Yes, I bet he’ll be doing a lot of speaking, thought Maisie as she imagined Leslie rattling off instructions to get this or that person on the telephone. She checked the time: late afternoon. Leslie would have spoken to Huntley and MacFarlane without delay. Huntley would deal with foreign office liaison, using whatever tactics were necessary to keep the truth of today’s outcome from spreading along the corridors of Whitehall and Westminster. Maisie and Leon Donat were small fry in terms of the greater political maneuvering at present under way—but like a tiny pebble in a shoe, the truth about them could be crippling if revealed. And how would Robbie MacFarlane respond to the businessman’s disappearance? Oh, please, please, keep him away from Munich. She uttered the words as if offering up a prayer to be answered.
Sitting at the mahogany writing desk, Maisie made a list. Locating Mark Scott was imperative—she was not sure she trusted him, but without doubt he had his finger in a few pies, and he seemed to have knowledge at his disposal. Was Elaine Otterburn safe in England—or was she somewhere in Munich? Maisie had heard nothing more about the dead SS officer. That problem had gone to ground—but for how long? Then there was the place where Leon Donat had been arrested, a workshop of some sort. It was likely locked up by now, the doors chained, but she had to locate it, as well as to find someone who knew Ulli Bader, the man Leon Donat had tried to help. He was supposedly the son of a good friend. Who was that friend, and where was his son, the man who had apparently evaded capture?
And was it true that Leon Donat had tried to help? Had he tried to assist the young man, or had he become involved somehow in producing propaganda against Hitler’s Reich? Had he really been arrested in error, or had he committed a crime against the Führer’s regime? But how could he have? He’d only been in Munich a matter of days. Unless . . . unless he’d wanted to stay.
Maisie leaned back in the chair, feeling the unforgiving wood press into her spine. She sat forward again and looked over her notes. She had brought no documentation with her from England, other than the papers required to release Donat. She’d had only a short time to memorize all the reports, photographs, letters, and transcribed interviews she was tasked with reading before her departure from England. She closed her eyes as if to envision each sheet of paper, each image.
A knock at the door heralded the arrival of a late lunch. She had asked for only a sandwich and a cup of tea. As she ate, she formed her plan. There was not much time before nightfall, but she hoped something could be accomplished before the end of the day. Had all gone well, she would be at the station by now, as good as on her way home. Now she could only speculate on when that journey might take place. Before doubt could claim her, she made ready to leave the consulate, put on her coat and hat, and walked toward the door. Only as she passed the mirror did she realize that she had forgotten to put on her wig. And of more crucial importance, she had answered the door and taken in the tray without it, having taken it off almost as soon as she was left alone.
The momentary terror passed as soon as she replaced the wig, after rubbing in cold cream to soothe the welt along the top of her forehead. She would carry on as if nothing had happened. But the woman who brought her lunch might have seen her when she arrived at the consulate, wig in place. Would she see her again? And would she mention—possibly to Leslie—that the lady in the guest room had very short hair indeed?
Perhaps she should wait until tomorrow to begin her search for Leon Donat, when she was fresh and rested. She could not afford another slip.
Fatigued and despondent, she removed her coat and hat and pulled off the wig again. Throwing them all across a leather chair, she lay back and stared at the ceiling, where a garland of alabaster leaves encircled an ornate glass chandelier hung to resemble a flower, as if crystal were growing down from above her head. She thought about the man she had denied freedom. She felt like a Judas. But how could she have saved him? She suspected the man had been used, but had she accepted him as her father to save his life, how could she have traveled through Germany and France with him, a man who apparently spoke no English and thus was clearly not the man she had come to receive on behalf of herself and her country? Could she have taken him and just put him on a train for France and freedom? Perhaps. But if the SS officers were party to the subterfuge, then she would have been revealed as an impostor.
She’d had to make a swift decision in the guard room, and for better or worse she had told the truth. How could anyone have guessed, when the man was thrown in prison, that Leon Donat’s captors would begin to play cat and mouse, stipulating that a member of the prisoner’s family should be present for his release? After all, a family member would be able to identify him.
Maisie stood up and walked across to the window to draw the curtains. The room faced a side street, which was empty save for a couple of people walking toward the main thoroughfare as if to catch a train at the end of the working day. She was about to reach for the cord to draw the curtains when she noticed a man lingering under a lamp across the street. She looked down; below her window a guard patrolled the building. It was not a display of might, simply one guard assigned, she supposed, to answer questions, direct travelers to the entrance around the corner, and help the odd person who had mislaid a passport.
When she glanced back toward the lamp, the man was still there but had now retreated into the shadows. She smiled. If she was correct, Mark Scott still had her six.
CHAPTER 13