Read sample Hollow Crown

1

Almost against his will, Lord Edward Corinth gazed up at the sleek, glassy building he was about to enter. It brought to mind, as no doubt the architect intended, one of the new ocean liners – the Queen Mary, say, or the Normandie – and it seemed to make every other building in Fleet Street appear dowdy and old-fashioned. It was the headquarters of Joe Weaver’s New Gazette and it stood for everything he had achieved. Lord Weaver, as he now was, had come to England from Canada during the war. With skilful use of his large fortune, he had made powerful friends in the world of politics and it is not too much to say that he was now in a position to make or break prime ministers. His great building, completed in 1931, and in front of which Edward now stood, was brash, brutal and several storeys higher than any of its neighbours.

After dark – it was now nine o’clock – from where he was standing, it looked like a shining curtain, each pane of glass illuminated brilliantly from within. One might be forgiven, he thought wryly, for imagining that its transparency was a symbol of the veracity with which the New Gazette reported the news in its august columns, but, as he was well aware, for Lord Weaver truth was what he wanted it to be. The press lord, for all his bonhomie, was a man of secrets. If he wished to spare one of his friends or dependants the pain of reading in his newspaper the sordid details of their divorce proceedings, he would order his editor to deny his readers the pleasure of schadenfreude. If he wished to puff the prospects of some bright young man he had taken under his wing, he would paint such a portrait that even the man himself might have difficulty recognizing. For every favour there was, of course, a price to be paid. No money would change hands – Lord Weaver had money to spare – but from the men he would elicit information and through them exercise influence. The women were also a source of information and their influence extended beyond their husbands to their friends and lovers – and it was said that, despite having a face like a wicked monkey, Weaver was himself to be found amongst the latter category more often than a casual observer would have thought likely.

And yet Lord Weaver was by no means a bad man. He loved his wife, considered himself a patriot and used what power he had in what he considered to be the best interests of his adopted country. He was a loyal friend, as Edward had reason to know, and he was generous – when the whim took him – absurdly, extravagantly, generous. But still, Edward bore in mind that, even when the tiger smiled, he was still a tiger.

As he stepped into the entrance hall Edward again hesitated. its art deco opulence was almost oppressive. The designer – a man called Robert Atkinson – had intended to overwhelm the visitor with the power and energy of the New Gazette and its proprietor, and he had succeeded. It was no mere newspaper, Atkinson seemed to be saying, but a Great Enterprise, a Modern Miracle, a temple to the Zeitgeist. The floor was of inky marble veined with red and blue waves of colour which glowed and shimmered in the light of a huge chandelier. The ceiling was silver leaf, fan vaulted to summon up an image of the heavens, but the massive clock above the marble staircase reminded the visitor that time was money. Two shining bronze snakes, acting as banisters, hinted that there might be evil even in this paradise and Edward wondered if it really could be the designer’s sly joke. Weaver was clever enough not to have any statue or bust of himself in the entrance hall. No doubt after he was dead, that omission would be rectified, but for now he was content to be the newspaper.

Edward went over to a horseshoe desk – rosewood and silver gilt – and was greeted respectfully by a liveried flunkey and taken over to the gilded cage which would raise him by magic to the great man’s private floor on the top of the building. Edward smiled to himself – it really was too much. The porters’ frog-footman uniforms were certainly a mistake. He greeted by name the wizened little man who operated the lift. He at least was real – an old soldier who had lost an arm on the Somme. He seemed to read Edward’s thoughts, for he winked at him as if they shared a private joke before whisking him heavenward.

Edward was in a foul mood. He had dined at his club and had by chance overheard some remarks which, because they were so apt, hurt him to the core. He had finished his cigar in the smoking room and was making his way towards the door when he saw the candidates’ book on a desk behind a screen and remembered he had promised to add his signature in support of a friend’s son who was up for election. As he turned over the pages, he heard the voice of the man with whom he had been chatting a few moments before. He must have believed Edward had left the smoking room and not realized he was still in earshot.

‘Do you know that fellow?’ the man was saying. ‘We were at Cambridge together – a typical victim of the System. At Cambridge he was considered the cleverest of us all. He had brains, romantic looks, £12,000 a year. A duke’s son with every advantage – we thought he would go far. But what has he done or accomplished? Nothing except to be bored and miserable.’

Edward, not waiting to hear the response, slipped out of the room, his face burning. This was what men thought of him, damn it! And what was worse, this was what he thought of himself. It was true he had told no one of his adventures in Spain a few months previously when he had uncovered the identity of a spy and a murderer, but what did that amount to in the scheme of things? He wanted a job and that was why he had decided he might as well go and see what Lord Weaver had to say. He was damned if he was going to hang about London going to dinners and balls, and make small talk with girls in search of a husband and their monstrous mothers. For one thing, he was too old for that – he was thirty-six. The world was going to the devil and he wanted to play some part in preparing Britain for the war which he now believed was inevitable. But how? What part? He was too old for the army. He had offered his services to the Foreign Office and been rejected. Was it possible Joe Weaver could help him? He would soon know.

‘May 12th, isn’t it?’

‘The coronation? Yes – that is, if it ever happens.’ Weaver had almost entirely lost his Canadian accent, Edward noted, and affected a bear-like growl.

‘What on earth do you mean, Joe?’ Edward, his cigarette lighter in his hand, paused and looked at Weaver in surprise.

‘You remember what they were saying about Mrs Simpson when you were in New York … she’s not pure as the driven snow, you know. For one thing she’s still got a husband.’

‘I see but …’ Edward hesitated. He didn’t like to speak ill of his king. ‘… does he really intend to marry the woman? I mean, he’s had these … infatuations before.’

‘This is different, Edward, I can assure you. I’ve seen it with my own eyes.’

‘Of course, that’s the set you move in. Didn’t I hear you had them on your yacht?’

‘Yes, a cruise along the Dalmatian coast. You should have come with us.’

‘I wasn’t asked,’ he said drily. ‘The King seemed to be enjoying himself.’

Weaver glanced at him. ‘You mean … ?’

‘With Mrs Simpson. I gather there were photographs in the French papers of them strolling around Corfu almost naked.’

‘Oh no, that’s nonsense, but the King enjoys being … casual.’

‘I thought you used to be a friend of Freda’s?’ Edward was referring to the King’s mistress when he had been Prince of Wales, Mrs Dudley Ward, whom he had dropped overnight when he met Mrs Simpson.

‘I used to be,’ Weaver said uncomfortably. ‘In fact, it was Fredie who introduced me to Blanche.’

‘I remember. Well, she did you a good turn there, Joe. Blanche is the kind of 24-carat woman I would be looking for were I ever to marry, which at the time of going to press seems most unlikely.’

Weaver shifted uneasily in his chair. It happened that his wife, in most respects a sensible woman, had a grudge against Edward. Blanche held him to blame for the death of her daughter by her first husband – a ne’er-do-well who, mercifully, had been killed in the war. Edward, as Weaver knew, had done everything he could to save his stepdaughter from the drugs which had in the end killed her and Blanche had no reason to hold him responsible for her death.

Weaver said, ‘I thought the Prince would have remained faithful to Fredie until hell froze. In fact, she told me once, he had sworn never to marry anyone else, but I was wrong. He dropped her just like that. I thought the less of him for it but that’s not to say I don’t like Wallis. Mrs Simpson may be a divorcee and not particularly careful about the men she chooses to go to bed with but she’s done the Prince – the King, I should say – the world of good. She’s a level­headed, clever woman and the King does exactly what she tells him. She’s stopped his drinking for one thing. But of course, he can’t marry the woman, we all know that. The King likes to forget she’s still married to Mr Simpson.’

Edward sucked at his cigarette contemplatively. ‘I heard she was divorcing him.’

‘The King couldn’t marry an American divorcee. The country wouldn’t stand for it.’

‘Wouldn’t it? He’s very popular. He goes out and meets the poor. When he went to that mining village – what was it called? – he made a very good impression.’

‘The colonies wouldn’t stand for it. I was talking to the Prime Minister about it. He says the Australians won’t have it. SB was quite crude – I confess to being surprised. His precise words were: “If the King sleeps with a whore, that’s his business but the Empire is concerned that he doesn’t make her queen.” The Australian outlook on life is distinctly middle class and on morals distinctly Victorian. Mackenzie King says Canadian public opinion would be outraged if it leaked out the King wanted to make Wallis his queen and I gather Herzog in South Africa is categoric.’

