About two years ago this Schulenberg left Jermyn Street—and the Hotel Cecil, where he often came in to see his friends—and went to live in Borough Green, Kent, a quiet village within easy reach of Chatham Dockyard. Here he posed, of all things in the world, as a poultry fancier! Here he spent a good deal of time, sparing no pains to ingratiate himself with everybody in the district, and, to a great extent, succeeding.
We next hear of him as a "breeder of bulldogs" in the little village of Hemley-on-Deben, in Suffolk, not far from Harwich. This was about the middle of 1913. The amusing part of his pose here is that it was quite obvious to everyone that he knew nothing whatever about the subject which he made his hobby! He was utterly ignorant of bulldogs, and everything pertaining to them. However, they served as the excuse he wanted to cover his real operations.
It is not thought that this Schulenberg did any actual spying; it is more probable that he was merely an agent and a "cover" for the work of others. That he may have been an organiser under Steinhauer is probable enough, and it is known that he received visits from mysterious Germans, to one of whom, in particular, he paid considerable deference. After his departure, a very significant statement is said to have been made by a young man who is now serving in our army at the front. This man asserted that if he had been willing to do what von Schulenberg asked him, he would, by this time, "have been a rich man, able to drive his own motor-car." We can make a pretty good guess as to the class of service that was sought.
Many other cases of a similar nature that have come to light make it plain that Great Britain was systematically divided out into territories, for the purpose of espionage, each territory having a head spy, or agent, to whom all others under him were responsible, and to whom they gave their reports for transmission to the headquarters of the German spy system in Brussels. These cases are too numerous to mention individually, and it will be sufficient to quote one as an example, that of Captain X——, of Manchester.
The captain was originally arrested for having—needless to say he was a German—travelled more than five miles from the city without permission. When the case came on the magistrates took the view that the offence was a mere oversight, and inflicted a small fine. Later, however, certain facts came to light, and the captain was re-arrested at the instance of the military authorities. Great importance was attached to the case, as the authorities believed that through it they would be able to lay their hands upon centres, not only in the North of England, but also in London, through which the Germans were in receipt of important information.
Captain X—— was a man of the type who have done excellent service for Germany among the too trustful English. Of charming manners, apparently a rich man, and very "English" in his ways, he was able to move in good society, and numbered among his friends many prominent Manchester people. But there was another side to his character of which his Manchester friends were not aware.
One of his favourite haunts was a certain German club in the city. Here he was seen almost nightly, and it was noticed that he seemed to have a great friendship for certain hotel-waiters of German nationality, who, like himself, were members. These club waiters, who evidently possessed an amount of cash which is not common among men participating in the "tronc," were constantly occupied with the captain in a private room. They "did themselves well," and in course of time they attracted the attention of certain Englishmen who were also members of the club. It could not escape notice that German waiters were rather curious friends for an apparently wealthy man moving in the best society in Manchester, and there is only one explanation of their common activities. Of the captain's ultimate fate I am ignorant, but we may assume that by this time he is beyond the capacity of doing us further harm, at any rate for a considerable time.
"Place aux dames!" Among the "master spies" of the Kaiser we must certainly include a proportion of the fair sex—those women of lax morals discussed in the Reichstag. And of all the perplexing problems with which our authorities have had to deal of late, there is none more difficult than that of women who have been acting as agents of German espionage.