Sant of the Secret Service: Some Revelations of Spies and Spying

123 – 5 – 8; 27 – 32 – 6; 46 – 23 – 11;

294 – 12 – 3; 18 – 1 – 8;

and so on.

I swiftly copied out the figures for safety, and handed the original paper to Captain Jackson, who, on board his own ship, was, of course, the supreme and unquestioned authority, and I wanted his full approval and support to any action that might be necessary. The figures were meaningless as they stood, but I had not forgotten old Heinrich’s systematic search for that odd volume of Royal Love Letters. I had my copy in my bag and fetched it at once.

With such an obscure book as the key to the cipher there was no need for any further elaborate precautions, and we hit upon the solution of the difficulty at once. On page 123 the eighth letter on the fifth line was “B;” on page 27 the sixth letter in the thirty-second line was “r”; and in a few minutes I had decoded the word “Brixton.” Going on, I found that the message conveyed the news that Number 24, – Road, Brixton, had been wrecked by one of the bombs dropped in the recent raid; that a man, a woman, and two children had been killed. The spots where the other bombs had fallen were accurately described, and it was stated that they had done no damage beyond blowing holes in the roads and bursting gas and water mains. Every word was accurate.

And the key to the whole problem was the mysterious advertisement for a lost trinket in the Petit Parisien. That simple advertisement, so apparently innocent, had announced to Blind Heinrich the enemy’s change of code! And without the book to which it referred no intelligence on earth could have deciphered the disorderly mass of figures which lay before our eyes!

“Well, I think we have got them now, Captain,” I said, “and I am sure the Government will be deeply obliged to you for your assistance. But how am I going to get this fellow? If he lands in Norway he will be out of our power.”

“Come on deck,” said Captain Jackson, with a laugh. “Don’t make your mind uneasy about that.”

I followed him up the companion-way gladder to the deck, now deserted by all save the steersman and the officer on watch.

“Come up to the bridge with me,” said the Captain.

Although it was so near the period of full moon the night was dark, the sky being covered by a dense mass of heavy clouds. Try as we would, our eyes could not pierce the gloom, and we could see nothing a few yards from the ship. Though we had parted company from the destroyers long before, we were, of course, travelling without lights in view of possible danger, and only the binnacle lamp shed a soft radiance on the ship’s compass. I was soon to learn, however, how closely we were watched.

Captain Jackson entered the wheel-house and touched a key. From the masthead above a signal lamp flashed intermittently for a few seconds. Instantly from the southward winked an answering gleam, and Captain Jackson turned to me. “That’s a destroyer,” he said, “and she is coming up full speed.”

For the next few minutes signals were exchanged with the racing destroyer which was on our track, and soon I caught sight of the faint glow from her funnels, and then the outline of her low, rakish hull as she came abreast with us. At a signal from Captain Jackson our engines stopped, and soon we were lying motionless while a boat from the destroyer pulled rapidly across the gap which separated the two vessels.

A few minutes later a smart naval officer came on board with four men. We were soon seated in the Captain’s cabin, and I rapidly gave him an outline of what had happened. His quick intelligence took in the situation at a glance.

“I’ll take your Mr Humber back with me,” he said, “and you and your man can come along.”

But we were nearly to lose our man. As the officer and his men entered the engine-room Humber caught sight of them. He started, but instantly recovered himself. As the lieutenant spoke to Phail, Humber watched him closely. I saw Aubert move noiselessly but swiftly behind Humber, evidently ready for a tussle. A moment later Phail beckoned Humber to come to him.

Instantly the spy’s hand shot to his jacket pocket, and, as it came out, bringing with it a revolver, Aubert sprang. The next instant the revolver was on the floor and Aubert had Humber in a grip of iron. Ten minutes later, with Humber securely handcuffed, we were on our way to the destroyer, and were soon thrashing our way at top speed for home.

There is little more to tell. Humber proved to be a Swede named Holmboë, and we clearly established the fact that he had been for a long time acting as the travelling agent of the Berlin espionage bureau, carrying information to Norway for transmission through the German Legation in Christiania. The conspirators in the house in Harrington Street were all taken into custody, and we soon had all the threads of their activities in our possession, including the key to the mystery of Mr Mostyn Brown, whose connection with various little affairs of espionage was clearly established. Blind Heinrich, too, was at length effectively unmasked, and, with the rest of the group, is now safely under lock and key, with ample leisure to repent of the nefarious business upon which they were engaged.

