My adventures as a German secret agent

It was in Paris that my next adventure occurred. I had gone there following one of those agreeably indefinite conversations with my tutor which always preceded some especial undertaking. “Why not take a rest for a few weeks?” he would say. “You have not seen Paris in some time. You would enjoy visiting the city again—don’t you think so?” And I would obligingly agree with him—and in due course would receive whatever instructions were necessary.

It may seem that such methods are needlessly cumbersome and a little too romantic to be real; but in fact there is an excellent reason for them. Work such as mine is governed too greatly by emergencies to admit of definite planning beforehand. A contingency is foreseen—faintly, and as a possibility only—and it is thought advisable to have a man on the scene. But until that contingency develops into an assured fact, it would be the sheerest waste of energy to give an agent definite instructions which might have to be changed at any moment.

So I had become accustomed to receive my instructions in hints and stingy morsels, understanding perfectly that it was part of my task to discover for myself the exact details of the situation which confronted my government. If I were not sufficiently astute to perceive for myself many things which my superiors would never tell me—well, I was in the wrong profession, and the sooner I discovered it the better.

I went to Paris in just that way and put up at the Grand Hotel. So far as I knew I was on genuine leave of absence from all duties and I proceeded to amuse myself. Though under no obligations to report to anyone, I did occasionally drop around to the Quai d’Orsay—where most of the embassies and consulates are—to chat with men I knew. One day it was suggested to me at the Germany Embassy that I lunch alone the next day at a certain table in the Café Americaine. “I would suggest,” said one of the secretaries, “that you wear the black derby you have on. It is quite becoming,”—this with an expressionless face. “I would suggest also that you hang it on the wall behind your table, not checking it. Take note of the precise hook upon which you hang it. It may be that there will be a man at the next table who also will be wearing a black derby hat, which he will hang on the hook next to yours. When you go out be careful to take down his hat instead of your own.”

I asked no questions. I knew better. Old and well known as it is, the “hat trick” is perennially useful. Its very simplicity makes it difficult of detection. It is still the best means of publicly exchanging documents between persons who must not be seen to have any connection with each other.

I went to the Café Americaine, that cosmopolitan place on the Boulevard des Italiens near the opera. My man had not yet come, I noticed, and I took my time about ordering luncheon, drank a “bock” and watched the crowd. Near by was a party of Roumanians, offensively boisterous, I thought. An American was lunching with a dancer then prominent at the Folies. Two Englishmen—obviously officers on leave—chatted at another table, and in a corner, a group of French merchants heatedly discussed some business deal. The usual scene ... almost commonplace in its variety.

Slowly I finished luncheon, and when I turned to get my hat, I saw, as I expected, that there was another black derby beside it. I took the stranger’s derby, and when I reached my room in the Grand Hotel I lifted up the sweatband. There on thin paper were instructions that took my breath away. For the time being I was to be in charge of the “Independent Service” of the German Government in Paris—that is, the Strong Arm Squad.

This so-called “Independent Service” is an interesting organization of cut-throats and thieves whose connection with diplomatic undertakings is of a distinctly left-handed sort, and is, incidentally, totally unsuspected by the members of the organization themselves. Composed of the riff-raff of Europe—of men and women who will do anything for a consideration and ask no questions—it is frequently useful when subtler methods have failed and when by violence only can some particular thing be accomplished. As an organization the “Independent Service” does not actually exist: the name is merely a generic one applied for convenience to the large number of people in all great cities who are available for such work, and who, if they fail and are arrested or killed, can be spared without risk or sorrow.

Naturally in illegal operations the trail must not lead to the embassy; and for that reason all transactions with members of the “Service” are carried on through a person who has no known connection with the Government. To his accomplices the Government agent is merely a man who has come to them with a profitable suggestion. They do not question his motives if his cash be good.

My connection with this delightful organization necessitated a change of personality. I went round to the Quai d’Orsay and paid a few farewell calls to my friends there. I was going home, I said; and that afternoon the Grand Hotel lost one guest and Le Lapin Agile on the hill of Montmartre gained a new one. Acting under instructions I had become a social outcast myself.

