Paris: The Novel

the country with his grandparents. The Germans think they’re Vichy.” He paused. “Max, I’d better tell you I’m his father.”
    “Ah.” Max considered. “She wouldn’t betray the father of her son. No, I don’t believe that. But if she didn’t betray us deliberately, then she must have been used. Someone planted the information on her.” He nodded. “I have to warn her, Charlie. I’d better do it fast.”
    “Yes. Don’t be seen.”
    “I’ll take care. But remember, Charlie, Corinne’s your contact. We just get the messages at the safe house. You’ll have to tell me who she really is.”
    “Madame Louise. She owns L’Invitation au Voyage.”
    “Ah. I know of it, of course. It might have been one of her girls, then.”
    “Perhaps … Or someone else.”
    “Maybe I can find out if I talk to her.”
    “Maybe. Can you protect her?”
    “Yes, Charlie. I’ll protect her. I promise.”
    “That’s important.”
    “Don’t worry about a thing.” He gazed at the aristocrat. “How do you feel now?”
    “Cold.”
    “All right. Nothing to worry about.”
    There was a long pause. Charlie looked strangely gray.
    “Max.”
    “Yes, Charlie.”
    “Would you hold my hand.”
    Max took it. A minute later, Charlie gave a shudder, and his head fell to one side. Then Max closed his eyes.
    “Did you know he was dying?” Thomas asked, after a long pause.
    “Yes.”
    “Have you any idea who betrayed us?”
    “Not yet,” said Max.
    Thomas was thoughtful.

    It was a little after one in the morning when Schmid began to question Louise. So far, he thought, things had gone very well.
    It was unfortunate, of course, that so many policemen had been wounded. One of them was probably going to die. But that was a police problem, not his. Everything else had been entirely satisfactory.
    It amused him that the prisoners dressed in Gestapo uniforms had given the game away. No doubt, thinking that they were about to be shot by the Resistance, they had hoped to help their colleagues by giving the game away. In fact, they had done the Gestapo a favor. It was far more discouraging for the Maquis to know they had been betrayed than to think, however mistakenly, that they had shot Müller. He wouldn’t have to keep the three men in prison any longer either. They could all be shot at dawn.
    As for the mission, of course, he had already gotten the information he wanted the moment the attempt had been made.
    Madame Louise was Corinne.
    They had raided the brothel at midnight. The various officers using the place had been politely asked to leave. The girls had been asked for their papers, then sent home.
    And now, at one in the morning, Madame Louise was sitting in an interrogation room in the rue des Saussaies.
    He began quite politely.
    “Madame, let me save you the tiresome and unpleasant business of denying your identity. The little comedy you witnessed between myself and Colonel Walter the other evening was in order to plant false information with you. You passed the information on to your contacts. As a result, an attempt was made tonight on a man pretending to be Müller. Thanks to this, we know for a certainty that you are Corinne.”
    Louise said nothing.
    “Perhaps you would like to tell me the names of your associates.”
    Louise said nothing.
    “Let us start with something easier then. How do you pass on the information?”
    “There is a drop.”
    “Thank you. And where is that?”
    “In the River Seine.”
    “Ah, madame. I am afraid it will be necessary for me to persuade you to do a little better than that.”
    He worked on her for a while until she fainted.
    It was time to turn in. If necessary, he could always bring other forces to bear on her. She had a son somewhere, he knew. Any threat to a child will break most parents. But it irked him professionally to have to resort to those means. He would persuade her. It would be a challenge to break her.

    Early that morning, Max Le Sourd stopped in the rue de Montmorency and gazed toward L’Invitation au Voyage. There was a van and a Gestapo car in front of it.
    He didn’t go any closer, but stopped at a nearby café to ask what had happened.
    “They came at midnight last night and arrested Madame Louise,” he was told. “The place is closed. No one knows anything else.”

    It was nearly ten in the morning when Schmid returned. But when he did, he received a shock.
    “Dead? How? You did not leave a blanket or sheet in the cell?”
    “No,