She’s waiting,” Celeste said. “In the drawing room. She cleaned up very well, rose from her bath like a phoenix from the ashes. The artistry of her demise was amazing and would have fooled me if I hadn’t been aware of the ruse. A shame about her hair, but I reshaped it and put a curl to it, and it will return to its former glory.”

“As so many things won’t,” Derrick said.

“No,” Celeste concurred.

In the hall, his former lover’s bags were packed by the door waiting for the chateau’s old retainer to carry them to Karl, who would drive Celeste back to Paris. Derrick bent to kiss her cheek. “Thank you, ma chérie—for everything.”

“I would say that it was nothing, but it would not be the truth, Derrick. I will miss you.” Gently, she cupped his jaw with her hand, her look soft with affection and pity. “My poor bien-aimé, I do see the attraction of her charms to a man like you.”

Derrick took hold of her hand and pressed it to his lips. “But I yearn for a star too far. Is that what I read in those wise and lovely eyes? Yes, I know. You will be in danger from the Resistance once the war is over. I will not be able to protect you. Where will you go?”

Celeste laughed. “To the man I jilted in Spain who still loves me and sends me flowers every week. Where else?” She took back her hand. “It is you for whom I fear, mon chéri. Please take care.”

“As best I can,” he said and kissed her cheek again.

Trailing a light scent, she left him, but at the open door, she looked back. “Tell her good-bye for me, will you? I quite liked her, you know.”

Derrick nodded. “Au revoir, Celeste.” He stood gazing after her until the old retainer had closed the door behind her, a chapter closing in his life. Then he walked into the drawing room. It was Tuesday, June 13, 1944.

*  *  *

That same afternoon, in his office at the headquarters of the Prefecture of Police, Chief Detective Maurice Corbett rose from his desk to greet the woman ushered into his office and introduced as Madame Florence Bisset. He judged her age to be in the middle forties, but the working life of a charwoman and years of hunger and worry put her a decade older. Maurice’s heart twisted for her. He invited her to sit down. “How may I be of help, madame?”

He’d already been told by his assistant that she worked as a cleaning woman in the offices of SS headquarters at 84 Avenue Foch, Maurice’s reason for agreeing to see her. He couldn’t place her among the few members of the custodial crew he’d briefly glanced at in questioning the hall janitor last February, but then most women of her mold looked alike. Before she answered, her eyes darted fearfully about the room as if afraid the walls were listening. “You may speak freely, madame,” Maurice encouraged. “Only you and I are here.”

Nervously fingering the crucifix around her neck, the woman spoke in almost a whisper. “I did not know if I should have come…but my priest told me that to earn God’s forgiveness I must confess to you.”

Maurice felt a tickling along his spine. Madame Bisset knew something about the murder of Monsieur Beaumont Fournier. “What must you tell me?” he coaxed kindly.

In a shamed voice, Florence Bisset confessed. Saturday morning, October 31, 1942, she’d happened to see Colonel Derrick Albrecht’s aide leave his desk outside the colonel’s office to go down the hall to the men’s toilettes. Urged by a sudden impulse, spurred by hunger, she’d knocked softly on the colonel’s door and, hearing no answer, opened it to find the room empty. The cleaning help was not to enter SS offices unless their occupants were present. But each morning these rooms were provided fresh croissants for the officers to enjoy with their coffee, the colonel’s usually left uneaten and given to his charwoman to take home to her family at the end of the day. Florence Bisset had slipped in to take a few to feed her own starving family. She had just filled her apron pockets when she heard Colonel Albrecht outside his door conversing with his aide, who had returned to his desk. She’d bolted into a cleaning supply closet because there was no other place to hide, and there she was forced to remain until—until…

“Until when, Madame Bisset?” Maurice prompted, his heart holding—he had waited nearly two years for this—and the rest of the story tumbled out.

Sometime afterward, worried that she would have to spend the rest of the day in the closet, she heard the colonel’s aide enter and announce the name of a visitor. She recognized it. It was the name of France’s famous author, Monsieur Beaumont Fournier. He had come with news of someone he wished to warn the colonel about, a woman. Madame Bisset could not remember the name. It was not familiar to her. She had heard the colonel offer him coffee. The next thing Madame Bisset knew, there was a discussion between the colonel and his aide over plans for the removal of a body. From what she could gather, it was that of the author. He had died in his chair. She had been terrified that they would place it in the cleaning closet, but God in His mercy had spared her. She heard the colonel instruct the aide to return with something large to wrap the body in, and they would carry it out by the colonel’s private exit, which they did, and it was then that she had made her escape. She had wondered why the colonel had not reported the death to the authorities and left it to them to take charge of the body, but then she had read in the paper of it being found in the Seine and that the authorities were calling his death murder…

Maurice did not ask the woman why she had not reported her story before. The reason was obvious. He thanked her, assured her that he forgave her and that God did, too. She was not to share her story with anyone else. It was to be kept between themselves, her priest, and God, but when the war was over, and the time came when the Germans could be brought to justice, she would be called upon to bear witness against Colonel Derrick Albrecht and his aide, Karl Brunner. Would she swear before God to testify in court to what she had overheard and knew to be true, for only then could she be absolutely certain of total absolution for her sin of silence.

“I swear,” vowed Florence Bisset.

“You are a brave woman,” responded Maurice. “Now let’s have your complete name and address, and the full details of your statement.”