by Andrew Garve
‘A newspaper correspondent.’
‘A correspondent! That is splendid.’ He gripped my arm with long, pale fingers, as though he feared that I might slip away. ‘I also am a journalist. I am the assistant editor of a magazine – Classical Literature. It is a comfortable backwater – quiet, and safe! What is your paper?’
I told him.
‘The Record? Yes, I have seen it once, many years ago. It is not like your Times, but it is a lively paper, an interesting paper.’ Again he smiled. ‘Not like Pravda.’
‘You are very daring, my friend.’
He shrugged. ‘Safety is not everything. A backwater can become tedious. To meet someone from the outside world, the western world, that is worth a risk. Come, we shall have some tea together. My apartment is quite near. You will come?’
For the fraction of a second, I hesitated. I would have liked to know something more of the connection between Mullett, the envelope, and this friendly, naïve, uninhibited little man before committing myself entirely to his care. Disappointment hovered on his face.
‘Please!’ he said.
‘I don’t want to get you into trouble.’
‘Don’t worry – we will be careful. You look very like a Russian.’ He gave me a quick, confidential grin. ‘Like a rising young commissar! You know, you have the accent of the south – how is that?’
‘I once lived in the Ukraine for a while,’ I explained. ‘In Moscow, the accent helps to conceal the fact that I am a foreigner.’
‘Of course – you are clever.’ He halted at number 128. ‘This is where I live. I am a bachelor – we shall not be disturbed once we are in.’
He led the way up three flights of stone stairs and unlocked the door of flat number eight. ‘Follow me,’ he murmured. ‘Do not fear – it is all right.’
I kept close behind him. The smell of cabbage was stronger now, and there were other smells as well – of humanity too closely packed. The flat had four or five rooms, and each room evidently housed at least one family, for here was a clatter of talk from all sides and the sounds of many children. At the end of the passage Liefschitz unlocked another door and ushered me into a small room.
‘This,’ he said, ‘is my home. It is not, I fear, what you are accustomed to. I must apologise for it.’
‘Not at all.’
He smiled. ‘You know how it is with us. Please take off your coat and be comfortable.’
I glanced round. The room was about ten feet square. There was a single divan bed, a dresser piled with books and belongings, a chest of drawers also piled with books, a bureau, a small table and a solitary wooden chair. There was barely space to squeeze between the furniture.
‘You will find that the bed is not too hard for sitting,’ he said. ‘By comparison with others, I am fortunate. At least I have a room – many, as you know, have only space for sleeping. It is a concession to me, because I am an artist and need quiet for my work. Quiet!’ He gave a wry smile, and began to put a cloth on the table. ‘There are some, on the other hand, who live like millionaires. Especially those who write books which find favour. I, too, have written books, but they are not popular with the publishers. They are romantic, idealistic – that is a mistake. In our country, no idealistic book is approved unless its author has been dead for at least fifty years.’
I picked up a battered, paper-backed volume from the bureau. It was a copy of Pride and Prejudice in translation. Its yellow pages had been lovingly sewn together and almost every sheet showed some sign of careful repair.
‘A favourite, I see.’
He nodded. ‘I have many books from the old days. The difficulty is to keep them in one piece. My friends all borrow them. In our country it is only works on dialectical materialism which have shiny covers and crisp pages.’ He opened a cupboard and began to forage.
I put the book down. ‘Please don’t go to a lot of trouble for me,’ I begged him.
His eyes twinkled. ‘My friend, occasions such as this occur rarely. We will eat, we will drink, and we will talk.’ He suddenly became anxious. ‘Or are you, perhaps, in a hurry?’
‘No, no,’ I assured him. ‘I’m in no hurry, but I don’t like to see you depleting your cupboard on my account.’
‘It is a pleasure,’ he said simply, and I knew that further protest would be useless.
