No Entry

by Manning Coles

  “Now,” said the General, whose eyes had been set upon the scruffy brief case from the moment it came into the room, “let us sit down and see the beautiful present our clever friend has brought us.” He spoke German rather badly, hesitating for words and plainly translating in his mind. Hambledon sat down with the others and slid the brief case along the table to the General, who seized it eagerly and struggled with a defective catch while the rest of the company watched in breathless silence. Eventually the flimsy catch gave way, the General opened the case and drew out its contents.

  “What—what——”

  He spoke in Russian and all the men at the table rose as though actuated by one lever and leaned across the table towards him; all, that is, except Ludwig Kirsch, who could not be expected to understand. He therefore kept his seat and gazed innocently out of the window.

  He was roughly recalled by having his arm shaken by the man next to him; he looked up to find the General purple in the face and waving foolscap sheets of squared paper with neat calculations upon them. Kirsch sprang to his feet with a cry of horror, snatched the sheets from the General’s hand, and clasped them to his chest.

  “My notes—my manuscript examples—my life’s work! I am engaged, gentlemen, in——”

  The General interrupted with a Russian word which Hambledon could not remember ever having heard before, though there was no doubt as to its meaning, and added in German: “The Smirnov Plan. Where is it, where?”

  “Ach! In the car. Concealed in the car, General. I go and get it.” He turned towards the door and opened it. “In the car, well hidden, I go and——Where—zehn tausend Teufeln—where is my car? It was outside the door I left it——”

  The young officer, who seemed to be on butler fatigue that day, sprang forward to explain that as their distinguished guest had had trouble on the road he had at once sent the car to the garage beyond in order that the distinguished guest——

  “Bring it back at once!” said the General. “At once.”

  Since all this was in Russian, Kirsch naturally could not be expected to understand a word of it. He therefore stood by, bleating: “My car, where is my car?” Then, remembering that he had a reputation for losing his temper, he picked up a china ash tray from the hall table, hurled it across the room, and thundered: “Produce my car at once! What den of thieves is this?”

  By this time the young officer had run out of the house and Hambledon followed him to the front porch, still clasping his trigonometry samples and quivering with fury. The General took him by the arm, making soothing noises, and led him back to the long room; the other officers trooped after, avoiding each other’s eyes and wiping a variety of expressions off their faces.

  “It is a little mistake,” said the General. “Your car was taken to the garage for a slight adjustment which your escort recommended for your convenience, Herr Kirsch. It is a very good garage. We ourselves use it in cases where a specially high standard of work is required. The Herr need have no fear.”

  Kirsch allowed himself to be soothed and offered vodka and a cigarette. He reclaimed his brief case and tucked his papers lovingly away.

  “While we are waiting,” said General Ambromovitch, “tell us, please, how you regained the papers?”

  Kirsch put the brief case away and became in a moment the alert intelligent spy. His mouth hardened and his jaw came forward.

  “I received the first message about the Smirnov Plan on the day before the Englishman passed through Goslar on his way back to England.”

  “He is gone, then. You are quite sure?”

  “Certainly. I made quite sure that he had not got the plan before I allowed him to pass unhindered. I saw him being conducted to the train by some other Englishman who came out to meet him; I made enquiries and learned that he had flown back to England from Hanover.”

  “That is helpful, to know that he has gone home. We have been looking for him but now the search can be called off and the troops returned to barracks. Colonel Kaganov, you will give the order.”

  The officer on Hambledon’s right assented and left the room. Hambledon drew a quiet breath. He had, of course, been angling for this.

  “And Lentov,” prompted the General.

