Hollow Crown

by David Roberts

  ‘No!’ she said firmly. ‘If the King invites me to Fort Belvedere and asks me nicely . . . ’

  ‘Oh God . . . Molly, he won’t do that.’

  ‘Well then . . . ’

  ‘Look, I’m going to go off to bed. I won’t be such a connard as to offer you money for returning the letters but just think about what I’ve said. I do care about you, Molly, and I would hate to see you hurt – I mean hurt more than you have been. I suppose you won’t show me them – the letters?’

  ‘Sorry, Edward dear – nothing doing. I’m not that much of a fool!’

  He was shocked. ‘You don’t think I would grab them out of your hand and make a run for it, do you?’

  ‘Better not put temptation in your way. I know I couldn’t resist it.’

  ‘Let’s talk again in the morning. You have had bad luck, my dear, and I’m truly sorry for you but this is . . . you must see, this is different. You are meddling in affairs of state.’

  ‘Don’t patronize me, Edward, and don’t be pompous. You’re just a messenger . . . a carrier pigeon,’ she said contemptuously. ‘Go back and tell the people who sent you, I want the King to ask me . . . ask me nicely to hand back his letters. I don’t think it’s so very much to ask.’

  ‘I’m sorry. I don’t mean to be a bore but . . . ’ He almost saw her hackles rise and decided not to say what he had been going to say: that what she wanted was out of the question. Instead he said, ‘Will you be able to sleep?’

  He had noticed a bottle of Maalox tablets beside her bed.

  ‘Oh those,’ she said, following his eyes. ‘I don’t find those are strong enough on their own. I’ve got veronal in the cupboard. I couldn’t live without it.’

  ‘You will be careful, won’t you, Molly? You shouldn’t mix Maalox and veronal.’

  ‘Dear Edward! You’re so sweet. Of course I’m careful. Look, I’ll think about what you have said, I promise.’

  ‘Right then. Good night.’ He went to kiss her on the cheek but at the last moment she turned her head and kissed him on the mouth. He hesitated for a second and then, rather guiltily, returned her kiss.

  ‘Go now,’ she said. ‘We’ll talk some more in the morning. In the daylight things can look . . . different . . . clearer.’

  Edward opened the bedroom door a crack and, seeing the corridor empty, slipped out of Molly’s bedroom and into his own. He had achieved precisely nothing – made things worse if anything, but at least he now knew the scale of the problem. Weaver had been less than frank with him, unless he did not know himself the full explosive power of what Molly had got hold of.

  It was almost midnight. His room was in darkness but there was a moon and a little light shone through a gap in the curtains and illuminated the bed. There was no way of switching off the light from the bed so he decided not to switch it on. As he walked towards the bed he was startled to hear a voice from among the bedclothes – a deep, husky voice he recognized instantly. ‘You’ve been gone a long time. I hope Molly hasn’t exhausted you.’

  ‘Dannie!’ he whispered fiercely. ‘Is that you? What are you doing in my bed?’

  ‘What do you think I’m doing in your bed? I admit I had no idea there was a queue and that I would have to wait so long but now I’m here . . . ’

  ‘But Dannie, I . . . ’

  ‘You do want me, don’t you? You’ve making eyes at me ever since we met.’

  ‘Of course I want you but . . . ’

  ‘Not now? I hope you’re not one of those Englishmen who can’t deliver what they promise. Have you been making love to Molly?’

  ‘No! It was business.’

  ‘In the middle of the night. How very mysterious! Is it what Joe was talking to you about? Mrs Simpson . . . ?’

  ‘I’m not at liberty to . . . ’

  ‘Don’t be pompous. Everyone says you can be terribly pompous. I hope you weren’t pompous with Molly. Perhaps you ought to have made love to her. She’ll not sleep, you know, if you’ve left her . . . upset.’

  ‘Yes she will. She’s taken something to make her sleep,’ he said weakly.

  It was an odd thing, but having his fantasy become reality so unexpectedly, so easily, almost unmanned him. He was old-fashioned enough to believe that it was the man who should make the first move and the lady – if she were a lady – ought to put up a show of resistance . . . at least at first. Anyway, there had to be some sort of verbal love-making . . . some sort of declaration, however insincere, before the act of love. But, of course, this woman wasn’t English. She probably didn’t even understand what it meant to be an English lady . . . But she was so beautiful: a sleek, potentially lethal animal and she was offering herself to him as casually as Pickering had offered him dessert at dinner. If he didn’t take what was offered him, he would insult her and he had a feeling that insulting Dannie would be a dangerous thing to do. He stood there in his dressing gown, silk pyjamas, and bedroom slippers almost paralysed by indecision.

  ‘Well, my sweet,’ the voice from the bed was impatient, caustic, ‘I haven’t taken anything to make me sleep . . . yet.’

  The moon, which had passed behind a cloud, reappeared and its silvery light came to rest upon a brown silky arm. Her eyes, the eyes of a wild cat caught in the headlights of a car, gleamed brightly as she threw back the sheet which covered her. He groaned aloud and the woman on the bed laughed – a low, throaty laugh which mocked his weakness. He wanted this woman worse than any woman he had ever seen and the stirring in his loins suggested that he wasn’t as tired as he had thought. He sighed, slipped off his dressing gown and pyjamas and slid under the bedclothes.

  ‘That was a big sigh for a little boy,’ she whispered into his ear. ‘I hope it doesn’t mean you’re not up to . . . ’ A warm hand travelled down his stomach making him arch away from her. ‘Ah! That’s all right then,’ she said.

  The feel of her arms about him, her warm, silky flesh pressed against his, the smell of her – a bitter scent of sexual excitement – the way her tongue found its way into his mouth . . . kindled in him a raw lust he thought he had left behind with boyhood. He knew he was weak, and possibly wicked, but somehow it didn’t seem to matter.

  ‘Dannie!’ he cried as he entered her, but she placed her hand over his mouth to silence him.

  4

  Fenton woke his master with a kn ock on the door at eight o’clock and, as was his custom, placed a cup of tea on the bedside table and then went over to the window to draw the curtains. Before he did so, he picked up the discarded dressing gown from the floor and hung it on the back of the door and folded the pyjamas on a chair. He looked meditatively at the bed where Edward lay comatose, only the top of his head visible from within a tangle of sheets and blankets. With a dramatic flourish which signalled disapproval, he opened the curtains letting the sun pour into the room. Edward groaned, opened one eye and said reproachfully, ‘I say, Fenton . . . ’ Then, as he recalled the events of the night before, he fell silent. He had no secrets from Fenton but there were proprieties to be observed. Furtively, he stretched out an arm and, to his surprise and relief, did not come across warm flesh. Had it been his imagination? Had his night with Dannie been a dream of love-making? But no! A dry, very slightly bitter scent flooded his nostrils as he turned in the bed. The musk of her body was evidence enough that he had not been dreaming.

  ‘I trust you slept well, my lord,’ Fenton said with studied indifference.

  ‘Oh, very well . . . that is, I was a little restless,’ he said, noticing the state his bed was in. ‘Too hot . . . I was too hot . . . had to get up in the middle of the night and take off my . . . you know, my togs.’

  ‘Indeed, my lord?’ Fenton said, making no effort to disguise his scepticism. ‘Breakfast in thirty minutes, my lord, unless it is your desire that I bring you a tray from the kitchen.’

  ‘No thank you, Fenton. I will dress and descend. Is everyone else up, do you know?’

  ‘I saw Mr Scannon as I was coming up the stairs, my lor
d. I have not seen any other of the guests though I did hear Mr Harbin in the bathroom. He was singing.’

  ‘Damn! Does that mean I can’t have a shave?’

  ‘No, my lord. I have ascertained he has vacated the bathroom.’

  ‘What about Mrs Harkness?’

  ‘I have not heard anything from her room, my lord. She has no maid here, I understand. Would you want me to knock on her door?’

  ‘Righty ho! Pass me my dressing gown, there’s a good fellow, and stop looking as if you’ve just been notified of a death in the family.’

