Passenger to Frankfurt

by Agatha Christie

or may not have been made, but they were sent out of the

  country again before five days had passed. They were sent

  out, re-routed elsewhere.'

  But what's the idea of that?'

  'The idea seems to be,' said Munro, 'that they were never

  really intended for West Africa. Payments were made and

  they were sent on somewhere .else. It seems possible that

  they went on from Africa to the Near East. To the Persian

  Gulf, to Greece and to Turkey. Also, a consignment of planes

  was sent to Egypt. From Egypt they were sent to India, from

  India they were sent to Russia.'

  'I thought they were sent from Russia.'

  '--And from Russia they went to Prague. The whole

  thing's mad.'

  'I don't understand,' said Sir George, 'one wonders--'

  'Somewhere there seems to be some central organization

  which is directing the supplies of various things. Planes,

  armaments, bombs, both explosive and those that are used

  in germ warfare. All these consignments are moving in unexpected

  directions. They are delivered by various crosscountry

  routes to trouble-spots, and used by leaders and

  regiments--if you like to call them that--of the Youth

  rower. They mostly go to the leaders of young guerrilla movements, professed anarchists who preach anarchy, and

  accept--though one doubts if they ever pay for--some of tue latest most up-to-date models.'

  "o you mean to say we're facing something like war on y.' ^orld scale?' Cedric Lazenby was shocked.

  123

  ] .1 The mild man with the Asiatic face who sat lower d

  at the table, and had not yet spoken, lifted up his face h

  the Mongolian smile, and said:

  "That is what one is now forced to believe. Our observa

  tions tell us--'

  Lazenby interrupted.

  'You'll have to stop observing. UNO will have to take

  arms itself and put all this down.'

  The quiet face remained unmoved.

  That would be against our principles,' he said.

  Colonel Munro raised his voice and went on with his

  summing up.

  'There's fighting in some parts of every country. SouthEast

  Asia claimed Independence long ago and there are

  four, five different divisions of power in South America,

  Cuba, Peru, Guatemala and so on. As for the United States,

  you know Washington was practically burnt out--the West

  is overrun with Youth Power Armed Forces--Chicago is under

  Martial Law. You know about Sam Cortman? Shot last night

  on the steps of the American Embassy here.'

  'He was to attend here today,' said Lazenby. "He was

  going to have given us his views of the situation.'

  'I don't suppose that would have helped much,' said

  Colonel Munro. 'Quite a nice chap--but hardly a live wire.'

  'But who's behind all this?' Lazenby's voice rose fretfully.

  It could be the Russians, of course--' He looked hopeful.

  He sdll envisaged himself flying to Moscow.

  Colonel Munro shook his head. 'Doubt it,' he said.

  'A personal appeal,' said Lazenby. His face brightened

  with hope. 'An entirely new sphere of influence. The Chinese

  ...?'

  'Nor the Chinese,' said Colonel Munro. 'But''you know there's been a big revival in Neo-Fascism in Germany.'

  'You don't really think the Germans could possibly . . .'

  'I don't think they're behind all this necessarily, but

  when you say possibly--yes, I think possibly they easily

  could. They've done it before, you know. Prepared things

  years before, planned them, everything ready, waiting t01 the word GO. Good planners, very good planners. Staff work

  excellent. I admire them, you know. Can't help it.'

  'But Germany seemed to be so peaceful and well

  'Yes, of course it is up to a point. But do you

  South America is practically alive with Germans, with

  Neo-Fascists, and they've got a big Youth Federation

  Call themselves the Super-Aryans, or something of tha Sund.

  124

  You know, a bit of the old stuff still, swastikas and salutes,

  and someone who's running it, called the Young Wotan or the

  Young Siegfried or something like that. Lot of Aryan" nonsense.'

  There was a knock on the door and the secretary entered.

  'Professor Eckstein is here, sir.'

  *We'd better have him in,' said Cedric Lazenby. 'After aB,

  if anyone can tell us what our latest research weapons are,

  he's the man. We may have something up our sleeve that can

  soon put an end to all this nonsense.' Besides being a professional

  traveller to foreign parts in the, r61e of peacemaker,

  Mr Lazenby had an incurable fund of optimism seldom

  Justified by results.

  'We could do with a good secret weapon,' said the Air

  Marshal hopefully.