  “Lentov, I think, must have had difficulty in crossing the frontier; he arrived two days later. I did not ask him about his adventures,” said Herr Kirsch drily. “He looked as though he had been sleeping in ditches—I do not know. Nor care. One of my people sheltered him and let me know, I went down to the house.” Kirsch made a gesture of finality. “We buried him in the orchard. I took the plan and hid it on my way home. I will not, if you will excuse me, tell even you where it was. I will only say,” he added, with a grim smile, “that churchyards are not normally the place for vulgar pranks or children’s play, there are many hiding places in ancient tombs and the dead do not chatter. I am sorry if I deprived you of the pleasure of dealing with him yourself, but the——”

  There came a knock at the door and the young officer entered. “The car is here.”

  “Good,” said Kirsch, and left the room with long strides.

  General Ambromovitch looked round the table.

  “An odd man,” he remarked, “the brilliant Ludwig Kirsch. One would say, two men. Did you notice how he altered when he turned his mind to our Intelligence work? I imagine that his devotion to his mathematical studies is equally wholehearted. He lives two lives, that man. Interesting.”

  Herr Kirsch came back a few minutes later carrying under his arm a thick and very grubby plank which he laid on the table, thus displaying what looked like a patch let in and held by two small screws. “This is the underneath of the plank, of course, it is part of the floor of the luggage compartment in the back of the car.” He took a screwdriver from his pocket and drew out the two small screws, lifted the lid and took out the packet inside. “The Smirnov Plan, gentlemen, as I received it. I hope that egregious idiot Lentov has not lost any of it.”

  General Ambromovitch took it in both hands, laid it on the table, and tore open the covering paper. There, once more, was the large folded map upon stiff paper, the smaller sketch plans relating to marked areas upon the map, the pages of notes; everything, in fact, which the original package had contained except the note beginning: “This is the Smirnov Plan which was stolen.” That note had gone back to London with the photographs.

  Kirsch took a step back from the table. “I did but glance at the contents to see if they appeared to be the right thing,” he said, with an unexpectedly deprecating smile. “I have never been a soldier; my eyes——” He touched his glasses. “General, you will wish to examine these in private. With your permission I will retire.”

  General Ambromovitch, who had been delightedly gloating, sprang to his feet and came round the table to take both of Hambledon’s hands in his. They were indeed the right papers—they appeared to be complete—the gratitude of the Russian Command—their indebtedness—the brilliance of the operation which rescued the papers—the intrepidity, the resource, the initiative——

  Kirsch bowed, extricated his hands, and stepped back. He thanked the General politely, but entirely without enthusiasm, for what he had said. There was, however, no occasion for all this fuss. He, Kirsch, had been instructed to regain a stolen packet and he had accordingly regained it. Why not? An agent expected to be given that sort of order and was naturally expected to carry it out. A thousand thanks. “And now,” he added, “I should like to return to Goslar. My other work awaits me and I am very busy.”

  They crowded round him, patting him on the back, those who could speak German saying that he must not go back yet, a few days’ holiday among friends would be good for his health. “In any case,” put in the General, “there is a dinner party tonight at which you, esteemed Herr Kirsch, will be the honoured guest.”

  Eventually Kirsch yielded; he would stay a day or two, not more. There was, of course, also the question of a new assistant in Goslar. “No doubt Grober reported th
at I have lost both my Goslar assistants? Yes, yes, one is dead and the other has run away. Let him go. He was becoming too well known in Goslar, people were beginning to notice him. Of course I have other men in my area but they are well posted where they are. If I were to move one of them he would have to be replaced and their local knowledge of their districts is their most valuable asset.” Kirsch walked up and down across the end of the table and addressed the class. “It will be plain to you, gentl—I mean, comrades, that when a man has lived so long in one place he knows everyone in it and can spot a stranger on sight. When he is an integral part of the community and is known and told all the local news and can ask questions without arousing distrust, that man is a hundred times more valuable where he is than he would be anywhere else. That is clear, I hope? Good. In Goslar, where there are many visitors, this useful faculty would be wasted. I want a new man, a stranger. I want Gustav Ehrlich.”

  Kirsch sat down at the end of the table and absently nodded to the others to sit down also.

  “Grober told us,” said the General, “that you wished to have Ehrlich, but you ought to know that we cannot recommend him. He is not reliable. He is an agitator, useful in factories, no more than that. He is——”

  “But do you not see that a man who can readily make acquaintances, who can talk to all comers and encourage them to talk to him, is precisely what I want? As for being an agitator, that may come in useful, but for the present he will say what I tell him to say and do what he is bid.”

  One of the officers said something to the General in Russian and Ambromovitch nodded.

  “Walenski reminds me that Ehrlich fled the Western Zone because the police were after him for a civil offence, embezzling canteen funds or something equally stupid. He is not honest, he——”

  “He will be honest with me,” said Kirsch, and smiled unpleasantly.

  “Very well,” said the General. “Heaven forbid that I should attempt to teach a man like you his trade. We have put out an enquiry for Ehrlich through the usual channels; a further order of special urgency shall be issued at once. Walenski, you will see to it at once and report to Herr Kirsch tomorrow.”

  Walenski bowed and left the room.

  “If he is above ground you shall have him,” promised the General. “There is, of course, the point that if Ehrlich is wanted by the West German authorities for embezzlement or whatever it was, the Goslar police may have his particulars and be looking for him.”

  A slow smile grew across the enigmatical Herr Kirsch’s face, he looked at the General and began to laugh quietly. He made no sound but his shoulders shook and Ambromovitch drew back.

  “I have done it again,” he said apologetically. “A life spent in the Army is my only excuse, I have always had to ask, ‘What are you going to do and by what means?’ I do apologise, Herr Kirsch.”

  “Not at all, not at all,” said Kirsch amiably. “I myself am become tiresomely secretive over the most unimportant concerns of my private life. It is as well I have no wife, I should drive the poor woman demented.”

  On this pleasant note they parted. Hambledon’s car having once more been removed—towed away this time—he and his luggage were driven to his hotel in a staff car with a soldier driving and another beside him. There was also a little pennon on the bonnet. It was a pity that the distinguished guest’s arrival should have been marred by his suitcase foolishly casting open its lid and spreading upon the pavement his striped nightshirt, three odd socks, two clean collars, and a pair of bedroom slippers with holes in them. Hambledon picked up his dressing gown and stalked into the hotel with this garment trailing on the ground behind him, leaving the soldier escort to gather up the debris.

  The dinner that night went on as Russian dinner parties usually do. It started with drinks at about half-past nine and finished with drinks towards three in the morning. Hambledon, who had endured Russian dinner parties before, swallowed a couple of olive-oil capsules before starting out and was thus enabled to be bright-eyed and still telling laboriously funny stories long after the General had fallen abruptly from his chair.

  On the following morning he was at the garage, observing, with childlike wonder, the engine of his car dissected into its component parts. He explained that he was not a mechanic and illustrated this point by asking why there was a lump in the middle of the back axle and, following on from that, what was the principle of a differential? “So often,” he said plaintively, “I have asked for this to be explained to me and even now I do not understand. . . . Yes, but if one back wheel goes round faster than the other, why does the tyre not wear out more quickly?”

  Just before the chief mechanic faced the choice between insanity and suicide, two officers from the Headquarters Staff came along to the rescue. They were apparently delighted to find that Herr Kirsch was in full working order even if his car was not. One, who had been at the dinner the night before, introduced another who had not, saying that Lieutenant Lischtin, who could speak German and had taken an honours degree in mathematics, had been selected for the honour of taking the Herr Kirsch round Magdeburg and showing him whatever he wished to see. “There is a cathedral,” said the older officer, who appeared to have a headache, “which I understand is interesting to those who like that sort of thing. There is also an exhibition of Soviet Art and Culture.” He then sighed wearily and withdrew with lagging steps.

  “This,” said Hambledon to himself, “is it. They have turned a real mathematician on to me, how unspeakably painful. If he bowls me out it will be the end. Oh, hell’s canaries, why did I come on this idiotic trip?”

