Princess Elizabeth's Spy

One of the children Hugh was playing with fell and cried out, startling a murder of crows pecking at the ground nearby, causing them to flap their iridescent blue-black wings and scream, “Caw! Caw!” into the wind. They settled back down to their pecking, as Hugh picked the child up and dusted her off, sending her on her way.

As Maggie skated by and then turned backward, Hugh whistled. “Not bad, Sonja Henie.”

“I learned at Wellesley,” Maggie said, circling around him, arms outstretched for balance. “Small town near Boston, where I grew up. Every winter we’d clear off Paramecium Pond and skate.” She grinned. “However, I’m afraid that skating, plus limited self-defense from Camp Spook, are the only sports I can manage. Although I have been doing my exercises daily.”

“From what I recall,” Hugh said, trying to catch up, “your self-defense skills are spot-on.”

They glided together for a while, keeping pace with each other, away from the other skaters. The cold wind rushed past them, stirring the bare branches of the trees in the distance. “It’s good to see you again,” she said.

“Good to see you too,” Hugh said. “Er, good to be back on the case.”

“Wish I could have been a fly on the wall,” Maggie said, turning backward again.

Hugh laughed as he did forward crossovers. “Nevins was fit to be tied, and Frain was none too pleased. But I’m glad. Really glad. So, thanks.” Then, “How did it go?”

“Well, except for having to hide under the desk when Gregory came in unexpectedly, fantastic. He didn’t see me, by the way.”

“Good. And even if you had been found, I’m sure you could have talked your way out.”

Maggie did a few three-turns, her knitted scarf flying behind her. “You were right about Lily, by the way. Fascist involvement from way back, trips to Germany with the Mitford girls, photographs with Hitler …”

“And letters pleading with the king to cover it up, right?”

“Exactly.”

Hugh shook his head as he turned to go backward. He almost fell but then righted himself. “If you’re rich enough and your family has enough connections, you can make anything go away.”

“By the way, I photographed Louisa’s file too, while I was there. Camera’s in my bag.”

“Anything?”

“No,” Maggie said, slowing down. She bit her lip. “But I just have a feeling that something’s not right there.”

“Why? What specifically makes you feel that way?”

“Well …” Maggie thought. “She’s arrogant. She’s mean. She owns a snake. A snake!”

Hugh shrugged. “Doesn’t mean she’s guilty of anything, including colluding with Lily. If you suspect her of something, you need evidence.”

“Frain told me to be a ‘sponge’—and I’ve absorbed a very bad feeling about her.”

“Well, keep an eye on her.”

“I will.”

“You have any suspicions of anyone else?”

Maggie thought about Audrey and how she’d just come from France. Then she shook her head. That’s ridiculous.

They skated together in silence as the wind picked up velocity, blowing the large, lacy snowflakes sideways. Most of the children were cold and had left the pond. “Thanks for getting me back on the case, by the way,” Hugh told her.

“Of course,” Maggie replied. “We’re a team.”

“Yes,” he said. “Although great work solving Lady Lily’s murder there, solo.”

“Sam Berners was the key. Berners was up on the parapet, watching his birds, when he saw Tooke string up the wire. Tooke realized that Berners had seen him, but blackmailed him—Berners had been holding back some of the pheasants and rabbits his falcons killed for himself as well as selling them on the black market—and Tooke threatened to expose him.”

“Well, that takes care of that, then—but we still have no idea where Lily got that decrypt or whom she was going to give it to.”

He tried another turn, as a falcon dove into the underbrush to ambush its prey, and nearly fell again. “Argh,” he said. “My concentration’s a little off today.”

Maggie glided on one foot and lifted up her free leg in an arabesque, arms outstretched. She looked back at the castle. Sure enough, there on the rooftop was the large and unmistakably broad figure of Sam Berners. Rabbit stew tonight, Maggie thought. Thank you, falcons.

“You seem agitated,” she said. “More than usual.”

There was a long silence. “Broke up with the girlfriend. It was … awkward,” he said finally.

There was another silence. Maggie’s lip twitched, as she tried not to smile. “I know the feeling. As it turns out, John—my, well, my almost-fiance—is dead. ‘Missing,’ as they say. But no one seems to have much hope after al this time.”

“Oh,” said Hugh. He rubbed his gloved hands together for warmth. “I’m sorry for your loss.”

“Yes, thank you,” said Maggie. Then, “I need to go now—to prepare tomorrow’s maths lesson. We’re starting algebra, heaven help us.”

They skated over to the benches on the perimeter of the pond and sat down, unlacing their skates. “Nevins mentioned, well, that he’d told you about the suspicions surrounding your father,” Hugh said. “I always put it down to idle gossip, personally, but you must have a lot of questions.” He gave a deep sigh. “I don’t know if you want it, but I ‘borrowed’ his file. It’s in my skate bag.”

Maggie was stunned. “Thank you,” she managed. She took Hugh’s bag and hoisted it over her shoulder. He did the same with hers.

“I hope you feel the same,” he said, “after you’ve read it.”

In the bowels of U-246, in the cold waters of the North Sea, Gernot Schneider and Hermann Hoffman lay in their narrow racks, six-foot bunks affixed to the walls, one on top of the other. The air was close and rank, punctuated by snores from the other men.

“I just don’t get it,” Schneider said on his back, making a steeple of his hands.

“Shut the fuck up!” called another man, in another bunk, trying to sleep while he could.

“Shut the fuck up, yourself!” Schneider snarled back. Then, to Hoffman, in a lower voice, “We’re on one of the most elite U-boats in the fleet. Kapitanleutnant Hackl has the Knight’s Cross, for God’s sake.”

“Pinned on by der Fuhrer himself,” Hoffman said.

“So, why are we here?” Schneider said. “Why aren’t we seeing any action?”

The man called out, “You want action? If you don’t shut up, I’ll give you action.”

“I wouldn’t complain if I were you,” Hoffman whispered. “You just might jinx it. Besides, I have a fiancee to return to.”

“Ach, Greta Kruger, with the big bottom, who makes the world’s best Apfelstrudel.” Schneider rolled his eyes in the dim light. “But I didn’t join the Deutsche Marine just to eat cabbage soup and smell my fellow soldiers’ farts. I want to see battle!”

“Commandant Hess has a plan for us, that I trust,” Hoffman said.

“You’re right.” Schneider turned over and yanked his thin cover with him. “And when we finally learn what it is, I hope it’ll be big.”

Maggie went to the library at Windsor to read her father’s MI-5 file. There, in a leather-tufted chair, under the fading gray light pouring in from the mullioned windows, she read.

And read.

And read.

What she read was disturbing. Her father had been a spy during the Great War, when he was supposed to be just a professor at the London School of Economics. He lied to me about that, Maggie