  Professor Eckstein, considered by many to be Britain's

  top scientist, when you first looked at him seemed supremely

  unimportant. He was a small man with old-fashioned muttonchop

  whiskers and an asthmatic cough. He had the manner

  of one anxious to apologize for his existence. He made

  noises like 'ah', tirrumph', 'mrrh', blew his nose, coughed

  asthmatically again and shook hands in a shy manner, as he

  was introduced to those present. A good many of them he

  already knew and these he greeted with nervous nods of the

  head. He sat down on the chair indicated and looked round

  him vaguely. He raised a hand to his mouth and began to

  bite his nails.

  "The heads of the Services are here,' said Sir George

  Packham. 'We are very anxious to have your opinion as

  to what can be done.'

  'Oh,' said Professor Eckstein, 'done? Yes, yes, done?'

  There was a silence.

  'The world is fast passing into a state of anarchy,' said

  Sir George.

  'Seems so, doesn't it? At least, from what I read in the

  Paper. Not that I trust to that. Really, the things journalists "unk up. Never any accuracy in their statements.'

  I understand you've made some most important discoveries

  lately. Professor,' said Cedric Lazenby encouragingly. ^ yes, so we have. So we have.' Professor Eckstein cheered

  P a little. 'Got a lot of very nasty chemical warfare fixed

  P. If we ever wanted it. Germ warfare, you know, biologwu stuff, gas laid on through normal gas outlets, air pollution

  Poisoning of water supplies. Yes, if you wanted it, I

  "Ppose we could kill half the population of England given

  125

  about three days to do it in.' He rubbed his hands.

  what you want?'

  'No, no indeed. Oh dear, of course not.' Mr La

  looked horrified.

  'Well, that's what I mean, you know. It's'not a quesi ,n

  of not having enough lethal weapons. We've got too mi ;� Everything we've got is too lethal. The difficulty would oe

  in keeping anybody alive, even ourselves. Eh? All the people

  at the top, you know. Well--us, for instance.' He gave a

  wheezy, happy little chuckle.

  'But that isn't what we want,' Mr Lazenby insisted.

  'It's not a question of what you want, it's a question of

  what we've got. Everything we've got is terrifically lethal.

  If you want everybody under thirty wiped off the map,


  I expect you could do it. Mind you, you'd have to take a

  lot of the older ones as well. It's difficult to segregate one

  lot from the other, you know. Personally, I should be against

  that. We've got some very good young Research fellows.

  Bloody-minded, but clever.'

  'What's gone wrong with the world?' asked Kenwood

  suddenly.

  That's the point,' said Professor Eckstein. 'We don't know.

  We don't know up at our place in spite of all we do know

  about this, that and the other. We know a bit more about

  the moon nowadays, we know a lot about biology, we can

  transplant hearts and livers; brains, too, soon, I expect,

  though I don't know how that'll work out. But we don't

  know who is doing this. Somebody is, you know. It's a sort

  of high-powered background stuff. Oh yes, we've got it

  cropping up in different ways. You know, crime rings, drug

  rings, all that sort of thing. A high-powered lot, directed by

  a few good, shrewd brains behind the scenes. We've had it

  going on in this country or that country, occasionally on a

  European scale. But it's going a bit further now, other side

  of the globe--Southern Hemisphere. Down to the Antarctic Circle before we've finished, I expect* He appeared to be

  pleased with his diagnosis.

  People of ill-will--'

  'Well, you could put it like that. El-wffl for fflw"- sake or ill-will for the sake of money or power. Diffic1"11 you know, to get at the point of it all. The poor dc^sbodiK themselves don't know. They want violence and t .? "K violence. They don't like the world, they don't -s ou materialistic attitude. They don't like a lot of o ^

  126

  ways of making money, they don't like a lot of the fiddles

  we do. They don't like seeing poverty. They want a better

  world. Well, you could make a better world, perhaps, if

  you thought about it long enough. But the trouble is, if

  you insist on taking away something first, you've got to

  put something back in its place. Nature won't have a vacuum--an

  old saying, but true. Dash it all, it's like a heart

  transplant. You take one heart away but you've got to put

  another one there. One that works. And you've got to arrange

  about the heart you're going to put there before you take

  away the faulty heart that somebody's got at present. Matter

  of fact, I think a lot of those things are better left alone

  altogether, but nobody would listen to me, I suppose. And

  anyway it's not my subject.'

