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In his conclusion, Ritter mentioned radio transmissions made by an agent he referred to as L
EOHARDT
. Ritter’s report revealed that he had devised a test to see if the British had known about Owens’ messages as early as 14 February 1941. Ritter had decided that the next agent he would send to England would contact L
EOHARDT
, and if it became clear that L
EOHARDT
had fallen into enemy hands, the agent was to return to Germany at once. This plan, he thought, would place the British in a dilemma. They could either let L
EOHARDT
go, or they would never hear from him again. Either way, the Abwehr would know the true situation. What Ritter did not know was that his agent L
EOHARDT
had already been turned by the British, and would work for MI5 under the codename T
ATE
.

When Ritter later heard that Owens had fallen seriously ill, he took this as an ominous sign. He then learned that the man he had sent over to contact L
EOHARDT
had failed to do so. While Ritter was evaluating these
developments
, he received news that Dicketts had arrived in Lisbon again. This time
he was alone, so arrangements were made for him to be taken to Hamburg where he was questioned again.

Ritter confided that what he could not understand about Dicketts was why the British had employed someone so obviously untrustworthy, but the very fact that Dicketts had returned alone suggested that he was much more important than Ritter had previously thought. He speculated that in all probability Owens was blown and in jail, but he knew how clever Owens could be, and assumed that the British would encounter the same problem that he had when they tried to interrogate him. Although Ritter was worried about Owens’ network, he reasoned that as the British were not sending messages over Owens’ wireless, then Owens had not yet confessed and therefore his other agents were still undetected. At that time G.W. was reporting regularly through the Spanish channel and his material did not seem to be under MI5’s control. Nevertheless, Ritter decided that G.W.’s messages should not be trusted unless they could be verified by another source. In early July the Lisbon Abstelle informed Ritter that an opportunity had arisen to plant a double agent in Britain, and had requested
information
that could be given to the British to establish the agent’s bona fides. In response, Ritter had offered a photograph of Dicketts and an authentic version of what had happened to him, omitting any mention of Owens. This, Ritter had calculated, would make the British suspicious of Dicketts and draw suspicion away from Owens.

O
WENS’ CONDUCT WHILE
under Robertson’s interrogation served to
confirm
MI5’s growing concern about his unreliability and his vagueness on vital issues. Combined with his failure to carry out the tasks allocated to him in Lisbon and his careless talk, MI5 came to the conclusion that he could not be allowed to continue his double agent role. Accordingly, Owens was instructed to tell the Doctor that ‘he is becoming very ill, that his health is really broken and his nerve has gone. He cannot continue any longer and must throw up the sponge.’

Owens was then to ask what he was supposed to do with the explosives and his wireless transmitter. If the Germans tried to persuade him to carry on or to find a replacement then they would know that he probably still had their trust. MI5 would also be able to watch Owens’ reaction to the termination of his role as a British agent which, it was hoped, would reveal to what extent he was involved with the German intelligence services. If Owens simply accepted this decision without saying anything, then the plan was to tell him that MI5 believed C
ELERY
’s version of events and that he was a traitor. The reason for doing this was that MI5 hoped it might elicit a further response from Owens and that he would then be likely to make further accusations against C
ELERY
, revealing more information about what really happened.

MI5 had to decide what to do with T
ATE
, whom they suspected might be compromised if the Germans thought that he had been in contact with Owens. It was concluded that T
ATE
should make an urgent request for money as he had run out, claiming that he was having trouble travelling and collecting information. This was, of course, another way for MI5 to gauge the Doctor’s reaction and assess whether the Lisbon affair had wider
implications
for their organisation as a whole. As far as C
ELERY
was concerned, it was determined that he should write a letter to Lisbon stating that he was
trying to secure passage for a return trip to Lisbon, as had been requested by the Doctor, but that it was proving ever more difficult to obtain a seat on the plane and he could not be sure that he would get one. He was to ask for further instructions while he waited.

Another way that MI5 had tried to get behind Arthur Owens’ mask was to send him to a physician. Whilst he was in Lisbon he had claimed to be ill but MI5 suspected that his incapacity may have been due to drink. After his return from Portugal, Owens had been sent by MI5 to a reliable Harley Street specialist for a full medical examination. This took place on 18 April and the X-rays revealed no evidence of the duodenal ulcer which Owens often claimed plagued him and, although it was noted that it was possible any scars might have healed, the consultant was doubtful that Owens had ever had an ulcer. However, he also noted that while Owens had high blood pressure, he found him to be in reasonable health and thought it unlikely that he been drinking to the extent that was often reported. Owens’ physical characteristics seemed to be as contradictory as his personality.