The place where I had been told to stay had been a tavern for centuries. Once it was called the Cabaret of the Assassins, then the Cabaret of the Traitor, then My Country Place and now, after fifty years, it was The Sprightly Rabbit. André Gill had painted the sign of the tavern, a rabbit which hung in the street above the entrance. After I had taken my room—being careful to haggle long about the price, and finally securing a reduction of fifty centimes—for one does well to appear poor at Le Lapin Agile—I came down into the cabaret. It was crowded and the air was thick and warm with tobacco smoke. Disreputable couples were sitting around little wooden tables, drinking wretched wine from unlabeled bottles; an occasional shout arose for “tomatoes,” a specialty of Frederic, the proprietor, which was, in reality, a vile brew of absinthe and raspberry syrup. There was much shouting and once or twice one of the company burst into song.

“Tomatoes,” I told the waiter who came for my order. As he went I slipped a franc into his hand. “I want to see The Salmon. Is he in?”

He nodded.

A moment later a man stood before me. I saw a short, rather thick-set fellow, awkward but wiry, whose face bore somewhere the mark of a forgotten Irish ancestor. He was red-haired. I did not need his words to tell me who he was.

“I am The Salmon,” he said. “What do you want?”

I studied him carefully before replying, appraising him as if he were a horse I contemplated buying. It was not tactful or altogether safe, as The Salmon’s expression plainly showed; but I wished to be sure of my man. After a moment:

“Sit down, my friend,” I told him. “I have a business proposition to make. M. Morel sent me to you.”

He smiled at the name. The fictitious M. Morel had put him in the way of several excellent “business propositions.”

“It is a pleasure,” responded The Salmon. “What does Monsieur wish?”

I told him....

In order to make you understand the business I was on, it is necessary that I pause here, abandoning The Salmon for the moment, and recall to your memory a few facts about the political situation as it existed in this month of February, 1911. Europe at the time was alull—to outward seeming. As everybody knows now the forces that later brought about the War were then merrily at work, as indeed they had been for many years. But outwardly, save for the ever impending certainty of trouble in the Balkans, the world of Europe was at peace.

But in America a storm was brewing. Mexico, which for so many years had been held at peace under the iron dictatorship of Diaz, was beginning to develop symptoms of organized discontent. Madero had taken to the field, and although no one at the time believed in the ultimate success of the rebellion, it was evident that many changes might take place in the country, which would seriously affect the interests of thousands of European investors in Mexican enterprises. Consequently Europe was interested.

I do not purpose here to go into the events of those last days of Diaz’s rule. That story has already been told, many times and from various angles. I am merely interested in the European aspects of the matter, and particularly in the attitude of Germany.

Europe was interested, as I have said. Diaz was growing old and could certainly not last much longer. Then change must come. Was the Golden Age of the foreign investor, which had so long continued in Mexico, to continue still longer? Or would it end with the death of the Dictator?

To these questions, which were having their due share of attention in the chancellories as well as in the commercial houses of Europe, came another, less apparent but more troublesome and more insistent than any of these. Japan, it was rumored, although very faintly, was seeking to add to its considerable interest in Mexico, by securing a strip of territory on the western coast of that country—an attempt which, if successful, would almost certainly bring about intervention by the United States.

My government was especially interested in this movement on the part of Japan. It knew considerably more about the plan than any save the principals, for, as I happened to learn later on, it had carefully encouraged the whole idea—for its own purposes. And it knew that at that very time, the financial minister of Mexico, Jose Yves Limantour, was conducting preliminary negotiations in Paris with representatives of Japan, regarding the terms of a possible treaty. It knew that even then a protocol of this treaty was being drawn up.

There was only one thing that my government wanted—a copy of the protocol. It was that which I had been instructed to get!

The personality of Limantour is one of the most interesting of our day. Brilliant, incorruptible, unquestionably the most able Mexican of his generation, he had for seventeen years been closely associated with the dictator, and for a considerable portion of that period had been second only to Diaz in actual power. His presence in Paris at this time was significant. He had left Mexico on the 11th of July, 1910, ostensibly because of the poor health of his wife, although it had been reported that a serious break had taken place between himself and Diaz. He had spent a certain amount of time in Switzerland, and had later come to Paris to arrange a loan of more that $100,000,000 with a group of English, French and German bankers. But that task had been completed in the early part of December, and in view of the unsettled conditions in Mexico, there was no good reason for his continuing in Paris, save one—the negotiations with Japan.

