A PRELUDE TO VERSAILLES: Love and Intrigue at the Paris Peace Conference by Mark Anthony Sullivan

Author:Mark Anthony Sullivan [Sullivan, Mark Anthony]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-06-30T22:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER XVII

Murphy was at the Hôtel de Crillon preparing to catch up on his invoices when Madame Hardy told him a woman was there to see him, a woman who would give her name only as Martine. Murphy said to show her in. Did this mean she had a tip for him? When she arrived he brought her right over to his desk “What can I do for you?”

Her eyes swept around the whole salon. “May I sit?”

He gestured at the empty chair. “Of course.”

She folded her hands in her lap and sat up straight. “I have information for you about the woman you called Angeline.”

Murphy had to constrain himself from jumping out of his chair. “That’s the most interesting thing I’ve heard in a long series of interesting things.”

She handed him a large photo. “Look at this.” The photo showed the front steps of a school in Brussels with about twenty girls in school uniforms. They all appeared to be about ten or eleven years old. “This photo was taken in 1906. Look at the girl on the extreme left of the second row.”

Murphy’s face froze. “Oh my God! It looks like a young Angeline.”

Martine smiled. “It is. Now look at the caption with her name.”

“Natasha Volkov?” He gazed back at Martine with his mouth still open.

Martine sat back. “Yes, Natasha was born in Brussels. Her father was a Russian diplomat. The family returned to Russia three years after this picture was taken, but Natasha had spent the first fourteen years of her life in Belgium, which was why it was so easy for her to impersonate a Belgian woman.”

“That’s why my friend Claude Bisset was convinced by her accent.”

Martine allowed herself a slight smile. “Undoubtedly. In Russia she began to associate with other young people aligned with the Bolsheviks. She became a full-fledged Bolshevik herself. Her special talent was luring aristocrats and czarist government officials into compromising situations which could be used against them.”

“Why did you go to so much trouble to find this out?”

“Lieutenant Murphy, I thought I made it clear to you how vital it was to me to make sure what did happen in Belgium was accurately set forth. When a phony like her tells fake stories of her own involvement, it creates a false trail and threatens to destroy everything I work for. Her lies sabotaged our credibility.”

“What was she doing with me, here in Paris?”

“Considering how you met, she was certainly acting under orders from her Bolshevik controllers. What her purpose was is still vague.”

“Who killed her? Was it one of her previous victims?”

“That is unlikely. It is more likely that you were the immediate target for a frame-up, but you could not have been the ultimate target. I don’t mean to offend you, but you are not important enough to justify this level of operation.”

Murphy looked away. “I already knew that. What was their real goal?”

“Even I don’t know. What I can tell you though is, as much as I hate the Germans, they are not the ones after you.

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