Princess Elizabeth's Spy(37)

“Well, see what you can find out. Start with the victim’s friends. Become friends with them. Find out what they have to say.”

“Can we find out what the autopsy report says?”

“Of course. I’ll let you know as soon as we receive it.”

“There’s something else,” Maggie said.

“Yes?”

“You’ll find out from the autopsy report, but you should know now. Lily was pregnant.”

Hugh scratched his head and stared. “How the devil do you know that?”

“She told me. After she threw up in the ladies’ loo.”

“Right, then.”

“She said she was about three months along. I didn’t mention it when I was questioned by Detective Wilson. But I would like to tell him.”

“Of course.”

“And,” Maggie said, reaching into her pocket, “I found this.” She pulled out the decrypt she’d found in Lady Lily’s room.

Hugh took the paper and looked it over. His eyes widened. “Wizard!” he exclaimed. “But how did she get this?”

“I don’t know how she got it, but it was hidden in her copy of Le Fantôme de l’Opéra.”

“Thanks for this, Maggie,” he said, tucking the decrypt safely into his suit pocket.

“I thought at first Lily’s death was an accident and that Lilibet, er, the Princess, was the intended victim,” Maggie said. “But now … I don’t think so.”

Hugh looked at her. “You may be right.”

“But if Lily was murdered, who’s a suspect? Someone who knew she’d stolen a decrypt? Or someone who knew she was pregnant? The baby’s father, maybe someone married and/or high-ranking who wouldn’t want to be named as the father? And what, if anything, is the connection between Lily’s stay at Claridge’s and the supposed suicide?”

He sighed. “I don’t know. But we need to find out.” He ran both hands through his disordered hair. “There’s a murderer at Windsor Castle and you’re making progress finding him.”

“Or her,” Maggie said, thinking of Louisa and Polly.

“Or her. Or them, for that matter. Which means you need to be even more careful. And there’s still the matter of the Princess’s safety, as well.”

“I haven’t forgotten,” Maggie said. “I’m always careful. And I’m not frightened.”

“You should be.” Hugh reached into his pocket and procured a piece of paper and a pen. He scribbled a number on the paper. “My direct line. Memorize it, then get rid of it,” he said, hazel eyes serious. “If you ever find you need anything …?”

Maggie took it, unexpectedly touched.

After a few moments, she heard the shop’s bell jingle, indicating Hugh had left.


Back at MI-5, Hugh went directly to Frain’s office. “I thought you’d sent Miss Hope on a bit of a wild-goose chase, sir, I really did. But already she’s found out more than the police have.”

Frain didn’t look up from his papers. “Really? And what did she find out?”

“She knew Lily Howell was in London, at the same hotel and at the same time that woman committed suicide—if that’s indeed what happened. She knows it might indeed be a murder. She knows Lily Howell was three months pregnant. And,” Hugh pulled out the piece of paper Maggie had given him, “she gave us this—” Hugh handed over the cryptograph.

Frain read it, eyes inscrutable. “Thank you,” he allowed. “That will be all.”

“Yes, sir.”


Hugh left Frain’s floor, walking down to the small subterranean office he shared with Mark Standish.

“I’m going to the funeral,” he announced to Mark, as he got his coat and hat. Mark was looking at photographs of potential IRA mailbox bombers with a loupe magnifier, without much luck.

“I’ll meet you there,” Mark said, without looking away from the photographs. The service was for a fellow MI-5 officer, Andrew Wells, who’d died in the line of duty, killed by a Nazi spy’s stiletto in St. James’s Park after Wells recognized her. MI-5 covered up the murder, saying it was an accident. The spy was still at large in London.

Mark gestured to the photograph on Hugh’s desk. “Are you meeting up later with Caroline?”

“Of course,” Hugh snapped as he shrugged into his overcoat.

“I’m just checking, old thing. Just checking.”


The funeral was being held at St. Martin-in-the-Fields. Hugh climbed the stone steps and pulled open the imposing doors. The interior was cavernous and dim in the fading daylight, lit by brass chandeliers and large beeswax candles in tall sconces. Somber music poured from the organ as Hugh walked down the aisle, his footsteps heavy on the marble tiles. He made his way to a hard wooden pew in the front of the church and took a seat, a world away from the bustle of Trafalgar Square outside.