The woman who opened the door was about sixty. She had white hair tied up at the back with a tortoiseshell clasp. She wore a blue dress with a pattern of small white flowers. Over it she had a crisp white apron. "Good morning, monsieur," she said politely.
Dieter smiled. She was an irreproachably genteel provincial lady. Already he had thought of a way to torture her. His spirits lifted with hope.
He said, "Good morning... Mademoiselle Lemas?"
She took in his suit, noticed the car at the curb, and perhaps heard the trace of a German accent, and fear came into her eyes. There was a tremor in her voice as she said, "How may I help you?"
"Are you alone, Mademoiselle?" He watched her face carefully.
"Yes," she said. "Quite alone."
She was telling the truth. He was sure. A woman such as this could not lie without betraying herself with her eyes.
He turned and beckoned Stephanie. "My colleague will join us." He was not going to need Weber's men. "I have some questions to ask you."
"Questions? About what?"
"May I come in?"
"Very well."
The front parlor was furnished with dark wood, highly polished. There was a piano under a dust cover and an engraving of Reims cathedral on the wall. The mantelpiece bore a selection of ornaments: a spun-glass swan, a china flower girl, a transparent globe containing a model of the palace at Versailles, and three wooden camels.
Dieter sat on a plush upholstered couch. Stephanie sat beside him, and Mademoiselle Lemas took an upright chair opposite. She was plump, Dieter observed. Not many French people were plump after four years of occupation. Food was her vice.
On a low table was a cigarette box and a heavy lighter. Dieter flipped the lid and saw that the box was full. "Please feel free to smoke," he said.
She looked mildly offended: women of her generation did not use tobacco. "I don't smoke."
"Then who are these for?"
She touched her chin, a sign of dishonesty. "Visitors."
"And what kind of visitors do you get?"
"Friends... neighbors..." She looked uncomfortable.
"And British spies."
"That is absurd."
Dieter gave her his most charming smile. "You are obviously a respectable lady who has become mixed up in criminal activities from misguided motives," he said in a tone of friendly candor. "I'm not going to toy with you, and I hope you will not be so foolish as to lie to me."
"I shall tell you nothing," she said.
Dieter feigned disappointment, but he was pleased to be making such rapid progress. She had already abandoned the pretense that she did not know what he was talking about. That was as good as a confession. "I'm going to ask you some questions," he said. "If you don't answer them, I shall ask you again at Gestapo headquarters."
She gave him a defiant look.
He said. "Where do you meet the British agents?"
She said nothing.
"How do they recognize you?"
Her eyes met his in a steady gaze. She was no longer flustered, but resigned. A brave woman, he thought. She would be a challenge.
"What is the password?"
She did not answer.
"Who do you pass the agents on to? How do you contact the Resistance? Who is in charge of it?"
Silence.
Dieter stood up. "Come with me, please."
"Very well," she said staunchly. "Perhaps you will permit me to put on my hat."
"Of course." He nodded to Stephanie. "Go with Mademoiselle, please. Make sure she does not use the telephone or write anything down." He did not want her to leave any kind of message.
He waited in the hail. When they returned, Mademoiselle Lemas had taken off her apron and wore a light coat and a cloche hat that had gone out of fashion long before the outbreak of war. She carried a sturdy tan leather handbag. As the three of them were heading for the front door, Mademoiselle Lemas said, "Oh! I forgot my key."
"You don't need it," Dieter said.
"The door locks itself," she said. "I need a key to get back in."
Dieter looked her in the eye. "Don't you understand?" he said. "You've been sheltering British terrorists in your house, you have been caught, and you are in the hands of the Gestapo." He shook his head in an expression of sorrow that was not entirely fake. "Whatever happens, Mademoiselle, you're never coming home again."
She realized the full horror of what was happening to her. Her face turned white, and she staggered. She steadied herself by grabbing the edge of a kidney-shaped table. A Chinese vase containing a spray of dried grasses wobbled dangerously but did not fall. Then Mademoiselle Lemas recovered her poise. She straightened up and let go of the table. She gave him that defiant look again, then walked out of her house with her head held high.
Dieter asked Stephanie to take the front passenger seat, while he sat in the back of the car with the prisoner. As Hans drove them to Sainte-C‚cile, Dieter made polite conversation. "Were you born in Reims, Mademoiselle?"
"Yes. My father was choirmaster at the cathedral."
A religious background. This was good news for the plan that was forming in Dieter's mind. "Is he retired?"
"He died five years ago, after a long illness."
"And your mother?"
"Died when I was quite young."
"So, I imagine you nursed your father through his illness?"
"For twenty years."
"Au." That explained why she was single. She had spent her life caring for an invalid father. "And he left you the house."
She nodded.
"Small reward, some might think, for a life of dedicated service," Dieter said sympathetically.
She gave him a haughty look. "One does not do such things for reward."
"Indeed not." He did not mind the implied rebuke. It would help his plan if she could convince herself that she was somehow Dieter's superior, morally and socially. "Do you have brothers and sisters?"
"None."
Dieter saw the picture vividly. The agents she sheltered, all young men and women, must have been like her children. She had fed them, done their laundry, talked to them, and probably kept an eye on the relationships between the sexes, making sure there was no immorality, at least not under her root
And now she would die for it.
But first, he hoped, she would tell him everything.
The Gestapo Citro‰n followed Dieter's car to SainteC‚cile. When they had parked in the grounds of the chƒteau, Dieter spoke to Weber. "I'm going to take her upstairs and put her in an office," he said.
"Why? There are cells in the basement."
"You'll see."
Dieter led the prisoner up the stairs to the Gestapo offices. Dieter looked into all the rooms and picked the busiest, a combination typing pool and post room. It was occupied by young men and women in smart shirts and ties. Leaving Mademoiselle Lemas in the corridor, he closed the door and clapped his hands for attention. In a quiet voice he said, "I'm going to bring a French woman in here. She is a prisoner, but I want you all to be friendly and polite to her, is that understood? Treat her as a guest. It's important that she feels respected."
He brought her in, sat her at a table and, with a murmured apology, handcuffed her ankle to the table leg. He left Stephanie with her and took Hesse outside. "Go to the canteen and ask them to prepare lunch on a tray. Soup, a main course, a little wine, a bottle of mineral water, and plenty of coffee. Bring cutlery, glasses, a napkin. Make it look nice."
The lieutenant grinned admiringly. He had no idea what his boss was up to, but he felt sure it would be something clever.
A few minutes later he returned with a tray. Dieter took it from him and carried it into the office. He set it in front of Mademoiselle Lemas. "Please," he said. "It's lunchtime."
"I couldn't eat anything, thank you."
"Perhaps just a little soup." He poured wine into her glass.
She added water to the wine and sipped it, then tried a mouthful of s
oup.
"How is it?"
"Very good," she admitted.
"French food is so refined. We Germans cannot imitate it." Dieter talked nonsense to her, trying to relax her, and she drank most of the soup. He poured her a glass of water.
Major Weber came in and stared incredulously at the tray in front of the prisoner. Speaking German, he said, "Are we now rewarding people for harboring terrorists?"
Dieter said, "Mademoiselle is a lady. We must treat her correctly."
"God in heaven," Weber said, and he turned on his heel.
She refused the main course but drank all the coffee. Dieter was pleased. Everything was going according to plan. When she had finished, he asked her all the questions again. "Where do you meet the Allied agents? How do they recognize you? What is the password?" She looked worried, but she still refused to answer.
He looked sadly at her. "I am very sorry that you refuse to cooperate with me, after I have treated you kindly."
She looked somewhat bewildered. "I appreciate your kindness, but I cannot tell you anything~"
Stephanie, sitting beside Dieter, also looked puzzled. He guessed that she was thinking: Did you really imagine that a nice meal would be sufficient to make this woman talk?
"Very well," he said. He stood up as if to go.
"And now, Monsieur," said Mademoiselle Lemas. She looked embarrassed. "I must ask to... ah... visit the ladies' powder room."
In a harsh voice, Dieter said, "You want to go to the toilet?"
She reddened. "In a word, yes."
"I'm sorry, Mademoiselle," Dieter said. "That will not be possible."
CHAPTER 13
THE LAST THING Monty had said to Paul Chancellor, late on Monday night, had been, "If you only do one thing in this war, make sure that telephone exchange is destroyed."
Paul had woken this morning with those words echoing in his mind. It was a simple instruction. If he could fulfill it, he would have helped win the war. If he failed, men would die-and he might spend the rest of his life reflecting that he had helped lose the war.
He went to Baker Street early, but Percy Thwaite was already there, sitting in his office, puffing his pipe and staring at six boxes of files. He seemed a typical military duffer, with his check jacket and toothbrush mustache. He looked at Paul with mild hostility. "I don't know why Monty's put you in charge of this operation," he said. "I don't mind that you're only a major, and I'm a colonel-that's all stuff and nonsense. But you've never run a clandestine operation, whereas I've been doing it for three years. Does it make sense to you?"
"Yes," Paul said briskly. "When you want to make absolutely sure that a job gets done, you give it to someone you trust. Monty trusts me."
"But not me."
"He doesn't know you."
"I see," Percy said grumpily.
Paul needed Percy's cooperation, so he decided to mollify him. Looking around the office, he saw a framed photograph of a young man in lieutenant's uniform and an older woman in a big hat. The boy could have been Percy thirty years ago. "Your son?" Paul guessed.