The doctor’s investigation into Owens’ health had given him contact with his local doctor in Surrey who revealed the rather disturbing news that Owens was probably suffering from a venereal disease. As far as his character was concerned, the doctor believed Owens to be a ‘consummate liar’ who could not be trusted and would probably try to deceive MI5 if he felt it would benefit him.

As there was a Detention Order outstanding on Owens, there was no need to apply for a new one and MI5 requested the local police in Addlestone to execute it. A place was made ready for him at Stafford prison and the governor briefed to expect him. It was when he was admitted to Stafford that an administrative error was made, assigning Arthur Graham Owens with the middle name George. This error has been widely repeated ever since.

Stafford was one of the secure facilities where full-blown enemy agents were detained for the duration of hostilities, and the governor was told that his prisoner had done some work for the Security Service, but that MI5 had become unhappy with his recent activities and he was to be considered untrustworthy. MI5 asked that all of Owens’ correspondence be intercepted and sent to MI5. Any requests for visits were also to be passed on to the Security Service, and MI5 asked that they should be informed about
anything
of interest he might have to say. Owens was to be treated like any other
prisoner with the proviso that if he wanted to speak to MI5 an officer would make the journey to Stafford, but only if there was good reason to do so.

MI5 sent the final signal to Dr Rantzau in J
OHNNY
’s name, disclosing that he had become ill and had lost his nerve, and this message was
monitored
by Radio Security Service intercept operators as it passed through the German system from the Abstelle in Hamburg to the Abwehr’s headquarters in Berlin. The resulting ISOS text, decrypted from the original, revealed the German reaction to the news about 3504, as J
OHNNY
was referred to in internal communications: ‘For Major Ritter. For information. Received today following message from 3504:- Impossible to carry on. Will call you eleven thirty to see if any further instructions. If not I am going…’ Then, on 24 April, the Abwehr signalled: ‘Cont. To pack up all gear. Regards our answer, agree. Standing by even days. Best wishes. Regards.’ And the
correspondence
continued on 1 June: ‘Question 3504 thoroughly concerning sudden illness: something is wrong here. Signed RITTER.’

Whilst Owens was languishing in Stafford, MI5 began to learn more about Walter Dicketts from a diary that mentioned the
Cressado
, the ship on which Dicketts had travelled to Lisbon. A German agent in Lisbon had expressed in her diary concern about a source who was believed to be reliable. The source had at one time served in the RAF and was described as ‘a valuable medium for planting false information on the British.’ This message could mean that either the Germans still believed in Dicketts or, more worryingly, that he had been turned by the Germans at some point and was in fact feeding the British bogus information.

On 1 August 1941, MI5 received an unexpected telephone call from Owens’ son Robert, then aged twenty-two, who expressed a desire to talk to an MI5 officer. Accordingly, he was interviewed at the Piccadilly Hotel by J. C. Masterman. The following day he sent a further letter:

Several days later MI5 asked Robert to come to the War Office where he was interviewed by Robertson and Masterman. At this meeting Robert explained
that while he had been eating at the Mars Italian restaurant in Frith Street, Soho, a regular haunt of his, a man had sat opposite him and said ‘You are Robert Owens’. He revealed that he knew a great deal about Robert and that he had followed Robert from his fiancée’s house. The man said that things were going very badly for Britain, the U-boats had inflicted terrible losses on the country’s shipping, and that Britain would lose the war. Finally, the man allegedly asked Robert if he would ‘join up with them’, and when Robert refused, the man turned nasty. Robert was trailed to another restaurant and asked to reconsider this offer, but ended the encounter, stating: ‘I’m fed up with the whole thing.’ From this incident Robert concluded that the man must be from the German Secret Service, but only later realised that through this man he might be able to gain entry into occupied territory, and that he could therefore be of some use to MI5.

Robertson and Masterman found Robert to be vague and even evasive in his account of what had supposedly occurred, and when they questioned him about his family he told them that he had stopped sending his mother Jessie money because she pestered him, and that he had not seen his father since his last visit to Stafford several months ago. Robert admitted that he had no way of contacting the man again, and that he might be making a great deal out of nothing. However, he felt sure that this approach had been an attempt to recruit him to the German Secret Service. Robert even offered to go to Lisbon, France or Germany and bring back information for MI5.

