The Queen's Accomplice (Maggie Hope Mystery #6)(78)

Maggie smiled, a real one this time. Their last meeting in Washington hadn’t been perfect, but she and her aunt were both doing their best to bridge the distance. Maggie laughed when she saw the final item, at the bottom of the package: an issue of American Physical Society Journal, with a lead article by J. R. Oppenheimer. Of course—to Aunt Edith intellectual sustenance counts as much, or more, as physical.

K had jumped up on her dresser and was madly scratching at the other package. Wrapped in brown paper and tied with heavy twine, it had the name MARGARET HOPE written across it in heavy black, block letters. There were no stamps—it must have been hand-delivered. “Well, what have we here?” Maggie murmured, thankful for the distraction.



K stared up at her without blinking. “Meh!”

Maggie picked up the package; it was heavier than she’d expected. She froze. A red stain seeped from one corner, soaking the brown wrapping paper. It was blood—she knew the musty tang all too well.

She felt as though she were about to be sick, but took a shallow breath. She reached for the sterling silver letter opener on her desk, then sliced through the twine.

She pierced through the brown wrapping paper and tore it open, then lifted off the cardboard lid. Inside, there was a sheet of folded paper. This, too, was stained with blood. And then—something—wrapped in waxed paper that had parted wide enough to reveal its glistening red contents. It gave off a strong meaty smell, and K tried to stick his head into the box to get a better sniff.

“No!” Maggie screamed in horror, her cry echoing in the sparely furnished room.

She backed away, unable to tear her eyes from the bloody organ, smothering the howl she wanted to make by clamping her hands over her mouth. Realizing K was trying to investigate the obscene object, she scooped him up, then set him on the floor, none too gently. K jumped silently up onto the bed to regard her, and the package, with inscrutable eyes.

Maggie swallowed hard and with shaking hands lifted the letter. She unfolded it, staring at the spidery handwriting.



Dear Miss Hope:

As you may have deduced by now, I have decided to send the working women, who have always ruined my life, to their Maker (or to the Devil, as the case may be).

Even though I’ve taken on the legacy of Jack the Ripper, in homage to his killing of whores, I consider myself a rational and erudite man. However, the so-called modern woman enrages me.

You want to keep the advantages of being women, while stealing the strengths of men.

You are intent on transforming our patriarchy into a matriarchy, which denies the intrinsic worth of Englishmen.

And so the once proud, virile, and impregnable British Empire has been turned into a woman, one who is submitting to the rape of the Nazis.

I may sound like a madman, but I am but a rational, intelligent English gentleman who has been driven to murderous insanity by modern women.

Do you want to know who’s to blame for the Blackout Beast killings?

Look in the mirror, Miss Hope.

It is you, and the rest of your modern sisterhood, who are at fault.

You did this.

And I will annihilate you all.





Chapter Fifteen


“This!” Maggie tossed the grisly box, which she’d wrapped in a white pillowcase, onto the low table in front of Durgin. “This package came today. It was left. At my house. My house!” She crossed her arms tightly across her chest, hugging herself, heart thudding.

Durgin looked up from a stack of papers. “And what do we have here?”

“See the viscous red liquid leaking out of said package?” Maggie fumed. “Well, it’s blood. Blood from a kidney, if I’m not mistaken. And a human one at that, if I’m to believe the accompanying note!”

Durgin put down his tea and peered closer, opening the pillowcase, his eyes widening at the sight of the bloody box. He squinted down at it, as if it were Pandora’s and contained all the horrors of man—then back up at Maggie, seeing the stricken look in her eyes.

“Do you think—do you think it could be…Brynn’s?” she managed.

“There’s no way to know.” His expression of sympathy was the last straw. She ran out of the room, pressing her hand against her mouth to stifle her weeping.

In the ladies’ W.C., she retched into the toilet, bringing up the bad coffee. Finally, when she was done, she made her way to the sink to wash her face. As she spat water into the sink, she looked at her reflection. Look in the mirror, Miss Hope, the letter had read. She waited until the urge to vomit again had passed. Then she dried her hands and did what she could with her hair before exiting.



Durgin was in the hall, waiting for her. “I asked the secretary, Mrs. What’s-her-name, to make you tea.”

Maggie nodded. “At least I didn’t vomit on a crime scene,” she tried to joke as she walked unsteadily back to their shared office. His hand closed on her upper arm as he guided her steps. She didn’t shrug him away. Human touch felt terribly important at that moment.

Durgin walked her away from the grisly package and to the far sofa. “Where did you find it?”

She turned her face from the package. “In my bedroom.”

He perched on the sofa arm beside her. “Did you see who delivered it?”

“No. My flatmate found the package on the doorstep and brought it upstairs.”