Madame Gabrielle Dupree was a facilitator for the OSS. Her role did not involve clandestine activities. She offered assistance by making her pension de famille, or boardinghouse, available as a trusted abode for the agency’s covert operatives. She had come to Alistair’s attention in early June 1942, when he learned that her boardinghouse had offered sanctuary to several RAF pilots shot down close to Paris during a bombing raid. Her husband was a casualty of the First World War and her son a victim of the Second, both at the hands of the Germans. Gabrielle Dupree did not loudly parade the depth of her hatred for “the pigs in gray” but quietly put her grief and rage to effective use by holding vacant a few rooms to rent to Allied agents requiring walls without ears.

Booted footsteps and voices speaking imperiously in German drifted up from downstairs. Madame Dupree’s face whitened. “Oh, my God. They’re here,” she said.

Bucky laid a hand on her shoulder. “Hold tight to your courage, Madame Dupree. You are a brave and resourceful woman. You will handle this.”

She straightened her shoulders. “Yes, I will,” she said. “I was told they’ll want to interview the residents. I’m to ring the dinner bell to summon everyone downstairs. Meanwhile I’d get into pajamas, if I were you. The pigs might wonder what you’ve been up to.”

The dinner bell rang fifteen minutes later. Bucky had changed out of street clothes and further tousled his hair. His aunt’s note was now ashes mixed with the smoked remains from the bowl of his French briar. His umbrella with its concealed stiletto was tucked in his closet, his pencil fuse lay inconspicuously among other writing materials in his desk drawer, and his L pill was hidden in his belt buckle. His other clandestine materials were in his office at the consulting firm where he’d expected they most likely would be needed. He had not anticipated this turn of events.

When Bucky descended the stairs in robe, pajamas, and house slippers, he found the other three tenants in similar attire and the members of the house staff forming a line. The new boarders—a captain, a first lieutenant, and a sergeant holding a clipboard—were in full Wehrmacht uniform. Bucky made a quick assessment. The captain appeared pleasant enough. He had just heard him compliment Madame Dupree’s collection of Lalique figurines, but the mannerly, courteous ones could be the worst kind. The lieutenant, tall, slim, and straight-backed, looked fresh out of the Prussian Military Academy, Hitler’s trolling ground for the elite of the elite. By contrast the sergeant with the clipboard was lacking the polish and presence of his superiors. His uniform, designed for the physique of the typically fit German soldier, was ill suited for his pudgy frame, a drawback to his military appearance that his slicked-down Hitler haircut and thin mustache failed to offset.