It transpired in the course of the interview that she could speak French and Polish fairly fluently and this may have accounted for the peculiarity of her accent. She had been taught these languages, she said, in the convent. She would not give the name of the convent and therefore all this part of the story may have been invented like the rest, but it was clear from inquiries that were subsequently made that by nationality she was American and that she was certainly not engaged in espionage.
But the most amazing of all the claimants was a certain soi-disant princess of a royal house who had succeeded in convincing a very large number of people that she was genuine. She was not in need of funds, nor had she any object in view except to gain the prestige which a royal parentage would confer upon her. It was therefore a quite harmless amusement and she must have got a great deal of fun out of it. Unfortunately for her, when she had first laid claim to her rank there was nothing to show that we were soon to be at war with the sovereign whom she claimed for father and when the spy mania was at its height he came, not unnaturally, under suspicion. It was still more unfortunate that her own brother was living in this country.
She had worked out the details of her claim with remarkable skill. Her mother was still living, as well as her two brothers and a sister. It was impossible to ignore them altogether and so she told a story of how she had been confided to the care of her own mother by an imperial lady who, for some unexplained reason, wished to keep her birth a secret. I commend this kind of story to any future claimant of royal parentage, because when sceptics begin to throw details of your early life in your face you can say, ‘Quite so, all that happened, only you were never told the secret of my birth, which is known only to me and to one or two other people, who are dead.’ All she had to do, in fact, was to read up all the movements of the court during the years of her infancy and childhood and retail them as a privileged eyewitness.
There sailed into my room one morning the most imperial-looking person I have ever seen. Even when sitting in my low armchair there was a calm and condescending dignity about her that would have impressed anybody. She had a husband who was on the way to make a fortune and who was in attendance to confirm everything she said and no one was ever more ready than she to help me over any difficult points, only I must tell her what they were. My first point was that her reputed mother did not and could not have had a child at the particular date when she said she was born. She smiled rather pityingly and said that no doubt I was not aware that her mother had spent some months alone at a watering-place in France at that time and that it was evident that I did not know how eccentric she was. As a matter of fact I did, but I also knew a good deal about the movements of the imperial lady immediately after the supposed birth and they did not at all tally with my visitor’s story. I took her through her various statements and as I had no documentary evidence on the other side to confront her with she left with the honours of war, but she left me also quite unconvinced.
A few days later I discovered her brother, a composer of considerable ability and a very striking-looking man with a strong family likeness to his sister. He was in a state of great indignation against her, chiefly, I think, on account of the disparagement of his mother which was entailed by her story. He came fully armed with most convincing documents – family photographs from the time when they were all children together, letters written by the lady herself to her family and letters from his mother in Switzerland. Among the letters was one written when the claimant was a girl of seventeen. She and her sister were at a watering-place and she retails, with satisfaction, a remark she overheard about them, that they were Kaiserlich mädchen. This chance remark overheard in a hotel probably put the entire idea into her head. In appearance she was Kaiserlich to the finger-tips and it must have been balm to her soul to extend them to be kissed and to see the world curtsy to her. She was the daughter of a Jewish bank manager in a good position. She had been well educated and she knew a number of people who could tell her the gossip of the court. She could not have imposed on any one in her own country, but once abroad she began to expand and the story had given four or five years of intense pleasure.
Having satisfied myself that, whatever else the lady might be, she was not dangerous to the cause of the Allies, I dropped the case, thinking that if any exposure became necessary the brother would bring it about; but one day, to my great surprise, a friend who has a profound knowledge of Austria, told me that he was satisfied that she was genuine and thought it a great pity that she had been subjected to the indignity of interrogation. I made him a sporting offer. I said that the lady was probably expecting another interview, that I had documentary proofs in my possession and that if he liked I would invite her to see me again in his presence. He agreed and asked only that he might bring with him a personage who has since become very prominent in Europe.
The interview took place. The lady sailed in as imperially as before. My companions were presented to her and she acknowledged their bows with the slightest nod.
‘Sit down, madam. Since I saw you last some very interesting documents have reached me and I want to put them to you. The first are some family photographs.’
I thought she flushed slightly.
‘Oh, I can see what has happened. You have been in communication with Mr K—, who claims to be my brother. Poor man, it has become an obsession with him.’
I do not think that she was prepared for the family photographs, for at first she would not admit that the girl of fourteen in one of the groups was herself. A little later she seemed to think that this was a false move, for she said, ‘I suppose that is my photograph, but you see at that time we should have been photographed together because I had been consigned to the care of Madame K—.’ When she came to her own letters she was for the first time embarrassed and inclined to be angry, for she had at short notice to make up her mind whether she would deny the authorship altogether, or admit it and readjust her story. I was on pretty sure ground, because it happened that a relation of mine had been staying in the same house as her imperial ‘mother’ on an occasion when she claimed to have been present and that when her photograph was shown to this lady, she declared that the girl she saw there was quite a different-looking person. For the first time her imperial calm broke down. She became very pale and very angry. It was difficult to say whether fear or anger was the stronger of her emotions. She admitted the authorship of the letters and to all our further questions she would only reply that she was suffering for the malice of her brother.
