The Paris Spy (Maggie Hope Mystery #7)(9)
Jacques went on. “It’s a point of pride for us that we’re not passively waiting for liberation. No ‘someday my prince will come’ for us.”
Maggie emerged, pulling on pristine white silk gloves, buttoning their pearl closures. She was dressed in Chanel—an afternoon dress in blue silk, her own pearl earrings, and wedge-heeled shoes. A surrealist brooch, an eye in platinum, diamonds, and enamel, with a ruby and diamond teardrop dangling from one corner, glittered on the ensemble. “A little something from the spring ’thirty-eight collection,” she said, twirling. The skirt flared around her, revealing a lace slip and bare, slim legs that had already been painted beige with Creation Bien Aimée. “But still lovely.” Changing her clothes had changed her posture, her carriage, and her bearing.
“Oooh la la.” Taking in her transformation, Jacques grinned roguishly. “You clean up well, mademoiselle.”
“It’s all smoke and mirrors. Part of the job. L’habit ne fait pas le moine.”
“Well, it becomes you.”
Reiner returned; he’d dried his hair and changed into fresh clothes, the official dark coveralls of a Paris sanitation worker, the satchel he’d arrived with in hand. “Some people have all the luck,” he grumbled. “My assignment is quite glamorous, let me assure you. Garbage duty—in addition to getting the agents’ mail in and out—but you never know what the Boche are going to throw away.”
Maggie stopped midspin. “It’s only a role. Like an actor. If I needed to be a factory girl, I’d wear coveralls and put my hair up in a scarf.”
“Sure you would.” Reiner sounded anything but convinced.
“Let’s go,” she told Jacques. “There are things I need to put in place before I can start my mission.” She walked to the door, heels tapping on the scratched parquet.
Jacques’s eyes followed her.
“Well?” she said, turning in impatience, a hand on one hip.
A slow smile crept across his face, then he rose and made a formal bow. “I’m honored to carry your trunk, ma belle dame.”
Maggie lifted one eyebrow. “?‘La belle dame sans merci.’?”
Chapter Two
Against all advice from his cabinet ministers, his private detectives, and his beloved wife, Prime Minister Winston Churchill was presiding over a security meeting at Number 10 Downing Street.
Even though bombing from the Blitz had paused—at least for the moment—his staff would rather he worked at the Cabinet War Rooms, a secret underground bunker not far from Number 10.
But the P.M. loathed the dark and airless space and grumbled about turning into a “troglodyte.” He much preferred working either in the Annexe, the Churchills’ private wartime residence above the War Rooms, or back at Number 10, despite the fact that the two-hundred-year-old manse had sustained Luftwaffe bomb damage to its kitchen and state rooms in October 1940, while Churchill dined yards away in the Garden Room.
But who could say no to Winston Churchill? So the P.M.’s security meeting was being held in Number 10’s rectangular Cabinet Room—though the windows were taped over, the portrait of Sir Robert Walpole was in storage, and the Victorian mahogany chairs had been replaced by metal folding ones. Weak light glimmered through narrow openings in the heavy damask drapes. It was just past one o’clock by the ticking timepiece on the mantel.
The men seated around the baize-covered table included General Sir Hastings Ismay, Churchill’s personal Chief of Staff; General Sir Alan Brooke, Chief of the Imperial General Staff; Air Chief Desmond Morton of the Royal Air Force; Captain Henry Pim of the Royal Navy; General Sir Stewart Menzies, chief of MI-6; and Colonel Lord Robert Laycock, director of SOE. Churchill’s head private secretary, David Greene, was there to take notes for the P.M.
The men sat at the boat-shaped table with the Prime Minister at its head, puffing one of his favored Romeo y Julieta cigars, enveloped in a cloud of smoke. There were times when Churchill could be amiable, with a quick smile and a twinkle in his clear blue eyes, but this afternoon he seemed sunk in gloom, his shoulders hunched as if braced for imminent attack. He had on his gold-framed glasses and was reading the latest memo from General Ismay.
“Our friend Stalin isn’t pleased—wants us to create a European front immediately to divert troops from Russia.” He looked up over the rims of his spectacles and glowered through the tobacco haze. “And I still don’t know why you’re so keen on Normandy as an ultimate invasion point, Pug!” The Prime Minister used his nickname for General Ismay, whose face and brows did have a distinct resemblance to those of a sad-looking dog.
The P.M. gnawed his cigar. “We need to see what happens with Jubilee before deciding anything—that should keep Stalin quiet. For the moment, at least.” He was referring to the upcoming Dieppe raid, known as Operation Rutter during its planning stages but now by its final, official code name, Operation Jubilee. The attack was planned for the German-occupied port of Dieppe, on the northern coast of France, on August 19—two months away. It was to be a relatively small raid, with about six thousand Canadian infantrymen, supported by the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force.
The P.M. glared at each man around the table in turn. “After Jubilee, we’ll see if it is indeed possible to capture a defended French deepwater port. Until then, we can’t plan the main attack.” He dropped the cigar into a cut-glass ashtray and picked up a glass of weak whiskey and soda.