CHAPTER 19
“I assume you believe Adele Moilien was the mother Madame Moreau was attending to when you rifled through that aviator’s map case,” Sidney murmured as he turned off the road onto the overgrown lane that would lead us to Madame Moreau’s cottage.
I blinked up at him, having fallen silent after directing him how to get there, my mind in the past.
He flicked a glance at me. “You said that when you learned there were Germans making random searches in the area, you dashed out to bury the map case while she disposed of the papers that were useless.”
I inhaled a shaky breath. “Yes. The baby was safely delivered, and all was quiet when we left. But perhaps the Germans came later. Perhaps in our haste, not all of the papers burned to ashes.” Though such carelessness was not like Emilie.
I was grateful when he didn’t try to salve my conscience with trite words, for it would not be eased. It shouldn’t be. We should have paid closer attention.
Instead he focused on the more pertinent ramifications. “Do you think Mademoiselle Moilien could be the person searching for Emilie?”
“She could be.” My brow furrowed as the Pierce-Arrow rolled to a stop at the end of the lane. “But if she’d already found her before Emilie moved away from Macon, then why would she need to find her again? Wouldn’t she have already said or done what she intended to?”
Sidney tilted his head, considering this. “Maybe she learned about her brother’s fate and decided words weren’t enough. That she needed revenge.”
“And that fire was her first attempt to do so,” I said following his line of reasoning. “But when that failed and Emilie fled, she had to pursue her.”
Sidney must have heard the doubt in my voice. “Do you have a better theory?”
“No,” I admitted. “Though I do wonder whether the matter Emilie said she had to look into involved tracking down this woman’s brother. And if that was the case, then Mademoiselle Moilien couldn’t have already known what exactly happened to him.”
I pushed open the car door and stepped out into the dirt lane. Emilie’s cottage nestled within a stand of ancient beech trees. Their knobby trunks and gnarled branches had always seemed peculiarly life-like in the dark of night, like ancient sentries. I was surprised to discover they appeared no different during the day.
I led Sidney up the walk to the white stone cottage. The overgrown path and rambling brambles gave it the decided air of a building unlived in, but I rapped at the door regardless. When no one answered, I tested the door handle to see that it was locked. Then I turned to follow the path around the side of the house, Sidney trailing after me.
“What are we looking for?” he asked
I glanced over my shoulder, arching my eyebrows. “Her roost.”
“Ah,” Sidney exhaled in understanding. “I wondered why she would leave such a message for the priest to relay to you. Does she have a henhouse then?”
I paused as I rounded the house to gaze up at the blackened and scorched roof of the northwest corner. Then I turned around to survey the back garden. To the right lay a patch of dormant soil, now overgrown with weeds. In warm weather, Emilie had planted whatever seeds she could get her hands on to grow food, all the while knowing the Germans would come along to confiscate seventy-five percent of it.
When Emilie had first joined La Dame Blanche, I knew she had utilized one corner of the plot as her hiding place. She’d buried the identification disk she’d been given, just as she’d been instructed. The disk she was not to disinter again until after the war. Any reports she could not immediately deliver were also stashed there. But after she’d returned home one morning to find the Germans tearing up her garden in order to requisition much of her produce, nearly unearthing the tin can filled with her secrets—she had decided it would be safer to move them to a different spot.
“Not a roost,” I replied, striding across the lawn toward the split yarrow tree. Grasping one of the branches for leverage, I stepped up onto an exposed root. I grinned at him as I reached up toward the deep “V” formed by two of the appendages. “A nest.” Pulling my hand from the tattered birds’ nest, I showed him the battered tin can.
I hopped down from my perch and he moved closer to peer over my shoulder. My heart surged inside my chest as I removed the lid, curious to discover what she’d wanted me to find. However, my hopes were swiftly dashed, for there was nothing inside.
I stared blankly down inside the can, even tipping it upside down to upend it, but nothing tumbled out. “This doesn’t make any sense.” I tilted the can this way and that, searching for stray markings. I noted a series of tiny holes at the bottom, but nothing more. “Why would she have her priest give me such a message and then leave nothing inside?”
