Chapter Sixteen

Cell No. 12 at the prison of Saint-Lazare, which Mata Hari occupied, had acquired a certain notoriety in French criminal records. Mme. Steinheil and Mme. Caillaux had previously been tenants. It is a large room with two windows and three beds, one for the prisoner and two for the religious Sisters whose duty it was to guard her. None of the distinguished occupants of the cell brought to it one half the romance that Mata Hari invested in that drab interior. Almost from the moment she entered the cell there were sinister rumours of the contemplated efforts of either her admirers or her secret-service colleagues to secure her escape if the imposing list of her notable lovers failed to move the President to act within his powers of clemency. It is possible to see in Mata Hari’s conduct during her imprisonment a firm conviction that some power, working outside the gaol, would bring about a mitigation of the death penalty.

During the trial she had succeeded in preserving a courageous exterior which had surprised and impressed those who witnessed it; secretly she was 286haunted by the fear of death. In spite of her uttered words, which were but a faint echo of the pessimistic philosophy that despises life, the awful consequences of an adverse judgment shook the very foundations of her faith. Her outer courage was based upon an unwavering faith in the legion of admiring friends whipped up by her adoring advocate, who never for one moment doubted his ability to organize a mass of influential opinion strong enough to secure a revocation of the sentence of death. This steadfast devotion to a wisp of hope never left either the condemned or her defender. Presently we shall see something of the methods instituted to obtain her release, but let us for the moment consider the testimony of a man who had the Red Dancer under close observation during the time of her imprisonment.

Dr. Bralez, the assistant prison doctor, says of her:

“If you ask whether I thought her guilty, I should be compelled to answer ‘Yes, against my will.’ It does not seem logical to me that a creature of her nature, with her pride, her imagination, her love of art, her beauty, her culture, and her contempt for money could debase herself to the point of seducing drunken aviators to betray secrets of military importance. However, there is 287no doubt that the evidence before the court-martial was too strong for her defence. I recall paying her a visit on the day the death sentence was read to her. I can assure you that her calm, her indifference, amazed me. Had I been her confessor I should have been tempted to sound the depths of her soul and offer her the consolation of faith, but my rôle was merely that of medical adviser and for that reason I was compelled to maintain a reserved attitude.”

Mata Hari’s only request was for some veronal to enable her to sleep, but this the doctor had to refuse, and two days later he was surprised to observe that she had no need for the drug, for her nights were no longer disturbed by the perspective of a sinister termination to the tragedy in which she was compromised. Dr. Bralez repudiates the statement that she was like a caged panther; he protested that there was nothing cruel about her, although she loved to surround herself with an atmosphere of savage instinct. Nevertheless, this opinion was very different from that formed by the Sisters of Mercy who were her guardians. In the early days of her prison life they found Mata Hari intractable, imperious, excited, feverish, full of the craziest notions for indulging her luxury-softened body. Not only was her temper violent, but 288her demands for ministering to her personal service were absurd. She demanded maids to attend to her toilette; at one time she insisted upon having a daily bath in milk when it was almost impossible to obtain that precious fluid for the young babies in Paris. But that was a detail when her own comfort was concerned.

Later she became more tractable and reasonable. This was when her friends were occupied with the efforts to secure her release or at least a mitigation of the sentence. Maître Clunet was the main prop of her earlier hopes, although, as we shall see, not the only one. He had two sources from which he drew an inexhaustible supply of hope with which he nourished Mata Hari’s emotions. Fear of a criminal’s death compelled her to hope. Doubtless her fervid imagination had pictured some romantic tragedy which would provide a fitting climax to a life filled with the dramatic, whereas the prospect of a judicial execution is shorn of any impressive details upon which the romantic mind can feed. The first instrument that the lawyer employed was an imposing array of powerful friends who were marshalled behind an appeal for clemency. Her royal lovers, the great officials, artists who failed to understand why crimes against humanity could possibly weigh 289against the divinity of inspired art, scholars whose imaginations dominated their intellects—all responded to the invitation to sign a plea for mercy. Her love-affairs organized themselves into a procession to plead against her condemnation as a spy.

But there were some notable omissions from the list of advocates for mercy. In spite of the strong persuasion of her consort, himself a German princeling, Queen Wilhelmina of Holland refused to do for her own subject what she did so willingly for Miss Edith Cavell. Other signatories to the petition for the English nurse who declined to subscribe to the plea for Mata Hari were His Holiness the Pope, King Alfonso, and the head of the American mission.

