UNKNOWN

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVII, Issue 110, 2 October 1914, Page 7

UNKNOWN

' "•*,, PARIS STORY OP AN HOTEL, MANAGER, <• , A GRIM BUSKERS. . "He's boon shot; over a hundred spies have teen shot at Vincennes and La Muette." This Frenchman was speaking of an hotel malinger I used to know a little. Mis hotel is oil' the Ohaon'ps-Hysees, a ip'aee of soft carpets and inlaid wood, marble and palms. He was one of thOM suave, self-possessed (ierman or Austral! hotel who make on *ycm an i:wanny , impression of omniscience (wTites the London correspondent of the London Daily Mail). *, They speak every European tongue without a trace of faltering-; they know the name of the '"u«it hotel, and arc iptrsonally acquainted with its manager in every city in Europe. They can give you detailed directions for the most cempliicated journey without opening a tingle time-table* and their information in rijfht to the last particle; they know at what station the dining-car is iput on, and they impress yom to remennber tliat the train "eaves Kleiiistadtam-FluPs twenty minutes earlier this month than the tinta mentioned in the time-table.

That is how I remember him; always in a frodk-coat whatever the season, whatever the hour of day or night; always wearing the diamond pin that a travelling monarch gave him;' alwavs ulert though unohslrusive; (known to all 'bis- guests, familiar with none. Certainly, if we had stopped to think ahout it, we should havo-xealised that there was one side of his life of which c-ne saw nothing. Ho was rich, they said; he owned other hotels of his own in Paris and Switzeifand. _ Was he n a fried? No ono knew or even troubled to ask; it was enough that whenever 2 oil came to the hotel he was therewith the same wonderful memory for jour name and everything about you, the same silent, smooth efficiency. lfc has been shot, they say. iPossiblv it is only another of flic exaggerated .-dories that are passed from mouth to mouth in this imaginative city of safes and concierges and gossip. Certainly he disappeared immediately war began, while both guests and staff were turned out at an hour's notice, and the hotel itself -is Dow empty and guarded by the police . . PAGE BOYS DISCOVERY. We shall know what oceanic of the n-anagcr perhaps after the war. Jt was one of the page boys of the hotel, they say, who, in a hoy's way, got out of his attic window on to the roof. He scrambled ahout in great glee for a while, climbing on to the ridges of the gables and looking over the house-tons right way to the green Bois. At last he came to the turret that stands at the corner of the roof—one of those little ornamental cupolas that architects put on hotels to gratify the hotel proprietor's sense of.graceful design, a thing like, a pepper castor, surmounted by a. tall flagstaff, which is stayed aganut wind I)>y a circle of stout wire ropes running down to tho roof. There is a door in the side of the cupo"& with a ladder leading up to it, and the sight of a closed door in n t-arret 13 enough to fire the curiosity of any boy. Up the ladder scrambled tho little page, pushed open the door—and then started back in astonishment. Instead of being empty, the turret contained a large table mid the table was covered with instruments and coils of wire and wheels. The man sitting at the table with a telephone rcceivcr clamped! over his head, and as. the door opened he swung round with a startled word. Penitently the frightened litfe boy 'stood there stammering apologies. Ho lad recognised the chief of the hotel staff. The manager seized the boy angrily /by the shoulder. iWhat business had he, there? What did he mean by disturbing important experiments? |'Go down at once, you little rascal, and if you say a word about this without my permission there'll be trouble ahead for you." Thoroughly scared, the "petit groom" scurried away. It was some days before he told anyone of his strange discover/ of the manager in the cupola with the mysterious coils of wir e and telephone receiver. But gradually, first to another rage boy, then through all tin servants of the hotel, the story spread. And nt j last one Frenchman who heardl it, mnre alert than the rest, reflected that there vas talk of war between France and Germany, and took the troulblc to "o round to the police station. ° Nothing apparently happened. But the miliary governor of Paris had been told of the incident, and from windows •m houses round the hotel discreet fiVd glasses were watching the unobtrusive little turret. Then there came the German declaration of war, and the' next morning several detectives in plain ('■eithes drove up i„ a taxi-cab to the hotel. "SEGRET WIRELESS." They crossed the hToad hall with its lofty, gleaming marble walls, to the manager's office. At his rich maho«any eicsk sat the manager, spruce, sclUposstfiscd, capable as ever. "You have 1,1, „ usin" a secret wirelcsss apparatus on the roof of your hotel for the purpose of conveying messages to the enemy YOl 'are arrested as a spy." Some' of the detectives wore elriving way with their prisoner a moment later. The' rest stayed to make arrangements for th» immediate closing of the hotel And since then th c manager has not been seen I>v »„„,.. Only fro,,, eversMe you hear the same story. A court. Martial sitting in one of the bi..- bar■rac'Uorls ,„„„,] Pars, ;m \ tl, o next day " bring sound in the moat, and, IVin« if, the hotel mnnaiger, a convicted smv Js this tne true story of his disaoJirarancc? I can only 'say that it is wimfc everyone in p n ,i 3 will tell von. War is a grim Iwshiess.