resumption of her normal existence restored their confidence in being
able to discover her aims. A spy working under observation is a very
different matter from one working unseen, and presents only a fraction
of the potential danger of one whose object is not even conjectural and
whose methods are a matter of speculation. She did find a few spare
moments to visit the Legation to collect 15,000 marks that were sent
from Amsterdam for her reward, but she had nothing to report to her
headquarters, which was a matter of considerable relief, since it proved
that during those few days in which Mata Hari had eluded the police she
had acquired no knowledge that was worth sending.
Then followed a period of wild pleasures of the old kind. Thanks to the
renewal of favour of her diplomatic friend, her public luncheons and
dinners assumed a decidedly diplomatic flavour. Grave and dignified
representatives of various countries who did not find the task of
maintaining the neutrality of their countries to be very onerous,
struggled for her notice, and if they were rewarded by a glance from
Mata Hari’s sombre eyes they felt the day was not wholly wasted, while
if she awarded them any signal mark of favour they left her presence as
well satisfied as if they had negotiated an advantageous treaty for
their country. At one such luncheon given by an ambassador, an observant
journalist, who had his own reasons for keeping a close watch on the
spy, noticed her amazing power over these men. So complete was her
mastery of the situation that this man observed with astonishment that
during the course of only a few minutes she changed the truth to suit
her own requirements without having any of her false or conflicting
statements challenged by her infatuated admirers.
But while rejoicing in the possession of so many amiable and generous
friends Mata Hari was not neglecting her old friends, the officers on
leave. Almost every night when she had completed her social duties she
would start out on a tour of the night haunts until she had found some
semi-intoxicated man who, by a little judicious entertainment of her own
devising, could be persuaded to become loquacious in his cups. From one
such garrulous gentleman, whose art on the stage was recognized as
reaching its highest when playing the part of drunken men, she tried to
find out what improvements were being made in the tanks and whether
their tactical handling had undergone any improvement. But this was a
fruitless search to undertake in France. The secrets of the newer
developments in the tanks were being kept too closely guarded to be
available to men in France, and the methods of handling them changed
with every action in which they took part. But with this knowledge of
her object in their possession, the officers of the Second Bureau felt
that they now might call their own spy to account for an explanation of
her neglect to report on her mission to Belgium.
The civil police officer charged with the delicate task of approaching
Mata Hari was instructed that he must on no account cause her any
fright. This officer, a Monsieur Triolet, was an experienced and tactful
official, fully conversant with the spy’s career and character, and not
unfamiliar with the desperate remedies employed by hysterical
law-breakers to improve a bad situation. He knew that Mata Hari was a
sufferer from what is now euphemistically called “artistic temperament,”
but which in those days was known as outraged vanity expressing itself
through plain bad temper, and that at the least sign of contrariness to
her wishes there had been scenes of blind rage in which the angry dancer
seemed capable of any folly. It was not improbable that a woman with
such a violent temper might try to inflict bodily injury on herself or
the police commissioners if she suspected any harm as the outcome of
this visit. They had evidence of her self-cultivated reputation for
bloodlust, illustrated by her boast that she had strangled the slayer of
her son Norman and had killed with her own hand the favourite pony,
rather than allow him to be ridden by a stranger. Such a desperate
character as she pretended to be called for special treatment. The most
real danger was that if she suspected the police intended to effect her
arrest, she might be tempted to destroy any incriminating documents that
were in her possession, that is if she felt guilty enough to entertain
such suspicion.
All things considered, M. Triolet decided strategy was required. It was
imperative that, once he had gained admission to the house, Mata Hari
must never leave his sight for a moment. Filled with this good
intention, the police commissioner and a subordinate persuaded the hotel
staff to facilitate their admission to her suite. The first sight they
got of their quarry dispelled any fear of concealed weapons. It also
dissipated their strategic intention, for as they walked into the room
they were received by the dancer, reclining at her ease on a couch in
her favourite costume, or lack of it. The embarrassed M. Triolet and his
companion had not counted on finding her devoid of all clothing—it
destroyed the scheme they had developed of persuading her to accompany
them promptly to the offices of the Second Bureau. But fortunately, Mata
Hari preserved her composure.
Quite unconcernedly she asked, “To what do I owe the honour of this
visit, monsieur?”
The dumbfounded officers floundered hopelessly through some muttered
apology for intruding on her privacy, but somehow managed to convey the
impression that they had been sent to invite Mata Hari to visit the
Bureau. Unless she had some convincing story ready, the prospect was
alarming; but the dancer had that unwavering self-assurance which some
women derive from the knowledge that they are beautiful, and she scorned
to display any outward sign of fear. M. Triolet recalls how she rose to
survey her pensive beauty in a long glass while she nonchalantly
speculated upon the possible reasons for the desire to interview her. A
little less self-confidence might have allowed her the chance of escape
had she wanted to avoid the meeting, because the embarrassment of the
two officials was so great that their modesty would have allowed her the
privilege of leaving their presence to put on some clothes. But she
seemed to have no doubt of her impregnable position and gave the
impression of being genuinely anxious to find a valid reason for the
proposed visit.
At last she found a possible excuse.
“Perhaps it is about my journey to Belgium that the officers wish to see
me,” she suggested hopefully.
“Precisely, madame,” agreed the police commissioner, not knowing what
she was talking about, but hastily grasping at any straw that would
rescue him from his dilemma. “It must be that, because, now that you
mention it, I did hear an allusion to a journey to Belgium, only I did
not associate it with you.”
“Oh yes, I had intended to go.”
“What, a lady to go alone among the _Boches_?”
“Yes, monsieur,” she modestly replied. “I was going, and alone. Not for
myself, but for France, the France that I love so well because it has
been so good to me. But you will understand, you must have had
experience of the stupid police in London, how they could bungle a
delicate mission. Can you imagine that those clumsy men, who were
ordered to put me on a boat which would take me to Amsterdam, actually
put me on one going to Cadiz? They are not so gallant as the Paris
police, and they certainly are not so intelligent. Imagine my
predicament to arrive in Cadiz, where I was without friends or the means
of reaching those who could aid me. Ah, those English police, they are
sad bunglers.”
It would have been more gallant for these two officers to have left Mata
Hari to complete her toilette unobserved, but now that her unconcern had
removed their embarrassment and the little party was on the friendliest
footing, they returned to their resolution to watch any movement in
order to guard against treachery. There was the danger that this
attitude of indifference was an attempt to gain their confidence for the
purpose of benefiting by it in some way. They decided against taking any
chances. This situation was acceptable to Mata Hari. Thus the two police
commissioners hovered anxiously over her toilette with the concern of
wardrobe masters, doing their clumsy best to repair the absence of
maids, while she prattled gaily of her misadventures. The police agent
declares that she rather enjoyed the situation and the opportunity it
offered of making favourable comparisons between the Paris and London
police.
The amazing woman was so much the victim of her own self-confidence to
control any situation in which she found herself, that she displayed no
worry about the waiting interview which might have very inconvenient
consequences. Having dressed with care, for she had now several
acquaintances among the officers of the Second Bureau upon whom she
wished to exercise her charms, she announced her readiness to accompany
the two officers, who informed her that an official car was waiting.
The Second Bureau wanted to see Mata Hari for two reasons. One was that
they were curious to have her explanation of the Belgian fiasco; the
other was in relation to a radio message concerning the spy.
Both the airplane and the radio reached an advanced stage of development
when they became adjuncts of war, but while full honours have been
rendered the more spectacular weapon, no one has yet done justice to the
romantic possibilities of radio’s accomplishment. All we are concerned
with here is its application in secret-service work and to Mata Hari in
particular. Many American readers will recall the use made of the
German-owned and controlled station at Sayville, on Long Island, which
served for some time as the clearing-house for messages for both
contestants. Less well known is the story of the telegraphic message
which did so much to influence President Wilson in his determination to
take an active part in the war.
In January, 1917, Herr Arthur Zimmermann, the German Secretary of State,
addressed a message to the ambassador in Mexico, von Eckhardt, urging
him to invite Mexico to enter into an alliance with Germany and to sound
Japan upon the same project. As an inducement to produce the armed
activity of Mexico against the United States, the German Minister
suggested that the states of Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona should be
her reward. By one of those curious lapses which are so unaccountable,
this message was sent over cables that were known to be in possession of
the British, but so absolute was their confidence in their ability to
outwit the enemy that the German officials merely had the message
transferred into their ordinary code, a code which the head of the
secret service had previously warned them was wholly antiquated and no
longer proof against interpretation. Unhappily for them, this code was
known to the British.
As soon as the text was known it was submitted to Walter H. Page, then
ambassador to the Court of Saint James’s, who promptly sent it to
President Wilson, at that time hovering on the brink of declaring war,
but hoping against hope to maintain neutrality. With this effort to
provoke trouble in his hands, American intervention was only a matter of
time.
To finish with this story it is necessary to add that the British had to
conceal from their enemy how this piece of information had come into the
possession of the President. It became necessary to fabricate a story
while the American authorities were endeavouring to prove the
authenticity of the document. Acting upon information supplied by Mr.
Page, United States agents “listened in” in Mexico City for the message
(which had been purposely delayed in transmission), and when it was
known that they had intercepted it, certain London papers that were
known to be in demand in Germany, launched an attack on Sir Reginald
Hall for allowing American agents to discover such invaluable
information and for permitting it to escape the notice of the British
Intelligence service. This rebuke, which was as severe as the censorship
might allow, did not disturb Hall. He had written it himself.
Every combatant nation maintained its stations for the transmission and
reception of messages and it soon became a desperate game to pick up one
another’s messages and to make what sense was possible from the
information so collected. What each country wished to have accepted
generally as its view of the situation was broadcast in plain language,
so that its message was carried to the waiting world; but confidential
matter which had to be conveyed to distant agents required great
precaution so that none of the meaning should be apparent to enemies.
Thus codes and ciphers were used. As we have seen, these were not always
successful in maintaining secrecy. During the early stages of the war
the British naval code was known to the German representatives in
Washington and, by intercepting coded messages, they were able to inform
their own naval units in southern seas of the favourable advantage in
guns and position they possessed over a weak English squadron, which
resulted in the latter being overtaken and defeated at the Coronel.
Naturally the code was changed in its entirety after this and the
possession of the German code enabled the British to turn the tables on
their enemy in precisely the same manner at the battle of Falkland
Islands.
Codes and ciphers have their dangers. There was an everlasting battle of
wits between secret-service agents to obtain possession of these
precious documents, and the war had not long been in progress when it
was the proud boast of these services that each possessed a department
which could unravel the most complicated message, if only they were
given time. Stations like the Eiffel Tower would pick up the code
messages cast into the air and promptly transmit them to decoding
officers, who did their best (or worst) to find out what the messages
contained. At times the results were startling.
The Eiffel Tower betrayed the work of more than one spy. There was, for
instance, the brilliant young noncommissioned officer, Debrabant, who
found life in the Intelligence department’s offices too sedentary after
service at the front. He pressed for more congenial employment where his
taste for adventure might be gratified, and was sent to Barcelona to
watch the operation of the German secret service there under Baron von
Rolland. In that city he fell in love with a rich Andalusian widow, but,
being a youth of spirit, he required to have money enough to keep him
independent of her bounty. He was struck with the bright idea of selling
his knowledge of the Intelligence work of the French, which he had
gained at headquarters, to their enemies. This information was sent to
Madrid and later radioed to Antwerp for necessary action. It was too
late to prevent the death of thirteen agents which resulted from the
betrayal, but the French were able to read these messages because they
had become possessed of the key to the code which was used. Debrabant
died a traitor’s death in 1919.
It will be recalled that when Mata Hari was in Madrid she asked von
Kroon to secure some money for her from her headquarters in Amsterdam
for use in Paris. The naval _attaché_ must have known that this message
broadcast across France would be picked up at some stage of its journey,
so he carefully coded the message to make it unintelligible to anyone
who did not have the key. Unhappily for Mata Hari, the French did have
the key.
It is not suggested that the rape of the code book was the result of any
indiscretion on the part of Mata Hari’s friend. The fault must be laid
to one of his colleagues, and it makes an interesting story.
The French consul in San Sebastián earned the reputation of being the
most enthusiastic user of photography during the war. Knowing that the
German propaganda in neutral countries was directed from that town, he
was determined to utilize the enemy’s envoys as decoys to betray their
agents. To further this purpose he conceived the idea of photographing
all the visitors to their headquarters, and so he installed a
photographic apparatus in the house immediately opposite that where the
Germans worked. By this means he was able to furnish pictures of all the
agents calling for instructions to the various branches of the
counter-espionage service. The photographer, a very skilled young woman,
was called into consultation by a man who had set himself the task of
securing the German code books.
Had he simply stolen the book his work would have been greatly
simplified, but its absence would have been immediately discovered and a
new code substituted, thus defeating his purpose. In order to make a job
of it he had to conduct the affair in such a way that the Germans would
never suspect the book had been out of their possession. The task was
more or less simplified by the use of standardized portfolios by the
staff of the Embassy. One day an official had cause to pack the code
book and some papers into one of these portfolios, which he proposed to
take with him to his rooms to complete work after his office hours. On
the way he met a friend who suggested that he accompany her to the house
of mutual acquaintances, well known to the diplomat as favouring the
Central Powers, who had been expecting a visit from him. Since there was
ample time to finish his work after the call, the German envoy agreed to
the suggestion and a near-by taxi was called. In accordance with his
usual custom the diplomat, a man of considerable charm and popularity in
Madrid, halted the taxi at a shop where he might buy some flowers to be
presented as a peace offering to his hostess after his long absence.
The social call was without incident. Only, later in the evening when
the diplomat was free to commence the work he had brought to his rooms
he made the annoying discovery that the portfolio he had carried from
the office was not the one which contained the papers he needed. Hastily
telephoning the secretary on duty at the Embassy, he was told that his
own portfolio was lying just where he had left it in his office.
Naturally concluding that he had picked up the wrong portfolio, the
diplomat made an exchange which enabled him to complete his work without
any suspicion that the precious papers had ever been out of the
possession of the Embassy staff, while, as a matter of fact, they had
been photographed page by page during the interval of his entering the
flower shop and the time the portfolio was discovered lying in his
office.
How was it done? A minor official in the Embassy had been coaxed,
bribed, or bullyragged into lending an Embassy portfolio stuffed with
harmless routine documents to an audacious French agent who carried it
for days on the seat of the taxi he was driving. He and his
collaborator, the lady, had to wait patiently before they encountered
the diplomat under quite the right conditions. At last the fates were
kind in arranging the circumstances as they were required for the
execution of the plan, with the one exception that the diplomat carried
a leather case that contained only a few papers, whereas the portfolio
to replace it was stuffed with them. There was barely time to reduce the
bulging portfolio to satisfactory dimensions while the diplomat was
buying flowers, and the taxi-driver was compelled to finish his journey
sitting on a wad of loose papers which might easily have betrayed him.
Having dropped his two passengers, the driver hurried back to within
sight of the Embassy where the papers were all photographed before being
returned (we do not know how) to the diplomat’s office. It was intended,
had the attempt proved a failure, to repeat it until the code book was
found.
This was a very risky business, as too much was left to the fortuitous
arrangement of circumstances, a great contrast to the classic example of
“bag-snatching” carried out by the American agent, Houghton, in New
York. Here the agent sat behind Dr. Albert, the commercial _attaché_ at
Washington, in the Subway, and relieved him of his portfolio and papers
at the Fiftieth Street station. The same day the papers, which included
the code books, were handed over to the New York police as having been
“found” in the car. The papers were hastily photographed as soon as the
owner was known!
When the Eiffel Tower picked up von Kroon’s message, the decoding
officers had their work very much simplified, and were able to inform
the Second Bureau that the naval _attaché_ in Madrid had requested the
Amsterdam headquarters to furnish H21 with funds for her work in Paris,
the money to be sent through the usual channels.
This telegram picked out of the air was the first piece of genuine
orthodox evidence the Second Bureau had been able to collect against
Mata Hari, and it was because of it that they wished to interview her.
When Police Commissioner Triolet arrived at the offices of the Second
Bureau he heaved a sigh of relief at having successfully accomplished a
delicate task. For some reason the police had a strong suspicion that
Mata Hari meant mischief against herself in case of discovery, and it
was because of this that they were so anxious to have her alive and
well, for spies differ to this extent from Indians, the good ones
live—and talk to their captors. Arrived at the Bureau, the police
officer handed Mata Hari a folded paper of ominously legal aspect. It
was the warrant for her arrest as a spy.
She never even glanced at it.
In the room to which she had been conducted were several officers, and
thinking, from her experience of previous visits to the place, that the
paper was merely authority to secure her admission to those closely
guarded rooms, she asked the police officer:
“To which of these officers should I present this document?”
Anxious to return to aid in the fruitless search of her rooms, already
begun at the moment of her departure, M. Triolet indicated the officer
charged with the interrogation. Mata Hari approached him without
hesitation and laid the warrant under his eyes. The surprised Captain
Ledoux was not prepared for such amazing composure, so that he looked at
the paper curiously, expecting something quite different. However, when
he saw what it was he gravely motioned her to a seat, drew toward him a
pad for making notes, and, preparing to write, said to her:
“Tell me how long you have been in the German secret service.”
The shock of the unexpected blow stunned her. For a moment she rocked
unsteadily in the chair and her face went livid. It was no longer the
assured, audacious Mata Hari who looked with terrified eyes at the
officer and whimpered:
“I ... I do not understand.”
“Tell me, H21, when you first became a spy in the enemy’s pay.”
With those words Mata Hari must have known that the career of the Red
Dancer had drawn to its close. Now, nothing remained except the spy H21.
That night the woman who had loved luxury as the Sybarite who complained
that he could not sleep because of a fold in a rose-leaf on his couch,
tossed feverishly on the hard bed in a cell of the prison of
Saint-Lazare.
_Chapter Fifteen_
The time had now come when Mata Hari had to answer for her crime before
her judges, brother officers of the men whom she had sent to their
deaths in hundreds; her soul and mind is to be revealed with the same
degree of thoroughness as she had so frequently chosen to unveil her
beautiful body, which had become famous in all the European capitals. It
was inevitable that her reputation should have preceded her to the bar
of justice, for some of her judges, at least, must have known her as a
“star” of the vaudeville stage, a woman who had led the gay roistering
life of an artist without respect for honour, modesty, or decency. They
must have experienced in some degree the magnetic charm which had
enslaved other men and have wondered by what extraordinary twist of
fortune’s wheel she had been induced to accept employment as a spy. Yet
the shades of thought that interest moralists in laying bare the motives
of a mind received no consideration by the Third Court-Martial. They
were concerned with facts, and facts are stubborn things.