That was not with this passport. The passport is in Holland.
Have you any proof at all of your alleged movements in Spain other than this passport?
No. The other passport is in The Hague at the Passport Bureau.
What we propose to do is to bring somebody from Barcelona who knew you were there under the other name.
You cannot do that.
If you are going to be put on trial as a spy you can then send for any witness you like from Holland, but in the meantime we shall keep you in custody on suspicion of espionage and on the charge of having a forged passport.
I hope I shall be given opportunities of proving my identity.
Oh certainly. If there is anybody now that you wish to call as to your identity, we shall be very pleased to see them.
I have Mr. Albert Keyzer and his wife: they have known me for twelve years.
What is his nationality?
English. Then there is Monsieur Rudeaux, who knows me well.
Did you say you have never been in Hamburg?
I swear it.
Not in a stage capacity?
No.
Where did these pearls come from?
From Paris.
It is a very rare thing that two people should have a droop in the left eye and the peculiarity in the left eyebrow exactly identical, as they are in this photograph and yourself.
That is not my photograph, Sir.
Then you are a victim of circumstance. There is another circumstance in which you are the victim. There is handwriting under the photograph on this passport, and if it is forged it is a very clumsy forgery.
It is not a forgery. Can I be visited by the Dutch Ambassador?
You can communicate with the Consul. I am going to write to the Dutch Embassy as we have grave doubts as to your passport. I shall also tell him that I believe you to be Clara Benedix, a German. Could you tell me what Clara Benedix is like?
She is younger than me – much the same height or a little shorter, of stout build. I could not see the colour of her hair.
Did she talk to you?
Yes, we talked together all the time.
What did she say she was doing?
I did not ask her.
What hotel did you stay at in Madrid?
Always the Ritz.
What hotel in Barcelona?
Hotel des Quatres Saisons, under the same name as is on my passport.
Did you ever stay at the Hotel Roma in Madrid?
No.
Is this the passport you signed?
Yes.
Did you sign it when it had the photograph on it?
Yes.
Very well, you explain the fact that the writing goes up underneath it.
That is my passport: that is all I can tell you.
(She was told to write her signature, and it was found to be the same as that on the passport).
She was sent over to Cannon Row and instructions given that writing materials be furnished her.
16th November, 1916.
Madame Zelle McLeod was seen here to-day by A.C.C, D.I.D., Lord Herschell, and Major Drake, and stated as follows:-
Who wrote you that letter? (Showing letter)
That is a Mr. Higby, of Madrid.
Did you ever go to Liverpool since the beginning of the war?
No, never.
It is a most interesting case of identity, because a lady of your name did go to Liverpool, and was seen by this Officer, and you are not the lady. That is interesting.
I have no family, so that is funny. I am quite alone.
First of all you came with Zelle’s passport, now we have a Clara Benedix, who met you in the train, and then we have another Madam Zelle who was seen at Liverpool by this Officer.
I do not understand. I have had the same trouble in Paris. Not so gravely. In Paris they asked me if I ever went to Antwerp. I was never there. The same Captain, I gave you his name, said it was a Dutch woman. She was always called McCleod. And one day in the Grand Hotel in Paris I received a love letter from somebody for Mrs. McCleod, in English. It was not for me. I went to the Manager of the Hotel, and he said, ‘That is the Grand Hotel in London.’
Then there is another lady going under your name.
Yes, it must be. I would be happy to see her. Clara Benedix is the woman I have seen in the train. We had the same compartment from Madrid to Lisbon.
The same eyes?
I do not know.
Do you know a Mr. Hans Sagali, or some such name?
No, I have never heard of his name.
He never paid you any money?
No, I do not know the man.
He did pay Mata Hari some money.
I do not know the name of the gentleman. When did this lady travel to Liverpool?
I cannot give you the exact date?
I know where I have been all that time.
Just before you went to France, did you receive the sum of 15,000 francs from anybody?
No.
That was in Holland.
No, but I took my 15,000 francs from a Bank and gave it to another Bank. I have two Banks in the Hague.
What was the bank you took it from?
Londres, and I have another Bank, Sch.
Londres Bank is the Bank of the German Embassy.
I do not know.
We have information that Mata Hari received 15,000 francs from the German Embassy.
That was the amount I took to go to Paris.
Is your father alive?
No, my father is dead. I told you yesterday. He died on 13th March, 1910.
Do you remember your life-story being published in a certain paper?
In many papers.
This was a paper owned by Mr. Veldt, in Amsterdam.
Yes, I remember.
Who wrote your life for that paper?
Sir, that is a dirty story.
Was it your father who put it in?
My father left my mother twelve years ago. He went to Amsterdam and lived with a woman, one of the common class. My family then sent me to school. I married to become happier. He was twenty-two years older than I. Then my father married this woman. I always sent my father money, and then, as I left McCleod, I went to Paris and became a great dancer. Two writers went to my father, and asked him if he would give his name, and she wrote the book, and my father gave my photographs. I have been very unhappy through this horrible book. She wrote this book, and my father gave the name, and one day 60,000 books went to India, where I am known very well. I took the train to Holland, and a great lawyer from Amsterdam said it was no good for me. All Paris thinking I was twenty-eight years, and this said I was seventy-six or something like that. He said ‘Do nothing. You will only make trouble for yourself. Say nothing.’ I saw this book always. It was at The Hague, and there was always a new edition. I went to a lawyer. He said ‘Do nothing. You can give money to buy this book out.’ All the people bought it. It was the great unhappiness of my life.
