Knob-Head

Empire and world interest focused last week on a tiny old man with a knob of a head, thin greying hair and gold-rimmed spectacles. This was the mysterious "intervener" in the divorce case of Mrs. Simpson. It was he who alone seized and exercised a right possessed by every British subject after a decree nisi of divorce has been granted in the Kingdom, namely the right at any time in the following six months to tip off the King's Proctor that there is something fishy about the case and demand that the Attorney General reopen it with a view to having the final decree of divorce blocked, thus leaving husband and wife united in what witty A. P. Herbert, M. P.. made the title of a divorce novel -- Holy Deadlock.

A ripple ran round the London court last week as the intervener's name was at last revealed to be Francis Stephenson. On Dec. 9, King Edward, then wrestling with the problem whether or not to abdicate, was told that an intervention had been entered which might leave Mr. & Mrs.

Simpson holy deadlocked, and on Dec. 10 His Majesty decided to abdicate. On Dec. 14 the knob-headed little intervener moved to withdraw his intervention. He was in court last week to explain his series of actions -- so suggestive of a successful effort to bamboozle an overwrought man in love, especially since knob-head Stephenson plies the trade of managing clerk in a firm of London lawyers whose important clients unquestionably sided with the Rt. Hon. Stanley Baldwin.

Emotion, not facts, carried the Prime Minister to magnificent success in the Abdication Crisis, and last week Intervener Stephenson explained his actions entirely in terms of most convincing British emotion. "I had not an ounce of respect left for Mrs. Simpson," he sturdily declared. "It was just that I was so much moved by the words of His late Majesty's broadcast.

When I heard His Majesty's final words --'I cannot carry on without the woman I love--I realized I still had respect tor him. ... I had enough loyalty left for Edward to let me cease doing anything that might annoy him."

In his wig and gown Sir Boyd Merriman,* presiding in Court last week, fussed about, patiently searching for some peccadillo or infraction. A small one would testify to his conscientiousness and not impede dismissal of the intervention. Suddenly he fastened upon the fact that Mrs. Simpson, although she had a flat in London, got her decree nisi out at rural Ipswich. Last week the judge badgered her Empire-famed and highly paid counsel, Norman Birkett, K. C., upon this point.

To breathless lay spectators the implication of the Court's questions seemed to he that if there was anything fishy about the "residence" of Mrs. Simpson at Ipswich-- which was of only a few days duration-- that is, if she was really a resident of London and had just skipped out into the country in an effort to dodge reporters, then that tiny but grim legal point could make the whole divorce fishy and perhaps void.

With the experience of a great K. C., eminent Norman Birkett, after fencing with the judge for just the psychologically right number of minutes, stated bluntly that Mrs. Simpson had gone to Ipswich for exactly the reasons the Court seemed to suspect.

"Well, that is very frank--now I understand it!" gasped Sir Boyd Merriman, President of the Court, and instead of refusing to dismiss the intervention he promptly dismissed it.

It is possible, improbable that someone else may enter an intervention before April 27, the date on which Mrs. Simpson's decree nisi will otherwise become a final divorce. In messages reaching England last week the Duke of Windsor particularized his wedding plans, named a date early in May, expressed strong desire that the bridal car shall be chauffeured by George Laclbrook and guarded by Inspector David Storier of Scotland Yard. These two one-time constant attendants upon Edward and Mrs. Simpson made off to England as soon as they could and last week "were holding their ground. Candidate for honors as ''the Englishman who most dislikes Mrs. Simpson" is the detective who was assigned to escort her on her flight to France. He rode in a speeding, zigzagging Buick for some 23 hours with the exasperated, nerve-racked American whose lover was about to abdicate, and who kept telling the detective he was a stupid Scotland Yard flatfoot, had not been smart enough to enable her to give reporters the slip.

This popular hero, Inspector Evans, now serves the Duke & Duchess of Kent.

The Duke of Windsor has not yet paid rent on Castle Enzesfeld, although its Rothschild owners left some weeks ago, a polite hint. By last week Austrian police, correspondents and such Government officials as have frequent contact with His Royal Highness had in fact soured on Edward. Typical comment: "He gives orders to everybody, shouts and gets furious if police, railway officials and the rest don't jump. The de luxe through express trains have to be stopped to put him down or pick him up from tiny ski stations, something neither the President nor the Chancellor of Austria would ever ask. He doesn't even spend money in Vienna. Yesterday he went shopping for jewelry all day, pawed over priceless things for hours, then made his only purchase at a hardware store--a 60-c- flashlight, because the night before the electric lights at the Castle went out. Still an Austrian should not blame him--think of all he lost, or was cheated of in England."

In chirpy trans-Channel telephone conversation with a Mayfair friend last week, "Kitty," Baroness Rothschild observed of the Duke of Windsor: "As far as I'm concerned, anyone can have him anytime."

*No relation of Mrs. Simpson's famed ''Aunt Bessie'' Merryman who took the Associated Press for a sleighride with one of her ladylike Baltimore devices during the Crisis. Asked repeatedly if her niece had fled England at a time when she had fled, Aunt Bessie kept insisting "Mrs. Simpson is in the country." When Mrs. Simpson was finally located in France, Aunt Bessie explained with a clear conscience: "She and the King asked me to say what I did. I said 'she is in the country and she was--you see she was 'in the country in France. I didn't say she was in England."

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