  He was suddenly overcome by the langour of a night spent in love-making and sank back on his pillows with a smile on his face. Fenton knew that smile and, though not a muscle in his face twitched, he smiled too. He could not long be disapproving of his master’s ‘little adventures’, as he labelled them, but he was curious as to whether the lady who had spent the night in his master’s bed had been Mrs Harkness or the woman they called ‘Dannie’. He didn’t approve of her at all. She was not a lady in his view. The opinion of the servants’ hall was that she was ‘no better than she should be’. Though Fenton did not gossip, he had heard Cook say ‘the foreign girl was nothing but a trollop’ and that ‘Lord Weaver had the keeping of her and ought to be ashamed, him being a lord and all’. Why, he even preferred Verity Browne to that ‘baggage’. But a lady’s name was not to be bandied about between servant and master so nothing would be said, though in time all would be revealed.

  Edward must have dozed off because he was suddenly aware that Fenton was shaking his arm.

  ‘My lord, I have knocked on Mrs Harkness’s door but there is no answer.’

  ‘Oh well,’ Edward said yawning, ‘I expect she has already gone downstairs.’

  ‘No, my lord, she has not gone down yet. I have spoken to Mr Pickering whom I happened to see on the stairs.’

  ‘Is her door locked?’

  ‘Yes, my lord.’

  ‘She must have taken too strong a sleeping draught.’ Sighing, he got out of bed and put on the dressing gown Fenton handed him. He went out into the passage and knocked loudly on Molly’s door but there was no response.

  ‘I say, Fenton. I’m probably going to make a fool of myself but can you ask Pickering if he has a duplicate key to the door? I’d feel easier in my mind if I could just see she’s all right. She was in a bit of a state last night and I suppose it’s possible she might have taken a little too much of whatever it was she was taking to help her sleep.’

  ‘Yes, my lord.’

  While Fenton went to find the butler, Edward contemplated doing battle with the primitive-looking shower he had noticed above the bath. He wanted only a burst of cold water over his head, and then to be fed scrambled eggs and bacon, to feel ready and able to cope with anything the new day might throw at him. Harbin, whose room was on the other side of Molly’s, appeared, pulling his braces over his shoulders. ‘Something the matter?’ he said, seeing Edward.

  ‘I hope not. I’ve been trying to rouse Molly – Mrs Harkness – but she isn’t answering.’

  ‘She’s probably gone downstairs.’

  ‘Fenton, my man, says not and the door seems to be locked.’

  Harbin came and twisted the door handle. ‘Mmm, I told our host she would cause trouble.’

  ‘You told Leo that Molly would cause trouble? Why?’

  ‘She didn’t tell you? I met her with the Prince a few months back. I told him then he ought to get rid of her. I don’t know why it took him so long.’

  ‘I’m sorry, you must think me obtuse – why do you have it in for Molly?’

  ‘The usual thing – sex. When she saw how Wallis was prospering, she started rumours about her – about how she had had affairs – gossip and scandal-mongering. Your young friend was making trouble for a lady – a lady from my home town. I said to Leo, if I’d known she was going to be one of the guests here, I would not have come.’

  Edward was disapproving. In his book, one did not make those kind of remarks without very good reason and certainly not when one was outside the bedroom door of the lady in question. He temporized: ‘She’s not very sensible about men, I grant you, but I think you’re being a bit hard on her. Ah! Here they are!’

  Fenton rounded the corner of the corridor with Pickering and Scannon in hot pursuit.

  ‘Oh, Scannon, I didn’t mean them to disturb you. It’s just I wanted to be sure Molly hadn’t taken too much of her sleeping draught. It’s easily done.’

  Before Scannon could reply, Pickering had opened the door and Edward went straight over to the bed. Molly lay on her back covered by a sheet up to her neck. The blankets were on the floor as if they had been thrown off by a restless sleeper. Molly’s eyes were wide open but unseeing, blinded by death. Even before he felt for a pulse, Edward knew she would never again sleep with a man or feel the wind in her face as she flew her aeroplane across the African Karoo.

  ‘Oh Molly! Molly!’ he murmured to himself in extreme agitation. ‘It can’t be. How could it have happened? Oh God! Molly, my lovely, foolish Molly!’