Have you had an illness this year?
Yes.
Were you ill in Holland?
No.
Last March, the 17th?
Yes, I remember. I stayed in bed for many days. It was not serious, but I stayed in bed.
Is that your picture? (Showing it)
Yes. That is the picture M. Rudeaux made for me. You know to-day that I am not Clara Benedix, I hope.
Well, rather a curious thing has happened. We were in doubt. We have got to get evidence from Spain as to whether you are a separate person from Clara Benedix. We have been in communication with Holland, and there we find that Madame Zelle is a German agent, and Mata Hari is truly a German agent, and so is Clara Benedix, so now comes this new complication, that a third lady appears to have been seen by this Officer, who is also travelling on a passport of Zelle, and she is not identical with you.
Now I have something to tell you that will surprise you. I thought it was too big a secret. This Captain, Captain Ladoux,
asked me to go in his service, and I promised to do something for him. I was to meet him in my home at The Hague. That is why I sent a telegram.
You ought to have mentioned this to me yesterday. Where did you meet Captain Ladoux?
That is old history. In the lawyer’s Office. He said ‘There is a lady of your name in Antwerp.’
When was that?
Now. No, I will tell you. I was not well in Holland, and I went to Paris to go to Vitol. Vitol is in the zone of the Army, and to go there you must have a special permission. I went to the Police, and they made my paper out, and asked me my reasons, etc., and then one day I received a note from the Lawyer, to go to his Office, and saw Captain Ladoux on the second floor. He was very polite. He said ‘I know you very well. I have seen you dancing. There is a lady under your name in Antwerp.’ I told the Captain I never was in Antwerp. The last time I was in Brussels was in 1912. One day the Captain said to me ‘You can do so many things for us if you like,’ and he looked me in the eyes. I understood. I thought a long time. I said ‘I can.’ He said ‘Would you?’ I said ‘I would.’ ‘What would you ask?’ I said ‘If I give you plenty of satisfaction I ask you 1,000,000.’ He said ‘Go to Holland, and you will receive my instructions.’ ‘If it is for Germany I do not like to go.’ ‘No,’ he said, ‘it is for Belgium.’ So I waited his instructions in my home.
Then you went to Spain after that?
Yes.
Will you describe Captain Ladoux?
A fat man with very black beard and very black hair, and spectacles.
How tall?
He was tall and fat. Fatter than a man of fifty years.
Has he any peculiarity of speech; any particular habits? Did he speak loudly, or softly?
I did not make any impression of that. He smokes all the time. He always has a little cigarette in his lips.
When you went to Spain was that part of Captain Ladoux’s instructions?
No. Captain Ladoux let me through to go which way I liked.
I went to the Prefect of Police, who signed my passport, and I told Captain Ladoux I was going to Spain.
When you got your passport vised at the Consulate in Rotterdam on the 27th March, 1915, you said you were going to an address in London.
Yes, I have a letter. I do not remember. I stayed at the Savoy Hotel. I telephoned to the place. It was in Tottenham Court Road. I do not remember the name.
Did you go there?
No.
You were staying at the Savoy?
Yes.
How long?
Four or five days.
You were a very short time in Spain this time.
Yes, half a day.
I do not understand why, in October, you came through Spain on the way to Holland.
I have ten trunks, and I like to do this.
That was on the former voyage.
The Dutch Legation, they said you must go quickly back. You must have a permit. I said ‘It is not necessary. I go the other way.’ I have not finished my story. When I was in Vigo, I met the French Consul from the Dutch Legation. He came to me. ‘You love a Russian Officer. You would give him the pleasure of sending a telegram to see if he is wounded, and work a little with me. Will you do something for the Russians?’ I did not tell them about the French. He said ‘Can you go to Austria?’ He said he wanted to know what Reserves they had, to fight. He said ‘Do you know Austria?’ I said ‘Yes, I have danced in Vienna.’ I was to go home and await his instructions.
That would have been rather awkward, and when the Germans asked . . .
I do not understand.
I was only asking you.
The Germans did not ask me.
It would be awkward to have a levée of all the belligerent countries in your room. Who was the Russian who saw you?
He was not Russian. He is the French Agent from the Oi. He gave me two cards.
How disappointed these people will be in Holland if you are late for the appointment at your home.
I do not know.
In any case they will knock at the door and find nobody at home. Did Captain Ladoux or the other man give you any money?
No.
Just a promise that if you were useful . . .
I would not make anything out of the Russian business. If I gave Captain Ladoux plenty of satisfaction, then I would have 1,000,000.
Well, we are sending a telegram to Spain. We are going to get over here somebody who knows Clara Benedix, and I have got a list of people to whom you think we should refer, people that know you. I will have some enquiries made, of them, and that is all we can do, except that you can look up Mr. Keyzer.
