Not that the trappings of his authority had much effect on Mademoiselle Colbert, or so she would have him believe. Of course she feared him. A woman in her situation would be foolish not to fear a man of his position and power, but she would die before betraying a flicker of fright. Her remote indifference was a mask molded by years on the piste and the notion, inherent to members of her lofty bloodline, that people of her status did not reveal their terror to thugs.

Which was the American epithet Mademoiselle Colbert—Victoria Grayson—would ascribe to him. A regret, but such were the consequences of his work. His duty was to protect his country from its enemies, and he made no apologies and offered no excuses for doing it as he saw fit. He did not relish the methods his job sometimes required, but someone had to do it, and he had the faculties, temperament, and skill to perform it well. However, it was not his duty to arrest people he knew to be innocent. He had, therefore, decided what to do with Victoria Grayson.

He would simply do nothing.

Mademoiselle Colbert had committed no crime against the Third Reich. Self-preservation was not a criminal offense. She was guilty of nothing more than being in the wrong place at the wrong time, and that was why it had been necessary to rid her of the threat of the dissolute Beaumont Fournier, that cur of the literary world. How could the French literati be so beguiled by his writing? His death would be no loss to readers of taste, and he’d had to keep Mademoiselle Colbert—Victoria Grayson—out of the interrogation cells of the Gestapo.

How that profligate Beaumont Fournier could believe Victoria Grayson guilty of being a spy was laughable. Derrick now wished he had relieved the man of his delusion before killing him. Victoria Grayson was no more a spy than he was Mickey Mouse. She had risked her life and sacrificed the substantial comforts of her home to come to an enemy country to search for the man she loved, a brave RAF pilot, who himself had risked loss of his American citizenship by joining the British air force. Derrick would further say to the author that a man like him could not possibly understand nor appreciate—most certainly had never inspired—the selflessness that had motivated mademoiselle’s courage, so it was no wonder that he would make such an absurd accusation against her. Well, too bad. His misconception had cost him his life.