Sant of the Secret Service: Some Revelations of Spies and Spying

“Is that Beppo?” shouted a voice in Italian from the submarine. “Yes,” shouted the old man. “I have something for you.” He took from his pocket a small leather bag-purse, such as men carry, one of those drawn through a ring, tied it upon a tight line, and, standing up, he flung it with a seaman’s precision over the conning-tower of the submarine.

“All right,” shouted the Austrian officer, for such he was. “Wait a moment till I’ve read what you have brought.”

For a few moments he disappeared into the body of the vessel, while Beppo hauled in his wet line. Then, when the officer reappeared, he shouted:

“All right, Beppo. No answer. Buona notte e buon viaggio.” That same evening a secret council had been held, presided over by the Admiral, when all the details were arranged. The officers and crew of the Austrian submarine Number 117 were safely under lock and key, and after the council, just before eleven o’clock, the Admiral himself visited the captured undersea boat, and inspected it. Commander Bellini, one of Italy’s most distinguished submarine officers, had been chosen, together with a picked crew, to attempt the raid, but none were informed, for the Marchese was determined this time to keep the secret of his plans.

Just before midnight a submarine, heavily awash, for the sea was rough, slipped away out of the harbour of Sarzana, winked a farewell message, and then, submerging so as not to be seen by other ships, was lost to view.

She was the raider, the intention of whose commander was to blow up, or damage seriously, at least half a dozen of the enemy’s ships lying off Fiume, on the other shore of the Adriatic.

The Italian crew consisted of a picked lot of fine patriotic fellows, who only now knew their desperate mission, and they knew also what their fate must be – either death or capture, when the truth became revealed.

After travelling swiftly all night, the periscope revealed at dawn the long, broken Austrian coast. Then, when within five miles of the entrance to the deep bay of Quarnero, at the end of which is situated Austria’s important harbour, the vessel emerged and ran up her Austrian colours. Before her, high upon the green point of Monte Grosso, which guards the entrance to the bay, a signal was made, to which Number 117 replied, and then, with her grey hull showing above the surface, she sped unsuspiciously up the channel, past the small wooded islands, and the pretty town of Abbazia, into the harbour, where lay fully a dozen war vessels, including three of the enemy’s biggest battleships.

Suddenly, however, just as she was about to discharge a torpedo at a battleship flying the Admiral’s flag, the thunder of guns rang out from all sides, and Number 117 became the target for concentrated fire from all the forts.

As the shells hit her she flew to pieces. Next second she was seen to be rapidly sinking with all on board, not a soul being able to escape from that rain of death.

The submarine had been entrapped, and the raid had ignominiously failed.

News of the disaster reached Admiral Michelozzo-Alfani through the Naval Intelligence Department in the afternoon, and he sat in his room astounded. So well kept had been his secret that he felt absolutely positive that, outside those officers who formed his Council, nobody had any knowledge of his intention. All of those officers were men above suspicion.

That there was a traitor somewhere he was more fully convinced than ever. Other minor secrets had been known to the enemy mysteriously from time to time, yet he had been utterly unable to trace the source of the leakage. Alone in his office at the port, he sat at his table, his brow resting upon his hands.

At noon, unknown to him, his wife had telephoned to the Countess Malipiero, but was informed by the latter’s maid that she had left hurriedly for Rome on the previous night, after a visit from her friend, Signor Corradini.

Throughout the afternoon she expected Carlo to call upon her, and became extremely anxious when he did not put in an appearance.

At last, unable to stand the strain longer, she sent her little sewing-maid round to Corradini’s flat, but the girl returned with the letter to say that, according to the donna di casa, the signor had left Sarzana hurriedly at ten o’clock the previous night.

The hours seemed like years as the guilty woman sat alone in her magnificent, old-world salon, pale, startled, and nervous. Upon her left hand she wore a white glove. She had worn it ever since the previous evening, and the reason had greatly perturbed her.

At last, at nearly ten o’clock that night, her husband returned, hard-faced and haggard. With him was his chief of staff, Captain Vivarini, Madame Gabrielle, and myself. The instant we entered the room she saw that Guilio was not his old self.

“Elena,” he said abruptly, in a deep, hard voice, “I have something to say to you, and I have brought Vivarini here as witness.”

“As witness,” she echoed, starting to her feet. “Of what?”

“As witness that you are innocent of the charge made against you, that you, though my wife, are a spy of Austria.”

“A spy,” she laughed uneasily, in pretence of ridicule. “Have you really taken leave of your senses, Guilio?”

“I have not. Tell me,” he demanded, “why are you wearing that glove?”

I saw that she held her breath. Her face was instantly blanched to the lips.

“Because last night I scratched my hand,” she replied.

“Please remove it, and allow me to see the scratch.”

“I refuse,” she cried angrily.

Next instant, at a sign from the Marchese, Vivarini and I seized her hand, when her husband, roughly tearing off the white kid glove, examined her palm.

He stood aghast.

“Dio!” gasped the horrified man. “The brand is here. You, Elena, my wife, you are the spy.”

“Guilio,” shrieked the unhappy woman, flinging herself frantically upon her knees before him. “Forgive me. Santa Madonna! Forgive me!”

“I may forgive you, Elena,” replied the Admiral, in a low, stern voice, “but Italy will never forgive.”

Then, turning abruptly, he left the room, the Captain following. But as he passed out two agents of the Italian secret police passed in, and a few seconds later the wretched woman found herself under arrest.

It was not until her trial by court-martial, in Milan, two weeks later, that the Marchesa learned, from the evidence given by Madame Gabrielle and myself, the truth of Carlo Corradini’s terrible vengeance – a long-nurtured grievance that he had held against her ever since those days in Budapest, when, on proposing to her, she had laughed him to scorn, and had actually told people of his poverty. He had sworn to be avenged, and truly his vengeance had been both ingenious and complete.

On the evening when she had brought to his room the information regarding the captured submarine he had handed her the Testament upon which to take her oath of secrecy. Upon the shiny black leather cover of that book he had traced with a solution of nitrate of silver, mixed with other chemicals, a geometrical design – a square divided in half, the lower part being left blank, and in the upper portion a “V”, above it being traced a small circle.

When he had placed the book into her palm it had left an indelible imprint upon her skin, a device which did not show itself until an hour later, when, very naturally, it greatly mystified her. Carlo Corradini had thus branded the woman he hated, and then, the coup having been made at Fiume, he had at once written an anonymous letter to Armand Hecq, head of the International Intelligence Bureau, denouncing the Admiral’s wife as an Austrian, who had divulged Italy’s secret.

In support of his allegation, he urged us to search the rooms of Carlo Corradini, where we should not only find evidence of espionage, but also the actual Testament by which the hand of the Marchesa had been branded. Further, that eighty thousand lire would be found in her possession, that being the price which Corradini had paid for the information concerning submarine Number 117.

The trial, held in camera, opened at eleven o’clock, and just before three sentence of death was pronounced. An hour later I was present when a firing party was drawn up in the yard of the great San Giovanni prison. Her eyes were bandaged, and the capital sentence was carried out.

Truly, Carlo Corradini was a scoundrel of the worst type, and his revenge was, indeed, a dastardly one. Fortunately, however, it reflected upon himself, for, four months later, he and his companion, the Countess, were captured, living in obscurity in a small coast village near Bari, in the extreme south of Italy, where they were hoping to escape to Greece.

Corradini’s own anonymous letter proved the most direct evidence against him, and ultimately both paid the same penalty as their victim, in the yard of the Prison of San Giovanni at Milan.

The End