Mr. Calder & Mr. Behrens (26 page)

“Then,” said Mr. Behrens, who was slowly trying to absorb this new idea, “you think that there
is
something in Pitt-Hammersley’s theory, and that Mitos was instructed to remove him and throw ridicule on it at the same time.”

“There’s no certainty about it, but that eminent functionary who watches over our incomings and outgoings—”

“The hall porter.”

“That’s the joker. He sleeps over the gate. He tells me he heard Mitos’ car driving off at about one in the morning. He thought it was unusual, because he’s never known him stay so late.”

“What the devil are we going to do about it?” said Mr. Behrens. He felt curiously helpless.

“I agree with your invocation of the devil,” said Professor Thom, “because it’s a diabolical situation. All that we have to go on so far is surmise and guess-work. But let’s add two and two together for a moment and see where it gets us. Suppose Wykes is a plant. He’d be a very valuable plant. He’d need watering and tending. He’d also need a handy method of getting information back to base. Now Mitos has a bungalow on the river bank, three or four miles below Cambridge. He sits on his landing stage in the evening, fishing. Wykes is a punting and canoeing enthusiast. You follow what I’m thinking?”

“I follow you completely,” said Mr. Behrens. “But if we’re going to move against Mitos, on the sort of information we’ve got, we’re going to need a clearance from higher-up.”

“Right from the top,” said Thom. “But if you figure on their reactions when they think that there’s now a chance – an outside chance, I grant you – that the Russians have managed to get their hands on a big slice of the East-West Early Warning System, I would surmise that the gloves will be off and Queensberry Rules will be discarded.”

“I must apologise,” said Tadeus Rek, “for your somewhat dramatic reception, but we are well aware that the authorities are becoming frightened of our influence, and would give much to discredit us. In particular, by some purported involvement in espionage. Now that I understand what you want, I naturally acquit you of any such intentions. What you have told me is a curious story. It might be true.”

“How well did you know Boris Wycech?”

“For two years, as boys, in Sweden. We had been very close. When we came back here, we both obtained places at the University at Cracow. Stefan Thugutt, fresh back from internment in Canada, was there too. Boris joined with enthusiasm in all the patriotic anti-Russian demonstrations. So did my brother. Me, I was not happy. I was younger then, and inexperienced, but not stupid. A riot was planned in favour of our war hero, General Anders. I saw trouble coming. I removed myself from the University, and took a job as a workman. The riot gave the Russians’ puppet Radkiewiz and his political police, the chance they wanted. Thugutt acted as spy and
agent provocateur.
I learned of that later, after the riot had been stamped on, and the leaders shot, my brother among them. As you may imagine, when I learned of this, I took all possible steps to trace Thugutt. But he and Wycech had both disappeared. It was astonishing. It was as though they had never existed.”

“One possible explanation would be, wouldn’t it,” said Mr. Calder slowly, “that Russian Intelligence saw an opportunity of carrying out one of their favourite substitution tricks? There was the superficial resemblance between the two young men, and the fact that their studies had been in the same field. Add to that the fact that all of Wycech’s family were dead. His uncle’s reputation would ensure his substitute a friendly reception in England. All that was necessary was to extract from Wycech every detail of his past, and to prime Thugutt with this background information. Wycech is obliterated. Thugutt comes to England, changes his name to Wykes, and lives quietly for at least fifteen years before he starts to move into a sensitive job. The chances of discovery would become smaller every year.”

“As you say, it is possible. I suppose that I am the one person who could make the matter a certainty.”

“Would you be willing to help? I could make all arrangements very quickly. And of course, at no expense to you.”

“My dear Mr. Calder, if this man should turn out, in fact, to be Stefan Thugutt, the pleasure of meeting him again would be an ample reward in itself.”

The smile which accompanied these words was one of the coldest, thought Mr. Calder, that he had ever seen, on a human face.

“I had a message last night from my chief,” said Mr. Behrens.

He and Ben Thom were sitting together, after breakfast, on a bench in the Warden’s private garden. Bees hummed among the riot of July flowers in the deep borders. Pigeons cooed. The buttery cat strolled across the smooth shaven lawn, keeping one eye on the pigeons.

