Ace of Spies: The True Story of Sidney Reilly

INTRODUCTION AND PREFACE

1. Ian Fleming, The Man Behind James Bond, Andrew Lycett (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1995), pp.216–17.

2. The Life of Ian Fleming, Creator of James Bond, John Pearson (Jonathan Cape, 1966), p.189.

3. Leonard Mosley, a foreign correspondent and contemporary of Fleming’s, who later became a successful espionage writer himself, recalled their conversation in a review of the book Master Spy, Edward Van Der Rhoer (Charles Scribner’s, New York, 1981).

4. Ibid. (p.112).

5. The Secret War of Charles Fraser-Smith, Charles Fraser-Smith with Gerald McKnight and Sandy Lesberg (Michael Joseph, 1981), p.127ff.

6. Ian Fleming, The Man Behind James Bond, Andrew Lycett, pp.118 and 132.

7. The Diaries of Sir Robert Bruce Lockhart, volume 1: 1915–1938, Kenneth Young (ed.) (Macmillan, 1973), pp.153–54, 165.

8. Ian Fleming, The Man Behind James Bond, Andrew Lycett, p.223.

ONE–A SUDDEN DEATH

1. Highways and Byways of Sussex, E.V. Lucas (Macmillan & Company, 1904).

2. A biography of Hugh Thomas from records of the General Synod of the Church of England is held by the Anglesey County Records Office (WM/659); also Alumni Records (Magdalene College Archives, Cambridge, pp.152–53); Bangor Diocesan Records (B/ P/1055).

3. The Ozone Preparations Company had its origins in Rosenblum & Co. Consultant Chemists, which was established in 1896 at 9 Bury Court, London EC. In 1897 the trading name was changed to Ozone and moved to Imperial Chambers, 3 Cursitor Street, Holborn.

4. The first meeting between Sigmund Rosenblum and Margaret Thomas was described by Margaret in a transcript she left with Capt. William Isaac of the War Office on 11 November 1931. Isaac produced a brief summary which contained some typographical errors. The original manuscript stated that this first meeting occurred in ‘the summer of 1897’. Isaac returned the original manuscript to Margaret and sent the summary to Col. Valentine Vivian, head of SIS Section V – Counter Intelligence (Sidney Reilly’s SIS File CX 2616, henceforth referred to as The Reilly Papers CX 2616).

5. Ace of Spies, Robin Bruce Lockhart (Hodder and Stoughton, 1967), p.29.

6. Ace of Spies, Robin Bruce Lockhart (p.29); and Master Spy, Edward Van Der Rhoer, p.5.

7. Under passport regulations in force at the time (Foreign Office Regulations Respecting Passports, issued 15 July 1895), passports issued for travel on the continent were ‘not limited in point of time, but available for any time, or for any number of journeys on the continent’. However, British subjects wishing to visit Russia would have needed to apply for a passport for travel to Russia and, furthermore, to seek a visa from the Russian Consulate. Although the Thomases already had valid passports for the continent, there is no record of them applying for passports to Russia in the Foreign Office (FO) 611/18 Passport Names Index.

8. The Foreign Office issued passports for the Continent and Egypt to Hugh Thomas on 30 December 1897 and to Margaret on 9 January 1898, FO 611/18 Passport Names Index.

9. Family Division of the High Court of Justice, Principal Probate Registry, 3 May 1898, No. 1456.

10. The sixty-two-year-old Alfred Lewis had been manager of the hotel since 1887. Ironically, he was to die of cardiac failure at the hotel three years later.

11. Entry 433, Register of Burials in the Parish of Llansadwrn; Anglesey County Records Office WPE/32/6. It is also noteworthy that the funeral took place one day before the death was officially registered on 17 March 1898.

12. Sussex Express, 19 March 1898, p.5.

13. Entry 316, 1898 Register of Deaths in the Registration District of Lewes in the Sub-district of Newhaven in the County of Sussex.

14. In the first edition of Ace of Spies by Robin Bruce Lockhart, published in 1967, a typed copy of Hugh Thomas’s registration of death is reproduced. Issued by Somerset House on 19 September 1938, this copy certificate was almost certainly applied for by George Hill, who was researching a bi ography of Sidney Reilly during this period. According to this copy, the death was certified by ‘S.W. Andrew MRCS’. By examining the original handwritten entry, however, it is clear that the typist has made a transcription error. The correct name is T.W. Andrew.

15. Dr Thomas Andrew was born in Perthshire in 1837 and qualified in medicine in Edinburgh in 1861. He and his wife Margaret lived at Balkerach Villa, Doune, where he died on 21 January 1905. His obituary referred to the fact that he had never ventured outside of Scotland.

16. Louisa Lewis lived at the London & Paris Hotel. Her recollections of the weekend of 12/13 March 1898 may possibly have a significant role to play later in our story.

17. Letters dated 17 and 25 May 2001 from Diana Oxford of Kingsford Stacey Blackwell, Lincoln’s Inn, London, to the author.

18. Why Rosenblum chose the name ‘T.W. Andrew’ is not entirely clear. It should, however, be noted that the names and identities he assumed over a period of years were almost always derived from people he had known or met. When living at 50 Albert Mansions, his immediate neigbour at no. 49 was named Andrews (Electoral Register 1896/97, Parliamentary, Country and Parochial Electors in Kennington, Vauxhall Ward, Polling District No. 5).

19. Entry 88, 1869 Register of Births in the Registration District of Clerkenwell in the Sub-district of Goswell Street in the County of Middlesex.

20. Foreign Office Passport Names Index, A. Luke, issued 13 December 1894, FO 611/17.

21. See note 4.

TWO – THE MAN FROM NOWHERE

1. Ace of Spies, Robin Bruce Lockhart, p.22.

2. Master Spy, Edward Van Der Rhoer, p.4.

3. Deadly Illusions, John Costello & Oleg Tsarev (Century, 1993), p.22.

4. Sidney Reilly – The True Story, Michael Kettle (Corgi, 1983), p.12.

5. Secret Service, Christopher Andrew (William Heinemann, 1985), p.83.

6. A History of the British Secret Service, Richard Deacon (Frederick Muller, 1969), p.139.

7. For examples of these claims see foreword of Britain’s Master Spy – The Adventures of Sidney Reilly. This is the US version of the book published by Harper Brothers, New York, in 1932. The earlier British version, The Adventures of Sidney Reilly, published by Elkin, Mathews & Marrot, had been withdrawn from sale the previous year due to legal proceedings initiated by Margaret Reilly; Portraits of Unusual People, Vladimir Krymov (Paris, 1971), p.70; Ace of Spies. Robin Bruce Lockhart, p.22; and letter/enclosure from Capt. William Isaac of the War Office to SIS, dated 17 November 1931 (Reilly Papers CX 2616).

8. Ibid.

9. Clonmel (US Immigration records referred to in note 15); Dublin (US Bureau of Investigation/ONI Memorandum of 23 August 1918), p.2, and Sonderfahndungsliste GB File, p.78, R-38 (Central Office for National Security – RHSA, Department IV (Gestapo) E4).

10. A History of the British Secret Service, Richard Deacon, p.140. A slightly different version of the quotation is given by Robin Bruce Lockhart: ‘I came to Britain to work for the British. I had to have a British passport and needed a British place of birth and, you see, from Odessa it’s a long, long way to Tipperary!’, Ace of Spies, p.104. The source for this story is almost certainly Robert Bruce Lockhart who was Commercial Secretary at the Legation at the time of Reilly’s visit. According to the Diaries of Robert Bruce Lockhart (p.55), his journal for 1921 is missing. However, Edward Spears’ diary would suggest that the lunch took place on Sunday 17 July 1921 (Churchill College Archives Centre, Cambridge MSS SPRS 2/4).

11. Britain’s Master Spy – The Adventures of Sidney Reilly (foreword, pp.ix and 7).

12. The manuscript of The Adventures of Sidney Reilly was serialised by the Evening Standard before it appeared in book form. Reference to Reilly’s year of birth appears in the second instalment on 11 May 1931, p.26.

13. Britain’s Master Spy – The Adventures of Sidney Reilly, foreword p.ix.

14. Memoirs of a British Agent, Robert Bruce Lockhart (Putnam, 1932), p.322.

15. When, as Sigmund Rosenblum, he married Margaret Thomas on 22 August 1898 (Entry 186, 1898 Register of Marriages in the District of Holborn in the County of London) he indicated his year of birth as 1873, as he did when he entered the United States in January 1915 (US Immigration, Port of San Francisco, Volume 7978, p.26, 13 January 1915), again in July 1915 (US Immigration, Port of New York, Volume 5587, p.103, 6 July 1915), and when he married on 16 February 1915 (State of New York, Certificate and Record of Marriage (No. 4199) between Sidney G. Reilly and Nadine Zalessky, Borough of Manhattan Bureau of Records).

16. When he married Pepita Haddon Chambers on 23 May 1923 (Entry 29, 1923 Register of Marriages in the District of St Martin, in the County of London) he indicated his year of birth as 1874, as he did when he entered the United States in 1924 (US Immigration, Port of New York, Volume 7978, p.26, 15 May 1924, and US Immigration, Port of New York, Volume 8155, p.5, 21 October 1924).

17. History of the British Secret Service, Richard Deacon, p.140, and Sidney Reilly – The True Story, Michael Kettle, p.13.

18. The only member of his family that he endeavoured to keep in touch with was his first cousin Felicia Rosenblum who lived in Warsaw. According to an ‘Explanatory note’ appended to Reilly’s OGPU File No. 249856, written on 10 November 1925 by V.A. Styrne (now part of Trust File 302330, Vol. 37, Central Archives of the Federal Security Service, Moscow), ‘He was extremely bothered by being a Jew and made every attempt to conceal his origin’.

19. Although marketed as being written by Sidney Reilly and his wife, the book Britain’s Master Spy – The Adventures of Sidney Reilly is not an autobiography. It was ghostwritten by journalist Stuart Atherley six years after Reilly’s death on the instructions of Pepita Reilly.

20. Reports commissioned by the author dated 11 August 2000 and 12 October 2000 by Stepan Zhelyaskov, Vital Records Specialist at the State Archives of Odessa Region.

21. Report commissioned by the author dated 11 August 2000 by Gerda Rattay of Vienna City Archive (ref MA 8-A-1285/2000).

22. Reports commissioned by the author dated 4 September 2000 by Dr Juliane Mikoletzky of the Technical University of Vienna Archives and 3 September 2000 by Thomas Maisel of the University of Vienna Archives.

23. According to War Office records (The Army List), at the Public Record Office, only one Maj. Fothergill is to be found during the time period in question. Maj. Charles Fothergill was commissioned in 1855, retired in 1881 and went into business. He was never involved in any South American expeditions nor had he any intelligence connections. It is not beyond the bounds of possibility, however, that Charles Fothergill was known to Sidney Reilly, who was acquainted with his son Basil Fothergill.

