VON PAPEN CAUGHT BY A GIRL.

Taihape Daily Times, 7 November 1917, Page 2

VON PAPEN CAUGHT BY A GIRL.

FLIRTATION BETRAYED HIS PLOTS. To Gorman craft and to German tricks there is no end. One of the latest stories of intrigue comes from the United States, and it tells how; the Teutonic game was discovered and baffled by an 'American newspaper staff. | Mr. John R. Eathom, editor of the "Providence Journal" (Mode Island) Which for ten years before the war had a complete wireless installation on the Atlantic coast, told the tale when entertained by the Canadian Press Association at Toronto. Pis own operators tapped the German wireless and kept the cipher messages for months until they got n c i ue ~, tIIO codes. Every kind 0 f code was used by the Germans Some ~f tbc messages i-'cre disguised us stock Exchange quotations; some even as directions for fimoi-fils. One story is that of how i.... '

vidence Journal" tracked the bogus German passport bureau to a Broad way office. Working through a clever girl secretary it enabled the capture to be made of the case containing the notorious German military agent, von Papen's, notes and expense bills in connection with the attempts on munition factories. She was a shorthandtypist, and had secured an engagement at the Austria Consul-General's New York office. There she noticed the box, and duly informed her employers of the date when it was to be removed to a Swedish vessel. How sue put on'her own identification marks is here told. One day when they were about to close the package, this girl, under instructions, sat on this box eating her lunch. Nearly everyone else had gone, but von Papen, always debonaire and fond of ladies, wandered i nand sat on the packing case, and asked if hecould share his lunch with her. "Certainly," she said, and while while they were sharing the lunch he made some sentimental advances. In a rather dreamy way she took out a large red pencil and drew two big hearts on this packing case. Captain von Papen himself put the arrow through them. When the ship reached Falmouth our authorities picked that package out of the hold from about 150 cases, and'indentificd by the two bog hearts.