Web of Spies

by Colin Smith

  ‘Were I ever to be a spy, which I most certainly am not,’ said Maeltzer, ‘I would only do it for a great deal of money. But are you saying that your friend showed no interest in my activities until you mentioned my little circus trick?’

  ‘I don’t know. How would I? The major would not discuss his work with a lady.’

  ‘Even so, you seem to think that it was this that sparked him off?’

  ‘Not quite that. But perhaps it was as if he at last had the missing link, the answer to something which had been puzzling him for a long time. I’m sorry. I am truly sorry, even if we are in opposite camps.’

  ‘My dear lady,’ groaned Maeltzer. ‘We are not in opposite camps, I assure you. Why on earth would I bother to lie at this stage of the proceedings? It’s hardly likely to save my neck. I really am an innocent man. As a young reporter, I often covered murder trials, and watched as some poor devil was dragged from the dock screaming his innocence. And, I suppose, I found their denials about as credible as you seem to find mine. Now I begin to wonder just how many of those poor wretches really didn’t poison their husbands or cut a throat for that particular purse.’

  Maeltzer looked away, rubbing an anguished hand over his face and through his hair – and was then astonished to feel a gloved hand briefly touch the one he had left on the table. He looked up to see his visitor gazing at him with an expression which seemed to contain an element of genuine affection towards him as well as pity.

  ‘Dear Herr Maeltzer,’ she said. ‘I would like to believe you, really I would, but from what I heard the evidence was – well, it was very convincing.’

  ‘You mean the writing – the lemon juice between the paragraphs?’

  She nodded.

  ‘You heard correctly. It was very damning. It was also fabricated. My lemons were for exactly what you thought they were for – for making drinks with.’

  ‘Then if you didn’t write this message who did? I heard that at your trial you accused Major Krag of writing it. Is that true?’

  ‘Yes, it is.’

  ‘But that’s a ridiculous idea! Why should Major Krag, an honourable man, wish to incriminate you in this way?’ She sat up straighter in her chair, her hands clasped firmly together just beneath her chin, as though she was frightened about where they might stray if left to their own devices.

  ‘Why indeed? I know it’s hard to imagine, but I can’t see who else would be responsible. According to Krag’s own evidence my report never left his sight during the period it was with him for censorship. So there wasn’t much chance of anybody else doing it.’

  ‘I don’t see how, even in your present position, you can make these wild accusations.’ She was not looking directly at him, and one hand was fiddling with the hatpin again. For the first time he sensed that her indignation was a front. She genuinely wanted to know.

  Maeltzer permitted himself another long sigh. ‘Madame Shemsi, I don’t know how much you know about my case. I assume you know what most of Jerusalem must know by now: which is that I’m supposed to be the British spy who calls himself Daniel and has amazingly easy access to von Kressenstein’s headquarters?’ She nodded, her lips compressed and her chin leaning on her hands.

  ‘I fear that what I’m about to say you will find offensive,’ Maeltzer went on. ‘But since I’m very flattered that you’ve come and because you may well turn out to be the last friendly face I see before I meet my Maker I would like you to promise me to hear me out. Will you do this?’

  ‘Say your piece. I won’t walk out.’

  ‘Madame, I’m sure that there is a side to Major Krag’s character that is admirable, otherwise a lady of your undoubted quality would not have him as a friend.’

  She blushed a bit at this and nibbled at her lower lip.

  ‘However, the major has never been, during my time in Jerusalem, a particularly well-regarded figure among his colleagues, although they would concede that he did his duties well enough. As far as working with the Turks was concerned, he is the most experienced member of his staff. Nevertheless, it can’t have escaped your notice that, despite his undoubted qualities, Major Krag has remained Major Krag. By which I mean he is old for a major, older than Kress I should think, and this in a war where boys of twenty-five are carrying his rank on other fronts.’

  ‘As a matter of fact I never thought about it,’ she said, honestly enough. ‘I suppose I’m used to the Turkish army, where people remain majors for a long time.’

