“Look,” he said, releasing Grober in order to switch on the light, “look upon that table. Behold a small part of years of work. Those are the examples and the exercises for my Trigonometry for Higher Forms, every one deliberately selected to display some fresh facet of—of trigonometry. Look at my pages here.” Hambledon dragged open a table drawer and thrust a handful of Kirsch’s careful layouts under Grober’s terrified nose.
“I—I am overcome,” said Grober, backing away to the door. “I am incapable of appreciating—I never understood mathematics. In any case, esteemed Herr Kirsch, I must go now. I have detained you too long from your for-the-instruction-of-youth-indispensable labours.” He picked up his hat in the sitting room. “I shall look forward with joy to meeting you at Helmstedt on Friday.” He laid his hand upon the front door. “Auf Wiedersehen, gnä' Herr.”
“Not that way,” said Hambledon, and steered him through the kitchen to the scullery. “Here is the back door. There is a path through the garden to a small gate in the lane. When you reach it, turn right and the lane will lead you back to the town. Auf Wiedersehen, Grober.”
He closed and locked the door almost before the young man was clear of the doorstep, and listened with pleasure through the scullery window to rustling noises and smothered yelps, for some of the bushes were gooseberry. “And I hope you fall in Die Abzucht,” he added unkindly.
Now, Die Abzucht means The Drain.
16: A Meal with Wine
Hambledon took off Kirsch’s glasses and looked at them.
“That was a mistake,” he said to himself. “If I go on wearing those things I shall be cross-eyed in six hours.” But Grober had seen the thick pebble lenses and would notice at once if they were replaced by plain glass. Besides, the frames did not fit him. Of course, the answer was simple; plain glass with tinted glare-proof glasses clipped over them. Simple. See about it tomorrow. He crossed the room to Kirsch’s sideboard, took out a bottle and a glass, poured himself some wine, and sat down again to enjoy it.
Ten minutes later someone tapped on the windowpane. Hambledon got up and went to the door to speak to the police officer outside.
“Well?”
“He didn’t go down the lane, mein Herr. He came back up to the main road and a car picked him up. They went off towards Oker, mein Herr, but I’ve got a man trailing the car.”
“Thank you very much. I expect he’ll turn off north. He’s bound for Helmstedt. Is your chief still at the office, do you know?”
“When he heard that this man had come, he said that he would wait until he heard from the Herr.”
“Very good, I’ll ring him. Thank you very much. Good night.”
Hambledon telephoned to the Chief of Police.
“He has been and gone again and all’s well. He did not know Kirsch, so there was no trouble. I meant to ask you before, I want to ring up my department in London, will it be all right to use this phone?”
The Chief hesitated. “A long-distance call, you would have to give your number to the exchange—come and take your call from here. Do you want to do it tonight or will tomorrow morning do?”
“I would rather do it tonight, I think.”
“Sit tight and I will send a police car for you. No, no trouble at all, they are only patrolling round and getting bored. Any immediate news for me?”
“Not immediate, no, it will keep till the morning.”
“Very good indeed; then I go to bed and you can have my office all to yourself. I am tired. There is nothing which tires me more than asking questions and getting no answers. That Kirsch and that Bauer, they will not even say yes or no.”
“Very sensible of them,” said Hambledon.
“I hate sensible criminals,” said the Chief tartly. “Never mind. I send the car for you and then I go to bed. Auf Wiedersehen Morgen, ja? Good night.”
Hambledon’s message to his department was to ask them to send out, as early as possible next day, by air to Hanover, a man with gear for photographing documents. He was to stop in Hanover and Hambledon would come there to meet him with the documents to be photographed. Yes, tomorrow without fail. What? Yes, of course it would be later today since it was past midnight, sorry. Today, then. Very important indeed, there must be no hitch. Good.
After which Hambledon, yawning his head off, went back to Kirsch’s house and to bed.
