“The dancer proceeded to Rotterdam. Investigation there has since
proved that she had no ‘communal rights property’ to settle with any
one, and further that Captain MacLeod of the Dutch Army was known among
his fellow officers as pronouncedly pro-German.
“Soon Mata-Hari returned to Paris. She was seen at the Café de Paris
and at Maxim’s, and at Armenonville in the Bois with an English officer
who wore on the lapel of his collar, as insignia denoting his branch
of service, a little twisted brass dragon. Months later, when more of
these badges were seen on British officers passing through Paris, it
became known that the dragon was of the official insignia denoting
service with the tanks.
“Mata-Hari sported a new bauble soon after taking up with the
Englishman—a jeweled replica of his gold insignia—her dragon had real
emeralds for eyes, and a carrot-shaped ruby for a tongue darting from
its opened fangs.
“In May, 1916, a little more than a month before the Somme offensive
opened and tanks were first used, Mata-Hari appeared before the police
magistrate of her district and requested a safe conduct to visit a
certain port in France. The reason she gave was that her fiancé, an
English officer, was seriously wounded and in hospital there. He had
sent for her to come to see him. Perhaps they would be married at his
death-bed if he could not recover, she volunteered, dabbing at her eyes
with a lace handkerchief. The safe conduct was made out, and Mata-Hari
arrived at a certain French port almost simultaneously with the first
consignment of tanks shipped over from England.”
She spent the greater part of her time for a week strolling about the
town making frequent excursions by night, and then just a month before
Foch and Haig began their drive along the Somme she appeared again in
Paris.
“The first thing she did was to apply for a visé on her passport
permitting her to go to Spain. San Sebastian was the place she
mentioned, as she explained she wished to attend the horse-races
there. Her papers were stamped and sealed and she left almost
immediately for the fashionable winter resort in the south.
“Madrid, Spain, and Nauen, Germany, are in constant wireless
communication. There are other radio stations, privately owned,
in Spain which can flash messages to Germany, according to Allied
intelligence officers who have investigated. And of course there
are innumerable German agents, spies, and propaganda disseminators
infesting the land of the Dons.
“Secret service reports disclose the fact that Mata-Hari was seen much
in company at San Sebastian race-track with a man long looked upon
with suspicion by the French government. He was a frequent caller upon
her at the hotel where she stopped, and it was reported that he made
many of the big bets she placed on horses that did not materialize as
winners.