“Special Branch are picking up Mitos at his bungalow this morning and taking him to London. He has been told that some question has arisen over his papers. Since he is not operating under diplomatic cover, but is here as a private citizen, he was unable to object. The whole thing has been arranged to give me a chance to make a very careful search of the premises.”

“You and me,” said Thom.

“Really, Ben. There’s no need—”

“You’re not keeping me out of it. After all this cerebral work, a little activity will be a welcome change.”

“All right,” said Mr. Behrens. “If that’s how you feel about it I’d be glad of your company. Can you pick a lock?”

“I majored in lock picking. We’ll go in my car.”

“No. We’ll go by boat. Much the least conspicuous way. A two-oar skiff should get us there in an hour.”

Mr. Behrens had over-estimated his skill as an oarsman but it was well before midday when he tied up the boat under a willow tree fifty yards short of the Mitos bungalow.

“On foot from here,” said Mr. Behrens. “We can keep under cover until we get to the garden.”

The bungalow was an isolated one, approached on the landward side by a long, dusty side road. The lawn sloped down to the river. On the other side the bank was wild and overgrown.

“A perfect pitch for a contact job,” said Thom. They walked up the path together. They were twenty yards from the building when Mr. Behrens stopped.

“I’m not absolutely certain,” said Mr. Behrens, “but I did think I saw the curtain in that window move a fraction.”

“Then clearly the first thing to do,” said Thom, “is to ring the bell. If there’s someone there, they answer the door and we’re two boat-trippers who forgot to bring any water for their kettle, and don’t trust river water. OK?”

“That seems sound,” said Mr. Behrens.

The back of the bungalow was a glassed-in verandah. There was no bell by the door but there was a knocker. Mr. Behrens executed a lengthy and lively tattoo on it. Nothing happened.

Professor Thom was already busy with a selection of thin steel spikes. Some had spatulate tips, some ended in hooks. He handled them with the familiarity and firmness of a surgeon. The lock was evidently more complicated than he had expected. “A curious lock to find on the back door of an innocent bungalow,” he said to Mr. Behrens. In three minutes he had it opened and they stepped inside.

The verandah was full of stored heat and silence. A step led up to an inner door. This was unlocked. Mr. Behrens opened it, stepped inside and stopped.

“Something wrong?” said Professor Thom.

“Not really,” said Mr. Behrens.

Mr. Calder was seated on the sofa with a stranger beside him.

“Allow me to introduce my friend,” said Mr. Calder. “Tadeus Rek, of Danzig. Mr. Behrens. And—?”

“Professor Ebenezer Thom of Columbia University.”

“I think,” said Mr. Calder a little later, “that it’s time we joined up the two sides of this affair. Tadeus has been very useful to us already. He identified Michael Mitos, from a photograph, as a minor functionary in Russian Intelligence. An unimportant intellectual who was probably blackmailed into coming to England. He is not a very brave man. His credentials are being examined. The supposition is that he was acting as link-man to someone much more important.”

“That someone,” said Mr. Behrens, “being Sir Boris Wykes.”

“That we shall shortly find out. A message has been conveyed to a certain quarter – I said that Mitos was not very brave. If what we suspect is correct, it should result in someone attempting to contact Mitos.”

“Coming here, you mean?” said Professor Thom. There was a look in his eye which seemed to suggest that further activity would not be displeasing to him.

“That is the supposition. The message stressed that a contact was urgent, but it might not be effective before tomorrow. Fortunately there is plenty of food in the house. However, I suggest”— he was looking at Mr. Behrens as he said this —“that a reception committee of four might be excessive.”

“I think you’re right,” said Mr. Behrens slowly. “Besides, Ben, we must bear in mind we have hired our boat by the hour. A substantial monetary penalty will be exacted if we keep it out over night.”

“Very well,” said Professor Thom reluctantly. “If that’s what you think would be best.”

Rek said, with the justifiable pride of one employing a colloquialism in a foreign tongue, “That’s the way the cookie crumbles, Professor.”

Sir Boris Wykes, paddling his canoe expertly down the smooth reaches of the Cam, was not unduly alarmed. Mitos was inclined to panic. He had asked, more than once, for him to be replaced by a more reliable operator but it had been difficult to find anyone with the precise qualifications.

