“Well, something went wrong or you wouldn’t still be here.” I hold his gaze, demanding he elaborate.

With a gin-laced exhale, he sits back against the wall.

Years of experience tell him I won’t relent.

“The big meeting was set for two weeks ago,” he says, slightly grudging. “Night before it, I received word about a prisoner, a guy with the underground. News was, he’d spilled all about the gathering, including the actual location. I couldn’t have Ziegler realizing I’d lied. Straightaway I raced over to his house. I pretended I’d just learned about the change of plans. The date and time I’d given him still lined up, so he was skeptical but seemed to buy it. Said to meet him there—which, of course, I had no intention of doing.”

I relax, if marginally, factoring in the admission by the prisoner. Technically, the full tip-off came from him.

This doesn’t mean, however, that Arie won’t face a barrage of questions in London. “Was there any way you could have warned them? Sent word somehow?”

“Don’t you think I tried?” His voice turns gruff, not specifically at me. “I paid a boy to leave a signal at the designated park. At a checkpoint on the way, he saw Krauts arresting a guy they’d just beaten to a pulp. Kid got scared.”

I ward off yet another ghastly image and offer, “You’re saying your warning…”

“Never reached the group. But I didn’t know it,” he says. “I figured Ziegler and his goons would end up raiding an empty room. Meantime, I headed to Ziegler’s house, making sure I lost anyone who might be trailing, like usual. But when I got there, I found out his wife had taken Evelien to the ladies’ breakfast with her. Like trotting out a doll. A damn pet.”

I pass over his bitterness, mystified by the woman’s flaunting. “I don’t get it. How could a Nazi officer’s wife possibly take—” I stop, realizing how terrible the rest would sound. But Arie hears enough to reply.

“The girl’s only half Jew and frankly doesn’t look even that.” He shows no offense, thankfully. “Plus, it might’ve been Ziegler’s idea if he suspected at all what I was up to. Or, I don’t know…maybe it was his wife’s call. Housekeeper said the woman’s always wanted children. Who knows what her husband told her about Evelien? About where she came from and why.”

A thought pops into my head: that maybe the wife suffered from similar troubles as Thea. I don’t dare voice this. Instead I ask, “Has the poor girl been told? About her parents?”

Arie swallows before answering. “Housekeeper says she knows they’re gone for good. That’s all.”