24. It is likely that Abram was born before the 1821 Russian decree which required Jews in the Kingdom of Poland to take surnames. Furthermore, it was not until 1826 that separate civil registers were begun for recording births, deaths and marriages for each religious community (Roman Catholic, Jewish, Protestant and Russian Orthodox). It is not therefore possible to verify Abram’s specific date of birth.

25. Gentile names are shown in brackets following the first mention of a Hebrew name. All future references use the goyish or gentile name used by that individual (goy is Hebrew for gentile).

26. Marriage Records 1840, town of Szczuczyn, province of Bialystok, Lomza Gubernia, Fond 264, Bialystok Archive, Poland, Jankiel Leyba Rosenblum and Hana Bramson.

27. There is no ‘H’ in the Cyrillic alphabet, and the Hebrew name Hersh therefore appears as Gersh when written in Russian.

28. University of Leeds Russian Archive, MS 1080/859, Family Tree of the Rosenblum, Neufeldt and Wolff families; MS 1080/322, letter from Vera Bramson to Sophia Wolff, 24 April 1928; Letter from Esfir Bramson to the author, 3 March 2003

29. Service File of Mikhail Abramovich Rosenblum; Fond 316, Inventory 64, Case 448, Russian State Military Historical Archives, Moscow.

30. Mikhail Rosenblum married Sophie Zonshein on 24 September 1889; Fond 39, Inventory 5, Case 46, p.106, State Archives of Odessa Region. Their son Boris was born in Odessa on 6 July 1890; Fond 39, Inventory 5, File 52, p.185, State Archives of Odessa Region.

31. A variety of versions of Rosenblum family photographs (p.26) have surfaced over the past four decades, including the one of a teenage Reilly (p.29). They were taken seperately on various occasions during the 1880s, and not taken contemporaneously in 1890 as implied by Michael Kettle (Sidney Reilly – The True Story, p.72).

32. To date no trace of a record of birth for Rosenblum has ever been found in any of the locations put forward as his place of birth within the former Russian Empire: Bedzin, Poland; Bielsk, Poland; Odessa, Ukraine; Kherson, Ukraine; St Petersburg, Russia. Ukrainian records in particular are incomplete due to the ravages of the Second World War.

33. The first Odessa General Census, XLVII, Table 24, pp.152–53.

34. OGPU File no. 249856.

35. Mikhail Rosenblum studied chemistry for two semesters in the physico-mathematical department of Novorossiysk University, before leaving to study medicine at the Imperial Medical Surgery Academy in St Petersburg. Reilly claimed to have studied in the same department for two semesters before leaving the university.

36. Extract from manuscript by Margaret Reilly dated 13 November 1931 (Reilly Papers CX 2616).

37. Box 182, XIIIh, files 7 and 10 (index cards), 1891-1895, Ochrana Collection, Hoover Institution Archives, Stanford, California.

38. Sidney Reilly – The True Story, Michael Kettle, p.14.

39. Ibid.

40. Felitsia Vladimirovna Neufeldt (née Rosenblum) was the daughter of Grigory Rosenblum’s brother Vladimir. She lived in Warsaw from 1900 and was widowed in 1911. She, along with her sons Ira and Marek, and their respective families, were confined in the Warsaw ghetto by the Nazis during the Second World War and died in the Treblinka death camp between July 1942 and June 1943.

41. Iron Maze, Gordon Brook-Shepherd (Macmillan, 1998), p.15/16.

42. The unrest was sparked by a government decision concerning army conscription. Student opposition followed, accompanied by political demands.

43. Fond 2, Inventory 2, Case 1241, ‘List of foreign passports issued (1892– 1899)’, Odessa City Governor’s Office, contains a list of around 2,400 names. To obtain a passport to travel abroad, a Jew would need to obtain the following documents: ordinary citizen’s identity card, certificate from the chief of police confirming that there was no objection to the applicant leaving the country, certification of regimentation with military enlistment registration office, or notice of completion of military service, and a Treasury certificate showing the payment of a passport application fee of fifteen roubles.

44. Reilly’s Deuxième Bureau file 28779/25 was among French intelligence material taken by the Germans to Berlin after the fall of France in 1940. The Russians, in turn, took the consignment to Moscow in 1945. Between December 1993 and May 1994 some 10,326 cartons of material weighing twenty tons were returned to the French by the Russians. The French maintained that 10,000 boxes of material, including file 28779/25, still remained in Russian hands. After a hiatus of five years the Russians returned a further 900 metres length of archives in 2000. A number of files, however, including 28779/25, remain in the still restricted Osobyi Archiv at the Russian State Military Archive, Moscow: Fond 7k, opis 2, delo 3047; Fond 7k, opis 1, delo 104, pp.256–64; Fond 198k, opis 2, delo 1057, p.68.

45. According to file F7 12894 (Police reports on Russian refugees in Paris) and F7 12904/7 (Anarchists in France and abroad – 1892/1923) in the National Archives, Paris, the 4th and 5th districts of Paris were the principal areas where Russian refugees, Jews and students resided during the 1890s. These two districts also feature in three other files, F7 12591/12596/12600 (Description sheets for aliens and suspects 188/1907).

46. Arthur Abrahams was the son of Michael Abrahams, founder of the firm Michael Abrahams, Sons & Co. In London, Reilly used a number of lawyers including Michael Abrahams, Sons & Co., Willett & Sandford and Robert Carter. This ensured that no one lawyer had a complete awareness of his activities. Paris city records for 1896 indicate that Abrahams had a Paris office and flat at 23 Rue Taitbout.

47. Albert Mansions and Victoria Mansions were both upmarket apartment blocks completed in 1894. Albert Mansions stood on the corner of Rosetta Street and South Lambeth Road. Rosenblum took over the tenancy of 50 Albert Mansions from William Gould. Although the postal address for No. 50 was Rosetta Street, the address on Rosenblum’s notepaper was ‘South Lambeth Road’, which he clearly felt to be a more prestigious address. Adapting addresses in this manner was to be a trait of his.

48. 9 Bury Court, in the Parish of St Andrew Undershaft, in the City of London, was leased to Albert Adolph, who sub-let the premises to Rosenblum and three other occupiers (City of London Rates Valuation Lists 1891–1896, Section 13).

49. According to the 1897 List of Officers and Fellows of the Chemical Society, p.53, Rosenblum was elected a Fellow on 18 June 1896.

50. According to the 1898 Register of Fellows, Associates and Students of The Institute of Chemistry, p.85, Rosenblum was admitted a Fellow on 4 March 1897.

51. The Institute’s charter (clause 5, p.15) states that it ‘rests with the Council to determine in each case whether the candidate shall be required to pass either or both the intermediate or final examinations’. He would also have been required to produce a satisfactory certificate of moral character. The certificate and identity of the person who perjured themself in providing it, is no longer in the archives of the Royal Society of Chemistry.

52. William Fox’s place of business was 39 Mincing Lane in the City of London, in close vicinity of Rosenblum & Co. at Bury Court. Fox was also Rosenblum’s neighbour at 52 Albert Mansions, Lambeth (Electoral Register 1896/1897, Parliamentary, County and Parochial Electors in Kennington, Vauxhall Ward, Polling District No. 5).

53. Ace of Spies, Robin Bruce Lockhart, p.27/28.

54. Ibid.

55. Lithuania State Historical Archives, Fond 1226, Schedule 1, File 167, (born Kovno 17 April 1869, Levi son of Mojsej Bramson and Leja daughter of Jakov).

56. Report by V Ratayev (Ochrana, Paris), to Department of Police, St Petersburg, 24 February 1903, Fond 102, Inventory 316, 1898, delo 1, chast 16, litera A, listy 84ob-85, State Archive of the Russian Federation, Moscow.

57. Interview between E L Voynich biographer Carol Spero and Winifred Gaye (Ethel Voynich’s stepdaughter), Bath, Somerset, 1992

58. Rare People and Rare Books, E. Millicent Sowerby (Constable, 1967), p.21.

59. Rosenblum’s letter of application, his character reference and records of his attendance are to be found in the British Museum Archives (Sigmund Georgjevich Rosenblum– ticket number A63702.12044). Four books in particular made available to Reilly suggest the nature of his research: Blagden, Sir Charles, Some observations on ancient inks (1787); Merrifield, Mary P., Original treatises on the arts of painting. 2 vol. (1849); A Booke of secrets, shewing divers waies to make and prepare all sorts of Inke and Colours, Trans. W.P. London (1596); William Linton, Ancient and modern colours (1852). It should also be noted that Wilfred Voynich held a reader’s ticket (No. A53962 2897). British Museum records indicate that the ticket was obtained on the recommendation of Sergei Stepniak.

60. Police Orders for 10 April and 5 May 1893; PRO MEPO 7/55, pp.264 and 340.

61. PRO MEPO 4/342 (Register of Leavers) and MEPO 21/32 (Pension Register).

62. CID, Behind the Scenes at Scotland Yard, H.L. Adams, p.167.

63. Memorandum dated 28 April 1896 (The Melville Papers).

64. Sir Edward Bradford, chief commissioner to the Home Office, 28 April 1902, PRO HO 45/10254.

65. Vladimir Krymov, who knew Reilly in St Petersburg before the First World War, related in Portraits of Unusual People, that Reilly was dubbed ‘the man who knew everything’ due to his unique ability to keep his ear to the ground.

66. Arthur Wood of the Daily Telegraph and James Hogan of the Daily Graphic had rooms at 3 Cursitor Street in 1898.

67. ‘The question as to the permissibility of advertising is one which still agitates the minds of our members, notwithstanding that the censors gave a no uncertain pronouncement on the matter as long ago as 1893, and the attention of members was again drawn to it in December 1895. I am sorry that the expression of opinion is felt by some among us as forming a bar to the legitimate practice of their profession; a profession which a minority – and I trust a small minority – of our members would perhaps unconsciously reduce to the level of a trade. To my mind, to advertise or to tout for practice is degrading, and a virtual acknowledgement that he who does so cannot compete on equal terms with his fellows. In no other professions in this country are such practices tolerated’ (the address of the president, Dr Thomas Stevenson, FRCP, to the 12th Annual General Meeting of the Institute of Chemistry, 1 March 1898, contained in the 1898 Proceedings, p.25).

68. Entry 379, Register of births in the District of Gorey in the County of Wexford, Ireland. Margaret Callaghan daughter of Edward and Anne Callaghan (née Noctor), 1 January 1874.

69. Entry 55, Register of Marriages in the District of Gorey in the County of Wexford, Ireland. Edward Callaghan, fisherman, and Anne Naughter, 27 February 1870 at the Catholic Chapel of St Michael.

70. Entry 385, Register of Births in the District of Gorey in the County of Wexford, Ireland. James Callaghan, son of Edward and Anne Callaghan (née Naughter), 24 February 1872. He died on 15 March 1930: Entry 248, Register of Deaths in the Registration District of Manchester South, Sub-district of Didsbury in the County of Manchester CB.

