Background to Danger Read Online Free PDF

to decide what the Germans and Italians are going to reply to the Note the British are sending them next week. He hears that the Italians objected to one question in the Note—something to do, he thinks, with Italian intentions in the Sudan—and that the English agreed to leave it out if the Italians would accept loans from London and guarantee to use them to subsidise Italian heavy industries. That means that London wants the lira forced down a point or two.” She paused, then: “I don’t believe you are listening, Andreas Prokovitch.”
    “Yes, yes, Tamara, I am listening. Go on, please.” Buthe was clearly finding the file of absorbing interest.
    “The Geneva agent also reports,” said Tamara, “that the Pan-Eurasian Petroleum Company of London has failed to obtain a revision of their oil concession by the Rumanian Government. Pan-Eurasian Petroleum is, he reminds us, an English company under the control of Joseph Balterghen of Gracechurch Street, London, who also holds thirty-five per cent of the ordinary shares of Cator and Bliss Limited, the English munitions firm, and is a director of the Imperial Armour Plating Trust. I have turned up Balterghen’s record. He is an Armenian by birth and was naturalised English in nineteen-fourteen. From nineteen hundred to nineteen hundred and nine he sold arms for the Nordenfelt company, but he had his fingers in the oil business as early as nineteen hundred and seven. In nineteen-seventeen he endeavoured to negotiate a concession for the Baku fields with Kerensky. It is believed that he had actually reached some arrangement with the Provisional Government immediately before Kerensky’s fall. In nineteen-eighteen he arrived in Odessa and again tried to negotiate for the Baku fields, this time with General Almazoff, a White Army commander in the sector. He worked through an agent named Talbot. He—”
    But Zaleshoff had leapt across the room and was shaking her by the arm.
    “What name did you say, Tamara?”
    “Talbot.”
    “And Odessa in nineteen-eighteen? Balterghen was there?”
    “Yes.”
    “Then look, Tamara, at this!”
    He thrust the file into her arms and dashed into the outer office. A second or two later the girl heard the hook of the telephone rattling furiously.
    She sat down, lit a cigarette slowly, then, nursing the filein her lap, began to read from the strips of typewriting pasted to thick yellow paper.
    DOSSIER
S
8439
Copy
31
Zürich
.
    Name
. Stefan Saridza.
    Place of birth
. Adrianople (believed).
    Date of birth
. 1869 (about).
    Parents
. Not known.
    Political sympathies
. Not known.
    Remarks
. No useful photograph obtainable. This man has been known since 1904. See below.
    Following details transferred in
1917/18
from Ochrana archives
(
Kiev
). Court martial of General Stessel 1904. Subject: Stessel’s failure to hold fortress of Port Arthur against forces of Japanese General Nogi. Stessel pleaded betrayal of fortress. Examination of suspects negative. Stessel accused Bulgarian named Saridza (or Sarescu). Failed to secure Saridza for examination. Reported in Athens January 1905.
    Trial of Heinrich Grosse, Winchester Assizes, England, 1910, for espionage. Man named Larsen described as Grosse’s employer at trial. Believed Saridza. (Identification claimed by D.24.)
    Trial of Captain Bertrand Stewart (British) in Berlin 1911 for espionage. Stewart victim of
agent provocateur
named Arsène Marie Verrue, alias Frederic Rue (see Dossier R77356) stated to have been employed at instance of German contra-espionage bureau by R. H. Larsen, alias Muller, alias Pieters, alias Schmidt, alias Talbot. Believed Saridza.
    Following details supplied by Commissariat for Interior
,
    Odessa
. December 1918. Reported (K. 19) that agent named Talbot (see above) attempted negotiations with General Almazoff for petroleum concession at Baku. Believedacting for English oil interest.
    Commissariat for Foreign Affairs
. March 1925. Reported (V. 37 Barcelona) that agent named