Mr.Churchill's Secretary(18)

Then he glared at her over the frames of his glasses. “What’s your name, girl?”

“Margaret Hope,” she whispered.

“Holmes?”

“Hope,” she blurted, her voice too loud in the quiet room. She reddened and fell silent.

“Yes, yes—Margaret Hope,” he repeated, considering. His face lit up, and he broke into a beatific smile, unrecognizable from the stern figure of moments before. “We need some hope in this office,” he muttered to himself.

“Yes, you may stay, Miss Hope,” Mr. Churchill said, another pull on his cigar, watching the blue smoke rise, “while we see how you get on.”

John passed Mr. Snodgrass in the hallway outside Winston Churchill’s office. The older man beckoned the younger over.

“Yes, sir?” John asked.

“Miss Hope is in there. With the Boss. Alone.”

“What are you insinuating, sir?”

“No, no—nothing of that sort, of course. But you know how sensitive these things are. I was against having her here as a private secretary—and I’m not convinced her working here as a typist is any better. But I suppose it’s all the better to keep an eye on her.”

Snodgrass set off down the corridor, and John followed, saying, “Surely, sir, you don’t think she had anything to do with—”

“Of course not,” Snodgrass snapped. “But she’s here, and she’s taking notes and writing memos on sensitive information.”

“As do we all,” John countered.

“As do we all,” Snodgrass repeated, rounding a corner. “But not all of us have the family connections Miss Hope has.”

“Miss Hope is unaware of her family connections.”

Snodgrass stopped. “For now.” He started again down the hall, quicker in his stride.

John easily caught up with him. “How’s the investigation going?”

There was a pause as Snodgrass turned to descend a flight of stairs, his hand on the cold metal rail. “It seems we have a witness to Miss Snyder’s murder.”

“A witness? In the blackout?”

“Yes, apparently there was a waxing moon. One of Miss Snyder’s flatmates was in and saw something out the window. Didn’t think much of it at the time, but now that MI-Five is involved …”

“Can she identify a face?” John asked, jaw tense.

“The witness is being questioned today.”

Because of the imminent threat of invasion, attendance at the Saturday Club’s meetings was swelling. That week’s gathering had adjourned, and a few of the members had taken their conversation to Malcolm Pierce’s Cadogan Square flat. The parlor was papered in a faded gold japonaiserie print of geishas smiling coyly behind flowers and fans; the carved mahogany furniture was dark, and the brocades and silks were worn. Moth-eaten crimson velvet drapes were pulled over blackout curtains. The air was thick with cigarette smoke, and the gramophone played a recording of Kirsten Flagstad singing Die Fledermaus.

“What will happen if there’s an invasion?” asked Mrs. Linney, her hands twisting her large diamond ring. Even though the evening was warm, she was wearing a tawny fox-fur collar. The fox’s shiny black glass eyes looked crossed and slightly maniacal in the dim light.

“We’ll be lined up and shot, I suppose,” Pierce said with a serious face, then smiled, flashing his dimples.

Mrs. Linney’s plump cheeks creased. “Oh, Malcolm.”

“Look,” he said, taking a sip of tea. The gold-rimmed cup was thin and fragile. “The press is largely under Jewish control, yes? So we’re not truly getting the real story. Hitler will take care of Churchill and his Zionist gang, but as for people like us, well, once the dust settles and they know what we’ve been doing for their cause, they’ll most likely give us medals.”

“More tea?” Claire said, pot in hand. She’d made herself at home.

“Don’t mind if I do, dear,” Mrs. Linney said. Claire poured and then took a seat, crossing her legs at the ankles.

“The Jews brought it on themselves, you know,” Pierce said. “Hitler’s said again and again he wanted nothing—nothing from England. But then Chamberlain had to get involved after Poland.…”

“Hear, hear,” said old Mr. Hodgeson, a Great War veteran in the corner. “We don’t need English boys going to war again, just for the bloody Jews. Excuse my language.”

“Poland and Czechoslovakia are Jewish interests, it’s true,” Pierce said. “That’s the reason I’m adamant that we don’t belong in this war. Look at this young woman,” he said, nodding to Claire, who smiled back. “She’s seeing a nice young chap, she tells me. Well, what happens when this nice young chap joins up with His Majesty’s forces? What happens to her then? I’ll tell you—he’ll come home blind or maimed or worse, in a mattress cover secured with large horse-blanket safety pins. Slaughtered, just because Germany invaded Poland. And she becomes a widow—or ends up spending the rest of her life with a cripple. I’ve said it once, and I’ll say it again—this is an unnecessary war.”