71. Entry 149, 1895 Register of Marriages in the District of Paddington in the County of London. Hugh Thomas and Margaret Callaghan, 19 February 1895.

72. Entry 186, 1898 Register of Marriages in the District of Holborn in the County of London. Sigmund Rosenblum and Margaret Thomas, 22 August 1898.

73. Entry 478, 1903 Register of Marriages in the District of Islington in the County of London. Joseph Bell and Violet Pannett, 4 June 1903. Entry 281, 1910 Register of Marriages in the District of Islington in the County of London. Charles Cross and Edith Pannett, 24 August 1910. Henry Freeman Pannett was a Royal Mail official who was an associate of William Melville from the late 1890s up to his retirement in 1908.

74. Ace of Spies, Robin Bruce Lockhart, p.32; Sidney Reilly – The True Story, Michael Kettle, p.15; Memoirs of a British Agent, Robert Bruce Lockhart, p.323; Deadly Illusions, John Costello and Oleg Tsarev, p.22; Iron Maze, Gordon Brook- Shepherd, p.18; Spies, Jay Robert Nash (M. Evans and Company, New York, 1997), p.411; Master Spy, Edward Van Der Rhoer, p.6.

75. Parish Register, Parish of Ballygarret, County of Wexford, 6 September 1845; Baptism of Edward Callaghan son of John and Elisa Callaghan (née Quinn) – sponsors Paul Byrne and Mary Callaghan (National Library of Ireland, Ballygarret Parish Register, Microfiche P4255).

76. Foreign Office Regulations Respecting Passports (3) – ‘Naturalised British Subject’, he will be so designated in his passport, which shall be issued subject to the qualification mentioned in the 7th clause of the Act 33 Vic; c.14.

77. Entry 17, Register of Births in the District of Belmullett in the County of Mayo, Ireland. Sidney Reilly son of Michael and Mary Reilly (née Barret), 1 February 1878.

78. Entry 48, Register of Marriages, St George’s Catholic Church, St Saviour’s, Southwark, Surrey, between William Melville and Catherine Reilly, 20 February 1879; according to the 1901 Census (Shragh, County Mayo, 145/DED Derryloughlin 9 1-5), Catherine’s brother John and his family were still living in the area at the turn of the century.

79. Extract from manuscript dated 11 November 1931 (Reilly Papers CX 2616).

80. PRO FO 72/2048, Report dated 10 February 1897.

81. By liquidating, it must be assumed that Margaret was referring to a sale or disposal of the contents of the Manor House. According to Land Title MX80076 at the Harrow and District Land Registry, the property, which stood on the corner of Buck Lane and Kingsbury Road was owned by Edward Nelson Haxell, who from 1895 let the house to tenants. The house was legally known as Kingsbury House. There were, in fact, two properties known as Kingsbury House in the 1890s, the other being part of the Stud Farm complex on the opposite side of Kingsbury Green. With the confusion of two Kingsbury House names, Hugh Thomas used his own chosen name, The Manor House, when he became the tenant in 1897. The lease to the property was sold on 24 June 1898 to the Countess of Dundonald, who changed the name of the house to The Grange. Neither should this property be confused with Kingsbury Manor, which stands today in Roe Green Park. This latter property was built in 1899 for the Duchess of Sutherland. Its name changed from ‘The Cottage’ to Kingsbury Manor in 1932.

82. Rosenblum notified the Chemical Society and the Institute of Chemistry of his change of residence, giving them his new ‘Hyde Park’ address (IC Register of Fellows, Associates and Students, 1899–1900, p.85). His notepaper interestingly carries a small Russian double-headed eagle with the motto ‘Mundo Nulla Fides’ (No Faith in the World), which is literally interpreted to mean ‘place not your faith in worldly things’. It is a clear invitation to place one’s faith not in the worldly but in the divine, and was the motto of the Reverend Hugh Thomas (source – Rouge Dragon Pursuivant, College of Arms, London).

83. See note 79.

84. Ace of Spies, Robin Bruce Lockhart, p.31.

85. According to Land Title NGL446317 at the Harrow District Land Registry, the property belonged to the Church Commissioners for England, who owned the entire Paddington Estate of which Upper Westbourne Terrace was a part. Hugh Thomas took over the tenancy from Reuben Greatorex in 1891. Ormonde Crosse, previously the tenant at nearby 32 Delamere Terrace, took over the tenancy from Sigmund and Margaret Rosenblum in June 1899. The estate was sold by the commissioners on 30 August 1954 to the London County Council, who demolished it and built a council estate development. The LCC renamed Upper Westbourne Terrace ‘Bourne Terrace’, the name it bears today.

86. Passport Names Index, issued to S.G. Reilly, 2 June 1899, PRO FO 611/19.

87. PRO FO 372/2756, Nos 7096/7531.

88. Sidney Reilly – The True Story, Michael Kettle, p.15.

89. Ace of Spies, Robin Bruce Lockhart, pp.32–36. The 1901 Census indicates that no one by the name of Margaret Reilly or Rosenblum, born on 1 January 1874, was residing in the UK at this time.

90. There is no record of Reilly ever having had any connection with the Admiralty or NID. Joseph Bell, an Admiralty clerk, was a witness at Rosenblum’s 1898 wedding. As best as can be established, he had no connection with the Naval Intelligence Department. Admiralty records indicate that Bell was a second class assistant at the Nautical Almanac Office.

91. See note 79.

92. The chronology of this claim is in error. Sidney and Margaret Rosenblum took steps in 1899 to change their name to Reilly by Deed Poll, through solicitors Michael Abrahams Sons & Co. However, their hasty departure from England in June 1899 meant that the application was never completed let alone presented to the High Court. When Sidney eventually changed his name legally, a decade later, his High Court application (PRO/J18/95) referred to this earlier, aborted application. Whilst Margaret used the name Reilly from 1899 until her death in 1933, she never changed her name legally from Rosenblum.

93. Letter dated 17 April 1899 (The Melville Papers; Box 35, Index Vc, Folder 3, Ochrana Archive, Hoover Institution, Stanford, California); Service File of Fedor Gredinger (Fond 1405, Inventory 544, File 3314, Russian State Historical Archive, St Petersburg).

94. See note 56 and Polysulphin Company, PIP/Keynsham, No 231, Somerset Record Office.

95. Sigmund Rosenblum’s name was placed on the Department of Police ‘Wanted List’, which was distributed to all police departments and border posts. (Circular No. 4900 – Rosenblum is No. 47 on the list; Fond 63, Inventory 23, File 11, sheets 190–93, State Archive of the Russian Federation, Moscow).

THREE – GAMBIT

1. Untitled synopsis by Margaret Reilly (as submitted to Cassell & Co. Ltd and Capt. William Isaac of the War Office, November 1931, Reilly Papers CX2616; also PRO HD 3/117, item 10; Mr White in Petrovsk, 16 July 1900.

2. Untitled synopsis by Margaret Reilly (see note 1).

3. The Truth About Port Arthur, E.K. Nozhin, p.927 (St Petersburg, 1907). Nozhin was a correspondent for the Port Arthur newspaper Novy Krai, which maintained close relations with the Port Arthur authorities.

4. My Life At Russia’s Service – Memoirs of the Grand Duke Kirill Vladimirovich (reprint, St Petersburg, 1996), p.101.

5. The Truth About Port Arthur, E.K. Nozhin, p.933.

6. Trade in Port Arthur, a statistical report to Russia’s finance minister S. Yu Witte, by Dmitry Matveyevich Pozdneyev (St Petersburg 1902); State Historical Archives of St Petersburg.

7. Ibid., Appendix 1, Report No. 97.

8. Ibid

9. Fond 104, op 1d 58, listy 122-124, d 60, list 17, Russian State Historical Archive, St Petersburg.

10. Fond 967, Inventory 2, File 153, sheets 77 and 83 reverse (Russian State Archive of the Navy, St Petersburg).

11. Document dated 11 January 1921, The Reilly Papers CX 2616; The Truth about Port Arthur, E.K. Nozhin, p.933.

12. US Immigration, Port of New York, Volume 6887, p.20, line 2 (16/9/21) refers to Margaret’s 1903 entry.

13. Secrets of Espionage: Tales of the Secret Service, Winfried Ludecke (J.B. Lippincott, Philadelphia, 1929), p.106; and History of the Japanese Secret Service, Richard Deacon (Frederick Muller, 1982), p.48/49.

14. Ace of Spies, Robin Bruce Lockhart, p.35.

15. Letter from Professor Ian Nish to the author, dated 11 April 2001.

16. US Bureau of Investigation report written by Agent L. Perkins, 3 April 1917.

17. Guy Gaunt was nominally head of British intelligence in New York. However, he came under the Naval Intelligence Division, not SIS.

18. The Yield of the Years, Guy Gaunt (London 1940), pp.109–16.

19. ‘Rakka ryusui’ is the 1906 report of Col. Akashi Motojiro dealing with his secret co-operation with revolutionary movements within the Russian Empire during the Russo-Japanese War. The 1988 translation by Inaba Chiharu also includes relevant Japanese General Staff telegrams from 1904/05. Among Akashi’s contacts were Felix Volkhovsky, who had succeeded Sergei Stepniak as the leading light in the ‘Russia Free Press Campaign’ in London.

20. History of the Japanese Secret Service, Richard Deacon, pp.49–50. The original copy of this letter, along with other Deacon source material pertaining to this book was destroyed. This was confirmed in a letter to the author by Deacon’s widow, Eileen McCormick, dated 10 November 2000.

21. History of the Development of the Directorate of Military Intelligence, Lt-Col. William Isaac, PRO WO 106/6083, p.13.

22. Lt-Col. Joseph Newman retired from the army in 1892, having seen action during the Indian Mutiny 1857–58 and the Zulu Wars 1877–79, where he was mentioned in dispatches (The Army List 2031/2089, PR0).

23. Fond 846, Inventory 4, File 100 (Russian State Military Historical Archives, Moscow).

24. Fond 846, Inventory 4, File 77 (Russian State Military Historical Archives, Moscow).

25. Untitled synopsis by Margaret Reilly (as submitted to Cassell & Co. Ltd) November 1931.

26. Portraits of Unusual People, Vladimir Krymov (Paris, 1971), p.78.

27. History of the Japanese Secret Service, Richard Deacon, p.49; and Secrets of Espionage; Tales of the Secret Service, Winfried Ludecke, p.106.

28. Entry 255, 1870 Register of Births in the Sub-district of Penshurst in the Registration District of Sevenoaks in the County of Kent.

29. File of H.B. Collins, Fond 846, Inventory 4, File 92 (Russian State Military Historical Archives, Moscow).

30. Letters by and references to Anna Grigoryevna Collins are to be found in H.B. Collins’ file (note 27 above).

31. History of the Japanese Secret Service, Richard Deacon, p.49; and Secrets of Espionage; Tales of the Secret Service, Winfried Ludecke, p.106.