  ‘Well, there it is,’ said Maeltzer. ‘By the standards of the modern German army Major Krag is underpromoted. As you know, he is not from the traditional officer class. He comes from a fairly humble background; he’s had to make his own way and all credit to him for that. But his lack of progress after a certain point appears to have made him a bitter man. His rank does not bear out his considerable talents.

  ‘This inner demon makes him an acerbic character. He appears to have no friends, at least no male friends. Recently he has been on the receiving end of one humiliation after another. First of all von Papen, von Falkenhayn’s poodle – who is everything Major Krag is not – is put in charge of the investigation into the Daniel Affair. Then young Weidinger goes off on a routine patrol in the Beersheba sector and by an incredible stroke of luck comes back with the crown jewels – one of the biggest intelligence scoops of the campaign. No wonder your friend feels eclipsed.

  ‘But what if it is Krag and not von Papen who catches Daniel? Now there’s something. Major Krag is in possession of a certain piece of information. Weidinger, young puppy, always anxious to please, has reported to him that one of our licensed religious maniacs, Magnus the tall Swede, has been changing gold sovereigns. Much to Major Krag’s annoyance – this was one of the things that came out at my so-called trial –Weidinger has even hired a man to follow the Swede about the place and report on his movements. Krag orders Weidinger to call his man off and puts his own agent onto the case.

  ‘Before long this poor prophet is trailed to the hovel of the elderly Jew Smolenskin, who is now quartered not far from here and may shortly achieve his life’s ambition to die in Jerusalem. He pays Smolenskin in gold to place those written prayers the Jews call kvitals in the cracks in the Wailing Wall. Smolenskin swears that the prayers were written in the same kind of gibberish which the Swede ranted all the time – his Pentecostal tongues.

  ‘Your friend says that this was merely a cunning ruse, that these were not prayers but coded messages from Daniel, and that Magnus was part of a chain of go-betweens that got them back to the British through the Aaronsohn network, the Nili group as they called themselves. You may have noticed the reward posters up for one Joseph Lishansky, who was Sarah Aaronsohn’s beau – at least that is what she seemed to want people to believe. He was the one who collected Daniel’s droppings when he went to pray at the wall.

  ‘What a brilliant piece of detection work by Major Krag! The only trouble is he is still no nearer to Daniel, who has skilfully ensured that there are two people, Smolenskin and Magnus, between him and his messages getting to the Wall. Of these only Magnus may have actually met the spy, and even then it is possible that Daniel avoided contact by leaving his prayers for the Swede to collect from various hiding-places, or even from a third person. For this Daniel takes endless precautions to cut himself off from the other British agents in the Nili group. He is like one of those Chinese puzzle boxes. You remove one box only to be confronted by another. At the very bottom of the pile (or is it at the top?) is a secret place called Daniel.

  ‘So if Krag is correct Magnus would have provided the missing link, but poor Magnus is murdered. By a common thief? Another religious maniac? By Daniel himself? We will probably never know. Certainly, it was very convenient for Daniel, wasn’t it?

  ‘Now let’s say your friend, unable to interrogate Magnus, starts to think over the people around headquarters who had anything to do with him. I mean, everybody knew him. He was always there with his ridiculous staff, gibbering at the sen
tries at the main entrance. And as the major puts his not inconsiderable brain power to work it occurs to him that the journalist Carl Maeltzer has often been seen slipping the Swede the odd coin, patting him on the back, that sort of thing. Could it be that he is slipping him more than a coin? Perhaps, sub-consciously, he has always resented Maeltzer for his access and a certain intimacy with Kress, who used to give him the odd titbit just to remind the German press that the Kaiser does have soldiers in Palestine.

