by Bill James
Or . . . or. Mount did wonder if they’d just had the order to withdraw, withdraw permanently. Why, though? He knew this might be hope rather than a wise guess. A trap? Was it an inducement to go out again, and perhaps lead to somewhere more significant than the gorgeous Steglitz town hall – such as, for instance, the British embassy?
He had waited in the apartment for another couple of hours yesterday. Neither of the cars reappeared, and he’d seen nobody on foot patrol. He felt increasingly baffled that the watch might have been lifted. If the original pair had followed him here from Lichtenberg it must mean, mustn’t it, that they suspected a shady bond between a Foreign Ministry official, full of important secrets, and this stranger – supposing, that is, they hadn’t identified the stranger? How had they connected him with Toulmin on Monday night? They clearly had, hadn’t they, and seeing Toulmin leave the building on Tuesday morning would have confirmed the connection for them. Yet they, or their chiefs, had closed the operation. Madness? Impossible?
Mount tabulated recollections: (5) BRITISH EMBASSY.
He’d made himself a soup and cheese meal, then had yet another look down at the street: still nothing and nobody hanging about. He went from the apartment and, very watchful, set out for the embassy. For the present, he shelved his worry about the chairs. He did some unnecessary changes on the U-Bahn to check for gumshoes, classic anti-tail drills. No. He’d been sure he had no tail. He’d become sure that, if he did have a tail, he would have located it, them. Yes, he’d learned something permanently useful: Mount, stay awake and aware.
At the embassy in Wilhelmstrasse, Bernard Kale-Walker, Head of Passport Control, Germany, as it were, had helped him draft then encode the telegram to SB. It would be decrypted and on his desk at the Section by the end of the day. ‘High-grade material,’ he’d said about the dispatch. ‘High-grade and alarming. What comes next?’
Well, I’ll give things a day and a half in case of developments, and then, if there aren’t any, tomorrow night I must get to the Toledo club and warn two commercial girls there that they might have recently qualified for a state police dossier. I’ll have to concoct some non-espionage tale as to why this should be. Perhaps I’ll take one or both back to the apartment so I can give the yarn in privacy.
Mount had thought this, but didn’t say it. It would have involved telling Kale-Walker he’d unknowingly, stupidly, allowed himself to be tailed from Lichtenberg to Steglitz on Monday night, and that Inge and Olga visited the apartment now and then for a bit of an orgy. These topics Mount preferred to keep quiet about. It might also suggest he was putting an operation at risk for inanely big-hearted reasons. ‘I’ll lie low for a day or so, see if there are any developments,’ he said.
‘What sort of developments?’ Kale-Walker had asked.
‘Occasionally it can be wise to do nothing.’
‘“Masterly inactivity.” Who said that?’
‘Me, if I’d thought of it.’
Perhaps the German security people had become keen on masterly inactivity, too, and so the Olympia had been called home yesterday afternoon. For a reason Mount could not see, did they want for now to avoid a public espionage fracas in Berlin? Politics? Would they allow the link between him and Toulmin to continue? Mount had decided not to make it a priority to warn Toulmin. Another journey to Lichtenberg would be needed, or a wait around the Foreign Ministry once more, or an attempt at a booth phone call. And he couldn’t tell what results any of these might have.
Even if he did get a warning to him, what could Toulmin do? Would either he or Mount be allowed to flee Germany? That was very different from being tolerated inside the country as a clever tactic of some sort, possibly supervised at a distance – at liberty, it seemed, but on a long lead. After all, Toulmin would rate as a traitor, and Mount was a spy. Could Germany possibly let them do a flit? Quite a question, that, and the answer depressing. Possible exits might be arranged, though: a small plane lands at night on a remote, improvised airstrip; a submarine surfaces to meet a rubber dinghy off some secluded beach? Possibly, it would come to something like that. But either would take a deal of setting up, with Kale-Walker most probably in charge, as Service chief in Germany. For now, Mount shelved the notions.
