The Spy Net

by Henry Landau

  On the evenings when she had to dance in Brussels, I took her to the opera and then slipped in to watch the ballet. Faust, Marouf, Lakmé, Manon, Carmen, Traviata – these were the principal operas she danced in. How often have I seen them presented! I became well known in the coulisses of the opera. I met the other members of the ballet and became acquainted with régisseurs, maîtres de ballet, mistresses of the wardrobe, wardrobe women and the back stage personnel. I heard all the scandal, all their joys and all their sorrows. I acquired a new vocabulary of technical terms; I learned to discourse learnedly on fouettés, and where to buy the best chaussons; everyone agreed that those Z used to get from Italy for Yvonne were the best.

  In summer, when the opera season was over, she danced at one or another of the fashionable seaside resorts. When time permitted, I made a flying trip there for a few days.

  During the first summer I knew her, she had an engagement at the Kursaal in Ostend. This was the first season at Ostend since the war. In spite of the enormous damage done to almost every large building in the town by Allied bombardments from the sea and air, the Digue was now repaired, and so were the Kursaal and the large hotels such as the ‘Splendide’ and the Hôtel de la Plage. Wonders had been worked; no one could distinguish it from the Ostend of pre-war days.

  The resort was crowded not only with Belgians, but with a number of English and Dutch, with whom it had always been a favourite. Most of the summer resorts had been closed during the war, and this season those who could afford it were determined to play. Old habitués flocked to Ostend not only to have a thoroughly good time, but also out of curiosity to see the results of German occupation and Belgian restoration. During the day the beach was a blaze of colour with beach umbrellas, and with the latest bathing suits, often worn by mannequins sent by the best Parisian establishments, such as Lanvin, Poiret, and Patou. In the afternoon, there were races at the Wellington Hippodrome, where Horatio Bottomley, that chequered British Member of Parliament, newspaper owner, and sportsman, was an outstanding figure.

  In the evening, it was the Kursaal for gambling, dancing, the concert and the ballet. Here evening dress was de rigueur, and beautiful women with expensive jewels and gorgeous costumes were everywhere. It was in the gambling-rooms, however, that the scene was the most brilliant. Bankers, members of Europe’s aristocracy, stage favourites, and expensive mistresses all rubbed shoulders with each other, some all intent on gambling, others merely parading themselves, or making a critical appraisal of each other’s clothes and companions. That season the gambling was very high; one night I saw a well-known Londoner, a great tobacco importer, lose £20,000 at the big table at baccarat.

  I spent profoundly happy days with Yvonne. Often I spoke of marriage. She only laughed her quick bubble of laughter.

  ‘You Englishmen are funny; don’t you know that very few artists in Belgium or France ever marry? It would ruin my career. What’s wrong? Aren’t we happy as things are?’ She lived, as far as her own affairs were concerned, for the day, the hour – and brilliantly sufficient she made them. I learned not to fret her by attempts to make her see my notion of established life, so different from hers, and as time went on and my business affairs became more pressing, I learned her way of enjoying pleasure without trying to make it last.

  In Brussels and Paris, in her company, I met many artists in the theatrical world. There was Régina Badet, now a great dramatic actress, somewhat stout, quite a contrast to her days in 1910 at the Marigny Theatre in Paris. Who would then have thought that in later years she would be interpreting Ibsen’s plays? I found her very witty and amusing. Accompanied by one of her friends, I took her to the Savoy one night, where she attracted attention not only by her famous jewels, but also by a cigarette-holder at least eight inches long, which she insisted on using while we danced.

  Then there was Jenny Golder, whom any theatrical habitué in those days will remember; she was the star at the Casino de Paris for several years. I knew Jenny very well. I had first met her at the ‘Savoy’ in Brussels, just after the Armistice, where I had been much attracted to this willowy girl with her large, somewhat sad brown eyes and auburn hair, which accentuated her ivory skin and chiselled features. She had intrigued me, too, for it was quite evident after hearing and seeing her sing and dance, that she was quite out of place in a cabaret, even though the ‘Savoy’ was one of the best of its kind in Europe.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ I had said to her, as she sat at our table conversing one night.

  ‘That is a long story,’ was the answer, in excellent English. She was an Australian. It appeared that shortly after her arrival from Australia, she had contracted an unhappy marriage. At this time, she was glad of any kind of engagement. ‘You see,’ I remember her saying rather wistfully, ‘it doesn’t pay for a girl to marry when she is on the stage.’

  I had helped her with a small loan to enable her to get on her feet. She first of all secured an engagement in a revue which was playing at the Alhambra in Brussels. There she attracted the attention of Volterra, the owner of the Casino de Paris, who promptly gave her an engagement in his theatre. Within a few months she was playing the stellar role, a worthy successor to Gaby Delys and Mistinguett, who had preceded her.

  I met her often in Paris, and then later again in Berlin. How far she had climbed since those days at the ‘Savoy’! She was now a headliner at the Wintergarten in Berlin, drawing large crowds. She appeared in various numbers, but the greatest hit with her Berlin audience was ‘Mr Gallagher and Mr Shean’, which she sang as a male impersonator in evening dress and silk hat. As I sat one evening in her suite of rooms at the ‘Adlon’, we laughed over her struggles in Brussels. But whatever success had come her way she thoroughly deserved. She worked incessantly. Even a torn ligament which she endured for a whole theatrical engagement, could not daunt her.

  Poor Jenny! She committed suicide in Paris a few days after a certain banker disappeared from his plane over the English Channel. I knew she had known him intimately, but I could not help wondering why the two deaths followed each other in such close succession. There seemed no reason why she should take her own life, especially as I knew she adored her mother, who was dependent upon her. She was young, she had reached the peak; but apparently success was not enough – at least, success alone.

  Although, of course, many of the older families were strict as to whom they invited to their houses, or with whom they were seen in public, yet society in Europe had become much mixed. At the fashionable Parisian restaurants, such as ‘Ciro’s’, the Café de Paris, ‘Fouquets’, ‘Armenonville’, ‘Pré-Catelan’, and the Château de Madrid, one often saw a mixed group of actresses, high officials, leaders of society, and members of the various embassies, all dining together – sometimes accompanied by their wives, sometimes not. In this group, too, one occasionally saw the chic courtesan, when the wives were absent, though as a rule she swept in accompanied only by the man of her choice. At the big hotels, at the races at Longchamps and Auteuil, and at Deauville and other fashionable seaside resorts, she remained the arbiter of fashions.

  Such a courtesan was La belle Sabine, the name by which everyone knew her. She merited the title, for she was a beautiful blonde of striking appearance and personality. I first saw her in The Hague, where she came into prominence by marrying an English officer, who, after three years spent in a German prison camp, had been dispatched to Holland for internment in exchange for similar privileges which the British had granted to a certain number of German officers. Captain B. had not seen a woman during all these long years in Germany, and he fell an easy prey to Sabine’s charms. Then he very considerately died a few months later, leaving her the whole of his fortune, the tidy sum of about £50,000. The indignant family contested the will, but the courts awarded her the money.

  After the Armistice she turned up in Brussels, her blonde hair changed to auburn, and with nearly all her money changed into jewellery, chiefly bracelets which covered both arms half-way up
to the elbow. She was promptly annexed by an Antwerp millionaire, who had a vast fortune in the Romanian oil wells. What pleasure he found in keeping her I do not know, for he was away half the year in Romania, and during the remaining time he was generally tied down by business in Antwerp. He probably never spent more than a month in the year with her, but I think it flattered his vanity to own this beautiful woman, as she flitted from one resort to another, apparelled in the ransom of a king, and with a dozen men dancing attendance.

  I knew her quite well. With those who didn’t know her, she had the reputation of being a crafty gold-digger, but as a matter of fact, she was the reverse. She was simply a big, overgrown child, joyous, and full of frolic. She had a peculiar fascination for men, which she probably could not explain herself. She merely took what they willingly gave her.

