"Apparently a major part of Dunbar's case against her now rests on a series of intercepted telegrams between von Kalle in Madrid and Spangler in Berlin. He mentions them twice in memos to Ladoux, and makes a great to-do of them in a note to the Admiralty."

"What's the context?"

Gray shook his head. "I only know that he seems to feel that they're somehow conclusive."

"He could of course be lying—advertising a minor piece of evidence to keep the case moving."

"He could also be measuring her for the stake. Martin, I need a few more weeks. I need a pass, and a few weeks abroad."

Southerland was gazing out across the empty road and shaking his head. "You don't seem to understand, do you? Even if they permitted you to see her—"

"Not to see Zelle, Martin. I want to talk to Rudolph Spangler."

Southerland was glancing at the tenements around him—rows of windows shattered in a zeppelin raid, a dozen yards of scorched pavement. "For Godsake, Nicky, try to face it—"

"And see if you can't get me a copy of those telegrams."

Gray spent the rest of that afternoon getting ready. He destroyed compromising notes and drawings. He emptied drawers and packed a suitcase. He withdrew the bulk of his savings. He kept himself from drinking. Although there may have been no need to shed shoulder flashes, he could not keep himself from habitually cleaning the weapons—an American .45 automatic, and that serrated bayonet.

When he was done he sat down at a table and wrote to her.

Dear Margaretha, after all the things that we have done . . .

He included a drawing of a cat on a chair in a sunlit room. He supposed that they would never let her have the letter, but at least they might let her have the drawing. After all, what would be the point of denying her a harmless sketch from a harmless English lover?

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Twenty-Nine

THE telegrams alluded to in Dunbar's file were not actually entered as evidence until the fourth week of March. Bouchardon has left the most detailed account of the day in his 1954 memoirs, Souvenirs. The investigation, he wrote, had more or less stalled when the War Ministry propitiously submitted the text of several cables obtained and decoded with the help of a British liaison team and facilities on top of the Eiffel Tower. The telegrams purported to constitute an exchange between von Kalle in Madrid and Rudolph Spangler in Berlin. Although Mata Hari was not specifically mentioned by name, her alleged German identity code appears: H-21. There were also a number of obvious references to information she had supposedly passed to von Kalle, as well as a direct reference to her "infiltration" of the French intelligence service.