And Is There Honey Still For Tea?

by Peter Murphy

  ‘Yes, exactly, a stream of consciousness. He did not always make sense, but something seemed to possess him and made him say all these things to me.’

  ‘What kinds of things did he talk about?’ Ben asked. He glanced at Baxter. ‘If I may?’

  Baxter nodded.

  Stepanov took the last drag of his cigarette and stubbed it out firmly in the ash tray. He shook his head.

  ‘Everything,’ he replied simply. ‘It was as if he were trying to tell me his whole life story, not just in a historical sense, but his intellectual life story, his emotional life story. But it was somehow all mixed up together, almost as if he could no longer separate historical incidents in his life from the ideas in his head, and as if he could no longer make sense of his motivations. In some ways it felt as though he was justifying himself to me. He talked about his early life at home; the values he was taught; his school; how he discovered chess and how it became a passion for him; his resentment at not being able to play chess as a profession; his time as a student at Cambridge University; the sympathy he had always had for the poorer classes; his wife, and her inability to conceive a child to inherit his title; his introduction to socialism, and how socialism seemed at first to provide the answer to everything; how he doubted socialism many times; his disillusionment with the British Labour Party, and even with the Soviet Union at times because of Stalin; how his faith would somehow be renewed; and …’

  He drained his glass and lit another cigarette.

  ‘And about his brother Roger, who was killed in the war in Spain. He spoke of Roger constantly, almost as a form of punctuation between stories or parts of stories: Roger at home when they were young; Roger at university; as Lord of the Manor in waiting; at his Club in London; involved in every aspect of James’s life, even when they were apart. It was pure hero-worship. His recollections of Roger’s death were very painful to listen to.’ He smiled. ‘They had a strange way of writing letters to each other. He tried to explain it to me, but I did not take it all in.’

  ‘And at the end of it all,’ Stepanov said, as Baxter refilled his glass, ‘he agreed to work with me. When the world championship moved to Moscow in April, we worked together in a safe house provided by the Directorate. We came up with the system that was required. It was simplicity itself.’

  He suddenly laughed out loud.

  ‘Shall I show you?’

  He looked at Baxter, who nodded.

  ‘Yes, I think I must show it to you.’

  55

  Stepanov sprang to his feet and retrieved his shoulder bag from where it had been lying by the sideboard. He reached inside and took out a folding chess board and a yellow cloth bag fastened at the top by a string pull. This contained a set of plastic chess pieces. He unfolded the board and laid it out on the table in front of him. He opened the bag and turned it upside down, allowing the pieces to fall on to the board. In a matter of seconds he had the pieces set up as if for a game, so that he was playing white.

  ‘The problem set for us by the Comrade Director,’ he began, ‘was to devise a system for passing information in both directions without the need to carry copies of documents, film, and the like. So we needed a method of encrypting that information at source, and decrypting it on arrival in a way which would allow the information to be conveyed accurately.’

  He allowed his hand to run along the top of the white pieces.

  ‘The chess board has sixty-four squares, alternately black and white. The squares are identified by a letter and a number. The files run up and down and are designated by the lower case letters “a” to “h”, with “a” being the file on the left hand side of the board, as White sees it. The ranks, going across the board, are designated by the numbers 1 to 8, again seen from White’s point of view. So the black square in the corner by my left hand is a1, the square above that a2, and so on until we come to a8. Then the second file begins with the square next to a1, which is b1, and then we go to b2 and so on until we reach b8. Is everyone with me?

  Ben and Ginny nodded.

  ‘In addition, each player has eight pieces: a king, a queen, two rooks, two bishops, two knights; and he has eight pawns. The pawns are technically not referred to as pieces, though this does not matter for our purposes. You see here the positions in which the pieces start the game, lined up on the first rank for White, the eighth rank for Black; the pawns in front of them on the second and seventh ranks. The order of the pieces is more or less symmetrical, the rooks in the corners, then the knights, then the bishops, and finally the king and queen occupying the two remaining squares, with the queen on the square of her own colour.’

  Stepanov moved the pawn in front of the white king two squares forward on the board.

  ‘Obviously, a game consists of movements of the pieces from one square to another. Each piece may move only in the manner prescribed by the rules. The moves played in any competitive game are recorded by the players. There is a notation for this. White has the first move. You see that I have begun the game by advancing this pawn by two squares. I record this simply as e4, indicating the square to which the pawn has been moved. We could say e2-e4, but the simpler the better as long as the notation is not ambiguous. Let us assume that Black responds by advancing the pawn in front of his king by two squares.’

  He made the move.

  ‘We would record this as e5. Next, White moves the knight on his king’s side from g1 to f3, attacking the black pawn. When the pieces move, they are represented by a letter: in this case, in English notation, the letter N is used for the knight because K is reserved for the king. So the move is recorded as Nf3. In other languages, of course, the appropriate letters are used. So, in German we would say Sf3, because the knight is der Springer; in French we would say Cf3, because the knight is le chevalier. Then, if Black responds by moving his queen’s knight from b8 to c6, defending his king’s pawn, we would record it as Nc6.’ He made the move. ‘Then White moves his king’s bishop from f1 to b5, threatening to capture the black knight, and so indirectly renewing the threat to the black pawn by attacking its defender.’ He made the move. ‘We would record this as Bb5. Yes?’