It was this man against whom I was to fight—this man who had proven himself more than a match for some of the best brains of both continents. The prospect was not reassuring. I knew that already several attempts had been made by our agents to secure the protocol, with the result that Limantour was sure to be more on his guard than he ordinarily would have been. Yet I must succeed—and it was plain that I could do so only by violence.

Violence it should be, then; and with the assistance of my friend The Salmon—to whom, you may be sure, I did not confide my real object—I prepared a plan of campaign, which we duly presented to a group of The Salmon’s friends, who had been selected to assist us. To these men—Apaches, every one of them—I was presented as a decayed gentleman who for reasons of his own had found it necessary to join the forces of The Salmon. I was a good fellow, The Salmon assured them, and by way of proving my friendship I had shared with him my knowledge of a good “prospect” whom I had discovered.

“The man,” I said, “always carries lots of money and jewelry.” Of course I did not tell them his name was Limantour. I said he always played cards late at the club. “To stick him up,” I said, “will be the simplest thing in the world, but we must be careful not to hurt him badly—not enough to set the police hot on our trail.” The Apaches fell in with the proposal enthusiastically. We would attempt it the following night.

Now the instructions which came to me under the sweatband of the black derby in the Café Americaine informed me that every night quite late Limantour received at the club a copy of the report of the day’s conference with the Japanese envoy. It was prepared and delivered to Limantour by his secretary and it was his habit to study it, upon returning home, and plan out his line of attack for the negotiations of the following day. I concluded that Limantour therefore would have it (the report) on his person when he left the club.

Accordingly I had my Apaches waiting in the shadows. There were five of us. Limantour started to walk home, as I knew he was frequently in the habit of doing. We followed and in the first quiet street that he ventured down, he was blackjacked. In his pockets we found a little money and some papers, one glance of which assured me were of no value.

My carefully planned coup had failed. You can imagine how I felt about such a fiasco and how very quickly I had to think. Here was my first big chance and I had thoroughly and hopelessly bungled it. Limantour was already stirring. The blow he had received had purposely been made light. If he recovered to find himself robbed merely of an insignificant sum of money and some papers his suspicions would be aroused. I could not hope for another chance at him. I knew that Limantour was too clever not to sense something other than ordinary robbery in such an attack upon him. Furthermore my Apaches had to be bluffed and deceived as thoroughly as he was. I had promised them a victim who carried loads of money and at the few coins they had obtained there was much growling. Luckily I had a flash of sense. I resolved to turn the mishap to my advantage.

“We hit the wrong night, that’s all,” I muttered. “You take the coins and get away. I am going to try to fool him.” Like rats they scurried away. When Limantour came to he found a very solicitous young man concerned with his welfare.

“I saw them from down the street,” I told him, “they evidently knocked you out, but they cleared out when I came. Did they get anything from you? Here seem to be some letters.” And from the sidewalk I picked up and restored to him the papers I had taken from his pockets, not two minutes before.

Limantour accepted them and I knew that my audacity had triumphed.

“They are not of very much importance,” said Limantour, “and I had only a few francs on me.”

Then suddenly, as if he just realized that he was alive and unharmed, Jose Limantour began to thank me for my assistance. I thought of those who had told me he was a cold, hard distant man. Limantour flung his arms around my neck. I was his savior! I was a very brave young gentleman. If I had not come up so boldly and promptly to his aid, he might have been very badly beaten, perhaps even killed. For all he knew he owed me his life. He must thank me. He must know his preserver. Here was his card. Might he have mine? I had been wise enough to keep some of my old cards when I changed the rest of my personality from the Grand Hotel to Montmartre. I gave him one of them.

“A German,” he exclaimed, “and a worthy representative of that worthy race.” Limantour was enchanted. “And you live at the Grand Hotel?”

