Hollow Crown (26 page)

‘No, it’s you who aren’t thinking clearly, Edward,’ Verity said vehemently, determined to have the whole thing out, however painful it might be. ‘I’m not
saying they would use the letters to discredit the King. Just the opposite, as you say. They would want to take them to
protect
him from Molly’s trouble-making. They’ll be
destroyed by now or lodged somewhere safe in Berlin.’

‘And if they thought Molly might kick up a stink – even say she was pregnant with the King’s child – to protect him they might very well have decided to kill her,’
Charlotte said excitedly.

Glumly, Edward studied his boots again. ‘Well, this is just speculation. We must get some hard facts, as you say, Verity,’ he said at last.

‘When you had your talk with Molly on the night she died, did she tell you anything that might give us a clue to her murderer? Didn’t you say she gave you the impression she was
waiting for someone?’

‘I’ve thought about that a lot. She definitely hinted that she half expected me to be someone else when she opened her bedroom door.’

‘A lover?’

‘I don’t know. I thought so at first but now I’m not so sure. She said she was – how did she put it? – “fancy-free”. She said, rather bitterly I
thought, that there had been lovers but she hadn’t got one at the moment. Those weren’t her exact words but that was what she wanted me to understand. Oh, that reminds me. She told me
she had been introduced to the Prince of Wales, as he then was, by a man called Lewis Van Buren. I think he must have been South African. She admitted to me he had briefly been her lover. I got the
impression he lent money and supplied women, and no doubt other things, to the Prince’s set.’

‘A Jew?’ Charlotte inquired.

‘Yes, I think so. Molly genuinely liked him. I wondered, V, if you could find anything about him in the
Gazette
files?’

‘I’ll look him up but I can’t see what he would have to do with her death.’

‘Nor can I, but she might have told him more than she told me about what happened in Kenya. They either met in Cape Town or on the boat – he might have seen someone or know
something.’

‘It’s worth looking into, I suppose,’ Verity said doubtfully. ‘Anything else, Edward?’

‘Only that Mr Harbin told me he saw Leo Scannon remove something from Molly’s room while I was examining her body.’

‘Golly! Did he say what?’

‘He wasn’t sure but he thought it might have been an envelope – something white, anyway. He also noticed that, under his dressing gown, Scannon was still dressed in the clothes
he had worn at dinner. He hadn’t been to bed.’

‘A cool customer, Scannon,’ Adrian commented.

‘No, he didn’t seem cool. He was genuinely shocked when we found Molly dead – in fact he was almost “struck dumb” as they say in romances. It was left to me to tell
Pickering to call the police and the doctor. Then, when he had recovered himself a little, he suggested searching Molly’s room before the police came, but I refused. Anyway, it was too late
by then. Lampfrey arrived very quickly.’

Edward thought about telling them of his botched attempt to tamper with the evidence and how he had hidden Molly’s bag in the chimney but it was so absurd and, having made such a fool of
himself with Dannie, he did not want to heap more ridicule on himself. He wondered if Verity had told Adrian and Charlotte that he had slept with Dannie, and how she had tricked him. He thought she
probably had and he certainly wasn’t going to broadcast his idiocy.

‘Well,’ Verity said, ‘let’s assume for the moment Molly was killed by someone at Haling. I know . . . I know . . . ’ she said, raising her hand as Edward opened his
mouth. ‘Someone from outside could have shinned up the creeper and got into her room through the window . . . ’

‘This really is the opposite of a “locked-room” mystery,’ Adrian said. ‘I have just read
The Hollow Man
, you know, by John Dickson Carr. It’s
brilliant. You see, no one could have got into the room where the murder happened . . . ’

‘Yes, all right, Adrian, but can we keep to the business in hand,’ Verity reprimanded him.

‘Sorry,’ Adrian said, humbly.

‘There weren’t so many people staying at Haling. Why don’t I write them down like they do in books.’ Verity took a piece of paper and a pencil from Adrian’s desk
and licked the lead in a businesslike manner. ‘We all know about Edward,’ she said brightly. ‘He’s the prime suspect. He had opportunity and motive. His job was to shut
Molly up and she was shut up.’

‘I say, V,’ Edward said plaintively, ‘don’t rag. I’m not in the mood.’

‘We have to face facts,’ she said, and then relented. ‘Anyway, to continue. There were the Benyons. You know them, don’t you, Charlotte?’