‘There’s been nothing in the papers here about Mrs Simpson.’

‘Nothing at all,’ Weaver agreed, sounding smug. ‘The Prime Minister asked me to see what I could do to keep it all hush-hush and, I flatter myself, I have been successful.’

‘You mean, Baldwin asked you not to print anything about the affair?’

‘Not just me. SB wanted me to persuade the other owners, Northcliffe in particular, not to print any story which featured Mrs Simpson.’

‘Aren’t any of the American papers seen over here?’

‘The censors snip them.’

‘Good heavens! He must be worried then.’

‘The PM hopes the whole thing will go away. He thinks the King will get tired of her as he has of his other women but …’

‘… But you don’t?’

‘No, I don’t. As I say, I’ve seen nothing like it.’ Weaver leant over the desk and looked as if he feared being overheard. ‘I don’t know whether you have ever met her – Wallis. She’s no great beauty but she has established an ascendancy over the King …’

His voice trailed off as though for once he was at a loss to know how to proceed. ‘There’s no direct evidence she’s his mistress, you know.’

‘Does she want to be queen?’ Edward asked.

‘She says she doesn’t. I don’t know. She’s actually told me she would like to leave David – as the family calls him – and go back to the States but he begs her not to desert him.’

‘You know her well?’

‘As well as anybody. She doesn’t invite intimacy but she finds me – perhaps because she and I are both North Americans – easier to talk to than some of the young idiots with whom the King likes to surround himself. And she knows I’m genuinely concerned for the King’s welfare.’

‘So what’s going to happen?’

Weaver shrugged his massive shoulders; his turnip-like features wrenched into a mask of disquiet. ‘I don’t know what will happen. The King is as obstinate as a spoilt child.’

‘But it’s all got to be sorted out before May 12th.’

‘Long before that. The American papers are full of it already and they’ll have a feast day when it comes to the divorce proceedings. I’ve kept it quiet over here up to now by good luck and arm twisting but it can’t last. Anyway, there are complications. In fact, that’s what I wanted to talk to you about.’

‘What on earth do you mean? How has it got anything to do with me? It doesn’t matter to me whom he marries. The important thing is what’s happening in Germany. All this talk of Mrs Simpson! We ought to be getting ourselves ready for war.’

‘There won’t be a war, Edward. Hitler’s all wind. In any case, the King’s fascination with Wallis does affect our relations with Germany. The King, as you know, is bitterly anti­Communist – when he talks about the Bolshies he can’t help shuddering – and he admires the new Germany and Wallis is intimate with the German Ambassador.’

‘That mountebank, Ribbentrop? The champagne salesman … isn’t that what they call him?’

‘Yes, Ribbentrop. And SB has to let the King see all cabinet papers – fortunately he’s mostly too idle to read them. What he does read he discusses with Wallis, and in the morning she trots round to the German Embassy and tells Ribbentrop all about it. I’m not joking. If it ever got out there would be the devil to pay. The Foreign Office is having kittens … Vansittart has threatened to resign.’

‘I had no idea,’ Edward said, ‘but I still don’t see what this has to do with me.’

Lord Weaver got up from behind his massive desk and walked over to the window. He beckoned to Edward and together they stared silently into the darkness. Except of course that the city was not dark. A thousand lights twinkled below them, evidence that the city was still awake. Only the slow-moving river, secretive, unstoppable, indifferent, made a broad ribbon of blackness in the brilliance.

At last, Weaver said, ‘To think, that if I’m wrong and there is a war, all this may be reduced to rubble.’ He waved his hand and his cigar burned angrily. ‘It makes me want to weep at the folly of mankind.’ He turned away and said, more calmly, ‘Vansittart spoke very well of your investigation in Spain.’ Sir Robert Vansittart was the Permanent Head of the Foreign Office.

‘I didn’t know he knew anything about it,’ Edward said, moving away from the window. ‘In any case, I didn’t investigate, I just got involved.’

‘Oh yes, he knows exactly what happened there. He seems to think you handled yourself very well. Made some useful contacts too, I understand. I believe he’s thinking of offering you some sort of a job but I told him to hold his horses as I needed you first.’

‘Whatever do you mean, Joe?’

‘I need something investigated … it’s most delicate … and I thought of you.’

‘I’m flattered but I’m not a private detective,’ Edward said rudely, hoping to bring the conversation to an end.

Weaver turned and looked at him shrewdly. ‘I know that and I wouldn’t ask for your help if it weren’t a matter of …’

‘Life and death?’

‘A matter of state, if that doesn’t sound too portentous.’

‘It does but I confess I’m intrigued.’

‘The fact of the matter is that Wallis … Mrs Simpson … has lost some papers … letters. They were stolen from her and if they ever came into … into the wrong hands … they would blast her reputation to the skies.’

‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ Edward said coolly, ‘but from what you say that might not be such a bad thing. If she is revealed as … as something she pretends not to be, the King will have no alternative but to give her up.’

‘It’s not as simple as that. You don’t … you can’t fully realize what the King feels for her. Anyway, it’s much better you hear it from her own lips. I want you to dine with me in Eaton Place on Saturday. It’ll be just two or three old friends and Wallis. I’ve told her all about you. She wants to meet you.’

Edward took a deep breath. Did he really want to get involved in the private affairs of an unscrupulous woman apparently determined to involve the monarchy in scandal? Weaver must have seen his lip curl. ‘Before you make judgements, you should hear what she has to say. It’s not like you to condemn a person on the basis of rumour. In any case, it’s your duty.’ He almost stood to attention and Edward repressed a desire to laugh. ‘Your king asks for your assistance. I don’t think you have any option but to listen.’

‘Oh, don’t be absurd, Joe! If the King wants something investigated he can call on the whole of Scotland Yard.’

‘This is not a police matter but none the less important for that. Edward, I’m surprised at you. What do you English say? Noblesse oblige?’

‘The English don’t understand French …’ he began but then, seeing his friend was serious, relented. Weaver had resisted the temptation to point out how much Edward owed him – not least flying him around Europe in his private aeroplane. ‘I’ll come, of course, as you wish it, but I can promise nothing more. I don’t like the sound of this and …’

‘Say no more. Eight on Saturday then – dinner jackets, no need to dress up. This is more a council of war than a dinner party.’

Edward took this as a dismissal and, as he got up to go, asked casually, ‘Has anyone any idea who stole these papers?’

‘Yes indeed. They were stolen by Mrs Raymond Harkness … Molly Harkness. She was at one time the King’s intimate friend, and yours too, I gather.’

Blanche, Lady Weaver, raised her head for him to kiss her cheek but retreated before he had time to do more than lean towards her. She was cool to the point of froideur. Obviously, she had been instructed by her husband to greet him civilly and was obeying … just. Edward had been asked to arrive early so he could meet Weaver’s other guests before he had to give his undivided attention to the femme fatale. His host was still changing, having been kept late at the paper, so it was left to Blanche to introduce him. He had been rather surprised that there were to be other guests, given the need for secrecy, but Weaver had explained that Wallis had particularly asked that the evening should be as normal as possible and he had agreed with her that it might cause comment if it became known that she had dined alone with Edward and himself.

‘You must know Leo,’ Blanche said, waving dismissively at a dapper little man with a pencil-thin moustache and a smile which revealed the yellow teeth of the chain smoker.

Edward had met Leo Scannon once or twice at Mersham and had not liked him. Scannon was a Conservative Member of Parliament, very much on the right of the party. Too idle to want a ministerial post, he nevertheless exercised considerable influence on the back benches. He was all surface charm – one of the King’s intimates – an atrocious snob feared for his caustic wit and his encyclopaedic knowledge of aristocratic scandals. He ‘knew everybody’ and dined out at least three times a week. Edward, as the younger son of a duke, was not entirely to be despised but, until now, had not been considered worthy of his serious attention. This did not prevent Scannon shaking him warmly by the hand, and greeting him as though he were an old friend.

‘Good to see you again, Corinth. How’s Gerald?’

Scannon had bad breath and Edward backed off like a skittish horse. He made a mental note to ask his brother whether he had ever encouraged Scannon to call him by his Christian name. The Duke was very choosy about the men he permitted to be so familiar and he doubted whether Scannon was one of them. He wore too much hair oil, for one thing, which the Duke abhorred and, for another, Scannon was an open admirer of the Nazi Party and its leader. A few weeks earlier he had been in Berlin for the Olympic Games and met the Reichsführer and had apparently been bowled over by him. He had attended a Nazi Party rally and thrilled to the sound of marching jackboots. It mystified Edward what people saw in the man but he smiled bravely and muttered inanities.

