Hollow Crown

by David Roberts

  ‘I can assure you that there is nothing absurd about our investigations and you would be mistaken if you believed you were above the law just because you have friends in high places.’

  Edward, with a great effort, kept his temper in check. ‘Mr Scannon was an old friend of my family. I had absolutely nothing to do with his murder and I very much regret his death.’ He knew he was being disingenuous and he feared his protestation sounded feeble, but he had to say something. ‘If you are not arresting me, Chief Inspector, and if you have no more questions for me, I must ask you to leave.’

  ‘I have no more questions for the present but I would be grateful if you would keep me apprised of your whereabouts until this investigation is complete.’

  ‘You think I might skip the country, do you?’

  ‘It is one of the difficulties of this investigation that several of Mr Scannon’s house guests – Mr Harbin and Miss Dannhorn – are no longer in the country. I am sure you can understand, my lord, why I am anxious that no further . . . witnesses . . . leave England. Good day to you.’

  With that parting shot, Pride left and Edward was in no way mollified by an apologetic glance from Sergeant Willis behind his superior’s back.

  ‘Fenton,’ he yelled, when he heard the door of his chambers close, ‘a whisky and soda as soon as you like and if you leave out the soda that’ll be all right by me.’

  In Lord Weaver’s magnificent office with its huge plate-glass windows and seated in a deep leather chair in front of his oversized desk, Daphne Hepple-Keen resembled nothing so much as the proverbial country mouse. Her coat was a little shabby, her shoes too heavy and her hat distinctly un-chic, but when Verity shook her hand she was startled by the firmness of her grasp and a light in her eyes which indicated she had steeled herself for battle. Even though she was used to Lord Weaver, Verity was still a little in awe of the bear-like man with his wrinkled face and bushy eyebrows. After all, this was a man who could bring down governments and make or break reputations while Lady Hepple-Keen, at dinner at Haling, had hardly spoken except to talk about her children and had been terrified by the rat on the billiard table. Verity was quite unprepared for what followed.

  Weaver had beckoned Verity to enter his presence with his normal if rather contemptuous, ‘Come!’ Then he said irritably, ‘Where have you been? Miss Barnstable has been looking all over for you.’

  ‘Sorry,’ she said meekly, slipping into the chair drawn up beside Lady Hepple-Keen. ‘I got rather absorbed in some research.’

  ‘Well, never mind that now.’ He got up from his chair and began to pace about. Verity recognized the signs. Her employer was in a thoroughly bad mood and was looking for someone on whom to vent his bad temper. He was quite clearly irritated that he had been persuaded by Verity to meet this insignificant woman and was not going to any trouble to disguise it. Grudgingly, he said, ‘How’s Geoffrey?’

  ‘I’m not here to talk about my husband,’ Lady Hepple-Keen said briskly. ‘I’m here because Miss Browne tells me you might be prepared to put your weight behind the Red Cross’s operation to save orphans of the war in Spain.’

  Verity’s ears pricked. Perhaps Daphne Hepple-Keen was not going to be squashed as easily as one might have imagined.

  ‘I don’t know about that,’ Weaver interrupted her, waving his cigar in the air for punctuation. ‘As you may be aware, the New Gazette has supported HMS London in her efforts to rescue refugees off the Spanish coast. She’s due back in London next week or the week after.’

  ‘I’m delighted to hear it,’ Daphne Hepple-Keen said, ‘but that’s by the by. I want you to send me out with a group of volunteer nurses to inspect the orphanages of Madrid and other cities – find out what supplies are needed and then initiate a fund to which the public can subscribe to support our efforts. I understand from Miss Browne that the condition of some of these orphanages is appalling. Some have no medical supplies, very little food and . . . ’

  Verity broke in: ‘You see, Joe, whatever medical supplies there are have to go to the soldiers at the front. The civilians are suffering worse than the troops and Madrid is in danger of being starved into surrender.’

  Weaver looked at the two women sitting in front of him on the edge of uncomfortably large chairs and seemed to be weighing them up.

  ‘It would be a great gesture, Joe,’ Verity began, but stopped when he waved his cigar at her.

  ‘It must be more than a gesture,’ Daphne Hepple-Keen said.

  ‘Would we be restricting ourselves to aiding children on the Republican side?’ Weaver asked her.

  ‘Certainly not. This effort would be made under the aegis of the Red Cross and they insist on making no distinction between warring parties. Our priority is helping the children regardless of the political views of their parents.’

  ‘The danger is that neither side would co-operate with you,’ Weaver said mildly. ‘However,’ he added quickly, seeing Daphne’s face tighten, ‘you are quite right in what you say.’ He took another few paces and dragged on his cigar. ‘Hmm, I am inclined to support you, Lady Hepple-Keen – Daphne. What does your husband think about all this?’

  ‘Whatever do you mean, Lord Weaver? He knows nothing about it. What has it to do with him?’

  Verity hid a grin behind her hand. This was getting better all the time.

  ‘I only meant . . . but are you sure you are up to it? No offence, but the work would be tiring, the demands on you unimaginable. Are you really prepared to – if I may put it bluntly – do the work?’

  ‘I am,’ Lady Hepple-Keen said resolutely.

  ‘Well, then,’ said Weaver, smiling, ‘I too will put my shoulder to the wheel. But first there are things to discuss, practical things.’ He spoke into his intercom. ‘Miss Barnstable, ask Mr Godber to come for a moment, will you? If he has time,’ he added insincerely.

  Three-quarters of an hour later, Verity escorted a triumphant Daphne Hepple-Keen off the premises. Just before she left the building, she leant towards Verity and grasped her hand. ‘Thank you, my dear, thank you. We have done a good thing today. There is so much evil in the world and what we can do seems so . . . insignificant but we must do it. I could not sleep thinking that my children might one day need the help of strangers.’

  ‘Will your husband be pleased?’ Verity asked disingenuously, curious to know what the relationship between them was. She fancied Hepple-Keen might not like being upstaged by his wife whom he patronized and bullied.

  ‘As I said to Lord Weaver, I haven’t told him yet what I am planning to do. If he doesn’t like it . . . well, he must live with it. You see, my dear, when you are married to that nice Lord Edward Corinth, you will find that men – even men like him – are the most dreadful liars and cheats – at least mine is. Do you know, I discovered he had been . . . intimate with that poor dead woman? I don’t mind for myself, of course, but . . . for the children . . . But why am I telling you all this?’ She giggled nervously. ‘I think talking to Lord Weaver like that has made me a little . . . drunk.’

  Verity, who had hardly recovered from being told she was to marry Edward, said faintly, ‘Your husband was intimate with Mrs Harkness?’

  ‘That’s right, my dear,’ she said brightly, ‘but I was going to say that when you are married, you have to put up with a lot of things you never imagined you would have to . . . ’ She trailed off. Then she added, still clutching Verity’s hand: ‘But we are stronger than them in the end, aren’t we? Much stronger. Goodbye now. I will let you know the date of our first meeting.’

  ‘Oh but . . . ’ Verity was not sure she had agreed to be part of the crusade, but Daphne Hepple-Keen had apparently decided for her.

  12

  Edward was sorely tempted – and sorely was the word that seemed to him most appropriate – not to go with Verity to Eton to hear her lecture to young men who would be more than likely to jeer, hiss and otherwise pour indignities on her head. Wasn’t it enough that he should have been almost crippled by honest
working men in the East End of London? On the other hand – dash it! – he had promised and, as a gentleman, he could not go back on his word.

  In the event, the day proved uncomfortable in a very different way from how he had imagined. He picked Verity up in the Lagonda just after three o’clock – the lecture was to start at six after which they were to have dinner with Frank’s housemaster, Mr Chandler – and on the way he told her of his visit from Chief Inspector Pride.

  ‘That man’s a menace to decent law-abiding people,’ Verity exclaimed, forgetting for a moment that she was an enemy of the state and would, in other circumstances, have been insulted to be described as law-abiding. ‘Can’t we do something, get him defrocked or whatever it is they do to bad cops? Cut his buttons off?’

  ‘Mmm, I doubt it,’ Edward answered her seriously. ‘We’d have to prove him incompetent or negligent and even then I expect the Yard protects its own.’

  ‘Edward!’ Verity said, shocked. ‘You’re beginning to sound like me. I hope I haven’t soiled your innocent faith in authority.’

  ‘Don’t flatter yourself, V. It was not you but the man himself who did that. You know, I desperately want to go to Haling and interview Pickering and, if possible, Miss Conway – find out how the land lies. She must know something. Hey! What is it? You look as if you’ve just been stung by a wasp.’

  ‘That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you, only you’ve been going on and on about Pride and I haven’t been able to get a word in edgeways. That was what I found out from my assiduous research in the bowels of the New Gazette. Ruth Conway had a motive and a half for killing Scannon. His father made a fortune from matches.’

  ‘We know that.’

  ‘Yes, but what you don’t know is that Scannon senior was prosecuted for letting three of his employees get phossy jaw and one of those was a Miss Emily Conway. Now, maybe she’s no relation of Ruth’s, but I don’t think it likely. It’s too much of a coincidence.’

  ‘V, that’s brilliant! I knew I couldn’t do without you! We have to talk to her. It must be the key to the whole business. I wonder if Pride has tumbled to the connection? But there was something else you said you’d discovered?’

  ‘Yep, there sure is, pardner.’ Verity loved Gene Autry westerns and was too inclined to try out her American accent. ‘It’s about your pal Hepple-Keen. I had a most interesting afternoon with Daphne Hepple-Keen and she told me he was sleeping with Molly.’ The Lagonda swerved violently. ‘Whoa there, Captain Campbell. Remember, Bluebird burst a tyre at three hundred miles an hour.’

  ‘Sorry, V, but that’s sensational. I mean, is she sure? She’s not just being hysterical?’

  ‘She’s sure all right and she’s no fool. She told me wives have to get used to husbands lying and cheating. Do you think she’s right?’ Verity opened her eyes wide in mock innocence, but Edward was thinking of what she had told him.

  ‘I’ve made an appointment to see my Foreign Office friend, Basil Thoroughgood, when we get back from grilling Miss Conway.’

  ‘What’s he got to do with Hepple-Keen?’

  ‘Nothing, but he’s going to introduce me to a man who does know about him – at least, I hope so.’

  ‘Gosh, secret service stuff?’

  ‘I don’t know – maybe. Perhaps I’ll be able to tell you more when I’ve talked to him.’

  ‘Perhaps? You mean you might not?’

  ‘Well, I might be sworn to secrecy,’ Edward said reasonably. ‘And damn it, you are a Communist and a journalist – a lethal combination, I would have thought, to any self-respecting secret service bod.’

  ‘Huh!’ Verity exclaimed. ‘In that case, I resign. I’ve got a book to write, remember? I’m only doing this because you came to me on bended knee. Ungrateful hound! What happened to all that Watson and Holmes stuff?’

  ‘No, I say, V. Of course I’ll tell you, if I can. Don’t be an ass. I told you, I need you. I can’t do this sleuthing without you.’

  He slowed the Lagonda as they turned into Eton and crossed the bridge.

  Verity was touched by Edward’s evident sincerity but she hesitated. What was she doing getting mixed up in all this? She really did need to get on with the book. She glanced at his profile. He really was good-looking, she thought inconsequentially. ‘It’s not really much to do with me, but . . . ’ she added hastily, seeing his face cloud over, ‘I suppose, as you said, I might get a good story out of it.’

  ‘Hmff. Don’t sound so enthusiastic,’ he said, ignoring a pedestrian crossing guarded, unsuccessfully in this instance, by Belisha beacons and almost destroying a man with a dog.

  ‘No, I am enthusiastic, honest injun,’ Verity protested. ‘Anything to avoid work. Anyway, musketeers and all that. You helped me in Spain. I’ll be your sidekick now. What is it – “one for all and all for one”?’

  ‘Contra mundum?’

  ‘If you say so,’ – none of the schools she had attended having gone in for teaching Latin – ‘but we can’t just barge in on Haling. Pride would have our guts for garters.’

  ‘I know, so I’ve been thinking about employing a subterfuge.’

  ‘I didn’t know one actually employed subterfuges, but say on.’

  ‘Why don’t we go to Mersham, borrow a couple of bikes and ride over to Haling? It’s not that far.’

  ‘Then what?’

  ‘Then we call in for a glass of ginger beer or – better still – you have a puncture.’

  ‘Why me? I suppose you think girls get punctures and men don’t?’

  ‘Well, I seem to remember half killing myself mending punctures on your Morgan.’

  ‘Oh well, let it be a puncture then. You think you know what questions to ask?’

  ‘Not really, but I’ve got a few ideas. Ah, here we are. Look, there’s Frank.’

  They had arrived at the Burning Bush, an oddly shaped cast-iron lantern outside the school hall, where Edward had agreed to meet his nephew.

  Frank was with a good-looking young man in a tattered black gown, too old to be an Etonian so, Edward deduced, a junior ‘beak’. Frank kissed Verity and shook his uncle’s hand before introducing them to the master. His name was John Devon and he taught Frank history and English. When he told Verity how much he admired her articles in the New Gazette, she flashed him a brilliant smile which made Edward blink. He checked himself. It was really too absurd to be jealous of a man who had known Verity less than a minute, but he couldn’t prevent himself taking an instant dislike to him.

  Frank hurried them off to New Schools where the lecture was to take place and, as they walked, he said to Devon, ‘Verity’s writing a book on Spain for the Left Book Club. Isn’t that what you said, Uncle Ned?’

  ‘How very interesting, Miss Browne,’ said the master, beaming. ‘You’ll sell at least one copy to me and I shall have to ask you to sign it.’

  ‘Please,’ said Verity, a little faintly, ‘call me Verity. I’ve never liked Miss Browne somehow. It makes me feel like a stenographer.’

  ‘If you’ll call me John.’ Edward decided he loathed him above all men, even including Chief Inspector Pride.

  The meeting was called to order and Verity spoke lucidly and passionately about the war in Spain which she called ‘the first battle in the war against Fascism’. Edward was impressed but he was unable to concentrate fully because he was watching his nephew and John Devon. There was the odd glance of complicity between them and it crossed his mind that there might be something sexual. He thrust the idea from him but it remained in the back of his mind to irritate and alarm him.

  The boys were courteous and two or three of them were knowledgeable and committed anti-Fascists. Frank had recently joined the Young Communists and Edward knew from Connie that the Duke blamed Verity for his son’s politics. It was true that she had encouraged his left-wing views and, on a visit to Eton the year before, had light-heartedly suggested he might like to join the Party, but his burning fervour for the cause was all his own.

  They
had dinner with Mr Chandler and Devon was also a guest. Edward was unable to ask the housemaster about him but he made a mental note to write to Chandler, if only to ease his fears of the man’s influence over his nephew. He did, however, when Frank and Verity were deep in conversation with Devon, ask him about Beyond Bounds.

  ‘I was worried, but now I think it was nothing but the usual youthful need to rebel,’ the master said comfortably. ‘Of course, it wasn’t possible to let him write articles demanding Eton’s abolition on the grounds it encouraged class war, but it was harmless enough. Frank wants a cause and he thinks he’s found it. That’s all.’

  Before Edward could pursue the subject, he was swept up by Verity and Frank in a debate on the rights and wrongs of capital punishment. Edward was well aware there was that in his nephew which struck a spark in Verity he could never strike. It wasn’t anything to do with love though there was, he thought, an erotic element there – and that was natural given they were two handsome young people with a shared enthusiasm. However, in the end, it wasn’t about sex. It was that Frank’s certainty, his passionate commitment to Communism, bolstered Verity’s own commitment and that was particularly welcome at moments like this, when she had been badly shaken by events in Spain. Her belief that there was only one right way of viewing the world, and that was through red spectacles, was sometimes difficult to maintain in the face of Edward’s gentle scepticism. He had been aware that, since her return from Spain, she had been far less certain of the rightness of the cause and Frank was giving her an injection of adrenalin which was restoring her belief in herself.

  Edward assumed it was all for the best but, secretly, he had been hoping that Verity would begin to see Communism more – well, he would say realistically. In his view, the slogans, the glib generalizations, the parroted opinions of Comrade Stalin were symptoms of the Party’s disregard for individual liberty and frightening contempt for old-fashioned democracy. He sighed and reached for a cigarette but, intercepting a glance of disapproval from Devon, remembered he was not supposed to smoke in boys’ houses.