32. Memorandum dated 6 June 1904 (Melville Papers).

33. The Record of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company Ltd, Volume 1 (1901–18), pp.50– 51 – BP Amoco Archive, University of Warwick.

34. Ibid., p.49.

35. Ace of Spies, Robin Bruce Lockhart, p.41.

36. London Post Office Directories (Kellys) 1904/18.

37. Entry 475, Register of Deaths in the Sub-district South West Battersea, Registration District of Wandsworth in the County of London, 1 February 1918.

38. Author of ‘Counter-Espionage and Security in Great Britain during the First World War’, English Historical Review, Volume 101 (1986), and ‘British Internal Security in Wartime’, Intelligence and National Security,Volume 1 (1986).

39. The Origins of the Vigilant State, Bernard Porter (Boydell Press, 1987), p.230.

40. The barrister Henry Curtis-Bennett KC (knighted in 1922 and elected MP for Chelmsford in 1924, succeeding E.G. Pretyman as Conservative candidate) was given an honorary commission in the RNVR when he joined MI5 in 1917; Curtis: The Life of Sir Henry Curtis-Bennett, Roland Wild and Derek Curtis-Bennett (Cassell, 1937), pp.66–79.

41. Memoir by William Melville MVO, MBE, PRO KV 1/8; The Security Service 1908-1945, The Official History, p50 (Public Record Office, 1999).

42. Ibid.

43. Rear-Admiral Esmond Slade, on retiring as director of the Naval Intelligence Division in 1909, reported to Prime Minister Herbert Asquith that ‘It is impossible to draw a line between the information which would be useful to one department or the other [Admiralty and War Office], so I endeavoured to establish a working agreement between the two offices’; PRO CAB 16/9B, p.195.

44. Le Littoral, 18 February 1904, p.1.

45. Melville had twice been honoured by the French government (Police Review, 17 May 1895, p.236; Police Review, 17 June 1903, p.344), and had also assisted the Ochrana in France (Ochrana Archive, Box 35, Index Vc, Folder 3).

46. As a Royal bodyguard he spoke several languages including French and Italian; I Guarded Kings, Harold Brust (Hillman Curl, 1936), p.44.

47. The Record of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company Ltd, Volume 1 (1901– 1918), p.52 – BP Amoco Archive, University of Warwick.

48. Ibid.

49. Ibid.

50. Letter from Sidney Reilly to Alexandre Weinstein, dated 30 June 1905 (Papers of Mrs A.C.Menzies).

51. The Record of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company Ltd, Volume 1 (1901– 1918), p.52 – BP Amoco Archive, University of Warwick.

52. Ibid.

53. Untitled synopsis by Margaret Reilly (as submitted to Cassell & Co. Ltd), November 1931.

54. Police Department Report, dated 21 February 1905, Fond 102, Inventory 316, File 19, Sheet 38, 1905 (State Archive of the Russian Federation, Moscow).

55. Ibid.

FOUR – THE BROKER

1. A decade later the US Bureau of Investigation, forerunner of the FBI, carried out extensive enquiries into Reilly’s background during the First World War. Their files contain several references to the movements of his ‘second wife’ (US Bureau of Investigation Case Files, 1908–1922; Old German File 39368. Also Office of Naval Intelligence; Files on A. Jachalski, S. Reilly and A. Weinstein, National Archives, Washington DC (hereafter referred to as Bureau of Investigation/ONI). US Bureau of Investigation/ONI synopsis of names in the Weinstein Case, 23 August 1918, p.8). The Bureau’s records concerning Reilly are examined in detail in Chapter Seven.

2. US Bureau of Investigation/ONI; 4 September 1918, Reilly, Weinstein, Jechalski Case: Synopsis of Persons involved, p.12.

3. Royal Air Force Record of Service; Sidney George Reilly MC (PRO, Pi 21220).

4. She eventually married a doctor, Ira Neufeldt, and moved to Warsaw where she was widowed in 1910.

5. Ochrana Surveillance Reports, S.G. Reilly, 11–29 September 1905, Fond 111, Inventory 1, Files 2960–2961, State Archive of the Russian Federation, Moscow.

6. File 1061 (Correspondence with Count T. Lubiensky and J. Mendrochowitz); File 1062 (Applications for Business Representation in Russia 1904– 1919), Archives of Blohm & Voss GmbH, Hamburg State Archive.

7. Ace of Spies, Robin Bruce Lockhart, pp.52–53. Police records on the arrival of foreign citizens in St Petersburg: Fond 102, Inventory 316, File 19, Sheet 38, 1905, State Archive of the Russian Federation, Moscow.

8. Ochrana Surveillance Reports, S.G. Reilly, 11–29 September 1905, Fond 111, Inventory 1, Files 2960-2961, State Archive of the Russian Federation, Moscow. Walford was managing clerk for a solicitor and a member of St Petersburg’s ‘English Colony’. He died in Dudley at the age of seventy-six (Entry 424, Register of Deaths in the Registration District of Dudley, 13 April 1934).

9. Telegram from J. Mendrochowitz to Blohm & Voss, 14 December 1908, File 1077, Archives of Blohm & Voss GmbH, Hamburg State Archive.

10. Letter to Hermann Frahm from Sidney Reilly, 13 April 1909; File 1077, Archives of Blohm & Voss GmbH, Hamburg State Archive.

11. Telegram from Hermann Frahm to Sidney Reilly, 14 April 1909, File 1077, Archives of Blohm & Voss GmbH, Hamburg State Archive.

12. Letter from J. Mendrochowitz to Blohm & Voss, 23 April 1909, File 1077, Archives of Blohm & Voss GmbH, Hamburg State Archive.

13. Telegram from Blohm & Voss to J. Mendrochowitz, 26 April 1909, File 1077, Archives of Blohm & Voss GmbH, Hamburg State Archive.

14. Letter from Blohm & Voss to Count T. Lubiensky and J. Mendrochowitz, 27 April 1909, File 1077, Archives of Blohm & Voss GmbH, Hamburg State Archive.

15. Letter from J. Mendrochowitz to Blohm & Voss, 27 April 1909, File 1077, Archives of Blohm & Voss GmbH, Hamburg State Archive.

16. Letter from J. Mendrochowitz to Blohm & Voss, 1 March 1909, File 1077, Archives of Blohm & Voss GmbH, Hamburg State Archive.

17. Ace of Spies, Robin Bruce Lockhart, pp.52–53.

18. Ibid. p.54.

19. File 1082 (Correspondence with Kurt Orbanowsky), Archives of Blohm & Voss GmbH, Hamburg State Archive.

20. Ibid.

21. Ibid.

22. Portraits of Unusual People, Vladimir Krymov, p.69.

23. File 1083 (Correspondence with various partners regarding rebuilding of the Russian Navy), Archives of Blohm & Voss GmbH, Hamburg State Archive.

24. The Nanny with the Glass Eye, Leon C. Messenger, 1985 (US National Archives, Washington).

25. The Royal Flying Corps in France, Ralph Barker (Constable, 1994), p.9.

26. Ace of Spies, Robin Bruce Lockhart, p.46. The Frankfurt International Air Show was held in 1909, not in 1910 as Lockhart asserts.

27. Ibid., pp.47–48.

28. Report commissioned by the author dated 11 April 2001, by Elmar Stracke of the Frankfurt Institute for Urban History.

29. Deed Poll Notification, High Court of Justice, 23 October 1908, PRO J18/95, pp.479–80.

30. Ace of Spies, Robin Bruce Lockhart, pp.45–46.

31. 97 Fleet Street, in the Parish of St Bride, was owned by S.R. Cartwright. A jewellers, Saqui & Lawrence, occupied the ground floor and basement. The upper part of the premises were initially empty, but were let to the Ozone Preparations Company between 1908 and 1911 (City of London Quinquennial Rates Valuation List 1906–1911, Volume 2). The Ozone Preparations Company is listed in Kelly’s London Directory, under ‘patent medicine’ for 1909, 1910 and 1911.

32. William Barclay Calder, among his many business interests, had, like Reilly, been a one-time timber merchant. He was associated with Reilly in a number of ventures, the last being another patent medicine scam, the Modern Medicine Company Ltd, founded in 1923. Calder himself died in 1958 (Entry 208, Register of Deaths in the Sub-district of Harrow in the Registration District of Harrow in the County of Middlesex, 28 January 1958.

33. The Streets of London, Benny Green (Pavillion, 1983), p.77.

34. Charles Fothergill died on 23 February 1919 (Entry 341, Register of Deaths in the Registration District of Kensington in the County of London). Basil Fothergill died ten years later on 6 August 1929 (Entry 317, Register of Deaths in the Registration District of Eton in the County of Buckinghamshire).

35. Letter from E.W.G. Tappley, general manager of the Hotel Cecil, to J.H. Lewis, the uncle of Louisa Lewis, dated 27 October 1908.

36. Donald McCormick used the nom de plume ‘Richard Deacon’ when writing espionage books. However, Murder by Perfection (John Long, 1970), was published under his own name.

37. Gregory was principally involved in the selling of honours scandal during the Lloyd George Administration (1916–22). After the fall of Lloyd George he continued to tout honours and was eventually prosecuted in 1933.

38. Murder by Perfection, Donald McCormick, pp.15–16.

39. London County Council: Names of Streets and Places in the Administrative County of London (4th edition, 1955).

40. Ordnance Survey Maps 1906–1919, 7–73 (HMSO), London Official and Commercial Directory 1908, 1909.

41. Chief Inspector Arthur Askew of Scotland Yard investigated the honours case of 1933 as well as the investigation of the death of Edith Rosse in the same year. He was convinced Gregory had poisoned Mrs Rosse but was never able to prove it. The decision not to prosecute was certainly not through any lack of effort on Askew’s part. In fact, he probably carried out the most in-depth investigation into Gregory and his background ever attempted. Askew’s conclusions on his investigations into Gregory are to be found in the Sunday Dispatch (12 September 1954, p.5).

FIVE – THE COLONEL DAUGHTER

1. Ace of Spies, Robin Bruce Lockhart, p.36.

2. Untitled synopsis by Margaret Reilly, submitted to the War Office and Cassell & Co. Ltd, November 1931.

3. The Nanny with the Glass Eye, Leon C. Messenger, Central Intelligence Agency, Studies in Intelligence (Winter 1985), p.31.

4. Ibid., p.31.

5. Ibid.

6. Wilson was HM Vice-Consul in Brussels.

7. Letter from D. Wilson to H. Tom (HM Consul General), 29 May 1931, Brussels Despatch No. 156 (PRO FO 372/2756).

8. Ace of Spies, Robin Bruce Lockhart, p.55.

9. Ibid.

10. In 1989 Robin Bruce Lockhart published Reilly: The First Man (Penguin, New York, 1987). It was only published in the US and Canada.

11. Ibid., p.6.

12. Novoe Vremia, 26 October 1912 (or 8 November 1912 by the Gregorian calendar), p.2 (State Public Library, St Petersburg).

