What do they hope to gain by it?'
He said: 'I do not know.
Once, this morning, I thought perhaps that they were going to let us go - or at any rate, let the children go to England.
But even that would be no reason for giving us arm-chairs in the shade.'
She said quietly: 'It is a trap.
They want something from us; therefore they try to please us.'
He nodded.
'Still,' he said, 'it is more pleasant here than in that room.'
Marjan, the little Pole, was as suspicious as they were.
He sat aside on the grass in sullen silence; since they had been taken prisoner he had barely spoken one word.
Rose, too was ill at ease; she wandered round the garden, peering at the high walls as if looking for a means to escape.
The younger children were untouched; Ronnie and Pierre and Willem and Sheila played little games around the garden or stood, finger in mouth, looking at the German sentry.
Presently Nicole, looking round, saw that the old man was asleep in his arm-chair.
They spent the whole day in the garden, only going back into their prison room for meals.
Dejeuner and diner were served in the same way by the same silent little waiter under guard; good, plentiful meals, well cooked and attractively served.
After dinner the German soldiers removed the table and the chairs, and indicated that they might lay out their beds.
They did so and put all the children down to sleep.
Presently Howard and Nicole went to bed themselves.
The old man had slept only for an hour when the door was thrust open by a German soldier.
He bent and shook the old man by the shoulder.
'Kommen Sie,' he said.
'Schnell - zur Gestapo.'
Howard got up wearily and put on his coat and shoes in the darkness.
From her bed Nicole said:
'What is it?
Can I come too?'
He said: 'I don't think so, my dear.
It's just me that they want.'
She expostulated: 'But what a time to choose!'
The German soldier made a gesture of impatience.
Howard said: 'Don't worry.
It's probably another interrogation.'
He was hustled away and the door closed behind him.
In the dark room the girl got up and put on her skirt, and sat waiting in the darkness, sitting on her bed among the sleeping children, full of forebodings.
Howard was taken to the room in which they had first been interviewed.
The Gestapo officer, Major Diessen, was there sitting at the table.
An empty coffee cup stood beside him, and the room was full of his cigar-smoke.
The German soldier who brought Howard in saluted stiffly.
The officer spoke a word to him, and he withdrew, closing the door behind him.
Howard was left alone in the room with Major Diessen.
He glanced at the clock.
It was a little after midnight.
The windows had been covered over with blankets for a blackout.
Presently the German looked up at the old man standing by the wall.
'So,' he said.
'The Englishman again.'
He opened a drawer beside him and took out a large, black automatic pistol.
He slipped out the clip and examined it; then put it back again and pulled the breech to load it.
He laid it on the blotting-pad in front of him.
'We are alone,' he said.