Percy softened immediately. "David's out in Cairo," he said. "We had some bad moments during the desert war, especially after Rommel reached Tobruk, but now, of course, he's well out of the line of fire, and I must say I'm glad."
The woman was dark-haired and dark-eyed, with a strong face, handsome rather than pretty. "And Mrs. Thwaite?"
"Rosa Mann. She became famous as a suffragette, in the twenties, and she's always used her maiden name."
"Suffragette?"
"Campaigner for votes for women."
Percy liked formidable women, Paul concluded; that was why he was fond of Flick. "You know, you're right about my shortcomings," he said candidly. "I have been at the sharp end of clandestine operations, but this will be my first time as an organizer. So I'll be very grateful for your help."
Percy nodded. "I begin to see why you have a reputation for getting things done," he said with a hint of a smile. "But if you'll hear a word of advice..
"Please."
"Be guided by Flick. No one else has spent as much time under cover and survived. Her knowledge and experience are matchless. I may be in charge of her in theory, but what I do is give her the support she needs. I would never try to tell her what to do."
Paul hesitated. He had been given command by Monty, and he was not about to hand it over on anyone's advice. "I'll bear that in mind," he said.
Percy seemed satisfied. He gestured to the files. "Shall we get started?"
"What are these?"
"Records of people who were considered by us as possible agents, then rejected for some reason."
Paul took off his jacket and rolled back his cuffs.
They spent the morning going through the files together. Some of the candidates had not even been interviewed; others had been rejected after they had been seen; and many had failed some part of the SOE training course-baffled by codes, hopeless with guns, or frightened to the point of hysteria when asked to jump out of a plane with a parachute. They were mostly in their early twenties, and they had only one other thing in common: they all spoke a foreign language with native fluency.
There were a lot of files, but few suitable candidates. By the time Percy and Paul had eliminated all the men, and the women whose language was something other than French, they were left with only three names.
Paul was disheartened. They had run into a major obstacle when they had hardly begun. "Four is the minimum number we need, even assuming that Flick recruits the woman she has gone to see this morning."
"Diana Colefield."
"And none of these is either an explosives expert or a telephone engineer!"
Percy was more optimistic. "They weren't when SOE interviewed them, but they might be now. Women have learned to do all sorts of things."
"Well, let's find out."
It took a while to track the three down. A further disappointment was that one was dead. The other two were in London. Ruby Romain, unfortunately, was in His Majesty's Prison for Women at Holloway, three miles north of Baker Street, awaiting trial for murder. And Maude Valentine, whose file said simply "psychologically unsuitable," was a driver with the FANYs.
"Down to two!" Paul said despondently.
"It's not the numbers but the quality that bothers me," Percy said.
"We knew from the start we'd be looking at rejects." Percy's tone became angry. "But we can't risk Flick's life with people like these!"
Percy was desperate to protect Flick, Paul realized. The older man had been willing to hand over control of the operation but was not able to give up his role as Flick's guardian angel.
Their argument was interrupted by a phone call. It was Simon Fortescue, the pinstriped spook from MI6 who had blamed SOE for the failure at Sainte-C‚cile.
"What can I do for you?" Paul said guardedly. Fortescue was not a man to trust.
"I think I may be able to do something for you," Fortescue said. "I know you're going ahead with Major Clairet's plan."
"Who told you?" Paul asked suspiciously. It was supposed to be a secret.
"Let's not go into that. I naturally wish you success with your mission, even though I was against it, and I'd like to help."
Paul was angry that the mission was being talked about, but there was no point in pursuing that. "Do you know a female telephone engineer who speaks perfect French?" he asked.
"Not quite. But there's someone you should see. Her name is Lady Denise Bowyer. Terribly nice girl, her father was the Marquess of Inverlocky."
Paul was not interested in her pedigree. "How did she learn French?"
"Brought up by her French stepmother, Lord Inverlocky's second wife. She's ever so keen to do her bit."
Paul was suspicious of Fortescue, but he was desperate for suitable recruits. "Where do I find her?"
"She's with the RAF at Hendon." The word "Hen-don" meant nothing to Paul, but Fortescue explained. "It's an airfield in the north London suburbs
."
"Thank you."
"Let me know how she gets on." Fortescue hung up. Paul explained the call to Percy, who said, "Fortescue wants a spy in our camp."
"We can't afford to turn her down for that reason."
"Quite."
They saw Maude Valentine first. Percy arranged for them to meet her at the Fenchurch Hotel, around the corner from SOE headquarters. Strangers were never brought to number sixty-four, he explained. "If we reject her, she may guess that she's been considered for secret work, but she won't know the name of the organization that interviewed her nor where its office is, so even if she blabs she can't do much harm."
Ken Follett - Jackdaws Page 12