The Queen's Accomplice

by Susan Elia MacNeal

  Elise forced her lips into a smile. “I need to use the toilet. Please.”

  “Of course,” the man who’d driven replied. “We didn’t mean to scare you, you know. We’re the heroes! Here to save the day!”

  The other man dipped his bread into the steaming milk and began to chew hungrily. “You certainly have friends in high places.” He shook his head. “Downing Street.”

  “How far are we from Paris?” Elise asked. She could see woods and fields through the open windows.

  “Not far. About seven or eight kilometers, I think.”

  “The toilet?” she repeated. She smiled. “I promise I’ll be good.”

  “Outhouse is back there,” the driver said with a jab of his thumb. “Pump’s right by the back door.”

  “Thank you,” she said. “Sorry I was so much trouble. Thank you for everything.”

  When she reached the outhouse, she turned to look through the kitchen’s window. The four men were all enjoying their breakfast, talking and laughing, clapping each other on their backs, congratulating themselves on a job well done. They weren’t watching her.

  Elise turned and began to run through the woods as fast as she could on her damaged feet, not looking back.

  —

  When Maggie had finished writing her statement, was discharged by her doctor, and had arranged a scarf around her neck to hide her fading bruises, Durgin was waiting to take her home.

  She opened the door, and there stood Chuck, Griffin in her arms, David at her side. “Maggie! Thank God you’re all right!” Chuck embraced Maggie with her free arm, then nodded at Durgin. “Who’s he?”

  “Detective Chief Inspector James Durgin. He’s a…friend.”

  “Good enough for me.” Chuck bounced the gurgling baby on her hip. “Bring him to the library and I’ll make us all some tea.”

  David shook Durgin’s hand. “How do you do, Detective Chief Inspector.”

  “Durgin will do just fine.”

  “Meh!” K proclaimed, rubbing his face against her, then flopping on the carpet, showing his ginger belly. Maggie scooped him up. “Well, hello, Fur Face,” she said. “Good to see you, too.”

  As Chuck bustled about the kitchen getting the tea ready, Maggie sat down next to David on the library’s sofa. Durgin took a wing chair.

  “What happened to the rug?” David asked. “That’s antique, you know.”

  Maggie remembered all the blood. “I, er, need to get it cleaned.”

  “I know you’ve had a lot going on recently,” David said, “and that’s quite the understatement.”

  Maggie caught Durgin’s eye. “You have no idea.”

  “I thought about whether to tell you or not, but in the end, I decided it’s best you know, and as soon as possible.”

  Oh no, what now?

  David patted her hand. “Elise was picked up by SOE agents in Berlin. She was supposed to be taken to Lisbon—but she escaped from our men. She’s on the run now. Just outside Paris.”

  Maggie couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “Why would she run away from the SOE? They’re saving her, for goodness’ sake! Doesn’t she understand that?”

  “Apparently, she wasn’t particularly happy to be saved.”

  “What?”

  “Her father—er, your stepfather—er, Miles Hess—was working with our agents, and through his own contacts, he arranged things so she would be released from Ravensbrück. The problem is the Gestapo made her release dependent on her renouncing the priest she’d been working with. They also threatened her fellow prisoners if she didn’t return.”

  “Our saving her life may have cost her friends theirs,” Maggie said, suddenly understanding why Elise wouldn’t want to leave Berlin.

  “From what I understand,” David continued, “she’s quite familiar with Paris, as her parents—er, your mother and stepfather—keep a flat there.”

  “What do you think she intends to do? She has nothing—no French identification, no papers, no ration card….” Maggie’s eyes widened. “The nuns. The nuns will take her in and hide her.” She was standing, with no memory of having risen. “I need to go to Paris!” she exclaimed.

  “You can’t just ‘go to Paris.’…”

  “It’s not only Elise—there’s an SOE agent who was sent into a hostile situation and left for dead, despite coded messages for help. I think she might be in Paris now”—Maggie’s thoughts clicked into place, and she swayed a bit as more information crowded into her brain, buzzing and urgent—“which is where they’re also sending Sarah and Hugh. But the Paris network is in trouble. SOE may be sending them into a death trap—and they don’t even know!”

