Mr. Calder & Mr. Behrens Read online

  Copyright & Information

  Mr. Calder & Mr. Behrens

  First published in 1966

  © Estate of Michael Gilbert; House of Stratus 1966-2012

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

  The right of Michael Gilbert to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted.

  This edition published in 2012 by House of Stratus, an imprint of

  Stratus Books Ltd., Lisandra House, Fore Street, Looe,

  Cornwall, PL13 1AD, UK.

  Typeset by House of Stratus.

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library and the Library of Congress.

  EAN ISBN Edition

  0755105273 9780755105274 Print

  0755131967 9780755131969 Kindle

  0755132335 9780755132331 Epub

  This is a fictional work and all characters are drawn from the author’s imagination.

  Any resemblance or similarities to persons either living or dead are entirely coincidental.

  www.houseofstratus.com

  About the Author

  Born in Lincolnshire, England, Michael Francis Gilbert graduated in law from the University of London in 1937, shortly after which he first spent some time teaching at a prep-school which was followed by six years serving with the Royal Horse Artillery. During World War II he was captured following service in North Africa and Italy, and his prisoner-of-war experiences later leading to the writing of the acclaimed novel ‘Death in Captivity’ in 1952.

  After the war, Gilbert worked as a solicitor in London, but his writing continued throughout his legal career and in addition to novels he wrote stage plays and scripts for radio and television. He is, however, best remembered for his novels, which have been described as witty and meticulously-plotted espionage and police procedural thrillers, but which exemplify realism.

  HRF Keating stated that ‘Smallbone Deceased’ was amongst the 100 best crime and mystery books ever published. "The plot," wrote Keating, "is in every way as good as those of Agatha Christie at her best: as neatly dovetailed, as inherently complex yet retaining a decent credibility, and as full of cunningly-suggested red herrings." It featured Chief Inspector Hazlerigg, who went on to appear in later novels and short stories, and another series was built around Patrick Petrella, a London based police constable (later promoted) who was fluent in four languages and had a love for both poetry and fine wine. Other memorable characters around which Gilbert built stories included Calder and Behrens. They are elderly but quite amiable agents, who are nonetheless ruthless and prepared to take on tasks too much at the dirty end of the business for their younger colleagues. They are brought out of retirement periodically upon receiving a bank statement containing a code.

  Much of Michael Gilbert’s writing was done on the train as he travelled from home to his office in London: "I always take a latish train to work," he explained in 1980, "and, of course, I go first class. I have no trouble in writing because I prepare a thorough synopsis beforehand.". After retirement from the law, however, he nevertheless continued and also reviewed for ‘The Daily Telegraph’, as well as editing ‘The Oxford Book of Legal Anecdotes’.

  Gilbert was appointed CBE in 1980. Generally regarded as ‘one of the elder statesmen of the British crime writing fraternity, he was a founder-member of the British Crime Writers’ Association and in 1988 he was named a Grand Master by the Mystery Writers of America, before receiving the Lifetime ‘Anthony’ Achievement award at the 1990 Boucheron in London.

  Michael Gilbert died in 2006, aged ninety three, and was survived by his wife and their two sons and five daughters.

  The Characters

  Daniel John Calder

  Born 1913, only son of Rev. Joseph Calder (Canon of Salisbury) and Sandra Kisfaludy (Hungarian).

  Educated: Bishop Wordsworth’s School, Salisbury and Universita di Perugia.

  Reuters Foreign Correspondent, Athens, 1932; Budapest, 1934; Baghdad, 1937; Bucharest, Head Office, 1938.

  Recruited to MI6,1935.

  Languages: (A) Standard-Albanian and Hungarian (B) Standard-Greek, Italian, Arabic, Russian

  War service: Pardy still classified. 1939-41 at Blenheim and Hatfield Special Interrogation Centres. Member of British Military Mission to Albania, 1944.

  Joined JSSIC (E) June 1958.

  Special interests: Small arms; cello; history of the Peninsular War.

  Club: R.A.C.

  Residence: The Cottage, Hyde Hill, near Lamperdown, Kent. Tel: (ex- directory)

  Blood group: AB. Rh+

  Samuel Behrens

  Born 1910, second son and fourth child of Alfred Behrens and Marie Messenger, of Highgate, London.

  Educated: Shrewsbury (Oldhams House) and London University, and Heidelberg University, Specialised European languages. Taught at Munich High School, 1929-32; Baden-Baden, 1932-33; Leipzig, 1933-35; Berlin, 1935-39.

  Recruited to MI6,1933.

  Languages: (A) + Standard-German (A) + Standard-French (A) + Standard-Greek, Italian, Russian

  War service: Still classified (it has been mentioned in Reminiscences of Franz Mulbach, Bonn, 1963, that S. B. was in Germany for two months prior to the first attempt on Hider’s life and supplied the sabotage device which failed to detonate in the Fuehrer’s plane).

  Joined JSSIC (E) 1956.

  Special interests: Beekeeping, chess.

  Club: Dons-in-London.

