It was embarrassing, but with a war going on, embarrassment was a luxury I couldn’t permit myself.

The deep gray and cold of dawn were burning off into a pleasant morning as I walked along the Rue St. Philip in Valence, trying to piece together all I’d heard about the man I was to meet and solicit, Auguste Lupa.

We hadn’t made an appointment, but I knew where he would be, since every morning he followed a strict routine: up at eight a.m., a walk through the town garden, then a corner table at La Couronne from nine thirty until noon, drinking beer and reading newspapers, nearly always alone. During the afternoons, he would disappear for five hours-no one seemed to know where. He’d then reappear just before six, prepared to work as chef at La Couronne, where he was reputed to be a genius even in this land of chefs sans pareille. What was embarrassing was that we needed him, and I was chosen to meet him because of a weakness we shared for beer. We needed him, a chef not yet turned twenty-five, because he was the best spy in Europe.

May 18, 1915. The Huns were having a heyday, plumbing the depths to which humanity could sink. They’d already shown their disregard for treaty and commitment by marching across neutral Belgium last August, but the events of this month surprised even those of us who were supposedly inured to their perfidy. Two weeks ago, they’d torpedoed the ship Lusitania, killing hundreds of civilians, and on the battlefield at Ypres, they’d just introduced a new element into warfare, the heretofore-outlawed poison gas.