German Spies in England: An Exposure

by William Le Queux

At Rosyth, I lived in an obscure hotel in Queensferry under the name of William Kelly, enduring three weeks of wearisome idleness, boating up and down the Firth of Forth, and watching, with interest, the movements of two Germans. They had arrived in Edinburgh from a tourist-ship which had touched at Leith. The first suspicion of them had been conveyed to me by my friend Mr. D. Thomson, proprietor of the Dundee Courier, and I sped north to investigate. In passing I may say that this journal was one of the first—with the Daily Mail—to point out the danger of German spies. My journey was not without result, for I waited, I watched, and I returned to the Intelligence Department with certain important details which proved to be the beginning of a long campaign. Those two Germans, unsuspicious-looking professors with gold-rimmed spectacles, were making elaborate maps. But these maps were not ordnance maps, but maps of our weaknesses. Our secret agents followed them to Plymouth, to Milford Haven, to Cromarty, and afterwards on a tour through Ireland.

Surely it is betraying no confidence to say that one of our secret agents—a man whose remarkable career I hope to some day record in the guise of fiction—acted as their guide on that curious tour!

I know I have written times without number of spies in the form of fiction. Many people have asked me, "Is it true?" To such I will say that the dramas I have written, short and long, have been penned solely with one single purpose—in order to call public attention to our peril.

Many of the stories I have written have been based upon actual fact. Half a life spent in travelling up and down Europe has shown me most conclusively how cleverly Germany has, with the aid of her spies, made elaborate preparations to invade us.

So intimate have I been with Germany's secret agents that, during this last Christmas, I had the displeasure of sending Compliments of the Season to two of them!

I have dined at the Ritz in Paris on more than one occasion with the yellow-toothed old Baroness X——, an Austrian, high-born, smart, and covered with jewellery. With her she has usually one and sometimes two pretty "nieces," who speak French, and pose as French. Perhaps they are, but one may be forgiven if one is suspicious. The Baroness X—— always has on hand a goodly supply of these "nieces." I have met them at Doney's in Florence, at Ciro's at Monte Carlo, at Maxim's in Paris, at Shepheard's at Cairo. I have chatted with these young ladies at the Hotel Hungaria in Budapest, at the Royal at Dinard, at the Grand in Rome, and in the aviary at the Métropole at Brighton. But these merry little "nieces" are always different! Baroness X—— and myself are in entire agreement. She knows what I know, and she sent me a Christmas card this season and dated from The Hague! She is certainly the ugliest old lady I have ever met, a figure well known in every European capital. Her speech is like the filing of brass. As a linguist, however, she is really wonderful. I believe she speaks every European language perfectly, and Arabic too, for she once told me, while we were together on a steamer going down the Mediterranean, that she was born in Smyrna, of Austrian parents.

As a spy of Germany she is unique, and I give her her due. She is amazingly clever. To my certain knowledge, she and her nieces, two years ago, while living in Nice beneath the same roof as myself, obtained through a young artillery officer a remarkable set of plans of the defences of the Franco-Italian frontier near the Col di Tenda. Again, I know how she and her attendant couple of "nieces" were in Ireland "on a tour" during the troubles of last year. And, further, I also know how many a military secret of our own War Office has been "collected" by one or other of those pretty cigarette-smoking flapper "nieces," with whom I, too, have smoked cigarettes and chatted in French or Italian.

How often have I seen one or other of these sirens—daughters of a foreign countess as their dupes have believed them to be—driving about London in private cars or in taxis, or supping at restaurants.

On a day in last November I found one of these interesting young ladies, dark-haired and chic—Parisienne, of course—enjoying a tête-à-tête luncheon at the Hut at Wisley, on the Ripley road, her cavalier being a man in khaki. I wondered what information she was trying to obtain. Yet what could I do? How could I act, and interrupt such a perfectly innocent déjeuner à deux?