Saturday, June 10, 1944. Madame Gabrielle Dupree took her derringer from its hiding place under a floorboard and slipped it into her apron pocket. If it was discovered on her, she would claim that it was for self-defense against the growing unrest in the streets now that the Allied invasion was underway. People’s houses were being broken into with impunity since domestic burglaries were not high on the response list of the French police.
This Saturday was the fourth day that Monsieur Stephane Beaulieu had not returned to the boardinghouse. He had not appeared since he left the house for his engineering firm the morning of Wednesday, June 7. She’d been looking for him that afternoon because she had a treat for him—an apple, one of several kindly shared by a widower friend who had a romantic interest in her. Her instincts told her that Stephane had been arrested; otherwise, he’d have let her know that he would be away, as his work sometimes called him to be. Apparently he had not talked, or at least not involved her and the boardinghouse, but Gabrielle was prepared in case they came for her. She had nothing to live for and nothing to fear from dying. She believed in a merciful God. She had no surviving child, and no family, not even a pet, no close friends to speak of, and she had finally given up the attempt to get over her husband’s death.
Some pains, time did not heal. Time only made them worse. Her husband could have risen above his grief, comforted by and grateful for her memory, but she was a cynic at heart and for Gabrielle, memory was only a mocking reminder of what she had lost. She missed Stephane Beaulieu, the only person who’d warmed a spot in her heart since her husband and son were killed, and now he was gone, too. She would pray and light a candle in Saint Mary’s to give him an early release from his agony.
* * *
Madame Jeanne Boucher listened halfheartedly as one of her designers whined about the lack of cooperation from one of the runway models. “She’s taking advantage of the pinch we’re in and threatening to leave the show if we don’t let her wear the shoes she prefers, madame. You must say something to the little witch. Those shoes will ruin the look!”
“Let her wear the shoes,” Jeanne said, wearily waving her away. As of only yesterday, she would never have bowed to a model’s demands, scarce though fashion mannequins were in Paris since the war. Jeanne would have stormed out of her office with guns blazing, fired the impertinent little parvenu on the spot, and dressed Isolde from the accounting department in her place. Isolde was of the perfect weight and height for the runway, and with a little coaching she would be ready for her debut by the evening of the showing on the seventeenth. The couturier of La Maison de Boucher had worked such miracles before. But today, Saturday, June 10, she could think of nothing but her premonition that she would never see Mademoiselle Dufor again. Madame Richter had not returned Bernadette for her fitting yesterday as threatened. Jeanne had heard nothing from the woman since, and the hellcat had not responded to messages the couturier had left with her maid.
What had happened? Had the woman been unable to convince the French Gestapo to let Bernadette go? Had she failed to save the child from the dungeons at 93 Rue Lauriston? Would the Gestapo bastards soon be coming for Jeanne Boucher as a facilitator for the American OSS?
Or…?
Madame Jeanne Boucher called herself a fool for not thinking of another possibility from the beginning. She doubted that even Madame Richter had thought of it at the time. But now, knowing the evil of which the woman was capable, Jeanne was certain she would not be returning her designer for her fitting. In fact, they would never see Madame Richter in the House of Boucher again. That was a blessing for which Jeanne should be grateful, but not for the curse it would mean for the courageous little Bernadette Dufor.
The shock of her new line of thought compelled Jeanne to unlock a drawer, remove a bottle of gin, and take a long swig. Then she stood and straightened the peplum of her jacket. She was in no mood for sass from a bony clothes hanger who would still be waiting tables if it hadn’t been for the scarcity of the mannequins who’d fled Paris at the outset of the war. Jeanne had changed her mind. The girl would wear the proper shoes or else.
* * *
Karl was in a state of quiet frenzy. A graduate of a military academy, albeit an undistinguished one, he had been disciplined to obey and never to question a superior’s orders. This grounding in obedience had been reinforced by a stint in the Waffen SS before Colonel Derrick Albrecht plucked him from the ranks to serve him in the Sicherheitsdienst, primarily as his driver but with the understanding that he was to become his man of all purposes. Karl had gladly accepted the assignment. To serve an officer of Colonel Derrick Albrecht’s superior caliber was an honor, no matter what he should call upon him to do. The insubordinate urge to question the colonel’s decisions, motives, and methods had never tempted him.
Until now.
Karl had noticed the bleeding cut on mademoiselle’s lip on Friday when he thought the colonel had rescued her from Gestapo headquarters. He hadn’t questioned his superior even when he’d seen her hands bound like the other prisoners and treated as roughly right under the eyes of his idol. She was loaded into the van with the other prisoners and forcibly taken inside the Lutetia Hotel. Karl had not seen the colonel since his return to the van an hour later with the order to drive the three captives to an SS location in a remote area of Paris specially prepared for certain kinds of interrogations and secret executions. When he learned Mademoiselle Colbert was to remain behind, Karl had drawn a tenuous breath of relief for the beautiful woman. The fate of the men in the van was sealed. They would not be leaving the special camp alive.
But what of Mademoiselle Colbert’s fate? Karl had not liked the angry set of the colonel’s face the last time he’d seen him. “Mademoiselle Colbert…is she all right?” he’d dared to ask.
“Better now than she will be,” he’d said.
Karl had been shocked.
Several other odd things happened on that trip. At the camp from which no prisoner returned, he’d expected to be met by SS men whose organization controlled the execution center, so he’d been surprised to see two soldiers from the Abwehr come out to take charge of the prisoners, with no presence of the Schutzstaffel about. Karl had brushed off the manning of the camp as part of the SS’s attempt to assimilate the Abwehr into its more extreme operations, the camp being one of them.
Karl had then assisted in unloading the men and taking them to a room with a barred window and no glass that looked out on a stained, bullet-ridden execution pole in a courtyard enclosed by a wall peppered with evidence of what had occurred there. It was a gruesome view, but the Abwehr trainees had clearly misunderstood their orders, for they planned to shackle the three prisoners in the same room. There was comfort in shared misery, so what was the benefit of that tactic to their interrogator? The prisoners would be able to get their stories straight, discuss their strategies, take courage from one another. It was an infraction of procedure, but the trainees’ ignorance was no concern of his.
Back at 45 Boulevard Raspail while waiting further orders, Karl had grabbed a member of the colonel’s office staff to ask what had happened to the beautiful French prisoner brought in earlier, and his hope for Mademoiselle Colbert and his trust in Colonel Albrecht’s protection of her had plummeted.
“She’s been taken to Cell Block B,” he’d answered. “Colonel Albrecht has already begun the interrogation. Too bad. A woman like that…” He’d shaken his head.
Karl had been speechless. No, the colonel would not have subjected mademoiselle to the treatment that went on in that place, not the woman he deeply admired and had grown extremely fond of—even loved, if Karl’s observations had not deceived him. But rumors were floating around the hotel that she had indeed been taken to Cell Block B. Gruesome sounds of her torture could be heard issuing from the locked room. Karl couldn’t believe it of the man he’d come to know and respect. It was with mixed relief, then, that eventually someone had come with a message from the colonel instructing Karl to go home. He would not be needing him until 0500 hours—five o’clock—Sunday morning. His aide would be spared from laying eyes on his fallen hero until then.