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The Mercedes pulled away. Clegg sat back watching the early morning light creep across the French countryside. Sandy pulled a Gauloise from a pack lodged in the pouch on the back of the seat in front of her. She offered one to Freddie. He shook his head. It was too early in the morning to have the skin taken off his throat.
“How do you come to be working with the French Resistance?” Freddie asked.
“Well I was somewhat upset by the loss of the Château as you can imagine. Besides, I thought it was rather appropriate, given my interests, Freddie. I’m a sort of Maquis De Sade.”
Clegg winced at the pun. He'd never got used to Sandy's rather cavalier attitude to the business that they both were in. He'd always favoured a quieter, more personal approach to the business of abducting and trading women as slaves. The flamboyance of Sandy's European operation wasn't for him, although he had to confess fond memories of some of the parties she had thrown for her clients.
The car motored on. Sandy's blonde driver did a competent job of steering the car round the occasional pot hole left by the fighting from the previous year. Mostly they'd been filled in. The Germans were good at that sort of thing. Clegg saw the sign for Versailles. 10 or 12 miles from here he thought. They’d made good time. A motor cycle overtook them, the rider not giving Sandy a second glance. Clegg began to feel more comfortable.
As they swept through the old city wall at the Porte d’Issy an old Frenchman scowled at the passing car while a squad of soldiers came to a halt as their Obergefreiter threw an enthusiastic “Sieg Heil”. It was obviously a good enough disguise, Clegg decided.
They drove on. They passed the Ecole Militaire and red, white and black swastika flags hanging limply from masts in the Champ De Mars. driving in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower as it looked down with what seemed sullen disapproval at the grey clad troops marching around its base and the the Champ de Mars. They crossed the Pont D’Iena and turned along the bank of the Seine, the Trocadero on their right. They drove on into Passy. Finally the car turned through gates with the sign “Notre Dame De Grace”.
Dear heavens, Clegg thought, she’s set up shop in a convent.
They stopped. Sandy and her driver got out and Clegg followed them. One of the nuns emerged and drove the car away to park it in what Clegg took to be the convent’s stable block.
“You’ll want to press on with your task,” Sandy said as she showed Clegg through into the rooms she had arranged for him. Clegg nodded.
“I need to track down a girl,” he said. “Well, three of them actually.”
“How very unusual,” responded the Comtesse with heavy irony. “Well, let me know if I can help.”
“Thanks,” said Clegg. “I will.” He spent the morning tramping the streets of Paris, getting the feel of the place once more. He went back up to Montmartre. The Belle Aurore was deserted. There was no sign that it had been opened since the Germans had arrived. He thought maybe he could make use of the cellar if things didn't work out with Sandy's operation but it would be a whole lot easier with her help and she seemed willing enough so far at least.
He headed back towards the Seine. He was lucky. Passing the Trocadero he saw a poster. The Orchestre de la Société des Concerts du Conservatoire were performing that night. Clegg decided to treat himself to an evening’s culture.
Wagner, Beethoven, Bruckner. The programme was predictable, Clegg guessed, given the sea of grey uniforms in the audience and certainly better than Hindemith. The Beethoven and the Bruckner were fine, thought Clegg but when it came to the Wagner he agreed with Mark Twain. When he'd said that Wagner's music was better than it sounded he'd hit the nail on the head.
The concert gave Clegg the chance to study Tereza Aucune. From his seat in the circle, peering through his opera glasses, he could clearly see the girl, staring fixedly at the conductor, fingering the strings and bowing her cello with intensity. From what he could see the Major was evidently a man of taste. But then Freddie knew that already from Annette and Louise.
The concert ended. Clegg was in the street by the stage door as Tereza emerged, hefting her instrument. Keeping his distance he followed her as she searched in vain for a taxi. Giving up, she decided to walk. It wasn't an easy task given the size of the cello but she had evidently had the practice. Clegg felt a bit guilty but then helping women out of difficulties wasn't really his style.
