The Lost Girls of Paris

by Pam Jenoff

  “Okay,” she relented. “Tell me more about Night and Fog.”

  “It was an odd program, very secret. Normally the Germans kept such meticulous records. Here, the Nazis wanted to make people disappear without a trace,” Mark said.

  “Including the girls.”

  He nodded. “Hitler personally issued an order that captured agents were to be ‘slaughtered to the last man.’” Or woman, Grace thought. “He wanted no evidence of their existence left behind. I’m sorry we didn’t find better news. What else is in the file?”

  She pulled out the remaining documents, about a half dozen in all, typed in the blocky lettering. Each bore the letterhead at the top: “SOE, F Section.” “What do you make of these?”

  “Interoffice correspondence at headquarters.” He pointed to one page, which contained schedules, with the girls’ last names listed beside dates and times. “These look like they have to do with broadcasts or transmissions of some sort.” As he pulled his hand back, their fingers brushed lightly.

  “So what now?” she asked.

  “I’m not sure what you mean. I think we’ve learned all we can.”

  “Not at all,” Grace replied. “I mean, we know that the girls in the photos worked with Eleanor at SOE, and that those in the photos died. But we still have no idea why those girls’ personnel files weren’t in the boxes with the others. And we still have no idea why Eleanor came to New York.” The whole thing swirled in Grace’s mind, a giant knot that she couldn’t untangle.

  “We’ve reached a bit of a dead end,” Mark conceded.

  But Grace wasn’t ready to give up, not yet. The cab was winding its way through Capitol Hill now, headed for Union Station and the train that would return her to New York. She pulled out the scrap of paper she’d been scribbling on when going through the files. “Some of the records had contact information for the girls or their families. I jotted down what I could.”

  “That was smart. I should have done the same. But, Gracie, that information could be outdated. And their contacts would have been in London, or overseas.”

  “Not all of them. One of them listed a Maryland number. Perhaps if I call, I might be able to speak with someone, even one of the girls who survived the war.”

  “You can certainly try. Let’s go to my place and you can use the phone,” he suggested. Grace hesitated, suddenly aware of him sitting beside her, too close. She was not sure that it was a good idea. But Mark was already giving the driver his address. The cab turned sharply left, starting in a new direction.

  The taxi continued through neighborhoods that were unfamiliar to Grace, the large granite buildings giving way to neighborhoods with town houses and shops. “Georgetown,” he explained, as the road inclined slightly upward. “I live just off the towpath, not far from the Potomac.” She nodded as though this meant something to her.

  A few minutes later, the cab turned onto an upscale street and stopped in front of a narrow brick row house. Mark paid the driver and then opened the door.

  Inside the house was neat, with oak floors and a lack of photos or other personal items, except for an old-fashioned gramophone in the corner. Grace looked for signs of a woman’s touch, but found none. It didn’t look as though Mark had spent much time there at all. He led her into a study with a phone on the wall. “I’m going to make us some coffee,” he said before leaving her alone.

  Grace walked to the desk, then pulled out the piece of paper where she’d jotted down the number. She dialed and recited it to the operator. The radiator behind Mark’s desk hissed softly as she waited.

  The line rang once, then again. This wasn’t going to work, Grace thought with a sinking feeling as the phone rang on and on. She started to hang up. But just before the receiver reached the cradle, there was a noise on the other end. Grace brought it back hurriedly to her ear. “Hello? I’m trying to reach Miss Annie Rider.”

  “One moment.” There was a thud as the phone was set down or dropped, then footsteps, which started loud and faded. Grace imagined a rooming house like her own in New York, a landlady fetching her tenant.

  “Yes?” A different woman’s voice, scratchy this time and decidedly English, came across the line.

  “Miss Rider?”

  “Who’s asking?”

  Grace cleared her throat. “My name is Grace Healey. I’m so sorry to bother you, but I am trying to locate Sally Rider. Annie Rider was given as a contact.”

  “Sally?” The woman’s voice rose with surprise. “What about her?”

