The Birmingham age-herald., 1914-09-06
Many Have Been Caught and Convicted as Spies
 and Disappeared
TYPICAL STORY NOW
 GOING THE ROUNDS
One Man Accidentally Discovered Sending Messages to Germans by Means of Wirless Mounted
 on Top of His Hotel
By GEORGE DuFREsNE

Paris, September 5-(Special.) Many German or Austrian hotel man Rgers disappeared suddenly just after the war began and the commonly ac- repted explanation is; 'Shot as a spy.7
 Here is a story for which I cannot .vouch, concerning the taking off of "a hotel manager whose place was near the Champs Elysees It was small. but handsome and he was a perfect bene- dict. He spoke every tongue of Eu- rope, it seemed, without accent and could give you the most complicated directions for travelling from the tip of his tongue. Night and day, winter and summer, he wore the same frock coat, the same diamond pin given to him by a travelling monarch.
 He was rich, it was said He owned other hotels in Paris and in Switzer- land. Was he married? No one ever seemed to know that or to ask the question.
 He was simply an excellent hotel manager, smooth. efficient, omniscient. He disapepared immediately war be- gan, when both gueS.s and staff were turned out at an hours notice and the hotel itself is now empty and guaredd by the police.
 Page Boy on the Roof
 It was one of the page boys of the hotel, according to the legend of the boulevard, who in q boys way got out of his attic window on to the roof He scrambled about in great glee for a while. climbing on to the ridges of the gables and looking over the house. tops right away to the green Bois- At last he came to the turret that stands at the corner sf the roof-one of those little ornamental cupolas that architects put on to hotels to gratify the hotel proprietors sense of graceful design, surmounted by q tall flagstaff, which is sayed against running down to the roof.
 There is a door in the side of the cupola with a ladder leading up to it., and the sight of closed door in q turret is enough to fire the curiosity of any boy. Up the ladder scrambled the little page, pushed open the door .-and then started back in astonish- ment. Instead of being empty the tur- ret contained d lasse table, and the table was covered with instruments and coils of wire and wheels.
 The man sitting at the table had a telephone receiver clamped over his head. and as the door opened he swung around with a startled word.
 Penitently the frightened little boy stood there stammering apologies. He had recognized the chief of the hotei staff The manager seized the boy an- grily by the shoulder. What business had he there? What did he mean by disturbing important experiments2
 ..Go down at once, you little rascal and If you say d word about this without my permission, there'n be trouble ahead for you
 Story Heard by Police
 Thoroughly scared. the petit groom scurried away. It was some days before he told anyone of his strange discovery If the manager in the cupola with the mysterious coils of wires and telephone re- ceiver But gradually, first to another page boy. then through all the servants of the hotel, the story spread. And at last one Frenchman who heard it, more alert tnan the rest, reflected that there was talk of war between France and Germany md took the trouble to go round to the police station.
 Nothing apparently happened. But the