January 21, 1918 - Elena Teodorini spy story

Don Martin diary entry for Monday, January 21, 1918: 

Started cleaning up the Fleet St. office, physically and establishing a little system. Both the office and the staff are dying of dry rot. In Simpson’s at dinner I met Charlie Wheeler of the Chicago Tribune who has come here to do about the same thing I am doing. Spent couple hours with him. He thinks the war will end this year with an economic collapse in Germany. He thinks Germany is bluffing about the big offensive. Went to Fleet St. office and talked to Champion about readjustments. He is certainly, as [James Gordon] Bennett says, wedded to routine. 

Weather beautiful. Quite astonishing.

      Don Martin picked up an interesting spy story, which he dated Jan 21 and mailed to New York. It was published in the New York Herald on Tuesday, February 5, 1918.

KEY TO CYPHER INSCRIBED ON SHOUDERS OF FEMALE AGENT

Elena Teodorini, Famous Italian Opera Singer, Arrested as German Spy After Search in Mid-Atlantic—Met Luxburg in Argentina

[Special to the Herald]

Herald Bureau, No. 130 Fleet Street, London, Jan. 21

     One of the most interesting spy stories of the war has just been released for publication. It comes from Milan and concerns Elena Teodorini, a famous Italian opera singer, who made a sensational début twenty-six years ago at the Constanzi Opera House, Rome, alongside the celebrated tenor, Marconi, in “The Huguenots.”

Elena Teodorini

     Before the outbreak of war Teodorini bade what may prove to have been a final professional adieu of Europe. Singing again in company of Marconi at a gala performance in the Italian capital, this time in the role of Lucrezia Borgia, she bade goodby to Rome, and so disappeared across the seas. 

     Nothing more was heard of her beyond reports of big successes in the United States and in the big cities of South America, until some three months ago. Then rumors spread in Italian operatic circles of her mysterious arrest as a spy in the pay of Germany. 

Met Count Luxburg

     It now appears that during her sojourn in Argentina the famous prima donna seems to have been caught in the toils of Count Luxburg and his band and thereby to have become involved in the alleged conspiracy for the undoing of France. 

     According to information collected by the Corriere della Sera, the American authorities had long suspected Teodorini of espionage. These suspicions wee intensified through her incessant tripping to and fro between New York and Buenos Aires. All efforts to establish any guilt were foiled till after her embarkation early in October on board the Spanish transatlantic steamship Queen Victoria Eugenia, when the American police sent a wireless despatch to the Angle-French watchers telling of their grave misgivings that Teodorini perhaps was bearing confidential despatches to Germany’s secret service agents in Spain. 

     “Some distance off Cadiz,” reports a travelling companion of Teodorini, who is at present singing at the Constanzi Theatre in Rome (the account is published in the Milan Review), “a British destroyer loomed up. The cruiser ordered our ship, the Queen Victoria Eugenia, to follow her. We were boarded by English officials, who, having produced warrants, asked pointedly after Signorina Elena Teodorini.

     “On being told that they were to ransack her baggage Teodorini turned deadly pale; but quickly recovering herself, she assumed a more haughty demeanor, demanding ‘why mine more than anybody’s else?’ She assisted in the search, maintaining an attitude of apparent indifference. 

Laugh at Curl Papers

     “Some amusement was caused among the bystanders by the seizure, among other articles, of a bulky roll of curl papers the wrapper of which was still intact. On being subjected to a special acid test, however, these papers appeared to be covered with curious hieroglyphical writing. 

     “The searchers confessed that the cypher surpassed their understanding. After an English stewardess had been fetched on board to replace Teodorini’s maid, orders were given to get the vessel again under way.

     “While British officers still could be seen tackling their task of decypherment with all the patience of enthusiastic cryptologists, the passengers, on their part, were beginning to forget the incident in the fond imagination that they were at last nearing their port of destination. 

     “Instead of that they suddenly found themselves alongside a French cruiser. Then Teodorini’s artist acquaintances learned that the suspected spy had been stripped for the bath, when lo! and behold, inscribed on her shoulders was discovered a complete key to the writing on the roll of curl papers.

     “Thus was delivered into the hands of Britain’s ally, Signorina Teodorini, now accused of treasonable communications with the enemy.”