by Nigel West
On 24 August Pickard was arrested. A mass of correspondence was found among his effects, ammonia and a packet of cotton wool, also a bottle of an unknown liquid somewhat resembling water, and a box of ball-point pens.
In his interrogation Vieyra stated that he had bought films to the amount of £164 since coming to England in May, and had sold them at a profit of £80. He could however give no reasonable account of his business dealings with S. Blom, ‘his partner’. He denied knowing Dikker or Schultz but said he had some years before been introduced to Voltmann by Schmidt. He had brought to England a draft for £125 bought in the name of Leo Pickard from the Twentsche Bankvereeniging, E. W. Blydenstein and Company, Amsterdam; this was cashed by a film dealer and with it he opened an account with the London City and Midland Bank. Remittances for £100 and £121.9s.7d. followed, paid through Dutch banks to their correspondents here. The last payment was entered to the account of S. Blom.
Further efforts were made in Holland to get precise details regarding Blom, but were ineffectual. Josepha Jenson, Mrs S. Dikker and Philip Dikker maintained silence. Sergeant Ginhoven was then sent over.
Exhaustive analysis of the bottle of unknown liquid found in Vieyra’s possession showed that it contained salts of an uncommon substance in such minute quantity that ordinary methods could not touch it. Eventually a threefold process of development was discovered and to this a letter of Vieyra’s dated 14 July 1916 and addressed to Blom which had been detained and previously tested without result was submitted. The test was successful and a secret message about sailors, the calling up of Belgian soldiers, munitions, and the transport of troops was revealed. The en clair message acknowledged receipt of Blom’s letter of the 26th; the secret message which was imperfectly developed mentioned Plymouth, Newcastle and Glasgow, and matters of naval interest.
The case till then had been singularly weak as it rested entirely upon Vieyra’s relations with Blom whose identity had not been satisfactorily established. It may be interesting to note the work required by the lawyers for bolstering up the case as it presented itself, before the final proof was obtained. Proof of handwriting; proof of Vieyra’s first interrogation compared with his application for permit to go to Holland; a statement from Blydenstein’s bank and a copy of the account; a statement from the London City and Midland Bank; tracing as complete as possible of all the money paid by Blom to Vieyra; first-hand evidence as to the occupier of 28 Pretoriusstraat, the names and relationships of those persons, and a certified extract from the Dutch Marriage Register of Simon Dikker to Sophia Blom; evidence given about Dikker in the case of Greite could be repeated in this case and a comparison of the letters from Dikker to Greite with those from S. Blom to Vieyra might be useful; the description of S. Blom given by Vieyra might be compared with the appearance of Simon Dikker, if Sergeant Ginhoven could succeed in interviewing the man; particulars of Frank, Voltmann, Schmidt and Schultz would be useful should cross-examination be necessary; particulars also of Vieyra’s bona-fide business transactions were to be obtained. This necessitated the sorting of the enormous mass of correspondence into files under the names of the addressees.
Hubert Ginhoven, who was sent to Holland, discovered that there was no dealer in gold and silver, or dealer in films named S. Blom in 28 Pretoriusstraat, but a year previously Simon Dikker had been running a pawn-shop in the name of his wife S. Blom. Dikker admitted having furnished an accommodation of Vieyra’s correspondence and that Vieyra had written to and received money from S. Blom but denied knowing Blom’s present address.
Ginhoven also furnished particulars about Philip Dikker, whom he overheard talking to Frank, 33 Regulierbreestraat, about the case of Pickard. Frank stated that he had received fifty-five packets of films from Pickard and a list of another set of films which would follow if Frank sent the necessary certificate from the Netherland Oversea Trust. Frank had not paid for the films, had not given Pickard any money and knew no one named S. Blom in the film business. Josephine Jensen admitted going with Vieyra to Rotterdam to see Elte, who gave Vieyra some money; but to another agent she stated that the interview had taken place at The Hague. Elte admitted knowing Pickard but denied having given him any commission in England, and denied all knowledge of S. Blom.
Ginhoven’s report was corroborated by the Amsterdam police to whom the Dutch consul-general had referred after some correspondence with S. Blom. Proof was given by dealers in films and the Secretary of the British Board of Film Censors whom Vieyra had seen in the course of business, that he had never once mentioned S. Blom although he had spoken of his partner; on the other hand the evidence of employees of the London City and Midland Bank showed that £121 9s. 7d. had been paid to his account by order of S. Blom, 28 Pretoriusstraat, Amsterdam, and the Twentsche Bankvereeniging admitted having made a payment on behalf of S. Blom on 26 May.
