Fighting Germany's Spies

by French Strother

But how get back to Germany? He had grave doubts about the Gasché passport being good again. He put the question to Meloy, and Meloy advised against it. There was a better way: get a new passport under a new name. So for a few days Rintelen became “Edward V. Gates, wine merchant, of Millersburg, Pa.” In this guise Meloy introduced him to one of his own real-estate salesmen, and Rintelen took this man to dinner once or twice to work up the illusion. Then, one day, he asked the salesman to go with him to the passport bureau in New York and be his witness to an application for a passport. The salesman went, and in good faith swore that Rintelen was Edward V. Gates. His faith was not so good when he swore he had known him for three years. The application was transmitted telegraphically to Washington. Much to Rintelen’s astonishment and alarm, it was denied.

Meanwhile, Meloy had been working on a devious scheme to protect himself in his mission to Berlin. He must be cloaked in eminent respectability on this errand, for it would be an unpopular one with the British if they knew its real purpose, and he must hide that. First of all, he would take his wife, who did not know what his mission was. She had taken an active interest before the war in the peace movements centring at The Hague, and nothing was more natural than that she should wish now, during the war, to renew her friendships in Holland with an eye to furthering a cause now more than ever vital to the world.

But Meloy was not content with only one companion. He must have others who would expand the picture of innocence abroad. One of his neighbours in the suburb on the Jersey Coast where he made his country home was a wealthy woman known widely in America for her interest both in the peace and suffrage movements. Meloy telephoned to her and asked her to see him at his home. This lady drove over one summer evening in her motor car, accompanied by two women friends. The friends sat in the open car while she sat on the porch talking to Meloy. Meloy is very deaf; the lady had to talk loudly to make him hear. Meloy differed from most deaf people, who usually speak in a lower tone than those who hear well—he went rather to the other extreme, and spoke louder than most folks do. The women in the car heard the conversation, and they heard it a second time when their friend repeated it to them on the way home. And the Government heard it also, from the lips of all three.

The burden of the conversation was this: Meloy was taking his wife to Europe for a vacation; they were going to Holland, where so many forward-looking movements for the good of mankind made their international headquarters; he would be drawn aside a great deal by business affairs and Mrs. Meloy would be lonesome; he was anxious to provide companionship for her, if the lady would accompany them, he would pay all her expenses, he would assure her that her journey would be made de luxe, he would (he put it more delicately) even add a money consideration, he would see that the journey included a visit to war-bound Germany, now so difficult of access, that in Germany she should have entrée to social circles so exclusive that they were inaccessible even to the American Ambassador, and that, to crown all, she should be presented to the Kaiser.

The lady said she would think it over. It was an attractive invitation, but she did not just like it—perhaps it was too attractive. She talked it over with her friends: they advised against it. She telephoned Meloy next day and declined.

Meloy repeated the invitation to several women. All declined. Then, as the Noordam was to sail on August 3d, and he had no more time, he decided to take his secretary, a Miss Brophy.

Rintelen was now thoroughly alarmed. The Government’s refusal to grant his fraudulent application for a passport indicated that it knew about him. The Government was getting “warm” in its investigation of the incendiary bombs. The Government was taking an unpleasant interest in Labour’s National Peace Council. Rintelen felt irresistibly the pangs of Heimweh, the longing for home. He must go, at any risk. He would chance it as Gasché again.

So he sailed on the Noordam, with Meloy and party. He bore with him Lamar’s urgent appeals for more funds for Labour’s National Peace Council, now at the high tide of its success. And he was in the hands of Meloy, who was at the first of his own rainbow of hope of millions with which to buy America’s munition output—on commission.

At Falmouth the Noordam was detained for fourteen hours. The British took a great interest in the Gasché-Meloy party. Gasché’s baggage revealed nothing suspicious, but Gasché was removed to a long residence in an internment camp near London. Meloy was detained for several days. Mrs. Meloy soon appeared to be beyond suspicion. Miss Brophy declared that her baggage contained only personal effects. But at the bottom of her last trunk was found a wallet containing Gasché’s papers. These were seized, and Miss Brophy and Mrs. Meloy were allowed to proceed to Holland, where they were later rejoined by Meloy.