Evening star., 1935-12-15
BRITISH SPY SHOW
TRAILS EUROPE'S
Motor Cycle Leads to Arrest
Of Doctor and Young
Woman.

LONDON R).-With Continental
Europe enmeshed In the greatest spy
network since World War days, thrill
hungry Britons have had to wait
nearly three long years for an es-
pionage trial SHOW" of their own.
Paris, Berlin, Moscow, Vienna,
Rome, Warsaw and other European
capitals have rung with court room
exposures Of the intrigue Of secret
service agents-more than a hundred
such public trials in the past IL
months, many of them climaxed by
the executioner's ak or the traditional
firing squad.
But it remained for an aged and
asthmatic motor cycle, coughing day
after day In the vicinity Of the Royal
Air Force Airdrome at Broadstairs,
to sound the alarm for Britain's first
spy scare" since February, 1888.
Doctor Rode Behind Girl.
On this wheeling. slow-moving We
hicle rode DR.. Hermann Gortz, mid
dle-aged lawyer-phySician, former
officer in the German Air Force. and
a 22-year-old girl secretary.
Gossips tongue, leading eventually
to the authorities, was started by the
unusual spectacle of the girl secre-
tary plotting the machine while DR..
Gortz clung ungallantly on the rear
or pillion seat.
That unorthodox procedure rapidly
became an enlivening topic Of con-
versation among the natives Of sleepy
old Essex, and fixed attention on the
German doctor, who showed every
sign OF wanting no attention at all.
Several times he had rebuffed the
friendly attempts OF neighbors to
strike up conversation, but he could
not prevent tongues from wagging
and presently, In the traditional Ere
now. wot's all this?" manner Of the
English bobby, the authorities began
to watch DR.. Fortz' movements.
Charged on Two Counts.
Scotland Yard entered the case, with
the result that when DR.. GortZ re-
turned to his rented cottage in Broad
stairs after q brief trip TO Germany he
was placed under arrest and charged
with violation of the ofhcial secrets act
on two counts.
The last espionage case in England,
until DR.. Gortz turned up, was the
still mysterious Baillie-Ste affair,
known as the case Of the officer in
| the tower"
Lieut.. Norman Baillie- Stewart, gen.
tleman officer in the proud Seaforth
Highlanders, one Of England'S most
| famous and most exclusive regiments,
early in 1888 suddenly found himself
yanked from his resimental barracks
| to the grim tower of London and
branded a traitor for selling his coun-
try's military secrets to a blond Ger
man girl spy to this day known as
| Marie Louise.
Baillie-Stewart protested his inno-
cence. claiming he received some $50
pounds from the fair Marie Louise
for services rendered" but his plea
failed to convince the court-martial.
particularly In view of an intercepted
letter which Baillie-Stewart admitted
posting to a certain Herr Otto Waldo
mar Obst, in Berlin.
This read, in part:
Dear Friend-Thank you very much
for your letter and the prompt way
in which you settled our small debt.
When you write to me in future. may
| make q suggestion that you use
much smaller seals, as such large ones
are apt to arouse the curiosity Of un-
scrupulous people. say this because
from the appearance of your last let
ter, should imagine some one had
opened it before 1t reached my home
address"
He was right. 1t had been opened.
And Baillie- Stewart, stripped Of his
uniform, cashiered from the army, still
is languishing in Maidstone Prison.