Further evidence showed that Pickard had been in communication with a dancer of German birth, a woman who had between August and October 1914 entered various prohibited areas. Evidence was also given of the testing of the letter of 14 July, in July, without result and again in September after receipt of the bottle of colourless liquid which was found in Vieyra’s possession. A letter from S. Blom to Pickard dated 26 July was also included among the exhibits.
Major Drake gave evidence of the warnings received about Vieyra from Tinsley, of the intercepted letters to and from Blom, and of enquiries made with regard to Blom in Holland, also of the information possessed by the bureau concerning the spy Dikker.
Meanwhile, the Dutch consulate had been communicating with S. Blom, presumably through the legation bag since the letters were not stopped by the censor, and S. Blom answered and complained of the annoying visits of mysterious persons who wanted to know all about his partner.
Vieyra’s trial by court martial began on 14 November; on the 15th he confessed. He told of his having been asked to go to England by Elte in the presence of van Leeuwen and Frank; of his subsequent engagement and journey to Antwerp, where he saw Schultz and received orders to go to Newcastle, Glasgow, Portsmouth, Plymouth, Hull, Harwich and Sheerness; his special quest at Newcastle being to obtain information re ship-building and repairing. Vieyra was to write to S. Blom, whom he never met, neither had he ever met Philip or Simon Dikker. Schultz instructed him in the use of secret ink, and gave him a bottle of the liquid and three handkerchiefs impregnated with it. Vieyra sent from seven to ten letters in secret ink to S. Blom, his reports being drawn from imagination, from the newspapers, and from what he saw in the streets. He never received any code message from Blom.
Vieyra was charged under DRR section 24A with attempting to send abroad a message written in a secret medium, dated 14 July 1916; under section 18 with attempting to communicate information on the same date under section 18A with having been in communication with a spy, namely S. Blom. Vieyra was sentenced to be shot having been found guilty on all three charges. The sentence was commuted to imprisonment for life.
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Adolpho Guerrero had declared that the Germans were seeking to engage North Americans as spies and the truth of this statement was proved in the case of George Bacon and his friends. Bacon, however, belongs to the group of persons connected with the spy address of Meisner-Denis, 53 Rokin, Amsterdam, and of these the first in order of date is Jacobus Johannes van Zurk who was brought to notice on 31 May 1916.
In various interviews he gave Richard Tinsley the information that he had been engaged by the Germans to visit Glasgow, Newcastle and Cardiff, but he was not to go to Liverpool, since a Dutchman stationed there furnished excellent reports, that his (van Zurk’s) reports were to be directed to van der Hucht and to Meisner-Denis, 68 Rokin, Amsterdam, that in a silver-mounted scent-bottle he carried secret ink made up as toilet water, that his en clair messages were to concern insurance business. Van Zurk supplied the British with a specimen of his ink.
Van Zurk, accompanied by his mistress Elsie Scott, came to England and was made use of to write to van der Hucht
, but not to Meisner-Denis, and at the end of July £77 was deposited for van Zurk at Blydenstein’s Bank on behalf of the Germans. He proved not only unsatisfactory but dangerous; Elsie Scott after contriving a quarrel with him went to live with her mother at 39 Pyke Road, Barry Dock, and, with her mother denounced van Zurk to the police there.
The bureau shipped van Zurk back to Holland with a no return permit. The check on his correspondence showed that he kept up affectionate relations with Elsie Scott and that she was hoping to rejoin him in Holland. She was not allowed to go nor was van Zurk allowed to come and fetch her, and in March 1917 Tinsley was warned to have nothing more to do with van Zurk.
The checks on the various addresses were cancelled in the course of 1917. Then, in 1918, information received from the Americans caused Elsie Scott again to he regarded with suspicion. Her complicated family relationships were thoroughly investigated and orders were issued that neither she nor her mother were to be allowed to leave the United Kingdom.
The discovery of the Antwerp roll of spies threw further light on this case; Jakobus van Zurk (A-40) on returning to Holland had again applied for work with the Germans; his task was to investigate conditions in the Bristol Channel, Edinburgh, Glasgow and Ireland, and a report was expected from his wife (Elsie Scott) on her return from England.
