Free Stranger at the Gates by Evelyn Anthony Page B

school. Is there anything I can do?’
    â€˜No,’ Louise said. ‘Thank you. There’s been a fire in St. Blaize and an old widow died. I wanted to go down myself.’
    The Major looked at his watch and then at her.
    â€˜I’m in good time this morning,’ he said. ‘I’d be delighted to drive you.’
    â€˜Thank you,’ Louise said again. ‘But it wouldn’t be possible.’
    â€˜Why not?’ He had placed himself in front of her. ‘You’re looking very charming this morning. Why can’t I drive you to the village?’
    He was making the first move in the silent game, the first acknowledgement that there was a game in progress. She decided to play it in the open too.
    â€˜I can’t go with you, because the woman who died lost both husband and her son two years ago. They were shot by your military. I’m sure you realise how inappropriate it would be for me to go to the village with you.’
    â€˜If you think so. But please remember they must have done something criminal. We don’t shoot people for nothing.’
    â€˜A British agent was dropped here. The Palliers sheltered him and got caught. That was their crime. And from what Jean tells me it could happen again.’
    â€˜It wasn’t necessary for him to tell you,’ the Major said. ‘I just asked for his co-operation, that was all.’
    â€˜And I am sure you got it,’ Louise said. ‘But don’t expect it from me.’
    â€˜I’m sure you’re very brave,’ the Major said gently. ‘But please, dear Madame de Bernard, don’t be foolish. Leave this unpleasant kind of thing to men. Personally I don’t think anyone was dropped round here. It was just a reconnaissance, that’s all. If I can’t be of service, then I shall go. Until this evening.’
    He bowed and gave her a smile for which she could have slapped his face. Then he went out into the morning sunshine.
    There was a German patrol on the road junction between St. Blaize and Houdan. He watched it through his field-glasses, lying on his stomach in some bushes on a rise in the fields about three hundred yards away. The bicycle lay in an irrigation ditch, covered with leaves. He had spent the night hidden there, wrapped in a thin waterproof sheet, eating some of his K rations, watching the fire he had lit in the Palliers’ kitchen grow from a flicker in the darkness to a full-scale beacon. A funeral pyre, he thought, for a heroic mother of heroic France. He bit into the bar of chocolate. Christ, he hadn’t any right to judge. Nobody had occupied his home town. It wasn’t till you heard the tanks rumble past the door that you could say how you’d behave in the circumstances. It was a pity about the old lady, but he refused to think about it. The fire must be attracting a lot of attention. It was only when he scouted the roads in the morning and saw the improvised check point that he knew they had heard the plane hovering overhead and guessed its mission.
    He swore. His papers described him as Roger Bertrand Savage, Swiss national, domiciled in Berne, born in Ohio, USA, by profession a company lawyer in the firm of Felon, Brassier et Roule, an internationally famous company with offices in Geneva, Berne, and a subsidiary in Philadelphia.
    It was an excellent cover, worked out from the New York end and confirmed by their contacts in Switzerland. Felon and Brassier had substantial US interests and were secret supporters of the Allies. Anyone checking with them would get the same information. Roger Savage was a senior member of their staff, an American who had graduated at the University of Lausanne and taken Swiss nationality before the war. He was at present visiting a client in France. It would hold up against all but the most detailed investigation, and he felt confident in the role. He spoke excellent French and German; he had a marvellous ear, not only for