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Of course, Cordell was loyal to Winifred. He understood, and in some ways perhaps he had not recovered either? People who lose themselves in grief do not realize how they suck others down into the depths with them, like exhausted swimmers drowning their would-be rescuers.
Had Margot done that to anybody? She didn’t think so. She hurt almost unbearably inside, but she tried very hard to look all right to everyone else. She kept hoping, trying to fall in love again. But the lightness she had felt with Paul made everything else seem dull, second rate, a pretend thing rather than a real one.
Was she remembering him as he had been? Or had she seen him always in that first flush of dizzying happiness? She would never know. It did not matter now. She must go back to Rue Cassette, get her things from the Hôtel de l’Abbaye, and catch the next train to Berlin. What on earth she was going to do when she got there, she did not know. Except find Roger Cordell, of course, and ask for his help. She did entertain the idea, for a very short time, of wiring her father and asking his advice, but that might only make matters worse. The Germans might well dig in even further, make a bigger incident of it, impossible to draw back from. She thought of her
grandfather. He had always loved Elena the most, but what could he do to help? He was in his seventies now, a retired civil servant. He could achieve nothing.
No, Roger Cordell was best. He could send for Charles Standish if there was any point. It was probably all some idiotic mistake.
* * *
—
Margot told herself that all the way to Berlin. It was late in the afternoon when the train pulled into the station, still early enough to get a taxi as far as the British Embassy.
Berlin was just as gray as she remembered it, but the young men in brown uniforms, standing around everywhere with guns, were new. Everything seemed very orderly, very brisk and military. That was Herr Hitler, getting the trains to run on time! A good thing, no doubt, especially for those who had to rely on them, but cold and mechanical all the same.
She found a taxi immediately and fifteen minutes later was at the embassy gates. She had thought she would have to make her way through a cordon of Brownshirts, as described in the Parisian newspaper, but they must have dispersed since the previous day, with just two or three on street corners. She told them who she was and found a guard who remembered her from her father’s time there. She had no trouble being shown to Roger Cordell’s office.
He was waiting for her, standing in front of his desk. It was at least five years since she had seen him last, and he looked older, even a little gray at the temples. He was too young for that! Younger than her father. Then she remembered Winifred, and the grief she carried with her like a fog.
She smiled at him, with all the charm of someone who remembered him only with pleasure, from a younger and happier time. She was still wearing the black-and-white silk dress, and she knew it looked good. She did not need to see the expression on his face to affirm her.
“Margot!” he exclaimed. “You look marvelous, but then you always do.” He held out his hands and she laid hers in them. He gripped her tightly, met her eyes for a moment, then kissed her cheek lightly. “I think I know why you are here,” he ventured, looking grave.
“I imagine you do,” she replied, stepping back. She had forgotten how direct he could be, unlike her father. But perhaps that was why Charles was an ambassador, and Cordell only a cultural attaché. “I saw Elena’s picture in a newspaper in Paris. Is it true? Are the German police, the Gestapo, or whatever they are called, looking for her? It’s ridiculous! Not only wouldn’t she do anything like that, she couldn’t! You know Elena. She isn’t competent to do that, even if she wanted to. She couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn with a machine gun, let alone kill a man from a hundred yards away with a sniper rifle!”
His face looked suddenly bleak. “I knew she couldn’t before, my dear, and I assume she still couldn’t, although people learn…”
“Not Elena!” Margot said impatiently. “And for heaven’s sake, why? I know she made a bit of an ass of herself over Strother, but he took everyone in. And he was a traitor, not an assassin. I’d be willing to bet she’d never even heard of Scharnhorst when she left Amalfi. She may have been in love with Ian Newton, but she hadn’t lost her wits!” She made a little gesture. “She’s a bit naïve, but not stupid. Do you know anything about it? I mean really know, not just assume based on whatever you’ve been told?” She stared at him, searching his eyes. For all his dark good looks, he had gray eyes. At another time, she would’ve been fascinated by them. Perhaps in the past, a few times she had been. “Roger! Please…I’ve got to know if she is all right. She just swept out of the hotel in Amalfi and left me standing. Now she’s in the papers, suspected of shooting someone! What has Newton done to her? And where on earth is he anyway?”
Something in him yielded. There was sorrow in his eyes. “She came to see me the evening before. Ian Newton was murdered on the train.”
She must have misheard him. “You said…‘murdered’! You don’t really mean that?” Now, in spite of the pleasantness of the room, she was cold to the bone. She knew from his face that he had made no error.
“Yes. I’m sorry. Margot, do you want to sit down?”
“I want you to tell me what the hell is going on!” she said hotly. “What did you do to help Elena? What did you tell her? Why did you let this happen?”
He took a deep breath. There was a faint flush on his cheeks. “She came to me with a warning from Ian about an attempt on Scharnhorst’s life. I told her I would inform the authorities,” he said levelly. “Which I did. They either made a series of errors, or more likely they simply ignored the warning.”
“Ignored it?” she demanded. “And let one of their own get shot to death in a public rally?” Her voice dripped sarcasm.
“Margot,” he said patiently, “what do you know about Scharnhorst?”
She sensed a change in his tone, and it frightened her. “What does that matter?” she demanded. “He’s a monster! And Elena is being blamed for killing him.” She could hear the rising panic in her voice. She was getting out of control. “Roger…please…”
“I’ll do whatever I can, but it is at least a possibility that the best thing they could have is an Englishwoman to blame for getting rid of one of their most dangerous extremists. They can bury him with ceremony, as a martyr, and at the same time blame us for it. And be rid of the lunatic who was, frankly, becoming an embarrassment to them.”
“Doesn’t he represent all they want, but only half dare to say?” she accused.
“No! Not at all.” He looked startled. She had seen exactly the same look in her father’s face at some of her remarks. “Hitler uses the extremists sometimes, but they can get out of hand. Scharnhorst had done exactly that. Hitler may be profoundly grateful to whomever killed him, but the worst element of the crowd would never stand for it. Now Hitler can claim to be entirely innocent and blame it on a hysterical Englishwoman. Somebody has presented him with precisely what he wants.”
“Somebody?” Margot made it only half a question. She looked at Cordell’s face and saw the exasperation in it. “All right! Elena is a fool, or gullible. We all know that. Aiden Strother proved it, the bastard. And somebody certainly used her this time, too. But she doesn’t have either the skill or the nerve to have shot anyone. Especially not at a distance. And quite honestly, she wouldn’t anyway. She would see it as wrong. She’s…” She looked for the right word to use. Elena felt things deeply, but she was very traditional, like Lucas. “She wouldn’t go out on a limb…morally,” she finished. “Somebody took advantage of her. Set it up to look as if she did it. You’ve got to…I mean, will you please help her?” She was no good at looking pathetic, and she knew it. No woman ever looked less pathetic than Margot Standish—or Margot Driscoll, as she now was. The Widow Driscoll. God, how she hated that word. “Roger, please.”
He looked at her steadily. It was only seconds, and yet it seemed ages. “Yes, of course. But you must stay out of it, Margot. You are very easily recognizable. You will lead them to her, no matter your intentions.”
“Well, what are you going to do?” Now was not the time to argue recognizability, although she had to admit that, though she had not thought of it before, what he said was true.
