Hollow Crown

by David Roberts

  ‘It’s highly irregular, Lord Edward. I really think you should pass on the diary to the police.’

  ‘I will . . . I will, James, I promise you, but just indulge me this once. I give you my word I’ll not bring your name into it.’

  ‘Well, I expect you’ll get me into trouble whatever you say but, for Gerald’s sake, I’ll see you.’

  Davidson was an old school friend of the Duke’s and, it was rumoured, had proposed marriage to Connie the same day she accepted Gerald. The rejected lover, gentleman that he was, had never reproached either Connie or his more fortunate friend but had remained a bachelor and devoted his life to developing scientific methods to defeat crime. It had been an uphill struggle. The powers-that-be were suspicious of science and profoundly ignorant of its potential but he had been fortunate enough to gain the support of Lord Trenchard, Commissioner of Police from 1931 to 1935.

  Hardly had Edward put down the receiver when Charlotte telephoned to say that Lord and Lady Benyon were coming to tea. They had something they wanted to say to him and would he please present himself at 4 p.m. precisely for Lapsang Souchong, crumpets and information.

  Carstairs, prone in a low, battered, leather armchair, gazed hungrily at the fire in the grate. Edward had tracked down his quarry to a seedy club catering for colonial officials on leave, situated in Northumberland Avenue, close to Trafalgar Square.

  ‘I suppose my blood’s thinned,’ he complained, ‘but England seems damn cold after Africa – cold and damp. Was it always this beastly in autumn, Corinth? I seem to remember leaves turning gold in sunshine but it must just have been “home thoughts from abroad”.’

  ‘And now you’re “the hunter home from the hill”?’

  ‘What? Ah yes, Stevenson. I don’t go in much for poetry and that sort of thing but Stevenson – he rings a few bells – and W.E Henley. But I hear he’s out of fashion nowadays. “Play up, play up and play the game!” Lot of tosh, ain’t it, old sport?’

  ‘Newbolt.’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘Sir Henry Newbolt, not Henley.’ Edward looked at Carstairs with something bordering on contempt. He exhibited the faded charm of the defeated or was that just spite, he wondered. His great mane of white hair, which was impressive enough at Haling, now looked unwashed, greasy and – he must have been imagining it – tinged with green. ‘A mangy lion’ was the expression which came into his mind and he had to settle himself before he could pursue the conversation.

  ‘Forgive me for trailin’ you to this cosy dug-out but at Haling – don’t y’know – we never had time for much of a chat.’

  ‘A chat? About what?’ Carstairs said, stretching himself lazily and reaching for his whisky. Then, realizing he could hardly not offer his inquisitor a drink in his own club, he said, ‘Whisky?’

  ‘Thankee, yes.’

  Carstairs clicked his fingers at a passing waiter and ordered whisky for Edward and another for himself. ‘Look here, old sport,’ he said, raising himself slightly out of his chair, ‘what’s all this about? You don’t like me and, God knows, I could never stand you.’

  This bluntness, oddly enough, seemed to make things easier for Edward. He could toss away his pose as the rather dim man-about-town and come to the point. However, he spoke mildly enough.

  ‘Not true, old man. I don’t dislike you. In fact, I thought you the finest white hunter I ever came across – a first-class shot and all that. I didn’t altogether share your views on – what shall we say – weakening the weaker sex. I suppose that’s why you’re over here – woman trouble?’

  ‘Damn you, Corinth. I always considered you a most awful ass and, if you think you can patronize me because I’m on my uppers . . . well don’t, that’s all.’

  It was typical of Carstairs that he began with a roar and ended with a bleat.

  ‘Cut it out, old boy. I ain’t come to patronize you but to get information about our mutual friend, Molly Harkness.’

  ‘Ah, there we are!’ exclaimed Carstairs. ‘I heard Molly and you had a fling after that bad business with her husband shooting himself. Damn fine filly, I always thought, but not quite my type.’

  Edward restrained himself from punching the man in the teeth and said lightly, ‘I never touched her, scout’s honour.’ He made the sign.

  Carstairs looked at him incredulously. ‘Why then, you’re a bigger fool than I took you for. Dannie said you were a disappointment that night Molly died – couldn’t think till now what on earth she meant.’