  Other silhouettes flit through my memory: Isabelita Ruiz, in one of those delightful Madrid cabarets, long before Cochran made her famous at the London Pavilion; Hari Singh, later the Maharajah of Kashmir, whom all the ladies thought a darling; the Maharajah of Patiala, on the Champs-Élysées; Zographos and the Greek syndicate holding the bank at the big table at Deauville; André, the cheery Casino owner and gambling king of France, drinking his Eau Contrexéville, while he himself gaily lost a few thousands as a punter, knowing it would all come back to him; the King of Spain, watching his horses run under the colours of the ‘Duke of Toledo’, at that intimate little racecourse in Madrid; the brisk Dolly Sisters, gay and full of fun; Raquel Meller, the idol of the Spanish and Argentine colony in Paris, whose folk songs, sung as only she could sing them, brought back to them homeland memories; the Terrace at Monte Carlo, looking on the beautiful bay with its waters of the deepest blue, and the Hôtel de Paris and the Casino, at the height of the season; Épinard, Coq Gaulois, and Flower Shop, those three great horses, winning at Longchamps and Auteuil; San Sebastian and Madrid in summer, land of cabarets, where the meanest performer is a superb artist, and where, in the fierce heat, the people go to bed at dawn and dine at midnight; the Embassy Club, in Bond Street, under the direction of Luigi, where England’s aristocracy mingles with the élite of the stage; dinner at ‘Valadier’s’, looking down on the lights of Rome, and then the Hôtel de Russie, with its delightful gardens; the Bay of Naples, and Capri; the Lido Beach, the Excelsior, and a gondola at night on the Grand Canal; Belmonte, that ace of toreadors, and the bull fights at Pamplona.

  This is the setting in which I passed those happy two years with Yvonne – now frantically engaged in putting over some financial project in order to make the much-needed money, now dashing back to Brussels in the opera season, or to France, Italy, and Spain in summer, to spend a short time in her company and to watch with pride her triumphs wherever she was dancing.

  Although I suffered materially in that I was diverted from an ordered career at the most critical period of my life, yet even today I do not regret those years, for they supplied me with unforgettable memories.

  CHAPTER 25

  INVESTIGATING WAR WIZARDRY

  EXCEPT FOR MY army pay, I had never earned a penny in my life. An indulgent father had almost lavishly supplied all my needs during my university days, and while I was in secret service I had never counted costs – I had produced results and expense accounts had been met generously. I had virtually been on an allowance all my life, with no comprehension of the financial pressure under which most men live.

  I now became painfully aware of the fact that millions were scrambling for a job. For each good appointment there were dozens of candidates, and tens of thousands of perfectly capable and willing men, with the finest educations and training, were literally out on the streets. Besides, I was in Belgium, where salaries, even for the directors of the big companies, were absurdly low compared with the rest of Europe.

  My old restlessness seized me, not merely, I think, because of financial disappointment, but because the life I was leading offered no definitely energetic action. Everywhere I faced hesitancy and vacillation, and I felt the imperative need of a clear objective and a settled chance of accomplishment. Inevitably my thoughts turned to C and the secret service. I would return to it temporarily. It would take me to a new country, and there, perhaps, at last I would succeed in finding myself.

  It was with pleasure that I resumed contact with the chief and with my old colleagues, for although I had no intention of devoting myself entirely to the service, and stipulated that I should be free to continue my own commercial enterprises, my feeling upon finding myself once more a link in the adventures of secret service was very much that of the war horse who sayeth ‘Ha! Ha!’ among the trumpets. I had missed the excitement, the ceaseless work, and even the heavy burden of my wartime responsibilities.

  For some time I had given a somewhat listless ear to proposals from my Belgian friends that I should arrange an interchange of information between the Belgian and British secret services. I now surprised them by the enthusiastic manner in which I took up the matter with the chief in England, pointing out to him that there was a great deal of information which interested both secret services, and which neither side should mind the other getting. ‘Why not pool this type of information?’ I urged him. The chief finally agreed, and I was asked to handle the first interchange of reports. Even though this was purely a routine job I thrilled once more at reading secret service reports. Always keenly interested in international affairs, I had been relying on the newspapers during the last two years; now once again I was getting a preview of impending events, and sensing once more the undercurrents of international relations, which as a rule come to the surface in print only after a crisis has been reached. How long this interchange continued I do not know, for I was suddenly requested by the chief to undertake some urgent work for him in Germany, which required immediate attention. Handing over my job to another intermediary, I set off post-haste to London to get my instructions.

