Rosa Weber listened to the denunciations of Hitler with mounting fury. No one noticed that her face was flushed with anger until she crashed a plate of meat onto the table. The guests looked at the maid in open-mouthed astonishment. Into this silence Rosa Weber shouted: “Ladies and gentlemen, I am a real German! If you don’t stop talking about Herr Hitler while I am in this house, I am through here!” And then the maid glared at Mrs. Lauer and said, “Madam, it is up to you.”
For a full thirty seconds there was no sound, and then a babble of protest broke out. Judge and Mrs. Lauer were on their feet shouting. Rosa Weber stalked into the pantry followed by Judge Lauer, who demanded, “Get out of this house immediately!”
Rosa said to the Judge, “All right, Judge, I’ll go.” And she went to her room with her sister to pack her belongings. Chaperau and another guest followed the maid to her room and stood at the door while she was packing. Chaperau snapped, “Hurry up; how long does it take you?”
Judge Lauer came to the room, and Chaperau said to the Judge, “You had better watch when she goes. She might take some of your valuables with her.” With this insult sounding in her ears, the maid hurried from the apartment and slammed the door behind her.
Four days after the dinner party on Park Avenue, a woman entered the Customs building at 21 Varick Street in New York and asked to see the Supervising Customs Agent. She was shown into his office. And it was there that Rosa Weber, in the role of informer, got her revenge. She told what had happened at the dinner. She accused Mrs. Lauer of smuggling Paris gowns and other finery into the United States without paying customs duties. She told agents of the conversation she had overheard between Mrs. Lauer and Chaperau, of remarks that had been made by Mrs. Lauer. She described how she had helped Mrs. Lauer unpack the dresses, and of Chaperau’s visit to the apartment with the black suitcase and the hat box.
While she was packing to leave the Lauer apartment, she said, Chaperau had cursed her and said, “I’m just thinking it over—whether I should arrest you, because I’m from the police department.” She added, “They threatened to have me deported to Germany, and also said that there was no concentration camp here but that I would be put in jail.”
When the maid left the Customs agent’s office that day, agents began a routine check on Nathaniel Chaperau. Rosa Weber was an angry, vindictive woman whose story might have been motivated solely by spite as far as the Customs agents knew. But all such stories were checked, even if the source were a pro-Hitler maid. Each report of a customs violation was handled in the same manner, regardless of the prominence of the accused, when an informant gave such minute details of smuggling as did Rosa Weber.
Agents quickly found that Chaperau conducted a film business from an office at 30 Rockefeller Plaza with the cable address “Chapfilm.” He had prominent connections in the movie world in New York and Hollywood and he boasted of his close friendship with several stars of the entertainment world. On the surface, his business looked legitimate. There was no record that he had ever been engaged in smuggling.
But in checking into Chaperau’s travels outside the country, the agents were curious as to why Chaperau had used a Nicaraguan passport on his return from Europe early in October. A visit to the Nicaraguan Consulate turned up some interesting information. The Consul General disclosed that he had given a letter to Chaperau intended only as an aid to Chaperau in making a film in Nicaragua. Chaperau had called on the Consul General and told him that he hoped he could go to Nicaragua and take pictures of the country’s beautiful lakes and other natural scenery for advertising purposes—without expense to the Nicaraguan government.
The idea appealed to the Consul General. Chaperau’s credentials appeared to be excellent, his business address implied a firm of financial integrity, and Chaperau obviously was well-connected in the film world.