On the following morning, having had a nice clean shave, he slipped out by the back door in case someone—besides the police—might be keeping an eye upon the house of the illustrious Herr Kirsch. He went down the lane and by devious ways to the town. Here he straightened his back, held up his head, and walked about like a free man, for was he not once more the English visitor staying at the Drei Bullochsen? His first errand was to a photographer’s for a passport photograph, his second to the bank in Fischmaker Strasse for the envelope which he had dropped into their night safe. Here he was prepared for a little trouble in establishing his identity, but his passport and a detailed description of the envelope with a black thumbprint in the left-hand top corner served to convince the bank officials. Perhaps the Chief of Police had smoothed his path.
With the Smirnov Plan in his pocket he went to look for Britz and found him washing and polishing the small bus in which the party from the Drei Bullochsen had travelled to the Zwinger. Britz straightened himself when he heard a step behind him and his face lit up at sight of Hambledon.
“Gott sei dank, I feared that something might have befallen the Herr. I saw the Herr Petersen yesterday and he told me that the Herr was away from the hotel, and I feared——”
“Thank you,” said Hambledon. “I am sorry to have caused you anxiety, but I have been spending a few nights at the house of a friend. I want to speak to you. Are we private here?”
“Let us get into the bus,” said Britz, opening the door for him, “thus we may be private enough. There are some fresh people on the ground-floor of this house. I do not know anything about them.” He got in beside Hambledon, shut the door, and took a large road map out of the cubbyhole. “If we are observed,” he said, opening it out, “we are planning the route for a drive.”
“There is,” said Hambledon, leaning across to point out a place on the map, “a face behind that muslin blind, but I think it is only a child.”
“One cannot be too careful,” said Britz gloomily.
“No. I wanted to ask you to get a message across to the Herr Micklejohn, Gustav Ehrlich, you know.”
“I will do my best, but the Heir knows that it——”
“I know it is difficult, but this one is very important. Say to him that if he hears that Ludwig Kirsch is asking for him, to go to him without fear, for Ludwig Kirsch is a trustworthy friend.”
“Ludwig Kirsch,” said Britz, running his finger along the road to Clausthal-Zellerfeld. “I will remember that name.”
“Thank you. The other thing I want you to do for me is a great deal simpler. I want you to go to a certain house”—he gave Britz the full address of Kirsch’s house—“and look over an extraordinary old car you will find in the garage there. Here is the key of the garage. I don’t want an elaborate overhaul and in any case I shall want her in the morning of the day after tomorrow—Friday. I only want her to start when required, continue to proceed and stop when I want to stop. That’s all.”
“General checkup,” said Britz cheerfully. “Petrol, oil, you want me to fill her up? Tyres, brakes, steering, running—certainly, mein Herr. I will go out there at once.”
“If the police should ask you what you are doing there,” said Tommy, scribbling a message upon one of his cards, “show them this.”
“Very good. And if anyone else should ask me?”
“Tell them to go to hell.”
“Schön. What make is the car?”
“Oh. That is rather difficult. It’s a composite affair with a coupé body on a long chassis. It’s got a Renault radiator, but what the engine is I really don’t know.”
“Ach, that is
the car which my friend Ernst Krueger made up soon after the war out of what scraps he could salvage when he came home. He used to drive her about, she goes very well, it is a good engine, but she looks so odd that the girls used to laugh at him and say that the body was once the porch of Noah’s Ark. Ernst, he does not like girls to laugh at him, so, as soon as he could, he bought a Volkswagen and pushed the old car out of the way. Then one day he told me that he had sold it to a Herr Kir——”
He stopped.
“Herr Kirsch, that’s right. I have been staying in his house,” said Hambledon. “The Herr is away from home at the moment and the police are keeping an eye on the house, that is why I gave you that card.”
Britz looked up with eyes full of questions, but Hambledon merely smiled and the questions remained unasked.
“I may take it, Britz, may I not, that you are not a man who talks?”
“Herrgott,” said Britz violently, “I have had enough practice in not talking.”
