Hollow Crown

Book 3: Lord Edward Corinth & Verity Browne

by David Roberts

Genres: Amateur Sleuth; Cozy Mystery; Historical Mysteries; Traditional Mysteries

Synopsis

A murder mystery featuring Lord Edward Corinth and Verity Browne. October 1936. Joe Weaver, press magnate and close friend of the Royal family, calls for Lord Edward Corinth's help in recovering some missing letters, stolen from Wallis Simpson - the King's intimate friend. But there is no mystery about who has taken the correspondence: it is known to be Mrs Harkness, Edward's close friend and His Majesty's former favourite. As what seemed a simple stolen property case is complicated by murder, Verity Browne joins Edward in the investigation at Haling, the country home of Conservative MP Leo Scannon where Mrs Harkness is a guest. Very soon, the pair become involved with political protest at home and the fight against Fascism abroad, and against this background of social unrest that they set off to find out the truth behind the Hollow Crown... Praise for David Roberts: 'A gripping, richly satisfying whodunit with finely observed characters, sparkling with insouciance and stinging menace' Peter James 'A really well-crafted and charming mystery story' Daily Mail 'A perfect example of golden-age mystery traditions with the cobwebs swept away' Guardian

Release date: September 1, 2011

Publisher: C & R Crime

Print pages: 320

Sample

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 leaned 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 spoiled
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 anti-Communist – 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 encyclopedic 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 . . .