The Other Side of Midnight

"Yes, General."

All eyes were riveted on the trunk as the chauffeur reached for the handle and turned it. Noelle felt suddenly faint. Slowly the lid opened.

The trunk was empty.

"Someone has stolen our luggage!" exclaimed the chauffeur.

Colonel Mueller's face was mottled with fury. "He got away!"

"Who got away?" demanded the General.

"Le Cafard," raged Colonel Mueller. "A Jew

named Israel Katz. He was smuggled out of Paris in the trunk of this car."

"That's impossible," General Scheider retorted. "That trunk was tightly closed. He would have suffocated."

Colonel Mueller studied the trunk for a moment, then turned to one of his men. "Get inside."

"Yes, Colonel."

Obediently the man crawled into the trunk. Colonel Mueller slammed the lid tightly shut and looked at his watch. For the next four minutes, they stood there in silence, each engrossed in his own thoughts. Finally after what seemed an eternity to Noelle, Colonel Mueller opened the lid of the trunk. The man inside was unconscious. General Scheider turned to Colonel Mueller, a contemptuous expression on his face. "If anyone was riding in that trunk," the General declared, "they removed his corpse. Is there anything else I can do for you, Colonel?"

The Gestapo officer shook his head, seething with rage and frustration. General Scheider turned to his chauffeur. "Let's go." He helped Noelle into the car, and they drove toward Etratat, leaving the knot of men fading away into the distance.

Colonel Kurt Mueller instituted an immediate search of the waterfront, but it was not until late the following afternoon that an empty oxygen tank was found in a barrel in a corner of an unused warehouse. An African freighter had set sail for Capetown out of Le Havre the night before but it was now somewhere on the high seas. The missing luggage turned up a few days later in the lost-and-found department of the Gare du Nord in Paris.

As for Noelle and General Scheider, they spent the weekend in Etratat and returned to Paris late Monday afternoon in time for Noelle to do her evening performance.

CATHERINE

Washington: 1941-1944

9

Catherine had quit her job with William Fraser the morning after she had married Larry. Fraser asked her to have lunch with him the day she returned to Washington. He looked drawn and haggard and suddenly older. Catherine had felt a pang of compassion for him, but that was all. She was sitting opposite a tall, nice-looking stranger for whom she felt affection, but it was impossible now to imagine that she had ever contemplated marrying him. Fraser gave her a wan smile.

"So you're a married lady," he said.

"The most married lady in the world."

"It must have happened rather suddenly. I--I wish I'd had a chance to compete."

"I didn't even have a chance," Catherine said honestly. "It just--happened."

"Larry's quite a fellow."

"Yes."

"Catherine"--Fraser hesitated--"you don't really know much about Larry, do you?"

Catherine felt her back stiffening.

"I know I love him, Bill," she said evenly, "and I know that he loves me. That's a pretty good beginning, isn't it?"

He sat there frowning, silent, debating with himself. "Catherine--"

"Yes?"