She didn't have too far to go. Clegg watched as she stopped outside a house in Passy. She wrestled her cello up the short flight of steps to the building's columned portico. As she reached the top of the steps the front door of the house opened. Waiting to welcome her in, highlighted in the glow of a light within the hall, was a young blonde woman. As she stood the doorway, Clegg could see she was wearing a black skirt, white shirt and black tie. On her arm she wore a red armband that carried the Nazi insignia of a white disk and black swastika. “Ah,” thought Clegg as Tereza went inside, “that could make things more complicated.”
Clegg took a good look around the outside of the house, avoided a squad of German troops as they marched by, and then headed back to the convent. Sandy was as good as her word when Clegg asked if she could arrange some a surveillance of the Passy house and its occupants. Late the following afternoon, Sister Sarah was able to offer Clegg the results of her visit.
“It is a very grand house,” she said. “Occupied by a Major Strasser.” Clegg was pleased by that piece of information at least. “It had been commandeered from a French family, of course, but they are no longer there.”
“You had a good chance to look around?”
“Oh yes. Tereza Aucune is a good catholic girl. She was only too happy to see me when she heard I was collecting alms for the convent. Major Strasser is away but Mademoiselle Aucune continues to live there. There are two others in the house. Two of Major Strasser’s people. Heidi and Helga they are called. Whether they are babysitters, or guards I could not say.”
“How easy would it be to enter the house unobserved?”
“Not so difficult, I think. The gardens at the rear are not overlooked – Mademoiselle asked me to take tea with her there. There is a conservatory that opens off the lounge. But any action you plan will need to be taken soon. I suspect that the occupants are about to leave.”
“For what reason?”
“Who can say. All I can tell you, Monsieur Clegg, is that the house is full of boxes, crates, packing cases. And Mademoiselle Aucune is very upset. While I was there a despatch rider arrived bringing a telegram. I was just leaving. I heard Mademoiselle Aucune crying, weeping, sobbing. Distraught. I offered to comfort her but Heidi, I think it was, asked me to leave.”
Clegg was pleased with the report but concerned at the urgency that the turn of events at the Passy house seemed to urge. “Thank you, Sister,” he said as the young nun took her leave. Clegg turned to the Comtesse. “I will need a van,” he said. “And two men, if you can spare them.”
Sandy provided everything that Freddie had asked for. The van was a small Citroen; rusting, non-descript and unlikely to attract attention. The two men, Jacques and Jules, both long standing members of Sandy's team, turned up with a bored manner that Freddie found comforting. He hated enthusiastic amateurs.
Freddie found himself in the garden of the Passy house with Jacques. Jules was around the side of the house in the van waiting for their signal. As Sister Sarah had said, there was little effort needed to get inside. Clegg easily slipped the catch on the conservatory and the two of them were soon through it and into the lounge. The darkened room was filled with crates and half packed boxes just as Sarah had told them.
They heard a voice from the corridor outside. “Ich setze es in das Hinterzimmer ein, Helga. Im großen Fall.”
That will be Heidi, Clegg thought and she’s coming in here to put something in that big case. A moment later, only just giving Clegg and Jacques enough time to get behind the door, Heidi came in. As she groped for the light switch Clegg grabbed her wrist, pulled her into the room and pushed her back against the wall. The papers that she was carrying went flying. He had his hand over her mouth before she could cry out. Jacques, helpfully jammed the barrel of his pistol against her throat. Heidi understood what was required of her and froze staring in terror at the two men. Clegg pulled a scarf from his pocket, knotted it and pushed the knot between Heidi’s teeth. He tied the scarf tightly in place, forcing a moan from the girl.
Jacque kept the pistol pointing at her as Clegg grabbed her arms and pulled her wrists behind her back. A handy length of rope from the one of the packing cases served to bind her wrists, ankles, knees and arms. Clegg pushed the helpless Heidi to the floor and then jerked her ankles up to her wrists to leave her hog-tied. He smiled at Jacques and gave him a thumbs up sign, then pointed to the door and upwards indicating that their next quarry would probably be on the first floor. Jacques nodded and smiled in response and then followed Clegg as the two of them slipped carefully out of the lounge and onto the main staircase of the house. From above they could hear the sound of a cello, its plaintive air filling the house.
