MASTER SPIES

Waikato Times, Volume 105, Issue 17714, 18 May 1929, Page 4

MASTER SPIES

SYNOPSIS OF PART I. Mata Hari, a girl of humble Dutch origin, but possessing a seductive body and face, appears in Europe as an Oriental dancer. She learned her art while in India with a dissolute husband whom she subsequently divorced. She is engaged by the German Secret Service to entertain members of foreign Governments, more as a beautiful, decoy than as a spy. A Warning Disregarded. One incident in her travels should have warned her as to her ultimate fate had she been a women of intelligence. She was sent to Sofia to intrigue an Englishman, Major Eric Henderson. He was an ace in the British Secret Service, a suave but on occasions vitriolic gentleman. It was he who figured in an exploit in Afghanistan for which tno German Secret Service never forgave him The Kaiser had sent the draft in Ge'man of a secret treaty he proposed to the Emir of Afghanistan. With the

German text was a translation for the benefit of the Emir. The translation was not one that would bear scrutiny for honesty, and it would bring more advantage to the Germans than the Emir would dream if he signed. The treaty was sent in an embosv pouch, the lock on which was of special construction. The man who took it from Berlin to Afghanistan was one of the ablest of the Imperial German Secret Service, and with him went as watchdogs two of the keenest men in its counter-espionage branch The diplomatic pouch was finally safely housed in the strong-box in the office of the .German Consulate in Afghanistan. The three men who had brought it there were in conference with the German Commissioner when the door of the room was flung open and in stalked the tall, sinewy, sandyhaired Englishman, Major Henderson, who, according to the latest reports, should have been at that moment in Sydney, Australia. He broke in on the conference without ceremony and threw on the table two documents.

I often talk to seductive women who question them. The problem of sending on what she found out was not hers. For instance, one evening she was dining at Marguery’s with an oilicial of the merchant marine. They were to go on to a benefit performance later, and Mata Hari was in gorgeous decollete. She was languidly playing with her closed fan, an opulent creation of ostrich plumes. “Tho Next Boat.” Her partner had found her rather difficult to please that evening. Then a caprice seemed to change her mood, and she asked him for a small gift to be bad from Spain but hard at that time to get in Paris. He beamed. “That’s easy. I’ll wire my agents in Barcelona to send the mantilla by the next boat,” he promised. “When will Hiat be?" she asked, almost with indifference. “Let me see—what’s to-day, Tuesday? Then the Corona will sail Wednesday at midnight." "And I can expect the mantilla — when ?" “Well, the Corona should reach St. Nazaire by, say, Thursday. And bySaturday I hope to have the pleasure of placing my little gift about your shoulders.” She opened her fan to three-quarters of its arc and languidly waved it several times. “You are good to me,” she murmured. “More than I deserve.” “Impossible!" he rhapsodised. At a neighbouring table a man was lazily watching them through the blue smoke of bis after-diner cigar. He noled Hie degree to which Mata Hari’s fan was opened; the number of times she moved it in-fanning herself; the direction in which the fan pointed when she uaid if down on resuming eating. Then the man paid his check and left. Over a long-distance telephone he communicated to some one in Brest the latest bulletin on a patient presumably having a difficult time with pneumonia. From Brest went a telegram to Holland ordering so many boxes of canned fish for a local restaurant. From Holland a wireless in secret code went out to the wide world.

“Gentlemen,” he snapped as though it were a grievance o This, “the translation is highly inaccurate. I have brought it to the attention of the Emir, and he is extremely vexed at your ignorance of Afghanistan!” He stalked out, leaving four men looking very sick. For before them on the table lay the supposedly secret treaty in the original and the “doctored”’ translation, both of which were supposed to be at that moment in the strong-box. In was this Major Henderson to whom Mata Hari was presented in Sofia by the German Ambassador. On being introduced Mata Hari turned her glowing brown eyes on the tall Englishman, and with an inviting smile asked, “Aren’t w r e old friends, Major Henderson? I,think we met in Bombay, didh’t we?” “Berlin, most likely,” he said drily. Mala Hari was slightly disconcerted and took another tack.

