Read sample A Grave Man

1

In England, when a great public servant dies, it is customary to hold a memorial service in Westminster Abbey at which his achievements are recalled and his sins forgiven if not forgotten. Death transforms a hated rival into a cherished colleague whose loss is genuinely felt, reminding the survivor of his own mortality. Like the Roman general enjoying his triumph, a slave whispers in his ear, ‘Respice post te, hominem te memento!’ Look behind you and remember you are mortal. If called upon, the mourner composes a panegyric replete with platitudes.

At the Abbey, he removes his top hat with studied dignity, gives his name to the usher and wonders how far down the list it will appear in the following morning’s report in The Times and the Morning Post. He sings an anthem and listens poker­faced to the eulogy. It is not a long service because the congregation is made up of busy and important men whose time is money. As the organ sounds in sombre magnificence he processes out, proud to be ‘one of us’. He feels a stirring of excitement in the knowledge that soon he will be mingling with the high and mighty on equal terms. At the Abbey door, he whispers a few words of comfort in the widow’s ear, gives the eldest boy a firm handshake and pats the youngest on the head and, his duty done, replaces his top hat. He raises his eyes and sees many friends and acquaintances whom he greets with a sad smile and a modest nod of the head. Gradually, back in the world of the living, spirits lighten and his smile broadens. He makes what he hopes are unnoticed efforts to put himself in the way of those higher in rank or in a more exalted office with whom he can speak a few words and be seen to be doing so. It is the way things are done, at least in England.

In the case of Lord Benyon, the economist, writer and government servant, who had been killed when the giant airship, the Hindenburg, had exploded in a ball of fire as it attempted to dock in New Jersey, the situation was a little different. For one thing there was the extraordinary nature of his passing. In the second place Benyon’s only living relative was a sister married to a self-important stockbroker. There was no black-veiled widow or desolate children upon whom the mourners could focus their grief and, though no man is without enemies, Benyon had far fewer than most. Even Montagu Norman, the Governor of the Bank of England and an old sparring partner, admired Benyon’s abilities and liked him as a man though he abhorred his ideas.

The Prime Minister and senior cabinet ministers filled the front pews along with the Court of the Bank of England, the American ambassador, the Provost and Fellows of King’s College, Cambridge, leading British financiers and other dignitaries. There was a certain irony, which Benyon would have relished, that he should be mourned by a political class he had long derided and in a religious service he had been known to describe as ‘hocus-pocus’. For all that, he would surely have been delighted to see so many friends gathered to say their farewells. These friends were a very mixed bag as his interests had extended far beyond politics, economics and business. His wife, Inna, who had died a year before, was a prima ballerina in her youth and had danced for Diaghilev. Many of her friends from the world of ballet had become his friends: dancers and choreographers such as Anton Dolin, George Balanchine and Lydia Lopukhova. His close friends included Sir Thomas Beecham, director of the Royal Opera House, writers and artists such as Virginia Woolf, Morgan Forster and Duncan Grant, as well as actors and theatre directors. Women had loved to confide in him despite his feeble physique, weak eyes hidden behind thick-lensed spectacles and balding head, so it was no surprise to find the Abbey filling up half an hour before the service was due to begin.

It was early August and the great church was almost hot and certainly stuffy. The Hindenburg had been destroyed in May when the Abbey was being decked out for the coronation; it was only now that it had regained its normal sober dignity and was ready to give death its due. The House of Commons was about to rise for the summer recess, and politicians and civil servants were on the point of departing for the grouse moors or to take what many believed would be their final holidays on the Continent before the outbreak of a new European war.

Among the many hundreds who had gathered to pay their respects were Lord Edward Corinth and the journalist, Verity Browne. They had found seats way back in the nave where they could see nothing and hear very little. Verity, as a committed Communist and atheist, normally refused on principle to enter a church but on this occasion had swallowed her convictions out of affection for Benyon. In the short time they had known him, both Edward and Verity had come to look upon him as a dear friend. Edward had acted as his protection officer aboard the Queen Mary on a recent trip Benyon had made to the United States to try to persuade President Roosevelt to fund Britain’s rearmament programme. Benyon had been unsuccessful, as he feared would be the case, but had at least survived an attempt on his life. Furthermore, he was a bad sailor and the ship had not been as stable as Cunard had promised. A storm in the Atlantic had prostrated him and he had declared that on the next occasion he had to visit the States he would travel by air. The Hindenburg had made several safe crossings and its only disadvantage seemed to be that, as an enemy of Fascism, Benyon hated to travel in an airship adorned with the swastika.

The service followed the normal pattern. The Prime Minister read the famous passage from Ecclesiasticus which includes, so aptly for Benyon, the words: ‘Leaders of the people by their counsels, and by their knowledge of learning meet for the people, wise and eloquent ...’ The Archbishop of Canterbury called him ‘a humane man genuinely devoted to the cause of the common good – radiant, brilliant, effervescent, full of impish jokes.’ Verity found herself digging in her bag for her handkerchief and even Edward found his eyes prickling.

When the service ended, it was twenty minutes before they could even think of making their way to the West Door. Just as the crowd about them thinned and Edward had bent to retrieve his hat from underneath his chair, he heard a shrill cry which seemed to come from a woman who had been sitting a few rows in front of them on the extreme right, close to the entrance to the cloisters. Edward walked into the side aisle and saw that a woman was bending over a man slumped in one of the seats.

Verity had also heard the woman cry out but was too short to see who it was.

‘I say, V, isn’t that Maud Pitt-Messanger – the daughter of the archaeologist? Do you remember, we met her with Benyon once? I hope ...’

Without finishing his sentence, he walked towards her, Verity in his wake. Two or three other people had also heard the cry and had turned to see what was the matter. Edward found her kneeling in the aisle, her arms around an elderly man half lying in the chair next to the one in which she had been sitting.

‘Miss Pitt-Messanger ... can I help? It’s Edward Corinth. We met ... is everything all right?’

‘My father ... he’s ... I think he’s fainted.’

Edward saw at once that this was no faint. The old man’s eyes were closed and his face was the colour of parchment. He raised Pitt-Messanger’s limp hand and felt for a pulse. He looked up and saw Verity.

‘Get one of the ushers, will you, V? Quick as you can. We need a doctor but I’m very much afraid ...’

With the help of several of those who had crowded round, Edward laid the old man on the floor and loosened his collar. It was only then that he noticed the blood which had soaked through Pitt-Messanger’s shirt and stained his coat and trousers. Gently, Edward pulled aside his coat to see where the blood was coming from. He saw with disbelief the handle of a knife sticking out from just below his ribs. The blade had been plunged into his body with such ferocity that it was too deeply embedded to be visible. There was a gasp of horror from those who could see what Edward had revealed.

‘Everyone stand back. No one touch anything,’ he said. He recognized one of those who had helped him move the dead man. ‘Cardew, we need the police. Go to the West Door, will you? I noticed two or three constables on duty as we came in. If you can’t see one immediately, find a telephone and ring Scotland Yard. Ask to speak to Chief Inspector Pride and tell him what has happened.’

The young man disappeared and Edward met the eyes of Miss Pitt-Messanger who had collapsed on to one of the chairs and was being comforted by a woman he did not recognize. As the young woman holding Miss Pitt-Messanger’s hand turned to him, he saw one side of her face had been badly burned, perhaps when she was a child. He looked away, not wishing to embarrass her. Maud was sobbing into a handkerchief and making little moaning noises. He noticed a fleck of red on her glove. He hoped she had not seen the knife. To die in such a way, in such a place, at such a time, was grotesque.

‘I’m afraid your father is dead, Miss Pitt-Messanger.’

‘Has he ... has he had a heart attack?’ she managed to ask through her sobs.

Edward hesitated. It seemed cruel to tell her the truth but she would have to know what had happened. It could not be hidden from her. ‘I am sorry to say I think your father has been murdered.’

‘Murdered! Why do you say such a thing? It’s not possible.’

‘It ought not to be,’ Edward said gravely, ‘but I am afraid there can be no doubt of it. He has been stabbed and it can only have happened a few moments ago. He is still bleeding from his wound.’

Two days later Edward and Verity were poring over the newspapers which were spread out on the bed. Fenton, Edward’s valet, was taking his annual holiday – in Margate, he had informed his master, where he had a sister who ran a boarding house. Taking advantage of his absence, Verity had ensconced herself in Edward’s rooms in Albany. It was risky because the managers of the apartments would not have approved and nor would most of their friends and relatives. Edward shuddered to think what the Duke of Mersham would say if he knew his younger brother was living with a girl outside the bounds of matrimony. Or rather he would not have said anything. He would merely have harrumphed and looked at him with pained disapproval which would have been worse. Still, it was only for a week and it was fun to pretend to be married.

It was odd to love someone as much as Edward loved Verity and yet not be able to marry her. Neither of them was married to anyone else. There were no financial barriers to matrimony and, most important of all, they loved one another. It was simply that Verity was adamant that she could not feel free within the bonds of marriage. She said it would stifle their love, cause them much pain and would probably end in bitter parting. She once explained to him that marriage would mean being ‘relegated to a camp behind the front’. She doth protest too much, Edward had once thought, but by now he was convinced she meant what she said. It was partly the fault of her job. She was not just a journalist but a foreign correspondent, though she disliked the phrase, thinking it pretentious. She had to be free to go anywhere in the world at a moment’s notice. Domestic ties were incompatible with such an occupation which was why right­minded people believed it was a man’s job. A woman ought to stay at home, look after her husband’s comforts and carry his babies.

‘It’s a strange business, isn’t it?’ she said comfortably, reaching over him and taking buttered toast from his plate.

‘What is? Hang on! You’re dripping butter all over The Times. I was just looking to see who had died.’

‘That’s what I mean. Pitt-Messanger was stabbed to death in Westminster Abbey during one of the biggest memorial services in years and yet no one saw it happen and no one has been arrested.’

‘Well, it’s nothing to do with us,’ Edward said with a shrug.

‘Yes it is,’ she protested. ‘We found him. We called the police. Of course it’s to do with us.’

‘I’m not getting mixed up with it, V, if that’s what you are hinting at. I’ve got enough on my plate as it is. Tomorrow I am going down to Chartwell to talk to Churchill about a job. I’m really feeling quite bucked.’

‘Oh, him,’ Verity said dismissively. ‘I’ve told you, I don’t like him and I wish you weren’t getting so friendly with him. He’s against everything I believe in from the rights of women to ... the General Strike. He’s not a friend of the people. I’m surprised you can’t see that.’

‘That’s nonsense, V. Once you meet him you’ll change your mind. He’s not perfect – I’m not saying he is – but he’s the only politician who can stand up to the dictators. I’m convinced of it.’

‘Do what you want,’ she said, half joking, half petulant. ‘I don’t care if you prefer a fat, over-the-hill politician to me. Leave me if you must but I thought only cads desert their mistresses when they are ...’

‘You’re not going to tell me you’re pregnant, are you? That would be wonderful!’ Edward exclaimed in mock delight.

‘Of course not, idiot! I was going to say “when they are in a mood – mistresses, that is – to give themselves to their paramours with wild abandon”.’

‘Sorry and all that,’ Edward said annoyingly, ‘but when my country calls ...’

‘Pompous ass,’ she giggled, pinching him. ‘Have you taken your Syrup of Figs this morning? You are sounding constipated. Anyway, I don’t care. It so happens I too have an invitation. Do you remember my friend Ginny Waring?’

‘Never heard of her.’

‘She’s my only school friend. She was head girl and I worshipped her.’

‘Which school was that?’ Verity had often told him she had attended a number of schools from most of which, it seemed, she had been expelled. One headmistress, exasperated by her having climbed to the top of the art school roof where she had got stuck – ‘for a dare’ she explained when the fire brigade brought her down – had called her ‘a thoroughly bad influence on the younger girls, disruptive and impudent’. Edward had always thought this was a very fair description of Verity and had every sympathy with her many headmistresses.

‘Grove House. I was there for almost three years. Ginny stood up for me when Miss Haddow wanted to throw me out.’

‘Why did she wish to throw you out?’ Edward inquired. ‘Idleness, midnight feasts or was it boys?’

‘If you must know, clever clogs, it was boys or rather one sweet, if spotty, lad from the local grammar. Not that I was doing anything wrong. He had lent me a pullover and I had forgotten to return it.’

‘So you climbed out of the bathroom window and were caught?’

‘Not at all,’ Verity said haughtily. ‘He came, without invitation, and climbed in at the dorm window. It was great fun but one of the girls sneaked. I was hauled up in front of the dragon, as we called Miss Haddow, and only Ginny’s intervention prevented me from being shot out on my ear.’

‘So Ginny what’s-her-name has invited you to stay?’

‘Ginny Waring – Virginia Castlewood as she is now. You must have heard of her. She’s married to the millionaire. They built that house in Kent, just outside Tonbridge. Part of it is what remains of a castle and the rest is very modern. There was an article on it in Country Life. She has a pet mongoose – or do I mean a lemur?’

Edward did remember. Sir Simon Castlewood had inherited a fortune from his father who had supplied the army with uniforms during the war. The father had been one of those hard men who ‘had done well out of the war’, as the saying was, but the son had made a better name for himself as a patron of the arts and sciences. He was said to have a fine picture collection and an even finer library. He supported many charities, notably Earl Haig’s fund for ex-soldiers. He had set up a medical foundation to develop cures for tuberculosis and polio. He had financed several expeditions to the North and South Poles and was something of an explorer and naturalist himself.

Verity never did anything without a purpose and Edward was suspicious. ‘So why this sudden desire to look up an old school friend?’

‘No reason except I haven’t seen her for ages,’ she replied airily, snuggling down beneath the sheets, her appetite for toast and marmalade temporarily sated.

‘Hold on! I’ve just remembered. Didn’t Castlewood underwrite Pitt-Messanger’s excavations in Egypt or somewhere?’

‘That’s right and, as it happens, Maud Pitt-Messanger is staying at Swifts Hill. Ginny has such a kind heart and, when she heard about her father’s death, she scooped her up and took her there to recover and avoid the press.’

‘Really, V, you are incorrigible. You want to investigate ...’

‘Chief Inspector Pride will never find out who murdered her father, now will he?’

‘We may not like Pride but he is a very competent police officer,’ Edward said sententiously. ‘I have every confidence ...’

‘Well, I don’t, so there.’

Edward pushed aside the breakfast tray and rolled over on Verity. ‘Stop it, you bully. You’re squashing me.’

‘If only that were possible!’ he retorted. They looked at each other with mutual indignation and then Verity was overtaken by the giggles. ‘Men look so absurd in striped pyjamas, particularly if they are trying to lay down the law.’

‘Oh really? You have experience of men in pyjamas, do you? You jade, you juggler, you canker blossom, you thief of love!’

‘How dare you call me a jade. I don’t even know what it means. Are you calling me a horse?’

‘I’m calling you a bad-tempered and disreputable woman and to prove it ...’

The plates and newspapers slid on to the floor as Edward caught Verity in his arms. She made inadequate attempts to escape but was soon overcome.

Panting, Edward released her. ‘You’ve got jam on your nose,’ he said, as he kneeled astride her.

‘I surrender, I surrender,’ she cried in mock alarm. ‘Don’t hurt me, you nasty, ugly man. I am thinking of getting another dog to protect me. Ouch! Remember, I’m still an invalid.’

Edward relaxed his grip. She had taken a bullet in her shoulder when the Spanish town of Guernica had been bombed and strafed by the Luftwaffe just a few months before. She had been lucky to survive. The photographer, Gerda Meyer, who was with her, had been killed. She was very much better but still not fully recovered – from the shock as much as from the wound itself. Gently, he turned her on her stomach and stroked the scar, still livid, where the bullet had pierced her. She twisted her head to look at him, for once almost meek. ‘My scar ... I can’t even see it, damn it. Is it horrible? Does it ... disgust you?’

He remembered the girl who had comforted Maud Pitt­Messanger in the Abbey. Her scar had spoilt her looks. ‘No, my dearest,’ he said, his voice thick with passion. ‘I love every scar, every scratch on you.’ He bent his head and kissed first her shoulder, feeling the wound with his tongue and then, rolling her over, the little scar on her forehead.

She put her hands to his face, pushing him back so she could look into his eyes. ‘And I love you.’ It went against all her instincts. She had held out against him as long as she could but she did love this man – she was almost sure of it. What was more, she trusted him absolutely, without reservation. She closed her eyes and gave a little cry, perhaps of pleasure, perhaps of protest. He needed no warning to treat her gently. With infinite tenderness he buried himself in her, his eyes never leaving her face. She threw her arms around him and held him to her fiercely as if he alone could protect her from the pain and blot out her memories of Spain.

Afterwards, they lay on their backs smoking until Edward suddenly remembered that they had an appointment with a house agent at eleven. Looking at his watch, he saw that it was already half past nine. Verity had been staying with her friends, the Hassels, in the King’s Road since she had returned from Spain. She had sold her Knightsbridge flat before she left and owned no property in England. She had decided she needed a pied-à-terre in London, even though she was abroad for so much of the time. She did not want anything cosy. She had no wish to make a home for herself. She merely needed somewhere to leave the few possessions she did not want to carry about the world with her. She had settled on an anonymous-looking flat in a new, purpose-built block off Sloane Avenue called Cranmer Court. Before she made a final decision she wanted Edward to see it.

London was beginning to have the air of a forgotten city – Petra perhaps, Edward thought as they stepped out of Cranmer Court on to brown, balding grass. The flat had proved to be light and airy, though expensive. Edward wanted her to look at others but Verity was impatient. ‘What is the point? It suits me and I’ve got the money.’

It was a slight embarrassment to Verity, as a Communist, that she was rich. Her father was a successful barrister renowned for his defence of left-wing causes. She had never liked spending his money but her resolve had weakened as the years passed and, anyway, she was earning herself now. Her employer, Lord Weaver, the owner of the New Gazette, saw her as one of his stars and paid her accordingly. The Daily Worker, for which she also wrote, paid her nothing but her book on Spain published by the Left Book Club had sold well and Victor Gollancz had been after her to write another.

The young man from the agency had been pleased and surprised that the flat had been such an easy sale. When he discovered to whom he had sold it, he had been fulsome. Edward was amused to see how Verity, in the face of frank admiration, managed to display irritation and pleasure at the same time.

It was hotter than ever and the dust spread over everything, painting the leaves on the trees grey and casting a grey veil over Edward’s Lagonda. London was emptying, so it was with some surprise that they bumped into Edmund Cardew whom they had last seen at the Abbey when Edward had dispatched him to summon the police. He was an MP – one of the youngest in the House – and was being talked of as a ‘coming man’. The girl on his arm seemed almost a child. At first sight Edward did not recognize her but then, as she moved her head, he saw the burn scar which had transformed her cheek to rice paper, only partly concealed by the hair which fell about her face. It was she who had comforted Miss Pitt-Messanger in the Abbey.

She proved to be Cardew’s sister Margaret – Maggie as her brother called her. Edward shook her gloved hand and they exchanged a few words about the murder. As they did so, it occurred to him to wonder if the handle of the knife which had killed the old man had been clean of fingerprints. All the ladies attending the memorial service would have been gloved of course but then it was not really a woman’s crime. He reminded himself that the investigation was nothing to do with him. He introduced Verity and explained that she had been buying a flat.

‘Excellent!’ Cardew said. ‘Then you must come and meet my mother. She bought one of the first flats three years ago and is quite the queen of Cranmer Court.’

It was impossible to refuse so Verity and Maggie walked ahead of the two men towards the other side of the block. Cardew said in a low voice so that his sister could not hear, ‘When my father died, just after Maggie was born, my mother was left very badly off. She had to sell Molton – our house in Kent – and move into the gatekeeper’s lodge. Then I began to make a little money and I was able to buy her this flat. She can come up to town and see her friends and I have a place to sleep when the House is sitting. I know she will love to meet Miss Browne. The truth is she gets a bit lonely. She says all her friends are dying off like flies and she loves the young. She was a great friend of Lord Benyon, you know. He was very kind to us when my father died. In fact, I owe him a great deal. When I left Rugby he got me a job with his stockbrokers, Thalberg and May. His brother-in-law, Horace Garton, was a partner in the firm. I don’t know if you ever met him?’

‘I met his sister, Mrs Garton, once very briefly. I liked her.’

‘Between ourselves, she is worth two of him but I shouldn’t say so. Garton was always good to me and I am truly grateful. He has retired now.’

‘And you are a partner?’

‘I am but I may have to give it up. I spend so much time at the House. The Prime Minister has said ... but you don’t want to hear about me, Lord Edward.’

In contrast to her brother, Maggie was silent. Verity, who had not noticed her in the Abbey, was shocked by her disfigurement and imagined she must be shy. She made up for it by talking rather wildly about her trip on the Queen Mary with Benyon but it was a relief to her when they reached Mrs Cardew’s flat. Edmund’s and Maggie’s mother proved to be a woman of considerable charm who was clearly devoted to her children. She was rather stout and when she embraced Maggie the girl almost disappeared. She emerged laughing and adjusting her hat.

‘Mother, please! This hat cost a fortune! Don’t crush it.’

It was pleasant to see how affectionately they teased the old woman. Edward asked Mrs Cardew about Benyon, explaining his and Verity’s connection.

‘That’s so like Inna,’ she exclaimed when Verity described how Lady Benyon had helped her overcome her ‘block’ when she was writing her book on Spain. ‘She was one of my closest friends but alas she is dead. As soon as Blackie brings me the The Times in the morning before I get up, I read the death notices. I expect to see my own there soon,’ she smiled.

‘Mother!’ Cardew expostulated. ‘You talk as if you are in your dotage. You are only as young as you feel. She has so many friends,’ he said, turning to Verity. ‘Tomorrow you are going down to Swifts Hill, aren’t you, Mother? You always like going there. Do you know the Castlewoods, Lord Edward?’

‘I don’t but, as it happens, Verity will be staying with them at the same time as you are there, Mrs Cardew.’

‘My dear, how wonderful,’ the old lady said, smiling at her. ‘Perhaps we can travel together. There’s a train from Victoria at 3.28 that will get us to Swifts Hill in time for tea. But how silly of me ... you don’t want to be lumbered with an old woman like me.’

‘Not at all,’ Verity said. ‘I would very much like to come with you if I may. The truth is I haven’t seen Ginny since we left school and I am a little scared of meeting her husband.’

‘Oh, Simon’s a charmer. You will get on very well with him. He has an eye for a pretty girl. Not that I am saying he is other than devoted to Virginia ...’

‘That’s settled then,’ Cardew said. ‘It would be a weight off my mind, Miss Browne, if you would accompany my mother. It’s a long journey and she has not been well ...’

‘Oh pish, Edmund. I have just had a summer cold which I have not been able fully to throw off. Dear Virginia swears that the air at Swifts Hill so much cleaner than here in London – will clear it up in no time.’

‘And I am sure she is right,’ her son said. ‘It will do you the world of good.’

Verity found his concern for his mother admirable but slightly suspect. She had never had a mother but imagined that she would be less patronizing than Edmund. She guessed Mrs Cardew must be seventy-three or four. She was hardly at death’s door and why was Maggie so silent? Was it just shyness? She shook herself mentally. She was becoming cynical, she thought. ‘I am staying with friends in the King’s Road, Mrs Cardew. I will pick you up in a taxi ...’

‘Lord Edward, you are not accompanying us?’

‘No, I was not invited and in any case I have another engagement.’

‘Too bad,’ Cardew said. ‘You should know, Mother, that Miss Browne is a distinguished journalist. A foreign correspondent, I think they call it. Isn’t that right, Miss Browne?’

‘I don’t know about that,’ Verity said, reluctant to be flattered, ‘but I certainly work for a newspaper – the New Gazette.’

‘So you must know Lord Weaver?’ Mrs Cardew inquired.

‘He employed me. Is he a friend of yours, Mrs Cardew?’

‘Edmund sees a lot of him, don’t you, dear? He is one of the old monster’s “young men”.’

‘Oh, Mother, where do you pick up those expressions? You have been reading the Daily Express. I am certainly not one of his “young men”, Miss Browne, but he has been good to me. He, too, was kind to us when my father died. Lord Weaver sent many of his friends my way so I owe him what little success I have had as a stockbroker.’

Maggie seemed to want to change the subject because, to Verity’s surprise, she broke her silence. ‘Lord Edward, have you heard whether the police have caught the man who killed poor Mr Pitt-Messanger?’

‘I know nothing more than I have read in the newspapers, Miss Cardew. As far as I know they have not charged anybody, but it’s early days yet.’

‘Quite terrible!’ exclaimed Mrs Cardew. ‘Sacrilege I call it, though I have to admit I could never stand him.’

‘You knew Pitt-Messanger?’ Edward asked in surprise.

‘I knew him, yes, but not well. He was an obstinate old man and he led that poor daughter of his the most awful life. I hope you will tell me, Maggie, if I turn into a tyrant.’

‘Mother!’ the girl protested, taking her hand and squeezing it.

‘He was a tyrant?’ Verity asked.

‘Maybe I am exaggerating but he was so obsessed with his work, he had no time to look to his children.’

‘Children? I thought there was only Maud?’ Edward queried. ‘There was a son – Edwin, I think his name was. He ran away to sea when he was fourteen or fifteen and has never been seen since.’

‘How romantic,’ Verity sighed.

‘Possibly, but to make a child run away from home, you have to have done “unromantic” things to him.’ Mrs Cardew looked fierce. ‘I don’t know the ins and outs of it but I know something very unpleasant happened.’

‘And now poor Maud is all alone in the world,’ Maggie sighed.

‘It’s the best thing for her,’ Mrs Cardew said sharply. ‘If it is not too late for her, as I fear it may be, she can set about living her life.’

‘Her father treated her badly?’ Verity inquired.

‘He made her his companion, secretary, housekeeper, dogsbody. He took her on all his digs.’

‘That must have been interesting,’ Edward put in. ‘I remember reading he made some wonderful finds in Assyria.’

‘He uncovered the grave of a great king,’ Cardew said, ‘but there were all sorts of problems. I can’t remember the details. One of the young men who helped him on the dig claimed he, not Pitt­ Messanger, had made the find and kicked up a bit of a stink about it. Fortunately for Pitt-Messanger, his accuser died fairly soon after – of cholera, I think – and the scandal died with him.’

‘Yes,’ Edward recalled, ‘there were pictures of some of the treasures he had uncovered in the Illustrated London News ... a dagger and some jewellery. Amazing!’

Verity looked at him with surprise. ‘I didn’t know you were interested in archaeology?’

‘I have a small collection of my own. Don’t you remember that Etruscan vase I managed to smash?’

‘But no body ... no skeleton,’ Cardew said.

‘What did you say, dear?’

‘Sorry, Mother. I just said it was odd there was no body. I mean, usually an ancient grave is robbed of its treasures but they don’t bother to disturb the corpse. On that occasion the opposite seems to have been the case.’

‘I imagine the bones just turned to dust over the centuries,’ Edward put in.

‘Of course! Anyway, why am I talking about corpses?’

2

They were met at the station by the Castlewoods’ chauffeur dressed, Verity thought, like von Stroheim, the film director – leather jacket and trousers, peaked cap and long, black boots. A porter rescued Mrs Cardew’s two suitcases from the goods van and Blackie, her maid, who appeared to be even older than her mistress, appeared from third class with Mrs Cardew’s jewellery bag, which was her special care and never left her sight. The chauffeur, who tipped his cap and said his name was Barry, relieved Verity of her new suitcase and she was glad to be able to look him in the eye. She knew from the Queen Mary that servants judged you by the quality and quantity of your luggage. She wondered if Barry was his first or last name but found herself unable to ask.

As she followed Mrs Cardew into the back of the Rolls, she began to worry that she might not have brought enough smart clothes. The Virginia she remembered from school had had no interest in clothes and wore her school uniform with such disregard for decency that she was frequently in trouble with the form mistress. Even the headmistress, meeting her once in a corridor, had sent her back to the dormitory for having holes in her stockings. However, Verity reminded herself, Virginia was now married to a millionaire and no doubt dressed with the help of a maid. She lay back on the soft leather and sniffed that delicious scent of wealth.

It was an odd inconsistency of Verity’s that, though in principle she disapproved of chauffeurs, ladies’ maids, Rolls-Royces and all the other appurtenances of wealth – and would not know what to do with a lady’s maid if she had one – she enjoyed being the guest of those for whom all this was completely natural. As the car set off – so silently she was hardly aware they were moving – Mrs Cardew’s Pekinese, Lulu, climbed on to her lap and she thought once again how nice it would be to have a dog. A delicious languor overtook her and, without meaning to, she slept.

It was little more than five miles to Swifts Hill and though the ancient Rolls travelled at a stately twenty-five miles an hour, it felt as if she had only closed her eyes for an instant when Mrs Cardew touched her on the arm and said, ‘Do look, Miss Browne. Your first view of Swifts Hill ... isn’t it a dream?’

Mrs Cardew tapped on the glass partition and asked Barry to stop the car for a moment. Verity ought to have known what to expect because she had only recently been reading about it but the photograph in Country Life had not done it justice. Swifts Hill had originally been a medieval castle rebuilt for Henry VIII in the 1520s. Young Prince Edward was lodged there for a time but Queen Elizabeth had no use for it and it fell into disrepair. When Simon Castlewood bought it in 1933 nothing remained but the walls of the great hall. The Castlewoods began by rebuilding it as he and the Swedish architect imagined it must have looked in its first incarnation complete with minstrels’ gallery. At huge cost the hall was capped with a magnificent oak roof – an elaborate ‘false’ hammerbeam construction. Then, in daring and powerful antithesis, the Castlewoods added a modern house attached to the hall by a low curved building surmounted by a cupola made of concrete and glass. The main part of the new house was circular and quite unlike anything yet built in England.

Thoroughly awake now, Verity could hardly wait as they crunched up the drive and crossed the bridge over the dry moat. As she walked through the glass doors into the triangular entrance hall she was struck by its airy simplicity. Light streamed through the glass roof and was absorbed by a huge circular carpet. On it several very modern-looking and possibly uncomfortable chairs were grouped around two small tables. A huge vase of flowers stood on a pedestal in the centre of the room reminding Verity, momentarily, of the foyer of the Ritz in Paris. The hall was lined in wood and decorated with marquetry panels showing scenes of Venice, clearly a favourite city of the owners. Two staircases led out of it up to a gallery which encircled the hall below it. Magnificent bronze-framed glass doors led through to rooms on the ground floor. Verity could not help noticing the coin-operated telephone booth and the cloakrooms to one side of the hall. It confirmed her impression of being in a hotel lobby and she had to smile.

As she looked around her there was a whooshing sound and in swept Virginia carrying in her arms a Pekinese which, Verity subsequently discovered, was called Halma. She dropped it on the carpet where it began to yap at Mrs Cardew’s Lulu which, understandably, yapped back. The noise was deafening but Virginia seemed not to hear it. She kissed Mrs Cardew, calling her Emily, and then turned to Verity. Holding her first at arm’s length, she studied her face and then embraced her. Just as Verity thought she would never be released, Virginia thrust her away but still held on to both her hands.

‘My dear Crumbles – how wonderful to see you after all this time! And who would have thought you would be so famous. Let me look at you. Yes, I do believe you are the same devil-may­care rapscallion who gave poor Miss Haddow several nervous breakdowns before she finally gathered up enough courage to expel you. Your dear father was heartbroken. I remember him arriving in his green Rolls-Royce to take you home with him. I admired you so much, you know. You never shed a tear though I do believe your lip trembled when we said our goodbyes. You strode out with your chin in the air. Indignant – that’s what you were. As though Miss Haddow had done you wrong when in fact she had gone to so much trouble to keep you on the straight and narrow. “That poor motherless girl,” she said to me. “She needs all the love we can give her.”’

Virginia paused for breath which enabled Mrs Cardew to say, ‘Crumbles! Is that what they called you at school, Miss Browne?’

‘I had quite forgotten,’ Verity said, blushing, ‘and, Ginny, I absolutely forbid you to use that name again.’ In her imagination she saw Edward doubled up with laughter.

‘But why Crumbles?’ Mrs Cardew persisted.

‘She used to take biscuits and cakes to bed with her. She was always hungry though she never got fat, which was so annoying.’

‘You make me sound ungrateful, Ginny. How was I to know Miss Haddow was ... doing her best for me? She never said so. I just thought she was a bully and an old fuss-pot.’

‘I’m sorry, my dear! Here I am gossiping about old times and you are hardly in the house. Shall I show you to your rooms or would you like a cup of tea first?’

They opted for tea and were led through glass doors into the drawing-room. It was unlike any which Verity had seen before. It was entirely false and yet, for all its theatricality, conveyed Virginia’s personality which was wholly sincere: exuberant, impetuous and enthusiastic. Verity looked about her in amazement. ‘Ginny – what an extraordinary house! It’s so light and ... uncluttered ...’

‘What are you looking at, Crumbles?’

‘Oh sorry, Ginny, but all these windows – wonderful in weather like this but surely in winter ...’

‘You might think so because, as you can see, we have no radiators, but I am very susceptible to the cold. Something to do with being always frozen at school, I expect. I said to Simon, “My darling, I don’t mind what you do to the house but it must be warm.” So the clever architect – who is Swedish and the Swedes know all about the cold – put in underfloor heating – hot pipes. I have to say, sometimes it is even too hot. In fact, everything that can be concealed is. The idea was to keep the inside absolutely pure: simple, smooth curves. I’ll let Simon bore you with the full lecture. He will love to have someone new to talk to about Swifts Hill. It’s his pride and joy.’

Verity walked over to a window to look more closely at the plaster panels depicting scenes from past civilizations, including fanciful evocations of ancient Greece and Rome. They were illuminated by spotlights housed in false beams in the ceiling.

‘Who made these? They are beautifully done.’

‘Gilbert Leward. Do you know of him? He’s a genius and it was so clever of Simon to find him. Now, tea. You must be parched.’

Verity gazed about her fascinated. It was all false – down to the last Etruscan pot on the huge fake-marble fireplace in which an electric fire ‘burned’ fake logs. The floor was laid with imitation Turkish rugs and copies of old masters hung on the wall. Verity thought longingly of Edward’s home, Mersham Castle, where nothing was false. Swifts Hill was too much like an hotel – or rather, it suddenly came to her, the interior of the Queen Mary – to be truly beautiful. Its saving grace was the abundance of flowers. Vases of roses, crimson, creamy white and yellow, stood on tables and in the windows scenting the air and giving life to the scene.

While she and Virginia discussed the house, Mrs Cardew had been talking to the two women sipping tea at the other end of the drawing-room. Verity knew one of them, Maud Pitt-Messanger, but it was the other girl who caught her eye. She was, Verity thought, in her late twenties. She had obviously been playing tennis – she wore a white shirt and skirt and white plimsolls – and exuded the healthy glow of an athlete. She was tall and strongly built but what made the word ‘Viking’ spring into Verity’s mind was her flow of golden hair which framed an almost perfectly oval face. Her eyes were a startling violet and she was heartily glad Edward was not there to be tempted. She noted with relief that she wore on her finger a large diamond ring. No man who had wooed and won this beauty was going to let himself be easily deprived of her.

Maud looked dowdy by comparison. There was no other word for it. Despite making a valiant effort to smile, she wore an expression of profound misery. Her face was grey and unhealthy-looking and her pallor was emphasized by the harsh red with which she had unwisely coated her lips. There were dark pouches under her eyes and, though she could never have been a beauty, she now looked ill and much older than her forty years. In part this was due to the ugly woollen cardigan she wore over a cotton dress that might have looked well on a young girl but on Maud was frankly ridiculous. There could be no doubt that her father’s death had left her distraught and desolate.

‘Darlings,’ Virginia said, ‘I don’t think you have met Verity Browne. Verity and I were at school together and she was always getting into scrapes and now she is a famous foreign correspondent – that’s right, isn’t it, dear? I checked with Simon who said I mustn’t call you a journalist.’

‘Oh no, Ginny, I am just a journalist who gets into scrapes,’ Verity replied modestly.

‘It’s too, too shy-making meeting you, Miss Browne,’ said the girl with the violet eyes leaping out of her chair as if she was about to serve for the match. ‘I am such an admirer. You must be so brave and, you know ... brave.’

‘Verity, this is Isolde Swann. She has been longing to meet you.’

Verity shook the warm, powerful hand of the young Amazon and wondered if she could possibly be being satirical. ‘Please, Miss Swann, there really is nothing to justify ...’

‘No, but really, I read your reports in the paper. You were wounded at that awful place with the ugly name – something like “hernia” ...’

‘Guernica. Yes, I was but I am quite better now.’

‘And Maud Pitt-Messanger ...’ Virginia went on, almost dropping her Pekinese which was wriggling in her arms.

‘Yes,’ Verity said, stretching out her hand. ‘You probably won’t remember, Miss Pitt-Messanger, but we – Lord Edward Corinth and I – met you and your father with Lord Benyon some months ago. And then ... well, I am very sorry indeed ...’

Maud seemed to stir herself with an effort. She spoke in a low husky voice as though it came from deep inside her. ‘You and Lord Edward were so kind ...’ she murmured. She fumbled in her bag and Verity, guessing what she was searching for, offered her one of her cigarettes.

‘Oh, thank you, Miss Browne,’ she muttered.

Verity lit the cigarette for her and had a strong desire to put out a hand to calm her. She was obviously very agitated, though whether from meeting her and being reminded of her father’s death or because she was anxious and depressed Verity could not say.

‘Where are the men?’ Virginia inquired, as though trying to distract attention from the state Maud was in.

‘They are sweating out London grime on the tennis court, Ginny,’ Isolde told her. ‘At least that’s what Roddy said. He’s my... my fiancé, Miss Browne.’ She blushed and smiled. ‘Dominic – that’s who Roddy’s playing – he’s a doctor, or rather a surgeon, says we all ought to exercise more but I’m afraid he’ll never get Ginny out on the court.’

‘Quite right, too,’ Mrs Cardew broke in. ‘It’s very bad for your skin – perspiring like that. And the sun – you’re as brown as a nut, Izzy. It can’t be good for you.’

Isolde blushed again. At that moment the glass door swung open and a footman entered bearing a tray with a silver teapot on it. Behind him, a maid carried a second tray with sandwiches and cakes on three silver dishes.

‘Tea! I must have tea! And a sandwich. I’m dying for a sandwich!’ It was a man’s voice, low and attractive. Verity turned to see that they had been joined by two men still carrying tennis rackets. The young man who had spoken took a sandwich off the tray and made a grab at Isolde and tried to kiss her.

‘Go away, Roddy darling.’ Isolde turned her face away, perhaps to draw attention to her fiancé’s ardour. ‘You are all hot and... no, you can’t kiss me till you’ve showered.’

‘Who won?’ Virginia inquired.

‘Thrashed him!’ Roddy replied, waving his sandwich above his head in triumph.

‘What rot, Roddy! You’re such a liar. I hope your inability to tell the truth isn’t hereditary. It was 6–4 in the third set. Roddy’s line-calls ...! You believe me, don’t you, Mrs Cardew?’

This was Dominic, Verity supposed.

‘I am sure you were well matched,’ Virginia said annoyingly. ‘Now, leave Isolde alone and let me introduce you to Miss Browne. I have told them all about you, of course,’ she added to Verity.

‘Oh, I hope that doesn’t mean ...’

‘I thought you would be a harridan – positively frightening,’ Roddy said. ‘I was terrified.’ He raised his hands in an exaggerated gesture of surrender. ‘Ginny, why didn’t you tell me your old school chum was a beauty?’

‘Roddy, behave yourself,’ Isolde reprimanded, not altogether pleased, Verity thought, by her fiancé’s readiness to appreciate another woman.

‘Well, it’s your fault, old girl. If you won’t let me kiss you ... I always behave badly when I’m thwarted. If I can’t kiss you, Izzy, at least let me have another sandwich.’ He smiled at Verity and then winked at the maid carrying the sandwiches. She blushed prettily as she passed him the plate. This was an attractive man, Verity thought, but didn’t he just know it. ‘Mrs Cardew!’ he took her hand with exaggerated gallantry. ‘How rude of me! I was so hungry ...’

‘Miss Browne,’ Isolde said, ‘I apologize for this greedy young man. Please forgive him for being a prize idiot. I certainly can’t.’ The adoring look she gave Roddy belied her words.

‘Yes, please forgive me, Miss Browne,’ he said, catching at her hand and carrying it to his lips. ‘I do apologize. Truly, it is a great honour to meet you. I am Roddy Maitland and I am engaged to this wonderful girl who has just been so frightfully cross with me.’ He furrowed his brow and pretended to look chastened before turning back to Mrs Cardew. ‘It’s very nice to see you again, Mrs Cardew. How was Le Touquet? I saw Teddy at the club the other night and he told me he had dropped a packet at the casino when he was visiting you.’

Mrs Cardew frowned and Roddy put a hand to his mouth. ‘Oh, and I gave him my word not to let on. Please say you aren’t angry, Mrs Cardew. I really don’t think it was as much as he pretended.’

‘Roddy, you talk such nonsense. Edmund isn’t a gambler and I do wish you wouldn’t call him Teddy. It’s such a horrid name – so common, I always think.’

Verity smiled at the performance but she thought Mrs Cardew seemed genuinely upset and she had an idea that Roddy had annoyed her deliberately. Might this young man, despite his charm, turn out to be rather tiresome? She glanced at the older man who had also been watching her with amusement.

‘May I introduce myself, Miss Browne? It is difficult to get a word in when Roddy is around. I am Dominic Montillo. Please believe me, I am honoured to meet you. I take the New Gazette solely to read your reports from Spain.’

Verity went a little pink. She knew she was being flattered but could not pretend it was not pleasurable. This handsome man with his white mane of hair, bright black eyes and fleshy lips was fascinating. He was not quite English, she thought, and then remembered his name. He must be Spanish or Portuguese but he spoke like any upper-class Englishman – clipped and rather nasal.

‘Dom, come over here and pay me a compliment or I will be quite jealous,’ Virginia called playfully. He strode over dutifully and kissed her cheek. ‘There,’ she said, ‘I think you have met everyone now, Verity, except Simon of course. My husband had some urgent letters to finish off. Oh, here he comes now.’

A slightly stooped, distinguished-looking man in his early forties appeared with a thin woman dressed rather severely in brown.

‘Emily, Miss Browne! I do apologize for not having been here to greet you but Miss Berners keeps my nose to the grindstone.’

‘Oh really, Simon,’ Virginia said crossly, ‘you spend more time in Miss Berners’ company than mine. I should be jealous but I’m not.’

To Verity’s ears, this sounded like an insult. Was Miss Berners too plain to attract her husband? If that was the thrust of her remark, Miss Berners seemed not to mind or even to hear it. Verity looked at her. Dressed in a drab skirt and jacket over a blouse drawn tightly round her neck, she did look severe but she had good bones and, Verity guessed, a smile might transform her face and make her positively attractive. If Virginia was a little jealous perhaps she had, despite first impressions, a right to be.

Miss Berners disappeared. She was obviously not expected to have tea with the guests and Sir Simon, cup in hand, took Verity’s arm and guided her over to a window seat where they perched uncomfortably. He might not be loquacious like his wife but he knew how to ask questions and listen to the replies. Verity found herself recounting the horrors of Guernica and was surprised to find that it was something of a relief to do so. The conversation then turned to the condition of the poor, about which Sir Simon seemed to feel almost as strongly as Verity.

‘Did you know,’ Verity was saying, unconsciously putting on her lecturing voice, ‘that in our city slums malnutrition is killing more children than tuberculosis? Low-paid workers live on a diet of bread, margarine and tea, with a main meal of potatoes with a little stewed meat to give it flavour. Mothers seldom give their babies fresh milk, only condensed. Fruit and green vegetables are a luxury – and this isn’t because of the ignorance of the working-class housewife but because she is too poor to buy fresh food.’

She glanced round and blushed, realizing that her tone had become strident. All the chatter in the room had ceased and even Virginia was silent, staring at Verity in horror.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I did not mean to harangue you, Sir Simon.’

He looked at her with a half-smile, which she could not interpret, but it was Dominic Montillo who came to her rescue.

‘I do agree with you, Miss Browne. It is a scandal which needs to be addressed if we are not to be cursed by the next generation for having sat back and let them – the children of the poor – grow up stunted and weakened, morally and physically. You may not know it but Simon has invested heavily in the future by funding a foundation of which I am privileged to be the director. We are looking at ways to improve the health and physical wellbeing of our poor, particularly the children. We are well on our way to finding a cure for tuberculosis and we are demanding that the Government introduces compulsory vaccination against common child-killing diseases such as measles. In Germany they are already doing it. If we cannot breed healthy children, then our race will atrophy and we will deserve to give way to a better­fed, better-educated species from some other quarter of the globe. Our research shows that pauperism is hereditary. We have traced some pauper pedigrees which reach back four generations. There is no doubt there exists a hereditary class of persons who will not make any attempt to work.’

Verity was not sure she had quite meant all this when she had spoken about malnutrition.

‘I don’t think ...’ she began, but Montillo interrupted her, his eyes blazing.

‘We must be like the Spartans and rear an elite breed. The best children should be taken from their mothers when they are six or seven and brought up in a special school – hardened and prepared for ...’

‘That’s all very fine, Dominic,’ Virginia stopped him calmly but firmly. ‘When you men are drinking your port you can put the world to rights but now I am sure Emily and Verity want to go to their rooms and rest before dressing for dinner.’

Preceded by the butler, Lampton, and Virginia, they processed back into the hall and up a flight of stairs. Verity heard a strange mewing sound as she reached the landing. Virginia noticed her hesitate. ‘That’s Mah-Jongg. Come and see him. Lampton, take Mrs Cardew to her room. Emily already knows Jonggy, don’t you?’

‘Indeed I do, Ginny.’ It was clear from the way she said it that Mrs Cardew was not one of the animal’s admirers.

Virginia led Verity past the remains of the fourteenth-century windows and down a corridor to the lemur’s quarters. They consisted of a large glass-fronted cage with a private upstairs section reached by a ladder in which the animal could sleep out of public view.

‘I read about Mah-Jongg in Country Life,’ Verity said. ‘Did you bring him back with you from South America?’

‘No. Simon bought him for me at Harrods,’ Virginia replied, not seeming to think there was anything odd in this. ‘Isn’t he lovely? Jonggy, Jonggy, Jonggy ...’ she called, tapping the glass.

‘How does he get his exercise?’ Verity inquired.

‘We let him run about the house.’

Verity was startled. Swifts Hill was even more rum than she had imagined. She had nothing against animals – she badly missed not having a dog – but she did not know if she relished the idea of being surprised by a lemur as she dressed for dinner or climbed into her bed at night.

After further endearments – Virginia certainly seemed to love her strange pet – she took Verity to her room. ‘Here we are,’ she said, throwing open the door with a dramatic flourish. ‘I do hope you will be comfortable. It’s called the Venetian Room. We are over there.’ She gestured vaguely across to the other side of the gallery.

Verity entered one of the most lavish bedrooms she had ever seen. ‘It’s wonderful!’ she exclaimed. Round the walls were intricately designed panels which Virginia said had come from a Venetian palazzo. She pulled at a glass handle on one of the panels and Verity found herself looking into a huge walk-in cupboard. Another panel, embellished with false book spines, proved to be the door to the bathroom. It was more like an Italian tomb than a bathroom, panelled in what looked like marble but was in fact, Virginia said, Vitrolite. The bath itself was on a raised dais and behind it, in an alcove, the goddess Psyche stood resplendent and aloof.

‘Simon brought her home from Naples,’ Virginia said airily. ‘I have another god in my bathroom. Don’t you love her?’

‘I have never seen anything like it. It’s too grand for me but I’ll pretend I’m a principessa! May I have a bath now?’

‘Of course! I made sure, when Simon built this house, that we could all have baths at the same time and the water would always be hot.’

‘Even Mersham Castle, which is the grandest place I have ever stayed, only has one bath between three bedrooms and the water is never hot. Oh, Ginny, to have a bathroom for one’s personal use without having to go out of one’s room – this is bliss!’

Virginia looked pleased. ‘It doesn’t go against your political beliefs, Crumbles?’

‘I am sorry about all that, downstairs. I don’t know what came over me but Sir Simon is such a good listener.’

‘I can see he has fallen for you. If he’s bored by a woman – and he almost always is – he does not trouble to hide it. And just call him Simon. He thinks he’s a democrat and hates being “sirred”. I’ll leave you now, Crumbles. Dinner at eight but we meet in the drawing-room at seven thirty for cocktails. You’ll hear the gong.’

As Virginia left the room, Verity said, ‘Ginny, would you mind not calling me Crumbles? I don’t want to be more of a laughing stock than I am already.’

‘Of course! I’m sorry, I forgot. But you are not a laughing stock. Dominic seems to want to impress you, and Simon, who usually can’t stand my friends – well, as I said, I have never seen him so fascinated.’

When the door had closed Verity kicked off her shoes, threw herself down on the bed and whistled. This was some house! She thought she knew how the rich lived but Swifts Hill was a modern palace. She turned over and saw there was a telephone beside her bed. The only other time she had found a telephone by her bed was aboard the Queen Mary. Mersham Castle had only three telephones and the Duke would have had apoplexy if anyone had suggested putting one in his bedroom, let alone in the guest rooms. She wanted to call someone and the only person she could think of was Edward. There was a little notice telling her how to make a call and she soon found herself talking to the operator and placing a trunk call to London. It rang and rang until she remembered Edward was at Chartwell. She replaced the receiver disconsolately. It was no fun living in luxury if you had no one to discuss it with. She got up and turned on the bath taps, which seemed to be gold-plated, and dropped bath salts from a coloured bottle into the steaming water. She had a hunch that Edward might wrinkle his beaky nose and call Swifts Hill vulgar but to hell with that, she loved it.

The Lagonda overtook the little black Austin and surged ahead with an arrogance and grace which did much to ease Edward’s heart. Like Hamlet, he simply could not make up his mind. He was almost certain that Mr Churchill was going to offer him some sort of job which would make him responsible for his personal safety. He admired Churchill and when he was with him found his warmth and intelligence hard to resist. More importantly, he was convinced that Churchill was the only politician capable of leading the country if war came and the storm clouds were already visible on the horizon. The German Chancellor, Herr Hitler, was calling for lebensraum – living room – which appeared to mean colonies, and it was clearly only a matter of time before Germany united with Austria. Churchill had many enemies and if someone were to assassinate him – by no means an impossibility – Edward would blame himself if he had shirked the task of preventing it. On the other hand, Sir Robert Vansittart, the administrative head of the Foreign Office, had asked him to run a secret department keeping track of arms shipments and arms dealers. It was an important job and it was flattering to be offered it. If he did it well might he not be offered even more responsibility?

And yet, when it came down to it, neither option really attracted him. He knew his weaknesses: he was restless to a fault, impatient and easily bored. To be tied to a desk would be purgatory. To be tied to a man – even as fascinating a man as Churchill – might be as bad. As he took a corner at speed, almost blowing a bicyclist off his bike, he thought it might be more worthwhile to count his blessings – something his nanny had made him do when he was a child and fell into one of his sulks. The chief blessing was unquestionable: Verity was safe in England and not risking life and limb in Spain or on some other battlefield. He thought back to their love-making the previous day and, unconsciously, a grin lit up his face, sending deep creases from the corners of his mouth to his eyes. He let out a whoop and pressed his foot on the accelerator. If he was sure of only one thing it was that he loved Verity. He thought of her affectionately as a bantam – all flying feathers, fighting her corner and never surrendering. A Communist, a journalist and a woman who regarded bourgeois conventions such as marriage with suspicion and sometimes scorn. She never bored him.

Blessing number two was, of course, that he was wealthy enough to go his own way. He could perfectly well sit in his rooms in Albany and vegetate without having to worry about paying the bills, but he never even considered doing that. He wondered about giving up England and going to America or, better still, one of those countries on Europe’s borders. He fancied he would not be bored in Czechoslovakia or Poland. As he swung into the Chartwell drive he remained undecided on all but one point: he would not accept a position with Mr Churchill which would effectively clip his wings.

Such was the cunning of the old man – Churchill was sixty-two – that he greeted Edward as an old friend and not as a dependent. He took him into his study and talked, as only he could talk, about his ancestor, the Duke of Marlborough, whose biography he was writing, about the new Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain, and the ‘jackal’ Mussolini. He condemned the Government’s craven acceptance of Italy’s ‘victories’ in Abyssinia. ‘I admit that in 1922 I had hopes that Mussolini might become a force for good in the world. Italy seemed ungovernable when he came to power. Look at it now,’ he chuckled. ‘It is said even the trains run on time.’

‘What happened to change your mind?’ Edward asked.

‘I saw the violence with which he disposed of his enemies and his stupid pursuit of military glory. Dictators always need an external threat if they are to unite their people. Mussolini had to invent one. He promised them a new Roman Empire. What a shoddy thing it turned out to be.’

‘But you admired his patriotism?’

‘Patriotism is a dangerous sword which twists in the hand and often wounds the man who wields it but, I have to say, one may dislike Mussolini and yet admire his patriotic achievement. If our country were defeated, I hope we would find an equally indomitable champion to restore our courage and lead us back to our place among the nations.’

Churchill flattered Edward by taking him into his confidence and confessing his own weakness. ‘You see, my boy, I had hoped Neville would offer me a place in the cabinet if only to shut me up, but I thank God he has not. I would have accepted an offer if it had been made and regretted it ever after. I would have done what I could to influence him in his dealings with the dictators but I fear I would only have compromised myself. I must remain free to warn and chivvy the Government without being tarred by their policy of appeasing the bullies that swagger across our world making life intolerable for so many thousands.’ He turned on Edward his most solemn face. ‘My sources tell me of a new so-called “labour camp” in Germany, even more horrible than the ones we already know of. It’s at a place called Buchenwald near Weimar.’

He was interrupted by the butler, who announced a visitor.

‘Leonard! How good to see you,’ Churchill beamed, taking the visitor by the arm and guiding him into the room. ‘I don’t think you know Lord Edward Corinth? Lord Edward, this is Professor Blacker. He is a scientist attached to the War Office and of course he ought not to be talking to a reprobate like me,’ he added gleefully.

Blacker was a short, balding man of about forty with spectacles and a small military moustache. He glanced at Edward keenly. ‘That is your Lagonda in the drive, Lord Edward?’

‘It is.’

‘I thought as much. You passed me at great speed on the road.’

‘I do apologize, sir. My only defence is to say that the Lagonda has a will of its own. I hope my recklessness did not frighten you.’

The Professor, with a bad-tempered twist to his mouth, snorted derisively.

Churchill quickly broke in. ‘I have asked Lord Edward to join us because he has done some excellent undercover work for the Foreign Office while remaining quite detached from the department. You can trust him absolutely.’

‘If you say so,’ the Professor said, sounding unconvinced. ‘Please be aware, Lord Edward, that what I have to say must on no account be repeated to anyone else. More than my career depends on you being secret.’

