It was Bill’s turn to look surprised. “You have it?”
She opened her clutch handbag and pulled out an envelope.
“I had to take it out of the original envelope, but it’s all here. Three strips of microfilm,” she said, getting up and handing him the envelope. “He hid it in a book.”
Bill reached out and took the envelope, glancing inside before setting it on the arm of his chair.
“And you had no problems retrieving it?”
A rueful look crossed Evelyn’s face as she seated herself again.
“I wouldn’t say that, no,” she admitted. “I’m afraid that’s when things got hairy.”
“Just then?” he asked, something close to a smile toying on his face. “You mean they weren’t hairy before? My dear, you must have a different idea of the word than I do!”
“Herr Voss was so congenial that I really didn’t think of that as unpleasant,” Evelyn said slowly. “Don’t misunderstand me. Throughout the entire exchange, I was very well aware of how dangerous he was, but somehow the conversation itself was such that I might have been speaking to a new acquaintance in London. He was very civil, almost urbane.”
“Voss? His name was Voss?” Bill was writing again.
“Yes. He was very pleasant, but very cold.”
“And why did things get hairy, as you say, at the library?” Bill looked up from his notepad. “What happened there?”
“His friend showed up.”
“Ah. And he wasn’t as pleasant?”
“Not at all. Karl had warned me that they came in pairs, so I was looking for him. He was rather conspicuous, so it wasn’t difficult.”
“What did you do?”
“Thankfully, I’d told Herr Voss that my routine was to interview my source, in this case Karl, and then go to the nearest library and write out my notes immediately. So, it was perfectly reasonable for me to go straight to a library. Karl gave me some tips for retrieving the package once he learned I’d never done anything like this before. He was really very helpful. I followed his instructions and went to a table to write out my imaginary notes. Once I’d spent some time at a table scribbling in a notebook, I got up and went to the card catalog and pretended to look up a book. Then off I went.”
“And the partner followed you?”
“Yes. He was right behind me. I managed to get to the book and get the envelope out, but I knew I would probably be stopped. So I took the microfilm out of the envelope and concealed it in the lining of my hat, then stuffed the envelope in my bag as a decoy.”
“Not ineffective,” Bill murmured. “Not quite how I would have done it, but it seems to have worked.”
“He did stop me, made me drop my bag, and helped me gather everything up from the floor. Of course, when all was said and done, the envelope made its way into his pocket. I thought he would wait to look inside until he was further away, but he didn’t.”
“And he saw it was empty.”
“Exactly. That’s when it got ugly.”
“What did you do?”
Evelyn was quiet for a long moment, then she sighed imperceptibly.
“I hit him and knocked him unconscious.”
There was a moment of stunned silence.
“You…what?”
“You know that I spent time in Hong Kong with my parents,” she said, lifting her eyes to his. He nodded. “While I was there I became a student of the local Wing Chun master. It’s a Chinese fighting art. Kung Fu.”
Bill’s eyebrows rose into his forehead and he gazed at her in some wonder. “A fighting art?”
“Yes.”
“And you used this to knock an SS man unconscious?”
“Yes.” She cleared her throat. “I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t mention that to anyone. I’m afraid no one really understands why I would learn such a skill.”
Bill waved his hand and shook his head.
“My dear Evelyn, nothing you’ve said today will ever be made public. The security act forbids it, as does my own honor. Your secret is safe with me. It won’t make it into my report, if you’d rather it didn’t. I’ll just say he was knocked unconscious and leave it at that. I assume that’s when you left?”
“Not quite.” Evelyn glanced at him sheepishly. “I told you it got hairy.”
When he raised his eyebrows again, she proceeded to relate the rest of her ordeal, leaving no detail out. When he heard of Josephine’s involvement, Bill showed no sign of surprise, reinforcing Josephine’s claims that this was standard procedure for pick-ups that went awry. By the time she had finished, he was once again shaking his head.
“Truly incredible,” he murmured. “I sent you on what was supposed to be a straight-forward pickup, and this is what happened. I wish I could convey to you how truly sorry I am that things went south to such a degree.”
Evelyn stared at him. “What on earth for?” she demanded. “It’s not as if you could have known that Karl would be followed out of Germany.”
“Yes, but you’ve had no training for this, no experience.” Bill got up and carried his notebook back to his desk, setting it down. “If it weren’t for your quick thinking and the timely intervention of Mademoiselle Rousseau, it could have ended very differently. And then what would I have told your father?”
“The truth, of course,” she said practically. “That you offered me a chance to do something for the good of Europe, and I took it. He would be proud that I did.”
Bill considered her thoughtfully for a long moment.
“Would he?” he asked almost to himself. “I’m not so sure.”
“Of course he
