The Queen's Accomplice (Maggie Hope Mystery #6)(75)

“No!” Elise cried after Fausten. “Come on, arrest me! Arrest me, you Nazi bastard! If you let me escape, they’ll send you to the Eastern Front!”

Fausten turned on the heel of his gleaming black boot and stalked away, a black figure against the dazzling snow.

“Let me go,” Elise sobbed. “I need to go back. Do you know what they’ll do to my father if I go missing?”

Her captor was silent a moment, as if considering how much to tell her. “We’re working with your father. He was instrumental in setting up this escape.”

“What? They’ll kill him!”

“They might,” the man agreed bluntly. “Then again, they might send him to a camp. Or perhaps they’ll leave him be. As Hitler’s favorite conductor, he still wields power.” He clamped a wet handkerchief over her mouth and nose. She fought for a moment, then slumped down in the seat, eyes closed, breathing deep, still at last.

“Good God, who is this girl?” demanded the man behind the wheel. “And why’s she so fucking important?”

The man in back shrugged. “I don’t know, but the orders for her come from London—and they’re straight from the Prime Minister himself.”

—

Brynn was groggy, but she was sure she had heard something—and cracked open her eyes to see the door close; then she heard the sound of it being locked from the outside.



She tried to move, but her limbs resisted. She’d been drugged again. That must be it. Her heart was racing; she could hear her pulse drum in her ears.

Every sense alert, she stayed perfectly still, waiting. When her heart had stopped pounding, she sat up, carefully, slowly. Everything ached. Her head throbbed. She could swear there was some sort of smell in the room—a lingering odor she half-recognized.

Brynn looked around, not knowing if it was morning, noon, or night. The chamber pot had been replaced by a clean one. The candle had been lit.

She made her way over to the dressing table, the stone floor damp under her bare feet. On it was a tray with a pot of tea, a mug, and a plate of cold toast. Well, at least I won’t starve. And if it’s drugged, at least I won’t die hungry. She drank the tea straight from the pot. It was lukewarm and dribbled down her chin, but she didn’t care. When she had drunk her fill, she crammed toast into her mouth, margarine smeared across her lips.

Only when she was sated did she realize there was a note underneath the tray. She plucked at it with trembling hands. It was typed.

Dear Miss Parry,

You must not call out. You must not try to escape.

The Blackout Beast



The “Blackout Beast”? Is this some sort of horrible joke?

Wiping at her face with her sleeve, Brynn began to pace back and forth in the small room, her feet and the hem of her gown becoming dirtier as she did.

You must not try to escape, the note had warned.

Well, bugger that, Brynn decided. She ran to the door, flung herself against it, pounding it with her fists. Nothing happened; it didn’t budge.



Her knees buckled and she slid down the length of the door.

People will be worried, she reminded herself. They must be looking for me. But she’d told her mother and sister she was going off on a mission and they wouldn’t hear from her for a while. She didn’t really know anyone in London. She’d missed her appointment at SOE, but they probably wrote it off as nerves or last-minute panic and desertion. Who would be looking for her? She was a fool to think so.

She felt light-headed once again, a tinny buzz in her ears. Must think. The walls were made of rough stone. Methodically, she pushed on each and every stone to see if any would give. No. She threw herself back on the bed, refusing to let herself cry. Think, think. She squeezed her eyes shut, frantic.

She opened them again, staring up at the ceiling. It was low and plaster. Was that a small, nearly imperceptible opening in one corner? She was too short to reach it, but she dragged the bed over, scrambled onto it, then reached up. The opening was well camouflaged, but it was a pipe, a copper pipe. The pipe was how she was being drugged, she realized. She was being gassed.

She ripped the flounce from the hem of her nightgown and stuffed it inside the pipe.

No more Sleeping Beauty now. Next time you come, you Beast—or whoever you are—I’ll be ready.

—

After taking leave of her father, and cheering herself up with a cup of tea and hot soup in the cafeteria, Maggie used the public telephone in the hospital’s lobby to call in to Durgin at MI-5.

“We’ve booked Max Thornton and brought him in,” he told her, “but the devil’s still being processed. If you need to go to the SOE office, do it. Take your time. I’m going to let him stew in a very small cell.”



Maggie took the Tube to the Baker Street stop, then went to the SOE office to see if there was any news of Agent Calvert and to go over Brynn’s files once more. As usual, the air in the offices was freezing. She could hear other people, but the reception room at least was empty. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught a scrawled message: DAVID GREENE AT NO. 10. TELEPHONED. PLEASE RETURN CALL.

Is this about Max? She dialed the number and waited to be put through. When she finally reached David, he sounded relieved. “You’re a hard woman to get ahold of, Mags,” he scolded her.