After having enjoyed the distinction of royal favours granted by the Prussian Crown Prince and after the Duke of Brunswick had showered gold upon her, Mata Hari, temporarily, as was her custom, bestowed her affections upon the head of the council of her own country, Van der Linden, who addressed an eloquent plea on behalf of his distressed mistress to President Poincaré. When this was rejected he heaped insult after insult upon the French people, calling them savages and barbarians for proposing to execute the talented artist whose companionship he had enjoyed. These protests, 290coming from a Dutch source, provoked many a grim smile in France, but the insults made but little impression. Had Van der Linden made some effort to check the audacity of the innumerable German secret-service agents operating in his country, the effect of his plea might have been different.

The second hope upon which Maître Clunet’s activities were directed, should the first fail, was his personal friendship for the most powerful friend he had, the President. We do not pretend to know what transpired between the President and the lawyer at their interview. The only thing that is known is that President Poincaré had to listen to an eloquent petition made the more moving by the obvious sincerity of the man whose great intellect was for the time being completely absorbed with the object of his former love. It has been said on good authority that the dramatically powerful interview recorded in Hirsch’s La chèvre aux pieds d’or is substantially a correct reproduction of what took place.

But if Maître Clunet’s attitude leaves any room for doubt, that of the President must have been crystal clear. Owing to the genial ineptitude of M. Malvy’s administration in office during the first two years of war, the soil of France had produced 291a crop of conspiracies amounting in substance to a state of internal corruption from which few modern democracies could have emerged without being shattered to their very foundations. Within a few months were uncovered the Invalides plot, the Bonnet Rouge crimes, the mysterious death of Almereyda before his treacherous conspiracy of defeatism could be properly investigated, the corruption of Paul Bolo, the condemnation of Lenoir and Duval, and the prosecution of too many spies to leave any doubt that Paris was riddled by enemy agents working with impunity. With such an accumulation of villainies threatening the commonweal, could any guilty person who fell into the hands of outraged military justice have any reasonable hope of justice outside the letter of the law? Would any President have dared to inflame public spirit when it was clamouring to have its social structure purged of all Defeatist elements and all cosmopolitan parasites destroying the security of France, by exercising his prerogative of clemency in favour of a woman who had sent thousands of French soldiers to their deaths and who still remained proudly unrepentant if not actually proud of her infamy?

Yet with an infantile pride in themselves Mata 292Hari and her advocate cherished hopes of intervention from the outside in spite of all. Public spirit in France was violently inflamed against Mata Hari, more so than against any other spy seized during the war, but the existence of an universal horror against her in no way affected her high hopes of release. The average Frenchman was firmly convinced that the spy had so earned the gratitude of her employers that they would not discard her, that some vigorous effort would be attempted to free her from the prison, and there was undoubtedly good grounds for this belief as the civil police became more and more anxious about the safety of their prisoner. This anxiety culminated on the morning of her execution, although the story, such as it is, was not known until after the event, and so fitted into the circumstances that to this day many people find ample evidence of the success of those audacious individuals who had accepted the task of liberating her.

The common supposition that the attempt at rescue would be made by some of the German secret agents proved wrong. The honour of having provided the most sensational story of her rescue is given to a man who has been called Pierre de Mortissac, the degenerate son of a noble house who dissipated a fortune in his own amusement 293and in an unsuccessful attempt to steal Mata Hari’s love from her German lover. All that is known of de Mortissac is that he went through life in a series of romantic love-affairs involving the elopement of a Russian princess, the suicide of an Englishwoman of noble family, and with numerous less distinguished victims until he fell in love with Mata Hari. For years he is supposed to have spent his life in defending himself against the bitter jealousy of the German lover, who employed several desperadoes to interfere at every turn with the happiness of his rival. It is also said that this de Mortissac tried ineffectually to induce Mata Hari to give up her dangerous work. His biographer states that it was through this man that she left Spain to come to Paris, where his influence was to have been used to gain a pardon for her, but that the Second Bureau were too quick to act and all that was left for the faithful lover was a sensational attempt at rescue. The plot has not the merit of originality. It was borrowed wholesale from Sardou’s melodrama, made famous in the opera, “Tosca.” Here, it will be recalled, it was arranged that the bullets should be extracted from the firing-squad’s rifles, so that the hero would then not only feign death, but would be rescued by the devotion of his lover. Something of the same thing 294was to be attempted in Mata Hari’s case. Arrangements were made to deal with every situation as it arose on the fatal morning.

