The note would be neatly stuck between two banknotes which Catherine, the girl Louise trusted most, would take to her home early in the morning. A little later, going out to her local market, she would use the notes to pay a flower-seller. Within an hour, placed in an envelope, the notes would be dropped through the letter box of a safe house.

“This could be Heinrich Müller himself,” Max said, after reading the message. Heinrich “Gestapo” Müller, the second most important man in the entire Gestapo. “It’s the first we’ve ever heard of him coming to France,” he continued, “but with the Normandy landings, it would be natural for him to pay a visit to Paris. The Germans will be dreading an uprising here.”

“If he were to come,” Charlie took up the theme, “security would be high. I imagine it would be a secret. But someone like Colonel Walter might hear of it.”

“If it is Gestapo Müller, I’d hate to let him slip through our fingers.” Max considered. “It might be a trap.”

“Only if Corinne is compromised in some way. We’ve no reason to think she is.”

“What about the play? What do you make of that?”

“The theater’s always suspect. Anouilh’s Antigone got through the censors and the Germans have been watching it happily enough, but some people think it’s covert anti-German propaganda. He might want to see it for that reason.”

“We haven’t much time to get organized,” said Max. “And it’s risky. But I think we have to try.”

“Try what?”

“To kill him, of course.”

Luc told himself that he was worrying unduly. But he couldn’t help it. His last visit to Schmid had been very unsatisfactory. When he’d asked whether there was any news about Corinne, the Gestapo man had remarked that she had not led them to anyone yet. Then he had smiled.

“But I am still confident.”

“You had said you would trap her.”

“Perhaps.”

“May I ask how?”

“No. But I will tell you if the outcome is satisfactory.”

It would be a trap then. But what sort of trap? A likely method would be to feed her false information. Information she would pass on to the Resistance and incriminate herself. But what sort of information? Impossible to know. But a false lead of some kind. Something that would lead Resistance men into a trap.

It needn’t concern him. Except for one circumstance. What if his brother were caught in the trap?

He knew Thomas was still going out on operations. He was indefatigable. Indeed, it seemed to have given him a new lease on life. Thomas mightn’t be as fast as the younger men, but he still had a good eye, and he was reliable.

And every time he did so, of course, Thomas put himself at risk. Common sense told Luc he shouldn’t worry about it. That was Thomas’s choice, and his own business.