  'A gas?' suggested Colonel Munro.

  Professor Eckstein brightened.

  'Oh, we've got all sorts of gases in stock. Mind you, some

  of them are reasonably harmless. Mild deterrents, shall we

  say. We've got all those.' He beamed like a complacent hardware

  dealer,

  'Nuclear weapons?' suggested Mr Lazenby.

  'Don't you monkey with that You don't want a radioactive

  England, do you, or a radio-active continent, for that

  matter?'

  'So you can't help us,' said Colonel Munro.

  'Not until somebody's found out a bit more about all

  this,' said Professor Eckstein. 'Well, I'm sorry. But I must impress upon you that most of the things we're working

  on nowadays are dangerous.' He stressed the word. 'Really dangerous.'

  He looked at them anxiously, as a nervous uncle might

  look at a group of children left with a box of matches to

  play with, and who might quite easily set the house on fire.

  'Well, thank you. Professor Eckstein,' said Mr Lazenby.

  He did not sound particularly thankful.

  The Professor gathering correctly that he was released,

  smiled all round and trotted out of the room.

  Mr Lazenby hardly waited for the door to close before

  venting his feelings.

  All alike, these scientists,' he said bitterly. 'Never any

  Practical good. Never come up with anything sensible. All ^y can do is split the atom--and then tell us not to mess ^out with it!'

  lust as well if we never had,' said Admiral Blunt, again

  127

  bluntly. 'What we want is something homely and dome

  like a kind of selective weedkiller which would--' He pai

  abruptly. 'Now what the devil--?'

  'Yes, Admiral?' said the Prime Minister politely.

  'Nothing--just reminded me of something. Can't renumber

  what--

  The Prime Minister sighed.

  'Any more scientific experts waiting on the mat?' asked

  Gordon Chetwynd, glancing hopefully at his wristwatch.

  'Old Pikeaway is here, I believe,' said Lazenby. 'Got a

  picture--or a drawing--or a map or something or other he

  wants us to look at--'

  'What's it all about?'

  'I don't know. It seems to be all bubbles,' said Mr Lazenby

  vaguely.

  'Bubbles? Why bubbles?1 'I've no idea. Well,' he sighed, Sve'd better have a look

  at it.'

  'Horsham's here, too--'

  'He may have something new to tell us,' said Chetwynd.

  Colonel Pikeaway stumped in. He was supporting a rolledup

  burden which with Horsham's aid was unrolled and which

  with some difficulty was propped up so that those sitting

  round the table could look at it.

  'Not exactly drawn to scale yet, but it gives yor

  idea,' said Colonel Pikeaway.

  'What does it mean, if anything?'

  128

  'Bubbles?' murmured Sir George. An idea came to him.

  Is it a gas? A new gas?'

  'You'd better deliver the lecture, Horsham,' said Pikeaway.

  You know the general idea.'

  'I only know what I've been told. It's a rough diagram of an association of world control.'

  'By whom?'

  'By groups who own or control the sources of power--the

  raw materials of power.'

  And the letters of the alphabet?'

  Stand for a person or a code name for a special group.

  They are intersecting circles that by now cover the globe.

  'That circle marked "A" stands for armaments. Someone,

  or some group is in control of armaments. All types of

  armaments. Explosives, guns, rifles. All over the world armaments

  are being produced according to plan, dispatched

  ostensibly to under-developed nations, backward nations,

  nations at war. But they don't remain where they are sent.

  They are re-routed almost immediately elsewhere. To guerrilla

  warfare in the South American Continent--to rioting and

  fighting in the USA--to Depots of Black Power--to various

  countries in Europe.

  * "D" represents drugs--a network of suppliers run them

  from various depots and stockpiles. All kinds of drugs, from

  the more harmless varieties up to the true killers. The headquarters

  seem likely to be situated in the Levant, and to

  pass out through Turkey, Pakistan, India and Central Asia.'

  They make money out of it?'

  'Enormous sums of money. But it's more than just an

  association of Pushers. It has a more sinister side to it. It's

  being used to finish off the weaklings amongst the young,

  shall we say, to make them complete slaves. Slaves so that

  they cannot live and exist or do jobs for their employers

  without a supply of drugs.'

  Kenwood whistled.