  ‘Suddenly it all seems to fit. The more he thinks about it the more convinced he is that Maeltzer is Daniel. For what other reason would Maeltzer be the only correspondent – foreign, German, Austrian or Turkish – to be permanently based in Jerusalem? A couple of other newspapers have correspondents in Damascus who divide their time between there and here and sometimes Mesopotamia. But why is it that Maeltzer has apparently persuaded his employers that Jerusalem is the only place to be when his colleagues seem to think that it is not worth more than an occasional visit? Why does Maeltzer put up with the heat, the dust, the malaria, the bad food, for month after month, very often not getting more than a few paragraphs a week in his newspaper? I think the major, being a thorough man, would have checked that sort of thing, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes, he is a most meticulous man,’ she said, remembering the way his uniform hung at the end of her bed on the dumb valet he had had delivered to her room at the Grand New Hotel. ‘Please go on.’

  ‘As I said, it all fits. But the only trouble is there is precious little material evidence. His father would have told him that. Funny, I didn’t know that he was a policeman. That fits as well.

  ‘Let’s look what he’s got. If you will accept for the moment that the secret message discovered between the paragraphs of my despatch was not written by me, Major Krag has one exhibit: the message from Daniel which the Turks intercepted when one of the Nili group’s pigeons went astray. Smolenskin gave evidence at my tribunal that it looked like one of the prayers Magnus used to give him.

  ‘Apart from that, there is nothing but conjecture. I am a journalist. I have certain access. I may know more than I write. I have a friendship with a young staff officer who is known to be a bit garrulous. And yet Major Krag is certain that I am the British spy. All his instincts tell him this. How intolerable for him! How frustrating! Nor is it simply a matter of his own ambition. Lives are at stake. The Fatherland must be protected. In war the rules have to be broken from time to time. Even in peacetime policemen have been known to manufacture evidence in order to secure the conviction of a cunning and vicious criminal. And then, in the midst of all this you, dear lady, happen to mention the business of the lemons. Can he afford to wait until more harm is done? Isn’t it his duty to act now?’

  The Widow Shemsi held up a gloved hand. ‘I’m sorry. I really can’t hear any more of this,’ she said, playing with her hatpin again. ‘You don’t have a single shred of evidence to back your theory. To me it just sounds like a fanciful web concocted to smear an honourable and clever man. There is evidence and it is against you and all you can do is cry forgery. I don’t blame you for trying to save yourself, Herr Maeltzer, but surely this is pathetic? It has so little chance of success that you would have done better to have preserved your dignity by not starting it at all. I think I’d better –’

  ‘No, wait. Please. There is not much more, but there is something I really do want you to know.’

  ‘Just a few more minutes. Major Krag would not be best pleased if he knew I was here.’

  The tone was almost conspiratorial. Once again he saw that her indignation was an act, something she considered propriety demanded. And there is nothing, thought Maeltzer, more proper than a lady in her position. She had no intention of leaving.

  ‘At my trial young Weidinger testified that he let me see the British papers he had captured and thus proved that I was privy to the information discovered in the invisible writing on my despatch. Now I’ve never denied that Weidinger showed me those papers. How could I? I’ve written an account of it all in my diary which was lying on my desk when I was arrested. And yet, it’s an odd thing, your friend never mentioned that diary, either to me when he was questioning me or later to the tribunal. Was it simply because there were some unflattering references to himself? Surely the major is not such a sensitive soul? Or could it possibly have been because master-spies are unlikely to keep journals giving detailed accounts of who told them what and when as well as much else? Doesn’t quite fit that sort of thing, does it? But it’s a handy primer for manufacturing “evidence”, isn’t it? Perhaps you could ask him, Madame, whatever became of my diary?’

  ‘But why didn’t you raise it at the tribunal?’

  ‘Why indeed. It just didn’t occur to me. Like everybody else my mind was entirely concentrated on the words between the paragraphs. I couldn’t believe that something so monstrous was happening to me.’

  ‘Well, I suppose it is a strange thing,’ she conceded.

  ‘Will you mention it?’

  ‘To Major Krag?’

  ‘Yes. When you see him at Etline.’

  ‘Oh Herr Maeltzer, that would be very difficult. He would want to know how I knew about it and that would mean telling him I had visited you.’

  To his surprise Maeltzer saw that she looked quite frightened, even tearful. She dabbed at her eyes with her handkerchief, which was carefully replaced in her glove. ‘Would it be of real assistance to you?’ In her agitation she had removed the hatpin and was tapping it on the table.

