RUSSIAN SPY

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLIV, Issue 20932, 11 January 1938, Page 2

RUSSIAN SPY

HOW HE WAS OUTWITTED How Sir Henry Curtis-Bennett, K.C., the great advocate, duped a spy is told in “Curtis,” his life story, by Roland Wild and Derek Curtis-Bennett, published recently. The incident occurred during Russian revolutionary plotting in Paris in 1917. Sir Henry was then a member of the Secret Service staff.

Britain decided that the communications passing between Paris and Petrograd should be tapped. One of the most important emissaries of the Revolutionary Tribunal was a distinguished Russian general. He carried a sack handcuffed to his wrist, sealed with the Imperial seal. Attempts to persuade him to remain in London proved vain. Even beautiful women could not tempt him. When he travelled to Scotland on his way to Russia three men travelled with him. They had powerful drugs and in the little Scottish hotel at which the general tarried they “doctored” his coffee.

That night they stole to the general’s bedroom, but a flashlight greeted them. The general seemed proof against drugs. He embarked the next day and permission was given to the men to use a special drug. The convoy was stopped and the General returned to his hotel. That night he swallowed the drug and the three agents released the handcuff with a master key and took the General’s bag, Intact with its contents.

It was rushed back to London, and within half an hour the contents of the bag had been subjected to the most technical treatment and carefully repacked. It was returned by a special train.

When the General woke up he found the sack still handcuffed to his wrist and the seals unbroken.