The Traitor in the Tunnel Read online

  The old man was all but barefoot, with only a mismatched pair of leather flaps, much eroded by time and wear, bound to his feet with strips of rags. The feet themselves seemed scarcely worth protecting: grotesquely swollen, purple with cold, the toenails entirely torn off — and yet they kept moving over the slick, rain-soaked cobbles. He shuffled crabwise, shaking as with a palsy, a leathery stick of a man rolled in shreds of rotting cloth. Beggars and vagrants were a common enough sight in the seedier parts of the city, yet there was something about this one that made all recoil. Some stared after him. Others, wiser, kept their eyes averted.

  None of this signified anything to the man. He couldn’t have told the date of his last meal, his last bath, or his last good night’s sleep. But he knew what he needed. It was just around this corner — the last endless, filthy corner in this city he detested with all he was and had been. Hate was the only subject that meant anything, the only emotion that lit his eyes, on occasion. But tonight was too cold even for that. With a last gasp of effort, he turned into the alley. The entrance he wanted — a hole rather than a doorway — had a small sign above, for those who cared to read it: AWAN SURGAWI —“heavenly cloud,” in Malay. Funny. He’d always known it was here. Scarcely remembered a time when he’d have walked past it with indifference. Tonight, though, he paused and read the sign for the first time. It was a damned lie, like everything else in filthy, freezing, godforsaken London. In England.

  The coins were knotted into the hem of his shirt. He’d felt their weight like a promise all evening, every time he moved. Now he stumbled down the narrow, uneven stairs into a murky hell that couldn’t have been less like heaven. Of that much he was certain. But it was good enough for him.

  Sayed saw him through the gloom and, with a flick of the eyes, directed him to a straw mat. The man stumbled to it, as close to gratitude as he’d ever come, and his bones cracked loudly as he settled himself, as though praying to the battered hookah on the floor. Sayed squatted patiently while the man’s gnarled fingers struggled with rotting fabric. Eventually, the coins dropped into the waiting hand.

  “Not much here, Uncle,” said Sayed dubiously.

  The man didn’t reply. He’d come with less, in the past.

  Sayed sighed and pressed his lips together. “I’ll see what I can do.” He measured a parsimonious amount of opium — heavily cut with cheapest tobacco — into the hookah’s bowl. After a brief pause, during which he refused to meet the old man’s gaze, he added a little more. He covered the bowl with a small metal disk, then lit a match. Once the flame caught, he pressed the snake-like smoking tube into the old man’s trembling palm. “Wait,” he said in a warning tone. “Not yet.”

  The old man kept an impatient vigil as the water heated and sufficient steam built up. At long last, it was ready. Raising the mouthpiece to his lips, lungs hollow and aching for the thick smoke, he felt a very specific sense of calm amid his frantic need. This was new — an omen. He disliked both those things intensely. Yet as he sucked on the pipe, welcoming the fragrant poison into his body, it was the calm that remained with him. As though his troubles were nearly over. As though tonight, in some way, he would meet his fate.

  Pipe dreams, he thought, and drifted away.

  Her Majesty Victoria, by the Grace of God, of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland Queen, Defender of the Faith, had a lamp shade on her head. Again.

  “A lamp!” shouted Prince Leopold. Age six, he was of a literal disposition.

  “You’ve already guessed that, Leo,” said Princess Helena. “Give somebody else a go.”

  “A hot-air balloon?” asked Prince Arthur. He was sprawled across the rug, keeping half an eye on the game of charades while building a model ship.

  “A fine guess, but rather disproportioned, don’t you think?” said the queen, a twinkle in her eye. “There isn’t a lamp shade in the palace big enough to turn me into a montgolfière.”

  “One more guess,” said Helena. “Bea, shall I give you a clue?”

  Princess Beatrice nodded vigorously and quickly pulled her finger from her nostril. Helena bent to whisper in her sister’s ear. In a moment, the toddler’s eyes lit up. “A Christmas tree!” she shrieked, to the family’s amusement.

  There was a vigorous round of applause for the tiniest princess, and her father smiled indulgently. “Well done, children — especially for guessing before your mother set her hair on fire.”