‘Yes, we know them and they are the nicest couple. I could never believe either of them could . . . ’

‘You mean just because they were fool enough to buy one of Adrian’s pictures . . . ’

‘Verity!’ Edward and Charlotte exclaimed in unison.

‘It’s no use you all being so lily-livered. We must be objective if we’re to get anywhere. I think you, Edward, and Adrian ought to go and see them and see what they
remember.’

‘Right,’ Adrian said. ‘The Hepple-Keens sound an odd duo from what you say, Edward.’

‘They are. There’s something sinister about him. I have a suspicion he might be a sort of policeman, unless he’s a dyed in the wool Mosleyite. I think I’ll have a word
with my pal Basil Thoroughgood at the FO. He might be able to tell me which or know who to ask. Hepple-Keen’s certainly a ruthless man and it’s possible he is working for someone who
wanted Mrs Simpson’s letters back badly enough to kill for them.’

‘And Lady Hepple-Keen?’ Charlotte asked.

‘A mystery that one,’ Edward said, scratching his chin. ‘I thought at first she was a dull, put-upon little woman, scared of her husband and with no other interests than her
children but now . . . ’

‘ “Now” what?’ Verity asked sharply.

‘Now I’m not so sure. Do you remember, V, she got quite excited when we were talking about the child victims of the fighting in Spain. I wouldn’t be surprised if she
didn’t turn out to be a fierce fighter for them.’

‘Yes, well, I’m taking her to see Joe at the
New Gazette
tomorrow so perhaps I’ll get to know her better but, on the face of it, she had no motive for killing Molly.
Dannie – well, we know about her, don’t we, Edward,’ she said meaningfully. ‘I don’t think we’ll get much out of her if either of us were to try and talk to her
but I’ve put the Party hounds on to her, so they might turn up something interesting, and I’m going to harry Joe. He knows a lot about her he hasn’t told yet.’

‘Oh V,’ Edward said weakly, ‘don’t let your prejudices get in the way of . . . I mean, I know you don’t like her but you said we have to be objective . . . put our
feelings to one side and all that.’

‘I have no feelings for her either way,’ Verity said coldly, ‘but the facts are she is an associate of a known Nazi, one Major Stille, and we know she had the best opportunity
of killing Molly of anyone at Haling with the exception of you, Edward. She had, in a word, motive and opportunity.’

‘Two words,’ Edward said, unwisely, and Verity threw a glance at him which chilled him. ‘Larry Harbin,’ he said to prevent either of the Hassels asking Verity what she
was going on about. ‘I took him back to London in the Lagonda and I liked him. He’s on his way back to America now so we can’t interview him. Anyway what motive could he
have?’

As he said the words, Edward remembered what Harbin had said outside Molly’s bedroom door as they were trying to open it. ‘There is something though. He told me he didn’t
approve of Molly; had warned the King about her in fact. You see, Harbin comes from Baltimore, Mrs Simpson’s home town, and though I got the feeling he didn’t approve of her much
either, he didn’t want Molly bringing down scandal on Wallis’s head.’

‘Hardly a motive for murder,’Charlotte said.

‘No, I don’t think for a moment he killed Molly but we agreed we had to put all the facts on the table.’

‘Who else is there?’ Verity said, finishing her notes on Harbin.

‘Scannon himself. He knew all about Molly and, if I hadn’t agreed to approach her about returning the letters, he said he was going to do it but he didn’t think she would take
much notice of him.’

‘He obviously had a motive then,’ Verity said, ‘and he would have had less trouble getting a key to her room than anyone else.’

‘Yes,’ Edward agreed, ‘but, as I told you, his reaction when we found Molly dead did not seem to me to be that of a man who knew what he was going to find. He would have been
much calmer, unless he was an accomplished actor. And don’t forget Carstairs,’ Edward continued. ‘I need to talk to him. When he came back from riding with Dannie, he didn’t
seem awfully surprised when we told him about Molly.’

‘I think you’re right, Edward, you ought to tackle him,’ Verity said. ‘Man to man stuff.’

‘The servants are in the clear?’ Adrian asked.

‘I think so. Pickering has been with Scannon for years. Still, I would like to have an opportunity of talking to him,’ Edward said. ‘And we haven’t mentioned Ruth
Conway.’

‘Who’s she?’ Charlotte asked.

‘She’s the woman Scannon hired to look after his bedridden old mother. If I know Pride, he’ll be trying to pin Scannon’s murder on her.’

‘Why?’ Charlotte asked.