  “I was trying to reach her. I thought you might know where she is.”

  “Sally was my sister.”

  Was. “I’m sorry, I didn’t realize she had passed.” Sally had not been listed among the girls who had gone missing under Night and Fog. “Was she killed during the war?”

  “She wasn’t. She died after the war, in a car accident.” Like Tom. Grace’s stomach tightened.

  Grace forced herself to focus on the call. “I’m sorry to trouble you. I had some questions about the work your sister did during the war.” She paused. It seemed too intimate to ask over the phone. “I’m in Washington now, not terribly far away from you. Do you suppose we could meet?”

  “I don’t know...” There was a hesitation in the woman’s voice.

  “Please, it’s very important. I can come to you if it’s easier.”

  “No,” the woman said quickly, as if the intrusion into her home would be unwelcome. “I have to be at The Willard tonight. If you’d like, we could meet in the bar at seven.”

  Grace hesitated. Meeting tonight might mean missing the last train back to New York and staying over—something she hadn’t contemplated at all. But it was her only option if she wanted to learn more about the girls.

  “Thank you. I’ll be there.”

  As she hung up Grace cringed, thinking of Frankie and missing a second day of work. She considered asking Mark if she could make another call, then decided he wouldn’t mind and dialed the operator again to place it. Frankie might be gone for the day, she realized, as the line to the office rang twice with no answer. But a moment later his voice filled the line. “Bleeker & Sons.”

  “Frankie, it’s me.” She did not have to say her name.

  “Kiddo, how are you?” His voice sounded distant. The slight slur to his words made her wonder if he had been drinking.

  “Frankie, you don’t sound good. What’s wrong?”

  There was silence, dead air over the line. “It’s Sammy. He came back. There was an older kid at his cousin’s place who tried to take the money I gave Sammy. Sammy fought back and he got beat up.”

  “Oh, no! Is he okay?”

  “Yeah, he’s got a shiner and a busted lip. He’ll live.” Her heart screamed out at the idea that the little boy, who had been through so much, had now suffered this as well. “But he can’t go back there. You were right, kiddo. He shouldn’t be on his own so young. I’m filing papers to get him in the state system.”

  Poor Sammy would wind up in a boys’ home after all. “I’m sorry, Frankie. It’s so hard getting involved. Maybe we can figure out something else.”

  “I think we’re out of options here. But we can talk about it when you get back tomorrow.”

  She hesitated. “About that... I need another day.”

  There was an audible sigh on the other end of the line and she could almost see his face, crestfallen. “Where are you, kiddo? I think I deserve to know.”

  She thought so, too. “I’m in Washington,” she confessed.

  “What on earth are you doing there?”

  “I’m trying to find out some information on a woman named Eleanor Trigg. She’s the one who was hit by a car in front of Grand Central the other day.”

  “Why? Did you know her?”

  “I didn’t.”

  “Then what was she to you?”


  Good question, Grace thought. “It’s complicated, Frankie. I found a suitcase of hers with some photographs of about a dozen young women. I took the photos, and when I went to return them, the suitcase was gone. I’m trying to figure out who she was and who the girls were and give the photos back. I’ll be back in a day and I promise I’ll explain more then, okay? I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about the trip,” she added, genuinely contrite. Frankie had been so good to her; she should have let him in on the whole thing from the start.

  “It’s all right,” he said, forgiving her instantly. “If you need help, I could come down. I’m good at navigating the bureaucrats.”

  She smiled. “I know you are,” she said, loving him for the offer. She had to see this through for herself, though. “But I think our clients need you there more.” Grace was suddenly struck with an idea. “There is one thing. Eleanor came from England to New York at some point before the accident. Can you check with your friends over at immigration and customs and see if they have anything on her? You know, when she got here, what she put on the forms, that sort of thing.” It was nervy, she knew, asking for another favor in addition to the extra time off. But Frankie wouldn’t say no.

  “You’ve got it, kiddo. Consider it done. Just hurry back—and be careful.”

