How varied and steady was his work for von Papen is revealed by the latter’s cheques. Here are a few excerpts: “March 29, 1915, Paul Koenig (Secret Service bill), $509.11; ... April 18, Paul Koenig (Secret Service bill), $90.94; ... May 11, Paul Koenig (Secret Service), $66.71; ... July 16, Paul Koenig (compensation for F. J. Busse), $150; ... August 4, Paul Koenig (5 bills Secret Service), $118.92,” and so on. Remember also that von Papen only paid from his cheque account for a part of Koenig’s expenses, other German officials who employed him receiving a bill for the special work.

KEEPING WATCH ON SPIES

“P. K.” also kept a most carefully prepared note-book of his spies and of persons in New York, Boston and other cities who were useful in furnishing him information. In another book he kept a complete record of the assignments on which he sent his men, the purpose and the cost. In this book of names were several hundred persons—German reservists, German-Americans and American clerks, scientists and city and Federal employés—showing that his district was very large and that his range for picking facts and for supervising other pro-German propaganda was broad. For his own hirelings or reservists, over whom he domineered, he had specially worked out a system of numbers and initials to be used in communicating with them. These numbers were changed at regular intervals and a system of progression was devised by which the agent would know when his number changed. He also employed suitable aliases for his workers. These men likewise had codes for writing letters and for telephone communication, and they knew that on fixed days these codes changed.

Always alert for a listening ear or a watchful eye—because playing the eavesdropper was his job—he looked for spies on himself. He believed that his telephone wire was tapped and that he was overheard when he spoke over the telephone. Accordingly, he instructed his men in various code words. For instance, if he told an agent to meet him at five o’clock at South Ferry that meant: “Meet me at seven o’clock at Forty-second Street and Broadway.”

His wire was not tapped, but P. K. kept the men who were spying on him exceeding busy and worried. He would receive a call on the telephone and would direct the man at the other end of the wire to meet him in fifteen minutes at Pabst’s, Harlem. Now from Koenig’s office in the Hamburg-American Building to 125th Street, it is practically impossible to make the journey in a quarter of an hour; but his watchers learned that Pabst’s, Harlem, meant Borough Hall, Brooklyn. Just as he eluded espionage for days and months, this man, skilled in shadowing others and in doing the vanishing act whenever necessary, boasted that the Federal authorities or the police never would get him. “They did get Dr. Albert’s portfolio,” he said one day, “but they never will get mine, for I won’t carry one.”

SHADOWS FOLLOWING SHADOWS

He sought likewise to elude Americans trailing him. He never went out in the daytime that he did not have one or two of his agents trailing him to see whether he was being shadowed. He used to turn a corner suddenly and stand still so that a detective following came unexpectedly face to face with him and betrayed his identity. Koenig would laugh heartily and pass on. He loved to jibe the American authorities and ofttimes he would dodge around a corner and then reappear to confront the detective with a merry jest and pass on. By that means he came to know many agents of the Department of Justice and many New York detectives. When he started out at night he used to have three of his own men follow him, and by a prearranged system of signals inform him if any strangers were following him.

The task, consequently, of keeping watch of Koenig’s movements was most difficult and required clever guessing and keen-headed work on the part of the New York police. So elusive did Koenig become that it was necessary for Captain Tunney to evolve a new system for shadowing Koenig and yet not betray to him the fact that he was under surveillance. One detective, accordingly, would be stationed several blocks away and would start out ahead of Koenig. The “front shadow” was kept informed by a series of signals whenever Koenig turned a corner so that the man in front might dart down the street beyond and by a series of manœuvres again get ahead of him. If Koenig boarded a street car, the man ahead would hail the car several blocks beyond, thus avoiding any suspicion from Koenig. In other instances, detectives, guessing that he was about to take a car would board it several blocks before it got abreast of Koenig. Because of his alertness, he kept Detectives Barnitz, Coy, Terra and Corell always on the edge; but they finally ran him down.

It was never possible to overhear any conversation between Koenig and any man to whom he was giving instructions. Koenig always made it a point to meet his agents—some of his workers he never permitted to meet him at all—in the open, in parks in broad daylight, in the Pennsylvania Station, or the Grand Central Station. There, as he talked to them, he could make sure that nobody was eavesdropping. In the open he met many a man for the first time, talked with him and then said:

“Be at Third Avenue and Fifty-ninth Street at 2.30 to-morrow afternoon beside a public telephone booth there. When the telephone rings, you answer it.”