  “And before our guests arrived to find me wearing a lamp shade.” Her Majesty laughed. “Think of the gossip! The scandal!”

  At her station in the corner of the Yellow Drawing Room, where she was arranging a tableful of sherry glasses, Mary bit back a smile. Queen Victoria’s public reputation was for demure virtue and domestic bliss. In private, however, her casual high spirits sometimes reduced her family to tears of laughter. In the six weeks Mary had been posted at the palace, she’d heard Her Majesty tease her children, banter with her husband, and even engage in wild games of hide-and-seek, which seemed always to end with shrieking laughter as the queen was discovered beneath a piano, crouched on a windowsill, or, once, memorably, inside a suit of armor.

  The queen moved between her roles with ease, and this early-evening gathering was a perfect example. After the young princes and princesses had had an early supper in the nursery, they came down to the drawing room to see their parents before going to bed. It was quite common for Her Majesty to invite a handful of extra-privileged dinner guests to join them at this time, for sherry, before bidding her children good night and proceeding to her state dinner, resplendent in silk train and tiara. Clearly, she was determined to emphasize her domesticity as a central feature of her character as sovereign.

  Mary finished arranging the sherry table and glanced about the room. No other alterations seemed necessary, as tonight’s dinner was a relatively intimate affair with only two dozen guests. She slipped into the corridor, passing an underbutler bearing a drinks tray. Her progress was arrested, however, when a lady-in-waiting rounded the corner.

  Like a well-trained servant, Mary instantly stopped and turned to face the wall — becoming, as it were, part of the furnishings. It was a serious breach of domestic discipline not to do so, and Mary had once been delayed for nearly a quarter of an hour when two of the elder princesses had stopped in the Long Gallery to examine a painting.

  This particular lady-in-waiting, though, spoke to her. “Who is that?”

  Mary turned and curtsied. “It is Quinn, ma’am.”

  “Quinn. Tell the butler that the Earl of Wintermarch is prevented by illness from dining with Her Majesty this evening.”

  “Very good, Mrs. Dalrymple. Is there anything else?”

  “What? No, of course not. Why do you ask?”

  “No reason, ma’am. I shall tell Mr. Brooks immediately.”

  “See that you do.”

  With faint amusement, Mary watched Honoria Dalrymple stalk away. She was a greyhound of a woman in her late thirties — thin and elegant, with cold green eyes and a habit of sniffing whenever she entered a room, as though mistrustful of what might lurk in its corners. Such suspicions were probably well founded: it was generally servants who occupied room corners, and they universally detested Mrs. Dalrymple.

  It was no mystery why. Her peremptory ways were normal enough (although the royal family managed to speak with civility to their servants), but she was a known troublemaker. On one of Mary’s first days in service, the assistant pastry cook pulled her aside to warn her: the lady-in-waiting changed her mind, and blamed the servants; ordered boiled fowls, then pitched a fit and insisted that she’d said roasted. It was impossible to please Mrs. Dalrymple, and no one tried seriously. The trick, said the pastry cook, was not to
let her put you in the wrong before the family.

  Mary returned belowstairs and presented herself to the head butler, Mr. Brooks. As she delivered her message, the top of his bald head turned scarlet.

  “Did she say what illness he had?”

  Mary was startled. “No, sir. Just ‘prevented by illness.’”

  Mr. Brooks muttered something extremely impolite. The Earl of Wintermarch’s absence put a hitch in the seating plan. So did Mrs. Dalrymple’s report of his indisposition, as it was only moderately reliable. Would it be worse to have an empty place at table when the company proceeded into the dining hall or to have laid no place at all for such a high-ranking guest? “Get up there,” said the head butler finally, “and tell Richardson to keep his eye out for the earl. If he’s miraculously recovered, I need to know instantly.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And tell Potter, too, in case the earl slips into the pen.” The pen — the term was short for “cattle pen”— was the staff nickname for the White Room, where less privileged guests were given their pre-dinner sherries.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Quinn, why are you dillydallying there? I expected you back fully ten minutes ago.”