‘She’s there the whole time and knows exactly how the house is run and has access to the keys, but the main thing from Pride’s point of view will be that socially she is of no
account. His one idea is to protect his political masters from scandal.’

‘Edward!’ Charlotte protested. ‘That’s so unfair. What evidence do you have for saying that?’

‘Oh, sorry, Charlotte. I know, Pride’s a clever man but I’ve had experience of his investigations on two occasions and he seemed less interested in getting to the truth and
more in avoiding a bad press . . . ’

‘He’s doesn’t like us,’ Verity explained. ‘He thinks I’m the worst sort of political extremist and he considers Edward to be . . . well, someone who
interferes where he should leave well alone.’

‘He thinks I’m an ass,’ Edward said bluntly.

‘And you’re not an ass, are you?’ Verity said as if she were comforting a three-year-old.

Adrian said hurriedly, ‘Right, let’s get down to some sleuthing. It’s all very good fun.’

‘It’s not just self-indulgence,’ Edward said soberly. ‘I have no faith at all that Pride or anyone else will find out who killed Molly. I don’t care very much who
killed Scannon but Molly was my friend and I refuse to let her death go unavenged just because that would be more convenient.’

Verity looked at Edward with interest. There was a vein of bitterness in what he said and the way he said it that surprised her. He was no longer the light-hearted young aristocrat with the time
and money to harry the police. He was, she thought, disillusioned, disillusioned with the police, with men of power like Joe Weaver and with society as a whole. Was it just that, as one got older,
one had the experience to see things as they really were or was it something more profound? Even she had been forced to recognize there was no ‘good’ side to be on. Everyone –
even the Party itself – had objectives of which she was largely ignorant but of which she instinctively disapproved. Surely Edward was right: where there was justice to be done one should not
avoid doing it. One could argue that finding Molly’s murderer wasn’t their business and there was so much evil in the world and so many victims of oppression that one more case was
neither here nor there. That wasn’t her attitude and she was glad it wasn’t his. She wanted to get up, put her arms around him and kiss him but she caught Adrian’s eye. He was
smiling at her as though he knew exactly what she was thinking and, to her considerable annoyance, she blushed as though she were a child and not the hardened journalist she liked to imagine she
was.

Verity worked on her book late into the night, tapping away on Adrian’s old typewriter – a Remington portable with its annoying red sticker bearing the maxim
‘To save time is to lengthen life’ – anxious to complete it before the Spanish civil war became history. She was sure the rebels would win – it was only a matter of when
– not that she would ever have admitted so much even to Edward or Adrian. Rereading her
New Gazette
articles gave her the opportunity of re-evaluating her experiences. Her first
reports were alive with indignation, confident of the justice of the cause she had espoused. Her naivety made her blush. As the weeks became months, she detected a shrillness in her writing which
reflected her growing panic. Why would the democracies not help Spain in its agony? Why were the politicians so venal, the peasant soldiers so badly armed and – more agonizingly – the
rebels so convinced right was on their side and justified the most terrible acts of cruelty? And what justified the Communist Party’s vicious war against those who had once been its allies
and who still considered themselves part of the Popular Front against Fascism – the anarchists, the syndicalists, the separatists and, most bitter enemy of all, the Trotskyists?

She had been given two hundred pounds advance on royalties by Victor Gollancz, the left-wing publisher and founder of the Left Book Club. It was the most she had ever earned and, for that reason
alone, she was determined to do her best but it was even more important to her to make sense of her activities in Spain, culminating in the shocking defeat at Toledo which, as Edward had guessed,
had shaken her to the roots. She had to believe that she had not been mistaken – that the cause to which she had attached herself so uncritically was worth her allegiance.

When at last she went to bed, she looked at her face in the mirror as she removed the traces of lipstick and rouge she allowed herself – in part to avoid her friends remarking on how pale
and drawn she was. She saw a white, round face with a stubborn chin and burning, black eyes which seemed to accuse her. She wondered if courage was self-renewing or whether it ran out like petrol
in a car. She felt her store of courage was diminishing and it was odd that being near Edward seemed to help. She didn’t believe women needed men to complete them, as she had been taught. She
liked men, she liked sex, but she had convinced herself she did not need a man in her life. And yet . . . she was beginning to wonder if she did not, in fact, need Edward. She had been profoundly
shocked to hear of his night with Dannie and she didn’t quite know why. Was it simple jealousy? Or was it that she felt he needed a ‘good woman’ to save him from such squalid
affairs?