A minute later, the door swung open again, and the airman staggered through. His face was tight with pain, his breathing shallow.

“Can you make it up the stairs?” she asked in French but got only a blank look in response. She asked again in English.

He nodded, gripping the railing hard enough that his knuckles were white.

“There are three flights.”

“I’m fine.”

“Yes, I can see that.” Estelle put an arm around his waist.

The pilot resisted and tried to pull away.

“Save the heroics for when you’re back in the air, yes?” she whispered harshly. “I can do a lot of things but carrying you up the stairs if you fall is not one of them.”

He nodded, leaning on her shoulder. They navigated the stairs up to her apartment, and she maneuvered them inside, closing the door firmly behind them. “This way. Almost there.”

She led him through the living area and all its ostentatious furnishings, around the long dining table, and into her bedroom. She opened the wardrobe and released the catch at the back. “Through here.”

The hidden door swung open to reveal the concealed room.

“You’ll stay here and rest until the next portion of your journey,” she told him, helping him step up into the wardrobe and into the diminutive space.

Lately, too many of the network’s agents had had their private, barricaded apartments raided and their fugitives caught with nowhere to hide. Since she had started smuggling Allied airmen, Estelle had done the opposite and made a point to invite people in at carefully selected intervals—acquaintances, Vichy officials, and once even a Wehrmacht officer who had insisted on walking her home so that, if ever questioned, they would all say the same thing. Mademoiselle Estelle Allard was merely an endearing ingenue surrounded by the spoils of old money, a vapid product of constant indulgence and flattery. She had nothing to hide from anyone.

And the Gestapo couldn’t take what they couldn’t find.

“It’s cramped, I know, but you will be safe here,” she told the airman.

He collapsed on the bed, breathing hard as she lit a small lantern.

“Ill or injured?” she asked, bending to retrieve his hat.

The man gestured vaguely at his left hip. “Shrapnel wound. Not quite healed yet.”

“May I see?”

He hesitated. “Are you a nurse?”

“At the moment, I am everything you need me to be. Beggars can’t be choosers, yes?”