Petrit Latifi
On August 10, 1933, the “Revalsche Zeitung” published an article in the number 179, authored by Ernst Heller, dedicated to the Albanian female spy named Zeinep Vlora Delvina, who was found half-dead near a statue sometime during the 1930s. She later died, and the English authorities refused to answer any questions the reporters had. However, it seemed that the Albanian girl was in fact heavily involved in political drama working as an agent. Some reporters of the time believed she had been poisoned, or that she had poisoned herself, as potassium permanganate was discovered in the autopsy.
“The spy from Albania. The Mysterious End of Zeinep Vlora. — A King Has His Own Love Letters Stolen. By Ernst Heller. Success, wealth, luxury, and—sudden death. That, in short, has been the fate of many a female spy in recent years. That was also the life of the mysterious Zeinep Vlora, the Albanian spy, whom one is not allowed to speak of in English public, but who is talked about all the more. One winter evening, a few months ago, a police officer found a stately woman in her thirties lying at the foot of London’s National Memorial to the Fallen of the World War.
Her heart was still beating weakly. She died shortly thereafter in the hospital without having regained consciousness. The reporters sensed a secret. They tried to penetrate it and encountered resistance from the authorities: “Hands off the matter! Foreign policy considerations forbid any announcement.” Nevertheless, the newspapers began their investigations.
The result of months of effort was sensational: At fourteen, Zeinep Delwina, one of the most beautiful girls in Albania, had married Djemil Vlora, a member of a prominent family in the country. The young woman owed her radiant beauty when she was chosen among many to greet the Prince of Wied as he first entered his new principality, which he would soon leave again.
The head of the House of Vlora, the so-called Prince Nureddin, had married the divorced wife of the American multimillionaire Frank Gould. On the occasion of a family day, Zeinep was introduced to the “ruling couple.” Nureddin was so enchanted by the charm of his young relatives that he wordlessly tore the bouquet from his wife’s dress and pressed it into Zeinep’s hand.
The mortally offended American woman divorced him. One day, an embassy secretary approached the young woman: “I can introduce you to a man who will give you jewelry, clothes, a carriage, in short, everything you wish for. You only need to help him a little in his difficult job. You are the spy we could only wish for: beautiful, skilled, and clever.”
The deal was made, and Zeinep Vlora entered the service of a major European power as an agent. She worked excellently. With seemingly innocuous questions, she coaxed fragments of secrets from the diplomats and officers who fell under her charms, without compromising her feminine dignity. This made her all the more desirable and she enjoyed unexpectedly great success.
Her clients provided her with everything she could wish for. The crowning achievement of her career was when she succeeded in luring a European ruler into her net. She captivated him so much that he wrote her careless love letters, which she carefully preserved. The adventure led to her husband’s divorce, for which she was only grateful. Her client intended to create a public scandal by publishing the royal love letters, forcing the monarch to abdicate.
But Zeinep Vlora came up with the idea of capitalizing on the incriminating letters herself and offered them to the king for a huge sum. The sovereign didn’t respond. The spy then contacted other political opponents of the monarch to sell the incriminating letters to them. She received a message that two gentlemen would visit her to verify the authenticity of the letters.
Zeinep Vlora received the emissaries, let them leaf through the love letters, and nodded with satisfaction when she received confirmation: “Our client will purchase the bundle. May we return tomorrow with the agreed sum and receive the papers?” The gentlemen left. When Zeinep Vlora tried to reseal the letters, she turned chalky white: she was holding several insignificant sheets of paper in her hand.
The two gentlemen were, in reality, royal secret agents who had somehow learned of the spy’s offer to the monarch’s political opponents and, with sleight-of-hand skill, had exchanged the letters under the beautiful woman’s very eyes. The master spy’s star was on the decline. Her misfortune with the royal love letters played no role in this, of course.
Rather, her other successes were the very cause of her decline. There was hardly a diplomat left who didn’t know Zeinep Vlora. She could no longer play her role as decoy anywhere. Her employers no longer had any use for the adventuress, the all-too-well-known master spy. The generous donations from the three powers for which Zeinep Vlora had recently worked dried up.
The motor yacht, one car after another, her country houses, her jewelry, everything had to be sold gradually. Zeinep Vlora’s formerly unlimited credit in the European metropolises was blocked, and finally, hardship struck. It seemed natural that Zeinep Vlora, accustomed to the greatest luxury, would now end her life with poison. An explanation for why she poisoned herself at the foot of the English war memorial could not be found.
The reporters sought to unravel the mystery and stumbled upon another: They learned that Zeinep Vlora had arrived from Paris on the day of her death. What, then, brought the woman to the statue so quickly? No answer to this question could be found. Then they heard that large quantities of potassium permanganate had been recovered during the autopsy.
Had anyone ever heard of a person considering killing themselves with the relatively harmless potassium permanganate? Or had the spy taken it as an antidote because she believed she had been poisoned? The suspicion could not be dismissed, for now it was leaking out that Zeinep Vlora had tried to sell her knowledge of the espionage system of the power she had last supplied with intelligence to another.
Could such treason go unpunished? At this point, the English authorities intervened sharply once again. In the House of Commons, the inquiry into the true circumstances of the Albanian woman’s death was met with the blunt reply: “Out of consideration for diplomatic relations, nothing more can be said on this matter.” For the authorities, the matter is thus closed. But the speculation surrounding the death of the beautiful spy continues.”
Reference
Balkan Academia 