  Aloud he said, looking after the retreating Russian, that the poor man looked as though a Turkish bath would do him good. Lieutenant Lischtin laughed and said that poor Captain Petrov suffered with his liver, but he would be well again tomorrow. “I am entirely at the Herr’s service this morning,” he added. “If the Herr is really interested in the cathedral, shall we go there?”

  “Are you?”

  “Well, personally, I feel I’ve rather grown out of cathedrals,” said Lischtin apologetically. “When I was about twelve I was frightfully keen on that sort of thing, but I seem to have worked it out of my system, as it were. But if the Herr would be interested to see it, I shall be delighted——”

  “Not at all,” said Hambledon briskly, and called himself a fool. Lischtin could hardly discuss cosines and cosecants in the precincts of a cathedral, or could he? If there happened to be a dome on the thing, he might——

  “What I really had in mind,” said Hambledon, “was, to be frank with you, beer. We made rather a night of it last night, as you may have heard, and I am left with a thirst. Have you learnt to drink beer?”

  Lischtin said yes, indeed, since he had been stationed in Germany, and added that there was quite a decent café down by the river where one could sit on a terrace and watch the steamers. They set off at a good four miles an hour, since the banks of the Elbe were some distance away, and Lischtin babbled cheerfully on about the time when, as a schoolboy, he had wanted to be an architect and build cathedrals, but his father had sensibly pointed out that the demand for cathedrals in present-day Russia was likely to be limited and he would have his living to earn. “So I took up mathematics. Does not the Herr think that there is a good deal in common between mathematics and architecture? One starts with a foundation in the form of a problem and builds upon that, including the various factors involved as an architect would include arches soaring to clerestories and——”

  At this point Hambledon became entangled with a woman pushing a perambulator and surrounded by five children, one of whom had a dog on a lead. By the time he had sorted himself out, Lischtin’s flood of similes had at least been interrupted. “And if he talks about trigonometric functions of a constant variable, I can always be taken ill,” he encouraged himself. “If only I had a small piece of soap I could have a fit.” But fortunately for him there were, in the centre of the town, so many people upon the pavement as to make convers
ation impossible.

  Lischtin’s café overlooked the island upon which Magdeburg’s Citadel stands; as they settled down at a table on the terrace, he pointed it out to Hen Kirsch.

  “Excellent,” said Hambledon. “Now, if the waiter will hurry up with the beer we can attend to our thirsts and look at the Citadel at the same time. What could be better?”

  “Nothing,” said Lischtin with conviction.

  After a short but refreshing interval Hambledon ordered two more and asked Lischtin what he wanted to do with his life. “For mathematics,” he said, boldly taking the initiative, “are not an end in themselves unless you propose to teach, and somehow I cannot picture you as a schoolmaster.”

  Lischtin said that possibly that had been in his parents’ minds but, frankly, it was not in his. Captain Petrov had introduced him as a mathematician, “But I do hope, sir, that you don’t suppose for a moment that I think I’m anywhere in your class. But I was particularly happy to be given the opportunity of talking to you this morning because there was something I wanted to ask you.”

  “Here it comes,” thought Hambledon, and managed with an effort to look benign.

  “The—the outside world,” said Lischtin, blushing with earnestness. “Has the Herr travelled? In, perhaps, Switzerland, Holland, and even France? To Paris? Really, to Paris? Ah, tell me about Paris!”

  A couple of hours later they had lunch together and then Lischtin reluctantly admitted he had to go on duty. “Such a privilege to meet you, I cannot thank you enough——”

  “It has been a pleasure,” said Hambledon warmly.

  19: Sausage Factory

  Walenski reported that he had made enquiries at the various Record Offices and there was no trace of Ehrlich.

  “He reported his return to the Eastern Zone,” he said. “He was not received with any particular acclaim because he had behaved like an idiot.” Walenski was a tall thin man with a hooked nose, black eyebrows over hooded eyes, and deep lines from his nose to the corners of his mouth. Bad-tempered, thought Hambledon, and obstinate.