“Schön,” said Hambledon. “Well, I must go, I have an engagement.” He turned to get out of the car, but Britz said: “Excuse me, please. The Herr reached his hotel safely the other night from the Zwinger?”
“Safe and unmolested,” said Hambledon with emphasis. He looked Britz squarely in the eyes and added: “I did not even have my pockets picked.”
Britz said with what was, for him, a broad grin, that he was delighted to hear it, and Hambledon went off to catch his train for Hanover.
“Though why in the name of common sense,” he said to himself, “Britz could not simply have come to the hotel quietly and handed the Smirnov Plan to me personally, I cannot understand. All that business about the waiter bringing me that box from Karstadt’s——”
He came level with the Schwartzer Adler and glanced over his shoulder at the Vergesst Uns Nicht plaque.
“Perhaps if I lived only ten miles from the Russian Army,” he concluded, “I should become tortuous and complicated too.”
He returned from Hanover in the evening, called in at the photographer’s, and went on to see the Chief of Police.
“Will you be so good as to take charge of this for me? Put it in your safe, if you will. It is the Smirnov Plan.”
“That almost fabulous document,” said the Chief, taking the envelope. “You wish me to guard it for you until you return to England?”
“Oh, no. Only until Friday morning. I’ll pick it up on my way to Helmstedt. You see, I thought it would be a nice gesture to let the Russians have it back. They will be pleased, don’t you think?”
“But——”
“It has spent the afternoon in Hanover,” said Hambledon, gently flicking the envelope, “having its photographs taken.”
“Ach! I begin to see. And the photographs?”
“Are on their way to London. If the plane should fail to arrive, there is still time to have them photographed again tomorrow. That is why I am not going until Friday.”
“You are going, you said, to Helmstedt?”
“I am going by Helmstedt into the Soviet Zone to deliver these precious papers personally to the Russian Army authorities. They ought to be pleased, don’t you think? They will probably lay on a banquet. Fortunately I like vodka.”
“But, my poor friend, you are mad! You have allowed yourself to become mentally deranged! Because you managed to pass yourself off as Ludwig Kirsch to one man who did not know him——”
“Nobody knows him,” said Hambledon, and explained Kirsch’s elaborate security precautions. “Only two men from that side knew him. One is Bauer—don’t lose him, will you?—and the other is dead.”
“But they may have a photograph of him and you do not resemble him in the least.”
A sudden memory flicked up from the recesses of Hambledon’s mind: Britz, on that first drive along the frontier, saying that there were cameras with telephoto lenses in those watchtowers. They take very clear photographs when the light is good. Hambledon put the thought away for future consideration.
“If they produce a portrait of Kirsch and point out that it is nothing like me, I shall proclaim in the ringing accents of unmistakable sincerity that they have got the wrong photograph. Then they can take another look at me and see that it is so.”
The Chief of Police appealed to his Maker.
“No filing system,” added Hambledon, “is completely watertight. Especially, I imagine, the Russians'. The human element, you know.”
“But why are you putting your head in the lion’s mouth like this? Do you hope to be able to find young Micklejohn?”
“I shall tell them that I want a new assistant. My man Tosen was arrested, though I managed to kill him before he could talk, and the other man, Dittmar, took fright and ran away. I know the man I want, he has worked on this side before. His name is Gustav Ehrlich. I am telling you this in advance, Herr Chief of Police, in case it may happen that Gustav Ehrlich gets across the frontier separately, alone, before I do. If he does, you will take great care of him, won’t you?”
“Micklejohn,” said the Chief, in a voice so low as to be barely audible. “Tell me,” he added, “what do you think has happened to the real Ehrlich?”
“I don’t know at all but I should think that he is probably dead, since he doesn’t seem to be using his identity papers any more. Well, I think that is all at the moment. Are there any special formalities about leaving this zone at Helmstedt?”
