Lil update on how the CHapter 3 mystery will look:
Those of you who read the Interlude at the end of the last chapter will know that, in Chapter 3, our hero is being sent back to their old university, Oxford, in pursuit of the England Archive. But this time they have another job too: they need to unmask a traitor, a highly-placed person at Magdalen College, Oxford, who has been selling secrets to the Nazis, a person known only by their code-name, “Winter”. Early on in the chapter, you will meet the whole roster of possible suspects, each of whom has a plausible reason for betraying their country to the Nazis. Here’s an overview of all the possibilities:
Professor Augustus Grainger: A prominent philosopher, and the President of the College. Grainger is a strict, fierce, authoritarian man who does not tolerate fools. He makes no secret of the fact that he has some sympathy for Nazi ideology and that he thinks that the current war is foolish. Some of his research interests (19th Century German philosophy, the social applications of Darwinism) have distinctly Nazi flavors. But is he too obvious? Would a Nazi secret agent really be so open about their sympathies?
Reverend Aubrey Simms: The college chaplain. He seems genial and mild-mannered - but what’s this you hear about him having long, involved private conversations with a man whom you strongly suspect is a Nazi operative? Is there more to the good Reverend than meets the eye?
Dr. Hugh Glass: A young, arrogant physicist. But he knows things - suspicious things, things that he’s only likely to know if he has been working to help the Nazis find the Archive. What secrets lie behind Dr. Glass’s mysterious knowledge?
Mrs. Valeria Glass: The wife of the above. She has already been attracting the attention of MI5, Britain’s domestic secret service, who apparently suspect her of treason. She claims that these suspicions are baseless and solely a result of ethnic prejudice, because both of her parents were Italian. But can this really explain their suspicions? Might they have more substantial reasons for seeing her as a traitor?
Dr. Geoffrey Magwitch: A quiet, unassuming, shy classicist. He seems like the least likely suspect - until you hear that he keeps sneaking off of campus for mysterious meetings that he won’t talk to anybody about. What’s he up to? Is he meeting his Nazi handlers?
Prof. Madeline Blake: One of Oxford’s few female professors, and the only woman working at the all-male bastion that is Magdalen College. She’s a gifted but troubled mathematician. She despises the current war as stupid and unnecessary, and she powerfully hates the current British government, and especially Prime Minister Churchill, whom she personally blames for her husband’s death in the First World War. Has her hatred led her to sympathize with the Nazis - and to go beyond sympathy into treason?
These are your main suspects. Lots of secrets to untangle and hidden motivations to uncover! Will you be able to crack the mystery of Winter’s identity? Find out in the next update!