Well, he produced everything he’d got. I wasn’t hungry, but he pressed me to partake of crab meat and herring and sausage, and he opened a bottle of wine, and when that was finished he found some sweets, and made tea in a kettle over an electric ring. All the time, we talked. He was avid for news of the outside world, for information about people and happenings. We talked of books and newspapers, of the cinema and theatre, of the coming Festival in London and of my last visit to Paris, of ballet and women’s fashions and music, of Marshall Aid and Korea and the chances of war and peace. Half the time I was out of my depth, and he was amazingly well-informed within the limits of his opportunities, but he listened to me as attentively as though I were an oracle. It was pathetic.
The time passed quickly, and it was after ten o’clock when he gave a long sigh, as though of mental repletion, and switched the conversation to the circumstances of our meeting. ‘The envelope,’ he said. ‘You wanted to ask me about that?’
I nodded. I’d almost forgotten it myself. ‘May I see it once more?’ I passed it across to him and again he fingered it thoughtfully. ‘Where did you get it, my friend?’
‘I found it at the Astoria Hotel. I thought I would like to have a talk with the person to whom it was addressed.’
At that, he looked very surprised. But you are making a mistake – a big mistake. This envelope is not addressed to me. I am Stefan Alexandrovitch Liefschitz. This is addressed to my father, Alexander Alexandrovitch Liefschitz. It is a very old envelope. See, the date is 1931. You thought it was new?’
I had another look. The postmark was by no means clear. Now that I examined it more closely, though, I saw that the figure indicating the year, which I had automatically read as 1951, was indeed 1931. Moreover the royal head on the stamp was that of George V, not George VI. I had been grossly unobservant.
I stared at Liefschitz in some bewilderment. But that’s extraordinary… ’
‘No, it is quite simple,’ he said, smiling. ‘You see, though my father was by profession a curator of museums, his hobby was collecting foreign stamps. He had correspondence with other collectors all over the world. This envelope is no doubt one that he received in that way.’
I felt a stir of excitement. It was as though I had suddenly come upon an entirely new panorama, a country unknown, unsuspected, but full of possibilities.
‘Is your father still alive?’
‘Unfortunately, no. We were living together at number 137 when the bomb fell. He was at home, and I was not. He was killed, and I was transferred here.’
‘Yes, I see. How do you suppose this envelope got to the Astoria Hotel?’
‘That I can tell you, if it interests you. During the war, it was very hard for us in Moscow. You know about that, of course, for you were here. There was very little to eat, and prices in the commercial shops and in the market were high. It was difficult to keep alive, and we all sold what we had in order to buy food. I had nothing but my father’s stamp collection. One could not eat stamps, and one could not sell them – at least, so I thought. Who would pay good money for bits of paper when with the same money it was possible to buy eggs and meat? However, I was wrong. One day I was at a vecherinka, a party, at which most of the foreign colony were present. It was in the spring of 1942 – the first big celebration, I think, after the German retreat. There I got into conversation with a girl – a Russian girl – or perhaps she got into conversation with me. She mentioned the name of an acquaintance of mine who had told her that I had a collection of foreign stamps. She said she knew someone who would perhaps buy them from me. Naturally I was delighted. I met her in Sokolniki Park one Sunday afternoon and she took the
collection away with her. A week later I met her again. She returned the bulk of the stamps, but a few of them she had set aside – perhaps fifty or sixty – and these she said she would like. We discussed payment, and arranged where I was to receive it. She took away the loose stamps in an envelope, for safety, and because of the green ink I remember that this was the envelope. It had been preserved, I suppose, with the rest of the collection, for my father hated to throw a stamp away.’
‘Can you tell me what the girl was like?’ I had to ask, though it seemed hardly necessary.
He threw out his hands, rather wistfully. ‘Young, pretty, with fair hair – long on her shoulders and cut in a fringe. A nice girl – I was sorry our relationship was so commercial. I never learned her name. She worked, I think, for VOKS.’
I nodded. ‘I suppose you don’t happen to know who the stamps were for?’
‘Obviously for a foreigner, but the name… ? No, I don’t know.’
‘Did you get a good price?’
