THE Y RETURNED TO the assistant governor’s office after leaving Ruby. “I need your help, Miss Lindleigh,” Paul said, once again flattering her. “Tell me what you would need in order to be able to release Ruby Romain.”
“Release her! But she’s a murderer! Why would she be released?”
“I’m afraid I can’t tell you. But I can assure you that if you knew where she was going, you wouldn’t think she’d had a lucky escape-quite the contrary.”
“I see,” she said, not entirely mollified.
“I must have her out of here tonight,” Paul went on. “But I don’t want to put you in any kind of awkward position. That’s why I need to know exactly what authorization you require.” What he really wanted was to make sure she would have no excuse to be obstructive.
“I can’t release her under any circumstances,” said Miss Lindleigh. “She has been remanded here by a magistrate’s court, so only the court can free her.”
Paul was patient. “And what do you think that would require?”
“She would have to be taken, in police custody, before a magistrate. The public prosecutor, or his representative, would have to tell the magistrate that all charges against Romain had been dropped. Then the magistrate would be obliged to say she was free to go.”
Paul frowned, looking ahead for snags. “She would have to sign her army joining-up papers before seeing the magistrate, so that she would be under military discipline as soon as the court released her… otherwise she might just walk away.”
Miss Lindleigh was still incredulous. “Why would they drop the charges?”
“This prosecutor is a government official?”
“Yes.”
“Then it won’t be a problem.” Paul stood up. “I will be back here later this evening, with a magistrate, someone from the prosecutor’s department, and an army driver to take Ruby to… her next port of call. Can you foresee any snags?”
Miss Lindleigh shook her head. “I follow orders, Major, just as you do.”
“Good.”
They took their leave. When they got outside, Paul stopped and looked back. “I’ve never been to a prison before,” he said. “I don’t know what I expected, but it wasn’t something out of a fairy tale.”
He was making an inconsequential remark about the building, but Flick looked sour. “Several women have been hanged here,” she said. “Not much of a fairy tale.”
He wondered why she was grumpy. “I guess you identify with the prisoners,” he said. Suddenly he realized why. “It’s because you might end up in a jail in France.”
She looked taken aback. “I think you’re right,” she said. “I didn’t know why I hated that place so much, but that’s it.”
She might be hanged, too, he realized, but he kept that thought to himself.
They walked away, heading for the nearest Thbe station. Flick was thoughtful. “You’re very perceptive,” she said. “You understood how to keep Miss Lindleigh on our side. I would have made an enemy of her.”
“No point in that.”
“Exactly. And you turned Ruby from a tigress into a pussycat.”
“I wouldn’t want a woman like that to dislike me.”
Flick laughed. “Then you told me something that I hadn’t figured out about myself.”
Paul was pleased that he had impressed her, but he was already looking ahead to the next problem. “By midnight, we should have half a team at the training center in Hampshire.”
“We call it the Finishing School,” Flick said. “Yes”.
“Diana Colefield, Maude Valentine, and Ruby Romain.” Paul nodded grimly. “An undisciplined aristocrat, a pretty flirt who can’t tell fantasy from reality, and a murdering gypsy with a short temper.” When he thought of the possibility that Flick could be hanged by the Gestapo, he felt as worried as Percy about the caliber of the recruits.
“Beggars can’t be choosers,” Flick said cheerfully. Her sour mood had vanished.
“But we still don’t have an explosives expert or a telephone engineer.”
Flick glanced at her wrist. “It’s still only four pip emma. And maybe the RAF has taught Denise Bowyer how to blow up a telephone exchange.”
Paul grinned. Flick’s optimism was irresistible.
They reached the station and caught a train. They could not talk about the mission because there were other passengers within earshot. Paul said, “I learned a little about Percy this morning. We drove through the neighborhood where he was brought up.”
“He’s adopted the manners and even the accent of the British upper class, but don’t be fooled. Under that old tweed jacket beats the heart of a real street brawler.”
“He told me he was flogged at school for speaking with a low-class accent.”
“He was a scholarship boy. They generally have a hard time in swanky British schools. I know, I was a scholarship girl.”
“Did you have to change your accent?”
“No. I grew up in an earl’s household. I always spoke like this.”
Paul guessed that was why Flick and Percy got on so well: they were both lower-class people who had climbed the social ladder. Unlike Americans, the British thought there was nothing wrong with class prejudice. Yet they were shocked at Southerners who told them Negroes were inferior. “I think Percy’s very fond of you,” Paul said.
“I love him like a father.”
The sentiment seemed genuine, Paul thought, but she was also firmly setting him straight about her relationship with Percy.
Flick had arranged to meet Percy back at Orchard Court. When they arrived, there was a car outside the building. Paul recognized the driver, one of Monty’s entourage. “Sir, there’s someone in the car waiting for you,” the man said.
The back door opened and out stepped Paul’s younger sister, Caroline. He grinned with delight. “Well, I’ll be damned!” he said. She stepped into his arms and he hugged her. “What are you doing in London?”
“I can’t say, but I have a couple of hours off, and I persuaded Monty’s office to lend me a car to come and see you. Want to buy me a drink?”
“I don’t have a minute to spare,” he said. “Not even for you. But you can drive me to Whitehall. I have to find a man called a public prosecutor.”
“Then I’ll take you there, and we’ll catch up in the car.”
“Of course,” he said. “Let’s go!”
CHAPTER 14
FLICK TURNED AT the building door and saw a pretty girl wearing the uniform of an American lieutenant step out of the car and throw her arms around Paul. She noted the delighted smile on his face and the force of his hug. This was obviously his wife, girlfriend, or fianc‚e, probably making an unexpected visit to London. She must be with the U.S. forces in Britain, preparing for the invasion. Paul jumped into her car.
Flick went into Orchard Court, feeling a little sad. Paul had a girl, they were nuts about one another, and they had been granted a surprise meeting. Flick wished Michel could show up just like that, out of the blue. But he was lying wounded on a couch in Reims with a shameless nineteen-year-old beauty nursing him.
Percy was already back from Hendon. She found him making tea. “How was your RAF girl?” she asked.
“Lady Denise Bowyer—she’s on her way to the Finishing School,” he said.
“Wonderful! Now we have four!”
“But I’m worried. She’s a braggart. She boasted about the work she’s doing in the Air Force, told me all sorts of details she should have kept quiet about. You’ll have to see what you think of her in training.”