Sidney climbed up on the root, using his superior height to peer into the nest. He shook his head as he dropped back down. “Maybe she moved it.”
I turned to look at the garden. “And put it in a different can? Possibly.” I walked over to the vegetable plot to stare down at the dirt.
“I presume you’re going to ask me to dig?”
I glanced up to find his mouth quirked upward at one corner. “Yes. If you don’t mind.”
“Let me find a shovel.”
But even after turning over the soil in all four corners, we found nothing.
I planted my hands on my hips, shaking my head as I scowled at the earth. “I don’t understand. Did she change her mind?”
Sidney finished unrolling and buttoning his shirt sleeves and bent to retrieve the coat he’d discarded. I was almost sorry to see him put it on, for his form showed to better advantage without it. “Perhaps she was worried someone was on to her and it would fall into the wrong hands,” he remarked, shooting his cuffs.
I wanted to howl in frustration, but the sound of someone calling from the front of the cottage made me start.
“Salut! Qui est là?”
Sidney’s eyes met my wide-eyed gaze and as one, we hastened to remove all evidence of our digging in Emilie’s garden. He pushed the shovel under a bush while I slid the tin can into my pocket, hoping the bulge was not too noticeable. Just before the woman stepped into view, he slid his arm around my waist, joining me in my feigned examination of the scorched roof.
“There you are!” she declared triumphantly in lilting French. “I saw the motorcar and simply had to come and see. Are you to be our new neighbors?”
I recognized her now. This middle-aged woman with soft blond curls streaked with gray was the town gossip Emilie had pointed out to me from a distance and warned me not to be seen by. Not because she was malicious or colluding with the enemy, but because people with such loose tongues were always dangerous. Far too many times, agents had been compromised by the careless chatter of others. If word that a strange woman had visited Emilie reached the ears of the Secret Police, they would have descended upon her, demanding answers, and possibly revoking her special pass to travel about unrestricted on her rounds as a midwife.
However, now she might prove quite useful.
“Oh, we haven’t purchased anything yet,” Sidney replied, flashing the woman a charming smile. “But a friend of ours mentioned this place might be available.”
“Oh, well, how delightful.” She simpered under his regard. “I’m Madame Ledoq.”
Sidney took her proffered hand, bowing over it a trifle too excessively. “Monsieur and Madame Kent.”
I’d debated whether to reveal our real names or use an alias, but he made the decision for me. And it turned out to be the right one, for she gasped in recognition.
“Oh, but I knew you looked familiar.” Her round eyes flitted between us. “And you look just as dashing in person as in the newspapers.”
“You’ve seen our picture in the papers?” I asked, having been curious how widely our story had circulated.
“Oh, yes. Not the local ones, mind you. But Madame Laurent’s daughter sometimes sends her the papers from Paris, and London, and sometimes even New York.”
A tingle began at the base of my spine upon hearing the name, but I didn’t wish to appear too eager. “Oh? Does she live in Paris?”
“London. Left during the war, like so many.” She shook her head sadly. “And now, she has no wish to return. Part of me wonders if that’s where Madame Moreau has gone as well.” She gestured to the house, switching topics before I could stop her. “She simply packed a valise and left one day, without even a word goodbye.” She peered up at my husband, a calculated gleam entering her eyes. “But perhaps you know her. She spied for the British during the war.”
“Did she?” His voice was tight with suppressed amusement, and I nearly elbowed him in the ribs. Fortunately, Madame Ledoq seemed oblivious to it as she chattered on.
“Oh, yes. I don’t have to tell you how shocked we all were to find out. Shocked and proud, of course. Somehow, she managed to fool us all, even me, and I am not so easily deceived. Let me tell you, not much occurs in this town without my knowing about it.” She arched her chin, seeming infinitely proud of this.
I smiled. “I can imagine. Did you . . .”
“But the war made everything so topsy-turvy. You never could tell who was capable of what. Smugglers, informants, war profiteers, and young women fraternizing with the enemy.” She “tsked” in disapproval. “Now there, Madame Moreau already knew more secrets than the rest of us and could be trusted to keep them.” Her eyes had narrowed as if this displeased her. Perhaps she’d thought the midwife should share such information with her. “What company women were keeping, who the true fathers of their babies were. She ran a brisk trade during the war, I can tell you that.”
I stiffened upon hearing her phrase it in such a callous and self-righteous manner. Whether their participation had ultimately been willing or not, many of those women would rather not have “fraternized” with the enemy. It had been a means to an end. It was easy for her to cast judgment when she condemned only herself to deprivation, but many of these young women were already mothers. To hear their young children cry from hunger and watch them shiver with cold, must have driven many of them to desperation, willing to go to any lengths to feed and protect them. I’m sure Emilie understood this better than even me.
“Yes, I’m sure every woman dreams of being conquered by the Bosche,” Sidney drawled sarcastically, though his expression remained indifferent.
At first, this comment seemed to sail over her head as she nodded in agreement. But then she paused, glancing between us, perhaps sensing our disapproval, though she seemed to ascribe to it a different reason, and she hastily attempted to soften her comments. “Oh, but overall there was very little of that here in our village. Much less than elsewhere. Our girls were loyal. They knew their duty.”
I waved this away with a gentle flick of my hand, tired of her opinions. “I’m sure. But this Madame Laurent? I believe I know a woman by that name. What did you say her daughter’s name was again?”
“Pauline. But I doubt she runs in your circles. She’s not so fashionable.”
I wanted to exclaim in triumph, but instead I answered Madame Ledoq serenely. “No. Different girl.” I sighed, gazing up at the tiled roof as if smitten, despite the evident fire damage. “And you say you don’t know where this Madame Moreau who owns the cottage has gone off to?”
Madame Ledoq hesitated before answering, her eyes growing more curious by the second. “No. The priest suggested she might have gone to visit family. We weren’t allowed to travel far during the war or send letters, you see, so anyone further away than Chimay was effectively lost to us.”
“Ah, well, we shall have to follow up with our friend then.” I turned to Sidney. “Darling, your appointment?”
He flicked a glance at his wristwatch, following my cue. “Oh, yes! I’m afraid we must be on our way.” He flashed her a dazzling smile. “Lovely to chat with you, Madame Ledoq. I do hope we shall have the chance to meet again.”
Momentarily flustered, Madame Ledoq had little time to form a response before Sidney hustled me around the house and back into his motorcar. He lifted his hand in parting as she watched us reverse, a look of stunned bemusement on her face.
“That woman must have been a menace during the war,” he declared ferociously. “If the Secret Police hereabouts were worth their salt, they must have loved to let her chuck her weight about. I imagine more than one citizen was betrayed by her mindless yammering.”
“Yes, I was warned to steer clear of her.” I turned sideways to face him. “But enough of her. What of Pauline Laurent? Did you recognize the name?”
“Madame Zozza’s assistant.”
I leaned toward him eagerly. “Dash it all, but I never suspected a thing. Did you?”
“That she had a connection to your Emilie?” He shook his head.
I scowled out through the windscreen. “And I do think she still must have a connection to her. It would be far too great a coincidence otherwise. The question is, what part does she play in all of this?”
Sidney’s fingers tapped against the driving wheel in thought. “Madame Ledoq said she fled the country during the war, one of the thousands of refugees who flooded into England. But did she leave early in the war or later?”
“And did she witness anything before she left? Or perhaps she learned something from someone else later.”
“Either way, I think we have to question whether anything she told us was true. After all, we only have her word for it that a strange man visited Madame Zozza, or that she saw him fleeing from the house the morning of the fire. For all we know, she could have been the one to convince the medium to pretend to summon Emilie, and then locked her in the house and set it ablaze to cover her tracks.”
