To me, it seems best that the British public should have access to it in a cheap and popular form, and hence I have abandoned the idea of facsimiles.
I here publish the story of the mock-monk’s amazing career as a further contribution to the literature upon Germany’s spy system and propaganda so cleverly established as an insidious adjunct to her military attack upon the civilisation of our times.
The conversations herein recorded have been disclosed by patriotic Russians, the truth has been winnowed out of masses of mere hearsay, and the cipher telegrams and letters I have copied from the de-coded originals placed at my disposal by certain Russians, Allies of ours, who desire, for the present, to remain anonymous.
William Le Queux.
Devonshire Club, London, S.W.
November, 1917.