“Merci,” she said, and struck off through the dining area rather than expose her presence to the men in the room. Stepping into the kitchen, she said softly to the back of the woman at the stove, “Madame Dupree?” Thankfully, no one else was in the kitchen, but through a window, Victoria could see several men, one a German Army captain, another a civilian, bent over a garden row cutting cabbages.

Gabrielle Dupree whirled from the stove and blinked. “Who are you?”

Veronique took a step forward and in her most imploring tone spoke softly in French. “My name doesn’t matter, Madame Dupree. You must trust me that I mean you no harm. I am the fiancée of an RAF pilot, an American to whom I believe you gave sanctuary in May of this year. He was shot down over Gennevilliers—”

“Sssh!” Madame Dupree hissed sharply, pressing a finger to her lips. She turned to switch off a burner flame and motioned Victoria toward a pantry. Squeezed between shelves of the previous summer’s canned bounty, she whispered, “Are you an American?”

“Yes.”

“Prove it.”

“What?”

“Speak to me in English. No, tell me why you are here in the American tongue. I will be able to distinguish the difference.”

With emphasis on the prolonged vowels of a Virginia accent, Victoria spoke a few sentences of nonsense about the weather. “Ah,” said Madame Dupree, apparently convinced of her nationality. She wrapped her hands around Victoria’s and said softly, “Leave, mademoiselle. Walk south one block. You will find a cemetery park next to a church. I will meet you there in twenty minutes.”

They heard the kitchen door open, and quickly Madame Dupree snatched down a jar of canned turnips. “I am sorry, mon amie,” she said loud enough for the intruder to hear, “but this is all I can spare from our meager larder. Times…they are so hard.”

“Oui,” Victoria said and took the jar. Madame Dupree stepped out and Victoria followed. Standing at stiff attention in the kitchen was the sergeant who had admitted her into the foyer. He had donned his uniform jacket and tightened his tie.

“May I help you, Sergeant?” Madame Dupree asked crisply.

“Uh, yes, well—” The sergeant stepped uncertainly forward, the bluster of his military uniform failing the impression he had meant to establish. “As a member of the Abwehr, it…it is my duty to…to interrogate all unknown visitors to this house,” he stammered.

“Is that so? You’ve never done so before.”

The sergeant seemed to shrink inside his jacket. “Uh, well, that is so, but it is policy now—”

“Mademoiselle is not an unknown visitor to this house,” Madame Dupree interrupted him. “She is merely unknown to you, and I shall take this matter up with Captain Achterberg. Here he comes now.”