Not only had the officer in charge of the firing-squad been bribed to use blank cartridges, but the gendarmes responsible for pinioning Mata Hari’s arms were also bribed to fasten the cords so lightly that her body could sink to the ground when the shots were fired. A French military execution is the occasion for much ceremony. There is a large parade of soldiers, whose duty it is to march past the dead traitor after the execution, and it was felt that if Mata Hari were fastened securely to the stake she could not successfully feign death before all those eyes. Therefore, she had to fall with her face averted. Then arrangements had to be made to make the coffin admit enough air to keep her reasonably comfortable after the ceremony and the grave had to be dug shallow enough to prevent so much earth being thrown on the coffin that the occupant would suffocate. All these details are important in view of what happened later. For the moment they are offered to explain why many people still find in Mata Hari’s amazing composure the strong underlying conviction that all she had to do was to play a part as though the turf on the rifle-range at Vincennes was the stageboards 295of the familiar Olympia, and her death a childish deception.

As the days sped on Mata Hari had as sole comfort the daily visits of the young prison doctor, on whom she still practised her arts of fascination, and the equally regular visits of her old friend and advocate, always laden with delicacies, gossip, and perennial hope. On the eve of the day fixed for her execution the advocate failed to appear. He was absent, making his final but unsuccessful appeal to the President to remit the death penalty. This defection afflicted Mata Hari as a gloomy presentiment of evil, for the old man had assured her that he would certainly appear that day with the cheering news that his old and powerful friend had listened sympathetically to the tragic story of her sad, misguided, and misunderstood life. Her distress was apparent to the Sisters of Mercy who attended her. At first Mata Hari regarded these two nuns with marked hostility. The presence of the two simple souls, devoid of all vanity and show, was an offence to her more fastidious tastes in companions. She mocked them for their simplicity in that manner of all beautiful women who find an endless source of humour in poverty, physical ugliness, and honesty. For a long time the accused woman had refused to accept the trifling offer of 296comfort from the two Sisters, but slowly her resistance broke down before the unfailing goodnature and kind heart of the sparkling-eyed Sister Leonide.

Seeing her deep gloom on the day when Maître Clunet failed to bring his daily measure of cheerful gossip and hope, Sister Leonide, with a shrewd knowledge of the dancer’s vanity, approached her with a singular suggestion:

“You have got to save yourself from this fit of black despair,” she said. “Why don’t you dance? You will forget all your art and, besides, you have never given us an exhibition of your talents.”

And in the condemned cell, with no other audience than the two nuns, Mata Hari danced!

The action was sufficient to restore her equanimity. The despondency to which she had succumbed vanished like magic and she prattled gaily. If the advocate failed her there was still a mysterious power hovering over her destiny which supported her profound faith in herself.

The incidents in cell No. 12 on the fatal morning have been described so many times with fanciful additions that we will rely upon the evidence of the two eye-witnesses whose evidence most nearly corresponds. The actual moment for the execution had been fixed for 5.47 A.M. An hour before 297this time the officials charged with the execution collected at the prison to carry out their unpleasant task.

“She is asleep,” said the warden when formal application was made for her surrender to the military authorities.

The officials were unexpectedly joined by one visitor from whose company they had wished to be spared. It was the venerable old man who had steadfastly fought for the spy’s release, but who now brought a fresh weapon for the consternation of the already harassed officials. Reports and rumours of an attempt at rescue on the way to Vincennes worried them. The guards were strengthened to reduce the chance of any desperate action on the part of either the German agents or the mythical lover. Perhaps Maître Clunet could enlighten them upon the situation. Those charged with the execution of Mata Hari had a great sympathy for the respected old lawyer, whose conduct during the trying time had not caused any of them to forfeit their affection for him, but, knowing his profound attachment to the accused woman, they feared his deep emotions might lead to some scene of tragic despair if he witnessed the morbid details of her death.

“Maître Clunet, we have heard unpleasant reports,” 298said the senior officer of the party. “Can you tell us whether you have heard any suggestion that an effort will be made to rescue Mata Hari this morning?”

“No, I have heard nothing, but——”

“On your word of honour, you have heard nothing?”

“On my honour,” declared the old man, emphatically. “I have not hesitated to use all the legal resources at my command, but I would have nothing to do with any illegal effort to release the prisoner. I still rely on the law. Gentlemen, Mata Hari cannot be executed this morning. I formally oppose any such action and invoke Article 27 of the Penal Code, Book 1, Chapter I.”