As they made their way up the stairs, Helga’s voice could be heard calling. “Heidi, wo bist du? Komst du mir helfe, bitte.” Clegg and Jacques stepped quietly along the corridor. Heidi wouldn't be coming to help Helga any time soon. The door to one of the bedrooms was standing partly open. Clegg peered around it. Helga was standing with his back to him, packing clothes into a suit case. She was half undressed, her skirt tossed across the bed rail, her stockinged legs emerging from beneath the tail of her white shirt. Clegg and Jacques approached the woman silently from behind. As they closed on her she straightened up. Jacques sensing the risk of discovery brought the butt of his pistol up sharply catching the girl in the back of the skull just where her two blonde pigtails split out from her head. She gave the quietest “Nnngh” as she toppled forward to slump across a pile of clothes, unconscious.
“I will deal with this one,” Jacques said, reaching for a pair of stockings from the suitcase and using them to tie Helga’s wrists behind her back. Clegg could tell that he wasn’t being gentle about it. Then he took the belt from her skirt and jerked that tightly around her elbows, dragging them together until they almost touched. Another pair of stockings served to secure her ankles.
Clegg could see she was starting to recover consciousness. “Looks like sleeping beauty is getting over it. Better do something to keep her quiet,” he said.
The Frenchman nodded and then smiled. He pulled the red white and black swastika armband from the girl’s sleeve and pushed it between her lips as she started to stir.
“Gaa—ark,” the girls spluttered as she revived. Jacque pulled a scarf across her mouth to hold the armband gag in place. “One day Hitler will have to eat his words,” Jacques said. “For now though this will do.”
Clegg looked down at the captive Helga. She was already struggling, trying to free herself and snarling at her captors. Sprawled on the floor she had already laddered her stockings in her efforts and rucked the tail of her shirt up to her waist. Freddie was enjoying the view and it was enough to confirm that she wasn't tattooed as Louise and Annette had been. She wasn't one of the girl's he was looking for. Somehow he didn't think that Heidi was either.
With Heidi and Helga taken care of, Jacques and Freddie were free to turn their attention to Tereza. If the sound of the cello was anything to go by, she had not noticed what was happening. Clegg and Jacques climbed the stairs to the second floor following the doleful sound. Freddie recognised the music; Elgar’s Cello Concerto. It was good to hear some English music after the previous night's concert.
They crept up to the door of the room from which the sound was coming. Clegg stood to one side of the door, Jacques to the other, pistol at the ready. Clegg pushed the door open slowly.
In the middle of the room, Terza Aucune sat bowing with passionate intensity at her cello. She was, as far as Clegg could tell, completely naked. Tears ran down her face, leaving it streaked with mascara. She seemed unaware of them as they crossed the room. It was only as Jacques and Clegg stood directly beside her that she looked up her face distorted with grief. She extended her right arm pointing with her bow to the table at the side of the room.
Clegg walked across and picked up the telegram laying there. “Regret to inform you,” it said, “Major Heinrich Strasser killed this evening in the course of duties at the airport in Casablanca. Police units of L'État Français are investigating. Heil Hitler. Heinze. German Consul to Morocco.” More complications, Clegg thought.
Tereza looked again at the pair of them. As if coming to her senses she looked back and forth between Freddie and Jacques. Slowly she dropped her bow and brought her hands up to her mouth. “Oh good,” thought Clegg, “she’s going to scream.”
Luckily Jacques standing closer to her had the same thought. He was beside her, clamping his hand over her mouth before the scream left her lips. Freddie caught the neck of the cello as the instrument slipped from her grasp. In almost the same instant Tereza fainted, the weight of her naked body limp in Jacques' arms as he lowered her to the carpet. It made things easier. Clegg laid the cello down, took some cord from his pocket and secured her wrists behind her, noticing as he did so that she carried the tattoo that Strangways had spoken of. At least it was the right woman he thought.
“Can you get her downstairs?” Clegg asked Jacques.
“Sure.” The Gallic shrug suggested he regularly had to deal with naked, unconscious, women. Freddie thought about it for a moment. Knowing the sort of work that Sandy used him for, he probably hid.
“Find three crates and get her, Heidi and Helga out onto the truck. No one is going to be worried about a few more packing cases leaving here. I need to have a look around if I’m going to get a fix on the other girls.”
