The map of the German ammunition dump

The map of the German ammunition dump is the secret document Leni finds among the papers in the German officer’s study. Its importance lies not only in what it identifies—the region and village where the ammunition is hidden—but in how possession of that information draws Leni deeper into espionage, exposes her to discovery, and gives her a means of negotiating access to the French Resistance.

Discovery in the Study

Leni reaches the map after obtaining the key to the desk from the German officer. While searching through the study’s papers, she hears footsteps and hides on the balcony outside the room, perilously exposed to the officers gathered in the garden below. Butler / maquis leader enters the study to look for her, while a recording of a song continues to play. Its imminent end makes the concealment especially precarious: records at the time held only one song, so the music cannot cover her for long.

When Butler / maquis leader leaves, Leni slips back into the room and resumes her place at the piano just as the record finishes. The listeners applaud, believing that she has performed live. The map’s discovery therefore depends on a performance that diverts attention from her search; the same scene leaves her with the secret while preserving her cover, at least temporarily.

Disclosure and the Museum Meeting

At a later meeting with Clubfoot and the young cousin, Leni reveals the location she has found: a region in France and the precise village where the ammunition is concealed. The meeting takes place in a vast museum, among enormous dinosaur exhibits and high panes of glass overlooking the River Seine. Clubfoot treats the disclosure as the start of further work, warning that there is no backing out once someone becomes involved in spying. He also tells Leni that the German officer will hate her when he learns of her betrayal.

Leni hesitates before giving up the location, but the young cousin’s trembling prompts her to speak. Seeing her anger afterward, the cousin tries to push Clubfoot through a window. The attempt turns the disclosure of the map’s information into a moment of immediate danger, though the account does not establish the full outcome of the struggle. The secret has been passed on, but it has not brought Leni control over what follows.

A Secret Used as Leverage

In a subsequent maneuver, Leni insists that she be allowed to meet the French Resistance high command before she turns over the secret arsenal’s location. She arranges for the German officer and his soldiers to follow her, intending to lead them to the black-market network and round up its members. The driver, the same man who had driven Clubfoot, realizes they are being followed and changes course to lose the Germans.

The driver takes Leni to a castle, where she is presented to the resistance leader: Butler / maquis leader, the same man who had been watching her in the study. The map thus underlies both disclosure and negotiation. Information she first finds while trying to avoid discovery becomes a condition for reaching the group’s leadership, while the effort to use that meeting to expose the network is disrupted by the driver’s intervention. The document’s importance rests on this shifting control of its secret, rather than on any description of the map itself.