Maître Clunet’s announcement, supported by the quotation of a fearsome legal instrument, caused consternation. So this was the opening phase of the attempt to rescue Mata Hari at the last minute. These officers were soldiers and not lawyers who understood legal forms and authorities. A lawyer had to explain (imagine the scene of these astounded officials excitedly demanding proof at that early hour of the morning!) that the clause of the “Code” which was invoked provides that a woman expecting to give birth to a child might not be executed. The group of soldiers regarded 299the triumphant lawyer with looks of blank dismay. Justice, after so many delays, was foiled. The inexorable Second Bureau had been outwitted by the country’s laws.

“It is impossible. No man has visited the accused in her cell,” protested the prison warden, who was responsible under this grave accusation.

“Suppose it was I,” cried the gallant old man, “I have visited her.”

“What, at your age?” demanded Mornay, cross as the devil at being dragged from a warm bed so early in the day to answer crazy legal conundrums. “Why, you must be at least seventy-five!”

“No matter what my age is, I invoke Article 27 of the Penal Code and you cannot execute Mata Hari this morning.”

Still uneasy in spite of Mornay’s confident attitude, the tragic procession trudged down the corridor, lighted only by a flickering gas-jet, and echoing to the heavy tread of soldiers’ feet. Behind the fatal door lay a human creature in peaceful slumber, dreaming of deliverance and false hopes of happiness deferred.

To awaken her abruptly from these cherished visions of liberty and love to the sight of the doorway filled with the figures of those who had come in the name of 50,000 dead to demand vengeance, 300was to expose her to merciless anguish. The pitiless betrayal of their comrades, the little nameless graves surmounted by a tattered poilu’s cap, the cries of the wounded, the tears of the orphans were momentarily forgotten in the wish of those gallant French officers to spare their victim any unnecessary suffering. Everyone was asked to make as much noise as possible so that the prisoner might be awake at the time of their arrival at the door of her cell and might have had the opportunity to compose herself for their reception. Her visitors knew of her temperamental outbursts and feared a more than usually severe attack at this moment of crisis. But when the door was opened the two guardians were found to be sitting up in their beds, rubbing slumber from their eyes, while the prisoner was still sleeping peacefully. They had to shake her gently to inform her that the advocate’s plea for a remission of sentence had been denied and that she was to die that morning.

“What? It is not possible, it cannot be possible,” was all that she could say, believing in her heart that she was speaking the truth.

Then she was told that if she could prove what Maître Clunet had suggested, that she was an expectant mother, her life would be spared, but that she must subject herself to a medical examination. 301Mata Hari burst into laughter. Recognizing her acquaintance, Dr. Bralez, she hastily wrapped a peignoir about her nakedness, for she was, as usual, insufficiently clad for these ceremonies, and, approaching him, whispered:

“Did you hear that? Old Maître Clunet says if I avail myself of Article something or other of an old Code which forbids the execution of a woman about to be a mother, I can be saved. Isn’t he an excruciatingly funny old dear?”

She laughed readily and naturally at the absurdity of the advocate’s suggestion to save her life, and then with a gesture, not devoid of dignity, she dismissed the idea and refused to be examined by the doctor, declaring that Maître Clunet was under a misapprehension inspired by his devotion to her interests, and that her health was excellent. She then asked that the visitors might withdraw so that she could complete dressing and prepare herself for the ceremony in which she was cast to play the principal rôle. As the men were retiring from the cell the condemned woman called to Dr. Bralez and asked to have his company, which she preferred to that of the more sedate nuns.

The officials then retired and began again to question Maître Clunet about this threatened attempt to rescue the prisoner, but he could shed no 302light on the matter and surrendered himself to the horribly inevitable. Inside the cell Mata Hari carried on a running commentary on the proceedings while completing her preparations.

“You saw how those gentlemen were afraid to find me in tears or to hear my sobs?” she said to Dr. Bralez, as she leisurely dressed as though she had no more serious business on hand that morning than a series of social visits. “You heard how they recommended me to be brave? If only they knew how well I have slept.... Any other day I would not have forgiven them for having awakened me at such an early hour.

“What is the object of executing prisoners at dawn? In India it is not so; they are more reasonable. There, death is a penalty that is made a ceremony to be celebrated in full daylight, before crowds of guests decorated with sweet-scented jasmine. I would much prefer to have gone to Vincennes in the middle of the afternoon after having had a good luncheon with some friends. All the same, I do not think they would want to have me shot with an empty stomach. What do you recommend?”

“A cordial,” suggested the good Sister Leonide.

“A glass of rum,” is the doctor’s prescription, for by law the condemned is thoughtfully provided 303with this fortifying liquor and, if desired, a soothing cigarette.

