“Maybe,” he said, and pushed up his glasses. But he didn’t sound convinced.
* * *
They walked into the bracing wind along the empty cobblestone paths, through Trinity College’s quadrangles and bijoux buildings, over vast expanses of rough green lawn and victory gardens. They passed two lines of pale-faced slender young choristers in snowy white ruffs, their red gowns flapping in the breeze. Finally, they reached Neville’s Court—the dining hall.
As they passed through the doors into the cavernous wood-paneled space with the long tables, Maggie suddenly felt very small, gauche, and shabby. She looked up into the soaring rafters and let out a sigh. After all, this was where Sir Isaac Newton dined.
“Just a dining hall. With the same horrible English food as everywhere else. They build it big to be intimidating—don’t let it get to you,” David stage-whispered. Maggie thought she could smell that day’s luncheon: shepherd’s pie and sour-apple custard.
The hall was empty—most men were part of the war effort, after all—but at the end of the hall was a small dais, the High Table, where wizened dons in black robes were beginning to disperse after their meal. Maggie tried to walk lightly, to stop her heels from tapping so loudly on the floor.
“Sir, pardon me,” Maggie said, going to the don with the kindest eyes. “My name is Maggie Hope, and this is David Greene. I’m trying to locate someone.”
A few eyebrows raised, but the don stopped and looked down through his horn-rimmed glasses. “Most of the boys are off serving King and Country, my dear,” he said with a twinkle. He had thinning silver hair and rosacea across his cheeks and nose.
“No, it’s not that,” she spluttered, “it’s—”
“We’re looking for Professor Edmund Hope,” David cut in gracefully. “A colleague said he might have returned to Trinity. Would you happen to have seen him recently?”
“Edmund Hope,” the don said slowly. “Edmund Hope. That’s a name I seem to be hearing quite a bit these days.”
He looked at David and Maggie as they exchanged glances. The eyes weren’t twinkling now; instead, they looked steely and hard. “Follow me,” he said. “We need to speak in private.”
Don Anthony Collier’s office was dignified and imposing. A stained-glass window picturing St. George and the dragon was crisscrossed by heavy black tape, and a reproduction of William Blake’s The Good and Evil Angels hung behind the large golden oak desk.
“Please have a seat, Miss Hope, Mr. Greene,” he said, gesturing toward two brown-leather chairs.
Maggie and David took their seats, and he did the same, behind the desk.
“Edmund Hope was a student here before the war. The other war. Brilliant, as I recall.”
“He was my father,” Maggie said.
Don Collier folded large liver-spotted hands. “I see.”
David cleared his throat. “Miss Hope has been under the assumption that her father passed away in 1916—in a car accident. But she has reason to believe that he might still be alive. One of his colleagues suggested he might have returned here, sir.”
The don knit his fingers together and regarded them from under bushy eyebrows. Maggie’s hands shook slightly, and she folded them firmly in her lap, to keep them still. After an interminable wait, he said, “And you both—who are you? What is it you do?”
“I—I work for the Prime Minister, sir. I’m one of the typists.”
“And I’m a private secretary to the P.M.”
Don Collier swiveled in his desk chair. “I’ll need a moment,” he said, waving them out. “Just wait outside. Shan’t be long.”
David and Maggie shared a look, then went out into the hall, leaning against wood-paneled walls. “What do you think it all means?” Maggie whispered.
“Don’t know,” David replied. “But surely he must know something—otherwise, he’d have sent us on our way at once.”
Maggie felt light-headed.
Finally, the door opened.
“Well, I called over to some friends in Whitehall, and it seems that a certain Miss Hope and Mr. Greene are indeed gainfully employed by the office of the Prime Minister. However, the powers that be would like you to give up this goose chase and return to your duties.”
That’s what you’re saying, but what’s really going on? Maggie thought, a prickle of adrenaline running through her. Obviously, we’re onto something. And not only are we onto something, but there are some higher-ups who don’t want us to get any further and find out anything more. But—why? “Sir, does that mean that my father’s alive?”