The Paris Spy (Maggie Hope Mystery #7)(66)

Reiner had prepared the dispatch, coded in five-letter blocks. He handed over the scrap of paper. She nodded and put on her headphones, twisting the dial, listening for her call sign—GJW. When she heard it, she began to transmit, tapping on the key for dots and dashes, inserting her security check as she’d been trained.

The message read:

RAOUL SEEN ENTERING 84 AVE FOCH. STOP. PLEASE ADVISE. OVER.



Her eyes widened at the message’s contents, but she didn’t stop or question the two men.

Typing finished, Clothilde waited as her “godmother” in England confirmed the message had been received. She switched off the radio.

As she removed the headphones, rolled up the wires, and closed the set, Voltaire poured them all small glasses of wine that smelled faintly of vinegar. “á votre santé,” he said as they clinked glasses. To your health.

They looked at each other, aware how dangerous making the transmission was, how there could be a traitor in their midst. “á votre santé.”

—

L’heure entre chien et loup was the French phrase that drifted through Maggie’s mind as she made her way back to the Ritz in the blue-painted streetlight of the blackout. It was the expression for that uncertain moment at twilight when one couldn’t tell the difference between a dog and a wolf—or friend and foe. “The gloaming,” they’d called it in Scotland.

In the blackout and the silence of the curfew, Paris felt like a ghost town. An alley cat’s yowl, a car’s backfire, a random shout—together seemed menacing. Maggie reached a brick wall daubed with reflective paint that glowed, even in the darkness: a caricature of a Fagin-like face with wispy beard, bearing the legend SAXON + JEW + TARTAR = THE BEAST. She turned her face away.

Maggie entered the Ritz through the Place Vend?me entrance. Buoyed by her meeting with her half sister, she wasn’t the least bit fatigued by her long day and travels. She smiled up at the man at the front desk, working the late shift. “Any messages for Paige Kelly, André?”

“Nothing this evening, mademoiselle.”

Still, the feeling there was something for her, something she needed to receive, nagged at her. “Packages?”

He bent to peer under the shelf and arose with a package in hand, wrapped in brown paper. “For you, mademoiselle!”

“Thank you,” she said, taking it. I was right!

She walked to a deserted section of the lobby to open the box. Inside the brown paper was a long, flat box. She opened it and pulled apart the filmy tissue paper. Within was a pair of gloves. White gloves with pearl buttons—gloves exactly like the ones she’d used to help stop the bleeding of the injured German soldier.

There was also a thick, embossed card with the name crossed out, bearing the handwritten message:

To Mlle. Kelly,

With my sincere thanks,

Christian

P.S. I hope to see you at the masked ball tonight.



She walked back to the desk. “May I take the wrapping for you, mademoiselle?” André asked.

“Oh, thank you,” Maggie said distractedly. Her immediate impulse was to throw the gloves away, but one couldn’t do that in public. Instead, she slipped the pair into her handbag. “You’re sure there’s nothing else?”

As she asked, Chanel walked into the lobby, wearing a chic black straw hat with a scarlet quill feather in the band that matched her lipstick exactly.

“No, I’m afraid not, mademoiselle.”

Maggie moved her lips into a glassy smile. “Thank you, anyway,” she told André, turning to go. “à bient?t. J’espère!” I’ll see you later. And as a reflex: I hope.

She’d wanted to avoid Chanel, but the couturiere had spotted her. “Mademoiselle Kelly!” she called before Maggie could make it to the elevator.

The younger woman stopped and forced a smile. “Hello, mademoiselle. I’m sorry, I didn’t see you.”

Chanel’s face indicated skepticism. “And how is trousseau shopping?”

“I went to Nina Ricci today.” The morning seemed an eternity ago.

“Oh, how was it? Did you see anything?”

“I liked the red especially, but someone with my coloring really can’t wear that color.”

Chanel mused, “Yes, I heard there was a lot of red—and sable. And the wedding dress?”

Maggie remembered it in all its glorious detail. “Beautiful. But it might be a bit much for me. Perhaps an ivory silk suit might be better for these times.”

“Nonsense! We must embrace excess—especially these days! We’re dancing on the edge of a volcano, after all…” The couturiere peeled off her gloves. “I expect to see you at the masked ball tomorrow evening.” It wasn’t a question.

“Oh,” Maggie said, “I’m hardly prepared…”

“A young woman like you?”

Maggie remembered she was supposed to be a society girl. “I—I don’t have a mask.”

“Somehow, I doubt that.” Chanel quirked an eyebrow. “Still…come to my room tomorrow morning and I’ll find you something. I’m a woman of many masks myself—and don’t mind sharing.”





Chapter Fifteen