“Sure,” said Jacques again, lifting Tereza up and putting her over his shoulder, curling one arm around her buttocks as he carried her, still limp, out of the room.
Freddie set to looking for clues. The telegram might help, he thought. As he picked it up he noticed a photograph on the table beneath it. The black and white picture showed a group in a restaurant. Mainly girls, Clegg thought. He could see Tereza, and recognised Louise Barchant and Annette Coursonne as well. There was a man in the middle in a German officer's uniform. “So, is this Strasser?” Clegg thought. There was another woman in the photograph that Clegg didn't recognise. “And in that case is this Anna Prosizc? Or the mysterious other woman?”
One end of the photograph had been torn away. Clegg looked around and under the table to see if he could find the missing part. It wasn't there. It wasn't in the waste paper basket either. Irritated at being unable to find the piece he pocketed the photograph and the telegram. He rummaged around some more looking for files or anything else that would give him a clue to the whereabouts of his remaining quarries but Strasser or his people had been thorough.
Tereza's handbag lay on the floor beside her discarded clothes. Clegg emptied out the contents onto the table. He picked his way through the pile of personal items. Lipstick, a powder compact, a cigarette case in gold and red enamel, a matching cigarette lighter and a small purse. Clegg turned the cigarette case over. On the back was inscribed, “ HS To My Cryptic Clue TA”
Clegg looked pleased. That, at least, was a clue. He opened the case. As well as the cigarettes, the case held another photograph. It was the same German officer. Clegg was feeling more confident that this was the late Major Strasser. He turned the photograph over. On the back was written “For TA, to remember me by. H”
Apart from interrogating Heidi and Helga, an activity Clegg that thought might be amusing if unproductive, and maybe Tereza, there was one other possibility to try to find out something more about Major Strasser's “Code Book” as he called them. Heidi had been bringing in a heap of files when they had jumped her. Maybe they held something of use. Clegg ran back down stairs.
As he passed through the lobby, Jacques and his pal were wheeling out a large crate. From the muffled sounds within Clegg guessed it was one of the girls.
When Clegg went back into the room where they'd snatched Heidi. He found the pile of papers she'd been carrying and thumbed through them. Mostly they were routine; confiscation orders. arrest warrants; copies of reports to Berlin. One though looked helpful. It was a schedule of costs for Strasser's Prague office. There, on the second page, was a list of people in the various departments and sure enough the list for “Verschlüsselungsdienstleistungen” - “Cryptographic Services” - contained some familiar names. T. Aucune, L Barchant, A, Coursonne, A Prosizc. There was one other name, the name of the other woman he was seeking, Clegg guessed; I. Lanz. Handwritten alongside each of the surnames was “Tereza”, “Louise”, “Annette”, “Anna” and “Irena”. It wasn't a lot, thought Freddie, but it was a start.
The other document of interest was a letter informing Major Heinrich Strasser that he was to conclude his work in Paris and to report to the offices of Admiral Canaris's Naval Intelligence Unit in Lisbon, the Abwehr.
“Curious,” thought Clegg, “obviously the girls were packing things up for the move but their boss had taken something of a detour if the telegram announcing his demise is right. And if he was supposed to be in Lisbon, what the hell had he been doing in Morocco?”
It was an hour or so later when Clegg found himself back at the convent. Sandy was there to greet him. “Oh Freddie, you can't just come back with one woman, can you?” she scolded.
Clegg shrugged his shoulders. At least that was one Gallic custom he had no problem with assimilating. “It didn't seem wise to leave them there. They're not causing too much trouble are they?”
”No, not at all. Sister Sarah has been pleased to have the opportunity to help your two Bavarian ladies.”
“Help?”
“Oh yes. The order here is particularly keen on humility as a virtue and I fear that is not a quality much shown by the occupying forces. This is a very strict order, great believers in mortification of the flesh as a way of achieving a better state. Let's say that Sister Sarah is determined to see that Heidi and Helga do just that.”
Clegg had a good idea what she meant. It would be churlish to suggest, he felt, that Sister Sarah was taking any pleasure from the discomfort of two members of the military oppressors of her home city. “And how is Tereza?”
