The Queen's Accomplice (Maggie Hope Mystery #6)(101)

Chuck’s mouth hung open in a perfect circle. “How do you know? And where is he now?”

“He’s in police custody,” Maggie said matter-of-factly. “Charged with multiple homicides. Look, I’ll be in touch as soon as I can,” she added, giving David a hug.

“Maggie, this is madness,” he protested.

“And you—” She dropped to her knees. “Be good for Chuck and Griffin, K, promise? I’m counting on you,” she said, rubbing his head. The orange cat began to purr. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

“You’re leaving?” Chuck exclaimed. “What? Now? Wait—where? Why?”



Maggie was pulling on her coat. “I’ll be back as soon as possible. Please hold down the fort while I’m away.”

She looked to Durgin. “Let’s go.” As the door closed behind her, David, Chuck, Griffin, and even K all stared at one another in shock.

“Well,” David muttered. “At least she’s wearing a particularly lovely Chanel suit.”





Chapter Twenty


The art-deco apartment’s rooms were fashionable, but dusty and unused—the way the Hess family had left them the last time they’d visited—a strange time capsule. The sun was setting, casting an orange glow over the walls.

Elise went to the room that had been used as her father’s study and located a particular bookcase. She pulled on one of the leather-bound volumes, Voltaire’s Candide.

Nothing happened.

Then she gave one side of the bookcase a push.

It spun, revealing a small secret room, complete with a low bed, a desk, and a chair. She walked inside. Closing the bookcase behind her, she turned the succession of locks.

Sitting on the bed, she pulled out the rosary from her dress pocket and began to pray.

—

At Beaulieu, Sarah and Hugh were being treated to a special meal: rare pink roast beef and golden Yorkshire pudding, with all the trimmings. They dined alongside Miss Lynd, Philby, and some of the agents to be dropped into other Nazi-occupied countries that night. There was even wine, champagne and then an excellent Bordeaux, from Lord Montagu’s Beaulieu estate cellars.



The couple had just finished their coffee when a courier burst into the dining room. “They’re ready for you.”

“It’s time,” Miss Lynd said.

—

Maggie raised her hand for a taxi as Durgin held on to her valise.

A black cab pulled up. “Where to?” asked the driver, a large bald man with the broken and scarred face of an ex-boxer.

As Durgin put her case in the trunk, Maggie settled herself in the backseat. “Buckingham Palace, please.” To Durgin she said, “Come on!”

While the cab moved out into traffic, the driver began to hold forth in a broad Cockney accent—on Winston Churchill, on Anthony Eden, on Franklin D. Roosevelt. He continued with the problems with rationing and the black market, following up with exactly what was wrong with films these days.

“Yes, yes, of course,” Maggie answered absently, her mind on other things.

“American, ’re you?” he asked. “What’re you doin’ ’ere, love? Bit of sightseeing? Come to see the ’oles and the rubble?”

“No,” Maggie replied, taking a dented tube of lipstick from her handbag and pressing some on her lips. “I’m going to see the Queen.”

“Ah, o’ course you are, miss.” The driver lifted his cap and whistled. “Whate’er you say, miss.”

He let the two passengers out at the gates of Buckingham Palace. The workmen were still repairing the craters left by the bombs.

Maggie walked to the entrance. “Miss Margaret Hope and Detective Chief Inspector Durgin for the Queen,” she declared, standing tall.

The guard on duty, a lanky man with gray-streaked chestnut hair and a small paunch, began to laugh. “I’m sorry, miss. But to see the Queen, you need an appointment.”



“I have this.” Maggie drew a card from her handbag. It was the one Queen Elizabeth had given to her at the tea. “Her Majesty said to show this card if I ever needed to see her in an emergency. And we must see her. Now.”

—

Queen Elizabeth’s private sitting room was much smaller, plainer, and less formal than the Blue Drawing Room, with glowing fringed lamps and silver-framed photographs of family and dogs on every surface. The corgis were all asleep in a large basket by the fire, snoring noisily, and the Queen was knitting a soldier’s sock.

“Miss Hope!” she called out in surprise as the butler led Maggie inside. The Queen put her knitting to one side. “To what do I owe this pleasure?”

“Your Majesty.” Maggie curtsied. Durgin made a stiff bow. “You said if I ever needed anything—”

“Yes, yes, of course.” She nodded. “Give us the room,” she told her butler.

“Yes, ma’am,” he said, walking out backwards.

When the double doors had clicked shut, Maggie began. “Ma’am, I know this is last-minute and quite extraordinary—”

“We do happen to live in extraordinary times, Miss Hope.”

“Well, ma’am, you see—I need to go to Paris. On a matter of national security, as well as a personal emergency. It’s a full moon, and I know there’s an SOE flight scheduled to leave sometime around midnight. Would it be possible for you to get me on it?”