That was better still. I was only a sojourner in Paris and one might venture to offer me hospitality—no? Next day he would send around a formal invitation to come and dine at his house and meet his family. They would be delighted to meet this brave and intrepid hero and would also wish to thank me.

In a nearby café we had a drink and parted for the night. Next morning of course I had to appear again at the Grand Hotel. On foot I walked away from Le Lapin Agile, jumping into a taxi when I was out of sight. The taxi took me to the Gare du Nord; there I doubled in my tracks and presently, as if just having left a train, I took another taxi and was driven with my luggage to the hotel. I dropped around that afternoon to the Quai d’Orsay and called upon some of my acquaintances, remarking that I had come back for a little holiday. That night I had the pleasure of dining with Limantour.

Thereafter I had to lead a double life. By day, I was an habitue of prominent hotels, restaurants, and clubs. I associated with young diplomats and occasionally took a pretty girl to tea. By night I lived in Le Lapin Agile and consorted with thugs and their ilk. It cost me sleep, but I did not begrudge that in view of the stakes. All this time I was cultivating the acquaintance of Limantour and those around him.

Shortly afterward I succeeded in taking one of the members of his household on a rather wild party and when his head was full of champagne he babbled that Limantour and his family were planning to sail for Cuba and Mexico on the following Saturday. I was also informed that on Friday, the day before the sailing, there would be a farewell reception at one of the embassies. Knowing Limantour’s habits of work as I did by this time, I was able to lay my plans with as much certainty as prevails in my profession. After weighing all the possibilities I decided to defer my attempt on him until this last Friday night. I reasoned that he would probably receive a draft of the agreement from his secretary at the club late than night. He would take it home with him and go over it with microscopic care. The next forenoon—Saturday—he would meet the Japanese envoy just long enough to finish the matter and then he would hurry to the steamer. Of course Limantour might have acted in a different way. That was the chance one has to take.

Friday night came. In his luxurious limousine, Limantour and his family went to the farewell reception of the embassy. Comparatively early, he said his farewell—leaving Madame to go home later—and in his car he proceeded to the club. I saw him pass through the vestibule after leaving his chauffeur with instructions to wait. My guess as to Limantour’s movements had been right, so the plans I had made worked smoothly.

I, too, had an automobile waiting near his club. Two of my men sauntered over to Limantour’s car. Under pretence of sociability they invited his chauffeur to have a drink. They led him into a little café on a side street near by, the proprietor of which was in with the gang. Limantour’s chauffeur had one drink and went to sleep. My men stripped him of his livery, which one of them donned. Presently Limantour had a new chauffeur sitting at the wheel of his limousine.

An hour later Limantour was seen hurrying out of the club. As a man will, he scarcely noticed his chauffeur but cast a brief “home” to the man at the wheel. His limousine started, following a route through deserted residential streets, in one of which I had the trap ready. Half blocking the road was a large automobile, apparently broken down. It was the automobile in which I had been waiting outside the club. In it were four of my Apaches. Limantour’s car was called upon to stop.

“Can you lend me a wrench?” one of my men shouted to Limantour’s false chauffeur.

His limousine stopped. That free masonry which existed in the early days between motorists lent itself nicely to the situation. It was most natural for the chauffeur of Limantour’s car to get out and help my stalled motor. Indeed, Limantour himself opened the door of the limousine and half protruding his body, called out with the kindest intentions.

To throw a chloroform-soaked towel over his head was the work of an instant. In half a minute he was having dreams—which I trust were pleasant. It was still necessary to keep my own men in the dark, to give these thugs no inkling that this was a diplomatic job. This time I was prepared; for I had learned of Limantour’s habits in regard to carrying money on his person. In my right hand overcoat pocket there were gold coins and bank notes. With the leader of the gang, I went through Limantour’s clothes. In the darkness of that street, it was a simple matter to seem to extract from them a double fist-full of gold pieces and currency, which I turned over to The Salmon.

“Perhaps he has more bank notes,” I muttered, and I reached for the inner pocket of his coat. There my fingers closed upon a stiff document that made them tingle. “I’ll just grab everything and we can go over it afterwards.” Out of Limantour’s possession into mine came pocket-book, letters, card-case and that heavy familiar feeling paper.

