“Do they teach you in spy school what the Gestapo does to your kind? Or mine? They don’t just shoot us anymore. Instead, they like to see what they can get to fall out of our heads first before they kill us. The funnel, the press, extraction of fingernails and toenails, though that is usually done after they’ve driven needles and wooden wedges underneath them to pry them loose. They’ll burn you, electrocute you, file your teeth, and slit the bottoms of your feet. They might not let you sleep for days, keep you in the dark for weeks, all the while beating you regularly—” She broke off, her expression again one of despair.

“I understand,” Sophie answered.

“Then what were you thinking?”

“I was thinking,” Sophie said slowly, “that I know another pilot. I was thinking that it’s been three years since he was shot down and vanished. But that maybe, just maybe, he might escape from wherever he is and that people like you would help him get home. I was thinking that if the man in that room wasn’t an American but an Englishman who loves cars and art and his bacon blackened around the edges, who found himself cornered in front of a French basilica, that someone might do for him what I did.” She paused. “I was thinking that, one day, that man, or men just like him, will be better served by your continued innocence and anonymity.”

La Chanteuse looked away. “I’m sorry about whomever it is you’ve lost but I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Of course you do. You help get Allied airmen out of France,” Sophie said. “You’re part of a smuggling line.”

“That’s quite an assumption.”

“It was at the time. It’s no longer an assumption.”

“Based on more of your conjecture?”

“Based on the fact that the man who was being hunted trusted you implicitly with the life of the American. He knew that you understood what needed to be done. I guessed then that it wasn’t your first time.”

“And now?” The question was biting.

“I don’t need to guess. In that hidden room, there is a trunk that contains books in English and Polish. Men’s clothes and identity papers and money. And train schedules, though they are over a year old and probably quite useless now.”

La Chanteuse paled. With stiff movements, she slid out from under the sleeping girl, careful not to wake her. In a half-dozen steps she had crossed the room, facing Sophie. “You went through the trunk?” she whispered furiously.

“Wouldn’t you in my position?”

“Your position?”

“Hidden behind a wardrobe wall with no weapon other than my knife to defend all of us should the Gestapo officer have been lucky in his search.” She made a face. “The rifle would have been more helpful had it been accompanied by ammunition.”