It might not have been grandmother’s kerchief he had said. Aurélie’s German was serviceable, but it didn’t quite run to vulgar colloquialisms.
“And then France will fall?” slurred Dreier.
“What, do you believe in all that rubbish? No. But they’ll think it will. So it will.”
“Perhaps we burn the demoiselle with it,” proposed Dreier. Through the crack in the door, Aurélie could just see his hand holding out his glass to be filled as though he weren’t suggesting her immolation as casually as one might an afternoon picnic.
“And make a martyr? No. But what will the French think when they learn that their prized demoiselle was a German officer’s whore? We tell them, I think, that she gave her lover the talisman. . . . She sold her body and her country. That will take care of the demoiselle.”
“Wait—you’re going to give Von Sternburg the talisman?”
“Von Sternburg,” Hoffmeister said calmly, “won’t be alive to enjoy it. There will be an accident. In an old structure like this, there are often such little accidents.”
“But . . . his uncle . . .”
“Will know only that his nephew perished serving his country. There will be no inconvenient telegrams to say otherwise. There have never been any telegrams to advise him otherwise.”
Murder. He was talking about murder. Max’s murder.
There was a moment of stunned silence, and then, of all things, the sound of applause. Dreier was clapping. “It’s brilliant! You’ve thought of everything!”
“Not quite everything,” said Hoffmeister modestly. “One would have to determine how such an accident might be arranged. You were a pharmacist once, were you not?”
“I, er, yes, but . . .”
“If a man were to dose himself for, oh, sleeplessness, might he not become confused and walk somewhere he ought not?”
“Ye-es,” said Dreier, sounding less than clearheaded himself. “But . . .”
“It is no crime for a man to take a sleeping draught. Or another man to give it.”
“No,” said Dreier, relieved. “No, not at all.”
“But, not, I think,” said Hoffmeister, rising to his feet, “until we have the talisman. Do you understand me, Klaus? Wait for my guidance. And tell me if our friend attempts to send any more letters.”
Aurélie heard the other man rise clumsily to his feet. “But what about the letters to his mother?”
“Bring them to me. If there is nothing of interest, you may replace them in the dispatch bag. We don’t want his mother expressing her concern to her brother.”
“Yes, sir. No, sir.” Dreier made an attempt to click his heels, nearly overbalancing himself in the process. “Will there be anything else, sir?”
“Try not to break your own neck on those stairs,” said Hoffmeister, as Dreier careened off a Louis XIV commode and into the side of the bed, cursing fluently. Hoffmeister took him firmly by the arm, although, through the crack in the paneling, Aurélie didn’t miss the look of distaste he gave the other man. “I’ll see you out.”
They were standing at the door, on the far side of the room. Now was her chance, under the cover of their conversation, to retreat down the passage. Aurélie forced her sluggish limbs to move. No crime for a man to take a sleeping draught, Hoffmeister had said, as though already preparing his report. No crime.
Max, lying broken beneath the parapets.
Max, dead on his bed, with an empty vial beside him. A miscalculation, too much sleeping powder, a tragic accident, condolences wired to Berlin . . .
How? How was this happening? How could this be allowed to happen? The world had gone mad. They had opened Pandora’s box and let all the demons out, given them uniforms and room to play.
Aurélie paused at the base of the passage, leaning her forehead on the roughly whitewashed wall, pressing her palms against the worn paint, feeling the scrape against her skin, raw and real. It was talk, only talk, but even such talk, that Hoffmeister could consider such a thing, was monstrous. She’d seen the Germans kill before, certainly. She and her people were the enemy, to be exterminated like vermin should they prove inconvenient. That was war.
But Max was one of their own.
This wasn’t war, it was murder, murder out of self-interest and cowardice and greed, and by God, she wouldn’t stand for it. She’d stop them, thought Aurélie feverishly, hurrying through the tunnels with more speed than grace. She’d stop them and Max would see them court-martialed, and it would be two birds with one stone, really. She’d save Max and free her people from Hoffmeister, and, merciful heavens, she couldn’t let him kill Max.