A check had been placed on Meisner’s address on 10 June 1916, and on 13 July, a letter addressed to Denis, 53 Rokin, Amsterdam, written by Mrs Albertine Stanaway, 63 Sandgate Road, Folkestone, was intercepted. It is impossible to understand Mrs Stanaway’s case without an intimate acquaintance with that of Pierre Rotheudt, which dates back to the earliest days of 1915.
On 27 January 1915 the Foreign Office was informed by Rotterdam that Pierre A. Rotheudt, a Belgian grain merchant of German parentage and sympathies, was coming to England as a German agent, and going to the address of J. Williams, Lennock House, Boutflower Road, Clapham Junction. The information was circulated to the Director of Intelligence Department, MO5G and Criminal Investigation Department. As the port control was not then built up into efficient service, Rotheudt slipped past unnoticed by the bureau.
The police, however, acting independently, called at Williams’ house and ascertained that Rotheudt had arrived on the 28th, and had been sent by Williams to the Shaftesbury Hotel, whence he had gone to Folkestone to the house of a Mrs Stanaway. Mrs Stanaway was asked to give up any letters which might be addressed to Rotheudt at her house but she had none. Rotheudt was interviewed at Scotland Yard and allowed to go. Rotheudt stated that he was a corporal of the 8th Regiment of the Line in the Belgian Army; had escaped from Namur, and renewed acquaintance with his old schoolfellow, Williams, in Paris on 25 August; he had been invalided and had been living at Roosendael with a man named van Melle; he had come over to England on business but was expecting shortly to rejoin the army.
Rotheudt went back to the Front; was wounded, and after being in hospital at La Panne, went to Folkestone on 12 July, and again put up with Mrs Stanaway of 84 Cheriton Road. At the same time he hired another room in a house opposite the French consulate and so situated that he could see everyone who went into the consulate. Soon after the Germans shot a number of French agents on their appearance in German territory. It was supposed that Rotheudt had furnished information leading to such action for, by 26 July, the French Intelligence Service had evidence that Rotheudt was in communication with Haasbroeck, a sub-agent of Hilmar Dierks, alias Sanderson, and addressing letters to Corn-Winterberg, Rywielhandel, 16 Bierambachstraat, Rotterdam. Rotheudt was also expecting to receive letters through Williams at the Shaftesbury Hotel.
Rotheudt, who arrived from France on 12 July 1915, was arrested and closely examined by Captain Dillon but he managed to clear himself. The Belgians, however, watched him; they gave him some small post in the Belgian consulate. Then a Belgian gendarme named Dumont ascertained that Rotheudt had telegraphed to and received postal orders of £5 and £10 from ‘Hector’, 132 Prins Hendrikkade, Rotterdam and Rotheudt was arrested by the Belgian authorities between the 23 and 30 August on a charge of high treason.
The details of the case were for long unknown to the bureau which had confined action to Hebden communicating the French report about Rotheudt and the verifications obtained from the Folkestone police, to Commandant Mage. Commandant Mage replied, giving the bare facts of Rotheudt’s arrest and asking for enquiry with regard to Williams and a woman named ‘Ebden’ with whom Rotheudt was said to be intimately acquainted.
The police in enquiring for Williams of the Shaftesbury Hotel got on to the wrong track; but the woman was identified as Mrs Selma Hebden of 34 Broadmead Road, Folkestone, a German, British by marriage and well-connected. She stated that she did not know Rotheudt but that through Mrs Stanaway, her dressmaker, she had procured Rotheudt’s services to get a travelling trunk belonging to her from Aix-la-Chapelle. On the outbreak of war Mrs Hebden and her husband, who were staying at Aix-la-Chapelle, had been obliged to leave at two hours’ notice. Rotheudt proposed to recover her box through ‘von Millais’ with whom Mrs Hebden had entered into communication.
