“Are you sure you don’t want company tomorrow?”
“Positive. I am used to being on my own in an unfamiliar country.”
“Right you are. We started to see women traveling alone or in pairs and small groups a few years ago. I suppose it was to be expected, what with fewer men to go around. I must say, you bachelor girls are all very brave when it comes to just going off on your own.”
They had reached the end of the narrow street, taken to avoid saluting Nazi heroes.
“I know my way from here, Mr. Leslie.”
“Are you sure you’ll be all right?” Leslie looked at his watch.
Maisie smiled. “Oh, yes, I’ll manage—I am one of those brave bachelor girls, after all.”
Leslie blushed. “I’ll be in touch, then.”
In her hotel room, Maisie pulled off her coat, threw down her bag, and went straight to the bathroom, where she splashed water on her face, leaning over the sink and holding her hands to her eyes as the facecloth dripped water back into the sink. She had not known what to expect during the visit to the austere Nazi headquarters that morning, but she knew the tension would not leave her until she was in Paris, Leon Donat at her side. She raised her head and looked in the mirror. It was something she’d found herself doing more in the past months, as if she wanted to see who she had become, to monitor change. She wanted to see if she looked like a widow, whether something in the way she carried herself revealed a woman who had lost a dear husband. Or did she resemble the young woman she had become after the war—one of so many “bachelor girls” who had, perhaps, lost a first love, spinsters for whom there would be no husband or family? She had been one of the lucky ones; her loss had been repaid, and she had loved again. That her husband had been killed and their child stillborn seemed to her a most unfair fate—as if a much-cherished promise had been rescinded, leaving an aching void.
She shook her head, reached for the towel, and made sure her wig was in the correct position. She would be glad to see it consigned to the dustbin as soon as she could divest herself of Edwina Donat. She put on her coat, hat, and gloves once more and checked the time. It was not even one o’clock. She could spend half a day today and much of tomorrow looking for Elaine Otterburn. At that thought she gave a sigh of relief. This was work she knew, even if it was in a different country.
There was one last element of preparation before she made her way back to the reception desk to ask directions to Schwabing. She reached into the leather case, unwrapped a cashmere cardigan with mother-of-pearl buttons, and removed a velvet pouch that looked as if it should contain toiletries. She slipped her hand inside and took out the revolver given to her by MacFarlane. With a deft hand she checked her weapon, used a cloth to remove any dust, and made it ready with ammunition. Running her fingers across the metal one more time, as if she were gentling a racehorse before a gallop, she slipped the Enfield into her bag. She could not have said why she thought she might need the revolver with her on a visit to Schwabing—an artists’ enclave of bookstores, cafés, and nightclubs, on the face of it a benign place. But she knew she did not want to venture out without it this afternoon.
The desk clerk took Maisie’s Baedeker guide, opened the map inside, and lifted his pencil. “May I?”
“Of course,” said Maisie. “I need to know where I’m going.”
Flourishing the pencil, the clerk marked the place where Maisie could board a tram and the point at which she should step off. He told her where to walk, and made a note in the margin of his favorite coffeehouse, where he informed her that she could buy a slice of the very best apple strudel. Maisie thanked the man and set off.
As the tram rumbled along the streets to Schwabing, Maisie watched people going about their afternoon—women running errands, children who looked as if they should be in school, and a couple she suspected were tourists, for they held a map and stopped a man in the street. He looked at their map, and pointed in the opposite direction to the one they had been walking. And men in uniform, usually in twos, or groups, receiving the inevitable acknowledgment from passersby, a salute to honor the chancellor.
Soon the conductress tapped her on the shoulder to let her know she had arrived; this was her stop.
“Danke. Guten Tag,” said Maisie as she moved toward the door.
The woman lifted her chin as she turned to another passenger to issue a ticket.