  As he rose to his feet, his face ashen, he almost stumbled. Was it his fate always to bring death to the people he knew and valued? Did he contaminate every house he entered? It seemed so. Here was an old friend with whom he had shared danger and discomfort and now she was dead. How had it happened? By what route had death entered the room? Was it an accident? Is death ever an accident? His eyes fell on the flask, from which he and Molly had drunk the previous evening, lying on the floor beside the bed. He stooped to pick it up and then checked himself. He had better leave everything as he had found it. He turned to the little group of silent men in the doorway – Fenton, Pickering, Harbin and his host, Leo Scannon. This was going to cause trouble for Scannon . . . for all of them, he thought. Poor Molly! She would cause trouble in death as she had in life – it was not much of an epitaph and he grew suddenly angry.

  ‘I’m very sorry, Leo, but Molly’s dead,’ he said flatly. ‘It looks as though she must have taken too much of whatever it was she was using to help her sleep – veronal, I think she said. There was brandy in her flask. She gave me a nip last night. If it was veronal she was taking, she must have forgotten that mixed with alcohol it can be . . . well, you know . . . it might have made it . . . lethal.’

  Still Scannon said nothing, too shocked to speak, so Edward addressed the butler: ‘Pickering, will you ring for a doctor and for the police. I expect it was just a tragic accident. Molly was rather overwrought but we have to face the fact that her death might be . . . ’

  ‘Murder?’ Scannon squawked, his agitation almost preventing him from speaking.

  ‘I was going to say suicide but, yes, of course it might be murder. The last thing she said to me was that we would talk some more tomorrow. She wasn’t suicidal.’

  ‘Her door was locked,’ Fenton pointed out, ‘and there is no key in it.’

  ‘But where is the key if it’s not in the door?’ Scannon demanded, grasping at this simple puzzle as though it were the answer to everything.

  ‘I suppose Molly must have put it somewhere when she went to bed,’ said Edward, ‘but I admit I can’t see it anywhere.’

  Harbin came into the room and stared impassively at the dead woman. ‘I guess I shouldn’t have said what I did a moment ago,’ he said to Edward.

  Edward ignored him and went over to the window, which was open. The Virginia creeper was strong and had entwined itself round a drainpipe to make an easy climb for a fit man – or woman. There was no obvious sign of it having been used as a ladder, however. He checked himself. That was something for the police to consider, not him. ‘Leo, I think the best thing we can do is to leave the room as we found it until the police have a chance of examining it.’

  Harbin said, ‘You say Mrs Harkness did not seem suicidal to you, Lord Edward, when you last spoke with her. When did you have this conversation?’

  ‘Just before I turned in – about midnight. I suppose I was
the last person to see her alive.’

  ‘And you heard nothing during the night?’ Harbin persisted.

  ‘No,’ Edward said shortly, ‘did you?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  It was suddenly borne in on him that the police would expect some straight answers from him to some fairly obvious questions and he did not know how far he could go in answering them truthfully. They would want to know what he had been talking to Molly about so late at night, for one thing. The police would assume he had slept with her unless he told them about Dannie and he couldn’t do that. They would soon hear the stories that he had been Molly’s lover in Kenya. Untrue they might be, but he could never disprove them. Damn and blast! He was now going to pay for taking his pleasure so unwisely last night. He had heard nothing in the night. Why? Probably because there was nothing to hear but perhaps because, after making love to Dannie, he had fallen into a deep post-coital sleep. Had she heard anything? He must talk to her as soon as possible to ‘get their story straight’. He grimaced. He hated the idea of lying to the police but, unless she gave him permission, he couldn’t drag Dannie into it. Could he tell the police why he was in the house in the first place? Not without Mrs Simpson’s permission. Oh God! What a mess!

  Pickering returned from telephoning. ‘The police and Dr Fisher will be with us shortly, sir,’ he said to Scannon.

  ‘Very good,’ Scannon said abruptly. ‘Who did you speak to?’

  ‘Inspector Lampfrey, sir.’

  ‘Lampfrey? Oh yes, I remember him. Didn’t he come here when Lady Biggar lost her diamonds?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘I ought to ring the Chief Constable though. Dear me! Dear me!’

  Scannon made a visible effort to pull himself together and, as far as Edward could tell, his agitation was unfeigned.

  ‘Did Mrs Harkness have a maid with her, Pickering?’ he barked.