There was nothing to do but to complete his assignment to the battle sites in the north of England and see if any clue became obvious when he was there. He retrieved his bike and rode home without encountering anyone he knew. Then he walked to the station and caught the train up to London.
That afternoon, right after tea, Lady Phoebe slipped out of the house and made her way down to the gamekeeper’s lodge. Mrs. Robbins looked like a different person, much older, with hollow eyes and an almost dazed expression.
“He’s in there, your ladyship,” she said in a flat voice. “Go on through if you like.”
Phoebe had forgotten for the moment that the Robbinses’ son had been reported missing. She wondered if she should say something but couldn’t think of the right thing, so she merely smiled and said, “Thank you, Mrs. Robbins.”
She went into the kitchen and found Alfie eating a piece of bread and jam. He looked up and grinned when he saw her.
“You and I have to talk,” she said. “Leave that and come where we can’t be overheard.”
Alfie followed her outside, and they walked some distance from the cottage before she said, “We have to get a move on with our sleuthing. There have been developments.”
“There have?”
She nodded. “You must have heard our house was bombed.”
“Yes. I know. Bloomin’ awful.”
“Well, I’ve started thinking—about our parachutist, you know. Why bomb Farleigh?”
“Well, there’s a ruddy lot of soldiers staying there, you know.” He grinned.
“All right. That would be one reason. But what if there was another?”
“Like what?”
“Someone or something at Farleigh should be destroyed. Do you know Mr. Cresswell, the vicar’s son?” Alfie nodded. “He was there the night of the fire. He rescued me and my governess. Jolly brave, actually. But he was interested that Miss Gumble had a telescope. And today I was up in the schoolroom, and I happened to look out of the window and I saw him going around to the stable yard, which is where Miss Gumble is staying at the moment. So it made me wonder whether he suspects anything funny is going on. Or”—and she paused—“whether he might have something to do with that parachuting man himself.”
“What do you mean?” Alfie asked.
“I mean I know he was injured in that plane crash before the war, but why isn’t he in the army or something? He’s the sort of person who might want the Germans to take over. He’s the quiet and sneaky type, just the sort they might use. So I think you and I should get cracking. I know he went to the station, but if he comes back, we need to keep an eye on him. And I’ll snoop around the house to see if there is anything suspicious there. You snoop around the village to see if you can come up with anything suspicious. All right?”
“All right,” he said, “although I have been listening to people talking. Some of them think that German bloke staying with the doctor might be a spy.”
“But he’s Jewish and Austrian. He fled from the Nazis.”
“So he says.” Alfie grinned again. “But I’ll do my best. I tell you who I think might be right dodgy—Baxters the builders—have you noticed the gates to their yard are always shut, and the fence is so high you can’t see in?”
“Probably so no one can sneak in and steal their supplies,” Phoebe said.
“Yeah, but it’s more than that,” Alfie said. “I watched Baxter’s van drive out the other day. And someone closed the gate the moment the van went through, and young Mr. Baxter was driving and he saw me standing there and he shouted, “What are you staring at? Go on, hop it.”
“So you’ll do some snooping on the Baxters’ yard? Excellent,” Phoebe said. “We’ll get to the bottom of this mystery, you’ll see, Alfie. We’ll surprise them all.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Paris
Margot sat in the window at the Ritz hotel and stared out at the street. Her finger still throbbed and welled blood, but it was the other hurt that was more painful. That woman. That is what he had called her. He had looked at her with no emotion on his face at all. She was not his beloved. He didn’t care for her at all. She had risked her life by staying on in Paris when she could have been safely at home. And she had never had any chance of saving him. The Germans had been using her, pushing her into a position where she would agree to do their bidding, all for nothing.
What a fool I’ve been, she thought. She might be going home, but only to aid the enemy. If she didn’t, then someone on the spot would surely kill either her or a member of her family. Now that she had actually seen them in action, she was sure that they would have no qualms about dispatching her. She didn’t yet know what her assignment would be, but it would presumably have something to do with the fact that she was an aristocrat, that she mixed in the highest circles. She shivered and held her wounded hand up to her breast.
“I must commend you,” Herr Dinkslager had said as they drove away from Gestapo headquarters on Avenue Foch. “You were very brave. Exactly what I would have expected from one of England’s oldest families. I must apologise about your finger. I think you’ll find there is no lasting damage. I’m sure you must realise that it was a necessity.”
She had said nothing but stared out the window.
“You’ll need some training first,” Herr Dinkslager said. “So, for the moment, I think we’ll leave you at the Ritz. Might as well make the most of the good food and wine, eh?”
He was chatting with her again as if they had been for a drive in the country—not like he had just rammed a wedge under her fingernail. He had been prepared to do the same to the rest of her fingers, and to let the young soldier rape her if he thought it might have achieved results. What kind of man can act like that? she wondered. To behave with a façade of civilisation, yet calmly torture and kill. Does he never think about his wife, his children, his sisters at home, and imagine such horrors happening to them?
They pulled up in front of the Ritz, and he escorted her inside. Gigi Armande’s suite was unoccupied. “I’ll have someone come up with a bandage for that finger,” he said. “And I’ll arrange for your training to begin tomorrow.”
Now she sat there alone, a prisoner, waiting for doom to fall. There must be something I can do, she thought. A way out over the roof, through the servants’ quarters. A ridiculous thought came to her: What if I just opened the door and walked down the hall, down the stairs and to freedom? She crossed the room and opened the door. At the sound, a German soldier standing guard by the stairs turned to stare at her. Not that way then.
She toyed with another thought. She could request something from room service. If a woman delivered it, she could overpower her, tie her up, steal her uniform, and escape that way. The idea was intriguing, but she took it one stage further. If that person struggled and fought back, could she kill her if necessary? Margot shuddered. Killing was different from tying up. But she couldn’t just sit here. She picked up the telephone and found that it was dead. At that moment, Gigi Armande walked in. Margot looked up like a guilty child.
“I was trying to order a glass of wine,” she said.
Armande smiled. “There is a little man at the front desk who switches on the telephone when he sees me, for security’s sake. Now, what was it you wanted?”
“It doesn’t matter,” Margot said, moving away.