Mr.Churchill's Secretary(21)

“Keep Plodding On, Miss Hope. KPO,” the P.M. intoned, making a stabbing motion at the typewriter with his cigar, referring to his motto. “That’s what we do here—KPO.”

* * *

“Can’t I just address the letter?” Claire asked, sitting at Pierce’s long walnut desk in his Cadogan Square apartment’s study.

“No, the handwriting inside the letter has to match the outside,” Pierce replied. “Don’t forget that all mail’s opened and read now—we don’t want anything to tip off the government censors.”

Claire reread the words in front of her, then began copying, her handwriting decidedly feminine. “I don’t understand. It just seems like a regular letter to me—the weather is good, the food is terrible, hope you’re well.…”

“Ah, look carefully, my dear,” Pierce said.

Claire read and then shrugged her shoulders.

He rose to his feet and came around behind her. “What do you see if you read down the left-hand margin?”

Claire scanned her eyes down the left side of the page. “It’s in code!” she exclaimed. “ ‘Reinforcements for the enemy expected,’ ” she read slowly.

“Exactly,” he said, placing his hand on her shoulder. “And this innocuous letter, in your charming handwriting, will go to some of our dear friends in France and let them know what’s coming. They’ll pass word on to Berlin.”

“How did you get this information?” Claire asked, eyes wide, lips parted.

“Can’t reveal my sources,” said Pierce, stroking her hair. “Let’s just say I have it on good authority.”

David wanted Maggie to succeed at No. 10; after all, he was her friend, and also the one who got her the job. He felt a strange kinship with her. She was American, female, and a bit of a bluestocking. He was Jewish and slept with men—he knew he was tolerated because he kept his love life a secret, his Jewishness to himself, and had charm, wit, and style to spare.

David had also studied mathematics at university and, like Maggie, was fascinated by numbers, logic, and game theory. He was intrigued by Maggie’s acceptance at M.I.T. for graduate work and asked endless questions. “So what about number theory?” he asked one late night in the office. “Do you know Alonzo Church’s work? What about Wittgenstein’s? Have you heard of Alan Turing? Brilliant fellow, from Cambridge. Wrote ‘Systems of Logic Based on Ordinals.’ ”

Maggie, John, and David were in Mr. Churchill’s study in the Annexe, a cozy, wood-paneled book-filled room that reeked of cigar smoke. The P.M. was preparing for another British foray into Norway, and much of the evening’s discussion was about guns. After the debacle of the first Norwegian invasion, when the Royal Marines were proved unprepared, it was determined they needed rubber sheaths to protect their gun muzzles from the cold. A pharmaceutical company had developed and delivered the prototype, a sample of which John handed to the P.M. He picked it up and looked at it, then looked at the packaging, and then the box.

“No,” he said, shaking his head. “Won’t do. Won’t do at all.” John and David looked at each other in dismay. They’d worked hard to make sure everything was in order.

“Sir, what won’t do?” John asked, his mouth tightening. “They’re long enough for the muzzles, ten and a half inches, just as we discussed.”

“Labels!” Mr. Churchill said, pounding his fist on the table.

“Labels?” David asked, looking confused.

“Yes, labels,” the P.M. insisted. “I want a label for every box, every carton, every packet, saying ‘British, size medium.’ That will show the Nazis, if they ever recover any of them, who’s the master race!”

Maggie raised one eyebrow. Does he really mean …?

The P.M. cleared his throat. “My apologies, Miss Hope.”

He does, he does indeed. She shot a look at John and was pleased to see that he’d colored slightly and was pretending to be engrossed in his notes. Nelson, who’d been curled in an unused chair, decided to roll over and clean his paws.

There was a knock at the door. It was Snodgrass, with his sloped shoulders and dusting of dandruff. “Sir, Mr. Frain is here to see you.”

“Send him in!” roared the P.M.

In walked a tall man with black slicked-back hair and cold, gray eyes. He wore a carefully tailored yet understated suit. He was broad-shouldered and trim through the waist, and walked with a quick and confident stride.

“Good evening, Prime Minister,” the man said. “I hope you remember me. We met at Chartwell a few times—”