  Mary spun about and saw the housekeeper, to whom she officially reported, standing at the end of the corridor, arms akimbo and lips pressed tight. From this angle, she looked not unlike an awkward reproduction of Mrs. Dalrymple. “I’m coming immediately, Mrs. Shaw.”

  Mr. Brooks may have shared Mary’s impression. His tone was frosty as he said, “You mustn’t blame Quinn, Mrs. Shaw; she was charged with a message for me, and I have only just finished giving her further instructions.”

  “I am surprised you should so forget the chain of command as to give orders to one of my domestics, Mr. Brooks.” Mrs. Shaw’s military language was habitual and seldom failed to inspire eye rolling when her back was turned.

  “It is a matter of urgency,” he replied. “Quinn will return the very instant she’s relayed my message.”

  Mary seized her opportunity. “Indeed, sir. Thank you for understanding, ma’am.” And she fled.

  It was going to be a long evening.

  One of the last rituals each night, after all duties had been completed and staff prayers conducted, was the doling out of hot-water bottles. The servants, weary and eager for their beds, queued in relative silence outside the housekeeper’s room. Mrs. Shaw called them in one at a time, inspecting their uniforms and appearances for the last time before permitting them to take a large stoneware bottle filled with boiling water and tightly stoppered. The hot-water bottles were heavy, cumbersome, and pure heaven in an unheated attic room in midwinter.

  This evening, when Mary presented herself, Mrs. Shaw had an envelope on her desk. “Quinn, there’s a little note here for you. I don’t know when it arrived. From your mother again, I presume, though it’s a bit early for her weekly letter.”

  Mary tried not to scowl at the housekeeper’s presumption. “It looks like her hand, Mrs. Shaw.” All letters and parcels directed to servants were first delivered to their supervisors. Although this was, in theory, for efficiency’s sake, Mary had heard from other servants that Mrs. Shaw occasionally opened and read her underlings’ letters, citing “morals” as her justification.

  Mrs. Shaw paused before placing the letter in Mary’s open hand. “Have you laid the breakfast table ready for morning?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “How did you fold the napkins?”

  “Into fans, as you said I should, ma’am.”

  A sniff. “Are there fresh candles in the candelabra?”

  “Yes, ma’am.” It had been such a cold, dark winter. And Her Majesty breakfasted early — often before sunrise, during these dark months.

  “Your apron is dirty.” This last was in a tone of satisfaction.

  Mary looked down at the tiny smear of orange that marred the edge of her apron’s crisp whiteness. From the lily stamens, she supposed, whose dye was indelible. She ruined an apron every other time she changed the flower water. “I shall replace it immediately, ma’am.”

  “See that you do.” Mrs. Shaw dropped the letter into Mary’s hand and nodded; Mary was dismissed.

  As she climbed the narrow wooden stairs to the servants’ quarters, a scalding-hot bottle tucked into the crook of her arm, she wondered again what she’d done to offend Mrs. Shaw. The woman was an exacting housekeeper, an older woman with rigid ways of doing things. But that didn’t account for the angry joy she exhibited when Mary was in error. It was quite possible that she resented Mary’s sudden appointment; perhaps she’d had a favorite in mind for the plum position of upper housemaid. It was rather a change in the palace for a newcomer to be placed so high. Of course, Mrs. Shaw had no way of knowing just why it was so.

  It had been someone high up — Mary wasn’t permitted to know who, for her own safety — who’d first approached the Agency about the delicate matter at the palace. Small ornaments and trinkets were going missing. The first, a tiny tortoiseshell snuffbox that had belonged to Queen Victoria’s uncle, the Duke of York, might have been gone for some time before it was missed in the densely ornamented Blue Room. But the second, a Dresden shepherdess, had been prized by Her Majesty’s mother. Its disappearance inspired a spring cleaning and general inventory of the palace’s domestic decorations. Yet despite the heightened safety measures instituted by the Master of the Household — locking of drawing-room doors at night, for example — the thefts continued. No obvious suspect emerged. There was, apparently, no trail to follow.