/>   . That's a bad show, isn't it? Don't you know at all who

  those Drug Pushers are?'

  Some of them, yes. But only the lesser fry. Not the real

  ntrollers. Drug headquarters are, so far as we can judge,

  " Central Asia and the Levant. They get delivered from

  ere ;n the tyres of cars, in cement, in concrete, in all

  "ds of machinery and industrial goods. They're delivered

  over the world and passed on as ordinary trade goods

  -where they are ""^ant to go.

  ^ r stands for finance. Money! A money spider's web

  129 E

  p.t.p.

  in the centre of it all. You'll have to go to Mr Roi- ,!;son

  to tell you about money. According to a memo here, "^-.ney

  is coming very largely from America and there's ;;;..;,, a

  headquarters in Bavaria. There's a vast reserve in '^i ^ Africa, based on gold and diamonds. Most of the mc-r;.r;.y ^ going to South America. One of the principal cont- ;ks

  if I may so put it, of money, is a very powerful and talented

  woman. She's old now: must be near to death. But she is

  still strong and active. Her name was Charlotte Krapp. Her

  father owned the vast Krapp yards in Germany. She was a

  financial genius herself and operated in Wall Street. She

  accumulated fortune after fortune by investments in all parts

  of the world. She owns transport, she owns machinery, she

  owns industrial concerns. All these things. She lives in a vast

  castle in Bavaria--from there she directs a flow of money to

  different parts of the globe.

  ' "S" represents science--the new knowledge of chemical

  and biological warfare--Various young scientists have defected--There

  is a nucleus of them in the US, we believe,

  vowed and dedicated to the cause of anarchy.'

  'Fighting for anarchy? A contradiction in terms. Can

  there be such a thing?'

  'You believe in anarchy if you are young. You want a

  new world, and to begin with you must pull down the old

  one--just as you pull down a house before you build a

  new one to replace it. But if you don't know where you are

  going, if you don't know where you are being lured to go,

  or even pushed to go, what will the new world be like, and

  where will the believers be when they get it? Some of

  them slaves, some of them blinded by hate, some by violence

  and sadism, both preached and practised. Some of them--

  and God help those--still idealistic, still believing as people

  did in Prance at the time of the French Revolution that

  that revolution would bring prosperity, peace, happiness, contentment to its people.'

  'And what are we doing about all this? What are we

  proposing to do about it?' It was Admiral Blunt who spoke.

  'What are we doing about it? All that we can. '. assure

  you, all you who are here, we are doing all that we can

  We have people working for us in every country, '^e have

  agents, inquirers, those who gather information, a" ' bring

  it back here--' �. i

  'Which is very necessary,' said Colonel Pikeawa lrs we've got to know--know who's who, who's witt an

  who's against us. And after that we've got to see what, if

  anything, can be done.'

  'Our name for this diagram is The Ring. Here's a list

  of what we know about the Ring leaders. Those with a

  query mean that we know only the name they go by--or

  alternatively we only suspect that they are the ones we want.'

  THE RING

  IF Big Charlotte --Bavaria

  A Eric Olafsson --Sweden, Industrialist, Armaments

  Said to go by

  the name of

  Demetrios Dr Sarolensky

  --Smyrna, Drugs

  --Colorado, USA, PhysicistChemist.

  Suspicion only

  --A woman. Goes by Code

  name of Juanita. Said to be

  dangerous. No knowledge of

  her real name.

  Chapter 15

  AUNT MATILDA TAKES A CURE

  'A cure of some kind, I thought?' Lady Matilda hazarded.

  'A cure?' said Dr Donaldson. He looked faintly puzzled

  for a moment, losing his air of medical omniscience, which,

  of course, so Lady Matilda reflected, was one of the slight

  disadvantages attached to having a younger doctor attending

  one rather than the older specimen to whom one has been

  accustomed for several years.

  'That's what we used to call them,' Lady Matilda exPlamed.

  'In my young days, you know, you went for the '.ure. Marienbad, Carlsbad, Baden-Baden, all the rest of it

  "ist the other day I read about this new place in the

  Paper. Quite new and up to date. Said to be all new ideas ^"d things like that. Not that I'm really sold on new ideas,

  Dr h i^0111'111'1 "^aUy be afraid of them. I mean, they would

  ' �'"a-bly be all the same things all over again. Water tasting