“Perhaps,” she said. “I go about everywhere, trying by means of the dance to interpret the soul of the Orient.” “The soul of the Orient,” he retorted, “has been sold to the highest bidder, who is the most consummate jackass in Europe 1" And turning on his heel he left Mata Hari brooding on how to report her failure to her chief. Mutter of Approaching War. But as her success was not expected her failure was not long held against her; especially as throughout the world there began to resound Hie increasing mutter of an approaching war. Mata Hari’s chief was among the few who knew with a fair degree of precision when, where and how' that war would break; though not even his chief, the Kaiser, knew how vast a war it would turn out to be. Not even on that fateful day in August, 1911, when the war began. Mata Hari was called to No. 70 Koenigsgraetzer Strasse. "You will proceed to Paris,” said her chief. “There you will devote all your energies and use ail the- resources al our command to win the confidence of a member of the French Cabinet. Here is a report on his character and ways of approaching him. At the same tint 3 you will bring under your influence as many other men as possible. They must be high in the military, naval, and merchant marine services. From them get all possible information of use to us. “There will be one exception to this. Under no consideration are you to ask the Cabinet Minister anything in the way of information. Is tills clear?” He meant was the order clear. It I was. What was not clear to her was the motive behind it. ! Mata Hari had retained throughout [ .her Dutch citizenship. She found n 4

Several nights later the Bay of Biscay was in a lather of storm through which a freighter out of Barcelona was poking ijdong, her lights blanketed. A sharp lookout was being maintained. But the sky was a fury of wind-piled clouds and visibility was bad. The lookout on the freighter did not note, therefore, that almost straight in the patli of the boat the snout of a periscope poked up barely above the waves. . By this lime the freighter was so near that a torpedo would have been a waste—direct Ore is cheaper. From the depth of the bay rose a slender turret; then the water sluiced off the sides of a submarine. By then Hie freighter was sounding an alarm. But the submarine let rip a volley from its guns and scored a “down” in seventeen minutes.

Mata Hari did not gel the mantilla, but the fact did not grieve her as much as her suitor feared. A Colourful Phase. In the sinister kaleidoscope of the great war of ail the races there was perhaps no Hash of chaos so colourful as Ihe next phase of Mata llari’s activities. There she was in Paris, a Dutch woman with a tint of Ihe Orient in her skin, glamorous in Rue de la Paix finery, dining and dancing. And because.she ordered a certain vintage of wine in a given restaurant where she had asked her escort to bring her — she repeated the date of the vintage rather emphatically to the waiter —off the const of Africa five days 1-ater a small troopship packed to the gunwales with coloured Fren’cli colonial troops was sent to the bottom. not one. but at least eighteen

(By JOSEPH GOLLOMB, Author of “Master Man Hunters.”)

NO. 7—THE SPY WHO DANCED TO DEATH.

: difficulty therefore in getting into : Paris. She was no stranger in that ■ city, and already a number of men powerful with political influence wcie impatiently awaiting her promised arrival. An apartment was ready for her in Neuilly, and soon a court began to form about Mata Hari, with courtiers competing for her favour. Her Court Favourite. It w'as a member of the French Cabinet who became court favourite — though the fact was very little advertised. Mata Hari obeyed her chief's order —which she still did not quite understand —and did not ask her distinguished favourite anything about the war. She made up for this, however, with her other lovers. She favoured the fighting branches of the Allied forces, “because my husband wa3 a British f officer," she told them. Thfcy found little suspicious therefore about her keen interest in military and naval affairs. She asked questions with an adroitness taught her in the best spy school in the world; and they talked to her as war-worn men on leave so

. such troopships plying between North ] Africa and Marseilles had Mata llari i in Paris to thank for the catastrophes J that overtook them in the Mediterranean; always at night and always through the agency of German submarines guided by this woman of Dutch birth and citizenship working for Germany in the capital of France. One of the axioms in espionage is that a woman cannot very long be trusted as a spy. This distrust is based not so much on a belief in feminine dishonesty—spy masters have none too much faith in anybody’s ' integrity—as on the fact that a woman is more prone to fall in love with the man she is supposed to exploit only for her superiors. Mata Hari's chiefs had no such uneasiness on her score. As I said earlier in this account, she had not much heart. She got no particular pleasure out of sending men to their death; but neither did she feel any horror. Occasionally, however, she took a fancy to a man. Such a man was a i Russian who at the outbreak of the war had enlisted in the French Foreign Legion and was blinded in one of the

first engagements. By some caprice Mata Hari developed a real tenderness for him. She wrote him many letters when they were apart.