Dumping the unconscious Limantour into his limousine we cranked up our car and were off, leaving behind us at the worst, plain evidence of a crime common enough in Paris. It was to be corroborated next morning by the discovery of a drunken chauffeur, for we took pains to go back and get him once more into his uniform and full of absinthe. But it did not come to even that much scandal. Limantour, for obvious reasons, did not report the incident to the police. The next morning it was given out that Limantour had gone into the country and would not sail for a week. He had had a sudden recrudescence of an old throat trouble and must rest and undergo treatment before undertaking the voyage to Mexico—so the specialist said. This report appeared in Paris newspapers of the day. Of the protocol nothing was said at that time or later—by Señor Limantour.

I turned it over to the proper authorities in Berlin, and very soon departed from Montmartre, leaving behind me a well-contented group of Apaches, who assured me warmly that I was born for their profession. I did not argue the question with them.

There the matter might have ended; but Germany had another card to play. On February 27, 1911, Limantour left Paris for New York, to confer with members of the Madero family, in order if possible to effect a reconciliation and to end the Madero revolt. He landed in New York on March 7th. On that very day, by an odd coincidence, as one commentator[2] calls it, the United States mobilized 20,000 troops on the Mexican border!

It was no coincidence. The Wilhelmstrasse had read the proposed terms of the treaty with great interest. It had noted the secret clauses which gave Japan the lease of a coaling station, together with manoeuver privileges in Magdalena Bay, or at some other port on the Mexican coast which the Japanese Government might prefer. It had noted, too, that agreement which, although not expressly stipulating that Japan and Mexico should form an offensive and defensive alliance, implied that Japan would see to it that Mexico was protected against aggression.

And then Germany—acting always for her own interests—forwarded the treaty to Mexico, where it was placed in the hands of the American Ambassador, Henry Lane Wilson.

Mr. Wilson immediately left for Washington with a photograph of portions of the treaty. A Cabinet meeting was held. That night orders were sent out for the mobilization of American troops, the assembling of United States marines in Guantanamo and the patrolling of the west coast of Mexico by warships of the United States.

Within a week Mr. Wilson held a conference in New York with Señor Limantour. Limantour left hurriedly for Mexico City, arriving there March 20th. Conferences were held. Japan denied the existence of the treaty and Washington recalled its war vessels and demobilized its troops. But barely seven weeks after Limantour arrived in Mexico, Madero, the bankrupt, with his handful of troops “captured” Ciudad Juarez. And shortly after, Diaz, discredited and powerless, resigned from the office he had held for a generation.

That is the story of the fall of Diaz so far as Germany was concerned in it. There were other elements involved, of course—but this is not a history of Mexico.

Germany had done the United States a service. It is interesting to consider the motives for her action.

Those motives may be explained in two words: South America.

Germany, let it be understood, wants South America and has wanted it for many years. Not as a possession—the Wilhelmstrasse is not insane—but as a customer and an ally. Like many other nations, Germany has seen in the countries of Latin America an invaluable market for her own goods and an unequaled producer of raw supplies for her own manufacturers. She has sought to control that market to the best of her abilities. But she has also done what no other European nation has dared to do—she has attempted to form alliances with the South American countries which, in the event of war between the United States and Germany, would create a diversion in Germany’s favor, and effectively tie the hands of the United States so far as any offensive action was concerned.

There was just one stumbling block to this plan: the Monroe Doctrine. It was patent to German diplomats that such an alliance could never be secured unless the South American countries were roused to such a degree of hostility against the United States that they would welcome an opportunity to affront the government which had proclaimed that doctrine. And Germany, casting about for a means of making trouble, had encouraged the Japanese-Mexican alliance, hoping for intervention in Mexico and the subsequent arousal of fear and ill-feeling toward the United States on the part of the South American countries.

And Germany had been so anxious for the United States to intervene in Mexico that she had not only encouraged a treaty which would be inimical to your interests, but had made certain that knowledge of this treaty should come into your government’s hands by placing it there herself!

The United States did not intervene and Germany for the moment failed. But Germany did not give up hope. The intrigue against the United States through Mexico had only begun.

It has not ended yet.