WOMAN SPY’S PRICE

Hokitika Guardian, 17 September 1920, Page 1

WOMAN SPY’S PRICE

CHEMIN DES' BAMEfe' “CONFESSION.”

PARIS, July 17. How lie sold tlie French' plans of defences of the Ciiemin des Dames, the scene of so much French sacrifice and heroism, for ;fif)0,000 is related hy Albert Nobelcourt, arrested at Corbeil for murder* and theft, committed at Bruyeros, near Arpajon. He declared yesterday that when called up for military service lie was invalided through the agency of an officer, who sooii afterwards commissioned him to carry military plans into Switzerland, where lie was to hand them to the

head of tile German espionage service. He was" accompanied by a woman, who v’iis likewise in the service of the officer concerned; He went disguised as a Swiss’ peasant returning home. The plans 1 were carried in a concertina. They reached Bale without difficulty, handed over the plans" and received the money, £60,000. Htt gave £2OOO to the ■ woman, arid then returned to France with fresh passports. Meanwhile the officer had 1 ' fallen under suspicion, and Nobelcourt' hid the money and certain compromising papers. Later the woman" also reappeared'and

claimed more money as the pried of her silencev She' got Nobelcourt arrested and sent" to a lunatic asylum, whence he was speedily released. Returning home to' Bruyeres", ■Nobelcourt says that in a‘fit of rage he killed a man of 78 named Emil Pietre anc took his watch aiid rimney. At first R ■was suspected" that the whole story wa; a fabrication simply intended to delnj the procedure in his trial for mur ei ‘but it is"now found that many of tin details Nobelcourt gave of his purne; to Switzerland, the people with whor he spoke, the hotels where lie lodged and so forth, are.at any rate possible i not probable; Finally he' gave precis details of the biding place of a sea e ' box containing the remainder of tli , German money and of the compionn. ing papers. -