Chapter Nine

We have already said that a spy’s main difficulty is not in obtaining information, but in transmitting it safely to the desired point. There is nothing which so completely tries the resourcefulness of the secret agent as the methods he employs in the conveyance of material to his superiors, and without some knowledge of the extraordinary artifices employed by the spies one cannot appreciate the bewildering difficulties that confronted the Second Bureau in their endeavours to intercept incriminating correspondence.

If Mata Hari was engaged in spying, she had the choice of many cunning subterfuges, but a woman living in the full blaze of publicity that attends a vaudeville artiste who courts notoriety, knowing she was under suspicion of the English, but ignorant of the extent of their knowledge, could not hope to keep secret a treasonable correspondence without precautions of an extraordinary nature. The ordinary channels of communication adopted by secret agents were too dangerous to be employed in her case, because the German authorities knew from their own experience that the best 131of codes can be deciphered by specialists, while chains of agents through whom the information is passed are terribly dangerous, since each link in the chain progressively increases the danger of the betrayal, as was proved in the German coup preceding the Verdun offensive to be mentioned later. Therefore some more than usually safe method had to be devised for communication with Amsterdam and Antwerp.

It was obviously impossible to rely upon the time-honoured methods which were familiar to all secret services alike. Simple invisible inks made from onion or lemon juices were often employed to introduce information into an innocent-looking missive, a simple device which would have spared Nathan Hale’s life had he known of it. One only had to heat the paper to make the writing visible. This old method was very early abandoned in favour of more scientific devices that defied the recognized methods of detection. Since it was necessary to avoid creating any suspicion of the materials used, it became necessary to import them from the agent’s headquarters and it was this form of smuggling which most often revealed a new chemical agent employed for the purpose. Soaps and toilet waters containing ferrate of potassium and lead acetate for the manufacture of invisible 132inks became part of a spy’s equipment, while handy methods, such as the dipping of a pocket handkerchief saturated with this chemical in a glass of water provided the agent with a means of producing the ink at will.

The writer well recalls the perplexity of a group of counter-espionage agents over a trunk containing nothing but soiled underclothes which had been sent from Amsterdam to a man who had not been in that city for many months. It was the mere fact that all the clothes were soiled that caused the examiners to subject them to a careful scrutiny. Only when a chemical test was applied to every article was it found that one pair of socks was heavily saturated with the material for making enough invisible ink to have supplied a battalion of spies. The remainder of the clothes were unexceptional.

The most amazing craftsman in the use of invisible inks was an Argentine called Dei Pasi, who reported to Gruber in Geneva. Dei Pasi was the typical swarthy spy of the stage romances, with a natural catlike tread and that quick sidelong glance of a man who is instinctively on his guard against the weight of a hand clapped suddenly on his shoulder. His equipment of invisible inks was amazing in its variety and completeness, and yet 133he was detected only when he sent information concerning the cruiser Kleber through the ordinary mail to Switzerland, written in ordinary ink, and in plain ordinary writing instead of cipher. It is believed that it was this romantic son of the warm south who tried, unsuccessfully, to send a message through a channel which almost deserved a better fate for its originality. He sent the designs of an artillery improvement drawn in the delicate folds of a ballet-dancer’s skirt, but, alas! misfortune too often wears a skirt; it was discovered.

Another favourite means of communicating with superiors in a distant country was by means of small advertisements in the newspapers, but this practice became too dangerous in France, where all such notices had to be submitted to the police before publication, while in England the newspaper staffs developed an extraordinary scent for the suspicious advertisement and voluntarily co-operated with the police in preventing their publication. One spy made use of the “For Sale” column to insert cleverly concealed information relating to the movements of British naval vessels. But if this method had the advantage that when a director of espionage wished to secure secret information all he had to do was to read the enemy newspapers, it had the drawback that intentionally 134inaccurate information sometimes continued to appear in the usual way long after a spy had withdrawn from the world at large to become the inmate of a prison. The Scotland Yard officials have only recently discarded a motor-car which was purchased from funds received for information supplied in this way. The police had seized the spy Müller and were fortunate enough to have acquired his code book and instructions at the same time. Armed with these documents, the English Intelligence Department continued to furnish the German officials carefully “doctored” information, which so pleased the latter that they increased their spy’s salary. It should be explained on behalf of the London police that they showed their gratitude for this unexpected windfall by purchasing a car and calling it “Müller,” after its unintentional donor.