“That’s it, give me a glass of grog.”

As the spy sipped the rum and sweetened water supplied her she enquired about the weather. She was told that it was a beautiful morning.

“In that case you must give me the beige cloak I was wearing when I came here,” she said to the two nuns.

Mata Hari had now relinquished all hope of delivery from her execution except what might be possible through the agency of the mysterious lover who was exerting himself outside the prison walls. Her attitude of negligence and indifference perplexed everyone who did not know of some secret support. They wondered at the calm demeanour of this nervous artist who was accustomed to outbursts of violent anger if affairs did not march in accordance with her desires. They marvelled at the enigmatic smile by which she concealed her last deception. She played the part allotted to her nobly, to the admiration of all who beheld her confidence.

“Death?” she soliloquized. “Death is nothing, nor life, either, for that matter. To die, to sleep, to pass into nothingness, what does it matter? Everything is an illusion.”

304One of the nuns, shocked by this heresy, hoped to see the woman reconciled to the orthodox faith by reminding her that the prison chaplain and a Protestant minister were in attendance, and recommended that Mata Hari make her peace with God by seeing either one of them. While considering this suggestion Mata Hari carefully adjusted the combs in her hair before a small mirror, powdered her face and bust, and generally completed a careful toilette. If she was to feign death she could at least be a well-turned-out corpse. Observing that the nuns had clumsily knotted the laces of her dainty shoes, she mildly remonstrated.

“It is plain to see, Sister, that you do not have laces like these in your boots. But no matter, I will put them right, and you may call the Protestant minister. Although I have very little need of his ministry, he may come in.”

The woman whose only religion had been the worship of sensuous pleasures and whose nearest approach to spirituality was a form of Buddhist pessimism, knelt before the minister and was baptized in the rites of Anabaptism. Then the officers entered the cell to claim their prisoner.

“Have you any declaration to make?” asked one of them.

305Mata Hari turned upon him with amused contempt as she answered:

“None, and if I had it would not be to you that I should make it.”

“Have you any wish to express?”

“Yes. I would like to see Captain Marov, but as he is in Russia I shall be content to write to him if you will give me permission.”

In the prison director’s office she calmly adjusted her hat before sitting down to write three letters, one to her young daughter full of wise motherly counsel to guide aright her life, one to the favoured French lover who had braved public condemnation to bear witness in her favour, and one to the absent Marov. These she handed to her lawyer with the strict injunction that he display care in putting them into envelopes, so that her lovers’ letters might not go to her daughter; she wished no such embarrassing situation. This final privilege completed, Mata Hari submitted to the instructions of the officers. The party of guards and official witnesses got into waiting cars and proceeded without delay to the place of execution. On the way the prisoner chatted pleasantly with the two gendarmes who accompanied her, gently reproaching one for remaining a bachelor. They arrived at the rifle-range just as a chill dawn was 306lighting a grey sky and the whistle of a near-by factory summoned the early workers to resume their daily tasks.

Troops were drawn up in readiness, infantry in horizon blue, cavalry with their long black plumes drooping from brass helmets, and artillery in service dress, forming three sides of a hollow square. On the open side of this formation was the sinister tree, stripped of its leaves and branches. When her car arrived on the scene Mata Hari stepped daintily between some small pools left by the night rain. At the sight of the brave parade collected in her honour the prisoner whispered to the terrified little nun who accompanied her:

“Come, little Sister, hold tightly to my hand.”

It was not because Mata Hari desired comforting assurance, but because she was protecting the trembling Sister, that she made this remark. The religious was feeling the poignancy of the impending tragedy much more than the principal actor. She was nervous at the presence of all this soldiery required to execute judgment upon one lone woman. Mata Hari was accustomed to military pomp. Her royal lover had made her familiar with its significance. Now, as the troops responded to the sharp command “Present arms!” they were saluting the Prince of All Things in whose presence 307Mata Hari was soon to answer for her deeds. Nevertheless, Mata Hari accepted the salute as homage to herself, and as she passed across the steadfast ranks she bowed gravely in acknowledgment. Slowly, with the majesty of a princess before her guard of honour, the Red Dancer permitted herself to be guided to the sinister tree. When she had gained her place in the centre of the parade she said to the attendant nun, who was still clinging nervously to the other’s firm grip:

“Now it is over, you may release me.”

