← Table of contents
Best Stories of the 1914 European War

“WOMAN” SPY FOOLED GIRL

Reading edition

Miss Diana Leverick of New York, who arrived in Boston yesterday from England on the Cunard liner Franconia, told how she became acquainted with a German “woman” while on board a Mediterranean boat bound for London who proved to be a German male spy in disguise and who later was shot.

“Among the passengers was a refined, middle-aged German woman who gave the name of Niederhaus,” she said. “She bore every evidence of good breeding and made herself very agreeable to all of us. I became very much attached to her. She was so pleasant and affable that certain peculiarities of her gait and face were unnoticed. Her hands and feet seemed a trifle large, but I liked her so well that I could see nothing strange about her, although some of the other passengers began to comment upon her.

“On the morning of our arrival in London a messenger boy came aboard crying out, ‘Telegram for Mrs. Niederhaus.’ The woman did not answer. Finally came an official and a squad of soldiers and she was led away to her cabin. We were amazed when soldiers locked themselves in with her until we learned that she was really a male spy. I read about her in the London Times next day, the paper describing how ‘she’ was shot by the soldiers.”

Explore with AITake your curiosity a little further.

Reading settings