Justice and Metzler—Koenig's personality—von Papen's checks—The "little black book"—Telephone codes—Shadowing—Koenig's agents—His betrayal.
In a narrative which attempts so far as possible to proceed chronologically, it becomes necessary at this point to introduce Paul Koenig. For, on September 15, 1914, he sent an Irishman, named Edmund Justice, who had been a dock watchman, and one Frederick Metzler to Quebec for information of the number of Canadian troops in training. On September 18 Koenig left New York and met Metzler in Portland, Maine. He received his report, and on September 25 was in Burlington, Vt., where he conferred with Justice, and learned that the two spies had inspected the fortifications in Quebec, and had visited the training camps long enough to estimate the number and condition of the men. (Their information Koenig reported at once to von Papen, and it is possible that it dictated Papen's recall of Goltz from Buffalo the next day.)
Who was Paul Koenig? His underlings knew him as "P. K.," and called him the "bull-headed Westphalian" behind his back. He had a dozen aliases, among them Wegenkamp, Wagener, Kelly, Winter, Perkins, Stemler, Rectorberg, Boehm, Kennedy, James, Smith, Murphy, and W. T. Munday.
He was a product of the "Kaiser's Own"—the Hamburg-American Line. He had been a detective in the service of the Atlas Line, a subsidiary of the Hamburg-American, and for some years before the war was superintendent of the latter company's police. In that capacity he bossed a dozen men, watching the company's laborers and investigating any complaints made to the line. His work threw him into constant contact with sailors, tug-skippers, wharf-rats, longshoremen, and dive-keepers of the lowest type, and there was little of the criminal life of the waterfront that he had not seen.
He had arms like an ape, and the bodily strength of one. His expression suggested craft, ferocity, and brutality. Altogether his powerful frame and lurid vocabulary made him a figure to avoid or respect. Waterfront society did both—and hated him as well.
Paul Koenig, the Hamburg-American employe, who supplied
and directed agents of German violence in America
Von Papen saw in Koenig's little police force the nucleus of just such an organization as he needed. The Line put Koenig at the attaché's disposal in August, 1914, and straightway von Papen connected certain channels of information with Koenig's own system. He supplied reservists for special investigations and crimes, and presently Koenig became in effect the foreman of a large part of Germany's secret service in the East. As his activities broadened, he was called upon to execute commissions for Bernstorff, Albert, Dr. Dumba, the Austro-Hungarian ambassador, and Dr. Alexander von Nuber, the Austrian consul in New York, as well as for the attachés themselves. He acted as their guard on occasion, served as their confidential messenger, and made himself generally useful in investigation work.