‘You can count on it, Professor. You may not think it to look at me but I am accustomed to keeping secrets.’ Edward wondered what this self-important little man had to say that was so significant.

‘Very well then.’ Blacker appeared satisfied. ‘Mr Churchill is aware that I have wrestled with my conscience before coming here to talk to him.’ He spoke with a slight Scottish accent – Glaswegian, Edward thought.

‘I appreciate it, Leonard, and I can assure you that neither I nor Lord Edward will repeat a word of what you have to tell us.’

Blacker seemed to relax and sat himself down on the sofa beside Edward. Churchill paced about the room before coming to rest by the lectern he himself had designed and at which he wrote his books.

‘No, thank you,’ Blacker said brusquely when Churchill offered him a drink. ‘I am a teetotaller. My father took a wee dram here and a wee dram there so that by the end of the day he hardly knew whether he was on his head or his heels. I took the pledge on my sixteenth birthday and I have never touched a drop since though I confess, just lately, I have been sorely tempted.’

Edward guiltily replaced his whisky glass on the table beside him.

‘And I gather you cannot stay for luncheon, Leonard?’

‘No, I must be back at my desk by three o’clock for a meeting with the Minister.’

‘It’s very good of you to come,’ Churchill said, sounding subdued by this display of the Calvinist work ethic. ‘Perhaps we should get straight down to business.’

‘Indeed, sir.’ Blacker seemed to hesitate and then, visibly bracing himself, began to unburden himself. ‘If you will bear with me I shall begin with a little history. I assure you it is relevant. At the beginning of the century a German physician and socialist thinker by the name of Alfred Ploetz settled in Springfield, Massachusetts. He started a medical practice and began to breed chickens. He graduated to studying genealogy and human breeding. He coined the term rassenhygiene – racial hygiene. The name was changed soon after to eugenics, which somehow sounded less threatening. At the same time, quite independently, a German social theorist by the name of Alfred Jost was developing his theory that the state had an inherent right to kill the unfit and useless. He wrote an influential pamphlet entitled The Right to Death.’

‘How chilling!’ Churchill broke in. ‘I have read something of this. The basic premise is, as I understand it, that the race should be purified and degenerates eliminated. Of course, who decides who is degenerate is crucial. If I understand rightly, Leonard, this is the so-called science which the Nazis have adopted with such enthusiasm.’

‘The Nazis have, as you say, adopted this repellent philosophy to justify their persecution of the Jews. I have also had shocking reports that they are carrying out hideous experiments on the disabled and the mentally handicapped in their efforts to “purify” the race.’

Edward was deeply shocked. ‘I simply cannot believe what you say, Professor. I have long recognized that the Nazis are gangsters but surely ...’

‘I only tell you what I have been told but my sources are reliable,’ Blacker said grimly.

‘At least we ...’ Edward began but was interrupted by Churchill.

‘I wish our hands were clean, Lord Edward, but I very much fear they may not be. Tell him, Leonard.’

‘In America,’ Blacker continued remorselessly, ‘the same ideas were developed independently without anyone taking them seriously. A key figure is an American – a zoologist by the name of Charles Davenport. He grew up in Brooklyn Heights and suffered under a tyrannical father imbued with an exaggerated respect for God’s word as passed down to us in the Bible. As a young man he made a reputation of sorts as director of the Brooklyn Institute of Art and Science’s biological laboratory on Long Island. At a place called Cold Spring Harbor on the coast he further developed his studies of what became known as eugenics. He became obsessed with race and came to the conclusion that Nordic types were far superior to southern peoples such as the Spanish, Italians and, in particular, people with black skins.’

‘I have read about this kind of thing,’ Edward said. ‘These are the sort of madmen who gave Hitler the idea of the Aryan master race. I recall the fuss there was in Germany when Jesse Owens won four gold medals at the Olympic Games. Hitler was furious to see a black American beat his Nordic heroes and stormed out of the stadium.’

‘Precisely. Davenport developed the idea that each racial type possesses not only its own physical characteristics but also moral and intellectual ones which are not visible to the naked eye. These are passed down from generation to generation. The Germans, according to Davenport, are thrifty, intelligent and honest while the southern peoples are lazy, feckless and ... well, you get the idea.’

‘So why is Davenport important? Surely he’s just another madman?’ Edward inquired.

‘That would be true if he had not had the luck or the cleverness to get the backing of the Carnegie Institution. He persuaded it to fund a Biological Experiment Station at Cold Spring Harbor “to investigate the method of evolution”. Davenport made it quite clear he would be studying ways of purifying America’s racial stock. He hoped to develop a race of super-Nordics and keep out what he called the “cheaper races”.’

‘That’s disgusting,’ Edward interjected, ‘but, surely, that was all before the war. The Americans aren’t still funding such research?’

‘I am afraid they are. Davenport’s ugly eugenic visions attracted Andrew Carnegie who flung money at him, as did John D. Rockefeller and the Ford Foundation. All of which gave Davenport not just the wherewithal to continue his “experiments” but a degree of respectability. He explained that America needed to “purge its blood” and “eliminate” the “feeble-minded”, the poor, the crippled and the criminal. He offered up his theories as the "solution to America’s negro problem".’ Grimly, the Professor added, ‘You won’t be surprised to learn that he found much support, particularly in the Southern States. By the time America joined the war in 1918 several states had legalized eugenic sterilization. Before the war, German and American scientists worked closely together to refine eugenics into a “respectable” science. Schools were being taught eugenics illustrated with doctored photographs purporting to show children how to recognize “inferior” races. They invented the word “moron” to describe human beings regarded as being of sub­human intelligence. This led to further so-called scientific tests. By 1913 even the President, Teddy Roosevelt, was saying that “society has no business to permit degenerates to reproduce their kind”.’

‘I have never heard that English scientists got involved in this madness,’ Edward said.

‘That’s why I am particularly interested in Leonard’s story,’ Churchill said, sounding very subdued. ‘I have a confession to make to you, my boy. I was, for a short time, one of the deluded and I still feel guilty. Eugenics became very fashionable in the twenties. We had read about Darwin’s theories of evolution and the survival of the fittest. Francis Calton had taught that you could measure character and produced graphs and charts to “prove” that most foreigners were inferior to us Anglo-Saxons and that women could never be scientists. Complete balderdash, of course.’

‘But you opposed giving women the vote,’ Edward could not resist pointing out.

‘But not because they are inferior. They are often very much our superiors but their strengths and talents are different from ours. They can wield much more influence holding themselves above the political fray ... but I see you are laughing at me. I admit that I fought that battle and lost and it was probably a battle I ought not to have fought but it is easy to be wise after the event, young man, as you will discover.’

‘I am sorry, sir – please, do go on.’

‘Yes, well, where was I?’ Churchill was obviously put out. He did not like to be interrupted when he was in full flow. ‘In Calton, Darwin had a disciple who took his ideas much further than was justified by the science. He believed that mankind progressed through a constant struggle among nations with weaker races going to the wall, and his views were adopted by clever men like H. G. Wells and George Bernard Shaw.’

‘Shaw!’ Edward said contemptuously. ‘I hear he praises Hitler as the greatest man of his time.’

Churchill went on with his apologia. ‘We had heard of Gregor Mendel and his peas. If we could improve our maize, our wheat, our peas through selective breeding, surely we could improve our human beings? It seemed obvious to us that we had to improve our stock in order to provide strong, healthy young men to rule the empire. So many of the best of us had been killed in the war – like your brother, Lord Edward, and several young men close to me. My interpretation of eugenics was that we had to feed the population better and house working people in light, airy homes, not fetid slums. It seemed a democratic theory. The upper classes would have to justify their position in society or be replaced by fitter men.’

‘But in fact it was a gift to the dictators,’ Blacker put in.

‘I still think it is right that we should improve the health of our people but, of course, we could not know how these common­sense ideas would be perverted.’ Churchill sighed and hunched his shoulders. ‘When I was Home Secretary, I was persuaded to put my trust in a man called Ernest Lidbetter who had worked in Bethnal Green with the Poor Law Authority but who, I later discovered, was neither a scientist nor a doctor. He was very convincing. He believed that pauperism was hereditary. I admit I fell into the trap and believed his claptrap, though I soon realized that this was a gross error. Poverty is only hereditary because society makes it so. It is almost impossible for people to hoist themselves out of it. Without education, with bad health and no money how can a man improve his lot? When he is young and fit he gets a manual job which, in time, takes its toll on his health. The moment a man’s health begins to suffer from the rigours of his work, he can quickly become unemployable and quite useless to himself and to society. It seems ingrained in our society that the man who sits behind a desk as a clerk or, for that matter, a government minister looks down on the manual worker whereas we should respect him and improve the conditions under which he works.’

Edward wished Verity was here to listen to Churchill. She might not think he was the enemy of the people after all.

‘Lidbetter is still publishing what he would call scientific books on the subject of race and how poverty should not be alleviated by charity as it merely encourages pauperism,’ Blacker said indignantly. ‘We thought the man had been laughed out of court but it appears that here and in America he still has a following. In Britain, he has been repudiated by all respectable scientists and starved of funds – we have seen to that. In the United States, the Carnegies and the Rockefellers have no wish to be seen to be bankrolling the Nazis and are very slowly seeing the error of their ways. However, their money has allowed Lidbetter and his like to go much further than they ought.’

‘So if these people are being starved of money,’ Edward rejoined, ‘surely that means they won’t be able continue with their “research” or whatever they call it?’

That was what so alarmed me when I stumbled on this new “foundation”,’ Professor Blacker replied. ‘It has refinanced the eugenics movement in Britain and we suspect it has close links with Nazi scientists doing the same sort of experiments in Germany.’

‘So, just close it down,’ Edward said.

‘We can’t without some solid evidence,’ the Professor said in exasperation, ‘and that we have not been able to find. Money has gone to perfectly respectable scientists interested in eugenics but, as far as I can find out, the main laboratories are in Hamburg and beyond our reach. One thing though, Sir Simon Castlewood – you know who I mean, Lord Edward? The millionaire – appears to own what I understand is called a “beauty institute” in the South of France. It may all be above board. We don’t know for sure but it might be worth investigating.’

‘What do the French police say?’

‘The French police are not interested in stirring things up,’ Blacker said sourly.

‘So who runs it – this beauty institute?’

‘Its director is a plausible rogue called Dominic Montillo. He calls himself a cosmetic surgeon. To be fair, he has done some good work remodelling the faces of unfortunates with disfigurements. What else he does we do not know for sure but there is some suggestion that he carries out abortions, which are illegal in France as they are here, of course. Worse still, rumour has it that he has carried out castrations of the mentally retarded and even what the Nazis call “mercy killings”. Simple murder, in other words.’

‘He must be a monster! Montillo – is he English? He doesn’t sound English.’

‘He has a British passport, Lord Edward.’

‘Who else is involved?’

‘The Castlewood Foundation has the support of several MPs and at least one bishop but its driving force is Sir Simon. He makes all the important decisions himself. And why not? It’s his money.’

‘The authorities can do nothing?’

‘No,’ Churchill said decisively. ‘Castlewood is a well-respected philanthropist. He has sponsored several expeditions to the North and South Poles as you probably know from the newspapers. He’s popular with the public and there would be an outcry if he was accused of anything as disgusting as ... well, you understand. We would have to have overwhelming evidence to take any action against him. He’s seen as a force for good – someone who does something while others merely talk.’

‘What else do we know about him?’ Edward asked.

‘He’s a leading light in the Anglo-German Fellowship – Colonel Meinertzhagen’s organization – which, encouraged by the German Embassy, leaps to the defence of Nazi Germany at every opportunity,’ Churchill said, ‘but there is no evidence that he has broken the law, at least here in England. In any case, the last thing the Government wants is a row about science. The PM has too much on his hands to open a new can of worms. We don’t want any publicity about secret government laboratories and scientific establishments such as Bawdsey Manor or Porton Down. One question in the House about the Castlewood Foundation’s financing scientific research and MPs would feel they could name any of our secret establishments.’

‘Sir Simon lives at Swifts Hill in Kent, doesn’t he?’ Edward said meditatively.

‘That’s right,’ Churchill said. ‘Why, do you know him?’

‘I don’t but, as it happens, my friend Verity Browne is staying with the Castlewoods at this very moment.’

‘The journalist, Verity Browne?’ Churchill asked.

‘Yes, sir.’

‘I would very much like to meet her. I have admired her reporting from Spain though I don’t always agree with her conclusions.’

‘I fear she does not wholly approve of you, sir. She is a member of the Communist Party and is inclined to see you – if you will forgive me saying so – as the enemy.’

Churchill’s brow furrowed and then his face cleared and he chuckled. ‘What you tell me makes me even more interested in meeting her. Tell her I look forward to a spirited exchange of views.’

Blacker, impatient with this badinage, said roughly, ‘I shall leave you now, Mr Churchill ... Lord Edward.’ He gave a stiff little bow. ‘I have done what I can. It is now up to you to find out if there is anything ... which needs seeing to. I confess I am relieved to have done what I believe is my duty but, as you appreciate, I can go no further while I am attached to the War Office.’

It was a pompous little speech and Edward expected Churchill to show irritation but in fact he could not have been more gracious and showed Blacker out to his car with many kind words. On his return to the study, Edward asked point blank what he thought of him.

‘I do not presume to judge a man’s character from a few minutes’ conversation. I think you cannot understand what it means to the civil servants, Foreign Office officials and soldiers, airmen and sailors who make their way to Chartwell to air their concerns. They know they are right to follow their conscience but it nevertheless goes against everything they have been brought up to believe. It is very hard to betray a trust even if you are convinced that a greater trust is betrayed by keeping silent. You, Lord Edward, are lucky enough always to have been independent. I don’t just mean financially, though of course that is a rare blessing, but also – if I may put it so – emotionally. You can say what you want and choose whom you wish to serve, though I don’t doubt that when you do pledge your loyalty to an organization or person you are faithful to the end. Men like Leonard Blacker have less room for manoeuvre. They have served their superiors and their country faithfully. For them it is a very big step to come to an outsider such as myself, with what your Miss Browne would no doubt call an unsavoury reputation, to “spill the beans”. Only the most overwhelming imperative makes it possible for them to do so.’

Edward felt rebuked and wondered if Churchill was warning him that he had a choice which, once made, was irrevocable. If he accepted a permanent position with the Foreign Office he would be bound to do what was asked of him without questioning the rights and wrongs. If he chose to work for Churchill he would, Edward was sure, rightly demand his absolute commitment. And yet so far, puzzlingly, Mr Churchill had made him no offer and he was certainly not going to raise the subject. Perhaps this business with the Castlewood Foundation was some sort of test. As it happened, he was not unwilling to take on the job of investigating it if that was what Churchill wanted. It would give him more time to think about what he wanted to do in the long term. In any case, what Leonard Blacker had said was horrifying. He was sure that Britain had clean hands when it came to this perverted science. It could not be denied that there was anti-Semitism in Britain. It pervaded society from top to bottom. He found it obnoxious but it was a long way from the institutionalized policies of ‘racial hygiene’ pursued by the Nazis which were utterly unworthy of a civilized country. It was ironic, as Churchill had pointed out, that this new prison camp, Buchenwald, was situated so close to Weimar, the city of Goethe and everything that was to be admired in German culture.

‘Do I take it, sir, that you want me to do a bit of digging and find out what I can about this Foundation?’

‘I would be grateful. It’s not a police matter, at least not yet, but I don’t doubt our country’s enemies are behind it. If you can get me a few hard facts I can send a file to Special Branch and we can put a few spokes in some wheels.’

‘Do you suspect Simon Castlewood of being one of those enemies?’

‘I don’t know. I have met him and he seemed a pleasant enough man. His father was a rogue, fortunate to have died before he was bought to book, but the son seems to be a different type. I don’t want to jump to conclusions. He may be all right. I think he is probably an unwitting dupe of this man Montillo. These millionaires are surprisingly gullible, you know. He may not fully understand what he is financing.’

At Churchill’s insistence, Edward stayed for lunch and they discussed his investigation of the two Foreign Office murders that he had brought to a successful conclusion.

‘I have seen Sir Robert Vansittart only once recently,’ Churchill said. ‘As you know, he does not approve of me but I get the feeling that he is becoming disenchanted with the Government’s conduct of foreign policy.’

‘In what way, sir?’ Edward asked.

‘Neville Chamberlain, our new, energetic Prime Minister, and Lord Halifax have been circumventing the Foreign Office and making overtures to the Italians behind Anthony Eden’s back. They hope to make some sort of “deal”.’ Churchill spoke with studied scorn. ‘Lord Halifax sees Mussolini as an “honest broker” who will help bring about peace with Germany.’

‘And you, sir?’

‘It is a forlorn hope and probably a dangerous illusion which merely distracts us from facing reality. Mussolini is Herr Hitler’s jackal, as I have already said. He snaps at his stronger partner’s heels hoping to pick up scraps. I fear we are once again showing ourselves to be weak in the face of bullying.’

‘And Mr Eden ... Does he approve?’

‘No, I was talking to him last evening and he was exasperated. Chamberlain and he will come to blows. You cannot have the Prime Minister pursuing his own foreign policy behind his Foreign Secretary’s back. I have a great respect for the Prime Minister and I was glad to second his nomination as leader of the Conservative Party but, whereas we drifted to disaster under Stanley Baldwin, I believe we are now setting course for it with a determination that chills my blood.’

As he drove back through the peaceful countryside, Edward thought how difficult it was to believe that England might soon echo to the sound of falling bombs with the drone of enemy bombers drowning out the songs of the woodland birds. If Churchill was right, Britain would face a war with Germany for which it was ill prepared or, perhaps worse, a humiliating surrender without a fight. It did not bear thinking about. Instead he turned his thoughts to Verity. By a strange coincidence she was in a position to do some useful detective work, but how to get hold of her? She would be back in London on Tuesday so there was not much time if she was to find out anything at Swifts Hill. He was half-tempted simply to drive up there and ask to see her but that was too brazen. It would cause comment and he did not want to embarrass her. In any case, it might be better if, at this stage, he did not meet Castlewood and alert him to the interest he was taking in his affairs. He could write to her and she would receive his letter the next morning but, if for any reason it was delayed, it might fall into the wrong hands. A telegram would be too dramatic. Probably, after all, the best thing was to discuss it with her when she returned. If she suddenly started asking questions she might arouse Castlewood’s suspicions and put him on his guard.