13. Margaret Reilly’s Red Cross File No. 45345.

14. The Nanny with the Glass Eye, Leon C Messenger, pp.26–27.

15. Ibid., p.27.

16. Service File of Petr Massino (Fond 400, Inventory 17, File 13135; Fond 400, Inventory 12, File 28672, Russian State Military Historical Archives, Moscow).

17. Ibid.

18. Service File of Petr Zalessky (Fond 406, Inventory 9, File 1410, Russian State Archives of the Navy, St Petersburg).

19. Directory of the Maritime Ministry 1911.

20. US Bureau of Investigation/ONI, Report from Operative 101 to H. Hunnewell, 6 September 1918.

21. Service File of Georgi Massino (Fond 400, Inventory 9, File 34550, Russian State Military Archives, Moscow).

22. ‘Explanatory Note’ appended to Reilly’s OGPU File 249856, written on 10 November 1925 by V.A. Styrne, p.1 (now part of Trust File 302330, Vol 37, Central Archives of the Federal Security Service, Moscow).

23. See note 16.

24. The Trial of Petr Massino (Fond 801, Inventory 15, File 99, Russian State Military Historical Archives, Moscow).

25. In November 1927 the Bolsheviks published an edited version of the interrogations of leading Tsarist ministers to coincide with the tenth anniversary of the Revolution. In 1964 the Russian journal Issues of History published the ‘Resolution’ of the Extraordinary Commission Regarding the Activity of Rasputin and his Close Associates and their Influence over Nicholas II in the Area of State Governance’ which, until then, had been held in a secret repository in the Archive of the October Revolution (now known as the State Archive of the Russian Federation).

26. Rasputin – The Last Word, Edvard Radzinsky (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2000), p.219.

27. History of the Russian Secret Service, Richard Deacon (Taplinger, New York, 1972), p.141.

28. Ozone Preparations Co., Handbill c.1910.

29. Portraits of Unusual People, Vladimir Krymov, p.69.

30. Ace of Spies, Robin Bruce Lockhart, p.49.

31. Ibid.

32. Membership list of the All-Russian Aviation Club (Fond 2000, Inventory 15, File 40091, Russian State Military Historical Archives, Moscow).

33. A Documentary Story of Russian Aviator Nikolai Evgrafovich Popov, V.N. Sashonko (Leningrad, 1983).

34. Department of Police Report to Interior Ministry re Krylia, 23 December 1910, Fond 102, 4 deloproizvodstvo, 1910, delo 106 litera B, tom 8, listy 19–23, State Archive of the Russian Federation, Moscow.

35. Vozdukhoplavatel, 1911, No. 8, p.424ff (State Public Library, St Petersburg).

36. Ibid.

37. The Komendantskoe Pole Aerodrome was closed in 1963 to make way for the building of apartment blocks. St Petersburg’s airport is today located at Pulkovo.

38. Portraits of Unusual People, Vladimir Krymov, p.70.

39. Kratkie informatsionnye materially, p.94, State Public Library, St Petersburg.

40. Ibid.

41. Portraits of Unusual People, Vladimir Krymov, p.70.

42. Representation in the Ottoman Empire by Walter Berghaus, Volume 1 1903-1913, File 1118, Archives of Blohm & Voss GmbH, Hamburg State Archive; also Walter Berghaus File, Dahiliye Emniyey Collection, Basbakanlik Osmanli Arsivi, Cagaloglu, Istanbul, Turkey.

43. Ibid.

44. Ibid.

45. Ibid.

46. Ibid.

47. Portraits of Unusual People,Vladimir Krymov, p.71.

48. Gofman’s death was reported in Novoe Vremya on 19 October 1911, p.1.

49. A report by the State Historical Archive, St Petersburg, on ‘Kiuba’s’, dated 21 March 2001 (commissioned by the author).

50. According to Vienna Police records, ‘Dr Sidney Reilly’ (born St Petersburg 20 February 1872) stayed at the Hotel Bristol with his ‘wife’ Erna (Ernestine) Reilly (born 1886) prior to 2 March 1911 and again from 6 March 1911. During the intervening week he was staying at the Weiner Cottage Sanatorium (Meldearchiv, Antiquariat ‘B’, 1911, Vienna City Archive).

51. Records of the ‘New English Club’ (Central State Historical Archives of St Petersburg, Fond 1115, Inventory 1, Files 1–25).

52. Ibid.

53. Letter from Cecil Mackie to Consular Department, 10 December 1918, PRO FO 369/1025, item 7.

54. The name of the project was Nikoliev.

55. Count Thaddaeus Lubiensky.

56. Large cruiser.

57. Small cruiser.

58. Letter from Sidney Reilly to Kurt Orbanowsky, 25 April 1912, File 1083, Archives of Blohm & Voss GmbH, State Archive of Hamburg.

59. Letter from Sir Charles Ottley (St Petersburg) to London Office, 30 September 1912 (Rendel Papers 31/7595, Tyne & Wear Archives Service).

60. Reilly: Ace of Spies, Thames Television, 1983.

61. History of the Russian Secret Service, Richard Deacon, p.143ff.

62. Counter-intelligence surveillance report on Sidney G. Reilly, 28 November 1911, Fond 2000, Inventory 15, File 177, Russian State Military Historical Archive, Moscow.

63. Department of Police Report to the Interior Ministry re Krylia, 23 December 1910, Fond 102, 4 deloproizvodstvo, 1910, Inventory 106 litera B, tom 8, listy 19–23, State Archive of the Russian Federation, Moscow.

SIX – THE HONEY POT

1. US Bureau of Investigation/ONI, Report of 10 September 1918.

2. Reilly had first met Abram Zhivotovsky in the Far East, a decade earlier. Portraits of Unusual People, Vladimir Krymov, p.70.

3. Letter from Margaret Reilly to the War Office, dated 16 November 1918 refers to last receiving news from her husband on 28 July 1914 (Reilly Papers CX 2616). His letter to Nadezhda is noted in ‘US Bureau of Investigation/ONI, Report of 10 September 1918’.

4. US Bureau of Investigation/ONI, Memorandum of 23 August 1918.

5. Steaming Up!, Samuel M. Vauclain with Earl Chapin May, p.236.

6. US Bureau of Investigation/ONI, Report of 11 October 1918. Reilly’s ‘London representative’ was Alexandre Weinstein.

7. US Immigration, Port of San Francisco, Volume 7978, p.26, 13 January 1915.

8. Ibid.

9. New York Directory 1915.

10. Ibid.

11. Russko-Amerikanskie ekonomicheskie otnosheniia, 1900–1917, V.V.Lebedev, pp.142–44.

12. US Bureau of Investigation/ONI, Memorandum of 23 August 1918 (pp.1–3); and Memorandum of 10 September 1918, p.2.

13. Incorporation Certificate, Allied Machinery Company of America, 18 May 1911, Certificate and Report of Inspectors of Election of the Allied Machinery Company of America, Stockholders Meeting, 27 November 1916.

14. J.P. Morgan Jr, 1867–1943, John D. Forbes (University of Virginia Press, 1981), p.89.

15. Tacoma Daily News, 3 February 1915, p.1.

16. ‘Sidney Reilly in America, 1914–1917’ by Richard B. Spence, Intelligence and National Security, Volume 10, No. 1, January 1995, pp.98–99.

17. James R. Mann was a member of the US House of Representatives who authored and sponsored ‘The Mann Act’ of 1910. This forbade, under heavy penalties, the transportation of women from one state to another for immoral purposes.

18. US Immigration, Port of New York, Volume 5510, 15 February 1915.

19. Portraits of Unusual People, Vladimir Krymov, p.72.

20. Certificate of Marriage of Sidney G. Reilly and Nadine Zalessky, 16 February 1915, Marriage Register No. 4404–15, Borough of Manhattan.

21. The Career of Sidney Reilly, 1895–1925: A Case Study in Circumstantial Evidence, G.L. Owen (unpublished manuscript).

22. US Immigration, Port of New York, Volume 5500, 3 April 1915.

23. New York Times, 26 April 1915, SS Kursk sailed at 12 p.m. on 27 April 1915.

24. US Bureau of Investigation/ONI, Report of 10 September 1918 and Memorandum of 12 September 1918.

25. US Bureau of Investigation/ONI, Report of 10 September 1918.

26. ‘Sidney Reilly in America, 1914–1917’, Richard B. Spence, Intelligence and National Security, Volume 10, No. 1, January 1995, p.119, note 87.

27. Fond 1343, Inventory 8, File 269 (Russian State Military Historical Archive, Moscow).

28. Ibid.

29. US Bureau of Investigation/ONI, copy of Report on ‘de Wyckoff’ dated January 1917 from French Deuxieme Bureau to ONI).

30. Fond 1343, Inventory 8, File 269, Russian State Military Historical Archive, Moscow.

31. US Immigration, Port of New York, Volume 5587, 10 July 1915.

32. ‘Sidney Reilly in America, 1914–1917’, Richard B. Spence, Intelligence and National Security, Volume 10, No. 1, January 1995, pp.96–97.

33. US Bureau of Investigation/ONI, Memorandum of 31 August 1918.

34. US Bureau of Investigation/ONI, Memorandum of 12 September 1918.

35. Letter from Sidney Reilly to Gen. A.V. Germonius (Fond 6173, Inventory 1, File 25, State Archive of the Russian Federation, Moscow).

36. Portraits of Unusual People, Vladimir Krymov, pp.72–73.

37. US Bureau of Investigation/ONI, Report of 11 October 1918.

38. US Military Observer, Berlin to AC of S, G-2, US Army, Subject: Lurich, 3 November 1921 (UDS, File 800 11-381, Maj. W. Cowles to W. Hurley, Office of Under Secretary, Department of State, 10 December 1921).

39. Velvet and Vinegar, Norman G. Thwaites (Grayson and Grayson, 1932), pp.181–82.

40. US Bureau of Investigation/ONI, Memorandum of 23 August 1918.

41. Velvet and Vinegar, Norman G. Thwaites, p.181.

42. The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, 31 July 1916, p.1.

43. ‘Sidney Reilly in America, 1914–1917’, Richard B. Spence, Intelligence and National Security, Volume 10, No. 1, January 1995, p.105ff.

44. Ibid.

45. Ibid.

46. Sabotage at Black Tom, Jules Witcover (Algonquin Chapel Hill, 1989), p.160.

47. ‘Sidney Reilly in America, 1914–1917’, Richard B. Spence, Intelligence and National Security, Volume 10, No. 1, January 1995, pp.108–9. The theory that Jahnke was a double agent is dispelled in the US National Counterintelligence Center’s American Revolution to World War Two, Frank J. Rafalko (ed.), Chapter Three, p.11 and note 152. British sources also reject the view that Jahnke had any connection with SIS.

48. Ibid.

49. Spreading the Spy Net, Henry Landau (Jarrolds, 1935), p.270.

50. ‘Sidney Reilly in America, 1914–1917’, Richard B. Spence, Intelligence and National Security, Volume 10, No. 1, January 1995, p.106.

