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damned funny language from the State Recherche. The feeling he had was so strong that he felt he had to put it in the report. But no-factual-basis, so he feels impelled to warn any reader of said report not to give way to unsupported suspicion. (The police had,quite handsomely, apologized for giving Besançon several thoroughly disagreeable weeks. He had answered politely that he had quite understood.)
    The conclusion is typical. Since there is nothing tangible, the theory must be suppressed. Quite right; I have got into trouble often because of these little men that tell me things, who live in my stomach. Remember Edward G. Robinson, in that wonderful part in
Double Indemnity?
He was right. I have been right too, sometimes.
    Sometimes I haven’t been right.
    Anyway, I’m not going to get feelings just because a constipated security officer tells me not to. If I did, it would probably be because he had told me not to, with his damned cheek.
    But I am certainly going to try and get to know Mr Besançon. Not because I suspect him of anything. He just sounds an interesting man, and everybody else here sounds, I am bound to state, if I may be allowed to quote the State Recherche’s fancy language, remarkably dull. I went back to the dossier.
    Born, it began, in 1901, of a South-German Jewish family that had removed itself over the centuries from Prague to München to Breda, in Dutch Brabant. Family were watchmakers there for the last three generations.
    Apprenticed in family business, and early showed remarkable aptitude. As an adult, gained a rapidly increasing reputation for making unusual timepieces, including so-called eternal clocks. Sun, wind, water-powered. Progressed to speciality in ingenious time-switch mechanisms.
    Had a strong amateur interest in astronomy, and built telescopes as a pastime. Formed, through all this, a connexion with the firm of Carl Zeiss. Went, during the thirties, frequently to Jena, where he collaborated to some extent in the early experiments on planetariums, the artificial heavens driven by clockwork mechanisms.
    Was, however, in Breda at the time of Hitler’s invasion of Holland, and was promptly arrested with entire family. He then disappeared. Was saved from extermination – suffered by entire family down to most distant connexions – by obscure agency. Possibly the firm of Zeiss signalled that his skills were worth more to the Reich than two gold teeth.
    He was, in any case, forced to work on various secret weapon projects, but was never, he recalled wryly, left on any one scheme long enough either to do it any good or any harm. He passed from mines to rocketry, and with another of those sudden whimsical decisions common during that epoch was suddenly detached from the whole thing and brought to Berlin. Someone, he hazarded, knew that he spoke Russian – but there were others who did too … he wasn’t complaining. During the big Russian advance of’44, he was used constantly by Intelligence (Schellenberg) but was drawn more and more into the Kaltenbrünner-Müller orbit. His work, officially, was to penetrate Russian Intelligence reports, working on codes and communications, but he realized later that he had been used in the incredibly involved system of double agents directed by Müller.
    He was, in fact, being used as one of the key figures in secret correspondence with the Russians, but was never allowed to see enough of the complete picture to shed any real light, or give conclusive evidence.
    In the final days of the Berlin siege he was held prisoner in the Bunker, still in almost daily contact with Bormann, and as the Russians entered the city was shot and left for dead by a member of the Bormann entourage. He was discovered by the Russians, patched up roughly in a military hospital, held prisoner for many months – then suddenly, inexplicably released; a typical Russian performance.
    They had come to the conclusion, presumably,