Lovo and Business. But when she followed him to Vittel, where he was sent to a hospital, her action was determined less by love than by the fact that an important aviation base was developing there. One way to get a spy into hostile territory in a hurry is to send him night by airplane and either drop h.... behind the enemy lines by way of a parachute of actually land him. In the urgency of those days the Allies often resorted to this. Mata Hari was devoted to the blinded Russian when she got to Vittel. But she also found time to cultivate many friendships among the aviators there. And soon after fatalities more frequently than before began to overtake the spies and the aviators who left Vittel for Germany. No matter where * the landing was made there were Germans waiting for them. Then, apparently weary of her blind lover, Mata Hari returned to Paris. Her automobile with her own chauffeur met her at the station. She got into the closed car and settled herself for the drive to her apartment in Neuilly. Paris was no novelty to her, and her thoughts as she rode along were elsewhere. It was with a shock therefore when the machine stopped that she found herself in a part of the city that looked strange to her. The door of her car was opened from the outside, and as she stepped out several men closed in about her. Outwardly polite, they were not in the least cordial. “.Madame will accompany us!” the spokesman said. Something in her quailed at that, but she did not betray the fact. She protested in the grand manner of a court favourite, until finally in the private office where she was taken she encountered a pair of steel-blue eyes in a man who began to question her. lie was in civilian dress, hut there was no mistaking the professional military man. Before his grilling her hauteur began to droop. His questions were guided largely by a sheaf of reports on the desk before him. His manner had little of the courtier in it and he asked pointed questions indeed. Then he accused her of frequent meetings with German Secret Service men. And though she j was well trained to parry such thrusts j she found herself retreating, so to speak, to a wall of stone. “So you’ve been gathering informa- ! tion on military and naval movements!” j the officer summed up. j

Deported to Spain. She had only a last card to play. “Only, I assure you, to serve Hie Allies!” was her refrain. “I admit associating with German Secret Service authorities; but my husband was a British oilicer. And some of my most beloved friends arc Allied chiefs. Although I am Dutch my heart is with Hie Allies. I have waited to prove it. Now I am ready. The Boches think I am their friend. I have let them think so. As my lovers they tell me vitally important military secrets. Enrol me in your espionage service, messieurs, and" 1 will put these secrets at your disposal.” Only a sophisticated outlook will enable us to understand what followed. A naive reader would see an immediate finish for Mata Hari. But the Second Division of the French Secret Service were anything but naive. They knew what powerful friends in France Mata Hari had; that overwhelming indeed would have to be the "proof that would send her to her death. Evidence enough to “scorch” an ordinary spy would not he enough in this case. : Later developments proved this. j The chiefs of the Second Division . consulted in whispers while Mata Hari j surveyed them with her glamourous ! eyes. Then their spokesman turned j to her. “Madame,” he said deliberately, i “you are under grave suspicion; But j we will give you a chance to clear i yourself."” We accept your offer to j work with us. We need your services j in occupied Belgium. We will give i you a list of thirty of our agents there, j Recently we have been having difficulty in getting their reports through the ;■ German counter-espionage service. ; Will you undertake to collect these re- j ports for us and bring them back to ; Haris?” ! Mata Hari drew a deep breath. j “Gladly!" she said.

Her Last Card. She was given every facility to leave France and cross the Channel. She was supposed to go on from there to Belgium. But the British authorities developed an ungracious lack of faith in Mata Hari’s protestations that she was needed by her little daughter in Holland. Instead of letting her proceed to her native land they deported her to Spain. But the list of names she had been given by the Second Division, presumably those of agents in Belgium for the French’ Secret Service, went on to Belgium just the same. Of this list of thirty the Germans could locate only one mail, for the excellent reason that the others were non-existent. (T i be Continued),