“You will need a Russian visa and——”
“Ah, yes. That brings me to my next point. Here is Kirsch’s passport complete with Russian visa as required. The only thing the matter with it is that it carries Kirsch’s photograph instead of mine and, as you so truly remarked just now, there is little or no resemblance between us.” Hambledon laid the passport on the Chief’s desk and took a small photographic print out of his wallet. “Here also is a passport photograph of me and no one can say it is not up to date, because it was taken today. Now, if Kirsch’s photograph were carefully removed from his passport and mine substituted, the thing would be complete. Wouldn’t it?”
He sat back and beamed upon the Chief of Police, who spluttered.
“But—but—but this is——”
“Oh, come,” said Hambledon kindly. “You can’t tell me that you have reached your present deservedly exalted rank without ever having heard of a cooked passport? In a good cause, of course. Besides, it isn’t as though Kirsch will want his passport again in what politicians call the foreseeable future. Consider the issues involved. Consider the practically tearful gratitude of Britain’s Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, the Right Honourable Augustus Micklejohn, Member of Parliament. I shouldn’t be surprised if you received a ceremonial visit from the British Ambassador in person. Besides, consider yourself; how refreshing, how ennobling it is occasionally to take a strong line against pettifogging restrictions. One must above all things refuse to allow oneself to become hidebound.”
The Chief’s face slowly turned deep red and appeared to swell and for a moment Hambledon thought that he had gone too far, but the big man’s shoulders began to shake and it became plain that he was amused.
“Herr Hambledon,” he gurgled, “I am sure that that is an accusation which will never be brought against you.” He wiped his eyes and picked up Kirsch’s passport. “The difficulty, of course, is the official stamp here, which is partly on the photograph and partly on the page. It will need very careful reproducing upon yours so as to fit in.”
“That is so,” said Hambledon cheerfully. “I used to know a man in Paris who did that sort of work quite beautifully, but it is a long way to Paris and he may not be with us now.”
“No need,” said the Chief firmly. “Germany also is not without her artists. There is a man now serving a long term in the convict prison at Hanover who will be happy to do it for a box of cigarettes and a good meal with wine. Leave it with me and I will arrange it.”
“You are extremely good——”
“Not at all. I spend my days
trying to stop this sort of thing, it will be a pleasant change to encourage it for once. Besides, it will help me not to become hidebound.”
“I do apologise——” began Hambledon.
“Ach, please! Your other passes for travel inside the Soviet Zone? There are many needed, as I once told you.”
“I have them, all except the passes for the car, which may arrive this evening, so I had better get back to my house—Kirsch’s house. By the way, I asked London to ring through to you to report the safe arrival of those photographs. I hope you will excuse me. I thought they had better not ring me direct. About leaving this zone?”
“No, there is nothing extra you will need but I will make sure that you are not held up.”
“Tell them to clear the road for me when I come back,” grinned Hambledon. “I may be in more of a hurry then.”
He walked through the streets of Goslar, through the great gate called the Breite Tor and out upon the road to Oker, recalling what Britz had said that day they drove to Walkenried. Britz had said that he had never seen so many Vopos about on any occasion before, and certainly, wherever they had stopped, there were the brown uniforms and the clumsy intent faces somewhere near by if one looked carefully. At Neuhof, where the country was more open, there were two of them leaning over a gate studying him through field glasses. “One would say they recognised the Herr.”
Well, it could not be helped and probably the risk was slight. Hambledon had no intention of going anywhere near The Wire and copies of the photograph would only be circulated to patrols along the frontier. No doubt a further copy would find its way into some filing cabinet where no one but a filing clerk would ever see it; there must be a good many photographs taken along The Wire if it were worth while installing telephoto cameras, and what is one among so many? Not worth bothering about.
He turned in at Ludwig Kirsch’s gate and found Britz working on the car. He said it was in good condition; he had had it out on the road and it appeared to be suffering mainly from insufficient use. The Herr Kirsch, it would seem, was not an indefatigable motorist. Hambledon thought that, judging Kirsch’s eyesight by the type of glasses he wore, the roads of Goslar and district would be a great deal safer if he never drove again. Well, he would not in any case, since he was in gaol and likely to stay there for some considerable time.
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