Hollow Crown Read Free

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