Snow by Madoc Roberts

could act as a litmus test to ensure each other’s integrity. However, human nature being what it is, and the two putative German agents each anxious to impress the other, the operation was not going entirely according to plan. However, S NOW ’s value lay in the many sides to his character, and one of the benefits derived from tolerating his unpredictable behaviour was the occasional solid counter-intelligence lead. One of them, a dividend derived from S NOW ’s visit to Rantzau, was a reference to a woman who was the Abwehr’s paymistress in Britain. All money paid to Owens by mail was the subject of scrutiny by MI5 and it had been noticed that on a recent £5 note there was a rubber stamp mark ‘S. & Co. Ltd’. In researching the origins of this note Richman Stopford visited the department store Selfridges in Oxford Street, London and met the chief cashier, Mr King, in an effort to try to trace the note’s history. Stopford learned that the note had arrived in the store on thesame day that Owens had been paid, and there were only three ways this could have happened. It was either paid out against a cheque or draft, given in exchange for higher denomination notes, or given in exchange for notes or coins of a lower denomination. Having checked with Selfridges’ bank, Stopford concluded that the note had not been paid out against a cheque. Stopford then questioned the four head office cashiers who could have changed a note of a higher denomination, but none of them remembered having done so. The only option left was the three store cashiers whose numbers were marked on the rubber stamps. One of them remembered taking in a £5 note at about that time in part payment for a purchase from an assistant. Having found the assistant in question, Stopford discovered that the note had come from a tall lady with grey hair who had been wearing spectacles. She had been dressed in black, with black furs and had carried a large dark attaché case. The assistant had found the lady to be particularly charming and well-spoken, and this description was confirmed by another assistant who had handled the stamped note. She worked in the underwear department and told Stopford that on the day in question a lady, aged about sixty and six feet tall with grey hair, of rather stoutish build, who was very charming in manner and well-spoken, had taken seven £1 notes out of a purse which she had concealed in her stocking. The woman then asked if she could have a £5 note in exchange for five ones, as she was anxious to send it away by post. A third assistant told Stopford that the lady had a rather full face but did not use lipstick or nail varnish ‘as she was not that type’. The lady had told her that she was doing her Christmas shopping early, and had bought a pair of pyjamas for her niece and a slip for herself. She had then put the items into a cheap-looking case which was probably bought from a shop like Marks & Spencer.
    Two of Owens’ previous payments had been mailed from the Bournemouth and Southampton area, so a picture was emerging of someone who drew £1 notes from her own bank and then travelled up to London to launder the money by changing it into £5 notes. MI5 then made a comparison between the Selfridges list of customers with addresses in Bournemouth and Southampton, and traced the note’s serial number to the Midland Bank branch at 59 Old Christchurch Road in Bournemouth, and found the name of Mrs Mathilde Krafft, a local resident whose telephone number was Parkstone 893.
    Mrs Krafft was then placed under surveillance, her mail was intercepted and she was observed to visit her niece, Mrs Editha Dargel, on the continentfor eight weeks. According to MI5’s records Dargel had been deported earlier in the year because of her pro-Nazi activities. On 4 December 1939 Krafft received a letter from Wm H. Muller & Company, a travel and shipping firm of Electra House, 78 Moorgate, London, EC2, which requested a meeting. Three days