51. Spreading the Spy Net, Henry Landau, p.272.

52. ‘Sidney Reilly in America, 1914–1917’, Richard B. Spence, Intelligence and National Security, Volume 10, No. 1, January 1995, p.111.

53. Ibid.

54. US Bureau of Investigation/ONI, Reports of 23 and 28 August, and 10 September 1918.

55. 9 March by the Gregorian calendar in use in the West. By the Julian still being used in Russia it was 24 February.

56. Britain’s Master Spy – The Adventures of Sidney Reilly, foreword, p xii.

57. Unpublished synopsis by Margaret Reilly (November 1931); Reilly also told a mercantile agency in New York that he had ‘served in the British Army in France during the period of the war’ (YN 1215, 24 July 1925, Reilly Papers CX 2616).

58. Ace of Spies, Robin Bruce Lockhart, p.19ff.

59. Ace of Spies (1992 edition), Robin Bruce Lockhart, p.60.

60. Report of Agent L.S. Perkins of US Bureau of Investigation, ‘Sidney G. Reilly – Neutrality Matter’, 3 April 1917.

SEVEN – CONFIDENCE MEN

1. See Chapter Eight, note 55.

2. US War Department, General Staff, Military Intelligence Division (MID) Box 2506, File 9140–6073, Ralph Van Deman to William Wiseman, 7 July 1917.

3. Ibid., William Wiseman to Ralph Van Deman, 9 July 1917.

4. US Bureau of Investigation/ONI, Memorandum from Chief Yeoman Bond to Lt Irving; ‘Names in the Weinstein Case’.

5. Ibid.

6. US Bureau of Investigation/ONI, Memorandums of 6 and 12 September 1918.

7. US Bureau of Investigation/ONI, Memorandum of 23 August 1918.

8. Ibid.

9. Ibid.

10. Ibid.

11. See note 4.

12. US Bureau of Investigation/ONI, Memorandum of 21 August 1918.

13. Ibid.

14. Ibid.

15. US Bureau of Investigation/ONI, Memorandum of 10 September 1918.

16. Bureau of Investigation/ONI, Reports of 6 June and 17 October 1918.

17. Ibid.

18. Ibid.

19. Ibid.

20. US Bureau of Investigation/ONI, Memorandum of 10 September 1918.

21. Ibid.

22. Ibid.

23. American Revolution to World War II, Frank J. Rafalko (ed.), Chapter Three, note 114 (US National Counterintelligence Center).

24. US Bureau of Investigation/ONI, ‘Reilly, Weinstein, Jachalsky Case: Synopsis of (copy of card file) of Persons Involved’, 4 September 1918.

25. Ibid.

26. US Bureau of Investigation/ONI, Reports of 10 and 12 September 1918. (In the spring of 1916 Nadine returned to Russia on word that her father had been taken ill. It would seem that Reilly’s relationship with Tremaine began during her absence. According to US Immigration Records, Nadine returned to New York on 18 June 1916. Her father eventually died on 20 July 1917 – Service Record of Petr Massino, Fond 400, Inventory 17, File 13135; Inventory 12, File 28672, Russian State Military Historical Archives, Moscow).

27. US Bureau of Investigation/ONI, ibid.

28. Ibid.

29. Ibid.

30. Ibid.

31. Ibid.

32. Ibid.

33. US Bureau of Investigation/ONI, Reports of 21 August, 6 and 10 September 1918.

34. Ibid.

35. Ibid.

36. Ibid.

37. Ibid.

38. US Bureau of Investigation/ONI, Report of 17 October 1918.

39. US Bureau of Investigation/ONI, Report of 10 September 1918.

40. Ibid.

41. Trust No One, Richard Spence, (Feral House, 2002), p25.

42. US Bureau of Investigation/ONI, Report of 10 September 1918.

43. Ibid.

44. Ibid.

45. Ibid.

46. Steaming Up!, Samuel M. Vauclain with Earl Chapin May (Brewer and Warren, 1930), p.248.

47. Foreign Office Passport Names Index (FO) 611/24, Mrs Margaret Reilly, Passport No. 69238, issued 4 January 1916.

48. According to Leon C. Messenger (The Nanny with the Glass Eye, p.25), ‘Mother explained that Daisy (Margaret) had had many years experience as a governess’. We do not know when she first undertook such a post, but it is unlikely to have been before the war. The first recorded post as a governess is in 1922 for the Wary family in Belgium (ibid., pp.25–26), although it is unlikely that this was the first such post. Working for an English family in St Petersburg would be have been a natural move in the circumstances.

49. Department of State, Office of the Counselor, Subject: Norbert Mortimer Rodkinson’, 26 November 1918 (National Archives, Washington DC).

50. Entry 486, Register of Births in the Sub-district of Brixton in the Registration District of Lambeth in the County of Surrey, Corinne Elise Augusta Polens, 6 January 1881. Corinne was the daughter of Otto Polens, a German merchant and Corinne Knaggs, a London music hall performer. Her ‘doubtful morals’ no doubt refers to her alleged association with prostitution.

51. French term for prostitute.

52. US Bureau of Investigation, Memorandum by Agent R.W. Finch (New York City), 2 August 1918, re.: ‘One Rodkinson, aspirant for position on Russian Commission’.

53. 14th Census of the United States: 8 January 1920 (Manhattan, Enumeration District No. 566, Sheet 8A).

54. ONI, letter from Rear-Admiral Roger Welles (director of Naval Intelligence) to A. Bruce Bielaski (chief, US Bureau of Investigation), January 1919 (National Archives, Washington DC).

EIGHT – CODE NAME ST1

1. US Bureau of Investigation/ONI, report dated 17 October 1918, p.2; from Chief Yeoman Bond to Hollis Hunnewell.

2. Ibid.

3. Velvet and Vinegar, by Norman G. Thwaites, p.181.

4. Ibid.

5. US Bureau of Investigation/ONI, memorandum to Lt Irvine, dated 23 August 1918.

6. Diary of Mansfield Cumming, March 1918 (quotations from the diary are taken from The Quest for C by Alan Judd); Army List and Indian Army List (PRO) indicates that John Dymoke Scale (born 27 December 1882) was an Indian Army career officer who had first been sent to Russia in December 1912. In June 1913 he qualified as a Russian interpreter first class before rejoining the 87th Punjabis in July 1914. At the outbreak of war he was transferred to France where he distinguished himself in the trenches, was promoted to major in May 1916 and awarded the DSO in April 1917. That same month he was sent back to Russia and attached to the SIS station in Petrograd, which is also corroborated by History of the British Intelligence Organisation, M.K. Burge, p.7, Intelligence Corps Museum, Chicksands, Bedfordshire.

7. Diary of Mansfield Cumming, 17 March 1918.

8. Velvet and Vinegar, Norman G. Thwaites, p.181.

9. ‘Sidney Reilly in America, 1914–1917’, Richard Spence, Intelligence and National Security, Vol. 10, No. 1 (January 1995), p.111.

10. RAF Service Record of 2nd Lt Sidney G. Reilly (PRO Pi21220).

11. Velvet and Vinegar, Norman G. Thwaites, p.183.

12. ‘Sidney Reilly in America, 1914–1917’, Richard Spence, Intelligence and National Security, Vol. 10, No. 1 (January 1995), p.112.

13. Diary of Air Mechanic R.H. Ibbertson, ref DB340, RAF Museum, Hendon.

14. In 1919 Beatrice Tremaine met Douglas Rollins, son of former New Hampshire Governor Frank West Rollins, in Florida. They married in 1921 and lived in Europe until his death on 9 June 1932. On her death in 1986, her estate, including her letters and papers passed to her sons Douglas Jr and Gordon Rollins.

15. RAF Service Record of 2nd Lt Sidney G. Reilly (PRO Pi21220).

16. The Bolsheviks’ seizure of power on 25 October 1917 (Julian calendar) is here and henceforth referred to as 7 November 1917 (Gregorian calendar).

17. Reilly refers to the School of Military Aeronautics in a document dated 12 October 1921 concerning his claim for arrears of pay and gratuity (Reilly Papers CX 2616).

18. Counter-intelligence surveillance report on Sidney G. Reilly, 28 November 1911, Fond 2000, Inventory 15, File 177, Russian State Military Historical Archives, Moscow.

19. Alphabetical Directory of Inhabitants of the City of St Petersburg, State Public Library, St Petersburg, TsSB, S591 Len V-38.

20. Canadian Department of National Defense, Directorate of Military History, Special card index, ‘2nd Lt Sidney G. Reilly MC’.

21. Report dated 9 March 1918 (Sidney Reilly’s MI5 File PF 864103). The Hotel Cecil next door to the Savoy had unfortunately been commandeered by the War Office for additional office space.

22. Passport of John Dymoke Scale No 173914 (The Papers of John Dymoke Scale)

23. Letter from Sidney Reilly to Col. Byron, War Office, dated 19 January 1918 (Sidney Reilly’s MI5 File PF 864103).

24. Ibid. (attached to letter).

25. Ibid. (attached to letter).

26. Memorandum from SIS to MI5, dated 30 January 1918 (Sidney Reilly’s MI5 File PF 864103).

27. Memorandum from MI5 to SIS, dated 2 February 1918 (Sidney Reilly’s MI5 File PF 864103).

28. Entry No. 475, Register of Deaths in the Registration District of Wandsworth, in the Sub-district of South West Battersea, 1 February 1918.

29. Telegram No. 206 of 28 February 1918, from C to SIS New York.

30. Telegram CX 021744, CMX 188, received London 10.00 a.m. 4 March 1918 (Reilly Papers CX 2616).

31. Observation reports dated 6–9 March 1918 (Sidney Reilly’s MI5 File PF 864103).

32. Report dated 9 March 1918 (Sidney Reilly’s MI5 File PF 864103).

33. Telegram CX 023100, CMX 201, received London 2.20 p.m. 14 March 1918 (Reilly Papers CX 2616).

34. 2 Whitehall Court (today part of the Royal Horseguards Hotel) was designed by the architects Archer and Green and built in 1884. Conveniently situated opposite the War Office, it was, to all intents and purposes, a faceless apartment block. C had commandeered the top floor and rented it under the name of Capt. Spencer (Kelly’s Post Office Directory 1918).

35. Red Dusk and the Morrow, Sir Paul Dukes (Williams and Norgate, 1923), p.9. In Ace of Spies, p.98, Robin Bruce Lockhart states that ‘when Dukes was summoned for his first interview with the Secret Service chief, Reilly was present at the meeting and endorsed Cumming’s selection’. However, it is clear from Dukes’ own account that the interview took place in July 1918 when Reilly was in Russia (The Story of ST25, Sir Paul Dukes, Cassell, 1938, pp.28–29.

