Princess Elizabeth's Spy

“I know.”

Prime Minister Winston Churchill was in his large Victorian bathtub in the Annexe when his butler, Mr. Inches, showed in Peter Frain.

The P.M., plump, rosy, and naked as a cherub, was immersed in steaming water, smoking a cigar, glass tumbler of brandy and soda balanced on the edge of the tub.

“Prime Minister,” Frain said.

“Take a seat,” Churchill growled. Then he shouted to Mrs. Tinsley, seated outside the bathroom door with her noiseless typewriter propped on her lap. “We’re done, Mrs. T.! Go away!”

“Yes, sir,” she said serenely, picking up the typewriter and her papers and making her way downstairs.

Frain sat down on the wooden chair placed in Churchill’s bathroom specifically for meetings. He tried not to stare at the large, pink form. “Sir.”

The P.M. splashed like a child, then a shadow passed over his face. “Inches!” he bellowed.

The beleaguered butler appeared in the doorway. “Sir?”

“I believe the temperature of my bath has dropped below one hundred and four degrees, Inches. Check. Now.”

The butler entered the bathroom and went to the tub. He knelt, rolled up one sleeve and reached into the water, pulling up a thermometer that was attached by a thin chain to the faucet.

“Well?” the P.M. demanded, chewing on the end of his cigar.

“Ninety-nine degrees, sir. Shall I add more hot water?”

“Damn it, yes! Do I need to tell you everything?”

“No, sir,” Inches said mildly as he turned on the hot water tap.

Frain permitted himself a small smile, thinking of the rest of Britons with their five-inch water mark and limited supplies of hot water. Rules just never seemed to apply to Winston Churchill.

As the tub filled, the P.M.’s lip jutted forward in a pout. “Now get out!”

“Yes, sir.” Inches took his leave.

Churchill rested his cigar in a cut-glass ashtray, then sank beneath the waterline and blew bubbles. Rising to the surface, he stared up at the ceiling, floating. “I was thinking about our meeting at MI-Five today.”

“Yes, sir.”

“It occurs to me that, with Miss Hope’s connections, we have an in.”

“The thought has occurred to me, too, sir. Miss Hope did well at Windsor. She’s in much better physical shape now, stronger, with more endurance. I think with some additional training up in Scotland, we’ll have her ready to go in a few months.”

Churchill blew a few blue smoke rings. “War’s a nasty business, my friend.”

“It is, indeed, sir.”

“And when we see an advantage, we must press—no matter what the personal cost.”

“If that’s your decision, sir.”

The P.M. took a swig of brandy and soda. “It is.” He waved Frain away. “Tell Mrs. T. to invite Miss Hope to Number Ten this afternoon.”

“Yes, sir.”

It was strange for Maggie to return to No. 10 Downing Street after so many months and so much that had happened. She remembered how nervous she’d been when she’d first knocked on that dignified front door, so plain and black and unpretentious. She was met by Richard Snodgrass, her former nemesis, now her colleague and friend.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Snodgrass,” she said, extending her hand.

He shook it. “It’s a pleasure to see you again, Miss Hope. Follow me, please.”

She followed Mr. Snodgrass through the dignified hallways of No. 10, past the main entrance with its grand cantilever staircase, and through several carpeted hallways. They reached a small conference room, where a projector and screen were set up. A cut-crystal bowl of apples—green Bramleys, bright red Bismarcks, and mottled Pippins—was set in the middle of the polished wood table.

“Hello, David,” Maggie said, surprised, as David rose to greet her.

“I just found out about all of this myself, Maggie.”

“All of what?” she asked as Mr. Snodgrass left them.

“You’ll see.”

The door opened and in came Frain and another man, short and round, where Frain was tall and slim. In his late fifties, with a beaky nose and a shiny pate. “Hello, Maggie, David,” Frain began. “I’d like to introduce Sir Frank Nelson, head of the so-called Baker Street Irregulars.”

“Sir Frank,” Maggie said, extending her hand. “How do you do?”

“A pleasure to meet you, Miss Hope.”

Maggie’s mind was racing. “Baker Street Irregulars?” She’d heard rumors of a secret spy organization, but had always assumed they were just that—rumors. “How very Holmesian.”

“Nickname for the Special Operations Executive, or S.O.E.,” David said, pleased, for once, to know something she didn’t. “Also known as Churchill’s Secret Army, Churchill’s Toyshop, or the Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare.”

“We’re a bit off the grid, Miss Hope. Our mission is to coordinate espionage and sabotage. All hush-hush, of course,” Sir Frank said.

Maggie shot David a look. “Of course.”

They all sat down at the conference table, waiting. Finally, the door burst open. It was the Prime Minister. “You’re all here? Good, good,” Churchill rumbled, taking a seat. He waved his already-lit cigar. “Let’s get on with it, then.”

Frain began. “Maggie, what can you tell me about your mother?”

My mother? Will it never end? “Not very much,” Maggie replied. “As you know, I was raised by my Aunt Edith Hope, outside of Boston, Massachusetts. She didn’t talk about my parents much, and I never pushed her to.” She shrugged. “Until this very morning, I thought that my mother was a typical English housewife, who’d died far too young in an automobile accident. I knew that she played the piano, loved books. In my mind, in the past that I constructed, she was a loving mother and an adoring wife.” She gave a sharp laugh. “Well, that was the fantasy, anyway.”

“Your father sent you one of her books.”

“Yes, he sent it to me at Windsor. The Princess Elizabeth spilled tea on some of the pages, and—well, you know the rest.”

“You found code contained in that book, code to a Sektion agent. The code contained the names of three MI-Five agents who were to be assassinated.”

“Yes,” Maggie said, her heart pierced with sadness as she thought of Hugh’s father and the other agents killed.

“You believed your father was the double agent. But today, you found out it was your mother who was the Sektion agent.”

“Yes.” Then, “Look, what’s this all about? Why, with a war going on, are we talking about something that happened over twenty years ago?”

“Because, Miss Hope,” Sir Frank said, “your mother is, indeed, still quite relevant to us in this war, right now.” He motioned to David. “Mr. Greene, would you turn on the projector?”

David turned off the overhead lights and then flipped the switch on the projector, the incandescent light bulb glowing and the fan whining. Mr. Stevens turned off the overhead lights.

Maggie was bewildered. First she was told it was her mother, not her father, who was a double agent responsible for murdering five British officers. Now she was back at No. 10, asked to watch—a slide show?

David dropped a slide in the projector. The black-and-white slide was old; still, the lovely woman photographed was obviously Maggie’s mother, at approximately Maggie’s current age.

Sir Frank took a deep breath. “This is Claudia Hess, better known to you as Clara Hope. In 1912, she was recruited to Sektion by Special Agent Albrecht Kortig.”