Free Mr. Calder & Mr. Behrens by Michael Gilbert Page A

themselves?”
    “That’s what I thought. Every self-respecting bridge column contains two or three sample hands.”
    Old Mr. Happold said, “Most ingenious, Behrens. What put you on to it?”
    “Rivers and his wife are both bridge fiends. It’s become the rage of Salisbury. So much so that the local paper now runs a bridge column. A weekly bridge column, you’ll note. If, as I rather suspect, one of the Rivers is contributing it—”
    Sands-Douglas had been making some calculations on the back of the menu. He said, “It’d be a devilish difficult code to break.”
    “I thought nowadays you simply used a computer.”
    “You talk about using a computer as if it was a tin opener,” said Sands-Douglas. “It hadn’t occurred to you, I suppose, that you’d have to programme it first. The fifty-two cards in a pack can be arranged – in how many ways, Happold?”
    “One hundred and sixty-five billion billion – that is, approximately. We shall have to do something about this claret, we ought to have tackled it earlier.”
    “It’s the 1943. The only war-time vintage they produced in the Medoc.”
    “I expect the vignerons had other things to think about in 1943,” agreed Mr. Happold. “It’s our fault. We should have drunk it at least ten years ago. What were we talking about?”
    “Bridge,” said Mr. Behrens. “The possible permutations and combinations of a pack of cards.”
    “A large computer probably could deal with that number. But there’s a snag. I don’t suppose your chap is sending code messages every week?”
    “Almost certainly not. Half a dozen times a year, probably. He’d key the column in some way – put an agreed word or expression into the first paragraph so that they’d know a code was coming.”
    “Exactly. So if we took, say, fifty-two examples, and fed them into a computer with instructions to detect any repeated correlations between the cards in the hand and known alphabetical and numerical frequencies in the English language, and the mathematics of physics – which is roughly how it would have to be done, if you follow me . . .”
    “I didn’t understand a word of it,” said Mr. Behrens. “But go on.” He was sipping the claret. It was quite true; gradually, imperceptibly, over the years it had built up to maturity, had climbed from maturity to super-maturity, and was now descending into gentle ineffectiveness. “Like us,” thought Mr. Behrens sadly.
    “If only ten per cent of your examples were true,” said Sands- Douglas, “and the others weren’t examples at all, but only blinds, even a giant computer would turn white hot and start screaming.”
    “Is that true?” said Mr. Happold. “I’ve often wondered. If you abuse a computer, does it really start screaming?”
    “Certainly. It’s only human!”
     
    “I’m sorry I can’t be more definite,” said Mr. Calder to Colonel Crofter. “And I do appreciate the awkward position it puts you in – as head of the department and Albert Rivers’ boss.”
    “And it’s really only suspicion.”
    “Most security work starts like that. Something out of the ordinary—”
    “Rivers isn’t ordinary. I grant you that. Very few of our scientists are. They’ve most of them got their little peculiarities. I suppose it’s the price you have to pay for exceptional minds. All the same, if it’s true, it’s got to be stopped. The stuff we’re working on now is a damned sight more dangerous than One-to-Ten.”
    “One-to-Ten?”
    “That’s our laboratory name for dianthromine. It’s not instantaneous. If I gave you a whiff of it, and counted slowly, you’d go out as I reached ten. That’s one of its attractions. Imagine a Commando raid on enemy headquarters. One of our chaps lets off the stuff in the guard room. Until they start dropping, they’d have no idea anything was wrong. And when they did catch on, it’d be too late to do anything whatsoever about it.”
    “Commandos! It’s light enough to be