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The Drug Abuse Commission in Washington suspected an art supply dealer, Peter Munroe, of drug sales in a university art department . When agent Doug Chase checks up on Munroe at his home, the elderly dealer commits suicide. The Commission investigates but remains baffled, instructing Chase to mark the case Open but Inactive.

In June 1944 a Resistance Army was operating in the Vercors mountain region of eastern France. The OSS parachuted a US Ranger-trained liaison agent, Paul Martin, there instead of the locally requested arms and supplies. Martin had some adventures and fell in love with a local partisan, Odile.

Martin was captured by the Germans, severely questioned and sent to prison camp in July 1944. It was possible for him to reveal information during questioning to protect Odile, pregnant with his child. He was never known to have returned to the Vercors.

In the Spring of the present time, Chase meets Odiles grand-daughter Paulette at a French Embassy party in Washington. They are deeply attracted and she shows him her grandmothers war memorabilia. The agent dimly recognises a man in her newspaper photograph, checks it with Commission facilities, and finds that her grandfather, Paul Martin, may have been Peter Munroe.

During summer vacation, Chase and Paulette visit the Vercors after her grandmothers death where he verifies his suspicion without revealing Peter Munroes

identity. No one can be certain of Paul Martins revelation to his German captors of a hospital cave because there was an unidentified informer. The case of Peter Munroe is marked Closed. Chase finds undeveloped roots in himself.