“Distraught,” Sandy looked concerned. “She is securely held, of course. Manacled and in a cell. But I tell you Freddie if we were to sit her in the street she would still be there this evening.”
“I need to talk to her,” Clegg said. “I don't have a route to the fourth girl or the fifth beyond a couple of names.”
“Of course. I'm not sure you will discover anything but I will take you to see her. She is still naked.” Sandy saw Clegg's questioning eyebrow. “We have given her clothes but she ignores them. Anyway it's hardly like you to object! It's this way.” Sandy gestured off to a side corridor and Clegg followed her.
She led the way past a series of small sparsely furnished rooms, the nun's cells Clegg assumed.
Clegg passed the door of another room where the sounds of blows and Sister Sarah's exhortations of “Repent!” were punctuated by garbled grunts.
At the end of the corridor, Sandy unlocked a door and the two went inside. Tereza Aucune was sitting on the edge of the simple wooden framed bed, still naked. A single steel chain ran from her ankle to a ring in the wall. Next to her, on the bed, a pile of clothes lay untouched. On the table beside the bed, a simple meal had been ignored. Her face was streaked with tears, her expression bleak and empty.
“Tereza,” Sandy said gently. “There is someone to see you.”
The girl looked up. “Do you have news of Heinrich?” she gasped. “Tell me it's not true. How could it be true? He said we would be together. In Lisbon. We would all be together.” She seemed completely oblivious of her abduction and the fact that she was held prisoner. Her only thought was of Strasser.
Clegg found himself unaccustomedly touched by the girl's desperate denial of Strasser's death but his compassion was leavened by his anxiousness to ensure that he went on with his mission.
“All of you together?” he said sitting beside Tereza on the bed. “You and Louise and Annette.”
Tereza smiled through her tears as if recalling some happy memory. She sat up on the bed, drew her knees up to her chest and hugged herself, staring blankly over Clegg's shoulder. “And Anna and Irena. All of us. It is so difficult here in Paris. So much harder than Prague. I have not seen Louise and Annette for weeks. And now this awful news. Tell me it's not true.”
Clegg never found it difficult lying to women but for once he didn't have to. “I don't know,” he said. “These things happen but these are confusing times.” Still, Clegg thought it was good to have Irena's name confirmed.
“Can I have my cello. It lets me think of him. And us.”
“I'll see what I can do,” Clegg said looking at Sandy who gave him a “how the hell am I supposed to get that now?” look. “Were you and Irena and Anna to travel together to Lisbon?”
“Lisbon?”
“To be reunited with Heinrich.”
“Oh please, yes, please.”
“But were you and Irena and Anna to travel together?”
“Irena, Irena Lanz. Anna Proszisc. Together to Lisbon?”
“With Heinrich?” She looked up again. “To be with Heinrich?”
Clegg could feel himself losing patience. Tereza was so distracted by the shock of the news of Strasser's death that any attempt at a normal conversation was impossible. “We'll see,” he said gently. “We'll see.”
He turned his back on the girl and left the cell, Sandy following. “That's not going to get us very far,” he said despondently. “Do what you can to find her a cello. Who knows, maybe she can work out her grief in some way.”
“You shouldn't be so despondent, Freddie,” Sandy said as the pair walked back down the corridor, passing the door to the cell where Heidi and Helga were still being encouraged by Sister Sarah to accept humility as a virtue.
They made their way to a room that Sandy had obviously adopted as her command centre. It looked like it had belonged to the Mother Superior of the order. Stained glass gothic windows sent coloured light shimmering across a large oak desk. On Sandy's desk was the pile of documents that Clegg had retrieved from the Passy house, together with Tereza's lighter and cigarette case.
“One interesting thing,” Sandy said picking up the cigarette case. “Did you look at this?”
“Sure,” said Freddie, “the engraving was interesting.”
“How about the cigarettes?”
“Not my brand,” Clegg responded. “I prefer Players.”
“Not anyone's brand if you want to stay healthy,” Sandy said opening the case and selecting one of the cigarettes. She twisted it and it came apart into two halves. She handed them to Freddie.
