The Paris Spy (Maggie Hope Mystery #7)(37)
Maggie looked at the table of Chanel and her cohorts. All were speaking too loudly, acting like drunken fools. How much more of them could she endure? “I can take you back to the Ritz, if you’d like,” Ruesdorf offered, as if he could read her mind.
Maggie was tempted. “I wouldn’t want to curtail your good time…”
He pressed his lips together, taking in Germans swigging beer from bottles, the women who’d let their dresses fall off their shoulders. “As I said, I’m a gentleman. And this—well, this is not my sort of crowd, or my idea of a ‘good time.’?”
“Then, if it’s no trouble, I would appreciate a ride back to the Ritz. But first, let me thank Mademoiselle Chanel and take my leave.”
—
As they were driven slowly through the darkened streets of Paris by the man with the eye patch, Christian ordered, “Turn on the wireless.”
The song on the radio was “Clair de lune,” and they listened to Debussy’s music, both silent as the bright waxing moon above them wove its way in and out of wisps of translucent clouds. The car pulled up in front of the Ritz. “Thank you,” Maggie told the German officer.
“No, thank you. You gave me an excuse to get away. And to hear such lovely music.”
Their eyes met. For a moment, Maggie thought the German might try to kiss her, and she felt a fierce panic rise in her chest.
“Good night, mademoiselle,” was all he said, however. “Perhaps we’ll meet again—at the Café de la Paix.”
Maggie offered her gloved hand. He took it, clasped it, then lifted it to his lips, kissing it with a startling desperation, as if he were drowning and she could somehow save him.
The driver opened the door, breaking the spell. As she emerged into the cool night air, Maggie let the hotel doorman help her through the revolving door, thankful the evening was over.
Chapter Eight
Later, after an evening of dinner and debauchery at One-Two-Two, von Waltz and Bretz returned to 84 Avenue Foch.
Although their appearance was impeccable, they spoke in too-loud voices as they navigated the grand marble staircase, holding tight to the iron filigree handrail so they wouldn’t stumble. The office next to von Waltz’s had been cleared out; the enormous room with gilt-painted moldings was now empty, save for a tiny, wizened man with a thick beard and mustache and a rumpled suit who sat at a long wooden table. He was bent over, his bald head shining, his veined hands hard at work adjusting the wires and tightening the screws on a radio transmitter. When von Waltz and Bretz entered, he looked up and nodded.
“The English call it a Mark A II,” von Waltz said, leading Bretz in with a grand sweep of his hand. “It’s a transmitter and receiver in one—extremely clever. As you can see, it’s small enough to fit in an ordinary suitcase—only about thirty pounds.”
“What’s the range?” Bretz wanted to know.
“The frequency range is wide. But the signal is weak—twenty watts at best. It also needs about seventy feet of aerial. If you were to follow the wires out the window in daylight, you would see we have quite an elaborate antenna tangle in the back garden’s trees.”
Bretz rubbed at his stubbled chin. “How do you determine the frequency?”
“By changing the crystals—the English terrorists need at least two, one for nighttime and one for daytime transmission.”
“And what about the DF?” The German intelligence service used wireless direction-finding teams, known as the DF, to ferret out agents transmitting back to Britain. The DF worked from vans with hidden antennae, camouflaged as bakery or laundry trucks, and wore plain clothes as they wended their way around Paris. Bretz was still feeling the effects of all the alcohol he’d imbibed at One-Two-Two and chortled. “Wouldn’t it be amusing if the DF showed up at Avenue Foch?”
“Hilarious,” von Waltz responded. “No, you may be assured we have alerted them to our little operation here. By the way”—he gestured to the old man—“meet ‘Erica Calvert,’ English spy, part of Britain’s SOE’s F-Section.”
“Fr?ulein Calvert, you really must do something about that facial hair,” Bretz joked.
“I am Professor Franz Fischer,” the bearded man replied with pointed patience. “British radio expert.” Fischer looked with pale eyes to von Waltz, seemingly the more sober of the pair. “I have been practicing Calvert’s ‘fist,’ as you instructed, sir.”
“Good, good!” von Waltz enthused, clapping him on the back, a little too hard. Fischer gave a dry cough.
Von Waltz looked to Bretz. “The good professor here has been practicing by using recordings of Calvert’s earlier coding from Rouen—they did have the agent send a few messages from Gestapo headquarters there before bringing her to Paris. From the replies SOE sent back, it seems they haven’t noticed anything amiss about her lack of security checks.” He elbowed Bretz. “A bit dim, these British, eh?”
Bretz whistled through his chipped teeth in admiration. “But are you sure this will work?”
“We haven’t transmitted from here yet, but our professor is so good now, it’s impossible London will be able to tell the difference. In fact”—von Waltz slapped the radio operator on the shoulder, face beaming—“let’s send a message now!”