Giant's Bread by Agatha Christie

In the town of A -- -- in Holland, not far from the German frontier, is an inconspicuous inn. Here on a certain evening in 1917 a dark young man with a haggard face pushed open the door and in very halting Dutch asked for a lodging for the night. He breathed hard and his eyes were restless. Anna Schlieder, the fat proprietress of the inn, looked at him attentively up and down in her usual deliberate way before she replied. Then she told him that he could have a room. Her daughter Freda took him up to it. When she came back, her mother said laconically: "English -- escaped prisoner."

Freda nodded but said nothing. Her china-blue eyes were soft and sentimental. She had reasons of her own for taking an interest in the English. Presently she again mounted the stairs and knocked on the door. She went in on top of the knock which, as a matter of fact the young man had not heard. He was so sunk in a stupor of exhaustion that external sounds and happenings had hardly any meaning for him. For days and weeks he had been on the qui vive, escaping dangers by a hairsbreadth, never daring to be caught napping either physically or mentally. Now he was suffering the reaction. He lay where he had fallen, half sprawling across the bed. Freda stood and watched him. At last she said: