Jawohl. “Thank you, Frau Graf.”
Maggie unpacked, but in the way she was trained—so that she’d be able to leave at a moment’s notice. She looked out the window. No drainage pipe, and it was a long, long way down.
At dinner, in the servants’ dining room with Frau Graf and Herr Mayer, the gardener and all-around workman, Maggie learned even more about her new employer and his family. She learned that Oberg loved his new summer house in Wannsee. She learned that since his wife had died, he’d had numerous affairs with various actresses and cabaret singers, but never anything serious. She learned that, before the war, he’d been a lawyer and his main love was his work. And that when he returned home after a long day, he’d often spend hours in his study, poring over his files and papers.
Now that’s a useful bit of information, Maggie decided, taking a bite of herring salad.
She also learned that, because he was deaf in one ear, Oberg couldn’t serve in the military. And because of his fanatical party loyalty he had risen high in the ranks. He wasn’t just ambitious—he believed, truly believed in what the Nazi party stood for—the Master Race and Aryan superiority. Moreover, he was a huge favorite of Hitler’s, who considered him an example of all that was German: intelligent, cultured, and refined, as well as a proponent of Lebensraum, anti-Semitism, Führerprinzip, and Weltanschauung.
Herr Mayer explained that Herr Oberg was one of the financial managers in Hitler’s private department, the Chancellery of the Führer.
“What sorts of projects does he work on?” Maggie asked.
“He works under the auspices of State and Party Affairs,” Herr Mayer answered, mouth full of herring, proud of his employer. “He’s extremely important—has a big office near the Tiergarten.”
“Really?” Maggie said. “What’s the project?”
Frau Graf helped herself to more bread. “Geheime Reichssache,” she added, putting a finger to her lips.
Secret Reich Matters? Maggie thought. Interesting …
“It’s an important project, is all we know,” Herr Mayer added.
“Impressive.” And good to know, indeed.
David and Freddie walked out of the Piccadilly Theatre on Denman Street in the West End.
“It’s wonderful to get out and do something fun for a change,” David remarked, as they made their way through the crowd.
“Agreed,” Freddie said. “It was good of Noël Coward to give us all something as light and frothy as Blithe Spirit—although it’s getting some criticism.”
“What?” David said, aghast, as they took a right on a shadowy side street. Their evening shoes smacked against the cobblestones. “What was it Emmet Fox said? ‘Criticism is an indirect form of self-boasting.’ ”
“Oh, they’re saying, ‘How horrible to be making fun of the dead in the midst of war,’ et cetera, et cetera.…” They walked farther down the street, people becoming less frequent, the only light from a half-moon and the stars.
“Nonsense!” David replied, voice booming with post-theater enthusiasm. “I loved it, especially Margaret Rutherford. Now that’s what I call stage presence.”
“Shall we go to the White Swan, old thing?” Freddie said, clapping a hand on the other man’s shoulder. “Nightcap?”
A shadow moved behind them, and a voice called out, “Bloody pansies!”
David and Freddie whipped around. From the shadows emerged three men, beer bottles in their hands.
“Yeah, because you look like pansies to me. Right, Bill?”
“They dress like pansies, they walk like pansies, they’re going to the White Swan like the pansies all do …”
“So they must be pansies,” the first one finished. “Bloody arse bandits.” He broke his bottle against the wall. The smashed pieces rained to the ground. He stood there in the darkness, moonlight glinting off the jagged broken glass.
David and Freddie locked eyes. They were outnumbered. “Look, we don’t want any trouble—” David began.
“You might not want it, but trouble’s here for you, cottager,” said the first man. “Get ’em, boys.”
The two others grabbed David and Freddie and threw them against a brick wall. The man with the bottle inched closer. “The righteous shall rejoice when he seeth the vengeance: he shall wash his feet in the blood of the wicked.”
Freddie kneed the man who was restraining him, hard, in the groin. “Ooooowww!” As the man howled in pain, he dropped his hands from around Freddie’s neck.
“Run!” David cried.