SPIES ON STAGE

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVII, Issue 23850, 28 December 1940, Page 2 (Supplement)

SPIES ON STAGE

Tapped Out Message During Act

JAKE HYMAJSF, a United States policeman, was very keen on variety. Tap-dancers were his great delight. One evening in Boston he watched an act by two young fellows who could almost make their feet talk. "Tappity-tappity-tap," went their feet in perfect rhythm, and the officer, leaning back in his seat, was thrilled. A few days after the tap-dancers had left the city there was a violent explosion and a great armament works was damaged. At the time Jako didn't think much of it. Suspicions Aroused A regular reader of the theatrical papers, he noticed that the act he had admired, the two youths calling themselves, the Dancing Hoffmans, were appearing in Chicago. A few days later he read that there had been sabotage at a local factory—and he began to wonder. No. lie must be wrong, these two dancers couldn't know anything about it. Two weeks later his suspicions were aroused. At another town a big explosion took place in an arms factory. Sabotage was again suspected, and the police officer, suspecting trouble, asked his chief, after explaining his mission, if ho could go to a near by town, w here, according to the theatrical paper, the Dancing Hoffmans were due to appear. Jake Hyman had the bookings of the dancers checked, and in nearly every instance they appeared where there was an arms factory of some description. So it was with great* enthusiasm he booked a seat at the theatre to see the Hoffmans. How like a Morse message their tap-tap-tap was, thought Jake. He started at this thought. Maybe he had something there. Perhaps they were tapping out a Morse message to some accomplice in the audience. The following night Jake Hyman, this time with a Morse expert, sat in the front

row, and, as the Hoffmans tapped in their solo dance, so did the Morse expert transcribe an order to someone to blow up an ammunition dump. Immediately the Dancing Hoffmans were arrested, and proved to be two Germans who were getting their orders in code from various seamen in the pay of their country. For their part in this great plan to ruin America's aid to the Allies in 1916 the Dancing Hofi'mans were "gathered in."