No Entry

by Manning Coles

  When the Chief’s car came up to the front door a uniformed man came out of the house, saluted, and said that they had made another arrest.

  “Get back in the house,” said the Chief abruptly, and followed him in with Hambledon. “Who is it and where is he?”

  “In the scullery, mein Herr, he is handcuffed and there are bars on the window. We locked up the house after the prisoner was taken away and Mulder and I were talking just within the entrance to the lane, when this man came down the road and turned in at the gate, so we kept observation through the hedge. He knocked several times at the front door and again at the back door but, of course, the house is empty. Then we saw him working on the catch of one of the windows and preparing to climb in. We accordingly apprehended him, mein Herr.”

  The Chief looked closely at his constable and said that something seemed to have happened to his left eye.

  “Yes, mein Herr,” said the man woodenly. “Mulder also was kicked in the stomach. That is why we handcuffed the prisoner. Mulder is being sick outside.”

  “I see.”

  “The prisoner’s papers are not in order but, according to them, his name appears to be Bauer.”

  “Just a moment,” said the Chief of Police, and took Hambledon into the sitting room, shutting the door behind them. “You were right, someone did come.”

  “Yes,” said Hambledon, “yes,” and took a turn up and down the room. “A pity he came so soon, but it can’t be helped. He seems to have reacted rather violently when asked to explain why he was climbing in at a window and, when you come to think of it, that is rather an odd thing to do in broad daylight even if he did not know there were two constables behind the hedge. I mean, why not go quietly away and come back later?”

  “It may be that his errand was urgent, perhaps? A message to be delivered at a time when Kirsch ought to have been at home? I wonder if he is carrying a letter.”

  “I should think not,” said Hambledon, but the Chief put his head out at the door and asked if the prisoner had anything on him in the way of a letter, besides his personal papers.

  “No, mein Herr, only the usual things a man carries in his pockets, though it is true that we have not searched his clothing. There might be a letter sewn in somewhere. Does the Herr wish such a search to be made? Mulder has left off being sick now.”

  “No, it can wait till we get him down to the station,” said the Chief, and shut the door again. “You were thinking——”

  “That if this man disappears without trace they will send someone else if the message is really urgent. You have enough against this man to hold him?”

  “Plenty. Housebreaking, papers not in order, assaulting the police, ach, yes. I will take him away at once, shall I?”

  “If you please. I think it would be as well if he did not see me. I don’t really know why; just my natural caution breaking out. I will stay on here, I think. No doubt there is food in the house.”

  “We will look; if not I will send some up. I will send two other men up also. This fellow outside is not our brightest specimen and I imagine that Mulder ought to go off duty for the rest of the day. Ring me up at least four times a day, will you? And, of course, at any time you want anything. Auf Wiedersehen.”

  Hambledon, armed with Kirsch’s keys, entered Kirsch’s study, shut the door behind him and opened the window, which protested that it was not accustomed to being opened. He then started upon a search of the various locked containers which were not, thank Heaven, nearly so numerous as the Chief of Police had suggested. There was a safe and a writing table of the type which has four small drawers at either side acting as pillars to support the leather-covered top. There was a sizable table in the middle of the room bearing a typewriter and the neat piles of trigonometrical calculations which had so impressed the simple mind of Hanna. Hambledon looked over the sheets and recoiled, for mathematics was not his subject; when it occurred to him that they might conceivably be an innocent-seeming series of keys to codes, he backed away until he bumped against the opposite wall. He had not the crossword-puzzle type of mind and regarded codes much as the average man regards nuclear science—a wonderful thing worked out by marvellous minds, but they can have it.

  There were two long shallow drawers under this table. He unlocked and opened these first, to discover that Ludwig Kirsch was, actually, in the last stages of preparing a textbook on Trigonometry for Higher Forms. There were the pages carefully laid out with incredibly neat footnotes. So Kirsch really was doing what he said he was doing, and why not? Even a Soviet agent must have his hobbies.

