Jimgrim by Talbot Mundy

In the taxi I told Grim about the Princess Baltis. He interrupted before I was half through with my account of her: "She's no more a princess than I'm a Hottentot. She's a French citizen, born of Franco-Siamese and Chinese parents -- educated at the Sorbonne -- wealthy -- older than she looks -- she must be thirty-two or thirty-three, and looks twenty-three -- but at that age she was already the best spy the French Government ever had. She was a spy at seventeen. The Germans sentenced her to death in Belgium, but she escaped; one German officer was shot and one got life imprisonment for letting her slip, and at that they very likely had nothing at all to do with it. She's clever, and no one knows how she escaped."

We lunched at the hotel, where I finished my account of the interview. Grim added: