“Soon Mata-Hari came back to Paris and the apartment near the Bois de
Boulogne. And once more the limousine owned by the individual whom
rumor has branded a Deputy began rolling up to her door twice a week
and sometimes oftener.
“Then came the simultaneous Franco-British offensive at the Somme.
Tanks went into action for the first time, and according to General
Haig’s official _communiqué_ his ‘Land ships achieved satisfactory
results.’”
But, notwithstanding the “satisfactory results,” several of the tanks
were surprisingly put out of action and the investigation of the how
and the wherefore revealed the fact that they had been disabled by a
peculiar, small-caliber penetrating shell unlike anything known before.
They were fired by guns of a special manufacture.
Instantly it became evident that the enemy had become aware of what
was in store for him and had constructed an “anti-tank” gun. And when
the booty in the captured German positions was examined, the British
found they had several good specimens of Krupps’ newest weapon. Several
German officers of higher rank taken prisoners confirmed suspicions by
explaining they had received description of the tanks several weeks
before, and had been instructed how to combat them.
Suspicion aroused, items of information, curious circumstances in
accountable movements, bits of gossip were put together and military
law took charge of Mata-Hari.
For some reason the finish of her memoirs is not yet; but the
fictionist, attempting to forecast a sensation, has written this:
“So Mata-Hari writes feverishly, and all Paris waits eagerly!—except
the one who waits apprehensively—to see if she will name the _ami_ who
gave her the first inkling of the tanks.
“Pinned to the corsage of the Empire-cut black silk dress which
Mata-Hari wears in her narrow cell in St. Lazare prison is a curious
gold brooch. It is shaped like a twisted dragon, and its eyes are
emeralds!”