He is a Belgian Correspondent for the Daily Mail.
28
Madrid, 1917
At the Ritz Hotel, Mata Hari was reading a letter that had just been delivered to her room. It was from Vadime. It was the first letter she’d had from him for several days. They had kept up an exchange of billets doux as she had travelled around Spain looking for work. In this latest letter, he began by saying that his eye had completely healed and that he was well. He was still flying reconnaissance sorties, but the new Fokker fighter planes had made these sorties pure hell.
He was also writing, however, to tell her something far more serious. His superior officer had called him in two days ago and said that he had received a warning from the Russian Embassy in Paris that one of his officers was having an affair with Mata Hari. The Embassy had named Massloff and claimed that Mata Hari was a spy working for the Germans. His superior officer said that this situation was intolerable and he expected him to break it off immediately. Vadime couldn’t describe how this news had shocked him. Of course, it was out of the question that they could meet again. He was sorry, for her as well as for himself. He would always remember Vittel but he couldn’t forget her deception and dishonesty.
Mata Hari got up from the wicker chair and opened a window. She was weary. Below her were terracotta rooftops, all differently angled. Above them hung the winter sun, more white than yellow, more bright than hot. It would be cool tonight, she thought. A pigeon cooed on a nearby ledge. She sat back in her chair and took out from the writing desk a sheet of paper and an envelope. She wrote to Massloff saying that she denied the accusation of spying and could not imagine who was behind such slander. You must believe me, she said. Her chances of obtaining a performance in Madrid, it seemed, were slim – no one wanted to see Mata Hari dance any longer. She was afraid because she wasn’t sure what was in store for her. She loved him and missed him terribly. She signed off by writing, ‘Après la guerre . . .’
She addressed the envelope, sealed it and rang room service. A few minutes later, a maid appeared with a tray, which she placed beside the wicker chair. Mata Hari gave her the letter to post and dismissed her. From the thin bottle on the tray, she poured an inch of absinthe into the tall glass. The green reminded her of Massloff’s eyes. She placed the sugar lump on to the two-pronged fork and the fork on to the glass. As she poured the water on to the sugar lump, the whole drink turned cloudy. She said Vadime’s name out loud and took a sip.
Georges du Parcq climbed the steps of the Ritz and stopped for a moment at the entrance to catch his breath. He made way for a man in a grey suit before pulling open the heavy glass door. In the foyer, footsteps rang out on the tiles and he was puzzled for a moment before realising that the footsteps were his own.
Du Parcq was still working for Le Monde, but had long since been promoted to Crime Editor. His job involved more time in the office; the hours were fewer and the pay better. He liked it and it was nothing less than he deserved, he thought. To cap it all, he had married Jeanne, his secretary, two years ago after a six-month affair that they had managed to keep secret from their colleagues.
When the war broke out, the French Secret Service had recruited him as a courier. They had told him he should continue working on the paper, but that every now and then, he would make a little trip to the French Embassy in Madrid
to deliver some dispatches. Well, he was a patriot so that was fine by him and, despite being a little concerned for his safety, Jeanne agreed.
He had just delivered some such documents without mishap and, as ever, was greatly relieved it was all over. He wanted to lie down in his hotel room, but first he wanted to take the edge off his heartbeat by drinking a sherry and smoking a Havana cigar.
The bar was an open area near the foyer, cornered by four enormous pillars of marble and clusters of potted palms. On the walls were mosaics of tiny coloured tiles in the forms of large parakeets and birds of paradise. Sunlight fell downwards from a glass roof so that the bar was a kind of atrium. As du Parcq filed through the tables, he noticed a striking-looking woman seated at one of them. She was deep in conversation with Lieutenant Hans von Krohn. As he passed their table he recognised her: it was Gerda.
When she happened to glance up, he saw the flash of recognition in her eyes too. She held his gaze for a split second before returning to her conversation and paying him no further attention. Du Parcq felt slighted. He carried on past her table and ordered a large sherry at the bar. Von Krohn was the naval attaché to the German Embassy and an extremely senior figure in Madrid’s military circles. He couldn’t imagine what Gerda was doing in Madrid, or why she was talking so intimately with von Krohn. His sherry came; he sipped it and rolled the liquid around his mouth. How long had it been since he last saw her? Twelve years? Thirteen? No, fourteen years! He knocked back his sherry in one and ordered another. When he turned round, Gerda and von Krohn had gone.
After his nap, du Parcq met his contact at the Embassy, a young attaché whose name he could never pronounce. All he could remember was that it sounded Spanish and began with a B. The attaché gave du Parcq some documents to take to Paris. As he was leaving, du Parcq mentioned seeing his old acquaintance.
‘Oh really?’ The attaché arched his eyebrows. ‘These days she is considered a dangerous woman, you know.’
‘Nonsense, she’s just a dancer.’
‘Not just a dancer. She does other things too.’
Du Parcq smiled. ‘Well yes, everyone knows she is also a courtesan.’
‘No, you misunderstand me. She is working for Abteilung III.’
The Red Dancer Page 19