For a time I think she dropped her royal pretensions. At any rate, she dropped the idea of writing a book, which was said to be nearly ready for publication.
Another case of impersonation was that of the man who called himself Count de Borch. He was a Polish Jew, well educated and well dressed and he seems to have had a curious fascination for persons with whom he came in contact. Any mysterious Pole was at that time an object of suspicion. This man had obtained employment carrying a small weekly wage with a firm of furniture dealers in London and yet he was able to cut a dash at London tea-tables and expensive restaurants. He had a large circle of hostesses from whom he would have been in a position to acquire a good deal of information useful to the enemy if he had tried to do so. He was brought down to Scotland Yard some weeks before the tragedy which brought his name before the public. The title of ‘de Borch’ was old and highly esteemed in Poland and I had been assured that whatever this man might be he was certainly not in any way connected with the family. He made a very bad impression upon me. He fell back upon the usual ruse of bogus claimants. He said that he knew nothing about his ancestry except what he had been told, that there had always been a mystery about his parentage because, owing to family differences, his father was anxious that his existence should be kept secret until the day when he could come into his own and so he had been supporting himself honourably with a firm in London until Poland was free. It was like a great many other cases at that time. Until some evidence was for
thcoming that a man was engaged in espionage, he had to be left at liberty under surveillance. He was believed to be drawing sums of money from some of his hostesses to eke out his slender wages and it was his social side that was his undoing.
The tragedy in which he met his death was very fully reported at the time. Captain Malcolm had returned from the Front to find that this over-dressed and scented person had been trying to break up his home. He came to Scotland Yard to ascertain his address, but as it is not the custom to give addresses to callers no information was given. He found it out in another way, bought a horsewhip, with which to thrash the man and gained admittance to his room. In the scuffle that followed the use of the horsewhip, de Borch was shot dead, but as a loaded pistol was found in an opened drawer close to the bed it was held that de Borch intended to use it upon his unwelcome visitor and Captain Malcolm was acquitted.
CHAPTER 21
FOOTNOTES TO THE PEACE CONFERENCE
THREE DAYS BEFORE the Armistice was signed I went to Paris with representatives of the Office of Works and the Foreign Office to secure premises for the British delegation in the peace negotiations. I believe that Brussels and Geneva were both considered as meeting places, but for reasons, chiefly of lack of accommodation, were dismissed as unsuitable. The Majestic and the Astoria Hotels, the one for housing the people and the other for office accommodation, both near the Arc de Triomphe, seemed to be the only possible buildings available and in due course the British ambassador called on Monsieur Clemenceau to ask that they should be commandeered. He asked how many people had to be housed and was told that the number would be approximately 400, on which followed the quick comment, ‘Ah, then the demobilisation of the British Army has already begun!’
We spent Sunday afternoon, 10 November, driving about Paris with M. Clemenceau’s ADC to inspect premises for the accommodation of the Foreign Office printing staff. I noticed late in the afternoon that the Champs-Élysées was full of a holiday crowd carrying flags rolled tightly round the stick. All Paris was waiting for the news that the Germans had signed the Armistice. I had not seen the terms, but knowing that they were hard, I asked the French officer whether he thought that the Germans would accept them. He replied, ‘Oui, les conditions sont dures, mais ils signeront.’ I was in Boulogne by 11 a.m. on Armistice morning and I had the news of the Armistice when I reached my daughter’s hospital at Wimereux. The news had not then reached the French. At the entrance to the hospital I had to stand aside to let a party of German prisoner orderlies pass. They were laughing and singing, though the news had not actually reached the hospital by telephone at that time. No doubt they were banking upon the rumours of revolution in Germany. When our steamer sailed two hours later every whistle and siren was in full blast; the quays were lined with waving and cheering crowds; the sleepy old town was awake for once.
