Michel drove out of the yard and headed away.
Hans started his motorcycle and followed. Dieter jumped into the car and ordered the driver to follow Hans.
They headed east. Dieter, in the front passenger seat of the Gestapo’s black Citro‰n, looked ahead anxiously. Moulier’s van was easy to follow, having a high roof with a vent on top like a chimney. That little vent will lead me to flick, Dieter thought optimistically.
The van slowed in the chemin de La CarriŠre and pulled into the yard of a champagne house called LaperriŠre. Hans drove past and turned the next corner, and Dieter’s driver followed. They pulled up and Dieter leaped out.
“I think the Jackdaws hid out there overnight,” Dieter said.
“Shall we raid the place?” Hans said eagerly.
Dieter pondered. This was the dilemma he had faced yesterday, outside the caf‚. Flick might be in there. But if he moved too quickly, he might prematurely end Michel’s usefulness as a stalking horse.
“Not yet,” he said. Michel was the only hope he had left. It was too soon to risk losing that weapon. “We’ll wait.”
Dieter and Hans walked to the end of the street and watched the LaperriŠre place from the corner. There were a tall, elegant house, a courtyard full of empty barrels, and a low industrial building with a flat roof Dieter guessed the cellars ran beneath the flat-roofed building. Moulier’s van was parked in the yard.
Dieter’s pulse was racing. Any moment now, Michel would reappear with Flick and the other Jackdaws, he guessed. They would get into the van, ready to drive to their target-and Dieter and the Gestapo would move in and arrest them.
As they watched, Michel came out of the low building. He wore a frown and he stood indecisively in the yard, looking around him in a perplexed fashion. Hans said, “What’s the matter with him?”
Dieter’s heart sank. “Something he didn’t expect.” Surely Flick had not evaded him again?
After a minute, Michel climbed the short flight of steps to the door of the house and knocked. A maid in a little white cap let him in.
He came out again a few minutes later. He still looked puzzled, but he was no longer indecisive. He walked to the van, got in, and turned it around.
Dieter cursed. It seemed the Jackdaws were not here. Michel appeared just as surprised as Dieter was, but that was small consolation.
Dieter had to find out what had happened here. He said to Hans, “We’ll do the same as last night, only this time you follow Michel and I’ll raid the place.”
Hans started his motorcycle.
Dieter watched Michel drive away in Moulier’s van, followed at a discreet distance by Hans Hesse on his motorcycle. When they were out of sight, he summoned the three Gestapo men with a wave and walked quickly to the LaperriŠre house.
He pointed at two of the men. “Check the house. Make sure no one leaves.” Nodding at the third man, he said, “You and I will search the winery.” He led the way into the low building.
On the ground floor there was a large grape press and three enormous vats. The press was pristine: the harvest was three or four months away. There was no one present but an old man sweeping the floor. Dieter found the stairs and ran down. In the cool underground chamber there was more activity: racked bottles were being turned by a handful of blue-coated workers. They stopped and stared at the intruders.
Dieter and the Gestapo man searched room after room of bottles of champagne, thousands of them, some stacked against the walls, others racked slantwise with the necks down in special A-shaped frames. But there were no women anywhere.
In an alcove at the far end of the last tunnel, Dieter found crumbs of bread, cigarette ends, and a hair clip. His worst fears were dismally confirmed. The Jackdaws had spent the night here. But they had escaped.
He cast about for a focus for his anger. The workers would probably know nothing about the Jackdaws, but the owner must have given permission for them to hide here. He would suffer for it. Dieter returned to the ground floor, crossed the yard, and went to the house. A Gestapo man opened the door. “They’re all in the front room,” he said.