Kale-Walker – square built, blunt faced, hard voiced, grey-eyed – had been messing about with passports, or not, in Berlin for five or six years: an exceptionally long spell in such a sensitive post. SB admired what he called his ‘management abilities, rough-house aura, and polished instincts’, though Mount didn’t know how Kale-Walker had applied the qualities in those five or six years. At Mount’s Oxford college, Kale-Walker had been a scholar with two rugby Blues as a scrum-half, and then a don. But he’d moved over to this other trade a few years before Mount arrived as an undergraduate. ‘Your Russian stuff from the agent – I think it fits with what I’ve been picking up,’ Kale-Walker had said.
‘On which front?’
‘Czecho.’
‘Munich won’t stop him from going in when it suits?’
‘Munich means nothing, as you must know. I’m not sure our people understand the full, mystic dimensions of the problem. Hitler believes he has a mission, a destiny. He thinks he’s the greatest German ever and that, therefore, Germans in what’s been Czechoslovakia since 1919 expect him to free them. He accepts they are entitled to. As he sees it, he has no option. Noblesse oblige. Only he can do it. He’s a saviour picked by Fate. Same with Austria.
‘It’s not Munich that’s holding him back from a march into Czechoslovakia. It’s the military. His generals tell him an attack there would start a European war, with France, Britain and Russia allied against him. They talk to him about belligerent politicians in Britain – Paterin, of course, Churchill, Vansittart. They believe the German army would be under-supplied and smashed by an international coalition. Beck – General Ludwig Beck – has written a secret analysis for Hitler, warning of certain disaster if he acts too soon. I’ve managed to get sight of that. Beck favours a Czecho invasion, but not yet. I’ve given SB the contents, of course. It’s backed by the views of others in the High Command. Some are vehemently anti-Hitler. As you’d expect, he constantly fears assassination, maybe by high rank, disaffected service men. He wears a lightweight bullet proof vest at all times and protective metal in every hat. He’d have to be shot in the face. As an ex-sniper, SB probably would have worked that out for himself. But I’ve mentioned it to him.’
‘In case he’s involved in security for the state visit, you mean?’
‘That kind of thing. And snipers are trained always to go for the top man available. Double shot at him. Don’t waste a bullet on somebody lesser. And don’t get cocky and think you can do it in one. A rapid pair. Knock the leader over and it brings chaos. SB probably will be involved in security for the visit, although he’s nominally the overseas chief. Chamberlain trusts him.’
‘To do what?’
‘But, despite all the risks, kismet still calls the Führer,’ Kale-Walker replied. ‘Perhaps he thinks he can keep Russia out of any alliance against him by a pact – or by the long pretence of seeking a pact. That would tie in with what you sent from your man.’
‘Entirely. Brilliant of you to have got access to the Beck analysis. May I ask how?’
‘Of course you may ask,’ he said.
Mount waited.
‘I have it in mind to get rid of the Steglitz apartment fairly soon,’ Kale-Walker said. ‘We’ve been there too long. These places can become noticeable. And I hear you had trouble with some of the furniture. Do you spot anything else untoward?’
‘It’s ideal.’
‘Well, perhaps. Neighbours all right? Any nosiness, intrusiveness?’
‘We keep ourselves to ourselves.’ Mount stood up to leave. ‘I’ll be in touch again,’ he said.
‘I’m not here for a week. I have to go with the map-makers to Dresden.’
‘We need a new map of Dresden?’
‘The war, if it comes, will mea
n heavy air-bombardment of important towns.’
‘But Dresden is just one big baroque china shop, isn’t it?’
‘Was, until a couple of centuries ago. Meissen next door does the porcelain business now. We need to take a look at the Dresden changes. Key rail-junction? There’ll be all kinds of targets.’
