Radio Girls(87)

“I suppose in the best of worlds, journalists and spies do both those things,” Hilda said. “That might make an awfully good Talk, now I think of it. But really, Ellis, will you help?”

“I’ll see what I can do,” he promised. “But I still think it’s an enormous waste of your enormous brains.”

“Ah well, it wouldn’t be the first time,” Hilda said.




Hilda and Maisie left soon after.

“I don’t feel like going straight home. Fancy a stroll?” Hilda asked.

They got out of the cab near Piccadilly and walked through the crowds of people leaving the theaters and streaming toward restaurants and nightclubs. It was strange, being in the midst of so much finery and happy chatter and thinking of attempts to clamp down on most of it. Strange, too, having a deeply private conversation in such a place, but no one could hear them.

“Miss Matheson, how did you know about Siemens and Nestlé, specifically? Did you know Hoppel and Grigson were friends?”

“I have a number of friends in a number of places and they know I like information that might look esoteric. So they send me things. And then other people tell me other things, and I ask questions. But you’re the one who’s really done the, if I may, lion’s share of the work here. I would never have had the time. I’m most grateful.”

“But it’s not just via friends, is it?” Maisie pursued. “You got some of that information through more official channels?”

“Ah. You’re asking about a certain organization, of which very few people know the membership?” Hilda grinned and blew a smoke ring. “It’s possible that a person whom you know has had something or other to do with said organization. As it happened, that person became known to T. E. Lawrence, just before the war—”

“Lawrence of Arabia?” Maisie gasped.

“He prefers to be called ‘Ned,’ actually,” Hilda said, then grinned fondly. “Unless it’s a formal occasion. Well, so, he was looking for a person who spoke Italian and German and was good with organization and whatnot to help set up an office for that said organization in Rome during the war, and so it went.”

“And . . . are you still . . . ?”

Hilda shook her head. “I’m telling you what I’m telling you because you’ve more than earned my trust, but understand I’ve not really told you anything. I only want to show you I trust you, because you are playing quite a dangerous game, and I’m afraid I’ve led you into it. You should at least be assured you are playing for the right side. Now, then, I think the next step is to hook in one of my journalist friends, someone to do a bit of snooping, get some real dirt to stick. Someone who doesn’t mind something a touch illegal, so long as the real crime is exposed.”

“How illegal?”

“Oh, just going into some offices and looking at files,” Hilda said, shrugging.

“That sounds like something a secretary could do. Isn’t it?”

“Miss Musgrave, I know you’re quite a young woman, but that sort of work is a bit out of your line.”

“Maybe not. Miss Jenkins, the teacher at my secretarial school, said all offices are arranged more or less alike. Know the system, and you can find whatever you need, on your first day. Then you look competent and you don’t have to ask too many irksome questions.”

“It’s far more complicated than that. There’s a great deal you’d have to learn. We don’t know how long it would take.”

“Can we try?”

Hilda took another long drag on her cigarette. “All right.” She smiled. “We can try.”




Maisie supposed she ought to be leery, or frightened. Instead, she was exhilarated. She did, however, hate keeping it all from Phyllida. Hilda’s warnings hung heavy on her, and Phyllida, though she was good at keeping secrets, would be even more enraged about the Fascists than Maisie and would have a harder time controlling it. There was some irony, Maisie thought, in withholding information for safety’s sake, but until they knew more, it felt the wisest move.

There was no keeping it from Phyllida, though, when a letter arrived for Maisie postmarked from Germany. Maisie had the wild thought that someone had found her out and was warning her off. Excited, she ripped open the letter. And shrieked. It was from Simon.

My dearest Maisie,

Can it really be three months since we spoke? I am sorrier than I can possibly say, especially as I was so boorish with you. And for no reason other than my concerns for family affairs and, I daresay, my own absurd ego. Only I do think of you, your cleverness and your devotion to the BBC. I do know you are determined to help make it something important, and this says more of you than I think you even know. My darling, I hope someday you’ll want to extend that same energy to me. I confess I’ve thought a few times over these dreary weeks of what you and I could do, were our energies combined. Conquer the world, I should think! Truly, you are so much more than I know you’ve imagined. But know that I have seen it and that I cherish it. I hope to be home soon and beg your forgiveness properly for all my stupidity and silence and begin to do the real work of winning your most invaluable heart.

That heart had become a jazz quartet in her rib cage.

“You’ll be careful though, won’t you?” Phyllida asked. “Don’t give away your heart without getting another in return.”