The message had reached him, through established channels, and verified by the current code-word, at five o’clock on the previous afternoon. He gathered that it was something to do with Mitos’ papers. It had mentioned urgency. Wykes was too old a hand to be hurried.

Fortunately he had already mentioned to one or two friends that he was planning to take a boat out on the following afternoon and he had adhered to this timetable.

As he came round the bend he saw the familiar figure seated on the landing stage, a fishing rod in his hand and the same floppy old sunhat on his head. So! The authorities had
not
detained Mitos. Another false alarm.

Three swift strokes with the paddle drove the canoe towards the stage. The fisherman looked up.

A moment of paralysed shock.

The man was a stranger. Or was he? He was certainly not Mitos.

“My name is Rek,” said the fisherman. “Tadeus Rek.” One brown and muscular hand had grasped the edge of the canoe. “We met once or twice, no more I think, in 1946 at Cracow. On the other hand, you knew my brother, Andreas, rather well. It was on account of your information that he was shot. That makes what we have to do much easier.”

Wykes fended off wildly from the landing stage, hitting at Rek’s hand with the paddle. It was an ineffective gesture. Mr. Calder had come up behind him, and was holding the other end of the canoe firmly.

“First Pitt-Hammersley,” said the Warden. “Now Mitos. We are the playthings of fate.” He was alone in his study with Mr. Behrens.

“I learn this morning that the authorities have not only detained Mitos, they have refused to allow him out of custody pending deportation. Is this a police state? Is there nothing we can do?”

“You could appeal to the Home Secretary,” said Mr. Behrens, but he said it without much confidence.

The Warden’s eye fell on the morning paper that Mr. Behrens had put down. “Boating Tragedy,” said the headline, “Eminent Scientist Feared Drowned. A canoe, which had been hired on the previous afternoon by Sir Boris Wykes, the Government scientist in charge of the East Coast Early Warning System, was found this morning floating bottom up in the Cam five miles below Cambridge. The body of the canoeist has not been recovered. That stretch of the river is notorious for its underwater weed bed which is known to have trapped quite strong swimmers. The river above the point where the canoe was found is being dragged.”

Mr. Behrens thought it very unlikely that the body would be recovered.

“I shall have to put up a notice,” the Warden made a note on his pad, “urging students not to go boating single-handed. I’ve done so before, but young people take little notice of warnings.” He reverted to his original grievance. “I suppose,” he said to Mr. Behrens, “that you wouldn’t care – just as a temporary measure – to take over Pitt-Hammersley’s lectures? I understand you are something of an expert on the subjects that he covered.”

“I’m afraid not, Warden,” said Mr. Behrens. “I’d like to help, but I’ve come to the reluctant conclusion that the science of linguistics is too dangerous to be meddled with by amateurs.”

“They burned him to death,” said Elfe. He said it without any attempt to soften the meaning of what he was saying. “He was almost certainly alive when they dumped him in the car and set fire to it.”

Deputy Assistant Commissioner Elfe had a long, sad face and grey hair. In the twenty years that he had been head of the Special Branch he had seen more brutality, more treachery, more fanaticism, more hatred than had any of his predecessors in war or in peace. Twice he had tried to retire, and twice had been persuaded to stay.

“He couldn’t have put up much of a fight,” said Mr. Calder, “only having one arm and one and a half legs.”

They were talking about Michael Finnegan, whose charred carcass had been found in a burnt-out stolen car in one of the lonelier parts of Hampstead Heath. Finnegan had been a lieutenant in the Marines until he had blown off his right arm and parts of his right leg whilst defusing a new type of anti-personnel mine. During his long convalescence his wife Sheilagh, had held the home together, supplementing Michael’s disability pension by working as a secretary. Then Finnegan had taught himself to write left-handed, and had gained a reputation, and a reasonable amount of cash for his articles; first only in service journals, but later in the national press, where he had constituted himself a commentator on men and affairs.

“It’s odd,” as Mr. Behrens once observed, “you’d think that he’d be a militant chauvinist. Actually he seems to be a moderate and a pacifist. It was Finnegan who started arguing that we ought to withdraw our troops from Ireland. That was long before the IRA made it one of the main planks in their platform.”