“Typical, spy stuff, I guess,” said Freddie. He turned the two pieces over in his hands, pushing them back together. “Pretty convincing.”
“Nasty too. There was lethal poison in that. A small phial of potassium cyanide. ”
“Hmm,” said Clegg. “Herr Strasser obviously expects a lot of his ladies. It's not sufficient for them to mourn him, perhaps.”
“Maybe,” said Sandy. “But what next, Freddie?”
“I don't know. It's a complete dead-end. Up until now, I thought I was just looking for two women in Paris. Now they might be in Paris or they might be in Lisbon.”
“But not just any women, Freddie. At least you have names. And with names you may make progress.”
“Where do you suggest I start? The telephone directory? I'm sure that a great deal of effort has been put into keeping that up to date since the Wehrmacht moved in.” Clegg sank down with a despondent air into a large armchair.
“You could start by relaxing. Take your mind of things. You're as obsessive as Tereza and her cello.” She tossed a magazine across to him.
Freddie scowled at her as he caught the issue of Match. The last thing he wanted right now was some light reading.
“Look at the cover, Freddie,” said Sandy as she leant back against the desk.
“At The Autumn Collections,” the headline said, in French. Good grief, Clegg thought, with everything else going on they can still think about fashion. A striking black and white picture adorned the front of the magazine. A tall slender, pale skinned, dark haired, woman, elegant in a long dark gown that seemed to flow over her body like chocolate sauce, stood at the head of a series of steps. She was stretching languorously against a classical column. Clegg was impressed by her dark beauty but excited by the caption beneath. “Anna Prozisc Arrives From Prague”. Freddie looked across at Sandy. “Why on earth didn't you tell me?”
“Freddie,” Sandy chided, “you've only just come up with a name. It was only when you were talking to Tereza that you mentioned it was an Anna Prozisc you were looking for. I can't guarantee that she's the one, of course...”
“I think she will be,” Freddie beamed. “I don't know how common a name that is in Czechoslovakia but she looks like just the sort of girl Strasser would go for if the others are anything to go by. Now all we have to do is find her.”
Anna Prozisc was not a woman to let a simple thing like global conflict interfere with her enthusiasm for haute couture. As a result it hadn't been hard to track her down.
Two of Sandy's “nuns” had kept watch on the fashion houses in the Boulevard Hausmann, under the guise of collecting alms for the poor. On the second day, Sandy was able to tell Clegg that they had spotted her.
Clegg and Sandy took off in a taxi along the right bank, Sandy for once eschewing a military uniform to allow her to pose as a woman seeking out a fashionable new outfit.
To call the establishment where they ended up a shop was rather like calling Notre Dame a church, Freddie thought. The high ceilings, lavish furnishings, chandeliers and supercilious staff all spoke of an establishment used to catering for those who had little concern about how much anything cost. “Where are the clothes then?” Freddie hissed to Sandy as they entered through the tall revolving door that led them into a vast open reception room.
“Don't be so provincial,” Sandy smirked. “Here the clothes come to you. You can play the attentive husband while I try on a few things and see if I can find out if Anna is still here.”
Clegg grunted. This wasn't his sort of place at all. At least Elly had the good manners to clothe herself without his involvement.
An obsequious man with a thin pencil moustache made his way across the room towards them. “Madame,” he oiled, “Monsieur. Comment pouvons-nous vous enchanter aujourd'hui?”
“Something for the Spring,” Sandy urged. “Something bright. Something flowered. Something to banish the cares of the world. I feel sure you can please me.”
“Of course Madame, please come this way. Would Monsieur like to....?” Clegg shook his head. “Very well.” The two of them disappeared through a door.
Clegg sat down. As he waited an animated argument from the end of the room drew Clegg's attention. A Luftwaffe officer was backing into the room being harangued by a woman that Clegg immediately recognised as Anna Prozisc. Clegg had some sympathy with the man. Flying against a Spitfire was probably a less daunting prospect than that of confronting Anna Prozisc in full flow if the present exhibition was anything to go by. The officer held up his hands in mock surrender and backed away returning to the room in which Freddie sat.
“Frauen!” he exclaimed, he exclaimed, throwing his hands up in exasperation as he took his seat.