  Residence: The Old Rectory, Lamperdown, Kent. Tel: Lamperdown 272

  Blood group: O. Rh+

  Rasselas

  Persian deerhound; by Shah Jehan out of Galietta.

  Height: 32 inches. Weight: 128 pounds.

  Colour: Golden with darker patches. Eyes amber. Nose blue-black. Hair rough, with distinctive coxcomb between ears. Neck, long. Quarters exceptionally powerful. Legs, broad and flat.

  Club: Kennel Club.

  Blood group: (canine classification) A5

  1

  The Twilight of the Gods

  The German artillery observation officer said, “I shall now proceed to range one gun on to the slit trench. If you will use your binoculars, gentlemen, you will observe it quite easily at the foot of the small knoll due east of where you are now standing.”

  The small group of privileged spectators raised field glasses in gloved hands and focused them.

  “The trench is exactly one and a half metres deep and one metre in width. It has been dug into chalk and flint. Owing to unavoidable discrepancies in the charges, it would not normally be possible to guarantee actually to hit the trench more than once in a hundred rounds.”

  “I wager,” said General Runnecke, who commanded XIV Corps in the Banja Luka area of Yugoslavia and who was, therefore, nominally at least, the senior officer present, “that he did all his ranging before we arrived.”

  “In his place I should have done so,” agreed the staff officer with the gunner tabs who was standing at his elbow.

  “Fire!”

  The report from the gun, sited some five thousand yards to their rear, arrived at the same time as the shell, which threw up a puff of white chalk and grey smoke just beyond the slit trench.

  “Correct for line,” said the observation officer smugly. “Plus for range. I will drop fifty metres and repeat.” The second shell landed, if anything, slightly further forward.

  “You will see what I meant when I spoke of the ina
ccuracy of a high explosive charge,” said the observation officer. “The range that time was shorter but the shell went further. I shall fire again at the same elevation.”

  This one landed almost on the lip of the trench.

  “Two plus, one minus,” said the observation officer. “I think we can accept that as the range. We will now repeat, using the new experimental fuse.”

  There was a stir among the spectators. This time it was different. Instead of a dull report when the shell landed, there was the sharp, distinctive crack of shrapnel.

  “Height of burst,” said the observation officer, “approximately ten metres. That should be very satisfactory.”

  “Damned uncomfortable, if you ask me,” said General Runnecke loudly, and the officers laughed. The only man who appeared entirely serious, his gaze concentrated on the slit trench, was the single civilian among the uniformed group. He was a thin, serious, brown-faced man in his early thirties, with a pair of steel-rimmed glasses on his beaky nose. Despite the January weather, he was wearing only a thin raincoat.

  He said, in good but clearly not native German, “By my estimation, seven and a half metres.”

  The observation officer ignored this and said, “I shall order the same gun now to fire six rounds. This will avoid the necessity of ranging the other guns of the troop, but will produce the cumulative effect of a salvo of six guns.”

  The six cracks followed each other at twenty second intervals. The height of burst was unmistakably consistent. As fast as one cloud of yellowish lyddite smoke shredded away in the breeze, another filled its place.

  “Stand your troop down,” said the General. “We will inspect the target. Come along with me, Dr. Brancos.”

  The whole group moved downhill towards the slit trench, the general with the civilian in the lead, followed by a stout, white-faced officer wearing the insignia of a gruppenfuehrer in the SS, the junior officers a decorous pace or two behind. At the edge of the trench they paused.

  There were six men in it. They had been fastened there by a chain attached at both ends to posts hammered into the ground and passing through iron shackles round the ankle of each. Four of the men were clearly and horribly dead. Two of them were still moving. General Runnecke motioned to the junior officer behind him, who drew an automatic, stepped forward and shot them both carefully through the back of the neck.

  “I think,” said the General to Dr. Brancos, “that we may regard the experiment as eminently satisfactory.”

  Dr. Brancos, who appeared to be unmoved as any of his military colleagues by the sight in the trench, said, “I should like to examine, with your doctors, the precise nature of the wounds in the four who were killed. It was unfortunate that you felt obliged to shoot the other two. If they had lived, it would have been even more interesting to have examined their injuries.”

  “No doubt,” said General Runnecke curtly.

  In a report which he sent that evening to the War Ministry in Berlin he said, “In this experiment we were able to make use of six Yugoslav terrorists who had been captured in plain clothes behind our lines in possession of explosives, and who were to have been executed in any event. One equivalent salvo of the new fuse killed four men and fatally injured two. This represents the quite dramatic superiority of this wireless fuse over the standard powder fuse for shrapnel, which, as every artillery officer knows, can never be guaranteed to detonate within a hundred feet of the ground, and, indeed, in half the cases buries itself in the ground and fails to detonate at all. I would recommend that Dr. Brancos be put in touch forthwith with the Army Bureau of Weapon Research—”

  As he wrote these words the General paused. He knew that the all-powerful Reichssicherheitshauptamt, or RSHA, the co-ordinating body of the SS, had recently added to its already inflated authority, a Section VII concerned with scientific exploitation, and he suspected that they would want to grab Dr. Brancos for themselves as an important pawn in their constant struggle with the army for power and prestige. What he was wondering was whether he could arrange for his report to go to the War Ministry without being seen by the SS authorities.