  Edward was quite aware that Carstairs was trying to make him lose his temper so he would storm off and he would be rid of his inquisitor and the knowledge made him icy calm. ‘And without wishing to speak ill of a lady, Dannie’s had some experience.’

  ‘That’s rather a cad’s remark,’ Carstairs remarked piously, ‘and you an Eton man. I went to some tinpot place in the colony so you wouldn’t expect me to talk about a lady in that way.’

  ‘But is she a lady?’ Edward continued. ‘She as much as admitted she used me to get into Molly’s room to steal some letters she wanted, but I expect she told you about that.’

  ‘Yes, it made us both laugh – the way you fell for that. Nothing to do with me, old chap,’ he said, raising his hands above his head in mock surrender.

  ‘Did she tell you why she did it – take the letters, I mean?’

  ‘Money – what other reason is there ever? She was pretty short. That old swine, Lord Weaver, had discovered she was two-timing him . . . you knew she was his mistress?’ Edward nodded. ‘Well, when he found she had been using the apartment he had put her in to entertain other men, he threw her out . . . ’

  ‘Of the apartment?’

  ‘And his life. He said he had been meaning to do it for some time because his wife – Blanche, isn’t that her name? – had found out somehow and it was making her unhappy.’

  ‘Do we know who she was – as you put it – two-timing him with? Not you?’

  ‘Not me. I didn’t get to know her till that weekend at Haling. We just clicked. Don’t know why.’

  Edward suspected he was lying. When the two of them had returned from their ride the morning Molly had been found dead, he had sensed they shared the intimacy of lovers.

  ‘So who? Who was Dannie sleeping with?’

  ‘Don’t think I can tell you, old sport. One shouldn’t bandy a woman’s name about, eh?’

  Edward considered throttling him but said, ‘I think it was that German – Major Stille? Ever come across him?’

  ‘Mum’s the word, old sport,’ said Carstairs, putting a finger to his lips.

  Edward changed tack. ‘So, if you’re not here to escape woman trouble in the colony, why are you here?’ He tried to sound like a man joshing another in hearty admiration but failed dismally.

  ‘Damn it, Corinth, I’m here on official business.’ Carstairs sounded genuinely upset and Edward guessed he must have something to hide. ‘Lord Erroll asked me to come, if you must know, but it’s frightfully hush-hush. I daren’t breathe a word.’

  ‘Old Joss sent you?’ Erroll was a friend of Edward’s and a leading figure in Kenya. He had heard his friend had been vocal in his support of Mosley’s Fascist party and had made an attempt to start his own branch of the movement in the colony but it had petered out. Edward had been grateful he had left Kenya when he had. Otherwise he might have been in the awkward position of having to tell his friend what an ass he was making of himself.

  ‘Yes,’ Carstairs said, almost eagerly. ‘I shouldn’t tell you this, old sport, but Joss is worried about Tanganyika. He doesn’t want to see it go back to the Germans.’ Tanganyika had been a German colony before the war. ‘He thinks – and I have direct evidence he’s right – that the Nazis have several of their people in place to seize the whole colony, including Kenya, if war comes.’

  He looked earnestly at Edward who had to agree that what he was being told sounded more than plausible – in fact was was highly likely.

  ‘Erroll wants th
e British government to support his plan for a union with Tanganyika.’

  ‘So he’s no longer a Fascist?’

  ‘Joss? No, he’s a great patriot. He was only a Fascist when he thought it was patriotic – a belief in King and Empire – that sort of thing. He hates the Huns – and the Eyeties for that matter. He thinks we should have weighed in and stopped Musso in Abyssinia. Too late now.’

  Edward certainly agreed with this. It was the first great failure of the League of Nations not to protest when the Italians attacked the Ethiopians.

  ‘The Eyeties have been arming the natives, you know. Giving guns to the Mandera and Moyale tribes . . . a bad business.’

  ‘But, Carstairs, with all due respect, why didn’t Joss send someone a bit more . . . heavyweight? No offence.’

