The woman in the jail cell was proving to be a problem.

It was November 13, 1942, and she derived in San Juan de las Abedasas the day before.

She was discovered at the train station with three strange men.

When the Spanish officers demanded to see their passports, none of them could produce

one.

The woman was separated from the group and thrown into a cold, isolated cell.

The notes in her arrest file only deep in the mystery of her identity.

Her Spanish was formal, her accent sounded French to their ears, and her request singular.

I want to speak to the American consul in Barcelona.

The response was also singular.

Among other notes in the woman's arrest report were her dirty clothes and a general appearance

that made it seem like she had slept or eaten well in days.

And notably, she couldn't move without displaying a bad lip.

Whoever this woman was, she certainly didn't belong in San Juan de las Abedasas, a small

mountain town in the far north east of Spain, just over the border with France.

With her formal Spanish and slight French accent, the woman was obviously not a Spanish citizen.

So she was transferred to Miranda del Ebro Prison, some 40 miles away, outside the town

of Fagueras, where her only comfort was a blanket as dingy and tattered as her dress.

So they didn't know it at the time, the Spanish guard had managed to achieve what the Nazis

had not, despite years of intensive searching.

They had captured Virginia Hall, a woman who would go down in the annals of history as

the greatest spy of World War II.

...