36. Diary of Mansfield Cumming – 15 March 1918.

37. Telegram CX 023996, CXM 212, received London 2.25 p.m. 21 March 1918 (Reilly Papers CX 2616).

38. Diary of Mansfield Cumming – 22 March 1918.

39. Memorandum from MI5 to Irish Command, dated 22 March 1918 (Sidney Reilly’s MI5 File PF 864103).

40. Memorandum from Irish Command to MI5, dated 31 March 1918 (Sidney Reilly’s MI5 File PF 864103).

41. The prefix ST refers to the SIS station through which Reilly was reporting – Stockholm.

NINE – THE REILLY PLOT

1. Telegram CXM 159, dated 29 March 1918 (Reilly Papers CX 2616).

2. Letter from Stephen Alley to Robin Bruce Lockhart, dated 13 May 1966, Box 6, Robert Bruce Lockhart Collection, Hoover Institution Archives, Stanford, California.

3. Telegram dated 22 March 1918, 5.25 p.m. (Sidney Reilly’s MI5 File PF 864103/V1).

4. The fact that C also refers to Reilly as ‘Reilli’ in his telegram CXM 159 of 29 March 1918 strongly suggests that this misspelling is intentional.

5. Ibid., note 34.

6. US Bureau of Investigation/ONI, Report dated 16 September 1918, p.1, from Chief Yeoman Bond to H. Hunnewell and A. Smith.

7. Gen. Edward Spears recalled Reilly telling him of ‘a valuable collection of coins and Napoleonic relics’ he wanted to retrieve. It is also apparent from Spears’ letter that some or all of this collection was still in Russia in 1925 (letter to Robin Bruce Lockhart dated 2 January 1967, Box 6, Robert Bruce Lockhart Collection, Hoover Institution Archive, Stanford, California.

8. Telegram CX 027753, dated 16 April 1918 (Reilly papers CX 2616).

9. Ibid.

10. Memoirs of a British Agent, Robert Bruce Lockhart (p.276).

11. Ibid.

12. The following month Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour cabled Lockhart castigating his judgement and advice: ‘You have at different times advised against Allied intervention in any form; against it by the Japanese alone; against it with Japanese assistance; against it at Vladivostock; in favour of it at Murmansk; in favour of it with an invitation; in favour of it without an invitation since it was really desired by the Bolsheviks; in favour of it without invitation whether the Bolsheviks desired it or not’. ‘Lockhart Plot or Dzerzhinskii Plot?’, R.K. Debo, pp.426–427.

13. Sidney Reilly – The True Story, Michael Kettle, p.24; Ace of Spies, Robin Bruce Lockhart, pp.67–68; Master Spy, Edward Van Der Rhoer, pp.24–25.

14. Telegram CX 013592, sent from Moscow on 12 May 1918 (PRO WO 32/5669).

15. Telegram CX 035402, sent from Moscow on 29 May 1918 (PRO WO 32/5669).

16. Ibid.

17. Telegram CX 035176, sent from Moscow, 3 June 1918 (PRO WO 32/5669).

18. Dagmara Genrikhovna Karozus was not, as suggested by previous writers, a Russian. She was in fact German, and as such had been on Department of Police files since 1914 (Fond 102, 6 deloproizvodstvo, opis 174, delo 69, tom 30, listy 37-40, 1914, State Archive of the Russian Federation, Moscow).

19. Personal file of Elizaveta Emilyevna Otten, Inventory 6, edinitsa khranenija 120, Obraztsov State Academic Theatre, Moscow.

20. Account of the trial proceedings of the Supreme Tribunal, Moscow, of 29 November 1918, as reported in Izvestia, 1 December 1918.

21. Vladimir Grigoryevich Orlov (1882-1941), a former counter-intelligence officer in the First World War, who served in the Criminal Department of the Cheka in Petrograd. To conceal his real identity he adopted the name Boleslav Orlinsky. In September 1918 he fled to Finland and later served on Denikin’s counter-intelligence staff in the Civil War. In 1920 he settled in Germany where he continued his fight against the Bolsheviks by publishing compromising material about them in the western press. He was thought to be the prime suspect in connection with the forged Zinoviev letter, although nothing was ever proven. He was shot by the Gestapo in 1941 for anti-Nazi activity.

22. Master Spy, Edward Van Der Rhoer, p.224ff; History of the Russian Secret Service, Richard Deacon, p.264ff; Reilly – The First Man, Robin Bruce Lockhart, p.55; ‘The Terrorist and the Master Spy: The Political Partnership of Boris Savinkov and Sidney Reilly, 1918–25’, Richard Spence, Revolutionary Russia, Vol. 4, No. 1, June 1991, p.120ff.

23. Master Spy, Edward Van Der Rhoer, p.47.

24. Account of the trial proceedings of the Supreme Tribunal, Moscow of 29 November 1918, as reported in Izvestia, 1 December 1918.

25. The Hotel Elite was situated at 2 Petrovka Street, ten minutes walk from the Bolshoi Theatre. It was later renamed the Hotel Aurora, after the battleship which fired on the Winter Palace during the Great October Revolution. It is known today as the Budapest Hotel.

26. Memoirs of a British Agent, Robert Bruce Lockhart, pp.314–16, ‘Final Report of Robert Bruce Lockhart to Foreign Secretary Balfour’, dated 7 November 1918 (PRO FO 371/3337/185499).

27. ‘Final Report of Robert Bruce Lockhart’, Ibid.; ‘Report of Work Done in Russia’ by Capt. George Hill (PRO FO 371/3350/79980).

28. Reilly’s tactic of ‘divide and rule’, referred to by Nadine as his ‘system’ (US Bureau of Investigation/ONI, Report from Chief Yeoman Bond to H. Hunnewell and A. Smith, dated 10 September 1918), is discussed in Chapter Seven in the context of his dealings with Blohm & Voss.

29. Memoirs of a British Agent, Robert Bruce Lockhart, p.316.

30. FO 371/3348, No. 190442, dated 5 November 1918.

31. George Hill was initially assigned to Military Intelligence after being discharged on 13 June 1915 as a result of being wounded in France. He undertook assignments in the Balkans, Egypt and Russia for the director of Military Intelligence at the War Office, before being assigned to SIS in 1918. In his 1932 account of this period (Go Spy the Land) he refers to himself as Agent IK8 of the British Secret Service. However, ‘IK’ does not appear to be an SIS prefix and one must therefore assume that it was a code name given to him by Military Intelligence. While operating in Russia on behalf of SIS, Hill had an ST prefix like all other agents in this field of operation (Service File No. 51224, Capt. George A. Hill, Canadian Department of National Defense; Army Service Record of Capt. George A Hill (PRO Pi 15714)).

32. The allegation appeared in Izvestia on 3rd September 1918. George Hill refers to Reilly’s objection to making martyrs of Lenin and Trotsky in his ‘Report of Work Done in Russia’ (PRO FO 371/3350/79980). Likewise, there is no reference to Reilly’s alleged intention to have Lenin and Trotsky shot in either the report by K.A. Peterson (Political Commissar of the Latvian Rifle Division – State Archive of the Russian Federation, Fond 1235, Inventory 93, File 207) or in the 1924 memoirs of Jacob Peters (Deputy Chairman of the Cheka), the two most reliable Soviet sources who were actually involved in these events.

33. Petition to the Red Cross for the Aid of Political Prisoners from Citizen Olga Sarzhevskaya, Butyrka Prison, Moscow, 11 November 1918 (Fond 8419, Inventory 1, File 356, sheets 355–356, State Archive of the Russian Federation, Moscow).

34. The ‘divorced lady’ is a reference to Olga Starzheskaya, born Stavropol 1893. She was divorced in 1915 (questioning of Olga Starzheskaya by Varlaam Avanesov (Fond 8419, Inventory 1, File 321, sheets 60–62, State Archive of the Russian Federation, Moscow).

35. Petition to the Red Cross for the Aid of Political Prisoners from Citizen Elizaveta Otten, Butyrka Prison, Moscow, 11 September 1918 (Fond 8419, Inventory 1, File 155, sheets 174-175, State Archive of the Russian Federation, Moscow).

36. Izvestia, 1 September 1918, and in a hand bill ‘Sensational plot discovered to overthrow Soviet government’ by G. Chicherin (People’s Commissar for Foreign Affairs) distributed to Allied troops at Archangel.

TEN – FOR DISTINGUISHED SERVICE

1. ‘Report of Work Done in Russia’ by George Hill (PRO FO 371/3350/79980).

2. Ibid.

3. Ibid.

4. Ibid. Hill gave Reilly his passport, which was in the name of George Bergmann, and Reilly replaced the photograph with his own. Hill had chosen the name for himself as he ‘hated giving up the name of Hill, and finally decided to get as near it as I could in German. That is why I chose Berg, the equivalent for Hill, and tacked on ‘mann’ to make it quite certain I was of German descent’. Go Spy the Land, George Hill, Cassell, 1932, p.217.

5. Account of the trial proceedings of the Supreme Tribunal, Moscow, of 29 November 1918, as reported in Izvestia, 1 December 1918.

6. ‘Report of Work Done in Russia’ by George Hill (PRO FO 371/3350/79980).

7. Go Spy the Land, George Hill, p.245.

8. Ibid.

9. ‘Report of Work Done in Russia’ by George Hill (PRO FO 371/3350/79980).

10. ‘Trust’ File No. 302330, Vol. 37, p.241 (Central Archive of the Federal Security Service, Moscow).

11. Ibid. In this account he refers to the captain as Finnish. In fact Harry Van den Bosch was a Dutchman who lived in Revel and sailed to and from Petrograd. The reference to a Finn was no doubt to protect the identity of Van den Bosch from the OGPU.

12. Letter to Harry Van den Bosch from Sidney Reilly, dated 10 October 1918 as reproduced in Sidney Reilly – The True Story, Michael Kettle, p.49ff.

13. Telegram 3472 ‘Personal and Most Secret’, 30 September 1918 (PRO FO/371/3319).

14. Letter from Lt-Col. C.N. French at the War Office to Ronald Campbell of the Foreign Office, 10 October 1918 (PRO FO 371/3319).

15. Letter from Mrs M Reilly to the Netherlands Legation (British Section), 17 October 1918, PRO FO 383/379, item 12, File 117953.

16. Letter from Margaret Reilly to the War Office, dated 16 November 1918 (Reilly Papers CX 2616).

17. Letter from Margaret Reilly to the Air Board, dated 4 January 1919 (Reilly Papers CX 2616).

18. The Last Will and Testament of Margaret Reilly, 15 May 1914, High Court of Justice, London, Principal Probate Registry, Ref. 1292, 2 February 1934.

19. Go Spy the Land, George Hill, p.262.

20. Ibid., p.263.

21. Letter from Sidney Reilly to Robert Bruce Lockhart, 25 November 1918, Lord Milner Papers, Great War, box 365c, Oxford University.

22. Letter from Reginald Hoare to Rex Leeper, 27 November 1918, PRO FO 371/4019.

23. Diary of Sidney Reilly, 10 December 1918; Passport No. 926 issued to S.G. Reilly, 12 December 1918, (Reilly Papers CX 2616).

