Flick knew of three possible hideouts: Michel’s town house, Gilberte’s apartment, and Mademoiselle Lemas’s house in the rue du Bois. Unfortunately, any of them might be under surveillance, depending on how deeply the Gestapo had penetrated the Bollinger circuit. If Dieter Franck was in charge of the investigation, she had to fear the worst.
There was nothing to do but go and look. “We must split up into pairs again,” she told the others. “Four women together is too conspicuous. Ruby and I will go first. Greta and Jelly, follow a hundred meters behind us.”
They walked to Michel’s place, not far from the station. It was flick’s marital home, but she always thought of it as his house. There was plenty of room for four women. But the Gestapo almost certainly knew of the place: it would be astonishing if none of the men taken captive last Sunday had revealed the address under torture.
The house was in a busy street with several shops. Walking along the pavement, Flick surreptitiously looked into each parked car while Ruby checked the houses and shops. Michel’s property was a high, narrow building in an elegant eighteenth-century row. It had a small front yard with a magnolia tree. The place was still and quiet, with no movement at the windows. The doorstep was dusty.
On their first pass along the street, they saw nothing suspicious: no workmen digging up the road, no watchful loiterers at the pavement tables outside the bar, Chez Regis, no one leaning on a telegraph pole reading a newspaper.
They returned on the opposite side. Outside the baker’s shop was a black Citro‰n Traction Avant with two men in suits sitting in the front, smoking cigarettes and looking bored.
Flick tensed. She was wearing her dark wig, so she felt sure they would not recognize her as the girl on the Wanted poster, but all the same her pulse beat faster and she hurried past them. All along the pavement she listened for a shout behind her, but it did not come, and at last she turned the corner and breathed easier.
She slowed her pace. Her fears had been justified.
Michel’s house was no use to her. It did not have a rear entrance, being part of a row with no back alley. The Jackdaws could not enter without being seen by the Gestapo.
She considered the other two possibilities. Michel was presumably still living at Gilberte’s apartment, unless he had been captured. The building had a useful back entrance. But it was a tiny place, and four overnight guests at a one-room apartment would not only be uncomfortable but also might be noticed by other people in the building.
The obvious place for them to spend the night was the house in the rue du Bois. Flick had been there twice. It was a big house with lots of bedrooms. Mademoiselle Lemas was completely trustworthy and was more than willing to feed unexpected guests. She had been sheltering British agents, downed airmen, and escaping prisoners of war for years. And she might know what had happened to Brian Standish.
It was a mile or two from the center of town. The four women set out to walk there, still in pairs a hundred meters apart.
They arrived half an hour later. The rue du Bois was a quiet suburban street: a surveillance team would have trouble concealing themselves here. There was only one parked car within sight, an impeccably upright Peugeot 201 that was much too slow for the Gestapo. It was empty.
Flick and Ruby took a preliminary walk past Mademoiselle Lemas’s house. It looked the same as always. Her Simca Cinq stood in the courtyard, which was unusual only in that she normally parked it in the garage. Flick slowed her pace and surreptitiously looked in at the window. She saw no one. Mademoiselle Lemas used that room only rarely: it was an old-fashioned front parlor, the piano immaculately dusted, the cushions always plumped, the door kept firmly closed except for formal visits. Her secret guests always sat in the kitchen at the back of the house, where there was no chance they would be seen by passersby.