  The chief informed me that through an officer in the control commission he had just learned of a wireless-controlled robot perfected by the Germans a few days before the Armistice, which could not only guide an aeroplane in its flight, but also drop bombs on a given objective. I was to proceed to Germany immediately, secure full details at all costs, and if possible, bring the inventor over to England for an interview at the British Air Ministry.

  My first step naturally was to find the officer who had supplied the information. Knowing his name, I quickly located him in Munich, and from him gained sufficient information to run the inventor to earth. To my surprise, I found my man in the Rhineland, in occupied territory. He was a sportsman, interested in speed and machines of speed; his appearance was anything but that of the typical inventor. Tall, thin, with a long, pointed, foxlike face, high narrow brow and fair hair combed straight back from it, he looked – especially in his gay tweed plus fours – the double of the German Crown Prince just off on a ski-ing expedition. Protected by the army of Occupation, I had no fear of being embarrassed by the German authorities; so I went straight to the point, explaining to the inventor what I wanted, and asking him to accompany me to England.

  Without giving me a decision, he immediately launched into a graphic description of his invention, and the destruction it would cause. ‘There has never been anything approaching it,’ he cried, his pale blue eyes blazing, his hands spread flat on the table between us. ‘The Allies were worried by the big gun, and by the zeppelin and aeroplane raids on London, but all of that was child’s play to what my wireless robot could have done. Just imagine several hundreds of these aeroplanes, dropping tonnes of high explosives on London at night! Had the war lasted, my invention would have produced startling results. I was at German headquarters in Spa at the time of the Armistice,’ he went on, more quietly, but with a wry grin that said much of his irritation and disappointment. ‘You should have heard how the High Command cursed the revolutionaries and independent socialists for the cowardly betrayal of the country.’

  I discounted a certain amount of wh
at he had told me as inventor’s enthusiasm. But I had reported the existence of torpedo-nosed motor boats at Zeebrugge, controlled by wireless operated from an aeroplane. I had also seen a model airship manoeuvred by wireless, without a soul on board, and also knew of the stabilising effect of a gyroscope. In addition to the supporting evidence of these earlier devices, which had probably led him on, this man gave me the impression of honesty and sincerity; I was convinced of the truth of most of what he had told me.

  He was a typical inventor, more interested in the invention itself than in selling it. I soon discovered, however, that if he was not business-minded, his woman companion was. When we went to his house, I found myself in the presence of a young girl about twenty-one years old, a pretty blonde, fragile, but with a dynamic personality, who quickly took charge of the discussion, while he listened attentively to the very intelligent questions she asked me. What her relation was to this man, who was old enough to be her father, I do not know – I am sure she was not a blood relation; nor was she his wife. Without any comments, he accepted her final decision that he should accompany me back to London.

  On our way through Belgium, and again on the Ostend–Folkestone boat, and at Scott’s near Leicester Square, where I took him to dinner on the night of our arrival, he insisted on ordering champagne of the best vintage, and mixing it with Guinness’s stout. ‘Ah,’ he kept saying, as he smacked his lips, ‘this is the best drink in the world. How I missed it during the war!’ He appeared surprised and a little put out when I refused to try it.

  Having put him in contact with the Air Ministry, my mission was accomplished, and as I was urgently needed in Aachen, I left him to carry on the negotiations. I learned subsequently that they were entirely successful.

  Some months later I met the inventor again, wrapped up in a new invention. By gluing sheets of three-ply wood together across-grain with a special glue, and by chemically treating it in a secret way, he had discovered a system through which he could mould the wood into any required shape, yet be sure of an extremely durable product when it solidified. He was using it for canoe construction, and also for the body of a new light motor car which he was experimenting with. This car, although it could seat two people, was so light that a strong man could lift it off the ground, and its construction costs were so low that it could sell at the same price as a motor-cycle. He was as enthusiastic about this car as he had been about his aeroplane, but although he drove me around the town in a model, it never appeared on the market. It was probably too uncomfortable and small, more suited to juveniles than adults. The canoe was a great success, and no doubt his wood-moulding process is now being used for a great many other articles. The world will remember him, however, by his wireless robot-controlled aeroplane, for it is an engine of destruction which must be reckoned with in the next war.