He smiled. ‘I am not a philatelist – until then I had never been interested in the value of postage stamps. I can tell you this – she was satisfied with the bargain, for she asked me if I knew the names of other collectors in Moscow, and I was able to give her one or two from a notebook of my father’s. Yes, and I was satisfied, too. I received a tin of American butter, nearly a kilo, and four tins of meat – spam, I think it was called, very good indeed – and two pairs of nylon stockings which I sold for a fabulous sum in roubles, and a pair of trousers, which I wore. As a matter of fact, I still have the trousers.’
‘You have! Would it be possible, do you think… ?’
He laughed. ‘You would like to see them? Pazhaluista!’ He rummaged in the chest of drawers and presently produced them. They were an ordinary pair of cloth trousers, of a light herring-bone tweed, and at one time had no doubt been part of a suit. Now they were threadbare, patched and darned, and a little stained. By the cut, I judged they were not of Russian make. There was no tailor’s mark, but just inside the waistband there was what looked like an old laundry or dry-cleaning mark, now barely decipherable.
Liefschitz held them up against him. ‘They were too long for me,’ he said, ‘but that was not difficult to remedy. They have given me good service. Now, alas, they are no longer fit to wear.’
‘They would still be of great value to me,’ I told him. ‘If I paid you enough roubles to buy a new Russian pair, would you allow me to take them?’
‘But that is absurd,’ he said. ‘If you want them, you can have them with pleasure, but do not talk of payment. They are worn out, my friend.’
‘You know I can’t take them for nothing, and there’s no reason why I should. As it is, you will be doing me a great favour.’
He shrugged and smiled. ‘Very well, if you insist.’ He folded them up carefully and then turned to me with a slightly worried look. ‘All this makes me very curious.’
‘Yes, it must do.’ I debated what to say. ‘The thing is, I’d like to tell you what it’s all about, and if you insist I will tell you, for you have the right to know. It will be better, though, if I don’t. You see, in some strange way this envelope and the girl who took it from you and these trousers have all got mixed up in a case of murder.’
‘Murder!’ He looked at me with a startled expression and then shook his head. ‘You are right, I am not interested in murder. There are enough problems already. Better not to tell me.’ He stood hesitating. ‘Shall we meet again, perhaps?’
‘It would be unwise. I’m immensely grateful for your hospitality and your help and it’s been delightful to talk to you – but to see each other again would be most dangerous. For you, and for me. You must believe me.’
‘Of course,’ he said sadly. ‘It is always the same. We open a little window, and a breath of fresh air comes in, a ray of light, and then quickly we have to slam it lest something horrible happens to us.’
He wrapped up the trousers in an old newspaper and I put a thousand-rouble note on the table. I don’t think he even noticed. He helped me on with my shuba and I thanked him again and we walked to the outer door.
‘Good-bye, my friend,’ he said, leaning over the stair rail as I began to descend. His voice dropped to a murmur. ‘You are very fortunate – to be English.’
Chapter Fourteen
What Leifschitz had told me seemed to put a very different complexion on the case. Until now, I had taken it for granted that the motive for Mullett’s murder had been a personal one – hatred, perhaps, or revenge, or fear. Now there was a hint, if no more, of a possible financial angle. I was far from seeing how this new element fitted into the known picture, but as I scrunched my way back through the snow to the Astoria I certainly had plenty of food for thought. I wondered just how much money had been at stake.
All that I knew about philately would have gone easily on to a Penny Black, but you didn’t have to be an expert to know that stamp collections could be valuable, and Liefschitz’s foreigner had had exceptional opportunities. Russia had for years been virtually cut off from normal interchanges with the outside world and there must have been an unusually rich treasure-house to rifle. The fact that Liefschitz had been no haphazard contract but one of a systematically exploited chain showed that the enterprise had been on a considerable scale, and the care with which the collections had evidently been sifted was the mark of an expert who knew his values. The business must have been all the more lucrative since the stamps had been obtained in return for what, to a foreigner, must have seemed trivial – the surplus items of wardrobe and larder which he could have replenished with no great difficulty. For that negligible outlay, it seemed to me, he might well have amassed a collection of hand-picked stamps which would have been worth a small fortune after the war in the free markets of the western world.
