ he said offensively and she poked him in the ribs, causing him to swerve again.

‘But I haven’t told you the final bit of news the Inspector gave me on the telephone – by the way, Lampfrey’s a good egg. We won’t have the sort of problems we had
with what’s his name? Chief Inspector Pride.’

The latter was the Scotland Yard man who had investigated General Craig’s murder and who had taken an instant dislike to both Edward and Verity.

‘Anyway, what was I saying? Oh yes, Lampfrey says Molly was pregnant.’ As he half turned to see how Verity took the news, she screamed. The scream was not, however, a reaction to
this piece of news but to the dog which dashed straight under the Lagonda’s wheels. As they sped on, she turned to see the bewildered-looking canine brush itself down and continue its
dangerous journey.

‘Edward,’ she said. ‘You will kill us both if you don’t concentrate on your driving.’

‘You sound like my late-lamented mother,’ he said crossly. He prided himself – like most men – on being a skilled driver and the reprimand annoyed him.

‘So?’ he said. ‘If anyone knew she was pregnant, it might have given any friend of you-know-who an added motive to get rid of her. I mean, can you imagine it! Coronation Day
and the papers are full of the King’s love child by a discarded mistress. The mind boggles.’

‘No question. It oughtn’t to be too difficult to find out which of the King’s friends decided to do away with her – like Henry the whatever and Becket. I suppose you are
the prime suspect,’ she said consideringly. ‘After all, you had been officially commissioned to deal with Molly.’

‘Hey, I’m getting fed up with people blaming me! Joe was most offensive. According to him, I will be responsible for the fall of the Empire if the letters get into the wrong hands.
You know he calls her Wally?’

‘No, really? Wally?’ Verity giggled.

‘Yes, and Joe says she grew up as Bessiewallis Warfield. Not surprising she wanted to change things.’

‘No! Don’t forget, I’m dedicated to seeing the end of the British Empire, so Joe can’t threaten me with that eventuality. Did you tell him I was going with you to
Haling?’

‘Yes.’

‘And what did he say?’

‘He groaned.’

Edward had a sudden urge to tell Verity about Dannie. She was bound to find out sooner or later and it was better she heard it from his own lips.

He gripped the steering wheel tightly and said, as casually as he could, ‘The Inspector knows I couldn’t have killed Molly. I’ve got an alibi – Dannie – Catherine
Dannhorn, the girl who wants to meets you.’

‘I don’t understand,’ Verity said slowly. ‘How can she give you an alibi?’

‘Well, you see, she spent the night with me – or part of it. I don’t know when she left. In fact, that’s the problem,’ he went on, speaking quickly and hoping that
Verity would make no comment. ‘I mean, she might have – I think she somehow probably did – unlock the door between my room and Molly’s and take Mrs Simpson’s letters
and . . . ’

‘But I thought you said you’d only known the woman – Dannie or whatever you call her – just a few days.’

‘That’s right. That’s what makes me think she was using me. I found her in my bed when I came back from talking to Molly.’

‘And instead of turfing her out of your bed you . . . you . . . ’

‘She is very beautiful,’ he said, making a bad situation worse.

‘And it never struck you that the only reason a beautiful woman would throw herself at you was if she wanted something from you. I’m . . . I’m shocked and disgusted.’

‘Well, damn it,’ Edward said, stung by the tone of her voice, ‘you have not been exactly celibate. What about that novelist fellow – Belasco – you had an . . .
?’

‘That was quite different,’ she said hurriedly. ‘We were in love.’

‘Hmm!’ Edward responded through tightened lips. Then, feeling he was behaving badly, he said with an effort, ‘I’m sorry, V, forgive me. You’re right – it was
shabby and – well, sordid. I’ve been playing the fool. I don’t know why but I can’t seem to . . . All I know is everything is going to the devil and I along with
it.’

Verity was not mollified. She turned her head to stare out of the window as they sped past puzzled cows and apprehensive sheep.

They both felt in the wrong and that made each of them angry. It surprised Verity how greatly she felt betrayed. She had no rights over him, she knew that. She had deliberately refused to commit
herself to him or, for that matter, to any man. She liked sex but it was easier to have it with a man like Ben Belasco whom she did not love and who she knew did not love her. It made no sense to
feel dirtied by Edward’s confession. Perhaps it was that she had – quite unconsciously – raised him above other men. She had turned him into a ‘parfait gentil knight’
and attributed to him virtues he did not possess and had never pretended to possess. She knew he had had affairs but this was different. Wasn’t it rather squalid – this one passionless
night with a high-class whore?

Edward too was unhappy. He blamed himself for not having had the moral courage to reject Dannie and, now he was sure she had used him, he felt even more disgusted with himself. He had let
himself down in front of Verity and his own conscience and that made him angry with Verity, Dannie and, most of all, himself. He wondered now what had possessed him to get Verity invited to Haling.
He had premonitions of disaster.

They had arranged to call in on Inspector Lampfrey at Marlborough police station and, in the forty minutes it took to get there, they hardly exchanged a dozen words. Edward halted the Lagonda
outside the disarmingly attractive building, redolent of a country-house hotel. Only the blue lamp and the noticeboard, with its stern warnings and appeals for information, made its true purpose
apparent to the casual passer-by. He jumped out and went round to open the passenger door but Verity had already opened it and studiously ignored him.

Lampfrey was his usual courteous self and, if his eyes showed surprise at seeing Verity, he disguised it with a smile and a firm handshake.

‘You’re sure it’s murder?’ Edward demanded when they were seated in the Inspector’s office. ‘I feel so much to blame if it was.’

‘Why is that, Lord Edward?’ asked Lampfrey mildly.

‘I may have drawn attention to her in some way. I may have made the murderer frightened I was going to discover something from her which would endanger him or his friends.’

‘I think, if I may say so, you’re being fanciful. Mrs Harkness had made no secret of her relationship with . . . with royalty.’

‘But did someone murder her because she was pregnant or to recover the stolen letters? If it was the latter, possibly it was I who let it be known she had them.’

Lampfrey shrugged his shoulders. ‘Well, that is what we will have to find out, but I think it’s best if you stop worrying about “ifs” and “maybes”. You were
asked to retrieve stolen property by its owner and you cannot be blamed for failing in the attempt.’

Edward shifted uncomfortably in his seat. It was all very well the Inspector telling him not to flagellate himself but Molly had been a friend and he had failed her as much as he had failed Mrs
Simpson and Joe Weaver.

‘I’ve asked Mr Scannon if he would mind playing host for another couple of days to everyone who was in the house when Mrs Harkness died. He is a very busy man but has kindly
agreed.’

‘Ah yes, I happened to see Sir Geoffrey at the Cable Street riot.’

‘That was where you sustained your injury, was it, Lord Edward?’

‘What? Oh that,’ he said, touching his forehead which was still red and sore. ‘It’s nothing. I was clipped on the head by a horse’s hoof. Totally my
fault.’

Verity, who had up to now been silent, said, ‘Inspector, forgive me for asking, but isn’t it possible Mrs Harkness took the overdose of veronal herself, either by accident or on
purpose? Maybe she didn’t like being pregnant?’

‘It is just possible, Miss Browne, but unlikely. If she had wanted to, I’m sure one of her friends would have arranged for her to have had an abortion. Yes, I know it’s illegal
but you know and I know it happens every day in some back room in the East End of London. I have talked to everyone who was at Haling the night she died and everyone, not least Lord Edward,’
he said, nodding in the latter’s direction, ‘has convinced me she was not suicidal. Angry, perhaps, but not in a mood to do away with herself.’