Von Waltz picked up a folder from his desk and walked to Hugh. There, sure enough, were photographs of Hugh’s letters home, in his own handwriting. “Work with us,” the German coaxed, in his most persuasive tones, as Hugh slumped in shame and despair. “You are an officer, like me. There’s a bond between us.” Hugh didn’t reply.
“SOE has sent you here in violation of all the rules of warfare: you’re a traitor in civilian clothes. You’re a spy. A spy!” Von Waltz paused. “Why give up your life for some stupid, inbred, Eton-educated snob working on Baker Street? Yes, we know all about Colonel Gaskell and his F-Section operation.” At the mention of Gaskell’s name, Hugh started. “And Diana Lynd, as well as the other ‘Baker Street Irregulars.’?” He leaned over to the desk and picked up another file, which he handed to Hugh.
In horror, Hugh scanned the paper. It was an organizational flowchart of all of SOE, rendered with stunning accuracy. “Who? Who betrayed us?”
“Work with us,” von Waltz urged, ignoring his question. “I’m not going to make you any false promises. Life here won’t be exactly luxurious, but you will survive if you cooperate. Now, we’re going to make use of you. You will agree to code messages for us. You will pretend to your contacts back in London that you’re still an agent at large. And we will use the information they send to you.”
“Who betrayed us?” Hugh repeated, eyes dull with shock. Who else was in danger of being exposed?
“Work with us.”
“No!”
“No?” Von Waltz was incredulous.
Hugh took a ragged breath. Softer now, he repeated, “No.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. But perhaps you’ll become more amenable after a little…encouragement.” Von Waltz really did look regretful. “It didn’t have to be this way, you know. You’re bringing it on yourself.”
Hugh raised his chin. “Can’t be as bad as British boarding school.”
Von Waltz gave him a pitying glance, then looked to the two guards and snapped his fingers. “Take our friend down to the basement.”
Chapter Nine
All prospective SOE agents were warned about vivid dreams. In fact, all trainees slept two or more to a room, to discover if anyone talked in her sleep—especially in English, a dead giveaway on a mission.
Maybe it was sleeping in a real bed after so many nights on the Charcots’ hard sofa, but Maggie’s dreams that night were surreal and strange, a vision in which she saw Paige Kelly, the friend whose identity she’d borrowed for this mission.
But the Paige in her dream was her old self, although imprisoned in a long mirror, like Alice in the looking glass. She smiled. And Maggie smiled back, their eyes meeting in the glass. Mirror Paige held up one palm, as if in benediction. Maggie opened her mouth to speak, but nothing would come out. Paige smiled sadly; she understood, but couldn’t help.
Just as Maggie lifted her own hand to reach into the mirror, she woke.
She deliberately kept her eyes closed as she lay in the tangled sheets. She didn’t want to move, desperate to keep the connection she’d felt. But the thumps of doors closing, the faint sound of the elevator bell, then a room service trolley being pushed down the hall were enough to make the dream disappear. She opened her eyes reluctantly, seeing the day dawning red from the windows. She turned over and looked up. In the ceiling’s corner, she could see a small brown spider spinning a web and comforted herself by thinking of math—after all, the French mathematician Descartes’s inspiration for positions of points, coordinates, and the Cartesian plane had been a fly on the ceiling of his bedroom.
Maggie threw off the cover. Shivering in her cotton nightgown, she rose and walked to the windows, pushing aside the lined blackout curtains and then opening them as wide as she could to take a deep breath of fresh air.
It had rained again during the night. Looking down on Rue Cambon, she watched a line of nuns in black pass, their images reflected up from the wet pavement. A man with shoes resoled in wood clattered down the cobblestones, while in the distance a siren wailed.
Memories of the night before flashed before Maggie. While she was heartened by having learned the location of the Hess apartment, seeing a Frenchman murdered in the street, spending that much time around Nazis and collaborators, and hearing of Erica’s death had left a noxious taste in her mouth.
And, if she was honest with herself, she had to admit that, although she was happy for Sarah and Hugh, the news of their baby was still…unsettling. Now she knew that things between her and Hugh were really and truly over. She felt wistful—and also slightly relieved.
After a bath and breakfast of decent coffee and a croissant brought up on a tray, Maggie was ready, dressed in Nina Ricci—a lilac silk suit and matching hat, with a pointy Robin Hood brim and bright blue feather.
But before heading to the Hess flat, she still had a cover story to keep up. She’d booked an appointment for the showing of the new collections at the House of Ricci, one of the few couturieres still doing business in Paris.
She left from the Place Vend?me doors of the Ritz for 20 Rue des Capucines, sidestepping puddles on the street. It was only a short walk, and she was early, but there was already a crowd waiting outside the atelier: elegant women wearing Ricci designs of past seasons in tribute; photographers with heavy black cameras; the French film stars Suzy Delair, Danielle Darrieux, and Micheline Presle; and the inevitable gawkers.
The entrance was cordoned off by a velvet rope, where a stylish man with formidable black eyebrows was checking names off a list. Behind him, plastered to the wall, were posters of delicate paintings by Christian Bérard for a promised new Ricci perfume, Coeur-Joie, interspersed with posters featuring a Nazi flag crossed with the Tricolor and the words L’Europe contre Bolshivisme.
“Paige Kelly,” Maggie told the man with the clipboard when it was her turn.
He looked down the list, and back up at her. Then, to her relief, his frosty expression melted. “Welcome, Mademoiselle Kelly.” He nodded. “Please come in.”
She took a deep breath and entered the salon. A high-ceilinged space with a gray marble floor, the room was already hot and loud, filled with clients, department store buyers, salesgirls, and members of the press. The mirrored walls only added to the fun-house chaos and confusion as a pendulum clock kept time.
Around her, she saw women in smart suits and witty hats, holding crocodile purses. They burst into peals of laughter on seeing one another, embracing and giving double air kisses, careful not to smear their waxy lipstick. With fabric shortages in effect, hats were more important than ever. Maggie admired one in particular: a narrow-brimmed boater with a tiny emerald bird perched on a branch of flowers pinned to netting, seemingly just escaped from a silver birdcage. She inhaled their perfumes: jasmine, rose, civet, and ambergris, along with the scents of smoke, face powder, and, on one woman’s breath, the distinct aroma of brandy.
And she caught snippets of conversations: “You look ravishing, darling!” “How lovely to see you again!” “We’ll talk after the show…” “I hear she went to New York.” “Well, I heard—”
There were men in attendance, too. Those in suits were buyers for department stores in Italy, Japan, Germany, Switzerland, and South America, Maggie guessed, or possibly journalists, but there were also uniformed Wehrmacht officers. Nazis looking for gowns for their wives back home or their Parisian mistresses? Perhaps both? Although Maggie had known in theory what the situation was in occupied Paris, seeing the reality continued to be shocking—the French mixing with Germans at a public event without shame, even with a certain friendliness. She straightened her spine, knowing the Brits would never be caught doing any such thing. Or would they?