Mount had done what he told Kale-Walker he would do – remain in the apartment and wait for the rest of Tuesday, and most of Wednesday, in case of ‘developments’. None. Toulmin did not arrive, nor Inge nor Olga. As far as Mount could tell, nobody watched the apartment, front or back. Again he postponed any decision on the chairs. Or, rather, he postponed any decision to get rid of them. It would be very hurtful if any, or all, or some, of those three visited and found the chairs had all been removed, including the one they’d so kindly brought. Olga had thought the four chairs vital to the apartment’s ambience. No chairs at all – or different chairs, hastily bought – would upset her and the other two.
Mount had caught up on some reading: a Christopher Isherwood novel set mostly in present day Berlin, Mr Norris Changes Trains; and a story called Venusberg, the second sparse book by an emerging, old Etonian novelist called Anthony Powell, about a British foreign correspondent sent to some Baltic city. Mount thought both tales illustrated pretty well the rackety state of Europe since the October revolution and the war. No wonder there were plenty of jobs in the Service.
Mount, still in the Toledo bar, tabulated recollections, bringing him firmly up to the present: (6) TOLEDO (this evening, earlier).
Tonight – also as he’d told Kale-Walker – he’d gone to the Toledo to look for Inge and Olga and warn them, with the possibility that Toulmin might be there, too. The club soothed him, after all the uncertainties of Monday and Tuesday. SB probably wouldn’t have thought much of the Toledo, though. He was used to the stately comforts and sedate Englishness of the Athenaeum, a different kind of club, not one where anybody could walk in off the street. Mount had walked in off the street to the Toledo. The Athenaeum wouldn’t have let Mount in as a member, of course: too young, too insignificant and lightweight. Clubmen ran Britain. You couldn’t say clubmen ran Germany, not even Toledo clubmen.
The place was pleasantly busy. He couldn’t see the girls or Toulmin, so he stood at the bar and ordered a beer. There were other girls here. The club clearly had a rule that they must not come and pester customers. They stood in a group at the far end of the bar, chattering, laughing, doing an occasional pirouette to exercise their muscles and show all aspects. The mirror took up almost the whole wall behind the bar, so he could look at the girls from two angles. An elderly man in a tuxedo began to play some leisurely tunes on the piano. A couple stood and sedately slow foxtrotted. Mount found himself thinking of the Toledo for a moment as genteel. He approached the girl nearest to him: a thin, quite tall, eye-bright, small-featured blonde. They joined the other couple. He thought he’d be able to get a better view into some of the dimly lit booths from the dance square, in case Inge and Olga were there. The girl moved fluently, and at a respectable distance from him.
She gazed, smiling, into his face. ‘Ah, but you are looking for someone else,’ she said.
‘Yes, sorry. Some friends.’
‘I’m quite new here, but I’m told people often make friends in the Toledo and then come back later looking for them.’
‘This is the mark of a good club,’ Mount said. ‘Which club did you go to before?’
‘There are many clubs in Berlin.’
‘Few as good as the Toledo.’
‘What does “good” mean?’ she replied.
‘Of exceptional quality.’
‘But what gives it that quality? I think you and I would have different views about that. After all, you don’t work here, do you?’
‘I feel at ease in the Toledo.’
‘Why? Because of the bullfight posters? It is not really available to me, you see.’
‘What?’
‘To feel at ease. A customer can feel at ease. For us it is not so simple.’
‘You will get to know people, I expect.’
‘The other girls?’
‘In general.’
‘In this work you don’t get to know people very well.’
‘There are some who come here regularly,’ Mount said. He felt as if everything he said jarred.
‘Yes, I expect some men do. I don’t know whether we ever get to know them, though. Yesterday somebody was here looking for people he knew. People he said he knew.’
‘You didn’t believe him?’
‘It’s an easy thing to say – that you know people.’
They were silent for a while. The music ended. Mount and the girl went to the bar. She asked for champagne, as he had expected her to. He said he’d also have champagne, to make sure she was really drinking what he’d paid for. He watched to see they were served from the same bottle. They were. He didn’t know much about champagne, but it seemed OK. The Toledo must really be quite a club. He said: ‘Do you know the people whom the man yesterday was looking for?’
