Through the course of these investigations Gray was only contacted once, on a Monday evening by a trim little man from the Foreign Office. They met in a cheap beer house not far from where it all began. After a few halting exchanges, Gray was presented with a four-figure check and quietly told to forget. Michard was mentioned only in passing. Zelle was not mentioned at all.

But her name did appear in one critical paragraph: Is it not possible that a separate line may have also existed between the effort from Berlin and the aforementioned dancer? Please advise.

The question was posed by a Cummings subordinate, one of the armchair investigators, a Martin Southerland of later involvement. Although not immediately addressed, a handwritten transcription of the document was committed to the ministry vaults, where it bided its time in the darkness.

What of Margaretha's perception of these events? Apart from a few lingering questions, she eventually came to accept Michard's death precisely as explained: stricken with a terminal illness, the man bravely and privately took his own life. As evidence of this, Gray would point to a revealing afternoon with Zelle in her apartment on the rue de Balzac.

It was the first chilled week in December. Arriving unannounced, Gray found her composed on a low divan amid newspaper clippings and neglected correspondence. She wore black with only a shadow of mascara—to emphasize her melancholy? There were photographs of Michard on the mantle, and an odor from scented candles on the windowsill.

They drank claret to the strains of Chopin on the gramophone. She told him that her colonel had favored the Preludes, especially on languid afternoons. Then reaching for Gray's hand, she broke down in tears. "Oh, I know that he wouldn't have wanted me to cry, but I can't help it. Nicky, I simply can't help it."

A little later she talked about Michard's restless spirit, and a certain apparition that had come to her the night before . . . "It was a feeling, really. A feeling that he came back to let me know that I mustn't be sad for him, that right to the end he had a rich and happy life with a proud soldier's death. Which was why he never told us that he was ill, you see. He didn't want anything to spoil the last days."

And then she talked about herself. Michard had always appreciated her dancing, she said, and if only for his memory she had to continue. Also, it seemed that a certain impresario had recently expressed an interest in her career, and there were firm possibilities for an early spring engagement in Spain.

As he was leaving she allowed him a brief platonic kiss. "Thank you so much for coming," she told him. "I'm so glad you came." But when he tried to hold her gaze, she simply smiled and looked away.