Alistair went immediately to a cabinet and pulled the file that contained the poster of Nicholas Cravois. If he looked hard enough, beyond the beard, he could see the faint similarities that had prompted Henri’s observation. Alistair put in a call to OSS headquarters and requested a clerk to read the items pertaining to Samuel Barton’s parents and relatives. There was no information to indicate that he was anything other than the son of Horace Barton. The mother had only one sibling, a sister, who was childless and still lived in Paris, where Samuel’s mother, Monique, had lived until her marriage to Horace Barton. Sergeant Barton had been stationed in Paris in 1919 as a member of the American Expeditionary Forces, the year he married Monique. Alistair felt the chill of instant comprehension. That timing explained it. Whether her American husband was aware of her pregnancy when he married her was irrelevant. It was clear now that Samuel Barton had volunteered to serve in the OSS as a means to come to Paris to find Nicholas Cravois—his father.

*  *  *

Now was the perfect time, Achim Fleischer thought. The sisters had just left for the chapel and five o’clock vespers, and the convent was practically empty. Mademoiselle Dufor—Bernadette, he’d begun to call her—had gone to meet friends for tea at four o’clock and would probably not be back until six. An hour’s break from his guard duties was all he needed to search Mademoiselle—Bernadette’s—room. It was located in the attic, she’d told him.

His desire to see where she slept and ate and dressed and bathed had become an obsession. He seemed unable to control his need to touch her personal things, to see the books she read, to look at photographs and fashion drawings, to rummage through drawers and cabinets and closets to discover more about her. Would he find her attic room in order or disappointingly untidy? Would he see the dishes washed and neatly put away or piled uncleaned in the sink, the bed made, floors swept, lavatory and commode spotless? Would the ice box stink of rotting leftovers and the stove be grimed with grease and food spills, though there was precious little food these days to go bad or spill and no fuel to cook it. Would he have the pleasure of discovering private and feminine items washed and hung on a line in the toilettes? Her nightgown and robe that carried her scent hung from a peg in her closet? These were questions he had asked himself in his fantasies as his affection for her had grown—and as hers had increased for him, he was sure.