[MI5 Officer] Mary Sherer met Phyllis McKenzie, who had worked for British intelligence in New York during the war, and the two women became inseparable. They lived together for the rest of their lives, ‘perfect foils for each other’. Within MI5 they were assumed to be lesbians or, rather, Lesbians [always capitalized in MI5 documents, possibly as a holdover of classical education]. Together they moved to Rome and opened the Lion Bookshop on Via del Babuino near the Spanish Steps. ‘Mary was a very fast runner and would think nothing of pursuing the rather numerous petty thieves that abounded in Rome during and after the war. She loved a challenge.’ This formidable pair of English ladies, known as ‘the Lionesses,’ spent their days surrounded by books and a large posse of dogs: Pekinese, French bulldogs, and pugs, ‘all of which Mary doted on’.

Double Cross: The True Story of the D-Day Spies by Ben Macintyre (via pinhoes)