Hollow Crown by David Roberts

for a country bumpkin. The silence
with which he listened to Edward’s account of his conversations with Molly suggested not disbelief but ironic detachment, as if he had heard every story ever told but was quite prepared to
hear them again. As Edward completed his account of what had happened the previous night, there was silence. Lampfrey regarded him with clear grey eyes which seemed to weigh him up and judge him.
He was glad that, on reflection, he had decided to tell the truth – though not quite the whole truth. He doubted whether he could have withstood for long the disconcerting habit the Inspector
had of leaving long silences after a question had been very fully answered. It encouraged the witness to tell more than was wise or reveal himself through some inappropriate joke or comment about
someone else.
    While he was waiting to be interviewed by the Inspector, Edward had had another word with Scannon. The latter had spoken to Joe Weaver and then to the Chief Constable who had been told why it
was necessary the press should be kept in ignorance of Molly’s death for as long as possible. They were bound to find out sooner or later – there would have to be an inquest for one
thing – but, if the coroner was able to find that she had died of an accidental overdose of veronal, there wouldn’t be much of a story. In the meantime, it was agreed that every
assistance was to be given to Inspector Lampfrey short of telling him in detail the contents of the stolen letters. Edward would never have agreed to anything less. He was in an awkward enough
position as it was, without putting himself absolutely in the wrong by withholding information from the police. There was one thing he held back from the Inspector and that was finding Catherine
Dannhorn in his bed when he had got back from his late-night interview with Molly.
    He had not had a chance of talking to Dannie. Rather annoyingly, he had discovered, when he had gone down to breakfast, that she had ridden out early with Boy Carstairs and had not yet returned
and, it was to be supposed, remained in ignorance of Molly’s death. However, he assumed she would not volunteer that she had been in his bed instead of her own. In fact, there were several
reasons for his deciding to be silent on this one point – perhaps too many reasons to be entirely convincing. He had been told as a child that if one decided to make an excuse for behaving
badly, then one should limit it to one. The more excuses one made, the less weight they carried. But, of course, he wasn’t actually lying; merely being gentlemanly. Gentlemen do not talk
about their sexual adventures. But this wasn’t it exactly. He also did not wish to seem promiscuous, unscrupulous or unprincipled. He might not have much respect for middle-class morality but
he fancied the Inspector would look at him with those cool eyes of his and find him wanting. What this all boiled down to was that he was embarrassed. It was not like him to jump into bed with a
woman he had only known a few days and whom he had never spoken to at any length, let alone kissed. His escapade, as he termed it in his own mind, was lust pure and simple. Could lust be pure, he
wondered? He wasn’t certain it was even simple now he came to think about it. His feelings for Dannie were surely more complex than lust, weren’t they? He had been hit by a thunderbolt;
he was obsessed, he was captivated – all these; but he was not ‘in love’. He was almost sure he was not in love.
    ‘I see,’ Lampfrey said after a pause which seemed to stretch out until kingdom come. ‘So when you left Mrs Harkness at . . . ’ he consulted his notes, ‘twelve
fifteen, she did not seem to you suicidal?’
    ‘No, she was upset – no, not upset exactly but nervous, strung up. But she specifically said to me that we would continue our conversation in the morning.’
    ‘That certainly doesn’t sound like a suicide but I suppose she might have lain