Evening star., 1928-10-28

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were non-existent.
The only genuine name on the list
was that of man known m spy par
lance as an "agent double" To the
Germans he pretended as loyal spy
service as to the French. And to some
extent he was telling the truth; for he
served both sides and drew wages from
both, though he did not let, so to speak,
his right hand know what his left was
doing
1t was the French who first learned
the truth about him. And their way
of dealing with him was to put his
name on the list given to Mata Hari.
One hour after the list reached Bel
GUM the gentleman in question was
taken out by German firing squad
and dispatched Two days later the
news reached the Second Division.
y X X y
RY that time Mata Hari was in
~ Madrid, living at the Grand Hotel.
The room assigned to her adjoined that
of an officer recently arrived from
England. He was a young Britisher on
leave and although the tab on his col
lar said he was captain in the infan-
try Mata Hari knew better. For imme-
diately on her arrival in Madrid she
was called into conference by the resi-
dent representative of her employers.
They told her of a mysterious park
that was being inclosed by 20-foot walls
in an inland county in England,
Extraordinary measures to hide what
was going on behind those walls had
hitherto baff1ed the German Secret
Service. All they knew so far was that
inside the incloSure there had been
reconstructed a section of a typical
modern battlefield, trenches, barbed
wire, shell-holes, machine gun nests and
every other feature of such terrain.
From inside the inclosure came the
sounds of powerful gasoline engines
propelling some curious landcraft OF
caterpillar traction. Rumor had 1t
that what was being developed there
was an armored vehicle for the trans
port of water and other necessities
to front line trenches. Tanks" was
the sketchy name by which this ex-
pertinent in vehicles was known by
the few who knew anything at all
about 1t.
Among these few was the young
Britisher next to whose room at the
Grand Hotel Mata Hari was lodged.
Her assignment was the usual one.
And in a few days she was having
her accustomed success.
But there were other Secret Service
eyes in Madrid besides German. And
the British officer received sudden word
to leave Madrid and proceed to Paris.
Mata Harf was told to follow him
there. For the first time she pro-
tested. Her last visit to Paris had
been to her a distinctly unpleasant
experience, and she was not anxious
to go through it again. But she was
met with a combination of coercion
and reinsurance.
The coercion was an old story. No
one who bad been in the German
Secret Service as long as she could
safely visit any country If her en-
ployers chose to betray her; this she
well knew; also she knew of recalci-
trant spies who had come to mySteri-
Gus and disastrous ends, no matter
where they found themselves.
But what persuaded her more than
the fear of her Superiors were letters
from powerful friends in Paris pleading
with her to return. Among them was
her cabinet minister. With such protec-
have been her deficiencies, had no lack
of courage, decided to chance again a
visit to the lions cage.
But she held out for an impressive
appropriation for her expenses. She
met with no opposition on this score.
From the German embassy in Madrid
there went out into the ether a mes
sage in secret code to the German
embassy in Holland. The wireless mes
sage instructed that some 10000 marks
in gold we're to be given Mata Hari
on her arrival in Paris through the
Dutch embassy there. The Amsterdam
Office of the German Secret Service
wirelessed back, Money on the way"
Mata Hari had written her power
full protectors in France of her eX-
perience with the Second Division and
her annoyance" threat. She received
assurance from high quarters that no
such outrage would again be tolerated.
ReaSsured, Mata Hari promised her
newly made friend, the British officer
she had cultivated in Madrid, that
she would be no less kind to a1im in
Paris.
This time on her re-entry into the
"City of Light" she was met at the
railroad station only by the British
officer. She kept her amiable prom
Use to him for the few days that she
had his company. Then, as before, he
was suddenly called away
Her success on this mission was not
great; but the fault was not hers. The
secrecy that surrounded the birth of the
"Mark-Ix" super tank was carried out
more successfully than Mata Hari
carried out her assignment. With all the
good will in the world her British officer
himself could not have told her very
much about the tank, that new engine
of war destined to play such an i'm
portant part In b;\ ties thereafter.
But something Mata Hari must have
learned For when the Allies finally
sprang their surprise and the ponder
Gus monsters of steel first waddled out
on a modern battlefield they were met
by fire from specially constructed Ger
man guns. The armored juggernauts
tore their way through entanglements
and trenches and crushed the powder
machine gun nests of cement and brick.
But from the Germans came shells and
bullets of new design that penetrated
some of the supposedly bulletproof tanks,
Once again in the amazing pattern
of story woven by modern spy organi-
zation we must place side by side as
cause and effect such incongruous pic
lures as that of beautiful woman in
her boudoir in Paris lavishing caresseS
on a man, and on shell-torn battle
field steel pachyderm crippled through
the agency of these same kisses.
THEN, in the Spring of 1917, Mata
L Hari received secret word from
Berlin.