The Lost Girls of Paris: A Novel

A week after leaving the photos at the British consulate, Grace is back to her usual routine at the law firm. She hasn’t heard from Mark since she walked out of his house without a word. Frankie is now fostering the young refugee, Sammy. Grace delivers the paperwork to the courthouse for him. When she returns, Mark is waiting for her. Grace is delighted to see him and apologizes for leaving without saying goodbye. She admits to feeling overwhelmed by her conviction that Eleanor betrayed the agents.

Mark forgives Grace and admits to a secret of his own. He explains that when he was working on the War Crimes Tribunal, one of the cases he worked on was the trial of an American soldier who shot a German guard after he’d been taken prisoner. Because the soldier shot the guard in violation of the rules of war, Mark wanted to try him for his crimes, but the Americans he was working with accused him of being unpatriotic and treacherous for wanting to try a US soldier. Mark tells Grace that people’s choices are not “black-and-white. Not your choices, not my choices, not Eleanor’s either” (335).

Frankie sees Mark and Grace embracing in the hall and tells them that the notes about Eleanor’s entry into the country include an address in New York where she said she was staying. The address is paired with the name of Marie Roux. Thrilled that Marie might be alive, Grace rushes to the address.

Back in London, Eleanor takes her findings to the Director. She shows him the transmission that she found in Kriegler’s deposit box and accuses him of ignoring his own knowledge that a radio had been compromised. She demands that the Director show her his personal transmission log. His log contains the message as well as the memo on Eleanor’s letterhead to continue transmissions. The Director admits to setting fire to the office building and having files sent to Washington, D.C., where they were unlikely to be investigated.

When Eleanor demands to know why he didn’t tell her and why he didn’t stop the transmissions on his own. He claims that he was just following orders, and that it was a valuable opportunity to feed misinformation to the Germans. He argues that his actions reduced casualties on D-Day by misleading the Germans troop positions.

Eleanor reminds him of the agents like her “girls” and Julian, who died because the security of the network was breached. He states, “Sometimes a few must be sacrificed for the greater good” (340). When Eleanor threatens to go public, the Director reminds her that because her name is on everything, she would be implicated. The Director tells Eleanor that Marie came to see him after the war. He helped her to get a visa and has her address. Eleanor travels to New York to see Marie. She sends a telegram to Marie before she leaves London, asking Marie to meet her at the information desk in Grand Central Station at 8:30 am on February 12. Marie is late to the rendezvous, so Eleanor stashes her suitcase under a bench and goes to check the message boards. With no sign of Marie, Eleanor leaves the train station and crosses the street to a phone booth. From across the street, she sees Marie entering the train station. Eleanor excitedly yells Marie’s name and begins to cross the street. She is struck by a car and killed.

Marie answers her apartment door when Grace knocks. To explain her visit, Grace shows Marie Josie’s photograph and asks Marie to tell her the story of what happened in France during the war. Marie describes being recruited by Eleanor and working with the Vesper network to blow up the bridge before D-Day. A German farmer found her after Josie blew up the train car. He hid her until she could seek out a British unit.

While Marie and Grace are speaking, Tess—now eight years old—comes home. Marie shows Grace a photo album containing pictures taken by one of the male SOE agents. One photo shows Julian and Will. In another, Julian is looking affectionately at Marie. Marie describes her experience at Avenue Foch; she realized that they had been betrayed when the London office responded to her transmission and exposed her bluff on the security checks. When Marie asked the Director about the betrayal, he told her that it must have been Eleanor and showed her the memo on Eleanor’s letterhead. However, Marie didn’t believe his story. She explains that she was late to meet Eleanor that day at the train station because Tess had been sick. After hearing that Eleanor had been hit by the car, she went back to the station and found the suitcase.

Grace and Marie open the suitcase together. Inside, they find Tess’s baby shoes, which Eleanor had been keeping for Marie, along with her butterfly locket. Observing that “Eleanor had no sentiment. She did everything with purpose” (352), Marie inspects the baby shoes and finds a duplicate of the damning memo. There is also a notebook in the suitcase, with Eleanor’s notes about the upcoming parliamentary hearing and a note that she needs Marie to “substantiate the Director’s role” (353). Grace tells Marie that there might be a way to clear Eleanor’s name and go public with the truth about the SOE agents.

A month after meeting Marie, Grace and Mark see each other again and discuss everything the SOE’s intent to let their agents fall into a trap in order to plant misinformation for the Germans. Mark muses that, after the war, everyone just wanted to leave the dark corners of history hidden.

In the intervening month, Grace has been helping Marie to prepare a statement about her experiences and send it to the British Parliament. As a result, Josie and the other agents’ designations were changed to killed in action, which means they are eligible for honors from the government. Meanwhile, Mark is offered a position with the war crimes tribunal and will be working in Europe. He asks Grace to go with him. She is tempted but decides to stay in New York while she settles into her own independence. Grace uses the $10,000 from Tom’s estate to pay for Eleanor’s funeral and gives the rest to Marie and Tess.