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Maeltzer. ‘Probably not. It’s always possible that it was picked up by a soldier as a souvenir, though it seems unlikely. It wasn’t bound in Moroccan leather or anything like that. It was a perfectly ordinary child’s school exercise book with a green cardboard cover. It may well have been destroyed. I’m sorry to impugn the honour of your friend again, but if I were him that’s what I would have done. I’m sorry, it was wrong of me to ask you to inquire about it. Please don’t do it. In fact, it was not only wrong but also foolish.’

  ‘Foolish?’

  ‘Well, if Major Krag does have my journal he might be tempted to destroy it. Besides, I’ve asked somebody else to look into the matter.’

  ‘Tell me, Herr Maeltzer, since the tribunal I’ve heard people say that you are a Jew. Is it true?’

  ‘I’m afraid I can’t give you a straight answer on this. It depends on your point of view. It comes down to the age-old question: is being a Jew to be a member of a race as well as a religion?

  ‘Is it a fact that Yiddisher-speaking Ashkenazim, Ladino-speaking Sephardim, the descendants of the lost Caucasus kingdom of the Khazars, the black Falashas of Abyssinia, the Chinese Jews of Kaifeng, Russians, Lithuanians, Galicians, red, blond, brown and crinkly-haired people, brown-, blue-, and grey-eyed people, white-, olive-, black-, and yellow-skinned people, some with noses as hooked as America’s Red Indians who, as far as I’m aware, make no claim to be Jewish, are somehow all the children of Abraham? Surely the blood must have got a bit diluted by now?

  ‘I can plead guilty to being born of Jewish parents, but I converted to Catholicism as a young man, largely at the urging of a female friend. She did not in the end marry me but I have remained a Catholic – more or less.’

  ‘And hide your Jewishness?’

  ‘No, I don’t hide it. As far as I’m concerned, my racial background, if that’s what it is, is irrelevant. I just don’t make a point of telling people. There is a difference, you know.’

  ‘How did they discover it?’

  ‘They found my father’s yarmoulka when they went through the contents of my trunk. I have kept it since he died – for purely sentimental reasons. I was very close to my father, a remarkable man.

  ‘Like my mother he was the child of Galician Jews. My grandparents must have come to Vienna about one hundred years ago. They were very kosher, very observant. They probably looked rather like some of the religious ones who live here. They had some weird customs
. I mean the small things that get in the way of ordinary day-to-day social intercourse. Those acorns of misunderstanding which become the great oaks of prejudice.

  ‘For instance, they would enrage the Viennese, whose own manners as you probably know are as delicate as Dresden china, by doing things like asking for directions and then, once they had received them, walking away without a word of thanks. The Austrians didn’t understand that these Orthodox Jews weren’t being arrogant. It was simply that they considered that by taking the trouble to give them directions a man had already won favour in the eyes of God. To thank him might somehow rob him of the divine credit that was due from the Almighty.

  ‘But they were ambitious, these Polish refugees. My grandfather was a rabbi and scholar who lived on the charity of his community. My father was allowed to escape the Talmud for medicine and eventually became a skin specialist. He did a lot of research on the relationship between some skin complaints and various nervous disorders. It came to the notice of quite a distinguished Swiss specialist in the same field. He invited him to bring his family and come and work in his sanatorium near Zürich. I was four years old at the time, the youngest of three sisters and a brother. I don’t know when we officially became Swiss citizens. I think it was sometime in my teens.

  ‘My father gave up the appearance of being an observant Jew. He had cut off his sidelocks just before he went to the university to study medicine. But he did expect my mother to keep a kosher kitchen, and the candles were lit on Shabat, when his yarmoulka came out and he would walk to the synagogue and decline wheeled transport for the rest of the day.

  ‘I, of course, went one stage further, in fact several stages further, though the habits of my mother’s kitchen die hard: I couldn’t care less whether something is kosher-slaughtered, but I still find it hard to mix meat with dairy.’