The reply came three days later. It read:
"Replying your cable about Charles Gladhill (von Bernstorff) Fred Hooven (the Guaranty Trust Company of New York) will receive money for our account. You may dispose according to our letter of November 24, 1914, to Fred Hooven."
On March 11, Schmidt, who was working night and day to consummate the deal, wirelessed again to Berlin:
"Your wireless received. Paid Charles Gladhill (von Bernstorff) $500 (which signified $500,000) through Fred Hooven (the Guaranty Trust Company). Gladhill requires further $1,100 ($1,100,000) which shall pay gradually."
Bolo's affairs were promising well. He had brought with him from Paris a letter of introduction to the New York manager of the Royal Bank of Canada, stating that he was the publisher of Le Journal, which required a large quantity of news print paper every day, and that he had been commissioned by all of the other large newspaper publishers in Paris to arrange a contract for 20,000 tons monthly. Bolo confirmed his intention to perform this mission when he deposited in the Royal Bank of Canada $500,000 which Hugo Schmidt had drawn from the German government deposits in the National Park Bank and had given to Pavenstedt, who in turn checked it over to the French traitor. It was not the purchase of print paper which interested him, however, but the perversion, through purchase, of as many French newspapers as he could lay his slimy hands on; once in his possession, they could be made to carry out a sinister propaganda for a separate peace between France and Germany. Germany had offered, through Abbas Hilmi, to yield Alsace-Lorraine in return for certain French colonies, and to evacuate the occupied portions of French soil, and by painting such a settlement in bright colors to the people of France Bolo could have served Germany's ends effectively either by actually accomplishing some such settlement, or by weakening the morale which was so largely responsible for holding the German drive against Verdun, then in the first stages of its fury.
On March 17, the Deutsches Bank wirelessed to Schmidt:
"You may dispose on Fred Hooven (the Guaranty Trust Company) on behalf Charles Gladhill (von Bernstorff) $1,700 (which meant $1,700,000)."
Bolo had his million and three-quarters, which he had asked. He had made disposition of it through the Royal Bank, setting a portion aside to his wife's credit, depositing another portion to the credit of Senator Charles Humbert (part-owner with Bolo of Le Journal) and holding a reserve of a million dollars in the Royal Bank subject to his call. Then he took ship for France.
His final arrangements with Pavenstedt prompted von Bernstorff to send the following message on March 20 to the Foreign Office: