Hollow Crown

by David Roberts

  ‘So your mother got ill when you were . . . ?’

  ‘About twelve. I was brought to Haling as a servant to Mrs Scannon and my mother was taken off to some sort of a hospital. I never saw her again.’

  ‘How terrible!’ Verity exclaimed. ‘The way those men treated women like your mother was abominable.’ She looked at Edward accusingly.

  ‘I don’t suppose Mr Scannon saw it that way,’ Miss Conway said, mildly. ‘He probably thought he was saving me from the gutter – which he was.’

  ‘But you were his daughter!’ Verity said. ‘And you never saw your mother again – not even when she was dying?’

  ‘It is the most terrible disease, you know. It eats away at your bones, Miss Browne. I read up about it. I think he thought he was saving me from the horror of seeing my mother . . . deformed.’

  ‘But does Mrs Scannon know you are her husband’s daughter?’ Edward asked.

  ‘We have never talked about it. She must have done, I suppose.’

  ‘You never talked about it – not in all those years you’ve been with her?’

  ‘Never!’

  Verity was aghast. To think of the little girl torn from her mother and placed in a strange house as a servant with no one to love her or care for her . . . it did not bear thinking about. She surely deserved recompense.

  Ruth Conway, seeing their faces and misinterpreting their expressions, said, ‘You mustn’t think ill of my mother.’

  ‘Please, Miss Conway, don’t think for one moment that we were thinking badly of your mother. I was only feeling ashamed for my sex,’ Edward said.

  Miss Conway looked at him in surprise. ‘I don’t see why you should be. It’s nothing to do with you, Lord Edward. I mean, it’s not your fault. It’s the way of the world.’

  ‘A world we must change,’ Verity said indignantly.

  Ruth shot her a look of amused contempt. ‘You think it can be changed – the way men behave to women?’

  ‘I certainly do,’ Verity said stoutly.

  Edward said, hurriedly, ‘But Leo obviously made up for what his father . . . ’

  ‘We grew up here together. He liked me, yes.’

  Edward wondered if there had been any childhood romance and, as if she had read his thoughts, she continued, ‘I think you know, Lord Edward, that Leo did not like girls very much but he was good to me.’

  ‘And you must have talked to him about . . . about your situation?’

  ‘About money, you mean?’

  ‘Well, yes, that, but I’ve got no right . . . ’

  ‘Don’t be embarrassed. I’m not. Anyway, the police have already asked me and I told them. When his father died, Leo told me he was going to leave me some money. He said there ought to have been some compensation for my mother getting ill but, what with the war and everything, nothing had actually happened although his father always intended to do something for me. I don’t know if that was just Leo being kind. I rather doubt the old man had given it a thought, but perhaps I’m doing him an injustice.’

  ‘And . . . forgive me, I’m being impertinent . . . ’

  ‘Did he say he would leave me all this . . . ? Is that what you were going to ask?’ Miss Conway said, waving her hand to indicate the house. ‘No, he didn’t.’

  ‘But he welcomed you as a member of the family?’

  ‘That’s an odd way of putting it, but I suppose that was what it amounted to. He was very proud of his father and yet . . . taking my mother as his mistress . . . I think he was a bit ashamed of that.’

  ‘He didn’t hold it against you?’

  ‘No, why should he?’

  ‘Some men might,’ Verity broke in. ‘When you’re in the wrong or ashamed of something you tend to lash out at the victim rather than the . . . you know. At least, that’s what I’ve found.’

  Ruth Conway and Edward looked at her curiously, wondering what had prompted her to speak with such feeling.

  ‘No, he was very good to me. He asked me to stay and continue to look after his mother but he said that if I wanted to leave, he would add to the money his father had left, so I could buy somewhere to live.’

  ‘But you didn’t?’

  ‘No, I had no reason to leave. Haling’s my home but I never thought . . . that one day it might be mine.’

  There was a moment’s silence and then she continued, ‘Now tell me, Lord Edward, why did you really come here? The puncture was just an excuse, wasn’t it?’

  Edward looked at her, his mouth agape. ‘Was it so obvious?’ he said with a wry smile.

  ‘I’m afraid it was,’ she replied. ‘I guessed something was up when your sister-in-law telephoned and started asking questions about the funeral and who was here in the house.’

  ‘The truth is,’ Verity broke in, ‘we want to find out who really killed Mrs Harkness. Molly was a friend of Edward’s and we don’t have a lot of faith in the police.’

  ‘Why not? Chief Inspector Pride seems good at his job.’

  ‘The Chief Inspector is very thorough but we have had dealings with him before,’ Edward said. ‘You may remember reading in the newspapers that one of the guests at a dinner party my brother gave at Mersham last year was murdered, and we don’t think he did much to find out who did it. He was more concerned to push the whole thing under the carpet.’

  ‘I see. And you think you can do better?’

  ‘Probably not, but I feel I owe it to Molly to try. You see, I had been invited to Haling to get from her, with the minimum of fuss, some letters she had stolen from . . . a certain personage . . . ’

  ‘Mrs Simpson? Leo told me all about it.’

  ‘Oh, he did, did he,’ Edward said, annoyed that Scannon had been indiscreet. ‘Well, I failed and poor Molly was murdered. You can understand that I feel in some way responsible.’

  ‘Molly was a particular friend of Edward’s – in Kenya,’ Verity added mischievously.

  ‘I see,’ Miss Conway repeated. ‘Well, what can I do to help? Shall we ask Pickering what he remembers?’

  ‘Yes, if that’s possible. I’m sorry to be a nuisance.’

  ‘You’re not a nuisance, Lord Edward. To tell you the truth, I have been a bit bored. Mrs Scannon not being in the house any longer, my whole daily ritual has disappeared.’

  ‘But you must know a lot of people round here.’

  ‘Not really. Leo knew everyone, of course, but I kept in the background. They didn’t come to see me.’

  ‘But we almost ran into a car on the way here – a Wolseley, I think.’

  ‘Oh, that was Colonel Philips, the Chief Constable. Do you know him? He has been very helpful. I think he thinks Chief Inspector Pride has been bullying me.’ She giggled nervously. ‘I think he thinks I killed Leo. As if I ever would!’

  ‘When is the funeral? Connie said you didn’t know exactly.’

  ‘Next week if the coroner allows. It’s his having been poisoned, you know, that’s the problem. He can’t be buried before everything has been examined. After the funeral, I might go abroad. See something of the world. You know, I have never been out of the country! I’d like to see Venice before I die.’

  ‘And what about Mrs Scannon?’ Edward, without meaning to, sounded as though he disapproved of Miss Conway taking so much pleasure in being rich.

  ‘She is virtually comatose, I’m afraid. The doctors say she may die at any moment.’ She had the grace to look a little guilty. ‘I have done everything I can for her. She doesn’t need me now. There’s a family tomb in the village churchyard. Leo’s father liked owning property,’ she said with a trace of rancour. ‘I loved them both, you know,’ she added after a pause, as though she wanted to make them understand that she wasn’t without feeling. ‘Even the old woman – though she never loved me. Even when I was a child, she never kissed me or hugged me. I suppose I was a living reminder of her husband’s infidelity.’

  Edward was moved to ask, ‘Tell me to shut up if I’m speaking out of turn but, to me, Leo was a cold fish. Co
uld you really love him? You were grateful to him for having been your protector – I understand that – but for years you were treated like a servant . . . I can’t work it out. On the one hand, he was your benefactor but, after what happened to your mother, it would have been quite natural for you to have resented being nurse to Mrs Scannon.’

  ‘It’s difficult to explain. In books love and hate seem black and white. Either you feel one thing or the other. In real life – in mine anyway – it was different. I certainly didn’t love Leo as a woman. I mean, I wasn’t in love with him and he certainly didn’t love me in that way – or at least I never felt that he did. I suppose I always knew he wasn’t interested in girls. I knew instinctively that he didn’t love anyone except his mother so it was a sort of compliment being entrusted with her, but we came to feel . . . I don’t know . . . an affection for one another. Partly habit but . . . we understood each other – I suppose that was it.’

  ‘Presumably, it was Leo who told you about your mother, how she died . . . ?’

  ‘Yes, I only knew she had disappeared from my life and, as you do as a child, you grieve but you accept. I had just one photograph of her which I used to keep under my pillow until it became really creased and battered. Then I put it in my Bible. One day – it must have been when I was fourteen, yes, it was my birthday – Leo came to my room to give me my present. He happened to open the Bible and saw the photograph. He asked who it was – because, of course, he had never seen my mother and, when I told him, he told me everything he knew about how she died.’

  ‘But not about who your father was? Old Mr Scannon was still alive then?’ Edward asked.

  ‘No, but I think, looking back on it, I did know somehow.’

  ‘Did you not want to talk to the old man about it . . . about your mother?’

  ‘My first impulse was to ask him about it, but I didn’t.’

  ‘You were frightened of him?’ Verity guessed.

  ‘I was frightened of him, yes, but it wasn’t quite that. It was just that I decided that I didn’t want to know. I didn’t want to have that conversation with Mr Scannon. I was embarrassed. I don’t expect you to understand.’

  ‘I think I do,’ Edward said. ‘I felt the same when I was told my brother, Frank, had been killed in the first week after the expeditionary force landed in France. They told me he died heroically – which indeed he had – and I was satisfied. I didn’t want to know the details. I wanted him to be a hero figure not a real person.’

  Miss Conway looked at him gratefully. ‘You do understand then,’ was all she said.

  After a moment, Verity pushed on. ‘So you have no idea who killed Mrs Harkness?’

  ‘I thought it was probably you, Lord Edward’, she said simply. ‘I didn’t know then that you had come to retrieve the letters. I thought Leo was doing that. But I knew you had come for some reason – not just social, I mean. And you seemed determined enough. But, of course,’ she added quickly, ‘as soon as I got to know you a little, I changed my mind.’

  ‘I’m glad to hear it!’ Edward said, rather unnerved to find that someone other than Pride had put him down as a cold-blooded murderer. ‘You didn’t suspect Leo? As you say, you knew he was trying to get Molly to give up something he wanted?’

  ‘I certainly think he could have murdered. You’re right, he was rather a cold person, but he seemed to me genuinely shocked after Mrs Harkness was found dead. Didn’t you think so, Lord Edward?’

  ‘I did but it was odd – Mr Harbin noticed it – he was still in the clothes he had been wearing at dinner when he came to see why we were trying to break into Molly’s room. He’d taken off his coat and put on a dressing gown but he definitely hadn’t got into pyjamas.’

  ‘I didn’t know that but I still think he didn’t kill her. Why should he? He was a respected MP with a busy life. I can’t believe he would have risked all that to help Mrs Simpson.’

  ‘I agree, but someone did it,’ Edward said, almost irritably. ‘Maybe there was some other motive – after all, he was murdered himself. Someone wanted him out of the way.’

  ‘Inspector Lampfrey told Edward that Mr Scannon’s diary had disappeared,’ Verity said. ‘The most likely thing seems to be that Mr Scannon had seen, or at least knew, who had killed Molly and that person was afraid of being blackmailed. You’ve no idea where the diary might be?’

  ‘No. The police have searched everywhere – even my rooms – and I know they have been looking in London as well.’

  Edward, rather daringly, said, ‘May I be very impertinent, Miss Conway, and ask if Leo ever brought any of his . . . his friends here? I don’t mean his ordinary friends, I mean . . .’

  ‘Did he ever bring his boys here, that’s what you mean?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘No, he never did. You see, he would never have brought them to the house his mother lived in.’

  At that moment, Pickering came in to say the puncture had been mended and Miss Conway asked if he would mind answering a few questions Lord Edward wanted to put to him about the night Mrs Harkness died.

  ‘A terrible business,’ the butler said, shaking his head mournfully. ‘To think there should have been two murders in the house and the master himself . . . ’

  ‘Please, do sit down,’ Miss Conway said, seeing the man was actually shaking with emotion.

  ‘No, miss. I have never sat down in the drawing-room in my life and the master would not like it if I did now.’

  ‘Were you very fond of your master?’ Edward asked sympathetically.

  ‘He was a great man, your lordship. The famous men he knew! Why, I have welcomed three Prime Ministers to Haling,’ he said with evident pride. ‘I felt sure there would never be another war knowing that my master and his colleagues were looking after things.’

  This striking tribute to Scannon amazed Edward and Verity had to check herself from expostulating.

  ‘It’s a sad business,’ Edward said. ‘Tell me, Pickering, did you notice – when Mr Scannon came to help us open Mrs Harkness’s bedroom door . . . ’

  ‘When we found the poor lady dead, my lord?’

  ‘Yes. Did you notice that he had not undressed? He was wearing his evening clothes under his dressing gown.’

  ‘Yes, my lord, I did notice.’

  ‘Can you think why that was? Did Mr Scannon sleep badly?’

  ‘Yes, my lord. The master often stayed up half the night reading in his study or working. I did see him quite late that night with Mr Carstairs. As I prepared for bed, I happened to look out of my window and I saw the two gentlemen in the garden.’

  ‘What time was this?’

  ‘About midnight, my lord, or perhaps a bit later. By the time we had cleared dinner, it was after eleven and the master was kind enough to tell me not to wait up until he and the other gentlemen had gone to bed, which is what I would have expected to do.’

  ‘I see. So it was unusual for you to go to bed before all the guests had gone to their bedrooms?’

  ‘Yes, my lord, but the master was always most considerate.’

  ‘Did you tell the police that you saw Mr Scannon in the garden with Mr Carstairs on the night Mrs Harkness was killed?’

  ‘No, my lord,’ said the butler, looking troubled. ‘Should I have done? They did not ask me.’

  ‘No, I expect Mr Carstairs had already told them,’ Edward said soothingly. ‘I meant to ask you whether your master key, which opened the bedroom doors, could have been borrowed or stolen?’

  ‘That was what the police asked me.’

  ‘And you said . . . ?’

  ‘I said the key was hanging on a hook in the pantry so it was possible a visitor – someone who knew the house – would know where to find it.’

  ‘And had it been borrowed?’

  ‘It was there when I was called to help you and the other gentleman get into Mrs Harkness’s room.’

  ‘But . . . ’

  ‘There was no reason to keep the key locked away,’ Pickering sai
d defensively. ‘There was only one key to the safe and Mr Scannon kept that on his key-ring. The key to the bedrooms wasn’t . . . special.’

  ‘No, of course not,’ Edward said reassuringly. ‘Mr Scannon kept the key to the tantalus himself?’

  ‘Yes, my lord. I had no key to that or to the cellar. Mr Scannon was very particular about his wines and spirits.’

  ‘And where were those keys kept?’

  ‘The key to the tantalus Mr Scannon also kept on his key-ring. The cellar key was too big so he kept it in the safe.’

  ‘A careful man, Mr Scannon,’ Edward said, hoping to get a reaction from the butler but in this he was disappointed. The man was not prepared to volunteer opinions about his late employer, at least not in present company.

  Miss Conway said, ‘The police have taken away the tantalus but I can assure you, Lord Edward, that Leo alone opened and closed it, as Pickering says.’

  ‘Forgive my ignorance,’ Verity said, ‘but what actually is a tantalus?’

  ‘Correct me if I’m wrong, Pickering, but it’s usually three or four decanters on a wooden tray. At each end of the tray there are panels that support a hinged bar which fits over the decanters and prevents them being unstoppered. Is that right?’

  ‘Yes, my lord. Mr Scannon’s had a silver bar holding three decanters in place.’

  ‘And the bar could be locked?’ Verity asked.

  ‘Of course. That was the point of it,’ Edward said sharply, and Verity felt snubbed. He turned to the butler. ‘You have been most kind, Pickering. It must have been a terrible shock for you.’

  ‘It was, my lord, and with the master’s mother so ill . . . ’

  ‘She does not know about her son . . . being murdered?’ Verity asked.