he
Balkans; even to the United States. There, with credentials as an army
nurse, she inspected our military hospitals and unobtrusively asked many
innocent questions.

When she begged to be allowed to work in her beloved Paris, "they" told
her when war came "they" intended to plant her inside that city, and
that, until then, the less Paris knew of her the better.

But just before the great war broke, to report on which way Italy might
jump, she was sent to Rome, and it was not until September she was
recalled. The telegram informed her that her Aunt Elizabeth was ill, and
that at once she must return to Berlin. This, she learned from the code
book wrapped under the cover of her thermos bottle, meant that she was
to report to the general commanding the German forces at Soissons.

From Italy she passed through Switzerland, and, after leaving Basle, on
military trains was rushed north to Luxemburg, and then west to Laon.
She was accompanied by her companion, Bertha, an elderly and
respectable, even distinguished-looking female. In the secret service
her number was 528. Their passes from the war office described them as
nurses of the German Red Cross. Only the Intelligence Department knew
their real mission. With her also, as her chauffeur, was a young Italian
soldier of fortune, Paul Anfossi. He had served in the Belgian Congo, in
the French Foreign Legion in Algiers, and spoke all the European
languages. In Rome, where as a wireless operator he was serving a
commercial company, in selling Marie copies of messages he had
memorized, Marie had found him useful, and when war came she obtained
for him, from the Wilhelmstrasse, the number 292. From Laon, in one of
the automobiles of the General Staff, the three spies were driven first
to Soissons, and then along the road to Meaux and Paris, to the village
of Neufchelles. They arrived at midnight, and in a chateau of one of the
champagne princes, found the colonel commanding the Intelligence
Bureau. He accepted their credentials, destroyed them, and replaced them
with a _laisser-passer_ signed by the mayor of Laon. That dignitary, the
colonel explained, to citizens of Laon fleeing to Paris and the coast
had issued many passes. But as now between Laon and Paris there were
three German armies, the refugees had been turned back and their passes
confiscated.

"From among them," said the officer, "we have selected one for you. It
is issued to the wife of Count d'Aurillac, a capta