Scannon was unmarried and, when Edward caught sight of a tall woman of exotic appearance standing by the fireplace smoking a cigarette from the longest cigarette holder he had ever seen, he thought at first she must be attached in some way to him. Edward was impatient to be introduced to her but, whether to tease him or through an oversight, Blanche made no effort to do so. Instead, he had to listen to Scannon going on and on about the Duke of Mersham and others of his relations until he felt he might have to wring his neck.

At last, Lord Weaver entered the drawing-room apologizing for not having been there when his guests arrived. ‘News just in from Spain, Edward,’ he said. ‘Government troops have recaptured Maqueda, south of Madrid.’

‘Never mind that,’ Scannon said scornfully. ‘It’s only a matter of time before Madrid falls to General Franco.’

‘You hope so, Leo, do you?’

‘I do, Joe,’ Scannon said firmly. ‘It’s time this terrible civil war ended and order was restored – for the sake of the Spanish people as much as for the world at large. I hear they have taken anarchists into the government. Anarchists! I ask you – how can one take seriously a government of anarchists! It's a contradiction in terms.’

Edward bit back the retort which sprang to his lips and said urgently to Weaver, ‘Any news of Verity Browne?’

Verity Browne, the New Gazette’s correspondent in Spain, was an avowed Communist and, if Edward knew anything about it, she would be in the thick of the fighting. Edward had an odd relationship with Verity. He had met her quite by chance when she had given him a lift to Mersham Castle after he had driven his car into a ditch. This was a year ago and their acquaintance had ripened into a friendship that occasionally threatened to become something more than that. But Verity’s political beliefs made it almost impossible for her to ‘love a lord’ as she had once put it. However, her principles did not prevent her from calling on Edward for help in an emergency and a few months back, just before the outbreak of the war in Spain, he had helped obtain the release from a Spanish gaol of her lover – in Edward’s eyes an odious Communist ideologue – by the name of David Griffiths-Jones.

Edward was not a Communist. In fact he hated everything about Communism but he hated Fascism more. He held the unfashionable belief that it was possible to oppose the Nazis without becoming a member of the Communist Party. It was certainly a stand which infuriated Verity.

‘Haven’t you heard?’ Weaver was saying in amazement. ‘She was in Toledo.’

‘Good heavens!’ said Edward in alarm. ‘Is she all right?’

‘Just about. She’s back in England now, recuperating. I’m surprised she hasn’t been in touch.’

‘What happened?’ Blanche asked.

‘At Toledo? About a thousand army cadets seized the Alcázar and held it against besieging government troops for weeks. Just when it looked as though the fortress must fall, and the government had invited foreign correspondents to watch the surrender, it was relieved. On 27th September the militia were routed by Franco’s Moorish troops. It was a disaster which ought not to have happened. Someone had blundered. There was savage hand-to-hand fighting …’

‘And I suppose Verity was in the thick of it?’ Edward broke in.

‘I’ll show you the account she filed for the paper. It’s one of her most powerful pieces. You really ought to read the New Gazette more carefully, Edward.’

Scannon said, ‘Verity Browne? She’s your pet “pinko”, isn’t she Joe? I can’t think why you employ her.’

‘Because she’s a damn good journalist, that’s why,’ said Weaver firmly.

Edward was about to say something more in her defence – not that she would have been in the least put out to be excoriated by a man like Scannon, indeed she would most likely have taken it as a compliment – when the woman by the fireplace spoke.

‘She is a friend of yours – Miss Browne?’

Edward was never to forget that first moment he heard her talk. She spoke excellent English but had a distinct accent which he could not place immediately. He was later to learn that she was Javanese–Dutch. Her voice was husky and low but could never have been mistaken for a man’s.

‘Yes, she is,’ Edward said. ‘I do apologize but we haven’t been properly introduced. My name is Corinth – Edward Corinth.’

‘I know who you are, Lord Edward.’

Weaver interjected: ‘Blanche, my dear, what have you been thinking of? Edward, may I introduce Catherine Dannhorn – “Dannie” to everyone. Dannie, this is Lord Edward Corinth.’

‘Lord Edward, I am so pleased to meet you. Joe has been singing your praises. I hope you will call me Dannie.’ She transferred her cigarette holder to her left hand and gave Edward her right. ‘I am such an admirer of Miss Browne. She has done what so few of us have dared to do: leave the comfort of our homes and families and find out what is really happening. Is she a great friend?’

‘Yes, she is indeed … Dannie. She doesn’t approve of me, of course. She thinks I waste my time and no doubt she’s right. She thinks we are dangerously indifferent to what is happening in Spain. She sees it as the first great battle in the war against Fascism.’

‘What nonsense!’ Scannon expostulated. ‘Girls belong in the home. Don’t you agree, Blanche? I don’t know what her father is thinking of allowing her to racket around Europe meddling in things she knows nothing about. She ought to leave journalism to men. Surely, you must agree with me, Joe? Admit it, it’s just a stunt having this girl writing for you.’

Edward was almost unaware of what Scannon was saying. His eyes were fixed on Dannie’s face. Her almond eyes, high cheekbones and dark, silky skin captivated him. She was like nothing he had ever seen before and Blanche looked pale and insipid in comparison. Before Weaver could answer Scannon, the butler announced that Mrs Simpson’s car was drawing up in front of the house and he bustled out to greet her. The others were silent, expectant, as though the King himself was about to join the company.

‘We don’t have to curtsy, do we?’ Blanche inquired nervously. ‘I’ve only met her with the King before.’

‘Certainly not!’ said Scannon. ‘Though we might have to in a few months’ time.’

Edward pulled himself together and tried to think what he was going to say to the lady. It was, he thought, deuced awkward. He understood why he had been selected to retrieve her letters from Molly. He was an old friend of hers and, just as important, he would not be associated in her eyes with the King or, indeed, Mrs Simpson. He had met Molly Harkness when he had been in Kenya. She had at that time still been married to a young lawyer but Happy Valley had been anything but happy for the young couple. There had been so little to do and many of the English there were not of the best sort – rakes, remittance men, divorcees. A fair sprinkling had, as the saying went, ‘left the country for their country’s good’. Molly had had a string of affairs while her husband, Raymond, had become a gambler and a drunkard. It was said he had come home from Muthaiga Club late one night, found his wife in the arms of her lover and tried to shoot her. He had failed – as he had failed at everything – and had turned the gun on himself. It had been a horrible scandal and public opinion had put the blame for her husband’s suicide on the widow.

Edward had offered to take her away from Nairobi – he had some business to do in Johannesburg – and she had gratefully accepted. By this time Molly’s lover had been disposed of and it was widely assumed – by Lord Weaver for one – that Edward had replaced him in her bed. She was a very beautiful woman – fair hair, tanned face, lean and clean-looking, almost boyish – but, as it happened, Edward had not seduced or been seduced and he and Molly had remained good friends. It bothered neither of them that the world thought otherwise. Molly had proved to be an instinctive aviatrix and together they had flown all over the country and had several narrow escapes. On one occasion they had had to make a forced landing on the high veldt and had almost perished with cold during the night, despite being wrapped in each other’s arms, and on another, had woken in a makeshift camp on the Masai Mara to find themselves an object of curiosity to a pride of lions. All in all, it had been a good, strong friendship and perhaps neither of them could have explained why it had never become a love affair.

Edward had returned to England but Molly had stayed at the Cape a few months longer. He had not seen her when finally she had come home but he had read in the social columns of The Times and the Morning Post that she had become one of the Prince of Wales’s intimate friends. He guessed that she must have been ‘seen off’ by Mrs Simpson and was now taking revenge. Whatever Molly’s failings – and, as Edward knew, they were legion – he would not have put her down as a thief and a blackmailer but he also knew from bitter experience that disappointed love could sour a man’s – or a woman’s – character.

Mrs Simpson entered the room without any hint of swagger but emanating an aura of ‘being special’ – a personage. She was quite alone, which was unusual. She normally liked to have around her a small group of trusted friends. Joe and Leo Scannon both greeted her with a kiss, which she accepted passively. Despite what Scannon had said, Blanche made her a little curtsy which seemed to please her. When it was Edward’s turn to be introduced, she said politely, ‘I don’t think we’ve ever met before,’ and made a little joke about a friend they had in common. It was absurd, Edward told himself later, but he had expected Wallis Simpson would be beautiful, in the way Catherine Dannhorn was beautiful but, of course, she was not. Nor was she the vulgar American adventurer her enemies labelled her. She was a demure, plain woman with large, startled eyes, plucked eyebrows and a mole on her cheek. She was simply but smartly dressed in white and wore a magnificent parure of rubies.

At dinner, Edward was placed on her right and for a moment he wondered if he were going to be bored but quickly discovered she was much more intelligent than she appeared at first and exhibited a dry wit which charmed him. They discussed flying – she hated flying as so many of the friends of her youth had been killed in flying accidents. They discussed golf which she loved and Edward abominated, gardening – she was very interested in his description of the Elizabethan knot garden at Mersham which she said sounded ‘divine’, a favourite word of hers – the Far East, which she had visited as a girl, and jewellery about which she spoke with passion. She said she hated public events and being photographed because ‘I know I’m not beautiful’ but she said not a word about the King. By the end of dinner, Edward had got to like her and felt genuinely sorry for the predicament in which she found herself.

Weaver, too, was in good spirits, quite unabashed at having the King’s paramour in his house, and he spoke knowledgeably, if at rather too great length, of John Knox, Wolfe taking Quebec and eighteenth-century politics in general. Edward hoped he would not raise the subject of George IV and his unhappy queen and, to his relief, he did not. Mrs Simpson ate very little and drank less. Wallis, as she asked Edward to call her, told him she never had cocktails, preferring whisky and soda and, at dinner, she drank just one glass of claret but several tumblers of Vichy water. Blanche had obviously taken particular care with the dinner and Wallis was complimentary. They began with blinis and caviar, then Sole Muscat followed by Boeuf a la Provençale. The service was brisk and efficient so they were finished by eleven. Blanche and Dannie then left to drink coffee in the drawing-room but Wallis made no move to join them so Edward assumed they must be about to discuss the missing documents.

When the servants had departed, the port was circulated and Wallis had a small cup of black coffee. The men lit cigars, after first gaining the lady’s permission, and Edward lit a cigarette for her. Weaver blew smoke and said, ‘Wallis, I mentioned to Edward that we might need his help recovering those papers taken from you. I have only told him the bare bones of the problem. Would you like me to … or would you prefer to … ?’

There was a moment’s awkward silence and then Wallis spoke in her curiously high-pitched but pleasant voice with its American lilt. ‘Joe has told you what happened?’

Edward shook his head. ‘I’m afraid I am completely in the dark.’

‘It was two weeks ago. We …’ She glanced at Edward to see if he understood that she included the King in that ‘we’. ‘We were staying with the Brownlows – you know Perry and Kitty, don’t you?’ Edward said that he did. ‘I guess, when I went down to dinner, I must have left my jewel box on my dressing table. Then, when I went up to bed, I found my maid in tears in my room. She said, “Oh, madam, someone’s broken open your box.” I went to look and the lid had been prised open with a knife or something and my letters had gone.’

‘I see,’ Edward said. ‘How many were there?’

‘Seven but some were several pages.’

‘What else had gone? Were there any jewels missing?’

‘None.’

‘Presumably you told Lord Brownlow what had happened?’

‘I didn’t want to make a fuss but of course I had to. You understand why?’

Edward had to admire the woman. She spoke in her clear, even voice of having lost love letters from the King which, were they to be published, would embarrass not only herself but the King and the rest of the royal family. As a divorcee, she was already unwelcome in the homes of many ‘respectable’ people but this might make her untouchable. As Edward knew well, the morality of the British upper classes was built on an agreed hypocrisy. Once a girl was married and had produced ‘an heir and a spare’, as the saying went, she could enter into affairs with married men provided nothing leaked out to the press. It was a small world in which everyone knew everyone and was probably related in some way. Only divorce ruined a woman’s reputation. Now, here was the King considering marrying an American woman of no family, without money, who had divorced one husband and was in the process of divorcing a second. Whatever her faults, Edward admired her courage in facing a world which would rejoice at her downfall.

‘So whoever it was who took these letters knew what they were looking for. What about your maid?’

‘Maddox is utterly trustworthy.’

‘Did Perry suggest calling the police?’

‘Yes, but we agreed that had to be a last resort as the news of the theft would be reported in the newspapers. In any case, we both felt that whoever stole the letters would want to return them – for a price.’ There was contempt in her voice.

‘And that’s what happened?’

‘Yes. Perry’s party broke up the next day and, the morning after, I received a hand-delivered note from Mrs Harkness, one of the house party, saying that she would return the letters if I promised to leave the country and never see … never see him again.’

‘When was that?’

‘That was Wednesday, ten days ago.’

‘What did you do?’

‘I consulted Perry. He suggested either I go to the police or go see Joe. Joe’s a true friend,’ she said, giving him a look of genuine warmth. ‘He said he could discover, without arousing suspicion, if anyone had offered my letters to a newspaper and they hadn’t. He then remembered you were a friend of Mrs Harkness and said he would talk to you. Of course, if you can’t do anything, there will be no alternative to asking the police to get them back but I’m afraid to do that, as I told you.’

Edward pulled on his cigar and said, ‘Of course, I will do what you ask but you must not assume I will be successful. Molly’s a determined woman. Might I ask – and you must forgive me if I am being impertinent but it is necessary for me to know what I’m up against – the letters, are they from the King – intimate letters?’

‘Yes. He writes to me every day we are parted and sometimes – you’ll think it absurd – even when we’re staying in the same house. But they … they’re not just what the press would call love letters. They are almost diaries. He writes me exactly what he’s thinking, what he is doing, who he saw in the day, his opinions …’

‘Good heavens! Why did you not keep them in a safe? Did it not occur to you that you might lose them if you took them with you on weekend visits?’

Edward wondered if he had been too harsh but Wallis, with a quiet dignity, said, ‘I took them with me because I liked to read them.’

After a long pause, Edward turned to Weaver. ‘Joe, would any English newspaper print these letters? Surely, stolen property … the lawyers could stop …’

‘No reputable newspaper would publish stolen letters but of course the American newspapers would make hay with them. That would leak back into the English press – not the New Gazette, but scandal sheets like Cavalcade or political papers with an axe to grind such as the Daily Worker.’ Weaver looked meaningfully at Edward. He was indirectly warning him not to say anything to Verity Browne about Wallis Simpson’s loss. As a card-carrying Communist, she might feel the Daily Worker, the Party’s official mouthpiece, ought to report the failings of the King.

Edward made one final effort to avoid having to undertake a task which gave him a sick feeling in his stomach. ‘Ought it not to be someone Molly knows to have the King’s ear, like Perry or even Leo? By the way, I assume the King does know about the theft … ?’

‘Not yet,’ Weaver said. ‘He’s got enough to worry about at the moment. We’ll have to tell him if this doesn’t work but …’

Scannon said, ‘The idea is you join a house party at Haling …’ Haling was Scannon’s country house in Wiltshire. ‘I’ve got a dozen or so people coming so Molly won’t feel I’ve set anything up. She’ll assume I don’t know anything about what she’s been up to if no one else … I mean like Wally or Perry or even Joe … are part of the party …’ Edward was momentarily nonplussed to hear Wallis referred to as Wally. It sounded so absurd a name for her. ‘She’ll be thrilled to know you’re coming, Edward. She was talking about you only the other night and wondering why she never saw you.’

Wallis looked far from pleased. Scannon was talking about her enemy as if she were still a friend.

Edward said, ‘Well, I’ll do my best. Have you got Molly’s letter here?’

‘Yes,’ Weaver said. ‘I’m keeping it in my safe but I assumed you would want to read it.’

He passed Edward a blue envelope which smelled faintly of violets. Apart from the words ‘Mrs Simpson’, heavily underlined, there was no address. He took out a single sheet of blue paper. It had no address or telephone number on it and it began abruptly, without a ‘Dear Mrs Simpson’: ‘If you want your letters back give up David and go home to America. If not … I mean it … I will take them to the newspapers. Go away!’

It was signed with the initial H.

‘We’re sure H is Molly Harkness? I haven’t seen her handwriting for some time.’

‘Yes,’ Scannon said, ‘I have compared it with letters from her I have received … I keep every letter anyone ever sends me …’ he said with a wolfish grin. ‘Not only is it in her hand but the scent is unmistakable – Après l’Ondée. It’s Molly all right.’

Edward sighed. ‘Right then, but ought I not to go and see her privately … ? Where is she living?’

‘Knightsbridge … Trevor Square,’ Weaver said. ‘But we mustn’t make too much of it. Best you tackle her on neutral ground, I think.’

Edward sighed again and Mrs Simpson looked at him with clear black eyes showing no emotion. ‘It would be a great service to me and to the King, Lord Edward, if you would do this. I know it is distasteful to you but …’

‘Please say no more. I will do my best. Which weekend are we talking about, Scannon?’

‘Next weekend. The sooner the better.’

‘Short notice! Will everyone be able to come?’

‘They have already been invited.’

‘I see,’ Edward said. He did not like the idea that his willingness to drop everything and come down to Wiltshire had been taken for granted.

‘If you had refused to come, I would have tackled Molly myself, but I know she would have taken no notice of anything I had to say,’ Scannon said, as if he could read his mind.

‘Don’t look so gloomy,’ Weaver said jovially. ‘Dannie’s going to be one of the party, isn’t she, Leo? You’ll like that, won’t you, Edward?’

The tiger smiled.

2

Edward was still feeling bad-tempered when, the following Tuesday, on the way to his bank, he saw a girl he knew coming out of Galeries Lafayette struggling with an unruly gaggle of carrier bags and beribboned boxes.

‘I say, driver, stop the cab, will you. I’ve got to rescue a damsel in distress.’

The taxi screeched to a halt causing the driver of an omnibus to swerve and curse. Edward opened the door and called, ‘Verity! Let me give you a hand with those.’

‘Oh, Edward, is that you! I can’t see anything through these parcels. I was just wondering how I was going to get home without coming an almighty cropper.’

The girl who dropped with relief into the back of the taxi was a none-too-tall, black-eyed, merry-looking child of about twenty-five. When she had struggled out from under her parcels, she kissed her rescuer and then began rearranging her hat which had been knocked askew in her efforts to negotiate a particularly large hatbox on to the folding seat. She was very fond of hats.

‘Golly,’ said Edward, regarding her with frank admiration. ‘What on earth has happened to your hair, Verity?’

‘Oh, do you like it? Mr Cizec has “bingled” me. I’m short-haired for life.’

‘It is short but I like it. I think it makes you look gamine.’

‘Gamine? Is that good? Anyway, where are we off to?’

‘Wherever you want. I was on my way to Coutts but that can be postponed. If I can take you home … By the way, where is home?’

Verity Browne had given up her Knightsbridge flat when she had gone to Spain for the New Gazette twelve months before and on her brief visits to London since then she had stayed with friends. ‘I’m staying with Adrian Hassel. You remember him?’

‘The artist? Does he still paint green stick men and orange suns?’

Edward had met Hassel soon after he had first met Verity and to his surprise – because he disliked ‘aesthetes’ on principle – liked the man. He had a house and studio in the King’s Raad. Edward gave the address to the cab driver.

‘He’s very successful I’ll have you know,’ Verity said as the cab cut in front of a brewer’s dray, occasioning a cascade of parcels on to Edward’s lap. ‘The nibs think he’s the goods. His last exhibition was at one of those swanky galleries in Albemarle Street and everything sold, so don’t sound so superior. You should have bought one of his pictures when you had the chance. You won’t be able to afford them now.’

‘But surely you’re not staying with Hassel unchaperoned?’

‘Oh, don’t be so old-fashioned, Edward. I’m not a blushing virgin, you know.’

‘Verity!’ Edward expostulated.

‘If you must know, Adrian’s married now so it’s all quite respectable.’

‘Married! I didn’t think he was the marrying kind.’ A vision of the elegant young man, dressed in green, his favourite colour, gesturing with his cigarette holder, sprang unbidden into his mind.

‘Well, you’d be wrong then. Adrian is a red-blooded Tarzan, so there, and Charlotte is a dear.’

‘Charlotte?’

‘You won’t know her. She was Charlotte Bracey. We were at school together – though I went to so many, I really can’t remember which one.’

‘But I do know her. She writes books, doesn’t she?’

Verity looked at him in surprise. ‘I didn’t know you had arty friends!’ She was a little bit annoyed to find he knew any of her circle. It wasn’t that she was ashamed of Edward but her friends liked to tease her for having as a beau a member of the class which she, as a Communist, absolutely deplored so, as far as possible, she kept him out of sight.

‘Oh yes, I know Charley,’ said Edward thoughtfully.

‘What does that mean? I don’t like your tone of voice.’

‘Sorry, V. It wasn’t a tone of voice at all. Her parents lived near Mersham. We knew each other as children. Went to the same parties – that sort of thing. I once dropped ice-cream down the back of her neck. She played a good game of tennis,’ he mused. ‘I’d love to see Charley again. We rather lost touch when she went to London after her parents died. I didn’t even know she was married.’

‘She’s married,’ said Verity crossly. She hated talking at length about other women when she was with Edward. She might not want him for herself but she disliked the idea of his being some other woman’s friend. She glanced across at him. She had to admit it: he was attractive. He was slim but broad in the shoulders. He had all his hair. He looked – she thought appraisingly – rather less than his thirty-six years but his brown eyes were those of a man who had seen some of the world’s less comfortable corners. He had a good chin, always so important. She could never find any man attractive with a weak chin. Round his mouth two or three creases furrowed his face when he smiled, which he did frequently, but his rather thin lips and beakish nose suggested that, beneath the veneer of the perfectly dressed ‘man about town’, a more formidable figure lay dormant.

‘I saw Joe on Saturday, Verity,’ he said seriously. ‘He said you had a narrow escape at Toledo. I’m afraid I missed seeing your report in the paper. You won’t get yourself killed, will you?’

Verity turned her head away and looked out at the Ritz which they happened to be passing. ‘We were defeated. We have to face facts. Those Arab troops of Franco’s … they behaved like …’

Edward saw from the back of her head that she was upset. He said gently, ‘Might I be allowed to take you out to dinner? I would like to hear all about it.’

Verity looked at him and seemed to be satisfied with what she saw. His was not idle curiosity. He would understand, she thought. After all, he had seen the first few days of the war. So many of her London friends said they wanted to hear what it was like in Spain but, when she began to tell them, she saw their attention wander. She sometimes wondered if she alone saw the importance of this fight with Fascism. But, of course, the Party understood what it was they were fighting for.

As if he had read her thoughts – it was odd how different they were and yet how often they found themselves thinking the same things – he said, ‘I really do want to hear what’s been going on in Spain. I’ve been worried sick about you.’

He hadn’t meant to sound so intense but it was good to put the feeling he had suppressed into words. With an effort, he tried to lighten the atmosphere. ‘Am I allowed to ask how a Communist Party member squares her conscience with these?’ He poked with his foot at one of the Galeries Lafayette bags.

‘The comrades are so serious it sometimes gets in the way of their dress sense,’ she giggled. ‘I really refuse to look dowdy just because the cause is good. You do agree?’

‘Not being a comrade I really can’t comment, V, but I do like seeing a pretty girl dressed …’ He was going to say ‘dressed to kill’ but stopped himself. ‘… to brighten up our sad old world. In fact, you look so good I have half a mind to …’

‘Ah, here we are!’ Verity said suddenly as the cab pulled up outside the house of her friends. ‘I would ask you in but I happen to know Adrian and Charlotte are out so it wouldn’t be proper, would it? Now help me out with these.’

When Verity, after a struggle with the door key, had let herself in and Edward had dropped her parcels in a pile in the narrow entrance hall, she said, ‘Well, goodbye then. You rescued me once again so I suppose I ought to collapse in your arms. I tell you what, come to lunch on Sunday.’

‘’Fraid not. I’m spending the weekend in Wiltshire.’

‘Oh, I see. Going to murder a few peasants? Please God defend me from the upper classes at play.’

‘Ha! ha!’ Edward said ironically. ‘Anyway, it’s pheasants, not peasants. What about dinner at Gennaro’s on Tuesday?’

‘Mmm, maybe. I’ve got a meeting in the afternoon.’

‘A Party meeting?’ he inquired ingenuously.

‘Sort of,’ she admitted. ‘They’re sending some of us on the Jarrow March.’

‘Jarrow? Bede’s home?’

‘It will be known for something other than the Venerable Bede in a day or two, I can tell you,’ she said grimly. ‘I sometimes think we really are two nations – the privileged and the people.’

‘Disraeli.’

‘He wasn’t CP, was he?’

‘Yes he was – if you mean Conservative Party.’

‘Idiot! It may have escaped your notice that Jarrow’s shipping industry has been destroyed and the poverty of the people there is heartbreaking.’

‘I suppose I did know.’

‘No you didn’t. No one could if they hadn’t seen it with their own eyes. That’s the point of the march: to bring the reality of what has happened to the town, and other towns like it, to London so that people like you can begin to understand what is happening to our country.’

‘So when’s it to happen?’

‘It’s happening already. They’ve started marching and should reach London before the King opens the new Parliament. They think he will do something for them, poor dears.’

‘They’re marching three hundred miles to see the King? It sounds like a nursery rhyme.’

‘It isn’t a nursery rhyme for them. More like the Peasants’ Revolt. Anyway, it’s just the sort of thing the King might do to annoy Baldwin. He’s very good with people, you know.’

‘I know, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean … Hey! I thought you didn’t approve of kings?’

‘Not in principle but this one – whatever his politics – has a feeling for ordinary people in distress. Perhaps he knows what it’s like to be bullied.’

‘Please, Verity, you’re going to give me palpitations! If you start defending the monarchy I’ll start believing Colonel Lindbergh is Little Bo-Peep.’

‘Now that’s interesting. Why should such a brave man be a Fascist? Anyway, the point is the Jarrow marchers hope to shame all you lot who don’t give a tinker’s cuss how the other half of the country lives or dies into some sort of action.’

‘You’re not marching?’

‘The last bit. A party of us is going to meet them at St Albans – or somewhere just outside London. But it’s going to take them three weeks to get here. Tommie’s coming, and some of the others.’ Tommie Fox had been at Cambridge with Edward and was now vicar of a parish in Kilburn. He was one of the only truly good men Edward knew. ‘Why don’t you join us?’

‘I don’t think I would be welcome. It’s not my fight and they would have every right to resent me pretending it was. Tell you what, when you all arrive in London and have presented your petition … I suppose there is a petition?’

‘Darn right there is!’

‘I’ll give you and Tommie, and anyone else you want to ask, a slap-up meal – a celebration.’

‘Mmm,’ said Verity doubtfully. ‘I suppose that will be all right. We’ll have to see.’

‘Ungrateful little beast!’

‘Oh, do shut up, Edward. You think it’s all a game, but it isn’t. It’s deadly serious.’

‘But that doesn’t stop you shopping your way through the West End?’

‘I’m allowed recreation but you’re on a permanent holiday.’

‘Touché,’ he said wryly.

‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to be schoolmistressy but what are you doing now? Going to hobnob with a load of silly asses with more money than sense to kill a few innocent animals.’

‘Hey, steady on! I say, when do you go back to Spain, or don’t you?’

‘Soon,’ she said shortly.

‘It was bad out there?’ he asked, almost shyly.

‘Yep, bad.’ She shut her lips like a trap closing and the blood left her face. It was obviously too recent and too painful to talk about casually with a taxi waiting at the door. ‘Go on! You have to get to Coutts before they shut, you capitalist exploiter of the downtrodden masses. Do they still wear frock coats, by the way? I suppose it helps them kowtow to the bourgeoisie. Thanks for the rescue.’

Edward grinned. ‘I’ll telephone …’

When the taxi had disappeared, Verity took off her hat and then stood in front of the little mirror in the hall and stared at herself. Suddenly, despite her friends, despite the Party, she felt very lonely. All the girls she knew were getting married and having babies. What was she doing playing at politics, dabbling in what most people considered to be men’s work? She would admit it to nobody but in Toledo she had been very frightened. Alongside her, men she knew well – comrades in arms – had died and died ignominiously. She knew they had been betrayed by their leaders, and the Republicans had been made to look fools in front of the world’s press. When the city fell, Franco’s men had been allowed to rape and murder the townspeople unchecked. It was deliberate policy – to terrorize the people into submission.

She leant forward and pressed her forehead against the cool of the glass and closed her eyes. How long could she go on? Was her idealism crumbling in the face of the brutal reality? All she wanted now was to rest and it occurred to her that the place she most wanted to rest was in the arms of the man whom she had so firmly dispatched in a taxi a few moments before.

‘Sometimes I think I’m the biggest fool on earth, Fenton.’

‘My lord?’

‘Stop pretending you don’t know why we’re bowling down the Great West Road when we might be enjoying the fleshpots of the metropolis.’

Edward put his foot down on the accelerator pedal and the Lagonda responded like the thoroughbred she was. Despite everything he had said, it was a joy to feel the wind in his face and know that he had a job to do at journey’s end, however distasteful. He had been idle too long and had been seriously considering leaving for America and getting a job on a ranch in Texas or wherever was furthest from decadent, demoralized Europe.

‘I did happen to overhear your lordship on the telephone to Lord Weaver. Without wishing to eavesdrop, I understood that your visit to Haling Castle is not entirely a matter of pleasure.’

Edward snorted and, to Fenton’s alarm, took both hands off the wheel to make a gesture of protest. ‘Pleasure! I might as well tell you all, Fenton, in order to avoid any misunderstandings. Before you entered my employment, when I was in Africa, I became a close friend of Mrs Raymond Harkness – Molly Harkness. She had a brute of a husband and, to cut a long story short, he did away with himself. Though I don’t like speaking ill of a woman, I have to say Molly had not proved to be the most loyal of wives. I took her away from Nairobi and the scandal surrounding her husband’s death and we were together for some months while she … recuperated.’

‘My lord?’

‘I know what you’re thinking, Fenton, but in this instance you would be wrong.’

‘My lord!’ said Fenton, shocked.

‘She’s a very beautiful woman – or she was then – but we stayed just good friends. It’s against my principles to take advantage of a woman when she’s at a low ebb and Molly was pretty down in the mouth I can tell you.’

‘Would that be the Mrs Harkness who is a close friend of the King, my lord? I have often seen her name in the society columns.’

‘No longer. Lord Weaver informs me she has been dropped like the proverbial hot potato. Between ourselves, I don’t think Mrs Simpson appreciated her.’

‘I understand, my lord. And when you dined with his lordship the other evening … ?’

‘I was informed that Molly, in what I can only assume was a fit of pique, had removed certain letters from Mrs Simpson’s room when both ladies were staying with Lord Brownlow and naturally she wants them back. I have been selected for that duty. As you can imagine, I do not relish the thought of trying to persuade Molly that it would be in her best interests to hand over the purloined letters.’

‘I quite understand, my lord. Might I inquire whether I can be of any assistance?’

‘Maybe, Fenton, maybe. I hope it won’t come to searching her room or anything so unpleasant but … well, I shall want to consult you, I am sure, and, if you can do so without embarrassment, it occurred to me that you might be able to elicit information from Mrs Harkness’s maid – I assume she will have her own maid with her – which might be of use. I trust I am not putting you in an awkward position? You can always say no. A word from you will be taken as a nolle prosequi and nothing more will be said on the subject.’

‘My lord, I will do whatever can be done.’

‘I’m most grateful. I need hardly say absolute discretion is called for. Our host, Mr Scannon, knows what we are about and,’ he added casually, ‘a Catherine Dannhorn, who is also staying at Haling and is a close friend of Lord Weaver, may also know something of what’s afoot, but no one else.’

‘I appreciate being taken into your confidence, my lord, and you can depend on me to be as silent as the grave.’

‘Very good! Ah, take a squint at that finger post will you? We can’t be far now.’

Haling Castle proved to be not a castle but a large grey stone house covered in Virginia creeper – handsome but by no means beautiful. It was surrounded by a stone wall in bad repair, the gaps in it roughly filled with loose stone and barbed wire. A short gravel drive debouched on to the road through great stone pillars upon which hung two ornate iron gates. Scannon told Edward later that the house had been built by his father, a wealthy Birmingham industrialist, at the end of the last century. It had been fitted with every modern convenience including electric light and a primitive central heating system which banged and gurgled, only slightly warming massive, brown-painted radiators. It now needed complete renovation but Scannon said he hadn’t the money to do it.

Scannon himself came to the door to welcome Edward and tell him in a conspiratorial whisper that Molly had arrived the previous day.

‘I’ve said nothing, of course, but she seems nervy and unhappy. Anyway, come in and meet her. She’s very eager to see you. I don’t know what you did to her but she certainly thinks the sun shines out of … ah, there you are Pickering. Take Lord Edward’s bags to his room, will you.’