I rubbed my temple with my hand and grunted in frustration. “And now she’s hundreds of miles away in London, beyond immediate questioning. Who knows? Maybe she’s fled even further.” I lifted my head. “Unless she followed us here.” I swiveled to glance over my shoulder at the empty road behind us.
“Perhaps beyond our questioning, but what of your colleagues?” he proposed.
I doubted Major Davis would allow anyone at the Secret Service to knowingly lift a finger to help me. But if Captain Landau made the request, that would be a different story. And he did offer to assist in whatever way he could, either from his own inclination or C’s surreptitious urging.
“You’re right,” I replied. “We’ll have to find a telephone or, at the least, a telegraph office.”
“Where am I going by the way? This sister’s house in Quevy?”
“Not yet. First, I want to see if I can find that house where I buried the map case.” My fingers tightened around the handbag I held in my lap. “Maybe Adele Moilien, the woman who confronted the priest and likely Emilie, will be there, too.”
He slowed the motorcar and pulled toward the verge of the road. I could feel him searching my features, his gaze so intense it was almost tangible. He’d not offered me trite reassurances earlier when my distress had been evident, and I braced for them to be spoken now. But instead he turned to stare out at the waving grasses that lined the road before us.
“Not long after I was promoted to captain, there was a young lieutenant assigned to my company. A rather green fellow. Barely eighteen.” He spoke softly, carefully, but I could hear the tension at the edges. “Suffered a fair amount of teasing from his fellow officers.” His mouth flexed in a grin. “Especially after his mother sent him an undergarment of chain mail.”
“You’re jesting?”
He shook his head. “The poor woman thought it would protect him.” He cleared his throat. “Young Atkins took the teasing well. He was a good sport. But the new officers always made me nervous. They made all the men nervous.” A deep furrow ran between his brows. “They’d yet to be tried in battle, and you never knew how they were going to react the first time they faced a hail of German bullets.”
His shoulders bunched and his hands tightened around the driving wheel before he dropped his arms into his lap. I felt an answering constriction in my gut, waiting on the hatchet to fall.
“As such, I preferred to keep them as isolated as possible,” he explained. “Until they’d survived a few bombardments. Until they’d killed their first Jerry. Until I knew they weren’t going to freeze, or leg it, or grandstand, and get my men killed because of their idiocy. So when my company was ordered over the top, I elected to leave Lieutenant Atkins behind in charge of the reserve platoon with a stalwart corporal to assist him.” His expression turned grim. “Little did I know that away from the trench was the safest place to be, for a shell hit it dead on. Killed or injured three quarters of the platoon, including Lieutenant Atkins. And the worst part was, it was one of our shells.”
My stomach quavered, wondering at the piece of luck that had seen that Sidney was not the officer in the trench.
He turned his head to look at me for the first time, his eyes stark with memories I was certain I couldn’t begin to fathom, even knowing all that I did. “I tell you this because, the truth is war is hell on everyone who falls near its angry maw. The actions you take thinking to spare the innocent or inexperienced can just as easily cause their destruction, simply because the world is turned so bloody upside down. So don’t take on the guilt of that woman or her brother’s sufferings from where it truly belongs.”
His voice was so vehement on my behalf that for a moment all I could do was stare at him. That he should so fervently want to ease my pain made a space in my chest that had grown cold begin to warm again, and I had to struggle to find my voice. In the end, I could only nod.
He searched my gaze a moment longer, as if to be certain I meant it, and then lifted his hands to grasp the driving wheel.
“But what about you?” I finally managed to say as he turned to look over his shoulder at the road behind us.
He scowled as he pulled forward, gunning the engine. “I’m a different story.”
I frowned. “How can . . .”
“Now where to?”
“Sidney . . .”
“Where to?” he snapped.
I wanted to press the matter even though it was clear Sidney had no desire to discuss it further. On the roadside deep in the Belgian countryside, at the edge of the war-ravaged areas, hardly seemed to be the ideal place. But I could see how much pain it caused him, how much blame he carried around on his shoulders. And I was not going to forget.