"Well, naturally I shall keep him informed, but I'd prefer if you reported only to me."

"In case it blows up in our faces, right?"

"Please listen to me. This is nothing, five minutes alone with Cramer. You simply tell him that there's a woman who may be of some interest, and suggest that he speak to her. That's the whole of it."

"And afterward?"

"Afterward you needn't even remember that we spoke." . . .

He saw her everywhere after that. He saw her in crowds along the strand, and watching him from passing limousines. He saw her beneath him on a twisted staircase, and above in tenement windows. She became the singular presence in every empty room. She became his world.

Although Dunbar's files contain only peripheral notes about the arrangement with Emile Faust, it is not difficult to reconstruct what occurred. It was a casual affair. Within a week of his return to Holland, Faust, the double agent and now in his guise as a German agent, simply approached Karl H. Cramer and suggested that he recruit a dancer named Margaretha Zelle on behalf of German intelligence. Naturally, Faust supplied Cramer with at least one photograph—including one of those early nude studies that had created such a stir before the war.

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-One

IT was a Friday afternoon when Cramer appeared. He had written in advance, but Zelle had forgotten. Her home on The Hague's Nieuwe Uitleg was again under renovation; the fixtures not yet installed, the plumbing still unreliable. Nor had her furniture from Paris arrived, so that Cramer had to be received in a dining room.

He was admitted by the maid, Anna Lintjens. Zelle was upstairs quarreling with a carpenter and did not even hear the doorbell. Then, mistaking the man for a contractor, she nearly had Anna Lintjens show him to the basement, where the walls were crumbling from seepage.

He was a tall thin man with what women considered elegant features. He had first entered Holland on November 2, 1914, with the German Official Information Service. Originally from Bremen, he had formed his links with the secret world late in life, more or less as a stop-gap measure to counter Allied efforts in the Netherlands. He learned the ropes quickly, however, and his approach to Zelle was classic.

He began with flattery, saying he had once had the great pleasure of seeing her dance in Vienna. Next he talked a little about himself and his mission, describing his duties in public relations and the promotion of historic German ideals. Finally, he said that he would very much appreciate hearing about her experiences in Paris.

Tea—a fragrant Himalayan blend—was served before she could respond.

From this room there was a long view of the canal that she had always found reassuring, particularly in the afternoon, when children were on the white path returning from the convent.

He said, "You must find it very comforting to be home again after Paris?"