  ‘He’s planning to come himself early next year but he wanted someone who wouldn’t attract too much attention to sound out a few friends here. He don’t want to come and find himself cold-shouldered.’

  ‘And that was why you were at Haling?’

  ‘Yes. Leo Scannon had been supporting Joss and is – I mean was – putting together a posse of Conservative MPs to put pressure on the government to take him seriously.’

  ‘I see. So Scannon’s death is a setback?’

  ‘Certainly is, old sport. Deep gloom. I can hardly go back and tell Joss it’s all over. He’d kill me. Anyway, I had a spot of trouble with . . . oh, no names, no pack drill. Anyway, they just about threw me out of Muthaiga Club. I can’t go back without something like good news, you understand.’

  ‘That was what you were discussing with Scannon in the garden the night Molly was murdered?’

  Carstairs looked surprised. ‘Suppose it was – who wants to know?’

  ‘Just curious, that’s all.’

  Edward suddenly felt rather sorry for the man. Cold, short of money and unable to go home – he was a pathetic figure. ‘Look,’ he said impulsively, ‘I know a few people at the Foreign Office who may be ready to listen to what you have to say, and have you talked to Lord Weaver? The New Gazette is pro-Empire and this could be a cause he’d back you up on.’

  ‘Weaver wouldn’t see me. That was what I was trying to get Dannie to do – get me an interview with the old boy.

  When she told me on our ride – you remember, the morning you found Molly dead – that she had been cast off by him, I was pretty upset. I say though, do you really think you could get me in to see Weaver? I’d be eternally in your debt.’

  Carstairs was sitting upright now, his eyes shining.

  ‘I do, but you’ve got to tell me all you know about Molly’s murder – and Scannon’s.’

  ‘Of course, old sport, ask away. I say, I’m sorry I said those things about you just now. I was depressed. Didn’t mean any of it. Oh, and tell that girl of yours – Verity Browne – tell her I regret putting that rat in her bed. Silly joke, eh? Sorry and all that. Stupid thing to do.’

  ‘Never mind that. I thought it was just the sort of mean trick you would play – you or Leo. Now listen, just tell me the truth.’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘When you got back from your ride with Dannie, I got the feeling you already knew Molly was dead. Am I right?’

  ‘Yes, Dannie told me.’

  ‘Did she kill Molly?’

  ‘She said she hadn’t. She had been in her room – looking for something. Do I gather some rather hot letters had gone missing? Anyway, she went into the room but she said Molly was already dead.’ Seeing Edward’s face, he repeated with rather less confidence, ‘That’s what she said, old sport.’

  Edward had had only the briefest of chats with Benyon at Haling. He had been distracted first by Dannie and then occupied with Molly Harkness’s murder. He felt he had made rather a fool of himself in front of a man he liked and respected, and was looking forward to effacing the impression he had given of a lovesick schoolboy. When he arrived at the Hassels’, he found Verity already deep in conversation with Lady Benyon.

  Despite her loathing for the regime which had destroyed the Russia she had known as a child and which had forced her to take refuge in England, she had taken an instinctive liking to Verity at Haling. She found her views on Russia and Communism distasteful and impossibly naive, but this had not prevented her from seeing her essential goodness. How could she comprehend the terror that Stalin was now inflicting on her beloved country? She excused Verity her blind admiration of Stalin, realizing that if so-called wise men like George Bernard Shaw and H.G.Wells could visit Moscow and come back spouting praise for ‘a just society’, and claiming to have seen the ‘future in action’, then how could young people like Verity be expected to know any better? However, she sensed that this intelligent young woman had begun to question her beliefs and she took the opportunity of taking her to one side while Edward and Adrian talked to her husband.

  ‘My dear,’ she said, ‘forgive an old woman, but you look unhappy. Tell me I’m an interfering old busybody but I sense that you saw things in Spain which have made you angry and unhappy.’

  ‘You’re not old, Lady Benyon,’ she said, drawing up a chair beside her. ‘You think Communism is evil, don’t you?’