However, Robertson and Masterman put it to him that the whole episode was in fact just an attempt to help his father, and that he seemed willing to take any risk to try to ensure this. When it was suggested that the man might not have been a German agent, but a criminal trying to entangle him in some illegal activity, Robert became angry and claimed that he had worked for the Germans before, and that this might be the reason they had approached him. Robert then confessed that before the war he had mapped some of the aerodromes surrounding London for the Germans. Naturally, this admission raised the suspicions of the two MI5 officers who pushed him to tell them what he had done with these plans. Robert’s refusal only made things worse for him and it was also pointed out that he was not helping his father’s cause. Robert finally admitted that he had sent them to the Auerbach Battery Company, which he had known was a cover for the headquarters of the Abwehr in Hamburg. Robert explained that his father had known nothing about this at the time, and had become very angry when Robert eventually told him what he had done. When asked about his father’s
loyalties, Robert confessed that he thought his father ‘would swing over to Germany at the beginning of the war, though he now considered him to be entirely pro-British.’

The MI5 officers informed Robert that they would have to write a report about what had happened, which would then be sent to a higher authority, and that he could expect to have to make a further statement under oath. Robert was told that if he had any further information he should reveal it now, rather than wait until the next time he was interviewed, but he said that he had nothing to add to what he had already told them. The gravity of his situation was pointed out to Robert, who may not have realised that execution by hanging was the penalty for a conviction under the Treachery Act, the criminal statute covering espionage that had been hastily passed in the summer of 1940. He was advised to write down the details of all his contacts with the Germans, and to send a copy to Robertson. He was also told that if the stranger contacted him again, he should try to keep in contact with him and to inform MI5. Robert ended the interview by remonstrating with the pair that he was taking great risks in order to help his father, and that his efforts were not being welcomed by MI5. The officers responded by pointing out the seriousness of what had happened and the position in which he had now placed himself.

MI5 knew that Robert Owens was aware of some of his father’s activities because he had accompanied his mother Jessie to Scotland Yard in August 1939 when she had denounced her husband as a spy. Jessie had probably done this because she discovered that he was having an affair with Lily and had even taken her to Germany. However, one of the reasons she had given to the police was that Arthur had attempted to recruit Robert and some of his friends as German agents. The motive behind Robert’s approach to MI5 may have been an attempt to help his father, but what he had not foreseen was the can of worms he had opened regarding his previous contacts with the Germans.

Robert’s encounter with Robertson and Masterman prompted MI5 to review their records and to conclude that he knew enough about his father’s recent work to enable him to communicate with the German Secret Service, and that he was ‘consequentially potentially very dangerous’. Accordingly, the Home Secretary signed a Detention Order for Robert, and it was served on him immediately. At eight o’clock in the morning of 27 August 1941, Superintendent Curry of the Surrey County Constabulary arrested him and he remarked, ‘This does not surprise me, I was expecting it.’ Robertson then
went to visit Lily, who expressed anxiety about how long Robert would be held, and asked what he had been up to. Robert was taken to Brixton prison where he decided that there would be no point in making an appeal.

On 13 April 1941 Robertson and Masterman made their way to Stafford to interview Johan Dirk Boon, one of Owens’ fellow prisoners. Boon had spent a good deal of time with Owens and had told him that he expected an invasion of Britain after the campaign in the East had been won. Owens had also shown an interest in new types of aircraft but the main reason for approaching the authorities was that Owens had confided in him, as he was a Dutch fascist and, as far as Boon was concerned, Owens was ‘the most important German spy in England’. Allegedly, Owens had admitted to Boon that the authorities thought they had plenty of evidence against him but had been unable to take any action because Owens ‘knew too much for the important people’. Boon claimed that Owens was planning to escape, and had asked Boon to go along with him. Their plan was to break out and then make their way to the German legation in Dublin, and Owens had apparently promised that he would arrange for a submarine to take Boon back to Holland.

The news that Owens was plotting to escape from prison, and that his plan was quite well-advanced, must have come as a terrible shock to the MI5 officers indoctrinated into the S
NOW
case at their St James’s Street headquarters in London. If he succeeded in extracting himself from the premises, which were in the city centre, few would have doubted that such a resourceful individual might be able, even under wartime conditions, to make his way to Northern Ireland. He could then have stepped over the completely unregulated border into the republic and established contact with the legation where the minister, Dr Edouard Hempel, retained an illicit transmitter and was in frequent communication with Berlin. Even though his encrypted traffic, enciphered on what he had been assured was an unbreakable one-time pad system, was read on a regular basis by RSS cryptanalysts who designated the channel PANDORA, the very thought that S
NOW
might betray his extensive knowledge of the double-cross system was hard to contemplate. At potential risk was not just T
ATE
, who remained active with his wireless link to Hamburg, but other spies who had turned.