  Hambledon abandoned the trigonometry and turned to the safe. Even as he inserted the key he thought of booby traps and stood at one side when the door swung open. However, nothing squirted vitriol at him or even tried to shoot him, and he came round to the front and looked in.

  “Not even a cobra poised to strike,” he remarked, for one of his fellow guests at the hotel had lent him a really blood-curdling thriller into which politeness had compelled him to dip.

  The safe was reasonably full, mainly of information about the British Occupation Forces in the area. Hambledon looked through them and marvelled for the thousandth time at the German passion for detail. Kirsch had complete particulars of the strength of the British forces, the units concerned, their arms and equipment, their guns and their transport, the exact position of all the units, and even the layout of their barracks and posts. There were complete lists of all the officers in order of seniority; their names, ages, war records, decorations; the part of the country from which they came, and even the schools which had nurtured their formative years, though why it should interest the Russians to know that the Colonel was at Winchester and the Adjutant at Rugby, only Heaven knows.

  “Perhaps it enables them to show off,” said Hambledon. “ ‘To us, your lives are an open book; from us, there is nothing hid.’ Blast them.” He looked more closely at the typewritten pages, they were carbon copies, kept in case the top copies went missing in transit, no doubt.

  He stacked them on the floor in a space by themselves—the British should have those—and turned to the next shelf. Here were reports about individual Germans in that area of the Western Zone, with their full names and addresses and comments about their characters and capabilities. “Accurate and thorough, this man is commendable.” “Conscientious but has not the technical knowledge required for his post.” “Unreliable, drinks to excess. Should be dropped.” “Brilliant but careless, lacks application.”

  Hambledon sat back on his heels, there was an old, familiar ring about these comments—of course! End-of-term reports. Once a schoolmaster, always a schoolmaster.

  “I wonder how often I give myself away,” said Hambledon, who had been a schoolmaster himself.

  There were further details about German Communist agents, with brief notes about information which they had supplied and useful work which they had done.

  Another set of papers were copies of suggestions sent across by Kirsch himself. Would it not be a good idea, subject to approval, of course, to work up ill-feeling between the British Occupation Forces and the German people? Incidents involving the troops, such as assault and rape, robbery at lonely houses, scenes of violence in cafés. It would be possible to produce most convincing evidence, it did not really matter if it did not convince the British Army authorities so long as the Germans believed it.

  The next discovery was a series of bright ideas about sabotage, particularly of the kind which causes accidents.

  “ ‘Don’t blow up the barracks,’ ” commented Tommy, “ ‘tamper with the steering gear.’ One must admit that this fellow is capable. The Russians are going to miss their Ludwig, aren’t they?”

  There was a locked drawer at the bottom of the safe, which contained one stout envelope, unsealed. Hambledon slid out the contents. They comprised a set of personal papers of a kind which he had never seen before, for they were Soviet-issued passes to enter the Soviet Zone at Helmstedt. That
is, there were a number of passes but they all referred to Ludwig Kirsch. There was a German passport complete with photograph and visaed for entry into Soviet-occupied territory at Helmstedt only, not anywhere else. There was a grey card authorising him to travel by railway from Helmstedt direct to Magdeburg and a white one permitting him to move about within the city limits of Magdeburg for a period not exceeding seven days. This must be taken to the police by the bearer in person within three hours of arriving in the city. There was a short list of names and addresses of “permitted” hotels; a note at the foot of this said that ration cards were obtainable at the office of the Rationed Food Distribution Controller and identity papers must be produced at the time of application. There was a further card, blue this time, giving the name and address of the particular Volksbank authorised to exchange West marks into East marks; Hambledon, who had heard from Britz, his driver, that there was a thriving black market in the Soviet Zone for the more valuable West marks, guessed that this bank was not nearly so busy as it ought to be.

  “Dear me,” said Hambledon. “I wonder whether you were in the habit of running across to see your little playmates every so often.” He took up Kirsch’s passport again and examined it closely. It had been issued in 1954 and was therefore three years old. It bore exit and entry stamps into Holland and back in 1954 and again in 1955 and these were the only entries before the Soviet visa dated January of the current year. Kirsch’s address was given as Hamburg.

