In the early days of the war, when everything in the military and
civilian life of France was still in a state of perturbation, certain
undecipherable messages were picked up nightly by the wireless
telegraphy station at Cros-de-Cagnes, a little fishing village on
the French Riviera, some seven miles from Nice. Other stations in
many other parts of the country and abroad likewise received those
mysterious fragments from the unknown--partly in code, partly in
unintelligible German--and transmitted them to military headquarters,
where futile attempts were made to make head or tail of them. One
thing, however, was certain: they emanated from an enemy source, a
secret wireless installation somewhere, as the experts were convinced,
either on the French or Italian Riviera. The problem of the whereabouts
of the German or Austrian spies who thus dared to carry out their
nefarious operations under the very noses of the French and Italian
authorities at once became of intense interest to the police all the
way between Marseilles and Genoa. But they searched for the culprits in
vain.
Before the middle of August, 1914, however, thanks to a perspicacious
English journalist, the mystery was elucidated.
Singularly well-inspired, he had gone to Monte Carlo to obtain war
impressions. Had he searched all through France he could not have
found a more fruitful subject for study than the little independent
principality over which the Prince of Monaco and M. Camille Blanc et
Cie. reign. For many years before the war the administrators of the
gambling hall had done everything in their power to make Monte Carlo
attractive to Germans and Austrians, in order to fill the void left
by English visitors, a great many of whom had instinctively fled to
Egypt or elsewhere, to get away from these ill-mannered or otherwise
obnoxious guests. The Boches and their accomplices having been expelled
from the principality on the second day of mobilization, our journalist
found the authorities of the Casino still staggering under the blow
which the cataclysm had dealt them. The Casino was closed, the palaces
and villas and hotels on the hillside seemed to be sleeping more
soundly than usual under the hot August sun, the Terrace overlooking
the sea was deserted. Over everything was written, as it were, that
stock phrase of the croupiers--who now sat, armed with fans in lieu of
money-rakes, outside their own establishment--"_Rien ne va plus._"
With several pages of jottings in his notebook and his brain filled
with impressions, the journalist, who intended to take an early
afternoon train back to Nice, turned, on his way to the railway
station, into the half-closed Café de Paris. Here, getting into
conversation with a communicative _garçon_--a clearly well-informed
Monagasque--he unexpectedly gleaned the most important item of
intelligence he had yet come across, a piece of information so curious
and so significant that he there and then decided to change his plans
and spend the night at Monte Carlo.
"Yes, sir; it was high time they got rid of the Boches," said the
waiter. "Monaco had become a veritable spies' nest. At any rate, they
got hold of one--Kurz, the Austrian sub-director of the Casino. He was
undoubtedly working for Francis Joseph, otherwise how can one explain
the incriminating plans and documents which, _on dit_, were seized at
his house? They got him early in the month, just after the Prince's
notices to the Austro-Boches were posted up, and he's now at the island
of Ste. Marguerite, where some others would be, too, if they weren't
being protected."
As he reached the end of this last phrase the waiter lowered his voice
to a confidential whisper, and after a quick glance in the direction
of the _caissière's_ desk, in order to assure himself that he was not
observed, continued:
"The man with whom Kurz was naturally hand in glove we've still in our
midst, though I don't suppose he'll have the face to stop here another
twenty-four hours. Vicht, the Director-General of the Casino, is a
German, and since the declaration of war he's done all he could to get
the authorities to maintain his too-recent naturalization. He tries
to make out he's a Monagasque. _Mais cela ne marche pas._ The wonder
is that he's still here, for it's well known what he and Kurz have
been up to for years past. Everybody acquainted with the position of
affairs here knows that these two men had at their disposition a small
army of detectives, whom they employed to shadow the _habitués_ of the
Casino, including certain well-known journalists, in order to ascertain
the origin of information against Germany and the Germans which had
been published in the press. Vicht and Kurz had become all-powerful
here, and would have turned the principality into a German possession
if they'd had the chance. They made a start last winter, it is said,
by assisting in the publication of a German weekly newspaper run by
an unsuspecting journalist. Ah, Vicht's a wily customer--a man to be
watched, I think."
Thus put on the scent, the journalist decided, as I have said, to
postpone his departure and await developments, which came much sooner
than he expected.
Having dined at the Hôtel de Paris, he went out in the cool of the
summer evening to stroll on the Terrace and smoke his cigar. It was a
magnificent summer night, one of those _soirées d'été_ when Monte Carlo
and Monaco, with their soft-scented breezes from the hillsides and sea
and the twinkling lights in the little harbour opposite the Condamine,
were steeped in romance--a night for reflection. Thoughts of the war
and the astounding fact that an enemy subject was still at liberty
in the principality filled the journalist's mind as, at the end of a
quarter of an hour's perambulation on the flower-adorned promenade, he
stopped to rest and, leaning on the parapet, looked down on the harbour
of the Bay of Hercules.