  Grace placed the receiver back on the cradle, then returned to the living room. “I’ve managed a meeting with a sister of one of the girls tonight.”

  Mark smiled and handed her a warm mug of coffee. “So you’ll be staying until tomorrow?”

  She took a sip. “Most likely. I don’t think there will be a train by the time I’ve finished seeing her. I’ll find a hotel for the night.” She tried to calculate what that might cost.

  “Stay here. I can understand why after what happened you might not want to,” he added quickly. “But I have a guest room, so it’s all on the up-and-up.”

  She scrutinized Mark, wondering if he had other intentions. “That would hardly be appropriate.”

  He raised his hands. “Your decision, but it’s a perfectly good room. I rented it out during the war when all of the government workers were here and housing was short. Unless you don’t think you can behave yourself.”

  “I can...” she started, before realizing he was teasing. Her cheeks flushed. “That would be lovely. Thank you.”

  That night at seven, they stepped out of a cab in front of The Willard. Across Lafayette Park, the sky behind the White House was dusky. Mark helped her from the car, his hand warm and sure against the small of her back. Inside, the lobby was opulent. The floor was a mosaic of rosettes and the ceiling was elaborately painted with the seals of all forty-eight states. Marble columns ran from floor to ceiling. The chandeliers were fantastic globes, each wrapped by four bronze female figures. The chairs were upholstered in fine leather and oversize palms sat in pots. Grace wished she’d brought a nicer dress to wear.

  At the entrance to the bar, she stopped, scanning the room uncertainly. It was a sea of men in business suits, puffing on cigars or cigarettes, with only a handful of women interspersed among them. Was one of them Annie? She hadn’t thought to ask for a description.

  Grace spied the bar at the far corner of the lobby and started toward it. Mark began to follow. She turned to him. “Mark, I’m so grateful for everything that you are doing, but...”

  “You want to talk to Annie by yourself,” he finished for her.

  “Do you mind?”

  He smiled. “Not at all. I mean, I feel vested at this point, but I understand.”

  “I just think she’s more likely to talk to me if I’m alone.”

  He nodded. “Agreed.” He dropped into one of the plush leather chairs. “I’ll be waiting right here.”

  Grace started toward the bar once more, feeling Mark watch her as she went. Heat rose in her. What was it about him that had this effect on her? It wasn’t like her to be swoony and it needed to stop. Grace walked to the maître d’, wondering if Annie had a reservation. “I’m looking for a woman named Annie Rider.”

  He pointed in the direction of the bar without hesitation. “She’s over there in the Round Robin Bar.” Between two men, she could make out a female figure in a cocktail server’s uniform. Annie was not a patron of The Willard. She worked here. Grace felt foolish for having thought otherwise. But how could she have possibly known?

  The bar was filled with men and clouds of cigar smoke, and for a moment she wished she had taken Mark up on his offer to come with her. But she pressed forward alone. “Excuse me,” she said, and a burly man moved out of the way to make space for her. She raised her hand and Annie came over. “I’m Grace Healey. We spoke on the phone.” Annie could not have been more than thirty. But closer now, her face was careworn, with deep lines beneath the powdery makeup and penciled eyebrows.

  Annie looked suddenly uneasy, and Grace wondered if she might decide not to talk to her. “Just give me a few minutes until I can take my break. You can wait in there.” She pointed to a door at the side of the bar. Grace walked through it. She was in a storeroom just off the kitchen containing shelves stacked high with food and a few wooden stools. Watching a mouse scurry between boxes, Grace made a mental note not to eat at The Willard if she ever had the chance.

  A moment later, Annie joined her. She sat down on one of the stools and gestured for Grace to do the same. “You said you had questions about my sister.”

  “Yes. And about a woman she worked with—Eleanor Trigg.”

  Annie’s eyes narrowed, her brows drawing close like an odd punctuation mark. “Worked for,” she corrected sharply. “Eleanor was in charge of it all.” She stood, as if to leave.