  Hambledon looked at the passport and the beginning of an idea began to germinate in his mind. Of course, this passport only said that Kirsch had not entered Russian territory since 1954. He might have made a habit of it before that, not so long ago. Besides, it was practically certain that Kirsch would have had visitors from the Soviet Zone. Russian Intelligence Services would not conduct their business through the post. Hambledon’s idea, always a little misty, thinned out almost to vanishing point. There would be no sense in entering Soviet-occupied territory on these papers, only to be confronted with rows of hard-faced autocrats all looking coldly at him and saying with one voice: “This ain’t our Ludwig.” Then, moving as one man, they would all draw out their Army-issue revolvers. No, no future in that. None at all.

  Hambledon sighed and returned the papers to the safe for the moment.

  The drawers of the writing table, although as scrupulously locked as the rest, contained only such innocent and homely things as blotting paper, writing paper, envelopes, paper clips, pencils, and boxes of nibs. The bottom left-hand drawer alone contained something not strictly utilitarian, a box of chessmen and a folding board. The man kept no letters—there were a few tradesmen’s receipts—he seemed to have neither family nor friends. No “Lieb’ Ludwig, could you lend me fifty marks till the end of the month”; no “Lieber Onkel, there is great news, Gretchen has a son and the little Lottchen has cut a tooth.” Nothing human.

  Hambledon went over the rest of the house. Downstairs there was also a kitchen and the small scullery in which Bauer had been confined. Here there was a back door leading to a neglected garden and a secretive-looking little path between currant bushes to an inconspicuous gate in the side lane. A quiet route for shy visitors.

  Upstairs there were two bedrooms and a small box room, unused. One bedroom was kept under dust sheets by the careful Hanna; the other was Ludwig Kirsch’s. The grey dressing gown which had so much affronted Hanna’s deputy had been flung across the foot of the bed. Presumably Kirsch had changed into more formal attire when he was taken to police headquarters. There were clothes in a hanging cupboard, underwear and handkerchiefs in the dressing-table drawers, shaving kit and so forth on the fixed wash-hand basin. Everything that should be in a man’s bedroom was there and nothing more. Had Kirsch no gun, then? Oh, probably on him when he was arrested, and taken away, with him, by the police.

  Hambledon reckoned that he was not likely to be approached by anyone from Soviet Intelligence until it became obvious that Bauer was missing; not, probably, for two days. In the meantime it would be idiotic as well as intensely boring to sit indoors continuously at this stage. Dull and stuffy, even with the windows open. Besides, he was getting hungry.

  He reopened the safe, took out Kirsch’s careful details about the British Army, and put them in a large envelope with a covering note for transmission to the British Army of Occupation, Security Branch. Kirsch’s passport and various passes for the Soviet Zone went into Hambledon’s own inside pocket; it was painfully unlikely that he would ever be able to use them, but one never knows. The fact was that he could not bear to part with them.

  He rang up the Chief of Police on the telephone.

  “I have found a lot of stuff in Kirsch’s safe which will interest you. In fact, it won’t matter in the least if Kirsch never speaks another word as long as he lives; it’s all here. I’ll bring it along to you. I think it would be wiser if your detectives were not seen to be buzzing round this house at the moment . . . What? . . . No, no trouble at all, I’m going out to lunch. There’s no sense in my sticking close to this place until it becomes obvious to those who sent him that Bauer has got lost. I wish Bauer would talk, but . . . Yes, I agree. I’ve often thought so . . . Yes, but one couldn’t rely on what he said and there’s no means of checking it. I assume that he did come in from the Soviet Zone . . . Oh, have you? Well done. Through Helmstedt yesterday, I see. Probably stayed the night at Brunswick. Yes . . . Well now, I have also found some stuff the British authorities ought to have, not that it will do them much good, it’s all carbon copies but it will make nice bedtime reading . . . Oh, would you? How kind, I’ll bring that along too, then. Very well, I’ll have some lunch, it’s getting late, and then come on to you. I beg your pardon?”