At the risk of further digression we must here relate an instance of supplying false information to the enemy which is too good to omit. In England, as in Germany, the Intelligence services of the army and the navy are separate departments, only, whereas in Germany the two services fought each other with the dogged perseverance of the proverbial Kilkenny cats, their opposite numbers in London contrived to work with commendable 135co-operation except in this one case. Sir Reginald Hall, the exceedingly astute head of the Admiralty Intelligence service, once ran across an enemy agent who seemed a likely fellow to snatch greedily at any morsel of confidential information. At this time Sir Reginald wanted very badly to have the enemy misconstrue the meaning of a naval concentration which was in contemplation, so he allowed the watchful spy to receive, in strict confidence, the knowledge that the ships were collecting in order to cover a landing of troops somewhere between the Ems and the Weser.

This threatened violation of their territory came to the ears of the Dutch statesmen, who had to be gently pacified. It also arrived at the Imperial headquarters, where it created genuine alarm. Several reserve divisions were immediately detached from their formations and were moved to meet the menace. Sure enough, this movement of troops was observed and reported upon by the zealous British agents, only in this case the reports went to the War Office and not to the Admiralty.

British military strategists submitted the problem to careful examination and decided that it indicated an intention on the part of the Germans to undertake an invasion of the south coast. They speedily drew up a plan of defence and invited the 136co-operation of the Admiralty in opposing this threat to the safety of the realm. Enquiries on the matter were naturally addressed to Hall by his superiors and he had to admit that his little plot to deceive the enemy had also succeeded in confusing his friends at the War Office.

Enough has been written to give some idea of the variety of methods at Mata Hari’s disposal if she was contemplating sending information to Amsterdam and to show the manner in which the counter-espionage services were meeting the ever-changing subtlety of the spies. The Second Bureau explored the entire complicated field in order to grasp some incriminating fact. Her influential friends made it positively necessary to have some concrete evidence of her guilt before they could take any steps to even demand the withdrawal of her permission to remain in France, apart from obtaining a conviction before a court-martial, where the evidence submitted would have to be conclusive. If any of her actions were of a suspicious character they could always be explained by the nature of her profession as a light-of-love. But, even admitting that she was spying, how was it possible to continue to send messages to her chiefs when the French agents watched every movement with meticulous care and found nothing 137damaging? It is notorious that reports were sometimes passed by word of mouth, but the careful scrutiny of all her acquaintances failed to reveal anyone who could be supposed to be receiving and transmitting her messages. It is known that a man called Wecsler was the principal collector of spy’s reports in Paris, but Mata Hari was never known to approach him. In fact, there is good reason to suppose that they did not know of each other’s existence.

In order to appreciate the Second Bureau’s alarm that men of responsible posts should continue to associate with a woman of Mata Hari’s reputation and to follow the logical course of the investigation against her, it is necessary to introduce two more spies, not an unpleasant pair of underworld characters, but two certified scions of noble families. These were Ricardo and Dorlac, father-in-law and son-in-law, who were found to be related to eminent Spanish families; indeed, the older man claimed, we cannot say with what truth, to be closely related to the king of Spain. This precious pair of rascals were enrolled in the German secret service operating from Barcelona.

In Paris they occupied a handsome suite in one of those imposing hotels on the Boulevard Haussmann and frequented the select diplomatic circles, 138where they were generally recognized as men of standing because of their family associations and because they were travelling on diplomatic passports, acquisitions which afford the bearers many privileges and a freedom from the irritating annoyances which a malevolent bureaucracy invents to distract ordinary travellers. One of the privileges which a diplomatic passport affords its bearer is immunity from, or at least a greatly relaxed severity of, customs inspection.

The elder of the two Spaniards stayed in Paris, collecting materials which would inform his employers on the morale of the people, the movement of troops behind the line, and a variety of matters, while the son-in-law bore the dispatches to Geneva and Barcelona. The pair might have gone on with their work indefinitely had not Dorlac, in returning one time to France, somewhat ostentatiously offered his baggage for inspection by the customs officials. There ensued a slight discussion over the ownership of a box of cigars which Dorlac confidently assured the inspectors did not belong to him. This was not only cowardice, but colossal folly. The box had a false bottom in which was concealed a cipher message of instructions, and rather than run the risk of being found with it in 139his possession Dorlac allowed it to fall undisputed into the hands of the French.

When he arrived in Paris Dorlac roundly abused his father-in-law for exposing him to danger of arrest with such a childish contraption as a cigar-box with a double bottom for the conveyance of secret documents; it was bound to arouse suspicion, he contended. The angry Dorlac further complained that as he ran the graver risks of the two he was entitled to the larger share of the recompense. As this money matter was the main cause of the argument, it was, naturally, conducted in loud tones, and it was not altogether by chance that a waiter overheard the angry discussion through the thickness of the door, nor was it chance which made him a Spanish-speaking waiter. Ricardo pacified his son-in-law with a promise that he would receive adequate recompense when the next payment was received, and went so far as to recommend the handle of a shaving brush as a good hiding-place for their reports if he was going to submit to customs inspections. This pair of spies can be dismissed with the comment that they had a quick trial and were executed in February of 1917.

The significance of Ricardo and Dorlac in Mata Hari’s case lay in their diplomatic credentials. It 140gave the first indication that diplomatic privileges might be abused, and it became necessary to “place” men in certain Embassies that were thought to be careless in the manner in which they extended their privileges. As all ordinary mail for foreign countries was delayed for four days and was very closely inspected to see that it carried nothing injurious, ambassadors were not infrequently requested to secure quick delivery or special immunity for important private letters that had no right to the privilege of exemption. A man might wish to expedite an important business letter, or a mother might wish to convey sage counsel to a distant daughter, and occasionally an ambassador would condescend, provided the business man was of sufficient substance or the lady gracious and beautiful enough, to extend his diplomatic protection to the conveyance of his or her mail.

One of the French agents placed in an Embassy was so amazingly successful in his penetration to a position of trust that he got access to the diplomatic mail-pouch. It naturally took some considerable time to reach such a confidential position, but the results obtained proved conclusively that it would have been advantageous to have made the attempt long ago. Nevertheless, as a piece of counter-espionage work, this was an achievement 141of first magnitude, for, while there have been numerous instances of a spy gaining access to a single diplomatic mail-pouch, this ability to keep an Embassy mail under constant supervision is probably unique in the annals of espionage. It had an astounding outcome.

A few days before the offensive was launched against the Chemin des Dames, Mata Hari quitted Vittel and abandoned the rôle of a penitent to resume her unregenerate life in the capital. One of the first visits she paid after her return to Paris was to the Embassy of the Netherlands, where the French agent was submitting the mail to expert supervision. After a brief interview in an inner sanctum a high official graciously condescended to forward a letter to Mata Hari’s daughter, Jeanne Louise, in Holland; it had been done before and it was done again. Some of these Ministers of foreign powers were willing enough to violate their diplomatic privileges in order to gain the approval of a woman for whose favours they had to compete so keenly. Probably the courteous ambassador imagined that he was morally bound to aid in the transmission to her innocent daughter of wise counsel from a woman who knew the world so well. At least a charitable construction may be 142placed on the action, for the ambassador was no enemy of France.

But the enterprising agent knew Mata Hari’s reputation at the Second Bureau and he decided to open this letter, have the contents copied, and let the cipher experts work upon its problems. The letter showed how thoroughly Mata Hari had played the part of Delilah in the garments of Magdalene. It carried information of primary importance on a matter of espionage arrangements by which the French were trying to repair the damage caused by a formidable coup delivered by their enemies.

Toward the end of 1915 a wretched traitor had denounced Miss Edith Cavell and some thirty others for conspiring to convey lost Allied soldiers safely over the Dutch border. Among the group arrested were some women agents of the French spy service who had engaged in this other work as they did in anything designed to outwit the German authority. One of the defects in the hastily constructed espionage service in occupied territory was its organization into such a closely welded body where the members were known to one another. It was a fatal defect, although possibly not without its advantages by reason of the opportunities it afforded of mutual aid in the occupied 143territory. One of the women charged with aiding the concealment of Allied soldiers (they were not tried for spying), through either indiscretion or fear, for the German methods were not distinguished for gentleness, inadvertently betrayed the employment of a number of French agents. At the time the Verdun offensive was in contemplation, and to arrest these betrayed spies at once would doubtless have removed one source of danger, but it would give the French time to learn that their service was paralyzed and set about its repair soon enough to gather information which might destroy the surprise effect of the forthcoming attack. Consequently, the German service held its hand until the particulars of the necessary preparations had to be furnished to the lesser formations, at which time the risk of leakage really began. Then they arrested sixty-six French agents.

It will be recalled that Miss Cavell and her colleagues were executed with a great deal of secrecy. The American and Spanish ambassadors, who were greatly interested in an effort to prevent the commission of the horror, only learned that the death penalty was to be carried out on the eve of its execution, too late to take effective steps at prevention. The reason for this unseemly haste lies in the panic which seized the Germans when they 144realized that the French service in their territory was so extensive, and the frenzy of fear that urged them to destroy innocent people in the erroneous belief that they were leaders of espionage who might, if allowed to live, convey through those authorized to visit them in gaol a warning that their work was discovered. It proves their lack of actual knowledge of the situation.

The French espionage department was, therefore, deprived of the major part of their service in occupied territory and, while laboriously reconstructing the complex organization, had to depend almost exclusively upon information furnished by the British agents, whose service was unimpaired. Before long it became obvious to the German service that their army zone was being invaded by French agents, but how they arrived and where they came from remained a complete mystery until the day came when one of those strokes of fortune which pass for miracles of police wisdom furnished the solution.

The military governor of Brussels, von Bissing, had fallen victim to a pair of bright eyes that were physically beautiful but morally terrible. Their owner, best known in Brussels as Angèle, was generally supposed to have set too rapid a pace for her elderly admirer to maintain, so that he died of an 145overdose of ambition to be youthful and to indulge in the follies of youth. His death made the girl’s situation somewhat precarious, for she had lived under von Bissing’s protection in more ways than one. Finding that her growing popularity thrust her into a good deal of notoriety, which angered the patriotic civilians who declined to lighten the life of the invaders, she decided to confide her past to her new friends, the Germans, as a means of securing her future safety from malicious gossip or actual denunciation. The girl told how she had originally fled from Brussels at the approach of the German invasion, but had been induced to return to it in order to act as an English spy. The perplexed German officers who heard this confession wanted to know how she had penetrated their lines. She explained that she had been dropped from an airplane. This revelation released a flood of light upon the obscure problem which was puzzling the Intelligence department as to how the Allies were introducing spies behind their lines.

It will be readily understood that if the French or British could find anyone courageous enough to make the hazardous leap from an airplane into the abyss of night, it was comparatively easy for that person to find many willing protectors among the loyal civilian population of the occupied territory 146who could furnish concealment and assistance. It was surprising how many gallant French and Belgian men (and women, too,) were willing to make this perilous drop into the bowl of night and through an “Archie” barrage in order to serve their country. And let it be said to their eternal honour that none could have been tempted by the pecuniary reward, for the mere pittance they received for the task was a trifle compared to the financial magnates’ salary paid the men who make spectacular parachute jumps for the benefit of the curious at the present day.

