Major General Konrad March wondered if he were imagining that there had been a slight shift of Admiral Canaris’s letter on his desk. Was he becoming paranoid like so many of his comrades? His eye and mind were trained to detect the most minuscule details that could give away clandestine activity, but only if he’d committed their original order to memory. He had to confess that at Hans’s announcement of Madame Gastain’s arrival, his mind had not been committed to any order but the voluptuous arrangement of his neighbor’s figure. Also, unless someone had entered through the windows, which were locked against the cold, the only persons who had been in his house after he received the letter were Hans, Wilhelm, and his guests. Hans would never have touched it. He understood that to remain deaf, dumb, and blind to his superior’s business was safer for them both. Besides, during the luncheon, his aide had never left the kitchen but to serve. Madame Gastain had never been out of his sight, not even to visit the toilettes. The same for the others. Their only opportunity to read the letter was in the time he walked Madame Gastain to her house and back. He had felt a little light-headed because the luncheon had gone so well and she had agreed to be his guest at the premiere the following Saturday. She had invited him in to enjoy a cup of the tin of coffee he’d sent along with the invitation to join him for luncheon. One cup was all. Propriety demanded that he not overstay his welcome, despite his urge to ask her to play a number on the Steinway set grandly against a wall of priceless paintings in the salon. He had left the fisherman and tutor on the back lawn playing kickball with Wilhelm, and there he found them finishing the game when he returned. Both young men had left immediately. It seemed his guests had late Saturday appointments.

It would require the most paranoid of minds to suspect his son’s tutor of having read Admiral Canaris’s letter. Konrad had him checked out before engaging him. The boy lived almost a Trappist’s existence in Paris. He had no family or friends in the city, had no social interactions with colleagues (not that Konrad could blame him there), and as of yet had acquired no girlfriend, which was surprising, given how handsome he was. The missing thumb must put women off. Herr Bauer took the same route to and from the school each day with no deviation from his daily routine except for the days he traveled to the general’s house. He couldn’t be a plant, because Herr Bauer could not have known he’d be hired to tutor the son of the head of the Abwehr when he took his position at the boys’ school.