  Calling in the Metropolitan Police was impossible, of course: much too sensational and inclined to stir high-society gossip. And without clear evidence, the Master of the Household declined to sack individual employees. And so, for this pettiest of crimes, Mary found herself posing as a seasoned housemaid in the queen’s own household. It was her first assignment as a newly elevated full member of the Agency; she’d completed her training just before Christmas. And while she still dreamed of complex assignments, a hint of danger, and a twisty problem to puzzle out, she had accepted this staid little case philosophically. She was content to pay her dues.

  It was a soft landing, as far as domestic service went. Food was plentiful, uniforms were provided, and some upper servants even had their own tiny bedrooms in the attics. It didn’t prevent them from grousing, however. The food was too plain: Her Majesty was suspicious of French sauces and pungent herbs. The evenings were dull: Her Majesty had abstemious ways, and so fine wines and spirits were served only to guests. And gossip was forbidden. It was this last stricture that Mary found most frustrating. After nearly six weeks at the palace, she’d heard nothing of use about the thefts. The servants were banned from even mentioning the fact, and so Mary’s weekly report to her mother — that is, to the Agency — was very thin indeed.

  With a sigh of relief, Mary entered the chilly bedroom and closed the door behind her. It hadn’t a lock. Amy, her new roommate, would be up soon, but the current silence was a rare pleasure. The envelope was still sealed. Unless Mrs. Shaw had taken the time to re-gum it, her “mother’s” words were still private.

  My dear Mary,

  I had a letter from my cousin Alfred, who you recall was married last year. He is now father to a little boy called Edwin. The birth was difficult but now all danger is past and the baby is, by the midwife’s own report, a healthy babe. Will you travel down to Wimbledon this Sunday to help out?

  Your loving mama

  They’d agreed to use the simplest of codes, for speed: every eleventh word contained the Agency’s real instructions. What she read now — recall; little danger; report Sunday — was utterly surprising and perplexing.

  The Agency seldom recalled its undercover agents. If it did, it was usually because of grave personal danger: a disguise gone wrong, or a new and volatile element of risk. But this message was the inverse of what she’d been trained to expect. If there was so little danger, why not permit her to sta
y and achieve what she could?

  A new and humiliating thought struck her: perhaps her employers, Anne Treleaven and Felicity Frame, had tired of her lack of results. Five full weeks with nothing to report, and she could only say the same again tomorrow. Mary was too reasonable to think that it was her fault. There had been no subsequent pilferings; nobody gossiped about the original rash of thefts; nobody had behaved suspiciously under Mary’s watch. And yet the total absence of results shamed her. She felt, in some obscure way, responsible for producing answers — even if they were provisional.

  Or it might be the client. Perhaps Buckingham Palace thought that after more than a month’s lull, the thief had moved on. Her Majesty was notoriously frugal. Perhaps Mary’s work was simply another unjustifiable expenditure, if the thief was disobliging enough to have gone on holiday. Yet an uncaught thief almost never retired satisfied. After another month, the thefts would begin again, and then where would the palace be? Yet it was impossible to think that Anne and Felicity wouldn’t have explained this carefully to their client.

  Mary scowled about the spartan room. It wasn’t that she’d miss this place, or this rather dreary little assignment. And she hadn’t much to pack, or long to wait: she could ask permission to visit her “mother” tomorrow, while the family was at church. Even so, failure stung. Especially as this was her first proper case.

  The door handle clicked, and almost immediately the barrage of words began. “Oh, my good lord, what a night! What is that Mrs. Shaw like? Thinks she’s the queen of all us girls, don’t she? I were that close”— Amy gestured with vigor —“that close, I swear, to telling her where to stick her blooming feather duster.”

  Mary rolled her eyes. “I wish you would.”

  Amy’s outrage dissolved and she giggled. “Aye, that would be a sight to see. Maybe I’ll save it for my last day.”

  “Got that planned, have you?” Despite Amy’s volubility, Mary didn’t know her well. They’d begun sharing this room only a few nights ago, after a falling-out between Amy and her previous chamber-mate.