Page 45 of The Number of Love
Margot could appreciate the rhythm, strong and sure. She could calculate the intervals and knew intellectually that some chords were more pleasing than others because of them. She understood the mathematics behind the music and loved it because of the rules it followed. But it never made her feet tap or her body sway.
“I haven’t been to anything like this since Nelson left.” Dot was smiling and sipping at her own glass of fizzing red liquid. “And not often then, I confess.”
Margot had already heard all about the man Dot had planned tomarry. He seemed like he’d been a good sort. But at this point, the loss was stale enough that her friend’s voice never seemed strained ortoosad when she mentioned him. Margot looked out over the crowd. “I attended one of these over the summer.” When Maman had made her.
Maman had also insisted she have a few evening dresses in her wardrobe for such occasions. Willa had come over this afternoon to tell her which she ought to wear. And, Margot suspected, to make sure she waved her hair.
She’d nearly refused to do so again after the flutter it had caused among the secretaries.
A man she didn’t recognize, but who bore a bit of a resemblance to Herschell, approached with a smile. Aimed, wisely, at Dot instead of her. “Good evening, ladies.” He looked young, maybe nineteen or twenty, and wore naval blue. “Would one of you like to dance?”
He saidone ofbut looked only at Dot. Which suited Margot fine.
“Oh.” Her friend looked to her, obviously debating whether it would be rude to abandon her.
Margot produced a smile and waved her fingers toward the improvised dance floor. “Go. Have fun.”
Fun. That would be the quiet of her flat and that journal the Duchess of Stafford had lent her. She’d already read through the whole thing twice, but she’d like another go at Einstein’s article before she dared to talk of it to the duchess. Her German was good, but it hadn’t recently been focused on mathematical and scientific phrases, and she wasn’t altogether certain she’d been translating each word properly. She’d brought a massive dictionary home with her this afternoon, though, to help her remedy any mistakes.
Once Dot put down her glass and joined the sailor on the not-a-dance-floor, Margot edged backward until she’d found a nice corner to disappear into. By her calculation, they could leave in another twenty-three minutes without it looking rude. Assuming Dotwantedto go. With a bit of luck, the sailor wouldn’t be charming enough to outweigh her friend’s urge to return home. Surely she’d want to go and check on her newly installed brother.
Culbreth drifted to a halt in front of her, along with Sir Malcolm—one of DID’s staff. “A bit scary, isn’t it?” he was saying.
Sir Malcolm hummed his agreement. “I’m just grateful we managed to intercept it. Can you imagine the chaos it would have caused if they’d made it to our armies? There was enough sugar there to have killed thousands of animals. Horses, donkeys—we’d have been in quite a spot.”
Margot lowered her glass a bit. Sugar. Dead animals. She’d decoded something about that, but the details wouldn’t quite surface. Which was troubling. She frowned at her soda and tried to sort through it.
Wednesday last. That was it—the day she’d come home with a fever and found Maman.
No wonder the details were playing hide-and-seek.
Culbreth was shaking his head. “I can’t quite fathom it. Using a disease like anthrax to gain the upper hand. It doesn’t seem right, does it? Deliberately spreading something we’ve tried so hard to eradicate?”
“The huns are scrambling for any advantage they can find, that’s what. We’ve got them on the run.”
Anthrax. Margot took another sip of the soda.
“Yes, but what if some of that sugar had made it into human consumption? Can you imagine the results?” Culbreth, though his back was to her, was surely frowning. She could hear it in his voice. “I looked it up—nasty thing, that. Gave me quite a start, too, to see how many symptoms of infection resembled the flu, what with that bout of it going round the office.”
The synapses in her brain finally fired in such a way that she felt the jolt all the way to her toes. This was what had been bothering her ever since she stumbled home that morning and found Maman.
Anthrax. Sugar cubes. A perfectly healthy woman falling prey to death for no good reason after contracting the flu.
Maman hadn’t just died. She’d been killed. Targeted—and perhaps more of them would be too. One of the agents the admiral had left in play must have been contacted, givensomethingtaintedwith anthrax. And he must have decided to use it against Room 40. The people under Admiral Hall, who was waging war so effectively against the Germans’ intelligence operations.
The soda in her cup sloshed as her hand trembled. She slid the glass onto an end table nearby and pushed through the crowd of familiar faces, toward the lavatory, muttering her apologies as she bumped into a few colleagues on her way.
They all just smiled and moved aside, oblivious.
But she wasn’t. Not anymore.
14
Drake had never considered himself a coward. But apparently he was one, as evidenced by the fact that every time he opened his mouth to tell Dot the truth about his wartime activities, he closed it again, the words still unsaid. He’d meant to get it over with as soon as he’d settled into her flat on Saturday, but she’d been busy alternately fussing over him and then herself, preparing for her outing.
His sister. Out for an evening. Of her own free will.
Perhaps it was the shock that rendered him speechless.