Freddie's sympathetic grunt was a sufficient response. He understood German but he knew that if he tried to engage in conversation his accent was likely to give him away. Fortunately the usual level of exchange between men waiting for their women to emerge from a changing room prevailed. Clegg buried himself in a magazine.
The two of them sat waiting for their women. The German with increasing impatience, Freddie with increasing puzzlement.
Eventually, Sandy emerged, followed by one of the shop's flunky's carrying a pile of boxes. “I see you had a successful shop,” said Freddie.
“In more ways than one,” Sandy said as she led the way out of the shop and flagged down a taxi. She and Clegg climbed in. The flunky piled the parcels in as well.
“What now?” said Clegg as the cab sped down the Boulevard Hausmann and on down to the Place De l'Etoile.
“I'm meeting a very good friend for dinner,” Sandy smiled.
“And how does that help?”
“You haven't asked me who the friend is,” she said.
“All right,” said Freddie, humouring her. “Who are you having dinner with?”
“My new friend, Anna,” she said with a laugh. “We got on famously. Girls chatting about fashion; the problems of shopping with men in tow; you know the sort of thing.”
Freddie knew exactly.
“One other thing. She was boasting of her conquests. First a Gestapo Major, she said, now a Luftwaffe Oberstleutnant, next she wants an U-boat commander. I think she might be the lady you are looking for.”
The taxi stopped outside the convent and the two of them got out. Gallantly, Freddie collected Sandy's parcels.
As he got through the door of the convent the plaintive sound of a cello filled the air. Clegg and Sandy went through to her office to discuss their next moves. Over the course of an hour and a bottle of claret a plan began to emerge. While Sandy went off to dinner with her new friend, Freddie and Jacques went to pay a call on the apartment of Anna Prozic.
“Bon soir,” Clegg smiled affably to the maid that opened the door. “Nous chercherons Madamoiselle Prozic.”
The maid's French was as halting as Freddie's when she answered, “I'm afraid Miss Prozic is out.” Clegg assumed she had been brought from Prague by Anna.
“I wonder if we might wait. Herr Strasser said...”
At the mention of the Major's name, the maid ushered them in. “Please,” she said. “Miss Prozic will be anxious to hear any news that you have of the Major.” She showed them into a comfortably furnished lounge. “Please have a seat,” she said. “May I get you some coffee, perhaps? I do not expect Miss Prozic to return for an hour or more.”
“If it's not too much trouble,” said Clegg.
“No, of course,” the maid responded, scuttling away to the kitchen.
Clegg took the opportunity to nose around. The apartment wasn't large, as far as he could tell there was a the lounge, a dining room, Anna's bedroom, a bathroom, the kitchen and beyond that a small bed sitting room used by the maid. It wouldn't take Jacques and him long to set things up as they wanted.
The maid was the first to discover that their intentions towards Miss Prozic weren't entirely honourable. Freddie was only too happy to engage the girl in conversation as she put down the tray of coffee things. “You must have found Paris strange, after Prague,” he said.
“Oh, not so strange,” the girl replied. “We have been here many times. Before the war Miss Prozic, she always came for the collections. Spring and autumn. We were often in Paris and ... Mmmmmm!”
Jacques who had worked his way around behind the maid while she was talking had struck. With one hand over the girl's mouth to cut off any cry and the other around her waist preventing her struggles, he had her helpless. As she wriggled, trying to escape from Jacques's grasp she kicked out.
Jacques simply grinned. “Reste tranquille, petite,” he urged.
Clegg got up from his chair pulling a length of cloth and a hank of cord from his pocket. He rarely went anywhere without the tools of his trade. Jacques loosed his grip on the girl's mouth for just long enough to let Clegg push a wad of the cloth between her teeth. She groaned as he wrapped the cloth around her head two or three times before knotting it off. With the cloth gag ensuring her silence or at least muffling her protests, Jacques span the girl around. Freddie grabbed her wrists and tied them behind her back, winding the cord around them in the figure eight fashion he always used.
