She pushed past Marion and opened the door to her office. Unlike the back entrance, the hinges on this door were well oiled and made no sound. Frau Roslyn motioned Marion inside, then she closed the door, easing the latch into place.

“The soldiers,” Marion said, “they won’t hurt the children, will they?”

The woman shook her head. “Jan is up there.”

Jan was Roslyn’s cousin. A large Swiss-German man who had the benefit of being a former member of the Swiss government, something Roslyn would have made sure the soldiers knew.

“Where’s Iris?” Marion asked.

Roslyn put a finger to her mouth, then turned and edged her way around the large metal desk that seemed to take up half the room. She reached up and made sure the curtains across the window on the back wall were fully closed. Then, instead of sitting down in the old wooden chair, she continued past the desk to the sidewall. Like the rest of the room, the wall was painted off-white. On it were hung several framed pictures of Frau Roslyn with children who had at one time or another lived in the orphanage. They all seemed to be smiling and happy and content.

The old woman moved one of the pictures to the side and touched a spot on the wall. There was a faint click, then the wall eased open an inch. Roslyn reached around the edge of the opening and pulled the wall out like a door.

Marion’s eyes widened in surprise.

“Come, come,” the old woman said.

Marion hesitated a moment longer, then moved around the desk and joined Frau Roslyn.

Since the hidden door swung out into the office, Marion had not been able to see what was inside until the door was all the way open. The space it revealed wasn’t large, maybe a meter deep at best, and only as wide as the opening. It was made even more cramped by the fact that it wasn’t empty.