  ‘I think the ideals of Communism are good,’ she replied softly, so as not to be overheard by the men, ‘but I am sure they are being used by powerful and unscrupulous men for their own purposes. God knows, the Russia in which I was born was in need of reform. The Okhrana, the secret police, could imprison and torture at will. There was terrible poverty and the violence was endemic. I mean, endemic in society. Husbands beat their wives and children and left them to starve while they drank away what little they earned. I’m talking about the peasants . . . but,’ she said, seeing Verity open her mouth to protest, ‘the aristocrats were no better. My uncle was a drunkard and a lecher. He fumbled me in my own bed when I was just twelve and seemed to think I should like it. It was a corrupt society but is the cure not worse than the disease? I think it is.’

  ‘It’s true, it all seems pretty hopeless,’ said Verity soberly. ‘I had thought, as Communists, we could turn back the tide of Fascism but I don’t believe that now. Although I would never say it in public, nor even in private to anyone but you, I don’t believe the Republic can win the war in Spain. Evil will triumph.’

  ‘But that’s not why you are so sad?’

  ‘No, not just that. In Spain, I’ve . . . I’ve seen what you describe.’

  ‘Idealism perverted by ruthless men?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said shortly. ‘My friend, Mr Griffiths-Jones . . . he says the ends justify the means and I tried to believe him. But you’re right, I have seen such terrible things in Spain . . . ’ She was suddenly unable to continue.

  Inna Benyon put out a hand and laid it on Verity’s shoulder. ‘My dear, you are in mourning. The sadness you feel is grief – grief for the death of your hopes and expectations. The pain will always be with you, like the pain of an old battle wound, but your grief is also . . . what shall I say? . . . the education of your soul. You must not despair. You can look at the world – all the horror and the despair – and see not the end of hope but the real meaning of our struggle here on earth.’

  Verity looked into the woman’s lined but still beautiful face and thought, I don’t understand what she means but she’s right about grief. I do feel as if I am in mourning, though I hardly know why. She said out loud, ‘Mr Gollancz wants me to turn the articles I wrote for the New Gazette into a book, but there’s something which always seems to stop me. I have tried looking at them again but, you know, I can hardly read them.’

  ‘How exciting to be asked to write a book. It could be just the opportunity you have been waiting for to get your thoughts in order.’

  ‘But the articles don’t seem to belong to me any more. It’s as if they were written by someone else.’

  ‘I know what you mean, my dear. You have outgrown them. You know so much more now than you did when you first went to Spain. If I might suggest, y
ou shouldn’t even try to read them. You must start afresh. Begin with Toledo – tell us what it was like to be there and then go back and explain why it happened.’

  ‘But the Party won’t like that. They want me to write about the victories, not the defeats.’

  When she looked at her again, Verity saw that Lady Benyon had said whatever she had wanted to say and her eyes were beginning to stray towards her husband. Before she brought their conversation to an end, she said, gently but firmly, ‘You must do what you feel is right, my dear, but you have to be honest. If you are not honest, you will never be able to live with yourself.’

  Lord Benyon came over to his wife, whispered in her ear, nodded and said, ‘You must forgive us, dear Charlotte, but Inna has not been feeling very well of late and I must take her home. It has been such a pleasure meeting you again, Lord Edward, and you, too, Miss Browne. Please remember me to your father. He is a man of principle in an unprincipled world.’

  When the Benyons had left, Charlotte said, ‘So, what do you think of that?’

  ‘Think of what?’ Verity inquired, feeling that she had missed something.

  ‘Of course, V, you were closeted with Inna, weren’t you? Edward, you tell her what Lord Benyon told us.’

  ‘He said that Daphne Hepple-Keen had lost one of her gloves – a white glove – and that Leo Scannon had found it. Leo could never resist passing on gossip and he had told Benyon what he had seen. He also said that he had it on good authority that Sir Geoffrey had been a policeman – a particular type of policeman. He had been in Ireland but something had gone wrong – Benyon didn’t quite know what – and he had left the police and attached himself to Oswald Mosley. He thought it was highly likely he had stolen Mrs Simpson’s letters.’

  Dr Davidson raised his head from the diary and gestured to Edward to look through the glass. The powerful instrument made legible several lines on the seemingly blank sheet of paper.

  ‘Whoever tore out those two pages would have been well advised to remove two or three more. It’s quite clear – see?’