The practice of landing spies from airplanes is, I believe, an American invention, having been introduced by Lieutenant Bert Hall, an American aviator employed by the Turks in the first Balkan War. At the time of the formation of the Lafayette Escadrille, of which he was one of the original members, this remarkable soldier of fortune (he is now said to be a general in the Chinese army) was already experienced in the dangerous science. Dark nights, the darker the better, were the chosen times for these daring exploits. The locale selected for a landing-place was some isolated spot where a resident spy was already stationed. If the coast was clear the resident agent showed a light up his chimney and the pilot would then land his passenger. 147After the lapse of an agreed time, say two weeks, the pilot would return to the neighbourhood and, if the arranged-for light was showing, would make a descent, pick up his spy, and carry him back.

This method had the great advantage that the spy’s absence was of such short duration that there was no necessity for the always dangerous written communications by which a spy is so frequently exposed. In this case he had simply to memorize his information so that in case of seizure there were no incriminating documents to conceal.

But when the Germans found that the occupied territory was being sown with enemy agents, they were not long in inventing a means of locating their landing-places. They placed sound-ranging sets tuned to pick up the vibration of motors near likely spots and, after a landing had been effected, there was a comparison of results which revealed the exact spot where the descent had taken place and a careful watch was then kept for the pilot’s return. This compelled the adoption of parachutes for landings, which were thereafter accomplished without sound.

The task required a steady nerve at that stage of airplane experimentation and when parachutes were usually associated with the genial lunatic who 148leaped from a stationary balloon to thrill the loutish spectators at a country fair. Yet there were one or two hardy souls who not only made the perilous leap, but who made their way back to repeat the performance. There were not a few whose experience could not be passed on for the benefit of their followers, for they were engulfed in that great silence which enclosed the fate of the “missing.”

To find these courageous guests from the midnight air, once they had landed, was a task beyond the ability of the distracted German Intelligence service. Their only hope was to learn where the pilots dropped their passengers for the aerie descent, and to concentrate vigilance upon that locality. But, if they ever took any living survivor of these exploits, none was persuaded to impart this much-needed information to his captors, who, therefore, had to devise some other expedient to obtain the knowledge. The evil grew to such dimensions that, finally, the phenomenal success of Mata Hari in Paris induced her superiors to allot to her the delicate task of ascertaining from the pilots themselves what routes they took and at what spots they took leave of, and picked up, their passengers. It was a job after her own heart.

This explains her fondness, apart from her already 149expressed preference for men of the officer class, for the airmen who came to Paris on leave and for the same class of men whom she lured into intoxication and intimacy during her alleged mission of mercy in Vittel. From their unguarded lips she learned the babbled truth which cost many of the tellers their lives before the routes could be changed for this risky work.

Before the astonished Second Bureau had recovered from the shock of their discovery that Mata Hari had adopted this unique channel of communication for her treacherous correspondence and had resolved upon a course of action, the offensive had been launched against the Chemin des Dames, only to be received with a devastating fire that showed only too well that the intention had been conveyed to the enemy, who was expecting it, but as yet there was nothing to suggest that they could do more than accuse Mata Hari in their minds.

Then like a bolt from the blue came the terrible truth. Within a few days of the unveiling of her betrayal of the pilots and agents a letter was received at the Embassy for Mata Hari.

This was not a reply from her innocent young daughter, but a request to pursue a matter previously mentioned and an expression of thanks for the information about the attack on the Chemin 150des Dames, for which she would receive payment as soon as its reliability had been proved.

“While at Vittel ... I intended to abandon my life of debauchery and to consecrate myself to the devoted care of this man ... the only man I ever really loved.”

All the melting softness of her nature must have run into Mata Hari’s tender glance as she spoke those words, for the rest of her being was as hard as flint, particularly her heart.

How many of the 80,000 dead, 100,000 wounded, and 20,000 missing had tasted the bitter sweet of her Delilah kisses will never be known, but that they were many will be recalled by the survivors who have not yet forgotten how generously she dispensed hospitality and how liberally she loved.

It would now appear that the spy had run her course, that the Second Bureau, implacable in its hate for this detestable business, would immediately proceed with her prosecution as a spy. But here Mata Hari had them utterly defeated. With all their knowledge of her treachery, the French authorities were absolutely powerless to lay a finger upon her.

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