“Audrey,” Maggie asked, “where do people skate around here?”
“I think there’s a pond near Frogmore House, Miss,” Audrey replied.
“Thank you,” Maggie said. She was happy—not because she would see Hugh, of course, but because she’d have a chance to vary her physical fitness routine.
Stately white Frogmore House, a seventeenth-century royal country home, was a good walk south of the castle in the Home Park. Maggie had made it in plenty of time and was sitting on a rough wooden bench by the side of the pond, lacing up her skates, when she spotted Hugh, dressed in tweed trousers and a Barbour jacket, skating and playing tag with a few children. Their laughter, and the rough, scraping sound of blades on hard ice, floated up to the sky, which was leaden and threatened snow. The surrounding grass was a dull brown, and the trees that outlined the perimeter of the pond were now completely bare.
Maggie stepped onto the ice and pushed off on one blade, her breath visible in the cold air. So long, Nevins.
One of the children Hugh was playing with fell and cried out, startling a murder of crows pecking at the ground nearby, causing them to flap their iridescent blue-black wings and scream, “Caw! Caw!” into the wind. They settled back down to their pecking, as Hugh picked the child up and dusted her off, sending her on her way.
As Maggie skated by and then turned backward, Hugh whistled. “Not bad, Sonja Henie.”
“I learned at Wellesley,” Maggie said, circling around him, arms outstretched for balance. “Small town near Boston, where I grew up. Every winter we’d clear off Paramecium Pond at Wellesley College and skate.” She grinned. “However, I’m afraid that skating, plus limited self-defense from Camp Spook, are the only sports I can manage. Although I have been doing my exercises daily.”
“From what I recall,” Hugh said, trying to catch up, “your self-defense skills are spot-on.”
They glided together for a while, keeping pace with each other, away from the other skaters. The cold wind rushed past them, stirring the bare branches of the trees in the distance. “It’s good to see you again,” she said.
“Good to see you too,” Hugh said. “Er, good to be back on the case.”
“Wish I could have been a fly on the wall,” Maggie said, turning backward again.
Hugh laughed as he did forward crossovers. “Nevins was fit to be tied, and Frain was none too pleased. But I’m glad. Really glad. So, thanks.” Then, “How did it go?”
“Well, except for having to hide under the desk when Gregory came in unexpectedly, fantastic. He didn’t see me, by the way.”
“Good. And even if you had been found, I’m sure you could have talked your way out.”
Maggie did a few three-turns, her knitted scarf flying behind her. “You were right about Lily, by the way. Fascist involvement from way back, trips to Germany with the Mitford girls, photographs with Hitler …”
“And letters pleading with the King to cover it up, right?”
“Exactly.”
Hugh shook his head as he turned to go backward. He almost fell but then righted himself. “If you’re rich enough and your family has enough connections, you can make anything go away.”
“By the way, I photographed Louisa’s file too, while I was there. Camera’s in my bag.”
“Anything?”
“No,” Maggie said, slowing down. She bit her lip. “But I just have a feeling that something’s not right there.”
“Why? What specifically makes you feel that way?”
“Well …” Maggie thought. “She’s arrogant. She’s mean. She owns a snake. A snake!”
Hugh shrugged. “Doesn’t mean she’s guilty of anything, including colluding with Lily. If you suspect her of something, you need evidence.”
“Frain told me to be a ‘sponge’—and I’ve absorbed a very bad feeling about her.”
“Well, keep an eye on her.”
“I will.”
“You have any suspicions of anyone else?”
Maggie thought about Audrey and how she’d just come from France. Then she shook her head. That’s ridiculous.
They skated together in silence as the wind picked up velocity, blowing the large, lacy snowflakes sideways. Most of the children were cold and had left the pond. “Thanks for getting me back on the case, by the way,” Hugh told her.
“Of course,” Maggie replied. “We’re a team.”
“Yes,” he said. “Although great work solving Lady Lily’s murder there, solo.”
“Sam Berners was the key. Berners was up on the parapet, watching his birds, when he saw Tooke string up the wire. Tooke realized that Berners had seen him, but blackmailed him—Berners had been holding back some of the pheasants and rabbits his falcons killed for himself as well as selling them on the black market—and Tooke threatened to expose him.”