The legal requirements were completed by the reading of the court-martial’s sentence. The minister prayed until the officers began to stir nervously at the prolonged delay, the faithful nun knelt on the soft moist earth and added her prayers to that of the minister, begging a final mercy for this sister who had erred. Then the priest, having completed his ministrations stepped back, the gendarmes pressed the condemned woman against the tree trunk. When a bandage was produced to shut out from her sight the final preparations for her death, Mata Hari disdainfully waved it aside. She who had looked so boldly on life had no need to fear death, especially a death in which she was merely playing a part for the deception of some 308five thousand interested spectators, in order to carry out the instructions of a faithful lover whose unseen hands were arranging the details. Mata Hari knew that the officials had got wind of some plot for her rescue. They had examined Maître Clunet about mysterious reports they had received during the night, but if the old man had been able, faithfully, to deny knowledge of the existence of any scheme to release her, the officials were, nevertheless, uneasy. When the two gendarmes made a pretence of tying the prisoner to the tree they did not even bother to fasten the knot of the rope. A good deal of significance was later attached to this omission.

The three lines of troops were called to attention. From their ranks came a dozen soldiers at the double, halting at the word of command within ten paces of the condemned. Quickly the young officer in command of the party gave his orders:

“Take aim.”

Slowly he raised his sword to give the signal which would produce the fatal volley. Mata Hari was playing her unrehearsed part admirably. She gaily kissed her hand to the minister, to the old advocate who was now a pitifully weak old man, weeping unrestrainedly. To the young officer 309standing with upraised sword she said in a sweet voice:

“Thank you, monsieur.”

“Fire.”

At the crack of the rifles there was a deadly hush which lasted until the doctors had certified death and there came a last word of command:

“Forward, march!”

Round the three sides of the square went those French soldiers who had been called to witness the vengeance on their dead comrades, marching with the blare of trumpets and the roll of drums, glancing, who knows with what sensations, sidewards at the heap of huddled skirts lying at the foot of a bare tree, where a woman’s face lay smiling enigmatically at the overhanging canopy of heaven.

The little group of awestruck spectators, who were prevented from approaching too closely the motionless body with its disfigured face, were about to disperse when the officer in charge of the execution, glancing expectantly at the weeping lawyer, asked:

“Does anyone claim this body?”

There was no response.

Oh, ingratitude! The lovely amber-tinted body that had danced for the delight of so many was 310despised and rejected by all her numerous lovers when death had stilled its allurements.

That night the Paris newspapers told the curious world that the spy H21 had paid the penalty of her crimes. In the morning when those whose morbid curiosity could hardly credit the truth visited the little cemetery, what was their chagrin to find that the shallow grave was empty! Instantly the report spread that Mata Hari had escaped the bullets of her executioners and had been carried off by the lover who had planned the escape. That is why one still meets on the boulevards of Paris certain devoted lovers of her memory who declare that she and Pierre de Mortissac have revived the corybantic orgies of the worship of Siva; whispers of marvellous and scandalous entertainment still interest the credulous.

What is the secret of the empty grave? A grisly tale. Before the execution, a medical college, with the gruesome hunger for human bodies upon which to conduct the surgical experiments from which suffering humanity benefits, asked the authorities to surrender this body of a criminal for dissection. In accordance with their usual practice, when there was no claimant, the authorities 311made this concession to science. On the night that Mata Hari was shot her body was disinterred and carried to the clinic, where the surgeons had ample proof that death was due to the bullets of the firing party.

And Pierre de Mortissac?

A myth! The story goes that he had not bargained for the administration of a coup de grâce which dissipated the hopes of success for his plan, and that he is now dragging out his life within the grey walls of a monastery on an isolated hill in Spain where there is no outlook but the heavens on which the thoughts of the inmates are piously turned. But all investigation has proved unable to fix upon any recognizable incident of his fantastic existence, and the prior and guest-master of the monastery have lost their benign attitude in answering questions relating to the presence in the monastery of Pierre de Mortissac.

The history is ended, only the legends prevail. All that is known to the world in general of the Red Dancer of the Hundred Veils or no veils at all has been told here in an attempt to separate the truth from the fables. It has not been attempted to follow the legend to its entire length, for that would be an endless task that is being increased 312by the band of zealots who maintain that Mata Hari was a true Brahma and that she still lives.

Between the mythical purple altar of the Kanda Swany where her life of romance began and the rifle-range at Vincennes where it ended there is the width of three continents. It required the talent of Mata Hari to bridge the gulf. Her origin was as she chose to make it; the end was none the less her own choice.

THE END

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES

Fixed typos; non-standard spelling and dialect retained.