The Jest of a Spy
The Jest of a Spy is an article written by William Ivy published in The Atlanta Journal on 17 april 1929.
The Jest of a Spy
By William Ivy
PARIS. — Facetiousness is a fault in forgers and spies should eschew a sense of humor. Albert Frank, alias Heine, the German spy and Belgian counter-spy who forged the famous Franco-Belgian military "treaty," introduced a joke even in that portentous document, but it has escaped notice. He, the arch-spy, made one of the negotiators complain that the work of the respective intelligence services hindered rather than helped the army staffs. And "General Debeny," French chief of staff (who was not there) solemnly "promised to give instructions" for the future.
It is all the fault of Frank if disguised bibliophiles are now ransacking the junk stores of northern Europe. They are looking for copies of the newspaper which printed the faked Sherlock Holmes story, "The Crime of Luxor Palace," that Frank signed with Sir A. Conan Doyle's name.
Sir Arthur has just collected forty dollars damages from the newspaper. That is below his usual rates, for he has received as much as a dollar a word. But it will soon cost nearly as much to read this story that he did not write.
I hear that Conan Doyle "fans" are frantic to add the Frank fake to their Sherlock Holmesiana. The cables have been humming with orders to buy this rarity. But it is almost unfindable. The newspaper dares not sell a copy. That would be piracy, barratry, rapine — and possibly unlawful interference with Conan Doyle's private corner in (non-literary) "ghosts."
Nor is this the only literary phantom Frank has raised. He has been courting a girl in the name of the French novelist, Pierre Benoit, just elected president of the French Society of Authors.
Benoit himself is no mean hoaxer. A few years ago, to secure a week-end away from his girl, he had himself kidnaped by imaginary Sinn Feiners — a joke that cost him his civil service job. He has been delighted to read in a Dortmund newspaper the love letters that Frank signed, "Pierre Benoit, Homme de Lettres."
