Evening star., 1927-10-02

, Soon after this l received an Of
fetal telegram ordering me to re-
port to Captain r., head Of our
| Counter-espiOnage in the Chantilly
district l proceeded to that town
and found that my arrival was eager
| ~ awaited They turned over to me
documents that seemed to point to
| the existence of a group Of people
| not necessarily spies-who were sys-
| tematically spreading false gossip OF
a nature to alarm the population.
! There was one curious coincidence.
! Wherever these people had been, an
| epidemic of mysterious fires had
! broken out.
! | got copies OF the various doCu
ments and retired to my room to
! study them. All of them--or almost
all--said nothing about the origin
of the fires. However, three of the
reports contained clues that were
useful as points of departure.
! In the first of these was this OBJ
servation: "A quarter of an hour
after the automobilists had left town
Il fire broke out without apparent
that were piled on the wharf"
The second stated that THE fire
could have been started only by the
people in question. as they were the
only ones to have approached the
field containing the haystacks. How
ever. the sentinel did not see them do
anything suspicious. -. The fire.
acc riding to the sentinel broke out
about 20 minutes after their depar-
ture. No one observed either the make
or the license number of their auto
mobile
In the third one I read this "As
a,,o
about in the ashes but found nothing
suspicious. Nevertheless. several half
burned bundles had an acid smell. A
half burned pencil stub that was
found on the ground smelled very
strongly of the same acid.
Further this report states: NO
suspicious looking strangers were
seen in the dist rict. Four automo-
bilists did stop for lunch at the Com.
merce Restaurant. There is no rea-
son to suspect them. however. as the
fire did not break out until after they
had left
Three facts seemed worth remem-
bering: U The presence of AUTOMOBILE
lists each time. (2) The fire never
started before they left town. t3) The
discovery Of halfburnt pencil stub
in the ashes of munitions factory.
ever, that it was a key to the solu.
ton of the problem. l thought Of
the article in the Gazette de Lau.
same and l asked myself this ques-
ton, Taking into consideration the
mentality of the German general staff.
why shouldn't they make use Of the
same weapons in France as in Italy
and equip their agents with machines
like those found at Lausanne?'
pASSING over the thousand and
one steps that were necessary be-
fore ] could get to the bottom of the
affair, exactly IS days after the open
ing of the inquiry, six of the incen-
diaries fell into our hands. Each OF
them was equipped with these explo-
sive pencils Each was made to ex-
plate his crime.
1 shall quote only one passage from
the report establishing their guilt be-
fore the court martial
"In outward appearance the pencil
resembles any other pencil that may
be sharpened by unwinding strip OF
paper that exposes the lead and serves
the same purpose as the wood OF an
ordinary pencil. A little way up, the
ieaU, Wnlcn is eltneT feu OF Dlue, serves
as stopper for a tiny glass tube that
contains a combustible fluid of tre-
mendous strength. When a certain
portion Of the pencil is unraveled air
is let into the glass tube and in 1s
or 20 minutes 1t reaches the chemi. |
Gals. This automatically produces |
heat of incredible intensity and the |
fire spreads with a speed impossible |
to describe
The report closes with these |
words: |