‘You are English, are you?’ she said. ‘I couldn’t tell at first. Your German is excellent.’
‘But?’
‘But it’s German spoken by an Englishman. And your appearance – English.’
‘English in what way?’
‘As if you own an empire.’
‘We do.’
‘Is that a nice feeling?’
‘I’ve never thought about it very much.’
‘Because it seemed natural to have an empire?’
‘Yes, like that.’
‘Will you always have it, do you think?’
‘Empires do come and go, decline and fall.’
‘I’ve heard of that book,’ she said.
‘Which?’
‘Decline and Fall, by your Evelyn Waugh.’ She sounded the g.
Mount said: ‘There’s also The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by our Edward Gibbon.’
‘And that might happen to your empire?’
‘Perhaps.’
‘If there is a world war two?’
‘No, we would win that.’
‘I think world war two will not take place,’ she said.
‘Who knows?’
‘I expect you’re trying to find the same people as the man who came in yesterday was trying to find,’ she replied.
‘Was he also English, then?’
‘No, very German.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘No accent. And he asked questions about the people he was searching for as if I must answer.’
‘Did you tell him?’
‘I am not happy to be asked questions in that manner.’
‘I’ll be careful. Do people who own an empire also ask questions in that manner?’
‘But you haven’t asked any questions about these people. You’re too clever. You’ll wait for me to tell you about them. This is how you got your empire – in a roundabout way, not just by fighting.’
‘We lost part of an empire by fighting. The others fought better.’
‘You should have behaved in a roundabout way. Then America would still be yours, and you would control the world and Hollywood. But you had a foolish king at that time, didn’t you? His family came from Hanover. They should have stayed there. I am Annette.’
‘Stanley. Which people do you think I’m searching for?’
‘Olga. Inge.’
‘And the man yesterday asked about those two? Did he find them?’
‘They weren’t here. They must have had appointments elsewhere.’
‘Have you seen them recently?’
‘I’ve only been here a little while. Now, you’re asking questions in the way he did.’
‘And that doesn’t work?’
The barman gave them refills.
‘Why are you in Berlin, Stanley?’
‘Business.’
‘Which?’
‘Property.’
‘Do you own property in Germany?’
‘You mean, do I have a personal empire in Germany?’
‘Your English money is strong. Have you bought property with it in Germany because houses and apartments are cheap for you?’
‘I am here to study some of your admirable property on behalf of local government, in case they should want to copy it in England. The plattenbauten. And the town hall at Steglitz.’
‘Perhaps I believe this.’
‘Many countries are interested in plattenbauten. Town halls as well. A colleague called Clifford, also visiting Berlin, is even more interested in plattenbauten than I am.’
‘You are an employee?’
‘Certainly.’
‘You, yourself, do not own plattenbauten developments here, and will not own them in England?’
‘Nor town halls.’
‘Why are Inge and Olga special?’ she replied.
‘Have you seen them lately?’
‘Once, they say, Olga went with a member of the security police. I think more than once. She can be very boastful about this, I gather.’
‘The Gestapo? Was it this man from the Gestapo who came searching for her?’
‘Is that important for you? Also, some of the girls say Olga and Inge know a man from the Foreign Ministry – know him very well. I think he must be in a high post. He has plenty of money.’
‘And was he the one who came searching for them, Annette?’
‘No. But often he’ll come in and meet them here, I understand. I don’t know which he prefers. Olga is very adept, the girls tell me. They seem to like to be three. That is not unusual. Or perhaps they meet some other man later.’ She became irritated. ‘We would all like to be so successful. It’s not pleasant to be with someone who wants to find somebody else.’
‘It’s a business matter.’
‘To do with plattenbauten or town halls, I expect. Or are you to do with that other kind of business?’
‘Which?’
‘I’m not sure. How could I be sure? Security perhaps? Secrets.’
‘Secrets? But plattenbauten are known about internationally. My colleague, Clifford, is exceptionally well acquainted with them.’
