Theo turned his back on Millie to stare out at the grey North Sea, flecked by white foam in the stiff breeze. Millie wrapped her arms around her chest. She was cold. But she couldn’t abandon Theo.
At last he turned to her. ‘All right, Millie. I’m going to tell you something. I hinted at it to your brother when I saw him a few days ago, but I should stop playing games with myself. The British government needs to know.’
‘Needs to know what?’
‘The Duke of Windsor, your former king, is attached to the French general headquarters and over the last couple of months he has inspected the French lines. He is a surprisingly acute observer. And he has been passing his observations on to someone who has been passing them to me. Vital information about the French deployment and in particular its weak points.’
‘Edward is a traitor?’ Millie said. ‘That doesn’t make any sense. He was our king three years ago.’
‘I can’t be sure if he is doing this intentionally or if he is just indiscreet. But I can assure you he is doing it. And it is very useful information to our intelligence people.’
‘That’s not right, Theo. Someone is lying to you.’
Theo reached out and grabbed Millie’s arms. ‘I said we have to trust each other, Millie. I am not lying. Your government has to do something about it; they have to stop him. And you must tell your father this — not Alston, your father. Do you understand?’
Millie met Theo’s intense stare. There was no doubt he believed what he was saying. She nodded. ‘I will tell him,’ she said. ‘But do you have any evidence? I mean, he might believe me, but will the government believe him? There are all sorts of rumours flying around at the moment, Father says.’
Frustration flashed in Theo’s eyes, but then he seemed to see Millie’s point. ‘Very well. I will try to get you some evidence. I’m not sure what yet, but I will think of something. How long are you staying in Holland?’
‘Another three or four days,’ Millie said. ‘We are waiting for a response from Herr Langebrück.’
‘I’ll bring you something in the next couple of days.’ Theo touched Millie’s cheek. ‘In the mean time, be careful. Don’t trust Langebrück or Ribbentrop. Don’t trust anyone.’
‘Apart from you?’
‘Apart from me.’ To Millie’s enormous relief, Theo smiled at the irony. ‘You should go back inside, you are freezing. I’ll see you again soon.’
Millie’s emotions were in turmoil as she hurried back across the sand to the warm glow of the Kurhaus. She was ashamed that she had gone behind Theo’s back; she was angry with her father for letting Alston open up a dialogue with such Nazis. She was also shocked by what Theo had said about the Duke of Windsor. She had met him once when she was nineteen and he was Prince of Wales. Like most people her age, she had been pleased to see him succeed to the throne in 1936: a young, modern king who understood the twentieth century. The politics of his abdication had baffled her, but she couldn’t help admiring a man who had put his love for a woman before everything else, even his throne.
Her father knew the duke quite well. He had railed against his interfering in the Hoare — Laval pact during the Abyssinian crisis in 1935, over which Lord Oakford had resigned his position in Cabinet. But he had been uneasy about turfing a king off his throne. Would he believe her?
She had been right to ask for evidence from Theo. She believed him, she had to believe him, but it was going to be very difficult for Oakford to persuade the government that their former king was a traitor.
But if he was, if the duke really had been passing vital secrets to the Germans, then something had to be done about it.
Constance was hovering anxiously, waiting for her in the lobby. ‘Are you all right, Millie?’
‘Oh, leave me alone!’ Millie snapped.
‘What did he say?’
‘Sir Henry Alston is a Nazi, isn’t he, Constance?’
Constance was taken aback. ‘Don’t be an ass, of course he isn’t. He just wants peace, like your father.’
‘He’s best friends with Ribbentrop and Ribbentrop is a Nazi. He’s trying to sell our country out.’
‘Is that what Theo told you?’
Although the lobby was empty, Millie realized she was talking too loudly and lowered her voice. ‘Theo thinks the Duke of Windsor is a spy. He has been giving Theo secrets about the French defences.’
‘Theo has been talking to the Duke of Windsor?’
‘Through some kind of intermediary. He wants me to tell my father.’
Constance frowned. ‘I know you like Theo, Millie, but that cannot possibly be true.’
‘He’s going to bring me proof in the next couple of days. While we wait for your friend Herr Langebrück to come back with his reply, which, by the way, I intend to rip up.’
‘You can’t do that!’ Constance said. ‘That was the whole reason we came here.’
‘We shouldn’t be negotiating with the Nazis behind our government’s back,’ Millie said. ‘Not when we are at war.’ What she meant was behind Theo’s back. And Conrad’s.
‘Why don’t we leave that to Sir Henry to decide?’ said Constance. ‘And your father.’
‘Because Sir Henry is a Nazi and my father is a fool!’ Millie said, the tears stinging her eyes as she did so.
‘What are you going to do about the Duke of Windsor?’ Constance asked.
‘Tell my father, of course, once Theo provides us with some evidence. As soon as we get back to England. I just hope he will listen.’
‘I don’t think you should do that,’ said Constance.
At that instant all Millie’s frustration focused on one person, the girl standing in front of her. ‘Leave me alone, Constance,’ she said. ‘Just leave me alone!’
With that she strode off to the lifts and her room. She needed to be by herself to make sense of all she had just heard. She needed to be away from Constance.
Constance returned to her table in the almost empty ballroom and poured herself a cup of tepid tea from the pot. She had some hard thinking to do.
After a few minutes she went up to her own room and placed a telephone call to London.
20
The Ritz, Paris
Conrad lit another cigarette and leafed through the pages of the Herald Tribune. He had finished Le Monde. He wondered how long he could safely sit in the lobby. The staff of the Ritz didn’t seem to mind; people waited for other people in grand hotels all the time.
He glanced up every time the doors opened until finally he saw a face he recognized from the brochures he had picked up in Amsterdam. The photographs had done justice to the boxer’s face and the jug ears, but not to the vitality with which Charles Bedaux bounded into the hotel. He spoke to one of the men at reception, requesting the manager.
This was interesting. Nonchalantly, Conrad got to his feet and wandered over to the desk. He asked whether there was a message for him. While the receptionist was looking, the manager appeared. He was perfectly dressed in morning coat, and succeeded in looking both authoritative and deferent at the same time. He clearly knew Bedaux.
Conrad listened to the conversation, which was in French. Bedaux had arranged a private dining room for four people and seemed very concerned about the arrangements. As did the manager. One of the people was ‘Madame Bedaux’, but Conrad didn’t catch the names of the other two. Conrad couldn’t hear the whole conversation, he had to respond to the receptionist who hadn’t been able to find a message for him, but he did catch a couple of words from the manager: ‘eight o’clock’.
Conrad checked his watch. It was half past six. He told the receptionist he would return later and asked him to keep any messages for him from a Monsieur Madvig. May as well put the old Danish Prime Minister to work again. Then he wandered out into the place Vendôme, and found himself a café on a side street.