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Chapters (46)
  1. The Man Who Loved Mata Hari
  2. Dedication
  3. Epigraph
  4. PART I: The Early Years
  5. Prologue
  6. Chapter One
  7. Chapter Two
  8. Chapter Three
  9. Chapter Four
  10. Chapter Five
  11. Chapter Six
  12. Chapter Seven
  13. PART II: The Middle Years
  14. Chapter Eight
  15. Chapter Nine
  16. Chapter Ten
  17. Chapter Eleven
  18. Chapter Twelve
  19. Chapter Thirteen
  20. Chapter Fourteen
  21. Chapter Fifteen
  22. Chapter Sixteen
  23. Chapter Seventeen
  24. Chapter Eighteen
  25. PART III: The War Years
  26. Chapter Nineteen
  27. Chapter Twenty
  28. Chapter Twenty-One
  29. Chapter Twenty-Two
  30. PART IV: The Last Year
  31. Chapter Twenty-Three
  32. Chapter Twenty-Four
  33. Chapter Twenty-Five
  34. Chapter Twenty-Six
  35. Chapter Twenty-Seven
  36. Chapter Twenty-Eight
  37. Chapter Twenty-Nine
  38. Chapter Thirty
  39. Chapter Thirty-One
  40. Chapter Thirty-Two
  41. Chapter Thirty-Three
  42. Chapter Thirty-Four
  43. Chapter Thirty-Five
  44. Montserrat
  45. Author’s Afterword
  46. Table of Contents

He left Geneva in the morning, after cabling Southerland to meet him in Paris, and collecting a copy of those Mata Hari telegrams from the hotel safe. At first the train was crowded, and he found himself sharing a compartment with a salesman from Berne. Closer to the border, however, he found himself alone. For a time he dozed, lulled by more whisky and the clatter of wheels. Then, finally laying the flask aside, he withdrew those telegrams and a cheap canvas notebook he had purchased for a penny at the station.

It is possible that this penny notebook still exists somewhere in British archives: blue with an embossed silhouette of a scribe on the cover. It is also possible that Gray's supplementary tools still exist: his transcript of the telegrams, an old schedule of trains, his magnifying glass, and a pocket calendar for 1916. The true meaning of these items has been lost—at least until now.

Chapter Thirty-One

Chapter Thirty-One

GRAY'S notebook contained a chronology, an unflinching look at Zelle's last eight weeks of freedom. The first entry concerned London and that tentative reunion on the seventeenth of November. The last concerned her arrest on the thirteenth of February. In between lay dozens of notations concerning what Gray would describe as Dunbar's parting kiss—those controversial Mata Hari telegrams.

There were six telegrams to cement the case against Zelle, but Gray talked mostly about the first. He and Southerland had reached Paris within a day of one another, and met in the Tuileries. It was a beautiful morning. The air was fresh after the night's warm wind. The trees were filled with new buds. Gray was back in uniform, Southerland wore his April tweeds. The surrounding gardens were empty except for the elderly attendants.

"So, how is Herr Rudy?" Southerland asked as they sank to a bench beneath the poplars.

"Useless, I'm afraid."

"You should have killed him anyway. You should have put a bullet right between his eyes."

Gray ignored it. "Martin . . . I'll want to see her when we're through here. Even if it's only for a few minutes, I want to see her."

"I don't know if that's possible, Nicky. I told you before, she's not—"

"Just arrange it." Then, withdrawing the blue canvas notebook again, "Not that she's going to be in there much longer. I can promise you that."

Gray had filled thirty pages in that notebook with assorted observations and conclusions. There were also two or three crude maps of Spain and a few idle sketches of trees that he had made while his mind had been elsewhere.

"We might as well start with Spangler," Gray said. "For whatever it's worth to you, we might as well start with what he said.

"Oh, I can tell you what it's worth to me, Nicky."