V for Vengeance by Dennis Wheatley

muffled call to enter went in, closing it behind him. It was then they noticed that under the large ‘No. 104,’ which was painted on the door in white, there was pinned a visiting card which read: ‘Wolfram Schaub, Major, S.S.’, and they realised with renewed trepidation that they were to be examined by one of the Nazi officers who now controlled the French police. After a moment the door was opened again, and they were led in.
    Madeleine suddenly went white as a sheet and dropped her handbag. One of the French
gendarmes
politely stooped to pick it up for her, but in stooping herself she gained just a moment in which to make a wild endeavour to get back her composure. Major Schaub, the lean chunky-faced man in the black uniform of the German S.S. guards, who sat behind the desk, was the man who had come to her apartment on that unforgettable night of the occupation and fired the final shot which had driven the last flicker of life from her dear Georges.
    Half fainting from a mixed emotional stress of hatred and fear, she waited in an agony of suspense to see if he would recognise her. If he did, her alias as Antoinette Mirabeauwould be torn to shreds. Her association with both Georges and the little priest, on top of the false name she had given, would be more than enough to cause the Major to believe that she was already up to the neck in some anti-Nazi conspiracy. Even the faintest hope of release would be gone and she would find herself in an internment camp before morning.
    Her every effort was needed to retain an outward semblance of calm and prevent her limbs from trembling. As in a daze she heard the French inspector’s report, but she dared not look up for fear of meeting the Major’s eyes and seeing recognition dawn in them. When the report was finished the Nazi began to shoot staccato questions at the prisoners in excellent French, and she was now compelled to raise her glance. His hard blue eyes bored for a second into hers, then with a faint smile of appreciation they flickered downwards, taking in her figure. The look was an insult, as it stripped her naked where she stood, yet she was hardly conscious of it from the sudden surge of relief that she felt. He had looked in her eyes, but he did not remember her. Major Schaub showed great annoyance when he learned that the prisoners had undergone their first examination together. In swift, sarcastic phrases he rated the French inspector soundly, telling him that he did not understand his business and that such examinations should always be carried out separately, since there was more likelihood of the prisoners making contradictory statements.
    To see the French inspector snarled at and insulted in front of his men so infuriated Madeleine that she temporarily forgot her own precarious situation, which enabled her to answer the questions that the Major snapped out promptly and with spirit. Kuporovitch, who was still completely ignorant that the Major had seen Madeleine before, which now placed her in special peril, answered with calmness and dignity. Both of them flatly denied that they had ever seen the little priest before and stuck firmly to the story that he had come uninvited to their table and made rather a nuisance of himself, by seeking to draw them into adverse criticisms of that night’s news bulletin.
    The inspector had turned up Mademoiselle Antoinette Mirabeau in the telephone book and checked the address thatMadeleine had given. When she was questioned about her family and occupation she gave the answers in every case without a trace of hesitation, because she was able to reply just as though she were Antoinette, and when she said that she was a teacher of music that tallied with the fact that the Rue Meslay was just round the corner from the Conservatoire.
    The Russian’s answers, on the other hand, were by no means so satisfactory. His case was also aggravated by the fact that one of the German officers had stated that