On this occasion, at any rate, the secret message failed to reach Berlin, and I often laugh when I think of the amazement and anxiety that must have been caused in the enemy’s camp at the sudden silence of their emissaries. To-day we can afford to make them a present of the truth!

Chapter Fourteen
The Great Submarine Plot

To be a success as a secret agent a wide knowledge of European hotels is an absolute necessity.

You must, indeed, be familiar with the best hotel in every city of any importance, and scarcely less important is the personal acquaintance of the manager; for without his help you will inevitably find in your path a thousand difficulties, small and great, which, with his friendly assistance, melt almost insensibly away. Duty and inclination alike have led me to make a special study of hotel life, and I think I may say, without undue egotism, that there are few maîtres d’hôtel in Europe with whom I am not on terms of acquaintance, and even in many cases warm friendship.

I was especially fortunate in this respect in the situation in which I found myself one sunny morning in June, 1917. As the clock struck ten I strolled out of a big hotel, which I will call the Waldesruhe, in Lucerne, and wandered along the shady avenue beside the lake in the direction of the Schwanen-Platz.

Luigi Battini, the manager of the Waldesruhe, was one of my closest personal friends, and I should have stayed at the Waldesruhe at any time I was in Lucerne quite apart from the particular business which had brought me there on this occasion. Luigi was one of those marvellously efficient human machines which appear almost to reach omniscience in everything connected, even remotely, with his profession. He would give his guests, off hand and without the slightest hesitation, minutely detailed directions for the most complicated of journeys without opening a time-table, and invariably his information was correct to the smallest particular. He knew at what stations every dining-car was put on every train within a radius of hundreds of miles, and he impressed upon you, in the far-off pre-war days, to remember that the train left Weis for Passau twenty minutes earlier this month than the hour mentioned in the time-table.

His memory, especially for faces, was prodigious. Indeed, it was to this that I owed the beginnings of our friendship. Years before Luigi had been a waiter at the great buffet at Liverpool where passengers from the incoming American boats were in the habit of snatching a hasty meal before joining the train for London. I had arrived in England from New York cold and hungry, and, owing to some delay about my baggage, was unable to get to the restaurant until just before the London express was due to start.

I had not realised how long I had been delayed, and had just taken my first mouthful of the soup which Luigi had brought me when the bell heralding the immediate departure of the train rang loudly. With a muttered ejaculation of annoyance I hastily threw down on the table the price of my abandoned meal and rushed out, jumped into the train, and a moment later was speeding Londonwards, still cold and hungry and in the very worst of tempers.

Of course I promptly forgot the incident, and it was not until a year later that I was forcibly reminded of it. I had again arrived in Liverpool from New York and hurried to the same restaurant for a meal. By some queer chance I made for a table at which Luigi was still the waiter. I should not have known him, but he recollected me and our previous meeting.

With a profound bow and a smiling flash of his exquisite teeth, Luigi said quizzically: “Good evening, monsieur. Has monsieur returned for his dinner?”

I looked at him in blank astonishment for a moment, then burst into a roar of laughter, as I remembered both him and the long-forgotten incident of a year before. The ice was effectually broken between us, and when I left for London I felt I had made a friend of the smiling Italian. But it was years before I discovered how deep and loyal a mutual regard had sprung out of a trifling incident. But the best friendships not infrequently owe their origin to some such triviality.

Time had slipped by since then, and Luigi had climbed the ladder until the humble waiter was a power in the great cosmopolitan world of the hotel. But to me, at any rate, he was the Luigi of old; to others he might be merely the official head of a perfectly appointed hotel, where arrangements seemed to go by clockwork and no one ever heard of such a thing as failure. Always in a frock-coat, whatever the season, whatever the hour of the day; always wearing the diamond pin given him by a travelling monarch; always alert though never obtrusive; known to all his guests, but familiar with hardly any – such was Luigi Battini. And he was one of Hecq’s “friends.”