He had been, evidently, a discreet as well as a not over-scrupulous person. A foreigner, making his own contacts and doing his own trading with Russians on such a scale, would most likely have drawn unfavourable attention to himself in the end. The authorities, quite understandably, had never liked the ‘trinkets for copra’ method of trade. But with Tanya to act as his go-between, he would have been able to sit back securely and wait for the wealth to pour in. I wondered just how much Tanya herself had got out of it all. No more, probably, than a good share of imported luxuries, but to a young girl in wartime Moscow that would have meant all the difference between privation and affluence.
The main thing now was to discover what, if any, the connection had been between this nine-year-old racket and the present murder. That there was some link, I felt sure. Tanya had been deep in the stamp business; Tanya had allowed the murderer to pass through her room; and an envelope that related to the same stamp business had been found among Mullett’s papers. Surely there was significance in that chain of events? At the same time, it was very much in my mind that the stamp racketeer’s loot would have had no value as long as it was kept in Russia, and that he would therefore have taken it out with him at the first opportunity – and sold it. If the treasure had been liquidated, where did the financial motive come in?
There was another thing. If the stamps had been removed from the country and sold, by what strange accident had that old envelope reappeared in Moscow after all this time? Had it perhaps been tucked away in some old wallet, or suit and been brought to light again more of less fortuitously? It was possible, but surely unlikely? Again, how had Mullett, of all people, come to be connected with it? One explanation was obvious; but I found it even more difficult to imagine a man of Mullett’s character and interests as an avaricious buyer-up of underpriced goods than as an agent of MI5.
All the same, the possibility that he had been a secret philatelist had to be explored, and the only place to search for indications was, once again, his room. I noticed, as I approached along the corridor, that the watchdog had been withdrawn. Presumably the police felt that they no longer had anything to hide.
Getting into Mullet
t’s room was now simple routine. I broke the seals just before midnight and a few moments later I was standing once more on the bloodstained carpet. No one had taken the trouble to seal Mullett’s doors up again, and the appearance of the place was, if anything, more untidy and neglected than when I had last been there. Apparently the hotel people proposed to leave the room undisturbed until the time came for the delegation to depart.
My search of Muller’s effects was far more leisurely and detailed than on my first visit. I was necessarily a little vague about what, specifically, I was looking for; I simply had the feeling that it was somehow unlikely – supposing Mullett to have been interested in stamps – that that one envelope would be the only sign. Philatelists, like other enthusiasts, tended to carry some signs of their hobby around with them. If there had been any of the heavier impedimenta – catalogues or magazines or albums – I should already have seen them, but I thought that there might be some notebook among his effects, with tell-tale entries; some reference in a diary,perhaps, to a successful purchase; even, maybe, a loose stamp or two. It took me more than an hour to turn out all his drawers and cases, with their now familiar contents, and to examine all his small possessions one by one. At the end of it, I’d drawn a complete blank. Apart from that nine-year-old envelope, there was nothing.
I felt baffled. After my talk with Liefschitz I’d really begun to feel there was a chance that I might break the case open, but now I seemed to have lost the trail again. I sat down moodily on a chair arm and lit a cigarette, thinking that quiet contemplation of the scene might assist the flow of ideas. Almost with exasperation, I saw in my mind’s eye that envelope lying among the papers. It had been as out of place there as an inkstand on a luncheon table. Who had put it there, and why?
When I stubbed out my cigarette ten minutes later I was as far from an answer as ever and there seemed no point in sticking around. Perhaps Jeff would be able to suggest something in the morning. I crossed the room and was just going to switch off the light when, as my eye traversed the enigmatic countenance of Stalin above the divan, something about the picture struck me as odd, and I paused. The heavy gilt frame, which before had hung slightly askew, was now quite straight. Of the many objects in the room which had contributed to the general appearance of disorder, only the picture of the Great Leader and Teacher had received attention.
