The Queen's Accomplice (Maggie Hope Mystery #6)(3)
Maggie knew the Morse coding systems intimately, knew how to “unscramble the indecipherable.” What looked to be problems in a given message might occur simply because an agent had transposed two letters, or misspelled a word. Each agent had a characteristic set of mistakes, and Maggie had quickly come to learn each one’s unique style of communication. For example, some agents routinely misspelled certain words—bad habits from childhood. Then there were the trademark sign-offs; a few liked to end with a simple Goodbye, while others sent Lots of Love, and yet another’s was Tallyho!
Maggie was worried about this particular message, from agent Erica Calvert, a young geologist who’d made a midnight boat landing on the beach near Normandy a few weeks before. Something was…not right. Calvert had studied earth science at St. Hilda’s at Oxford and was considered an expert on sand grains. But this particular message from her—well, Maggie had never seen anything like it. It was what they called “mutilated,” which might have been caused by atmospheric conditions. But Erica’s writing was also uncharacteristically clipped.
Most troubling was that Calvert hadn’t included her secret security check, carried by each agent, which gave SOE contacts back in Britain absolute confirmation the wireless operator was transmitting freely. Before leaving for a mission, each agent was assigned both a bluff check and a true check, which he or she had to insert into every message. These took the form of spelling mistakes or secret signals, agreed on with SOE, to show the sender had been captured.
All right, stay calm, Maggie thought as fear prickled up her spine. Let’s look at this logically. She could see four explanations for the oddities of Erica Calvert’s message.
One: The message had been transmitted by someone else in Erica’s network, but on Calvert’s set—and had left off the security code.
Two: Calvert was on the run and operating in difficult circumstances, which changed her fist, and she didn’t have time for the security code.
Then, three: Calvert had been captured. She was operating under German control and so had deliberately omitted the security code to alert SOE she’d been compromised.
And there was four—the worst-case scenario: Calvert was dead and the Germans were using her radio and codes with impunity.
When Maggie went to the overflowing file cabinet and looked up Calvert’s former messages, she found not only that Calvert had sent more than a dozen near-perfect ones since arriving in France, but also that she’d never forgotten her security check before. Not once. Damn, Maggie swore. What’s going on over there, Agent Calvert? Tout va bien?
There was the click of heels on the scratched parquet floor, and then a woman’s sweet, breathy voice inflected with a Welsh accent. “Excuse me? Miss Hope?”
Maggie slipped Calvert’s message into a manila folder, then looked up, into the eyes of a petite, curly-haired brunette named Bronwyn Parry, kitted out in an ATS uniform. A gap between her two front teeth and a sprinkling of freckles across her nose only added to her charm. Bronwyn had been one of Maggie’s best students at the SOE paramilitary training camp, near the town of Arisaig on the western coast of Scotland; she’d excelled at jujitsu, Fairbairn-Sykes knife fighting, and detonating explosives. Maggie had always liked Brynn.
“Just Maggie is fine now. How did the interview go?” Bronwyn had finished interviewing with Miss Lynd, one of the final hurdles before being sent to Beaulieu, the “Finishing School” for all SOE agents.
“It went well,” the young woman replied in her broad Cardiff accent, “but I don’t have a place to stay in London.” Her usually open face was troubled. “All these posh girls can book a room at Claridge’s or stay at Daddy’s pied-à-terre.” She rolled her eyes. “Meanwhile, the rest of us have to scrum for a place….”
Maggie nodded. She knew firsthand how SOE was a curious cross section of social class and privilege.
Brynn shrugged. “And Miss Lynd insists I come in again tomorrow—for yet another interview.”
“I wish I could help you, Brynn,” Maggie offered with sincerity. “I’d ask you to stay with me, but my own flat was smashed in a raid—I’m bunking with friends myself.”
Brynn opened her handbag and pulled out a Woodbine cigarette and enamel lighter. She stuck the cigarette between her lips, lit it, and inhaled. “What should I do, sleep on a bench in Regent’s Park?” She puffed out a series of blue smoke rings.
“Well, that option might prove a bit nippy. Alas, SOE doesn’t provide temporary lodging—but here’s a place to try.” Maggie rummaged through the left-hand desk drawer, through an old bottle of clear nail polish for stocking runs, two rationed sugar cubes saved in an envelope, and a battered box of paper clips, until she found a business card: THE CASTLE HOTEL FOR WOMEN: Temporary Lodging for Ladies and the address in heavy black ink.
She handed it to Brynn. “You can call from here to see if there are any vacancies for tonight. Miss Lynd tells me a number of SOE interviewees have stayed there. Here, use this phone,” she said, pushing a green one toward the Welsh girl.
As Brynn came around the desk, they both heard a bellow. “Meggie!” a gruff male voice boomed from behind a thick wooden office door. “Meggie!”
Maggie sighed, then picked up Calvert’s file and rose. She walked the strip of threadbare carpet through the dim passageway, then pushed at the half-closed office door.