I had gone to Lucerne on purpose to learn something from his lips which he would not risk in the post, and what he had told me half an hour earlier had set me thinking deeply. It entirely confirmed certain information I had been able to gain in London and Lisbon.

After a long and meditative walk, I seated myself on the terrasse of a café overlooking the lovely Lake of Lucerne, and, with a bock before me, wrote out a telegram as follows:

“Arthon, Paris. – Returning London fourteenth. – Casentino.”

Having finished my bock, I strolled along to the chief telegraph office near the station and dispatched the message. To the uninitiated it conveyed no other meaning than appeared on the surface, but its receipt at the address for which it was destined set various elements of machinery in motion.

On the evening of the fourteenth there stepped from the hotel omnibus – a smartly dressed young Frenchwoman, carrying a little sable Pomeranian dog and followed by a porter with her luggage.

Luigi met her in the hall, and, with his heels clicked together in his usual attitude of welcome, received her with an exquisite bow. She engaged a room, signed the visitors’ book in the usual way, and then allowed Battini to conduct her up by the lift. As she passed me our eyes met, but without the slightest sign of recognition. Even though the newly arrived guest was none other than my smartest assistant, Madame Gabrielle Soyez.

Next day, in consequence of a note I sent her, we met in one of the sitting-rooms in the further, and at the present moment unoccupied – wing of the hotel. She then told me that her own sitting-room was next to one occupied by a Swedish engineer named Oscar Engström, whom I had watched in Lisbon a month before and who was now in Switzerland engaged on some mysterious business which we had not been able to fathom. We strongly suspected, however, from various bits of evidence that had reached us, that the man was in the pay of Germany at the moment, even if he were not one of the regular German agents.

When I entered, Madame Gabrielle, smartly attired in a tailor-made gown of navy-blue cloth and a very bewitching hat, was standing at the window, with her pet dog beneath her arm, chatting to the immaculate Luigi, gazing the while on the blue waters of the lake.

I found myself reflecting how typically French she was in every detail – dainty in face and figure, immaculately dressed, and possessing that indefinably vivacious great charm which seems to be the monopoly of the cultured Frenchwoman. She could throw it aside when she chose, such was her wonderful versatility, and assume a mask of dullness and stupidity sufficient to ensure that no one meeting her would give her a second glance. It was a valuable accomplishment, and more than once had carried her safely through a difficult and dangerous situation.

To-day, among friends, she was her own sunny self. “Ah, Monsieur Gerald,” she cried, springing forward to greet me, “our friend Luigi has been telling me some very strange things – eh?”

“I have told Madame pretty well all I know,” said the suave Italian, in excellent English; “but it is not much. Engström has engaged a room for a lady friend – a Madame Bohman.”

“Swedish also?” I queried, with a smile. “When does our friend expect Mr Thornton, as he calls himself?”

“He is expected any moment,” replied Luigi; “he has retained his room ever since he left for London.”

“Good!” I said. And we all three sat down and plunged into an intricate discussion of every detail concerning the suspects and our plan of campaign.

My instructions to Luigi were to keep a constant watch upon the comings and goings of the Swedish engineer and his lady friend, while to Madame Gabrielle fell the task of endeavouring to scrape acquaintance with the latter on her arrival, in order to try to gain from some casual remark – for we could expect nothing more – a hint of what was in progress.

Engström’s lady friend, Madame Bohman, arrived in due course, and, though she was quite unaware of it, we scrutinised her closely before we gave her a chance of seeing us. I saw at once that she was a complete stranger to me. Madame Gabrielle did not know her, and Luigi, with his faultless memory for faces, declared positively that she had never entered any hotel at which he had been engaged.

“A new hand, in all probability,” I thought, “but none the less dangerous on that ground if she knows her business.” Madame Bohman was a tall, handsome, fair-haired woman of decidedly distinguished appearance, and, from the scraps of her conversation which we overheard, evidently well educated and well connected. She had the blue eyes and fair hair of the typical Swede, but blue eyes and fair hair are not exactly unknown in Germany, and, though there was no ostensible reason for it, I found myself wondering whether she was exactly what she professed to be. But the German spy bureau works with any tools that come handy, and, even though Madame Bohman were the pure-blooded Swede she professed to be, there was still no reason why she should not be an enemy agent as well. More than one Swedish “neutral” has been detected in that category and paid the penalty!

