Finally, a Sunday had opened up that allowed Victoria to make a trip to the boardinghouse where Ralph might have found refuge. The previous Sundays, the only day in the week that permitted sufficient time for her mission, had been tied up by Colonel Derrick Albrecht. To her bitter chagrin, he had scheduled their bouts at an hour that did not allow time for a metro ride to visit Madame Dupree at her boardinghouse. Yesterday, however, Colonel Albrecht had called to ask if mademoiselle would consider changing their two o’clock bout to four o’clock. Victoria had readily agreed.

She would be springing her visit on Madame Dupree without prior notice. She would have preferred to telephone first, but Victoria’s consideration for the woman’s safety as well as her own prohibited making contact by phone. Switchboard operators were notorious for reporting suspicious conversations to Nazi police officials, and the boardinghouse telephone might not be in a safe spot for the owner to take the call. Notes delivered by hand were risky and uncertain as well. Licensed couriers on bicycles were subject to interceptions and searches by German patrols, and Victoria could trust no one to deliver unread a message of the necessary length to explain the purpose of her visit to Madame Dupree.

So she had no recourse but to arrive unannounced with the hope of finding the brave propriétaire at home and willing to talk to her this cold, nose-nipping Sunday. Parisians were understandably afraid to trust one another, and it could be that the woman who might have saved Ralph’s life would deny having done so. Victoria could think of no convincing cover story to explain why she had come, so she would have to risk trusting Madame Dupree with the truth.

Her heart was knocking by the time she rang the bell to the boardinghouse. It drummed harder when it was answered by a young, heavyset man wearing the rolled-sleeved shirt and loosened tie of an off-duty sergeant in the Wehrmacht. She had not expected the boardinghouse to have been requisitioned as quarters for German soldiers. At seeing her, the man’s gaze widened and his jaw sagged slightly. Victoria smiled at him. She would use his starstruck fascination to her advantage. Hoping he understood French, she said, “Bonjour, monsieur. I am here to see Madame Dupree. Is she in?”

He stepped back like a mesmerized mute to allow her entrance into the hall and waved a copy of a German-language newspaper, the Pariser Zeitung, toward the rear of the house. “Cuisine,” he managed to say, indicating the kitchen. Victoria heard male voices speaking German in a room with its door open a few paces down the hall.