Elisabeth Lind drew a shaky breath on her cigarette, tapped off the ash, and brushed it beneath the coconut matting on the stairs.

“Ellen said to give you the machine,” I admitted. “It’s—it’s contaminated. We’ve run out of settings, and the Germans know we have it and they’re laying a trap for our planes.”

“How in blazes do you know that?” she exclaimed.

“Felix Baer told me.”

“Of course he did.” She was breathless with excitement. “I am most impressed.”

“I wanted to help,” I said, feeling idiotic.

“You did. You have.” She laughed again. “You have. You are. How were you to know there wasn’t a stolen Enigma machine in every RAF base in Britain? Jamie might have guessed, but you weren’t to know. At any rate—” Her cigarette glowed. “At any rate, now we have one!”

“Shall I fetch it for you?” I asked. “It’s in Jane’s wardrobe.”

“Ah—!” She hesitated. Then she said reluctantly, “No. No, not just now, not at four in the morning. It’s as safe there as anyplace, for the moment. It will take a bit of work to ship it to the proper Intelligence boffins. It would be jolly bad luck if another bomb dropped on it.” Her voice fell to a whisper again. “But I would love to see it.”

“Come visit us tomorrow,” I invited her.

Never had I been so glad to climb in over the foot of the bed in Room Number Five and curl up next to the old woman I was here to look after. Jane’s soft, purring snore seemed like the quietest sound I’d ever heard. I was still cold and my feet still hurt, and my confession to Sergeant Elisabeth Lind hadn’t untangled the knots in my stomach. I didn’t know what Falle Enigma was going to be; the German prisoners were still locked in the limekilns; the Luftwaffe bombers would come back.

But as I lay in the dark next to Jane I still felt sure I was in the safest place in the house.

I slept nearly till permitted hours the next day, and woke to find Jane pottering about in one of her fur coats. I sat up in bed. It was just gone eleven o’clock in the morning; the gas fire glowed warmly, and the windows gleamed with a dull, pale light I’d never seen before.

“It’s snowing,” Jane said. “It has been coming down all morning. Nancy lit our fire early, entirely for your benefit, I believe, and she has even brought up a pot of tea. She says the snow is halfway to her knees already! When did you come in?”

“Snowing!” I exclaimed, scrambling for the window. “Snowing!”