  Chuck walked in with the tea tray. “Who wants to be mother?”

  All three of them froze and stared at her without speaking.

  “What?” Chuck demanded, exasperated, as she set down the tray. “Do I have something on my face?”

  The three were silent. While David and Durgin were cleared for a high level of security, Chuck wasn’t.

  Chuck shot David a warning look. “I’m not going to ask you anything,” she said, “and I’m not going to tell you anything. But if anything happens to Maggie, anything at all—”

  From the kitchen came Griffin’s wails. “Mummy’s coming, love!” Chuck called, mumbling “clingy blighter” as she left the room.

  “I need to change,” Maggie said. “And pack.”

  “This is utterly ridiculous!” David said, following her. “Even for you. And despite your brilliant background in maths, you often defy all logic. What are you going to do for papers?”

  But instead of going to her own bedroom, Maggie went to Paige’s old one, where she selected a smart Chanel suit and all of the accompanying accessories. What’s more French than Chanel?

  “Easy enough to conjure a fake French identity.” Maggie threw things into a bag. “For me, at least. I’ve done it for dozens of other agents.”

  “Well, then how are you going to get there? It’s not as if you can simply swim the Channel. Or flap your wings and fly.”

  “Silly David,” Maggie said, looking up at him with affection. “As you well know, there are ways, if you know the right people—”

  “Come now, even the P.M. wouldn’t—”

  From downstairs Chuck called, “I’m sorry I don’t have anything sweet, but I do have some bread and margarine—”

  Maggie came down the stairs with a bag and suitcase, David trailing behind her, still protesting. At the bottom, she kissed Chuck, and then both of Griffin’s cheeks. “I’m sorry, but I have to run,” she said. “By the way, Chuck, I believe it’s quite possible a young man named Nicholas Reitter is responsible for tampering with the gas lines of your building and the resulting explosion. He worked for your landlord, Dr. Iain Frank.”

  Chuck’s mouth hung open in a perfect circle. “How do you know? And where is he now?”

  “He’s in police custody,” Maggie said matter-of-factly. “Charged with multiple homicides. Look, I’ll be in touch as soon as I can,” she added, giving David a hug.

  “Maggie, this is madness,” he protested.

  “And you—” She dropped to her knees. “Be good for Chuck and Griffin, K, promise? I’m counting on you,” she said, rubbing his head. The orange cat began to purr. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

  “You’re leaving?” Chuck exclaimed. “What? Now? Wait—where? Why?”

  Maggie was pulling on her coat. “I’ll be back as soon as possible. Please hold down the fort while I’m away.”

  She looked to Durgin. “Let’s go.” As the door closed behind her, David, Chuck, Griffin, and even K all stared at one another in shock.

  “Well,” David muttered. “At least she’s wearing a particularly lovely Chanel suit.”

  Chapter Twenty

  The art-deco apartment’s rooms were fashionable, but dusty and unused—the way the Hess family had left them the last time they’d visited—a strange time capsule. The sun was settin
g, casting an orange glow over the walls.

  Elise went to the room that had been used as her father’s study and located a particular bookcase. She pulled on one of the leather-bound volumes, Voltaire’s Candide.

  Nothing happened.

  Then she gave one side of the bookcase a push.

  It spun, revealing a small secret room, complete with a low bed, a desk, and a chair. She walked inside. Closing the bookcase behind her, she turned the succession of locks.

  Sitting on the bed, she pulled out the rosary from her dress pocket and began to pray.

  —

  At Beaulieu, Sarah and Hugh were being treated to a special meal: rare pink roast beef and golden Yorkshire pudding, with all the trimmings. They dined alongside Miss Lynd, Philby, and some of the agents to be dropped into other Nazi-occupied countries that night. There was even wine, champagne and then an excellent Bordeaux, from Lord Montagu’s Beaulieu estate cellars.

  The couple had just finished their coffee when a courier burst into the dining room. “They’re ready for you.”

  “It’s time,” Miss Lynd said.

  —

  Maggie raised her hand for a taxi as Durgin held on to her valise.

  A black cab pulled up. “Where to?” asked the driver, a large bald man with the broken and scarred face of an ex-boxer.

