Pray for a Brave Heart by Helen MacInnes Read Free Book Online Page B

ears. Her round face and slightly protuberant eyes were disarming. At this moment she even looked most comfortingly stupid, her pale lips parted, her thin eyebrows raised.
    “Rain,” he said, and held up his coat for her to see. No white rabbits, no mirrors, positively no deception.
    She nodded sympathetically, and watched him find his hat.
    “What’s your name?” he asked suddenly.
    “Eva,” she answered, startled.
    With a smile, he said, “Good night, Eva.” He closed the doors firmly. “And it’s all yours,” he added softly.
    Then, as he walked towards the gilded cage of an elevator, he decided that he was imagining either too much or not enough. That was the trouble with the amateur in this kind of work: the hard-shell professional like Max Meyer would already have summed up the situation and would now be taking appropriate action. It had been a long time since Denning had parachuted into occupied France. Nine years ago was a long time. Then, he had been one of the hunted. And now—after some years in Germany of being the hunter—he was beginning to feel he was one of the hunted again. It was a difficult mental switch to make, but it might have to be made all the same. Might have to be made. Why did he feel that? Why, as he had faced that woman and asked her name, why could he only think that this had happened long ago? He had even been able to guess the startled look he would see in the protruding eyes, before she reacted to his sudden question. He had known that look—not one of innocence surprised, or stupidity suddenly challenged— that look of control, abruptly jolted by a moment’s alarm into fear and suspicion, then just as rapidly recaptured.
    The elevator was long in coming, slow in rising. Impatiently, he started towards the carpeted staircase which circled round the elevator shaft. Half-way down, he stopped. That was it, that was it, he’d got it—the woman who had stood in a Norman kitchen and watched him as he had been watched only five minutes ago. The woman whose husband was a prisoner of war in Germany, the woman who was trusted because she was pitied, the woman who was the Gestapo informer. Marthe Boisseau, he’d even got her name now.
    He drew a deep breath. That had been quite an effort. Then he realised he had company.
    Round the curve of the staircase had come a plodding figure dressed in navy blue, with long black stockings and flat-heeled shoes. A white Panama hat was swinging from one hand, while the other counted the railings with a trailing forefinger. The girl, fourteen perhaps, was standing there watching him.
    “Oh!” she said, as if she had only just arrived and must register surprise. Impatiently she pushed a short pigtail of straight red hair back from her shoulder. “Have you lost something?” she asked with excessive politeness, and gave Denning a dazzling smile somewhat dimmed by silver bands over her teeth. “Oh,” she said again, as if she remembered them, and she stopped smiling.
    “No, I haven’t lost anything,” Denning said. He stood aside to let her pass, although there was more than enough room.
    “I thought I might help you find it,” she said. She didn’t move. Her high flute-like voice had become more grown-up, emphasising its Englishness.
    “I’ve found what I wanted,” he assured her. “Thank you.”
    She looked at the toe of her shoe, and then off into the middle distance. “You’re an American,” she told him.
    “How could you guess?” He had to smile at her serious face, searching so earnestly for the right thing to say.
    “I know them extremely well. My sister married an American. He was a general.”
    “That’s above my level, I’m afraid.”
    “Oh,” she said comfortingly, using that long-drawn-out narrow vowel again, “but I don’t think he was a particularly good general.” She gave him a quick side glance to see if she had been tactful enough. Then she looked at the narrow elastic which formed the chin strap to her