Chapter Fifteen
The Real Mr Engström

Three days after Madame Bohman’s arrival, a special messenger brought me from Hecq in Paris three reports which, when I had read them, reduced me to a condition of blank despair.

The first was from the French Consul-General at Stockholm, who had been instructed to make the closest possible inquiry into the bona fides of the shipbuilding and engineering firm of Engström and Linner, of Malmö. His report stated that he had paid a visit to Malmö, and as the result of his investigations there and elsewhere he had not the least doubt that they were a first-class firm, and it was a fact of considerable interest that they were employed by the Swedish Government upon several important contracts. No reason whatever could be suggested for doubting their sterling integrity, and the partners had never shown the slightest trace of pro-German bias, either as a firm or individually. This seemed a complete check to our suspicions.

The second report was from Aubert, whom I had left in Lisbon. Dated from the Palace Hotel, it read:

“I have kept constant observation upon the individual, Mr Thornton, but, with the exception of the fact that he is acquainted with Halbmayr, of the Königgrätzer-strasse – which, after all, may be quite innocent – I see no reason to suspect him of hostile intent. He has telegraphed several times to Lucerne, addressing his messages to the name of Syberg at the poste restante. You could probably secure sight of one of these; I cannot at this end. He was visited a fortnight ago by a Swedish lady named Bohman. The latter may be a travelling agent of the enemy, but somehow, after a close vigilance, I feel doubtful. When Thornton leaves I shall advise you. It will be best for Garcia to follow, as they have not met, and he is here for that purpose.”

The third report was from a certain very alert English business man named Charles Johnson-Meads, who had offices in Fenchurch Street, London. It was Johnson-Meads who, by a curious statement he made to me one evening, in my rooms in Curzon Street, London, had first aroused my suspicions that a deep plot, in which Engström and Thornton were somehow implicated, was on foot.

Johnson-Meads’ report read:

“I have strained every effort to learn more of these people and their mysterious movements in London. Contrary to my belief, I have now established the fact that Engström is, after all, the well-known Swedish engineer, and not the fraud I believed him to be.”

This, of course, appeared to be tolerably conclusive, and I was inclined to throw up the whole business at once and return to Paris, where other work urgently awaited my attention. It was clear enough from the report of the French Consul-General at Stockholm that Engström and Linner would not lend their name to any shady proceedings, while Johnson-Meads’ apparent certainty that Engström was really what he professed to be seemed to cut away the principal basis of suspicion.

Half an hour later I met Madame Gabrielle and Luigi in the same private room and showed them the three reports, which were as disappointing to them as they were to me. Of Madame Bohman, Gabrielle had failed to discover anything which could give reasonable grounds for suspicion. According to her own statement – for the resourceful Madame Gabrielle had speedily scraped up an hotel acquaintance with her – Madame Bohman and Engström were old friends, having known each other for years in Stockholm. Moreover, it was evident that Madame Bohman at least knew Stockholm well, for Madame Gabrielle was intimately acquainted with that city, and had no difficulty, by means of apparently artless conversation, in testing the accuracy of Madame Bohman’s knowledge. To all intents and purposes we seemed to be on a wild-goose chase, and I expressed this view.

“There is nothing in it,” was my verdict. “I think the best thing we can do is to give up wasting our time and get back to Paris at once. You know there is the Morny affair waiting for me, and Hecq is anxious I should take it in hand without delay.”

“The Morny affair” was one of those queer financial scandals which have been so rife in Paris during the war. A Frenchman, hitherto of unblemished reputation as a patriot, had suddenly come under suspicion of trafficking with the enemy. Questions and rumours had been flying thickly in the Paris Press, as well as in the Chamber, and it was urgently important that the unfortunate Mr Morny – for I, at least, believed he was being slandered by a group of business rivals and political enemies – should be cleared once and for all of suspicions which were rapidly reducing him to a state of complete prostration. How, later, I succeeded in completely vindicating his character, I hope to tell at some future time – at present a full disclosure of the facts might do untold harm.

But Madame Gabrielle, her feminine intuition busily at work, was not to be easily put off. She strongly dissented from my view.