When the delegation was installed at the Hotel Majestic and the two subsidiary hotels, if one could believe the newspapers, the members spent their time in eating and drinking, in music, theatricals and dancing. But one could not believe the newspapers. No doubt in the early days of those protracted negotiations the staff was too big for the work and in the later stages the work was too big for the staff, but considering the enormous number of experts who had to be consulted on the whole range of human endeavour, political, naval, military, geographical, racial and industrial, it cannot be said that the staff was too numerous or that it did less than a day’s work. Its recreations were certainly not excessive, seeing that for many dancing was the only possible exercise. It may well be asked what a police officer had to do with peace negotiations. He had nothing whatever to do with them. As Chief Security Officer, my function was to prevent if possible the leakages of information that took place during the Peace Conference in Vienna and for this purpose I took over with me a body of Special Branch officers to control the doors and see that no unauthorised person obtained access to the buildings. If occasionally they wounded susceptible feelings, they were of great use to visitors in the matter of passports and travelling facilities. There were arduous moments in their service. On one occasion I was asked to furnish the escort for a furniture van which was to be packed with papers of so secret a nature that the escort must remain with it night and day until it arrived in Paris. The van was packed and sealed in London and a very zealous young police officer left with it for Havre via Southampton. At Havre the French railway officials positively refused to attach the truck on which it was loaded to the express: it must proceed by the slow train. The escort telephoned this news quite cheerfully, though the rain was coming down in torrents. We made frequent inquiries at the Gare St Lazare, receiving conflicting accounts of the progress of the truck, until at last late on a Saturday afternoon we heard that it had arrived some hours before and had been shunted into a goods shed, where it would remain until the following Monday. Feeling sure that our zealous policeman had not deserted it, we sent the senior inspector to the station-master. He was adamant: the rules must be observed; even if an English policeman starved, the van must stay where it was till Monday. But the inspector was a man of resource: he was a Freemason and so, as it now appeared, was the station-master. So potent was this appeal that the shed was opened and there was our man, wet through, stiff and faint for want of food. We took him and his van to the hotel and under restoratives and a hot bath he soon recovered. So far I can vouch for the story. The sequel may be less authenticated. The seals were broken; the van was opened and lo! so the story ran, it contained nothing but the ninth edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica. In London someone had blundered.
My principal duties being in London, I made flying visits of inspection to Paris at intervals of about a fortnight – flying in the literal sense occasionally – and it was curious to see how the amenities of the Hotel Majestic were modified as time went on. In the early days there was a full staff of House of Commons waiters and waitresses, who found so much to grumble at that they were soon sent home. Apart from the inevitable epidemic of influenza, the sick ward was always filled: at least two broken legs were being mended, besides minor accidents. Gradually the scale of entertainment became more Spartan, the edges began to wear off tempers, the spirit of criticism to rear its head and in my last visit the glory of the great Peace Conference had departed. Curious folk of every colour came as deputations from nearly every race under the sun to have their grievances redressed. They vanished as unobtrusively as they came, elated or disappointed according to their reception.
The Americans had established an excellent system of intelligence throughout Europe and, as we had been closely associated before, we agreed to pool our information. At that time there was not much happening in the underworld of Europe and America that we did not know. How admirably the Americans had profited by their experience probably few know so well as I.
It was very interesting to note the decline and fall of President Wilson’s prestige among the French. At first he was expected to remedy all the evils from which Paris was suffering: he was to lower prices and raise the exchange; the maidservant thought that he would raise her wages. Week followed week and he did nothing sensational to justify these great expectations. When he announced the establishment of the League of Nations it was too late; his star was in eclipse and nothing he could say or do would ever bring him back to public favour. It is the fate of all mortals from whom too much is expected. I confess that his speech at the League of Nations plenary session disappointed me both in substance and delivery. When I said so to two of my American colleagues that evening one of them said: ‘There are only two men at the Peace Conference who could have carried it off – Mr Balfour and Lord Reading.’
One of my friends, in whose cranium the bump of Veneration has been atrophied, wrote the following witty lines:
Hotel Majestic! Gaze in reverent awe
Upon the Fane of Peace – above whose door
It’s clear to me the legend should appear
‘Abandon Peace, all ye who enter here.’
Pass the gyrating door and, once within,
Detectives, hall-marked by their diamond pin,
Will put you through a strict interrogation –
Your birthmarks, age, religion and vocation:
Remembering that there’s nothing like the truth
To rouse suspicion in your super-sleuth,
Answer at random – and they’ll pass you through.
Proceed and Paradise is yours to view.
A stately hall, replete with every sign
Of true refinement (viz. Bosche-Argentine):
Luxurious straight-backed chairs: two spreading shrubs,
Two metres tall, in tasty Teuton tubs:
While the mere waving of some magic wand,
Either of Selfridge or, it may be, Mond,
Has given the final touch we else should lack,
That classic harmony, the Union Jack.
Here’s where the Foreign Office wage their war,
And though the hours are, strictly, ten to four,
Even at five amid the tea-cups’ clatter
Sit men who count discussing things that matter.
Birth, brains and beauty throng the crowded tables:
The typists, clad in silver fox and sables;
Second Division clerks, too proud by far
To go to work except by motorcar
(And Balham’s happiness is incomplete
Without a bathroom and a first-floor suite):
Colonial Premiers, Rajahs, Plenipotentiaries,
True Britons, who have not been Jews for centuries,
Generals (but since they helped to win the war
No one can guess what they’ve been brought here for,
Unless some kindly soul leapt at the chance
Of letting soldiers sample life in France
And for the Navy thought it only fair
Odd People Page 22