Free Burn After Reading by Ladislas Farago Page B

police, who would thus learn they were men of means. At least a few of his pupils followed his advice. For this reason, anyone who was unfortunate enough to lose his savings book and to report it entered the select suspect list of MI.5.
    From such diverse sources, MI.5 compiled a roster of German spies. On the eve of the war, MI.5 and Scotland Yard’s Special Branch had a fairly good idea of the makeup of the two rings. All told it was estimated there were a minimum of three thousand German espionage sharks in Britain, of whom some four hundred journeymen belonged to Colonel Busch’s Ring No. 1 and thirty-five key agents to his Ring No. 2. The rest were minor agents, spies-at-large, free-lancers, informants, pro-Nazi busybodies or dupes.
    If MI.5 and the Special Branch were doing such a superb job, it was partly because the old system was well oiled, and partly because those who now administered it were exceptionally competent men. MI.5 was headed by one of Britain’s outstanding espionage specialists, the formidable Staffordshire squire Sir Vernon George Waldegrave Kell, one of the authentic mystery men of the world. Though he spent some forty-odd years(some of them very odd, indeed) in his country’s service, he remained totally unknown to his fellow countrymen.
    At New Scotland Yard, Sir Norman Kendal and Commissioner Ronald Howe, stern-faced, fish-eyed, thin-lipped bosses of the Criminal Investigation Department, were General Kell’s opposite numbers. Out in the field, the real nemesis of foreign spies was Cooke, along with Assistant Commissioner Albert Canning, who headed Scotland Yard’s Special Branch, the organization that comes closest to the British idea of a secret political police. Addicted to striped suits and polka dot ties, and to an oversized Homburg pulled down over his brow, Canning could have been mistaken for a barrister.
    When Hitler attacked Poland, both MI.5 and the Special Branch were alerted to stand by. On September 3, shortly before the expiration of the British ultimatum, the code word was flashed to the War Office and Scotland Yard. The great spy hunt was on. The job was superhuman. The suspect lists had grown to almost seventy-five thousand entries. Not all of these were spies, by any means, but the spies were in that crowd.
    During the night from September 3 to 4, inspectors and special agents of Scotland Yard, with some two thousand detectives and uniformed policemen, made thousands of calls. Before the night was out, four hundred and thirty-five persons received polite invitations to accompany the officers to various centers prepared for their reception. In subsequent days, weeks and months, the cases of seventy-three thousand two hundred and thirty-five secondary suspects were scrutinized and five hundred and sixty-nine additional foreign agents were spotted.
    With regard to some six thousand individuals, MI.5 and the C.I.D. were not quite sure, but these were not the times to give such people the benefit of the doubt. Habeas corpus was suspended for the duration. These suspected enemy agents had their movements strictly curtailed.
    And the number of spies Canaris had sent to Britain was not much greater than the number of German spies Kell andCanning managed to catch. Colonel Busch’s two phenomenal spy rings were unceremoniously smashed, just when they were needed most. It was Canaris’ first major defeat.
    Back in Germany, there was a man who looked exactly like a Hollywood actor playing the role of a German intelligence officer, Captain Herbert Wichmann. He was big and bluff, with a Prussian cropped head and dueling scars, heavy-set but agile, heavy-handed but alert, not exceptionally brilliant but industrious and efficient; the very prototype of the competent, hard-working, self-effacing German staff officer. He was chief of the British desk at the Abwehr . Within a few moments after the outbreak of war, Wichmann was sitting in a guarded communication room