Setting his morning cup of coffee before his chief on his desk, Karl observed, “You are not yourself today, mein Oberst.”

“Not since Saturday night, as a matter of fact,” Derrick said, sipping his coffee.

“Mademoiselle Colbert would make any man not be himself, if I may be so bold to state an observance, Herr Colonel.” The aide had served as the couple’s driver Saturday night, and the appearance of Mademoiselle Colbert stepping from the hotel entrance in her evening finery had challenged his military training to keep his attention eyes front.

“It would be difficult not to observe the obvious,” Derrick said. Very difficult, indeed, more’s the pity, thought Derrick as Karl left the room.

The only jarring element to her appearance had been her coat. It was her everyday coat, an incongruous contrast to her elegant satin gown. Derrick had thought she should be swathed in fur. When he offered to check it, she’d said that she would keep it should she get cold. He had pointed out that the hem would only drape to the floor from the back of her chair, and he would make sure the room temperature would be to her liking. She had yielded it reluctantly, and he had understood why when a clumsy oaf ran into him and he’d grabbed the inside of her coat before it fell to the floor. Instant recognition of the thin-walled glass capsule in the lining shot through him like an electrical charge. It was an item routinely searched for in garments worn by captured enemy agents. Derrick couldn’t be absolutely sure of its compound or purpose, but if it wasn’t a cyanide pill, what was it doing concealed in the lining of Mademoiselle Colbert’s—Victoria Grayson’s—coat? He could draw only one conclusion: The astonishingly beautiful woman whose coat he held was a spy.

She’d been standing not three yards away, drawing eyes, but hers were on him. She had witnessed the mishap and his rescue of the coat, and Derrick’s trained eye saw her pale slightly and a swallow move down her throat, betraying the question flashing in her gray-green eyes. Had he discovered the pill? He’d sent her a smile of assurance—Saved by the bell!—while he waited his turn to check the coat.

Late in the afternoon, the sergeant he’d spoken to yesterday appeared before his chief’s desk. “Your transmission is about to come through, Herr Colonel.”

Derrick hurriedly took his seat before the telegraph machine and transferred the coded message to a sheet he deciphered at his desk. The information was as he’d expected and had carelessly not thought to research. The college transcript of Victoria Grayson, aka Veronique Colbert, revealed her secondary academic discipline as German.

CHAPTER SIXTY

CHAPTER SIXTY