Fenton went off with the butler and Scannon led Edward across a gloomy-looking hall through a gothic-style door into what was obviously the drawing-room. At the far end of this barn of a room several people were huddled round a huge open fire. Laid across great fire dogs, logs the size of small trees burned fiercely but the architect had so arranged it that most of the heat generated went straight up the chimney. Only if one were standing very close to it could one be toasted and even charred.

Edward was offered a cup of tea by a bespectacled female to whom he was not introduced. He sipped at the liquid gratefully and then turned to greet his fellow guests. ‘You know Boy, I gather,’ Scannon said, indicating a man of about forty with the lean, tanned look of someone who spent most of their life in hot climates.

‘Boy, yes of course,’ Edward said, trying to sound enthusiastic.

‘Hello, old sport,’ Carstairs said, shaking his hand.

Sir Richard Carstairs – always known as Boy for reasons lost in the mists of time – had been in Nairobi when Edward was there and they had been on safari together a couple of times. He was not exactly a popular figure in the colony but everyone knew him and he was thought to be in some unspecified way ‘useful’. He had no money himself but managed to live in the houses of the rich without their seeming to mind. In short, he was a sponger but he paid his way by being an amusing raconteur and a knowledgeable guide to what passed for fleshpots in Nairobi. He took English and American visitors on safari – he was a crack shot – and showed them the country in perfect safety while letting them feel they were being adventurous. Women liked him, and it was said he had serviced many bored wives, but there had never been any scandal and in Happy Valley that was what mattered. Boy was a bounder but he was discreet.

As soon as he decently could, Edward turned to greet Molly and they kissed with genuine warmth.

‘Molly, my dear, I had heard you were in England and I kept on meaning to telephone you but I didn’t know where you were living.’

‘I know, Edward darling. It’s my fault. Why is it one never sees one’s real friends and spends all one’s time with bores.’

‘Tut tut,’ Scannon said, ‘I think you’re being hard on me.’

‘Oh Leo, I don’t mean you of course, but …’

Fortunately, perhaps, Edward’s attention was drawn by Scannon to the other couple standing beside the fire.

‘Edward, let me introduce you to Lord and Lady Benyon. I don’t believe you have ever met, have you?’

‘I’m delighted to meet you, sir, at last. When I was in Madrid a few months back they said you had been there giving a lecture. I was very sorry to have missed it.’

Edward was immensely pleased to meet the distinguished economist and his Russian wife. He had long thought Benyon was one of the few economists who made sense and moreover was, at least in his private life, an outsider and a rebel. His interests were not the usual pursuits of the English upper class – hunting, shooting and fishing – but books, theatre, painting and ballet. Inna – Lady Benyon – had been a dancer with the Russian Ballet and Diaghilev had been almost a father to her. Benyon had seen her perform at Covent Garden just before the war and had fallen passionately in love with her. He had bombarded her with flowers and, as they say, swept her off her feet. Despite being told by all their friends that the affair would be short­lived and ‘end in tears’ they had married and lived – as far as anyone knew – happily ever after. Inna was still very lovely – petite, very slim, with the kind of heart-shaped face rare in Englishwomen. Edward guessed she must have been exquisite when she had danced with Nijinsky before the war and he could quite understand why Benyon had fallen in love with her.

Edward had read several of Benyon’s books and, though he knew very little of economics, thought he knew good sense when he came across it. Now in his mid-fifties, Benyon – unlike his books which were lean and muscular – was physically unprepossessing. He was thin, round-shouldered and had a limp, the result of a childhood illness. His skin was bad, he was almost bald and his moustache was wispy and ill nourished but his eyes glittered with intelligence and he had a smile which illuminated his face. Apart from being an academic and a member of several influential commissions, he was also a patron of the arts and he had even managed to squeeze out of the government a little money for the Opera House.

Edward was about to ask Benyon for his views on the depression which still gripped towns like Jarrow when the drawing-room door opened and Dannie entered. Though he knew she was to be a guest of Scannon’s, her loveliness again took him by surprise. Benyon was amused to see Edward so obviously bouleversé, and even Molly, who was nervous and impatient to get Edward on his own, had to smile despite being rather jealous. Dannie kissed Edward and then threw herself into a large, battered armchair and demanded tea and muffins.

‘You English …’ she said in her dark, husky voice with its trace of an accent, ‘you English cannot cook – you do not know the meaning of good food! I’m sorry, Leo, but it is only the simple truth. But your afternoon tea – that is a good thing you have invented.’

‘Dannie treats this place as though she owned it,’ Scannon said in mock exasperation. ‘I’ll have you know, my dear child, that chair you threw yourself in is Louis Quinze and valuable.’

‘Don’t be so silly, Leo. There’s nothing worth anything in this house. You’re too mean to put in proper heating even. I’m freezing.’ She wrapped herself in her arms dramatically.

‘Well, you should wear more clothes. Our fathers and grandfathers dressed in several layers of good English worsted before they ventured out so they did not need mollycoddling with heated pipes and radiators.’

Edward thought the conversation was getting a little too acerbic for comfort – no one likes being called mean – so he hurriedly broke in with a story of how as a child his father had allowed them all to freeze in sympathy with the troops at the front. It was ridiculous, Edward knew, but all the time he was talking he was imagining what it would be like to take Dannie in his arms and make violent, passionate love to her. This woman had only to utter a few banalities and it made the blood pump through his veins and all powers of intelligent conversation left him. There was something pagan … elemental about her which intrigued and baffled him. He thought of Rider Haggard’s She, a favourite book of his when he had been a child.

Lord Benyon, half annoyed and half amused, saw what was happening and relinquished Edward to the siren with some degree of disappointment. He hoped the young man, whom he had liked on sight, was not going to be led astray by this strange-looking woman. He would ask Inna what she thought. He usually found his wife percipient about the love lives of their friends. Molly too watched Edward intently. Her face was drawn and her brow furrowed. She was clearly unhappy. Edward caught her eye and his heart almost failed him as he remembered why he was here at Haling. He shivered. How pale and wan Englishwomen, even Molly Harkness, seemed in Dannie’s presence.

Before long, Scannon dismissed the party to rest and

change for dinner. ‘Pickering will show you your room, Corinth,’ he said, escorting him to the foot of the stairs where a grave, bespectacled man awaited him. ‘The gong goes at seven and we foregather here for cocktails. It’s my custom to take anyone who wishes it on a guided tour of the house after dinner. In spite of what Dannie says, I do at least have a picture or two which might interest you. Oh, by the way, the party’s not yet complete. We’re being joined by Sir Geoffrey and Lady Hepple-Keen and Mr Larry Harbin, the American millionaire. Harbin’s a most interesting man. I met him in New York last year and we found we had much in common. He’s a close friend of President Roosevelt. I shall be interested to hear what you make of him.’

‘And Hepple-Keen? He’s one of your lot, isn’t he, Leo?’ Edward said.

‘My lot? Oh, yes. He’s MP for Leicester North and a coming man. The PM thinks well of him.’

‘No, I mean he’s an admirer of the Führer, isn’t he?’

‘Yes, he was one of our little party in Berlin for the Games. Does that bother you? I know you do not share our admiration for what the Reich Chancellor has achieved. Hepple-Keen had a very good war, you know, Corinth. He knows what it is to have Germany as an enemy but, like me, he now thinks we ought to make it our friend and ally.’

‘I understand the Führer also had “a good war”, as you put it. So good he wishes to repeat it.’

Scannon looked at Edward with distaste. He hoped his guest was not going to be a bore about politics. He said, ‘That’s nonsense. The Führer wants to be our friend if only warmongers like you would let him. He admires the British Empire. His enemies should be ours.’

Realizing he was becoming shrill, Scannon said more quietly, ‘By the way, I make it a rule in this house to keep off politics when the ladies are present. Perhaps over a cigar and a brandy we might try and convert you, Corinth, but …’ he lowered his voice so only Edward could hear, ‘we mustn’t let anything distract you from … from your real reason for being here.’

Pickering escorted him to his bedroom on the front of the house. Fenton had unpacked and laid out his clothes for the evening. ‘Arctic, eh, Fenton?’ he said, rubbing his hands.

‘My lord?’ Fenton inquired.

‘This room … it’s icy. Is that all the heating there is?’ He pointed to a single bar electric fire which glowed feebly in the fireplace.

‘Yes, my lord. I inquired whether it might not be possible to light a fire in the grate …’

‘It’s big enough.’ The electric fire was lost in a gaping aperture in which a huge metal grid, resembling some instrument of medieval torture, stood gleaming with lack of use.

