Read Online Game Without Rules by Michael Gilbert - Free Book Online Page A

before tackling Gottlieb.
    The girl who opened the door of the flat in Northumberland Court was, as Mr. Behrens saw even in the poor light of the front hall, pretty. When she had shown him into the drawing room, he changed his mind. Pretty was all wrong. A stupid word in any human context. She was attractive, with the attractions of dark hair, bright eyes, a good figure and youth.
    She chased a dachshund off the sofa. “We call all our dachshunds Fritz,” she said. “After the dog in that strip they used to have in the Daily Mirror. Do you remember? This one is Fritz the Third. He’s the nicest and naughtiest of the lot. Daddy’s mad about him.”
    She departed to summon her father. Mr. Behrens was not himself a susceptible man, but he made a mental note of the charm of Miss Gottlieb, since an attractive girl could be a relevant factor in any equation.
    Professor Gottlieb, who came in at that moment, turned out to be a small man, with a suggestion of a humpback, a brown face and a mop of snowy white hair. He, like his daughter, was friendly. But it was clear to Mr. Behrens that he was on the defensive.
    They talked a little about the war. The professor had left Czechoslovakia in the summer of 1940 and had reached England in the autumn of that year by a round-about route, through Greece and Turkey. After being screened, he had been allowed to work on deep penetration bombs where his theoretical knowledge of electronics had been valuable. He had also done some work on DZ fuses, and, at the end of the war, on guided missiles.
    “It is curious when you come to think of it,” said the professor. “For the first twelve or fifteen years of my professional life, I worked on planning projects – in my own country, in Sweden and Denmark and America. I was hoping to contrive new and better towns for people to live in. Then for six whole years I worked at destruction. I helped to knock down whole cities – I was sorry for the people in them, of course. But even while I was doing it – yes, even when the bombs were falling on me in London – I could not help saying to myself, we are clearing the way for a gigantic reconstruction, a reconstruction such as the world has never seen before.”
    For a moment, the professor’s eyes were alight with an old enthusiasm. The glow died down. “The chance has been missed,” he said. “And it will never come again.”
    “If it is missed,” said Mr. Behrens, “it won’t be your fault. When your paper is published—”
    “Ah, my paper,” said the professor, “I am afraid that too much reliance has been placed on that. You cannot change human nature with a piece of paper.”
    “You can’t if it isn’t published.”
    The professor looked up sharply. “I trust,” he said, “that you are not going to turn what has been a very pleasant conversation into the channels of politics.”
    “I’m not a politician,” said Mr. Behrens. “I’m a policeman. Of a sort. I can show you my credentials if you like.”
    “Don’t bother,” said the professor. “I was warned that you might be coming. It was not made clear to me how you could help, though.”
    “I can only help,” he said, “if you tell me what’s been happening.”
    “Silly things. Stupid things. Things one hardly wants to talk about.” He hesitated. “Letters. Telephone calls. We had a word for it in my country. Nadelstich. You would translate it as pin-prickery.”
    “When did it start?”
    “About six months ago.”
    “Did you report it at once?”
    “Not until it became—unpleasant. Not until it started to involve my family as well as me. Paula, my daughter, was sent these one morning. They made her sick.”
    The professor, as he was speaking, had moved across and unlocked a drawer in his desk. Now he handed Mr. Behrens a postcard-sized folder. On the outside was printed: “A present for a nice girl.” It opened out into a string of connected photographs. They were so revolting that even Mr. Behrens’