The Queen's Accomplice (Maggie Hope Mystery #6)(54)

With the word gas, Maggie made the connection. “You’re the man who also owned the building in Pimlico—the one that blew up due to a problem with the gas line.”

Frank blanched. “It wasn’t my fault….”

Mark interjected, “The Met police are on it,” he said, shooting Maggie a significant look. “We need to focus on our case.”

Maggie nodded and looked down at the book. “It says here that Brynn Parry is staying in 745. May we see her room?”

“It’s been cleaned any number of times….”

“Why would it have been cleaned if Brynn Parry never checked out?” Maggie asked.

“We’re not the most organized around here, as you may have guessed….”



“We’d still like to see the room,” Maggie insisted.

“Of course,” Dr. Frank agreed, rising. “Please, follow me.”

—

The doctor procured an enormous brass ring bristling with different-shaped keys from his desk drawer and set off. Maggie and Mark followed him into the rickety elevator, then through the hotel’s winding passages.

Frank unlocked the door to room 745. The narrow bed was neatly made with a faded quilted coverlet.

Maggie and Mark examined the room and adjoining bath but found nothing. Maggie stopped at the windowsill. Down below, a horse-drawn cart proclaimed: MIKE’S GRINDING SERVICE—KNIVES, SCISSORS, GARDEN TOOLS—SHARPENED.

“What’s that?” she asked, pointing across the way to a matching shabby red-brick building set off the street.

“Ah,” Dr. Frank said, his round face creasing. “Our sister property. Brother property, really, as it’s an all-male residence hotel. I own it as well.”

Directly across was a window with the curtains open, a telescope pointed toward the room. A voyeur. A Peeping Tom. Maggie gestured to Mark. “Look,” she urged, pointing at the telescope.

“Do you know who that particular room belongs to?” Mark asked the doctor.

“Yes, it belongs to one of our long-term residents, Mr. Leonard Roth.” Frank lowered his voice. “He’s a Jew, you know,” he confided. “Not one of those Zionist ones, of course—a German Jew, one of the good ones. His family’s lived a few generations in England—you can be sure I checked.”

“We’d like to see his room,” Maggie declared. “Now.”

—



Across the street, in Leonard Roth’s room, they found not only a telescope, its gaze fixed on the women’s rooms across the way, but several charcoal drawings of women in various states of undress.

“Oh, dear,” Frank murmured in distress. “You don’t think—”

“We’ll need to speak with Mr. Roth.” Maggie handed the drawings to Mark to place in his briefcase. By the bed, they found a stack of writings by Jean Genet, Lawrence Durrell, and the Marquis de Sade.

“Look,” Maggie said, picking up a book on the dresser: The Fantasies of Mr. Seabrook, with photographs by Man Ray. The cover showed a naked young woman bound in black leather and ropes, her mouth gagged.

In the nightstand, Mark found French pornographic magazines featuring women in collars and restraints. Maggie opened one of the dresser drawers: hoods, gags, several paddles, and a cat-o’-nine-tails. “Well, it seems our Mr. Roth is quite the libertine.”

“I’m sorry you had to see this, Maggie.” Mark’s face was grave. “No lady should even know about this sort of thing.”

Oh, please. “I’ve read Lady Chatterley’s Lover and Fanny Hill, you know—I’m not a child.” Then, of Frank, she asked, “Where does Roth work?”

“The BBC,” the doctor answered, unable to tear his horrified gaze from their discoveries. “He’s a wireless announcer.”

“I’ll make a call,” Mark told Maggie. “Have him picked up.”

She nodded. “And please ring Durgin to say we’ll meet him at MI-Five.”





Chapter Ten


Two undercover MI-5 officers were dispatched to the Broadcasting House, the home of the BBC on Langham Place, and brought back Leonard Roth. He was tall and slim and somewhere in his forties. He was a handsome man, in a slick, unctuous way, with too much sandalwood cologne and hair crème.

“All right, same as before,” Durgin warned Maggie, eyes narrowing. “Mr. Standish and I will do the questioning—and you may watch through the mirrored glass.”

“And, as before,” Maggie countered, “I’d prefer to be in the room and contribute to the interrogation.”

“Sorry, Miss Tiger,” Durgin told her, not unkindly. “And I’m sorry you had to see the sorts of things you found in his apartment.”

Oh, for heaven’s sake. “So, let me get this straight—you’re not worried about my seeing the corpses of murdered women, but you are worried about my seeing writings and photographs about sex? Sex trumps death? I’d say that’s rather puritanical, Detective. And here I thought we Yanks had cornered the market on that.”

“If Roth’s our Blackout Beast, there will be stories disclosed you might not have the stomach for, Miss Tiger.”

“If you hadn’t noticed, Detective, I don’t scare easily.”