  Ben and Ginny nodded again, enthralled.

  ‘For any system of encryption designed to convey complex information,’ Stepanov continued, ‘there must be a sufficient number of permutations of the symbols. Chess moves consist of symbols. Please take my word for it, that with sixty-four squares, sixteen pieces, and sixteen pawns, the number of possible permutations is very large, far greater than would be required to express the kind of information that needed to be conveyed.’

  ‘But the number of permutations is limited by the way in which the pieces and pawns are permitted to move under the rules,’ Ben pointed out.

  ‘Yes,’ Stepanov agreed. ‘But the number still remains large. Actually what is far more significant is that there are very many moves that are simply bad moves, moves which no serious player would even consider making. That is a far greater limitation. But still there are enough permutations; and we can increase them, because we can use not only the moves players actually make in a game, but as commentators, we can suggest alternatives, and analyse what might have happened if those alternatives had been played. This gives us many more potential moves.’

  ‘So, the information is encrypted in the form of the moves of a game played in a tournament, or moves which would have been reasonable but were not in fact played?’ Ben asked. Baxter remained silent, and indicated no objection.

  ‘Excellent,’ Stepanov replied. ‘You see it exactly. So, all that was required was for James to travel to an important chess tournament, in which a sufficiently large number of games would be played. The Directorate ensured that he received an invitation each year to the Soviet championship, and that he was granted the appropriate visa. The Soviet championship was, naturally, more secure than any event abroad. It is held in different cities, but James and I a
lways met at the Hotel Peking in Moscow at the end of the tournament, wherever it was held. It was particularly convenient at this hotel, for various reasons.’

  He lit another cigarette.

  ‘Let me give you one example of how it worked,’ he said. ‘Let us suppose that a contact in London or Washington has information of a diplomatic nature to pass on to Moscow Centre.’ He smiled. ‘This brings us back to the fact that notation in different languages can be used. For diplomatic information we would choose French, because French is the language of diplomacy; for military information, German; for technical information of other kinds, English; or if the information was specific to a particular country, we would sometimes simply use the language of that country.’

  Baxter had walked to the sideboard to open a new bottle of jenever. ‘Only the oud left, I’m afraid,’ he observed. ‘I hope that’s all right.’

  ‘Let us assume that London wishes to advise Moscow that western agents are being infiltrated into city A from city B,’ Stepanov continued. ‘James has a contact at the Embassy in London, who meets with him and describes generally the information to be conveyed. James would first designate two squares on the board to represent cities A and B.’

  He suddenly laughed aloud again.

  ‘This was very funny. James insisted that the western cities should be represented by white squares, and cities behind the Iron Curtain by black squares, as if the Eastern Bloc were the bad guys. This was perhaps rather ironic in view of what we were doing, but nothing I could say induced him to change his mind. The Comrade Director was put out, and he was insisting it should be the other way around. So I had to intervene to try to reach a solution. After much difficulty, I was able to persuade the Comrade Director that this was a small concession to make in return for such great service to the Soviet people, and so James had his way; it was ordained that the white squares were reserved for western cities.’

  Involuntarily, Ben and Ginny joined in his laughter, and even Baxter was unable to suppress a broad smile.

  ‘Then, of course, there had to be a code for the agents. We could have used a crude method, a combination of letters to spell out names, but the Comrade Director considered that this would be insecure, and also unnecessary. In most cases, Moscow would be able to identify the persons referred to, given sufficient information about their movements and their importance. This is where the pieces came in. In some cases you could identify the agent quite well by assigning a piece. For example, an exceptionally important agent would be represented by the king or the queen; but the queen could also mean a female agent; everything was a matter of context; sometimes a person acting out of religious conviction would be represented by a bishop; a military attaché or the like by a knight; a low-level agent by a pawn, and so on. Moscow was always represented by the square d8, the square of the black queen. Washington was d1, the square of the white queen, and London was e2. So the easiest way to represent the movement of a high-ranking diplomat suspected of involvement in espionage from Washington to Moscow would be the move Dd1 to Dd8, using the French notation, provided that the Queen could legally move to d8 in the circumstances of the game – her path was not blocked, and so on. In other cases, where the move would not be legal, more than one move might be required. But the move can always be suggested.’

  ‘So,’ Ginny asked, ‘once Digby had encrypted the information by assigning squares and pieces, he would use moves made in the Soviet championship to convey the information to you?’

  ‘Yes; or moves which might plausibly have been made during a game. That gives a very wide selection of moves.’

  Ginny glanced at Baxter, but Baxter seemed to have no inclination to rein in their questions.

  ‘And this was all in reports Digby made of the tournament – I take it he was officially there as a journalist?’

  ‘Yes, he was an accredited journalist. But he might send me a version of his report which differed to some extent from those he sent to the newspapers and magazines, simply to draw my attention to some particular moves, perhaps by underlining or some such device.’

