Barbet shook his head.“ No. He’ s been discharged from the RAF. He’ s a Captain in the United States Army Air Corps.”
He watched Noelle digesting the information, her expression giving no clue to what she was feeling. But Barbet was not finished with her yet. He picked up a newspaper clipping between his stained sausage fingers and handed it to her.
“ I think this will interest you,” he said.
He saw Noelle stiffen, and it was almost as though she knew what she was going to see. The clipping was from the New York Daily News. The caption read“ War Ace Weds” and above it was a photograph of Larry Douglas and his bride. Noelle looked at it for a long moment, then held out her hand for the rest of the file. Christian Barbet shrugged, and slid all the papers into a manila envelope and handed it to her. As he opened his mouth to make his farewell speech, Noelle Page said,“ If you don’ t have a correspondent in Washington, get one. I shall expect weekly reports.” And she was gone, leaving Christian Barbet staring after her in a state of complete confusion.
When she returned to her apartment, Noelle went into the bedroom, locked the door and took the newspaper clippings out of the envelope. She laid them out on the bed before her and studied them. The photograph of Larry was exactly as she remembered him. If anything the image in her mind was clearer than the image in the newspaper, for Larry was more alive in her mind than he was in reality.
There was not a day that went by that Noelle did not relive the past with him. It was as though they had costarred in a play together long ago, and she was able to recapture scenes at will, playing some on certain days and saving others for other days, so that each memory was always alive and fresh.
Noelle turned her attention to Larry’ s bride. What she saw was a pretty, young, intelligent face with a smile on its lips.
The face of the enemy. A face that would have to be destroyed as Larry was going to be destroyed.
Noelle remained locked up with the photograph the whole afternoon.
Hours later when Armand Gautier pounded on her bedroom door, Noelle told him to go away. He waited outside in the drawing room, apprehensive about what her mood would be, but when Noelle finally emerged, she seemed unusually bright and gay, as though she had had a piece of good news. She offered no explanation to Gautier, and he knew her well enough not to ask for one.
After the theater that evening she made love to him with a wild passion that reminded him of their early days together. Later Gautier lay in bed trying to understand the beautiful girl who rested beside him but he did not have a clue.
During the night Noelle Page had a dream about Colonel Mueller. The hairless albino Gestapo officer was torturing her with a branding iron, making burning swastikas in her flesh. He kept asking her questions, but his voice was so soft that Noelle could not hear him, and he kept pressing the hot metal into her, and suddenly it was Larry on the table,