“Yesterday,” she said, “during Madame Bohman’s absence with Engström at Brunner, I took Luigi’s master-key, and, entering her room, opened her dressing-case and thoroughly searched her papers. It is true I found nothing of interest, save that there were letters from certain friends in London, the addresses of which I have copied. And I found this!”

“This” was a blank sheet of notepaper, which she produced, bearing the heading of the Palace Hotel at Lisbon.

“You see,” she said, “it has been very carefully preserved, for it was enclosed in these two envelopes. I wonder why?”

I took the blank paper from her and examined it carefully. I found it to be the ordinary hotel notepaper, exactly similar to that which I myself had used in the hotel writing-room, during my recent visit to the Portuguese capital.

“Well,” I said, “I don’t see how that proves, or even suggests, anything. We know perfectly well that Madame Bohman has been to Lisbon – she herself makes no secret whatever of the fact, and she may very well have brought away by accident a sheet of the hotel notepaper and a couple of envelopes. It is true she seems friendly with both men, and there is undoubtedly some suspicion. But is it sufficient to justify action on our part, or even to give us good reason for staying here and devoting to a very trivial matter valuable time which at the moment we might be spending to much greater advantage in Paris?”

Luigi raised his dark eyebrows and shrugged his shoulders. It was obvious that he was entirely of my way of thinking, and, though he was willing to do anything to help me and to put a spoke in the wheel of the Hun plotters – for, like all patriotic Italians, he cherished the liveliest hatred for the Austro-Germans – he was no fonder than I am myself of the profitless task of chasing a will-o’-the-wisp. But the merry, go-ahead little Frenchwoman had her suspicions very thoroughly aroused, and I knew well that when this was the case it was not an easy task to allay them.

“I do not care, mon cher Gerald! There is evil work in progress, somewhere; I am confident. Why should Thornton be acquainted or have anything to do with our arch-enemy, Ernst Halbmayr? Remember how cleverly he escaped you six months ago in Rotterdam!”

“But we trapped the woman,” I rejoined grimly. “And there was a firing party at Versailles.”

“And there is somebody to be trapped here also,” persisted Madame Gabrielle. “You will surely not give up yet?”

While we were still discussing the matter a page-boy brought a telegram. Luigi took it from the lad and, dismissing him, handed the message to me. It was from Aubert in Lisbon, and it conveyed the significant news that this man Thornton had left for Lucerne, and that Garcia was travelling by the same train. “He has just sent a telegram to Syberg at the poste restante,” the message concluded.

After this, of course, there could be no question of our abandoning our task. There was evidently something afoot, and just as evidently Lucerne was likely to be the scene of some lively incidents.

Luigi did not lose a second. He rang the bell, and immediately another page-boy appeared.

“Go at once to the poste restante,” he said, “and ask for a telegram for Syberg. They know you come from me, so there will be no need of a letter. Don’t forget the name – S-y-b-e-r-g. And make haste.” The boy disappeared instantly, and for a quarter of an hour we waited in feverish impatience for his return. When he came back he brought with him the message we wanted. Opening it, I read in French, as follows:

To Syberg, Poste Restante, Lucerne.

“Received good news from London. Meads” (the man in London whose suspicions had been aroused) “is now with us, so business can proceed. Leaving for Lucerne to-night. Shall see T. in Paris to arrange further details and transit of machinery. Thyra” (the Christian name of Madame Bohman) “will meet E.H.” (was this Ernst Halbmayr?) “at Geneva on the 15th.”

This message was unsigned, but it confirmed the impression given us by Aubert’s wire that events were on foot, and at once the three of us plunged with renewed energy into our plan of campaign.

“There can be no doubt,” I said, “that ‘E.H.’ refers to Halbmayr, and probably he is directing the whole of the intricate affair.”

“Very likely,” said Luigi dryly, “but I do not see that we have much more light on what direction against the British the conspirators, if they really are German agents, intend to work.”

“True, but that is just what we have to find out,” I replied. “From what Johnson-Meads states, the plot in some way relates to the British submarines. At present I am just as much in the dark as you are. If Halbmayr is directing operations you may depend upon it that some really serious coup is intended, for Halbmayr never troubles his head about the small affairs. Don’t forget that next to Steinhauer he is the man the Königgrätzer-strasse puts most implicit faith in.”