  “Wait!” Grace said. “I’m sorry if I upset you.”

  Annie sat back down slowly. “Bloody Eleanor,” she muttered just under her breath.

  Grace wondered what about Eleanor had set her off, but decided that it would be best to change the subject. She pulled the photographs from her bag. “Do you know any of these women?” Grace asked.

  “I saw a few of them during my time at SOE.”

  “You worked at SOE as well?”

  “Yes, as a clerk. I wanted to go over as an agent, too, but Eleanor said I didn’t have it in me.” Annie smiled ruefully. “She was right. Mostly I knew the girls in the field by name.” She pointed to the photos. “Those were some of Eleanor’s girls.”

  “What do you mean when you say they were hers?” Grace asked, veering gently back near the sensitive subject.

  Annie pulled a pack of cigarettes out of her bag. “Eleanor ran the women’s operation for SOE. They were sending the women into Europe, you know. They were messengers and radio operators.” Annie lit the cigarette and took a drag. She reached for the photos with her free hand. “This one, they called her Josie. She was only seventeen when she started.” Grace imagined herself at seventeen—she had been concerned with coming-out parties and summers at the beach. She could not have navigated her way across Manhattan at that point. Yet these girls were on their own in France battling the Nazis. Grace was overcome with awe and inadequacy at the same time.

  “About how many women agents were there?”

  “A few dozen,” Annie replied. “Not more than fifty, tops.”

  “Then why photos of these twelve?” Grace asked.

  “These were the ones who didn’t come back.”

  “How did they die?”

  “Awful ways, really. Executions. Injections.” The women should have been treated like prisoners of war. Instead, they had been slaughtered.

  But under Nacht und Nebel, the Germans hadn’t wanted anyone to know what had become of the girls. “How did you find out?”

  “Word trickled back to headquarters,” Annie replied. She exhaled sharply, sending a cloud of smoke billowing upward. “Not official word, in most cases. But from other agents who had seen one of the girls
in the camps or heard by word of mouth. By the end of the war, it was no secret that they had been killed.”

  A clock in the hotel lobby chimed eight; Annie’s break would surely be over soon. “Tell me more about Eleanor,” Grace said tentatively. “Who was she?”

  “She wasn’t like the others,” Annie said. “She was older. Foreign. From Russia, or Poland maybe, somewhere eastern.” The name Trigg didn’t suggest that, Grace noted. Had she changed it deliberately? “She had come to SOE as a secretary,” Annie added.

  “Yet she wound up heading up a group for SOE,” Grace interjected. “She must have been very good.”

  “The best. Eleanor had a mind like an encyclopedia, knew everyone’s history and details from memory. And she could read people, tell from the start whether someone was cut out for the Racket. And Eleanor was different, cagey. You always got a sense that she was keeping a secret. I suppose she was just doing her job.”

  “Did you like her?” Grace asked.

  Annie shook her head emphatically. “No one liked Eleanor. But we all respected her. She was the person you’d want looking after you if you were in the field. She wasn’t someone you would want to have a drink with, though, if you know what I mean. She was an odd bird, awkward, stern, not easy to chat with. I wonder what she’s gotten up to now.”

  Grace cleared her throat. “I’m sorry to tell you, but she’s passed.” She decided to spare Annie the grim details. “A few days ago in New York.”

  “New York?” Annie repeated, seeming more surprised than upset. “What was she doing in the States?”

  “I was hoping you might know,” she replied. “The man at the consulate said they were trying to find family, someone to claim Eleanor.”

  Annie ground out her cigarette in an ashtray, which sat on the edge of one of the shelves, leaving a perfect ring of lipstick around the edge. “They won’t. Find anyone, that is. Eleanor was alone, at least after her mother passed. She had no one.”

  “But what about her personal life?”

  “None. She didn’t socialize or share much. She didn’t seem interested in men, and I don’t mean that in the way it sounds. She wasn’t interested in women either. Only the work. She was an island unto herself. Very private. One got the sense...that there might have been something more to her than met the eye.”