Princess Elizabeth's Spy

powder puffs, half-empty bottles of nail varnish, and tubes of Elizabeth Arden lipstick covered the dressing table. A half-empty bottle of Tabu. A crystal vase of dying red roses, black now, thorny stems decaying in greenish water.

Maggie started in the bathroom. In the medicine chest she found aspirin, antacid, tooth powder, and a worn-down toothbrush. Odor-o-no, a boar-bristle hairbrush, and tweezers. A tin of bluebell-scented powder. Some still-damp lace brassieres and silk panties hung over a line strung across the tub, along with garter belts and several pairs of stockings.

She removed the top of the toilet tank and looked inside. Nothing. She went through the small clothes hamper. Nothing. And nothing on top of the medicine cabinet, either.

In the bedroom, she lifted the mattress as best she could and looked underneath. Nothing. Nothing relevant in the drawers of the bureau or the nightstand, either. Of course, she thought, Detective Wilson and his men have probably already been over everything already.

The closet was crammed with clothes for every occasion, including garment bags stuffed with gowns of nearly every hue imaginable and a number of furs. A search of her many satin shoes turned up nothing either.

Maggie went back into the sitting room. She stopped by the bookcase, which was empty. She squinted at it. The dust indicated books had been there for a time and had recently been removed. Now, that’s odd, she thought. Why would someone take Lily’s books?

She mused for a moment, then realized she’d already met the very person who might be able to help her.

“Hello, Sir Owen!” Maggie said as she entered the King’s Library, a suite of rooms on the north side of the Upper Ward, adjacent to the State Apartments. Sir Owen, who’d returned from the questioning, was sitting at a carved mahogany desk in the first room, which had on it a few silver-framed photographs and a low vase of yellow roses.

It was a beautiful chamber, with high molded ceilings, intricately inlaid floors made from precious woods, and two stories’ worth of gold-tooled leather books. There was a long wooden table in the center of the room, polished to a mirror-like sheen, and tufted burgundy leather chairs. What a wonderful place to study, Maggie decided. Too bad my days of scholarship are on hold, at least for now.

Sir Owen looked up from a volume in front of him, the thin skin around his eyes crinkling when he smiled. “Miss Hope, how lovely to see you again—this time in the library. Is there, perhaps, a mathematical tome you need to find? For the Princess’s course of study?” He rose from the desk chair. “Most of the castle’s collection is in storage, I’m afraid, for safekeeping. I’m quite proud to say we have a small but quite important group of illuminated manuscripts, including the Sobieski Book of Hours. There’s also a fine group of incunabula dating from the period before fifteen hundred, including the Mainz Psalter, the second book ever to be printed with movable metal type. But of course they’re not accessible now.”

Oh, I would love to have the opportunity to see those books. If only. “Actually, Sir Owen, I was interested in finding out if you had any knowledge of what happened to Lady Lily’s books. They’re missing from her bookshelf.”

Sir Owen gave her a quizzical look.

“Louisa and Marion wanted them,” she improvised quickly. “To remember her by.”

“Yes, of course,” he said, forehead furrowing. “Well, the kind of books Lady Lily read, romances and such, aren’t really the sort we shelve here. However,” he said confidentially, “the Housekeeper, Mrs. Beesley, is a great aficionado of love stories, mysteries, and the like—and she has a lending bookcase in her parlor for the staff to use. Perhaps they’ve found their way to her?”

“Oh, thank you, Sir Owen,” Maggie said. “Thank you very much.”

After another trip through icy winding corridors, Maggie found herself at the door of the housekeeper’s parlor. She rapped at the door. “Come in!” called a high-pitched, thready voice.

Maggie opened the door and there was Mrs. Beesley, sitting at a plain wooden desk in a small, narrow room. She was younger than Maggie had expected, with brown hair in rolls, narrow shoulders, thin lips, and a serious expression in her eyes. “Yes? May I help you?” she said.

“Hello, I’m Maggie Hope, the Princess’s maths tutor,” she began. “You must be Mrs. Beesley.”

“Yes, please come in,” Mrs. Beesley said.

In for a penny, in for a pound, Maggie thought, stepping inside. “Well, I was talking to Louisa and Marion,” she began. “The Ladies-in-Waiting.”

“Oh, it’s hard to hear those names without thinking of our poor Lady Lily.” Mrs. Beesley pulled out her cambric handkerchief and dabbed at her eyes.

“Yes,” Maggie said. “And that’s what brings me here, actually. You see, Louisa and Marion wanted a few of Lily’s books, to remember her by. There were some in her room apparently, and now they’re gone—”

Mrs. Beesley’s eyes narrowed. “Now, if you’re accusing me—or my staff—of pinching those books …” Her fingers worked at the handkerchief’s hem.

“No, no, of course not,” Maggie assured her. “No one’s accusing anyone of anything. I was just hoping to find out where they’d been taken, is all. No offense meant.”

“None taken,” Mrs. Beesley said stiffly, hands still now.

“Sir Owen said you’re a great reader,” Maggie said, “and that you have a sort of lending library? Is it possible the books might have gotten in there?”

“It’s possible, I suppose,” Mrs. Beesley said. “The bookcase Sir Owen’s referring to is in the hallway. You’re welcome to take a look. Or borrow a book, if you’re so inclined, of course.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Beesley.”

The bookcase was a tall one, filled with penny dreadfuls and dime novels in lurid colors, along with a few romances, Gothic horror stories, and a few copies of the Saint James Bible. Sure enough, there was a wooden crate next to the case, filled with romance novels. Maggie bent over to rummage through them, taking out a few books, flipping the pages. Nothing. She went through book after book with Lily’s personal bookplates, trying to be charitable about the girl’s choices in novels. Pulp romance mostly, terrible stuff, but here and there was a novel Maggie recognized. But in terms of clues, there was nothing. No letters, no notes, no scribbles in the margins.

Well, what were you expecting, exactly? Maggie thought. The name of the baby’s father in calligraphy? The murder’s identity written on a bookplate? She pulled out Gaston Leroux’s Le Fantome de l’Opera and flipped through it. Nothing.

She sighed. It was the only decent book in the bunch. She looked upward, saying, “Would you mind terribly, Lily?”

The corridor didn’t answer; neither did any ghosts. “Thank you.” And she tucked the book under her arm as she walked away.

Back in her room, Maggie kicked off her shoes and curled up on the sofa in front of the radiator with Le Fantome de l’Opera. As she opened it to the first page, she noticed the endpaper on the book’s inside cover didn’t lie smoothly.

What on earth—

Heart beating faster now, Maggie ran her fingers over the paper. There was definitely something in there.

With a hatpin from the stand on her dresser, she made a neat slit in the endpaper, then pulled out a folded piece of paper. Maggie read it. She read it again. A third time, for good measure.

She sat perfectly still, overcome with shock. It was a decrypt of a German cipher: “U-boat commander Hempelmann, in grid square 4498, had sunk one tanker.…”

Oh, Lily, Lily, Lily, Maggie thought. Where did you get this? Who gave it to you? And then, with the shock of realization, And what were you going to do with it?

She checked the date: It was a recent decrypt, dated November 17, 1940. The Friday the Ladies-in-Waiting