  As Durgin put her case in the trunk, Maggie settled herself in the backseat. “Buckingham Palace, please.” To Durgin she said, “Come on!”

  While the cab moved out into traffic, the driver began to hold forth in a broad Cockney accent—on Winston Churchill, on Anthony Eden, on Franklin D. Roosevelt. He continued with the problems with rationing and the black market, following up with exactly what was wrong with films these days.

  “Yes, yes, of course,” Maggie answered absently, her mind on other things.

  “American, ’re you?” he asked. “What’re you doin’ ’ere, love? Bit of sightseeing? Come to see the ’oles and the rubble?”

  “No,” Maggie replied, taking a dented tube of lipstick from her handbag and pressing some on her lips. “I’m going to see the Queen.”

  “Ah, o’ course you are, miss.” The driver lifted his cap and whistled. “Whate’er you say, miss.”

  He let the two passengers out at the gates of Buckingham Palace. The workmen were still repairing the craters left by the bombs.

  Maggie walked to the entrance. “Miss Margaret Hope and Detective Chief Inspector Durgin for the Queen,” she declared, standing tall.

  The guard on duty, a lanky man with gray-streaked chestnut hair and a small paunch, began to laugh. “I’m sorry, miss. But to see the Queen, you need an appointment.”

  “I have this.” Maggie drew a card from her handbag. It was the one Queen Elizabeth had given to her at the tea. “Her Majesty said to show this card if I ever needed to see her in an emergency. And we must see her. Now.”

  —

  Queen Elizabeth’s private sitting room was much smaller, plainer, and less formal than the Blue Drawing Room, with glowing fringed lamps and silver-framed photographs of family and dogs on every surface. The corgis were all asleep in a large basket by the fire, snoring noisily, and the Queen was knitting a soldier’s sock.

  “Miss Hope!” she called out in surprise as the butler led Maggie inside. The Queen put her knitting to one side. “To what do I owe this pleasure?”

  “Your Majesty.” Maggie curtsied. Durgin made a stiff bow. “You said if I ever needed anything—”

  “Yes, yes, of course.” She nodded. “Give us the room,” she told her butler.

  “Yes, ma’am,” he said, walking out backwards.

  When the double doors had clicked shut, Maggie began. “Ma’am, I know this is last-minute and quite extraordinary—”

  “We do happen to live in extraordinary times, Miss Hope.”

  “Well, ma’am, you see—I need to go to Paris. On a matter of national security, as well as a personal emergency. It’s a full moon, and I know there’s an SOE flight scheduled to leave sometime around midnight. Would it be possible for you to get me on it?”

  The Queen blinked. “Of course,” she said, standing. “Where does this flight leave from?”

  “Tangmere Aerodrome, ma’am. In Tangmere village, about three miles east of Chichester in West Sussex.”

  The Queen rang an embroidered pull cord, and in moments her butler reappeared. “Yes, ma’am?”

  “I’ll need a car and driver,” she announced. “Miss Hope and I—and Detective Durgin—will be going to the Tangmere Aerodrome in West Sussex.”

  The butler looked perplexed. “Er, tonight, ma’am?”

  “Yes, tonight. Immediately, in fact.” There was no brooking disagreement with the Queen.

  “Yes, ma’am.” He backed away. “Very good, ma’am.”

  The Queen looked to Maggie. “Miss Hope,” she said, walking to the door, “you will explain everything to me in the car.”

  Maggie and Durgin exchanged glances.

  “That’s—that’s it?” Maggie asked, trailing after the Queen somewhat like a lost corgi puppy. “You don’t have any questions? Concerns?”

  “Of course I do,” the Queen replied. “But there’s no need for dramatics. I trust you when you say this is important, and I’m sure we can manage to get you on that flight. Not only do I owe you for saving my daughter, but”—she looked to Maggie with her deep blue eyes and gave a conspiratorial, and quite unroyal, wink—“we women need to stick together.”

  —

  Maggie finally had a chance to catch her breath and think as the Queen’s Bentley wended its way to the aerodrome through the dark. Sitting pressed against Durgin, she had told her long and convoluted story, and the Queen had listened. And now Her Majesty was leaning her head back on her seat’s embroidered doily, had closed her eyes, and was snoring lightly.

