Spy who posed as city tobacco seller sentenced to death

Hearing his name thundered down the corridor of a town centre hotel, the saturnine, black-bearded man turned on his heels as he was about to enter his bedroom and almost instinctively put his hands above his head in apparent surrender.

Standing just a few away were two tall, thickset men of commanding appearance.

The Dutch national immediately realised who the pair were and the purpose of their visit. Ensuing dialogue left him in no doubt as to their intent.

“I am a police inspector and I am about to take you into custody,” said one, taking a step forward.

“For what?” the suspect asked coolly, having recovered from the surprise and dropped his hands accordingly.

“For being a suspected person,” the officer explained.

“Who suspects me?” he replied.

“I do - amongst others.”

The man, realising that struggling was a futile exercise, merely shrugged his shoulders and without another word accompanied the men as requested.

The drama scene took place at about 6.30pm on March 29, 1915, when John McCormac and his colleague arrested Haicke Janssen, one of the most notorious spies in the pay of Germany in the First World War.

He was of one of several enemy agents who came to Britain in the guise of commercial travellers of quasi-neutral origin, posing in his case as a representative for a firm of Dutch cigar merchants called Dierks & Co after arriving on the SS Estrom at Hull.

However, he was not the most accomplished in his field, soon coming to the attention of the authorities on his little, if any, attempt to achieve orders.

His base was in Southampton and his every movement was followed by local detectives. He was often seen loitering in the vicinity of the docks, and as he was naturally banned from access, he made a series of trips by steamer to the Isle of Wight which enabled him to obtain information on shipping movements in the strategic port.

Inspector McCormac waited until he had despatched a telegram from the General Post Office in the High Street to Dierks in The Hague, an address well known as that of a member of the German secret service, purporting to be an order for a large quantity of cigars.

But it was a coded message.

The quantities requested were simply too large and counter-espionage experts deciphered the telegram as having been constructed from a cigar price list.

Janssen was secretly detained in the Bargate police station for a week without the public or the press being aware because of a news blackout.

During his confinement in Southampton, Insp. McCormac made a major breakthrough in the hunt for incriminating evidence.Searching his room at the hotel, he was intrigued to find a perfume, which, on analysis, doubled as an ink, a naval recognition book, and hidden under paper to line a drawer in a chest of drawers, was the key to the code in the cigar order.

It was under heavy guard to London that Janssen was taken to London where he was interrogated by Sir Basil Thompson, Assistant Commander of the Metropolitan Police.

He claimed he had no knowledge of German, was the sole cigar salesman for Dierks in Britain, and had never met Willem Roos who had been arrested in Aldgate, London for spying on the east coast, But as he left the room, that pretence was shattered when he came face to face with Roos who was then brought in for questioning.

“Oh, yes,” laughed Loos.” I know him very well. We met over in The Hague and we were both engaged as travellers for Dierks & Co.”

They were charged with contravening the Defence of the Realm Act and appeared before Lord Justice Cheylesmore at Middlesex Guildhall, Westminster on July 16.

His flimsy defence was shattered by experts who told the court cigars would not be transported overseas in the way Janssen claimed as they would spoil.

Both were convicted and condemned to death. They were shot on July 30 in the drained moat at the Tower of London, specifically chosen because of a sinister reputation to foreigners.

Insp McCormac, who gave evidence at Janssen's trial, respected his courage.

In an exclusive interview with the Echo before his retirement as Chief Constable of Southampton, he said: “Janssen was a brave man. He took his arrest and sentence very calmly. I was standing outside the room where the court-martial was held.

“As he was brought out after receiving his sentence, he noticed me, raised his hat, and said 'Good-bye.' He apparently bore me no ill-will.”

It was early dawn on July 30 when he faced the firing squad in the Tower of London. His iron nerve, which had not deserted him throughout, held good to the end.”

Both men were buried at Plaistow Cemetery - without headstones, just a marker.