Princess Elizabeth's Spy

“We have company,” Audrey said, indicating Maggie, who ran to Lilibet and tried to rouse her. Dookie followed behind, ears pinned back and giving a low growls.

Audrey came at Maggie, who stood up, ready for the attack. When Audrey tried to grab her, she reached for her right arm and twisted, bringing the Frenchwoman down to the floor. But Poulter had come behind Maggie, and before she could react, he picked up the handkerchief with chloroform and pressed it over her mouth and nose with one hand, while his other arm held her in a choke hold. Dookie tried to bite his ankle, but Poulter kicked the little dog so hard he was thrown against the wall, too stunned to stand.

After a minute or two, Maggie slumped to the floor.

“Leave her and the chien,” Poulter ordered Audrey, shoving her to the side with her boot.

Audrey went back to the Princess. “Help me,” she grunted. “She’s not as light as you might think.”

Poulter picked up Lilibet’s limp body. “We must hurry,” he warned, as he descended the stairs to the wine cellar and the tunnels through the dungeons. “We only have a very short window of time to get to the U-boat.”

Slowly, slowly, Maggie began to regain consciousness.

“Are you all right, Miss Hope?” she heard Mr. Churchill say. “Damn it, girl—wake up!” he said, patting at her cheeks.

Maggie tried to open her eyes, which were heavy and uncooperative.

“Where?” she managed, trying to sit up.

“The P.M.’s rooms. One of the guards carried you,” Hugh said, voice tight.

She suddenly remembered. “Lilibet!”

“What about her?” Frain asked.

Maggie sat up, shaking her head to get rid of the fog from the drugs. “They took her.”

“The princess? Who took her?” Churchill barked.

“Moreau. The maid, Audrey Moreau. She somehow lured Lilibet from the nursery, then chloroformed her. I followed them, and Moreau did the same to me. She was working with George Poulter, a footman.” The winking footman, Maggie thought.

“I tried to stop them,” she said, the enormity of what had happened breaking over her. Why did I spend so much time being suspicious of Louisa? Why, when all the while it had been Audrey planning to abduct the Princess? And I had been suspicious when Cook told me about Audrey’s recent exodus from France. I just never pursued it.… 

“Is there anything else that you remember?” Frain said. “Quick!”

“There was a trapdoor in the floor.” She rose, swaying, then steadying herself. “They must be using the tunnels to get out of the castle. Come on! I know the tunnels—the Princesses showed me. If we hurry, there’s still a chance we can catch them!”

Lilibet, unconscious, had been carried over Poulter’s back, like a sack of potatoes, through the dark and winding tunnels and then up the stairs before being unceremoniously dumped on the cold flagstones outside the servants’ entrance.

“Hurry!” Audrey hissed to Poulter. “We need to make it to Mossley while the U-boat’s still there.”

While he went to get the van, Lilibet’s eyelids fluttered. She came to, then lay quietly, appraising her situation. She realized she’d been kidnapped and that they were about to put her in a van. She was gathering her strength to make a run for it, back into the castle, when she felt Moreau’s foot in her back. “Don’t even think about it,” she said, springing a switchblade.

Normally, Lilibet could have outrun her, but not in her still-drugged condition. Then she saw a small stone and picked it up, considering. She began scratching on the stones.

“Hey,” Audrey said, looking over, suspicious. “What are you doing?”

“Nothing,” Lilibet said in her clear voice. “Maths homework.”

Audrey, with the help of light from the moon, partially obscured by dusty spiderwebs of clouds, looked at what the princess was doing and saw:

23172614121+

121117816114+

16+

91115158121+

1724112316+

1252571712+

She gave a Gallic shrug. “People always wondered if you girls were right in the head, you know,” she said. “Especially with so much inbreeding.”

Lilibet didn’t reply but kept at her message, impervious to everything, even the cold seeping through her wool dress and cardigan. Poulter returned, pushing the car, but even with the extra precaution, he drew the attention of one of the Coldstream guards patrolling.

“Stop!” the young man said.

Poulter fired. The wound spurt a gush of blood between his eyes that looked black in the darkness, and then the man crumpled.

As Lilibet closed her eyes in horror, Poulter came with a length of rope, swiftly tying the girl’s hands and feet, and dumped her into the back of the van without ceremony. He didn’t notice the markings she made with the stone. She didn’t know who would find them, or when, but she did know that Margaret and Maggie would be able to read them. And then they would know where she was being taken.

She quietly prayed that they would find her in time.

With Mr. Churchill manning the situation from Windsor, Maggie, Frain, and Hugh ran down the corridors to find the trap door in the wine cellar floor.

“Here it is!” Maggie said. She grabbed the iron ring and opened the trap door and started down the stairs, grabbing Lilibet and Margaret’s hidden flashlight and switching it on. “Follow me,” she said. “I know my way. If we continue through, we’ll end up at the Henry the Eighth Gate.”

After running through the tunnels, through twists and turns and past dungeons, they found the stairway up and opened the trap door. They climbed, then ran on outside, in the cold, wet air, to the Henry VIII Gate. Have they already gone? Maggie wondered, heart pounding. Did we miss them? The dread of the unknown made her feet fly. At the gate, they all stopped.

Frain sniffed the air. “A car’s been here,” he said.

“Look,” Hugh said, pointing to the still body of the Coldstream Guard. He ran over and put his hand to the guard’s throat. “Dead.”

“Yes, I’d say they came this way,” Frain said.

Oh, no, thought Maggie. Too late, too late. She wanted to stamp her feet, throw rocks, swear at the top of her lungs. But she had a job to do. “They could be taking her anywhere,” she said, pacing. “They could have a plane tucked away somewhere, they could be going anywhere on the coast for a ship.…” Maggie looked down. Then she used the flashlight to take a better look. “Wait—Lilibet left us a message!”

Frain and Hugh came over and looked at the markings, then looked at each other.

But Maggie was already kneeling, her heart bursting with hope. “Oh, smart girl,” she said. “Brilliant, brilliant girl.”

“We can’t read that,” Hugh said.

“But I can.” She quickly decrypted the message, using the alphabet code Lilibet had created. “Audrey and Poulter are taking her to Mossley. For a U-boat pickup.” Finally, a lead! At least this way we have a shot at intercepting them before they get to the water.

She got back to her feet and wiped her hands on her skirt. “Peter, call the cavalry and tell them we’re going to need them in Mossley.”