She was still trying to resist the two men's attentions as Jacques wrestled her to the floor. Further lengths of cord around her ankles and knees put paid to much of her resistance and with his captive more or less helpless, Clegg was able to take a little time to find some heavier rope in the bag he had brought and to put that to use around her arms and her waist. “The hall closet, for now, I think,” he said to Jacques and the two of them picked up the still wriggling maid, Jacques at her shoulders, Clegg at her feet. They carried her out to the hall, and down past the door to the kitchen. Clegg pulled open the door of the closet that he had spotted earlier. They pushed the helpless girl inside, dumping her down between the mops, brooms and cleaning things that the cupboard held. She was looking up at them with a combination of fear and defiance as Clegg pushed the door closed.
“Now,” he said to his colleague. “Miss Prozic and her maid are going to be leaving Paris all of a sudden. Perhaps we had better pack a few bags for them. It would never do for people to think they had left without even taking a few overnight things.”
Freddie headed off to Anna's room, Jacques to the maid's. In Anna's, a closet held suitcases, Clegg grabbed a selection of Anna's clothes from the wardrobe and the chest of drawers. Jacques did the same for the poor girl that was trussed in the hall closet. They had more or less finished when they heard the sound of the front door opening and Anna's voice calling, “Milena. Milena! Where are you girl?”
Obligingly Milena, the maid, answered the call of her mistress with a muffled cry from the closet and a kick against the closet door. Anna, responding to the sound went in search. “Milena? Where are you?” Another grunt, another kick, drew Anna down the corridor, past her own bedroom where Clegg and Jacques were waiting. Anna opened the door to the closet and threw her hands up to her mouth on seeing the bound and gagged maid within. “Oh no!” she exclaimed. “What's happened? Who did this to you?”
She got her answer almost at once as Clegg and Jacques meted out to Anna the same treatment that the maid had received. In moments the Czech girl was sprawled on the floor, her wrists and ankles tightly bound and her mouth stuffed with enough cloth to muffle the least cry.
The same removal van that had helped relocate Heidi, Helga and Tereza, turned up a little later to collect Anna and Milena.
Clegg found himself back in the convent.
“So,” said Clegg to Sandy. “You can get Tereza and Anna back to the UK for me?”
“Yes,” she said. “We had a Lysander drop off one of their supply pods last week. It's concealed in a barn near where you landed. It's just big enough to take your two young ladies, provided they don't move around too much and I think we can organise that. London say they will organise a pick up flight and a diversionary raid to make sure the girls get out safely.”
“That's more than they did when they flew me in,” said Clegg, peevishly.
“Don't take it personally, Freddie,” Sandy smiled.
“How will you get the girls out to the farm? The Germans seem a lot more jittery right now.”
“One thing there is no shortage of in war, Freddie, and that is death. We have a small chapel here in the convent that is sometime used by an undertaker of our acquaintance. It is somewhere that the departed can rest on their road to their final resting place. It is not uncommon for a hearse to be seen entering or leaving the convent.”
“And at some point in the future the hearse may be carrying coffins which contain bodies that are not, in fact, dead?”
“Exactly, Freddie. Leave it to us. Tereza and Anna will get to London.”
Clegg felt a moment of sympathy for the horror that the two of them would experience when confronted with the coffins, but on the other hand, it would turn out better than they'd expect. “And Heidi, Helga, Milena?”
“Well, Freddie, you don't imagine I'd do this entirely out of the goodness of my heart, do you?“ Sandy said. “Let's just say they'll help me to offset some of the expenses related to your visit. We'll hang on to them for a while. Heidi and Helga especially are giving some of the sisters here the chance to rediscover their missionary zeal. I still have some trade routes open. Surely you don't begrudge me that?”
Freddie could hardly object. Sandy's help had been invaluable and he was reliant on her assistance for the next stage of his mission too. “Do your trade routes reach down into Portugal?” he asked.
Sandy nodded. “Oh yes,” she said, provided you don't mind sharing the trip with some escaping RAF types. Is that where you're off to next?”
Clegg nodded. “Yes,” he said. “Lisbon seems to be my next port of call.”
© Freddie Clegg 2007
Not to be reproduced or reposted without permission. All characters and events fictitious.
Email: freddie_clegg@yahoo.com
Find PDF’s of my stories at my web group: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/freddies_tales
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