Wearily, Derrick handed hat and gloves to Alois and made for the liquor table. “I regret to tell you that she did not. I saw no V in the dog’s ear. I waited over two hours and no one appeared. Today I made inquiries and managed to find out why.” He looked at Victoria, dreading to tell her the news. “You’d better have a drink. It’s not good.”

“Tell me,” she whispered.

“I questioned her employer, the couturier, Madame Boucher. She last saw your friend on June ninth, when she was led away by two men from the French Gestapo. Their commander didn’t recognize the name when I inquired, but I did not believe him. I am well experienced in detecting liars. An hour later, he called back to report that their records showed that his office had indeed arrested your friend but that she had been sent to the Drancy internment camp on June tenth.”

“Well, can’t you use your influence to get her out of there?”

Derrick said gently, “Two days ago she was deported to Dachau concentration camp because of overcrowding.”

“Oh, God…” Victoria sank to the couch, and Derrick placed the glass of whiskey on the table in front of her. “Dachau…the camp with the crematoria…”

Derrick turned to fill his own glass, feeling the burn of shame creep up his neck. “It doesn’t mean that she will be gassed, Victoria. She’s not Jewish, and apparently she managed to avoid revealing that she is an American OSS agent. Otherwise, she would have been shot.”

Victoria pressed her hands to her cheeks. “First in the hands of the French Gestapo, now Dachau. She’ll never be able to endure what they do to people in those camps.”

“Perhaps she will, Victoria. From what I have gathered, she is a strong young woman.” But Derrick could see that she didn’t believe what he himself could not. Dachau was the training ground for the SS commanders of concentration camps, and the prisoners were used as subjects for practicing techniques of persuasion. Worst of all, the camp had been established as a laboratory for the conduction of medical experiments, with the inmates used as guinea pigs.

“Of course I will continue to make inquiries and use my influence to do what I can,” he said. “If she can hold out to the end of the war, which can’t last much longer, she’ll make it. The Allies have managed to dig in and hold a number of beaches along the French coastline despite enormous German resistance, and I expect they will be in Paris by August. France will be entirely liberated before winter.”

“Little good the liberation of France will do Labrador,” Victoria said dully, unconsoled. “There’s still Germany to invade…”