  “I said,” repeated the Chief of Police, “that I have a message for you from London. Here it is. ‘Your message received. Please arrange get Micklejohn out earliest possible moment.’ Message ends.”

  Hambledon caught a bus into Goslar and stood himself lunch at the Schwartzer Adler. If he were going to spend two or three days—or even more—immured in Kirsch’s house with a choice between cooking for himself or living upon sausage, he would at least have a nice lunch to remember. Besides, if he were to go about with two or three days’ beard upon his face none of the better hotels would admit him, and rightly.

  He emerged, pleasantly replete, from the Schwartzer Adler and stood outside the door while he lit a cigar. Apparently Adolf Hitler used to stay at the Schwartzer Adler when he came to Goslar, though why anyone should think it recommended an hotel to have had among its clients a man who ate boiled cabbage and cream buns and drank Apfelsaft it is hard to understand. If it could be said that Goering had approved the place, there would have been much more sense in it.

  He walked up the path to the road and turned right to go into the town. The side wall of the Schwartzer Adler’s decorative forecourt ends in a square stone pillar and on this pillar there is a bronze plaque. Hambledon stopped to look.

  It is about two feet high by eighteen inches wide and depicts, in low relief, a barbed-wire fence such as are placed round prisoner-of-war camps. Against this fence there is the figure of a man, seen from behind, drooping against the wire in an attitude of the most heartbroken despair. One hand drags at a strand as though his legs will scarcely support him, his body sags sideways, and his face is hidden in the crook of his arm. An inscription across the top reads Vergesst Uns Nicht—do not forget us.

  It is a memorial to the eighty thousand German prisoners whom the Russians still refuse to release. Quite recently, in fact, the Russians have said that these prisoners cannot now be returned because they are all dead.

  He turned away and walked on, wondering whether or not the irony was intentional which had set this plaque outside the one place in Goslar most associated with Adolf Hitler.

  15: The Smirnov Plan

  Hambledon went on down the road and angled across the square which contains the Jakobi-Kirche to reach the Police Headquarters by f
ootways and narrow side streets. The Chief of Police received him at once.

  “These will interest you,” said Tommy, and gave him Kirsch’s lists of Communist agents in that area—the end-of-term reports—and the further list of what these men had done.

  “I am interested,” said the Chief grimly, running his eyes down the lists. “So will they be when I bring them here before me. I will give them something to occupy their minds, yes, yes. I——”

  “These,” said Hambledon, “I think you should see and then, if you will, pass them on to the British authorities. I really don’t know whether you or they are the more concerned.”

  These last were Kirsch’s suggestions for stirring up trouble between the British Occupation Forces and the German people, and also for sabotage.

  “These, I think, will form an important part of the case against him, but I will send copies at once to the British authorities, do you agree? Good. Anything else?”

  “Only this rather fat envelope for the Army Security people. You said that you would kindly send them up.”

  “I will send a police car out at once. There is no message with them? No. They shall have them in an hour,” said the Chief. “Anything else?”

  “Only an enquiry, a complete shot in the dark. The man may not even exist but it would be foolish to neglect the most outside chance—Gustav Ehrlich is the name. Do you know anything whatever about a man named Ehrlich, Gustav?”

  “Ehrlich. I have heard the name and that quite recently. One moment.” The Chief of Police went to a tall card index, pulled out the drawer labelled EB-EN, and flicked over the cards. “Yes, here he is. ‘Ehrlich, Gustav, born at Stettin 1932, engineer, employed at Breslau 1952-54, went to Dortmund October ’54, Communist. Suspected on good evidence of embezzling firm’s money, complaint laid with police May 27, this year. Evaded arrest and is thought to be making for Soviet Zone.’ That is right, we were looking out for him but we have not caught him. That is quite recent, you see, but I expect he has got across by now. I have no photograph but here is his description: 'Eyes, grey; hair, brown; round face; long nose; cleft chin; ears flat, no lobes; height 175.5 centimetres, no distinguishing marks.’ That, mein Herr, is all I have.”