  Maggie rested her head on Durgin’s shoulder and looked out into the shadows. Is there such a thing as evil? Or is “evil” a disease? Is Nicholas Reitter evil? Is Hitler evil? Or are they sick, mentally ill? Are they curable? Or, in spiritual terms, can they be “saved”?

  Why even try to understand? But then, that was nihilism. Wasn’t it better to struggle for some glimmer of understanding than to flounder in total darkness? Wasn’t it better to hope than to be cynical?

  I can’t fight everything, Maggie realized. But I can do some things. And those I’ll do to the best of my ability and strength.

  As she looked up at the silvery moon and the dusting of stars across the violet sky, she remembered some lines from a Dante class she had taken:

  We mounted up, he first and I the second,

  Till I beheld through a round aperture

  Some of the beauteous things that Heaven doth bear;

  Thence we came forth to rebehold the stars.

  It was good to see the stars again.

  —

  Sarah and Hugh arrived at the aerodrome. The hangar was enormous, and they shivered as they walked to a large table that had been set up in preparation for their departure. “Before you leave,” Miss Lynd was saying to the pair, “we need to know your wishes in regard to your families.”

  “We’ve already made our wills,” Sarah reminded her.

  “No, I mean in terms of communication while you’re away,” Miss Lynd clarified. “Obviously, you won’t be able to communicate with them, but is there anything I can do?”

  “If you could send a postcard to my mum, letting her know I’m all right, that would be lovely,” Sarah answered steadily.

  Miss Lynd affected nonchalance. “Of course.”

  “My mother’s birthday is in two weeks,” Hugh realized. “Would you be able to send a card to her from me?”

  “Should I go missing,” Sarah said slowly, “I’d like to avoid worrying anyone as much as possible.”

  “How would you like me to handle things, dear?”

  “I don’t want you to worry my mother unnecessarily. Only tell her anything if—if the wors
t happens.”

  “Yes, same for me,” agreed Hugh, jaw clenched.

  “And of course that’s not going to happen,” replied Miss Lynd with false bravado, “but I do like to have all wishes and requests on file.”

  Philby arrived and walked up to the group. “Remember,” he said, pulling Hugh aside, pressing something into his hand, “you need to work closely with the French Communists. We’re all on the same team now. Give this to a stagehand named Jean Paul Dunois, will you? He works at the Palais Garnier.”

  Hugh looked down at the covered wooden bowl in his hand. “What is it? Soap?”

  “That’s prewar, triple-milled French shaving soap, my friend.” Philby smirked. “And if you unscrew the false wooden bottom, you’ll find a note inside. That’s what I want you to pass to Monsieur Dunois.”

  Hugh brought it up to his nose to sniff. “It smells like violets,” he said slowly, as if flooded by memories. “Maggie used to smell like violets.”

  “Your girl?” Philby asked

  “Ex-girl.” Hugh placed the bowl in his rucksack.

  As Philby went to speak to the pilot, Miss Lynd once more inspected their pockets, checked clothing labels and laundry tags. She also went through their bags and suitcases, examining every article they were bringing for any signs that would betray them as British. They were given the requisite identification, ration cards, clothing coupons, and 50,000 French francs. “You each have your cyanide tablet?” she asked.

  Sarah and Hugh nodded.

  “And your wedding rings?”

  They held out their left hands, gold bands glinting in the overhead fluorescent light.

  “All right then—let’s get on with it.” She completed their disguises with a packet of French cigarettes for Hugh, and a recent French newspaper for Sarah.

  Sarah took a trembling breath. “Are you all right, dear?” the older woman asked.

  “Excited, mostly,” Sarah answered, dark eyes sparkling. “I’m sorry we’re not jumping—those three terrifying jumps in parachute school, for naught!”

  “We ordered a landing to save your pretty ankles for dancing. And wear and tear on Monsieur’s cello.”

  Hugh glanced up from his papers. “Good to know my cello’s considered more valuable than I in the grand scheme of things,” he deadpanned. Miss Lynd favored him with a rare smile.