  He might have spared himself any worry. The SS gruppenfuehrer had already reported through his own signals troop to the RSHA who received the report a day before the War Ministry.

  When Dr. Brancos arrived in Berlin, therefore, he was not met by an Army Officer but by a polite obersturmfuehrer, who introduced himself as Lieutenant Mailler, and whisked the doctor off to a flat at Lichterfelde outside Berlin. Here, in the days that followed, Mailler proved himself a patient and instructed listener. He had been trained in the Communications section of the SS and knew a good deal about wireless. He had to admit, however, that Dr. Brancos knew a great deal more than he did.

  The doctor said, “I am, by profession, a mining engineer. Coming from a small country like Albania there were few facilities, and I was therefore, educated and trained in Italy, at Perugia, and later in Milan. I speak better Italian than German, I fear.”

  Mailler said, with a smile, “You speak our language very well and clearly.”

  “I am obliged. It was in the uranium mines at Marcovograd that I developed the technique of the answering fuse. Like most inventions, the idea came to me by accident. In the mines we used a type of geiger counter. You know what I mean?”

  “I have heard of them.”

  “They are, in essence, small receiving sets. They answer to the radio-active emissions of uranium. Once we had a very difficult explosive blast to detonate.” Dr. Brancos held out two thin brown hands. “In the mass of uranium we bury an explosive charge. The uranium emits radio signals. Could we not, I said to myself, cause those signals to bounce back and detonate the charge at any required distance? All that would be necessary would be to calculate the wavelength precisely—” The doctor brought his two hands slowly together “—and – pouf! We cause an explosion at exactly the point we require without wires or apparatus of any sort.”

  “And did it work?”

  “In mining, no. It was impracticable. But the seed of the idea was there. A shrapnel shell with a small and simple wireless transmitter in the head. It approaches the earth. The transmission bounces back – at whatever height you wish – the shell explodes. No more powder rings, no more fuse setting, no more guesswork. A detonation at precisely the most effective height.”

  “Wonderful,” said Mailler, and meant it.

  “There were difficulties. My prototype fuses were much too sensitive. They could be set off by a cloud of rain. Even a flock of birds. But I developed a system of shutters—”

  Dr. Brancos seized a writing pad and pencil and started to sketch as he talked.

  At the end of two hours, his brain whirling with technicalities, Lieutenant Mailler made his excuses. He spoke on the telephone to the head of his section, Standartenfuehrer Bach. “The man is a genius,” he said. “I’m sure of that. He lost me half a dozen times in the details, but the idea must be sound. It operates on the same principle as radar—”

  “It is certainly effective,” said Colonel Bach. “I have received the close-up photographs of the target trench. I am only glad I saw them after lunch and not before.”

  “He could be a great asset to our section—”

  “If we get him,” said Bach. “The army want him for themselves. There is a fight going on now on a level too high for me to interfere. By the way, I assume you have checked the security clearance?”

  “All the ordinary checks have been made,” said Mailler. “His papers are in order. His luggage has been thoroughly examined and contains nothing out of the way. It would, of course, be more satisfactory if we could get a positive identification.”

  Bach thought about this and then said, “There is a man in the Balkan Department of Section VI. The name, I think, is Munthe. He comes from Albania or Monte Negro, or one of those goddamned holes, and he was a professor at Perugia. He should know Brancos, by name at least.”

  Professor Munthe, old, grey-haired a
nd white bearded, examined the papers which Mailler laid on his desk, and shook his head slowly. He said, “This man is a fake. Possibly a spy. I was at Perugia during all the years he states that he was there. We had not more than a handful of Albanians. There was no Brancos among them.”

  “You are sure?” said Mailler anxiously. “It is most important. The reputations of some very senior officers are now involved.”

  “If you doubt me, confront me with him.”

  “I will be back in half an hour,” said Mailler, and was better than his word.

  When Dr. Brancos came into his office, Professor Munthe rose to his feet and stared at him fixedly. The doctor stared back, then a half smile crossed his face. “It is more than ten years,” he said, “but you have not greatly changed, Herr Professor.”

  The old man blinked as if he was trying to recapture an elusive memory. When Brancos would have spoken again, he held up one finger in a gesture of the classroom and said, “Not Brancos, Boris. Stefan Boris.”

  “It is true,” said Brancos. “I had family difficulties. I found it expedient to change my name.”

  “Now that you mention it, I remember being told of it. I met a mutual friend a year ago in Ravenna. Alessandro Piero—”

  Lieutenant Mailler said hastily, “I can see you are old friends. You will have much to talk over. I will leave you.”

  He made his way straight to his own office on a lower floor of the building, extracted a flask of brandy from a drawer in his desk and treated himself to a stiff drink.

  If Brancos had been a fraud and his invention a fake and a lot of important people had made fools of themselves, he had a shrewd idea that his own head would have been one of the first to roll.