The bureau instituted further enquiries about Mrs Hebden and at last on 16 October a report was received from the Chief Constable of Folkestone corroborating the information given above and enclosing two postcards from ‘Vancellelle’ Borgeshout 16, Roosendael, about Mrs Hebden’s box. Late in September, Commandant Mage asked for and was granted a full warrant for all correspondence addressed to Mrs Stanaway, who admitted having received and answered letters from Rotheudt’s friends and also having received £3 from van Melle of Roosendael to pay for Rotheudt’s defence. This money had been posted in London. It is obvious that ‘von Millais’ and ‘Vancellelle’ represented misreadings of ‘van Melle’s’ name. At the request of Commandant Mage the originals of the telegrams sent to ‘Hector’ by Rotheudt on 17 and 21 August were produced; in the second Rotheudt had asked that, a reply should be sent to Hebden’s address which he gave. ‘Hector’ sent £10 on 23 August, but to Mrs Stanaway’s address, this apparently explains a request which came from the Rotterdam Post Office on 23 August that their telegram of advice wrongly sent to Folkestone should be returned. It was decided that the originals of the telegrams and orders must in no case leave the United Kingdom. Independent enquiry was made by the Paris General Post Office as to a postal order for 20 francs which had been sent to Rotheudt by ‘Vancellelle’ of Roosendael. Rotheudt had told a Belgian agent that he was in correspondence with van Melle and received 50 francs a month from him.
Van Melle and his wife and Rotheudt were all questioned as to their relations with each other; Rotheudt stated that the money had been left for him with van Melle by his parents, who had been expelled from Antwerp early in October 1914 and had then come to Holland; Mrs van Melle admitted that she had lodged with Rotheudt’s parents but denied having accepted any deposit for their son; van Melle denied that he knew Rotheudt at all. Commandant Mage sent this information to the bureau in January 1917, for the purposes of their investigation only into the case of Mrs Stanaway.
Rotheudt was tried by court martial in France, and sentenced to death on 11 December 1916, but the sentence was commuted to imprisonment for life. He was shut up in Fresnes Prison.
Mrs Stanaway had been sharing a house with Madame Grouillet, who went to Calais to give evidence at the trial. On her return Madame Grouillet turned Mrs Stanaway out of the house because she was an object of suspicion to the police.
From prison Rotheudt, through an illicit channel, sent to Mrs Stanaway a long account of the court martial, which she destroyed, but she kept a letter in which he stated that he had been tried for espionage. Through the gendarme Dumont, who was a principal witness, she obtained Lieutenant Michiel’s version of the trial – this she copied, although it was addressed to Dumony, and alleged afterwards that she had destroyed the original. In September she sent Rotheudt £5, received from van Melle; in January 1916, she sent him a 20 franc Belgian note. Through Stanaway, Roth
eudt communicated as he wished with the outer world. He wrote to her on 27 March, 5, 10 and 23 April, and 8 May enclosing fabricated receipts to prove that ‘Hector’s’ remittances were in reality a loan, and he also sent three letters in April for Stanaway to forward with the receipts to the Orsbach family in Amsterdam. One of these was a draft of a letter purporting to come from his parents. This draft bolstered up the story of the loan; it was to be copied and returned to Rotheudt with the receipts through Stanaway. At the same time, Rotheudt corresponded with the Orsbach family once a month through the regular prison channels and Stanaway wrote simple straightforward notes about him to Miss Emmy Orsbach (also known as Durbac). But she forwarded the forged receipts and the illicit letters to the Orsbach family on 29 April 1916, and in May Rodolphe Orsbach wrote out a letter in the sense desired by Rotheudt.
In May or June Albertine Stanaway heard from Meisner-Denis, but there is no record of the contents of that letter. On the intercepted on 13 July, she wrote to Meisner-Denis giving him her new address, 63 Sandgate Road, and stating that Pierre was still in France. On 11 August, she wrote again acknowledging receipt of a letter of 28 July, thanking him for its contents which she would forward to the ‘unfortunate one’ and hoping he had received a registered letter which she had posted to Meisner-Denis on 9 August. This was a letter written by Mrs Stanaway on paper belonging to the Charing Cross Hotel, signed ‘R. Valravens, Chaplain’ and addressed: ‘Dear Madame’. The gist of it was that ‘Mr P. R.’ could no longer write to her or receive her letters but she might still forward money and the eye-glasses. On 13 August, Rotheudt resumed his correspondence with Orsbach, writing this time in Flemish and forwarding his letter by an illicit channel. This letter is not extant but he followed it up with a letter in French written on 1 September and obviously despatched by some other intermediary than Mrs Stanaway. He explains to Orsbach that Mrs Stanaway had suppressed his April letters to Orsbach, that two months had passed before Rotheudt heard of it, that she had sent him money (20 francs) from van Melle in August and that he suspected her of embezzling his supplies.