Events were now moving rapidly. I waited with anxiety for the arrival of the man Thornton, whom I had never seen, for I was particularly anxious to have a look at him. I suspected very strongly that he was one of the German Secret Service men masquerading under an assumed name, and I was therefore particularly anxious for an opportunity of identifying him. I argued with myself that if he was mixed up with anything big enough to call for the co-operation of Halbmayr he must be one of the “big” men himself, and it was quite possible I might be able to identify him, for personally or through photographs I was well acquainted with most of the leaders of German espionage work.

Thornton at length reached the Waldesruhe, where he was greeted by the urbane Luigi with all the evidence of distinguished consideration which made the suave Italian so popular with his many patrons. Thornton would have passed for an Englishman anywhere, both in looks and language. He was perfectly dressed in clothes unmistakably British in cut, and spoke the language to perfection. This, however, was hardly surprising, for, as we learned afterwards, he had lived in London ever since he was fourteen. He had, however, been brought up in circles which were virulently anti-British, and had absorbed to the fullest extent that poisonous hatred of everything English which so frequently displays itself in the Hun who has made England his home of convenience.

He little suspected that the smiling Luigi, who so assiduously attended to his comforts, was one of the secret agents of the Allies; that another, in the person of myself, saw his arrival, or that in the turret of the great hotel there was a small secret room containing a powerful wireless set, which I sometimes operated myself.

I had to be very careful not to be seen by Thornton, for it was quite possible, if my suspicions were well founded, that he might know me. And it was well that I did, for I recognised him instantly as Emil Brahe, a German agent of whom we had lost sight for some time. He had formerly been engaged on the Continent and was well known to our men, though of late years he seemed to have dropped out of active work, and we had lost sight of him altogether. I realised now that we had been cleverly tricked: we had believed him to belong to the Berlin branch, while all the time he was living quietly in England, where he did no “business” whatever, and was thus never suspected even by the astute men of the Special Branch.

We had relied much on Madame Gabrielle’s powers to extract information from Madame Bohman, with whom she was already on excellent terms. The pair often sat chatting in the lounge, smoking each other’s cigarettes, and I knew the fair Gabrielle was keenly on the alert for any slip by which Madame Bohman might “give herself away.” The Swedish woman, however, was far too clever and would betray nothing.

Shadowing Thornton, or Brahe, to give him his right name, was Manuel Garcia, a capable ex-detective of the Lisbon police, who was now an agent of the Central Bureau of Counter-Espionage in Paris.

That telegrams were constantly passing between the Swedish engineer and some people in Lyons and Marseilles I knew, and, indeed, I was able to secure copies of some of them. In this way I discovered that these Swedes were on very friendly terms with a banker named Heurteau, who had carried on business in Paris before the war, had afterwards escaped to Zurich, and had long been suspected of being one of the paymasters of the spy bureau in Berlin.

On the morning of the thirteenth, in consequence of what Madame Gabrielle had told me, I took train to Geneva, where I put up at the National. Manuel Garcia followed by the next train, and early next morning I received a telephone message from Madame Gabrielle telling me that Madame Bohman had left the Waldesruhe and was due at Geneva at four o’clock that afternoon.

As a result of this message Garcia and I watched the incoming train, and my assistant followed Madame Bohman in a taxi to a small hotel in the Quai de Mont Blanc. An hour later Garcia himself took a cab to the hotel so as to watch for the arrival of Halbmayr, the real antagonist with whom our duel was being fought out.

Halbmayr, a short, stout, bald-headed man, with perfect manners and the air of a bon viveur, kept his appointment punctually, arriving from Bâle the next day about noon. As he knew me well, I was compelled to remain in hiding, but from my window I was able, with a pair of good field-glasses, to watch Madame Bohman and the German walking together on the Promenade du Lac, evidently engaged in the closest conversation. Garcia, of course, was not far away.

The pair remained together for an hour and a half, and I noticed with amusement that the wily Halbmayr took particular care to select a seat which stood quite in the open, with no shelter of any kind at hand behind which an eavesdropper might lurk. Garcia was thus, of course, effectually kept at a distance, and had no opportunity of gleaning anything from our enemies’ conversation.