‘Yes, my lord. Unfortunately, Mr Pickering informed me the bedroom fires are never lit for fear of causing a conflagration which might endanger the house.’

‘Well, we don’t want that, I suppose. Throw me my dressing gown, will you,’ he said, taking off his jacket. ‘I suppose one can have a bath?’

‘Yes, my lord. There is a bathroom at the end of the passage. I deferred drawing a bath for you, my lord, until you came up as I understand it is shared with two other guests on this corridor, Mrs Harkness and Mr Harbin. If I may say so, I would advocate having your bath in good time, my lord. Mr Pickering indicated to me that the plumbing is … antiquated and the hot water is not to be relied upon.’

‘I see. Well, yes, poor Mr Harbin. After Mrs Harkness and I have bathed I doubt there will be anything for him. As I remember it, she was quite happy to rough it for days at a time but when she is in civilization, so to speak, she likes to indulge herself. By the way, Fenton, where is her room? I would like to have a chat with her … a private chat.’

Fenton raised an eyebrow – a liberty permitted by his long and intimate connection with his master which, on occasion, went beyond that of master and servant to trusted aide and partner in the detection of crime.

‘Don’t try my patience,’ Edward said irritably. ‘My interest in Mrs Harkness is purely business.’

‘Indeed, my lord,’ Fenton said hastily. ‘Her room is next to yours. Indeed, there is a connecting door behind the screen but the door is locked so it is necessary to go out into the passage.’

Edward went over to the corner where a chinoiserie screen of surpassing ugliness made an unavailing attempt to suppress a draught or two. He peered behind it and saw a stout door which looked as if it had not been opened in years. He did not try it because if Fenton said it was locked, then it was. It was typical of the man’s efficiency that he had surveyed his master’s sleeping quarters so carefully. Edward noticed that, rather unusually in a country house, his bedroom door had a key in it.

‘What’s your room like?’ Edward asked.

‘Modest, my lord, but, if I may say so, more comfortable than this one. It is on the top floor where the other servants sleep.’

‘Well, you’d better go and draw my bath then. Though wait a moment, perhaps it would be polite if I first discovered whether Mrs Harkness wanted to bathe now or later. I’ll just knock on her door.’

Molly answered his knock after a moment’s struggle with the doorknob. She was still fully clothed and said she was going to rest on her bed before having her bath so Edward put his head back round his own door and told Fenton to go ahead.

‘Come and sit down over here, Edward dear,’ she said when he had returned. ‘Would you like a snifter?’ She waved a silver flask at him.

‘Where did that come from?’ Edward asked admiringly.

‘Oh, I have stayed with Leo before and, knowing how cold this house is, I took the precaution of bringing my own supplies of warmth. I can’t rely on you providing bodily warmth, can I?’

Edward knew she was alluding to their nights on the veldt when they had clung together against the wind that chilled the marrow in their bones, and he smiled.

‘What is it? Brandy? Yes please, Molly, just a drop. Is Leo really hard up or just a skinflint?’

‘The latter. He’s rolling in it. Come and make yourself comfy on the bed, darling.’

‘Do we use these?’ Edward brought over two water glasses that stood beside a carafe on the bedside table. In companionable silence he watched her pour two inches from her flask in each glass.

‘Chin-chin,’ she said, and they touched glasses.

Edward drank, spluttered but felt with gratitude a warm tingle spread through his stomach. ‘More please! Have you got enough?’

‘Yes, here.’ She passed him the flask. ‘Hey, not too much. I must keep some for later. You know Pickering can’t bring us booze without his master’s express permission. Leo keeps the keys to the tantalus himself. Isn’t that the limit? By the way, you are coming to see me later?’

‘Well, yes, I do want to talk to you. Perhaps just before we turn in?’

‘Talk? I never understand why we only talked when we were in Africa. I suppose it was my fault. I was still feeling ghastly over that business with Raymond. You were so sweet to me.’ She came up close to him and Edward knew she wanted him to kiss her.

‘Hey, steady on, old girl,’ he said, choosing his words to sound as unenthusiastic as possible. ‘I thought we agreed we would just be good pals?’

‘Oh, that was in Africa. It’s different now.’

‘But surely, I mean, a beautiful woman like you …’

‘You think I must have lovers?’ she said bitterly. ‘I could have. I did have. Don’t you read the papers? But at the moment I’m – what do they say? – fancy-free.’

‘Well, yes. That’s what I need to talk to you about … later.’

‘What?’ she said, suddenly suspicious.

‘Lovers, ex-lovers.’

‘You don’t have a message for me from him, do you?’

She was suddenly breathless and her pupils dilated.

‘Not exactly,’ he said awkwardly. ‘Tell me something, Molly. How was it you met the Prince of Wales? I mean, to put it crudely, you weren’t moving in those sort of circles in Kenya. That man you were consorting with – what was his name, Davenant? He wasn’t exactly out of the top drawer if you’ll forgive me for saying so.’

‘Douglas? Yes, he was rather awful, wasn’t he? He couldn’t stay in the colony after Raymond shot himself – not without marrying me and neither of us wanted that. I don’t hold it against him. We never pretended we loved each other or anything like that. We were lovers, yes, but only because we were so bored. Raymond was such a swine …’

‘You loved him once,’ Edward said reprovingly.

‘I know I did,’ she said sombrely, ‘but he was so weak. Drunkards are such bores, aren’t they, darling? I thought I could make him something important in the colony – top dog – but he was too idle, too bloody weak.’

She spoke with a contempt which chilled Edward. He now remembered why they had never become lovers. He had been sorry for her, he had admired her spirit – she was as brave as a lion and flew totally without fear – but she was cold. She had never spoken of her own childhood but it cannot have been happy. She had never managed to learn how to love. That was Edward’s diagnosis. Freud might have been interested in her, he thought. She was seductive, she could pretend to love but poor Raymond had not lived up to her expectations and had been humiliated by her. He must have known long before he found her in bed with the odious Douglas Davenant – a remittance man of the worst kind who had never done a day’s work in his life – that she was cuckolding him. She had driven the man to drink and suicide. It was as simple as that and yet, as soon as she got back to England, she had been taken up by the Prince and his circle. Edward knew he had some pretty raffish friends but it needed some explaining.

‘Raymond left me quite well off, you know,’ she said, looking at him speculatively.

‘Yes, but how did you meet the King – or rather the Prince as he was then?’

‘I met this very sweet man in Cape Town. Lewis Van Buren. I don’t know whether your paths have ever crossed?’ He shook his head. ‘Well, he was an absolute dear. He took charge of me and took me back home and introduced me to David.’

‘Were you and this man lovers?’ he inquired brutally. She blushed and Edward felt he had been a cad. ‘Sorry, my dear, but you do attract men, don’t you?’

‘Well, if you want to know, we were lovers, very briefly. He’s a diamond merchant – very rich.’ She opened her eyes wide. ‘I mean very rich. A Jew but a nice Jew. I liked him. I felt … I felt safe with him.’

‘And he introduced you into royal circles?’ Edward said ironically.

‘Yes, I think he had lent the Prince money … anyway, he knew him very well. He said the Prince would love me … and he did,’ she said simply.

Edward understood that Van Buren was one of those useful men who hang about the rich and famous – lend them money, find them women and do their dirty work. He wondered if Verity might find out something about him through the paper.

‘I see. Look, Molly, there are things we have to talk about. I know it’s not my business but, as a friend, I hate to see you get into trouble …’

‘Oh God, Edward, you’re not going to lecture me, are you? Anyway, I’m not the one who’s going to get into trouble. I’ve seen a lot of things and I could tell a lot of tales … but I don’t want to. I just want to be treated … fairly. I’m not just a whore to be chucked out with the garbage …’

At that moment, to Edward’s relief, there was a light knock on the door and Fenton informed him his bath was ready for him.

‘Molly, I’d better go and do my ablutions, don’t y’know,’ he said awkwardly. ‘Let’s talk after dinner. There are things I want to say to you – not a lecture, I promise, but not just now … Fenton, my man, tells me the hot water system in this place is suspect so I ought to go. See you later, eh?’

The bath was a huge ornate affair and the taps were in the shape of dolphins and difficult to manoeuvre but the water was warm enough – just. As he lay looking at the peeling paint on the ceiling, he wished he was in his rooms in Albany. But then his heart beat a little faster. Despite the horror of having to break bread with men like Scannon and his cronies, despite having to extract a lover’s letters from a woman betrayed, there was the sheer excitement of being in the same house as Dannie.