  ‘And as long as he gave you the details of the encryption, you had access to the information immediately.’

  ‘I myself did not,’ Stepanov said, ‘but I had an encryption from which the Comrade Director could draw the necessary conclusions, once I explained the encryption to him.’

  ‘All right,’ Ben said. ‘I understand that. But the Soviet championship takes place once a year. What if information had to be conveyed at other times?’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ Stepanov replied. ‘There is an important chess tournament going on somewhere in the world at any given time of year, so we could have arranged other meetings. But it would have been insecure, suspicious, for us to be meeting regularly, and there might be no way to arrange secure accommodation for our meetings abroad. So we had another way of using the system. Postal chess is very popular throughout the world for people who cannot go to tournaments.’

  ‘The moves are sent by post?’ Ben asked. ‘That must mean that games go on for a long time?’

  Stepanov smiled. ‘Sometimes for years,’ he agreed. ‘But we did not need to conduct an actual game. We could simply exchange postcards, appearing to be part of a game, or notes for an analysis. This is how beautiful this is. You don’t even need to use an envelope. Postal games are played using postcards. So James might send me a card using German notation, saying for example: “Sd6; White threatens to follow up with Tg7, with a considerable advantage.”’

  ‘Which could mean?’

  ‘Which could mean: “an agent with military ties has arrived in Prague, and will link with a more senior colleague in Riga in the near future; the situation is dangerous; we need to watch it carefully”. Perhaps this refers to a suspected western operation with some military aspect in which these agents are implicated.’

  ‘But we had other symbols which could be used also. The notation for castling, a protective move, is 0-0 or 0-0-0, depending on whether you castle king’s side or queen’s side. We used this to suggest that evasive action was being taken, or should be taken. To indicate danger, we often used the + symbol, which is used to indicate that the king is in check. In case of the gravest danger, a life and death matter, we would use ++, the symbol for the king being checkmated – which brings the game to its end. We would sometimes indicate the wisdom of certain action by the use of ! – which in chess notation indicates a good move, or ? which indicates a bad move. There were so many variations.’

  Ben nodded thoughtfully. ‘Extraordinary,’ he said.

  ‘This system was useful also to clarify information which was not completely clear to the Comrade Director as it was originally provided,’ Stepanov added. ‘For example, the reference to the agent might be ambiguous. In this case, I would send James a card saying, perhaps: “Your last card got wet while in transit. Please clarify whether your move was Qf8 or Rf8.” He would clarify, and this would solve the problem.’

  Ginny suddenly sat up in her chair, and turned to Baxter.

  ‘This explains the evidence you provided to us before, doesn’t it? It explains how you were able to relate what happened to the agents to Digby’s annual visits to the Soviet championship?’

  Baxter nodded. ‘We were puzzled at first by the timings in some cases, but once Viktor explained about the postal chess system, all became clear. There was an obvious correlation.’

  ‘It worked for information passing in the other direction also,’ Stepanov added. ‘If the Comrade Director had intelligence that a particular Soviet agent or network in Paris might be threatened, I would encrypt this intelligence, using French notation and referring to f1 as the square for Paris; give the encryption to James if he was in Moscow, or send him a postcard if he was in London; and he would pass it on to his contact at the Embassy.’

  He sat back and surveyed the room with satisfaction, a craftsman proudly
demonstrating his work.

  ‘The most beautiful thing of all,’ he concluded, ‘is how secure the system was. There was nothing anybody could suspect, no suspicious documents or photographs; and even if they suspected, there was nothing that could be proved, unless James was caught meeting with his contact in London. Even then, neither he nor I knew the information in any real detail.’

  He drained his glass of oud with a flourish.

  ‘And so it continued,’ he said, ‘from 1948 to 1960.’

  56

  Stepanov had asked for a comfort break. Ben and Ginny were also anxious to stretch their legs for a while. Ginny stepped into the hallway where she could walk up and down. Ben stood quietly by the window, and looked out over the dark street in front of the house. The street looked exactly the same as it had when they arrived, but in the intervening period the world had changed. He had still not fully recovered from the shock of learning the identity of the man who had arrived at the house as Kurt Weber. He was already imagining the conversation he would have to have with Bernard Wesley and Herbert Harper, and then with Sir James Digby. It was one he was not looking forward to. He sensed that what he had learned was important enough to justify the massive departure from protocol involved in his presence at this house in The Hague. He doubted that anyone would be in the mood to question what he had done. But the case had been turned inside out. Digby and his legal team would now have to take decisions which would decide the fate, not only of Digby’s reputation, but of his future life; and the omens were not promising. He was intrigued by Ginny’s reaction. She could have been forgiven if she had shown some kind of pleasure or satisfaction about the change in her client’s fortunes; but she had remained completely impassive, apparently focused intently on every word that Stepanov was saying, without any overt display of emotion. Probably just good manners, he concluded. She must be waiting until Stepanov had gone and Baxter left them alone before dinner. They could talk then.