Rachel Steele walked into the German Embassy arm in arm with the eager young Prussian officer, wearing her fanciest dress. It had been easy enough to convince him to bring her to this party as his date for the evening, and that had gotten her inside. She mingled with the other guests, always on the lookout for useful information, but her real goal was in the ambassador's safe. If her source was right, it contained a list of every German agent operating in Britain. Such a prize would be of incalculable value, and she was just the one to seize it.
The orchestra began to play, and Rachel's suitor led her out onto the dance floor. She danced with all of her characteristic grace, but she allowed him to lead and didn't dance
too well, so as not to draw undue attention to herself. The last thing she wanted was to be noticed or remembered. After a few dances, she excused herself to powder her nose and made her way up the grand staircase. She walked through the upstairs halls, guided by the blueprints of the embassy she had studied, making her way to the ambassador's room. A beefy man in uniform stood guard outside the door.
"Halt!" he commanded. "What are you doing here?"
"Pardon me," said Rachel ."I'm a little lost. I was looking for the powder room."
The guard sighed. "Back the way you came, down the hall to the right."
"Thank you." Rachel turned on her heel and rounded the corner.
There had to be another way into the room. Rachel soon located a window, pushed it open, and peered outside. There was a ledge running around the house beneath. While it was narrow, it was nothing she couldn't handle. She climbed out of the window, stood on the ledge, and closed it behind her. Then she carefully made her way around the embassy's exterior along the ledge until she reached a window she knew led into the ambassador's room. She cracked it open and pushed the curtain aside slightly to look inside. The room was dark and empty, just the way she liked it. She opened the window the rest of the way and slipped into the room, which she began to search methodically. It didn't take her long to locate the safe, concealed behind the portrait of Kaiser Wilhelm II. Taking a stethoscope out of her purse, she used it to listen to the tumblers as she turned the safe's dial, soon deducing the correct combination. She oiled the hinges to silence them. Then she turned the handle and pulled.
The safe door opened quietly enough, but immediately there was the sound of breaking glass. Worse than that, Rachel caught a whiff of a scenr that she barely had time to recognize as that of ether before she grew dizzy. She slid down the wall to the floor, and everything went black...
* * *
Rachel was awakened by a different smell, the sharp, pungent odor of smelling salts. Opening her eyes, she found her wrists tightly manacled to the stone wall of a dank dungeon. It was lit by a fireplace on the opposite side of the room. On the right wall, a closed metal door was the only exit. Before her stood a bald German with a monocle who held a bottle under her nose. When he saw her eyes flicker open, he pulled it away.
"So, at least we meet, Mrs. Steele," her captor said with an unpleasant grin. "Your reputation precedes you, but you are not half so clever as you think, or you would not have fallen so easily into my hands."
"Go on, have yourself a good gloat, then," said Rachel with a sigh. "Just exchange me for one of your agents that we've captured and have done with it."
"Oh, no, no, no, Mrs. Steele. Now that I've got you, you won't get away. I'm sure you've realized by now that the source who told you about the list was lying. If you were ever to be released and report back, he would be exposed, and he is to valuable to lose. There never was any list, of course. It was all a trap, and you walked right into it. No, Mrs. Steele, you will spend the rest of your life in this dungeon. But do not worry, it won't be all that long." He cackled with glee.
"If you're going to kill me, get on with it. At least it will spare me having to listen to your voice."
"All in good time, my dear. I'd be well within my rights to kill you out of hand, of course. You are a spy, caught in the act on German soil. But first..." He paced slowly over to the fireplace, picked up the poker, and prodded the fire, holding the end in the flames as he turned to look at her. "First you're going to tell me everything you know."
Rachel met his gaze, defiance in her eyes. "Never! I'll die before I tell you anything!"
He removed the poker from the flames, holding up the red hot end as he approached her. "That is a distinct possibility."
Rachel shuddered, more terrified than she had ever been in her entire life. She didn't think she could stand up to torture. The German laughed maniacally as he stepped up next to her, holding the scorching tip of the poker mere inches from her face. She stared at it with wide eyes, fighting back tears. "The sounds of your screams will be music to my ears, Mrs. Steele. This is your last chance before I have to permanently scar your lovely face."
Rachel clenched her teeth and prepared for the worst. In a novel, the hero would burst in and save her at the last second, which this definitely was. But this was no novel, and nobody was going to come bursting through the door. If she was going to get out of this mess, she would just have to do it herself.
Bracing against the wall, Rachel drove her knee between the torturer's legs with all of her might. He let out a high-pitched squeal, doubling over and dropping the poker with a clatter as the monocle slipped from his eye and shattered on the hard stone floor. A man's chuckle came from beyond the door, no doubt a guard thinking that she had made the sound. Before her captor could recover and simply pick up the poker again, she hoisted her legs up and wrapped them around his neck, squeezing for all she was worth. He clutched at her calves as he slowly asphyxiated, but he was unable to break her iron grip. He fought for a long time, but eventually his face turned purple and he ceased struggling. Rachel exhaled with relief and let him collapse to the floor.
However, Rachel was not out of danger yet, not by a long shot. First, she had to free her arms. Relaxing her muscles, she began to slide her right hand out of the manacle. It took a lot of effort and was very painful, but she was nimble enough to slip it out. Then she took out a hairpin from her coif and swiftly picked the lock on the manacle around her left wrist. Rubbing her hands, she tiptoed to the door and listened at it. Hearing nothing, she tried the handle and found it to be locked. Fortunately, the German had a ring of keys on his belt, and it didn't take her long to find the right one. She cautiously pulled open the door and found a German soldier standing on the other side, his back to her. A swift chop to the back of his neck knocked him out, and she liberated the Mauser automatic pistol from his holster. At the end of the hall beyond the door were stairs leading upwards. She crept upstairs and found herself in a rear hallway in the embassy. Exiting the back door, she hurried across the moonlit embassy grounds towards the fence surrounding it.
"Halt!" cried a voice from Rachel's left. Another embassy guard was there, and he drew his pistol, but Rachel fired first, dropping him with a single shot.
At the sound of the gunshot, more guards began to emerge from the embassy, too many to fight. Rachel sprinted to a tall tree next to the fence. Leaping up, she grabbed a branch with both hands, swinging back and forth to build up momentum. When she had enough, she swung out over the fence just as gunfire rang out behind her. The bullets went wide, and she released the branch as she sailed over the fence, tumbling safely to the ground on the other side. Safe on British soil at last, she sprang to her feet and trotted away, heading for the Diogenes Club to report what she had learned to Mycroft Holmes, after which the German agent who had set her up could be captured. "All in a night's work," she said to herself, rubbing her hands together.