24. Go Spy the Land, George Hill, p.264.

25. Ibid., p.266.

26. Diary of Sidney Reilly, 14 December 1918 (Reilly Papers CX 2616).

27. Dreaded Hour, George Hill (Cassell, 1936), p.63.

28. Diary of Sidney Reilly, 17 December 1918 (Reilly Papers CX 2616).

29. Diary of Sidney Reilly, 19 December 1918 (Reilly Papers CX 2616).

30. Diary of Sidney Reilly, 23 December 1918 (Reilly Papers CX 2616)

31. Ibid.

32. Diary of Sidney Reilly, 25 December 1918 (Reilly Papers CX 2616).

33. Dreaded Hour, George Hill, pp.61–62.

34. Ibid. p.62.

35. Ibid. p.70.

36. Diary of Sidney Reilly, 13 January 1919 (Reilly Papers CX 2616).

37. Reilly’s Despatch No. 1, Sevastopol, 28 December 1918 (PRO FO 371/3962).

38. Reilly’s Despatch No. 2, Ekaterinodar, 8 January 1919 (PRO FO 371/3962).

39. Diary of Sidney Reilly, 5 January 1919 (Reilly Papers CX 2616).

40. Reilly’s Despatch No. 2.

41. Ibid.

42. Ibid.

43. Diary of Sidney Reilly, 8 January 1919 (Reilly Papers CX 2616).

44. Reilly’s Despatch No. 4, Ekaterinodar, 11 January 1919 (PRO FO 371/3962).

45. Reilly’s Despatch No. 5, Ekaterinodar, 17 January 1919 (PRO FO 371/3962).

46. Ibid.

47. Ibid.

48. Ibid.

49. Ibid.

50. Diary of Sidney Reilly, 14 January 1919 (Reilly Papers CX 2616).

51. Ibid.

52. The announcement that they had been awarded the Military Cross was published in the London Gazette, 12 February 1919; ‘His Majesty the King has been graciously pleased to approve of the undermentioned rewards for distinguished services rendered in connection with military operations in the field:–Awarded the Military Cross, Lieut. George Alexander Hill, 4th Bn; Manch. R.; attd. RAF, 2nd Lt. Sidney George Reilly, RAF. On 5 January Denikin had also awarded Reilly the medal of St Anna.

53. Diary of Sidney Reilly, 22 January 1919 (Reilly Papers CX 2616).

54. Ibid., 26 January 1919.

55. Ace of Spies, Robin Bruce Lockhart, p.87. Lockhart refers to the street as Alexander III Boulevard. While indeed named after the former Tsar, city directories and street maps indicate that it was actually called Alexandrovsky Prospect. After Ukraine became a Soviet Republic the street was renamed Prospect Mira. When Ukraine became an independent nation following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the street once again became Alexandrovsky Prospect.

56. Novorossiyski address-calendar published by the Office of the Novorossiyski and Bessarabski Governor-General for 1871–74 and the address calendar of the Odessa City Governor’s Office for 1877–80 and 1881–96.

57. Fond P-8085, Inventory 1, File 26, State Archives of Odessa Region.

58. Diary of Sidney Reilly, 4 February 1919 (Reilly Papers CX 2616).

59. Memorandum by G.E. Pennington, dated 20 March 1919 (Sidney Reilly’s MI5 File PF 864103). The Brixton Hill address was that of John O’Sullivan, a friend of the Callaghan family.

60. Letter from Margaret Reilly to Capt. Spencer, dated 4 February 1919 (Reilly Papers CX 2616). Capt. Spencer was a correspondence name. As Sir Paul Dukes recalled ‘I soon discovered that at least half a dozen persons either in the roof-labyrinth [Dukes’ colloquialism for SIS headquarters at 2 Whitehall Place] and associated offices were all called by that same name!’ The Story of ST25, Sir Paul Dukes, p.35.

61. Telegram CX 066117, sent from Odessa 1.20 p.m. 19 February 1919, received in London 1.30 p.m. 22 February 1919 (Reilly Papers CX 2616).

62. Reilly’s Despatch No. 13, Odessa, 18 February 1919 (PRP FO 371/3978).

63. Reilly’s Despatch No. 15, Odessa, 21 February 1919 (PRO FO 371/3978).

64. Selby’s comment made on 5 March 1919 is found on the Foreign Office covering note to Reilly’s Despatches Nos 1–12 (PRO FO 371/3962).

65. Dreaded Hour, George Hill, p.95. The ‘Council of Ambassadors’ was composed of Russian Ambassadors accredited to European capitals prior to the Bolshevik Revolution. The committee had been initiated by anti-Bolsheviks in order to represent Russia’s national interests at the Peace Conference.

66. Ibid.

67. Ibid., pp.99–100.

68. Ibid., p.102.

69. Ibid.

70. Reilly and Hill were not the only ones to claim the honour of passing this information to Wickham Steed. Gordon Auchinloss, the son-in-law of American delegation member Col. Edward House, was one of a number to claim responsibility. Iron Maze, Gordon Brook-Shepherd, note 8, p.357.

71. Daily Mail, 26 March 1919, p.1. William Bullitt’s account of his meeting with Lloyd George is to be found in his statement to the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee (Official Report 1919, p.1279).

ELEVEN – FINAL CURTAIN

1. Reilly sailed from Southampton on 15 April aboard the White Star Line’s SS Olympic, arriving in Halifax on 19 April 1919. (US Immigration, M1464 #365 Vol. 479).

2. US border crossing reference NYPL Z1637, M1461 #326.

3. The St Regis was Reilly’s favourite New York Hotel. Vladimir Krymov recalls meeting Reilly in New York in 1917, by which time ‘he was occupying an entire suite’ at the St Regis. Portraits of Interesting People, Vladimir Krymov, p.73.

4. Reilly had known Jaroszynsky in pre-war St Petersburg. According to the memorandum ‘Character Sketch of Karol Jaroszynsky’ by John Picton Bagge, the forty-year-old Russian Pole was the son of a landowner from Kiev who left him ‘a fortune of 3 or 4 million roubles’. He used his wealth to found the University of Lublin and to buy up twenty-two sugar factories and six major banks. Bagge compared him to Cecil Rhodes and paid tribute to ‘his genius for buying up banks and enterprises’ (CHAR 16/28/45, Churchill Archives Centre, Churchill College, Cambridge).

5. Telegram 10 May 1919, Sidney Reilly to John Picton Bagge, Foreign Office, CXC 416 (PRO FO 371/4019).

6. SS Baltic ‘inward’ passenger list (PROBT 26/653 & 654).

7. RAF Service Record of 2nd Lt Sidney Reilly (PRO Pi 21220).

8. Intelligence requirements were directed to the Production Section. It was then responsible for ‘producing’ the required intelligence by assigning appropriate personnel.

9. Memorandum dated 3 October 1919 from Maj. D.J.F Morton to Col. S. Menzies (Reilly Papers CX 2616).

10. Memorandum dated 16 October 1919 from Col. S. Menzies to Maj. D.J.F. Morton (Reilly Papers CX 2616).

11. Secrets of Espionage: Tales of the Secret Service, Winfried Ludecke, p.105.

12. Britain’s Master Spy – The Adventures of Sidney Reilly, frontispiece.

13. Velvet and Vinegar, Norman G. Thwaites, p.181.

14. Memorandum from Sidney Reilly to John Picton Bagge, 10 October 1919 (CHAR 16/28/18 & 19, Churchill Archives Centre, Churchill College, Cambridge).

15. The Russian Problem (CHAR 16/28/170-189, Churchill Archives Centre, Churchill College, Cambridge).

16. Note from Sir Archibald Sinclair to Winston Churchill, 15 December 1919 (CHAR 16/28/150, Churchill Archives Centre, Churchill College, Cambridge).

17. Ibid.

18. G3/147 London to Capt. W. Field Robinson, 30 January 1920 (Reilly Papers CX 2616).

19. Ibid., attached report.

20. Letter from Sidney Reilly to C, 23 March 1920 (Reilly Papers CX 2616).

21. Ibid.

22. Memorandum from Section H to C, 5 March 1920 (Reilly Papers CX 2616).

23. Letter from Sidney Reilly to Robert Nathan, 13 March 1920 (Reilly Papers CX 2616).

24. Letter from Sidney Reilly to Robert Nathan, 14 March 1920 (Reilly Papers CX 2616).

25. Letter from Sir Archibald Sinclair to Winston Churchill, 24 June 1920 (CHAR 16/57/17, Churchill Archives Centre, Churchill College, Cambridge).

26. US Immigration, Port of New York, Volume 6489, 13 June 1920.

27. Entry No. 328, Register of Births in the Sub-district of Batheaston in the Registration District of Bath in the County of Somerset, Frances Caryll Houselander, 29 September 1901.

28. Caryll Houselander: That Divine Eccentric, Maisie Ward (Sheed and Ward, 1962), pp.72–73.

29. A Rocking Horse Catholic, Caryll Houselander (Sheed and Ward, 1955), pp.136–37.

30. Ibid.

31. Letter from Dermot Morrah to Frank Sheed, 7 October 1956 (Sheed and Ward Family Papers, Box 12, Folder 12, University of Notre Dame Archives, Indiana, USA).

32. Letter from Caryll Houselander to Wilfred Sheed, 12 October 1950 (Sheed and Ward Family Papers, Box 12, Folder 12, University of Notre Dame Archives, Indiana, USA).

33. Caryll Houselander: That Divine Eccentric, Maisie Ward, p.61.

34. The Diaries of Robert Bruce Lockhart, Kenneth Young (ed.), p.183.

35. Letter from Winston Churchill to Stewart Menzies, 29 October 1920, CHAR 16/49, Churchill Archives Centre, Churchill College, Cambridge.

36. Parmi les maitres rouges by Georgi Solomon (Paris, 1930), p248-250.

37. Memorandum from Naval Intelligence Division to SIS, 3 September 1920 (Reilly Papers CX 2616).

38. Memorandum from C to Naval Intelligence Division, 7 September 1920 (Reilly Papers CX 2616)

39. Memorandum from Naval Intelligence Division to SIS, 10 September 1920 (Reilly Papers CX 2616).

40. Ibid., handwritten note by C at foot of memorandum.

41. Memorandum dated 20 October 1920 (Reilly Papers CX 2616).

42. Telegram No. 983, dated 29 October 1920 (Reilly Papers CX 2616).

43. Memorandum from Section V to Production, 3 November 1920 (Reilly Papers CX 2616).

44. Telegram from Section G2 to Sidney Reilly, 8 November 1920 (Reilly Papers CX 2616).

45. ‘Trust’ File No. 302330, Vol. 37 (Archive of the Federal Security Service, Moscow).

46. New York Times, 1 May 1921, p.8.

47. Box 6, Robert Bruce Lockhart Collection (Hoover Institution Archives, Stanford, California).

48. Letter from H.F. Pougher to Air Board, received by SIS 12 October 1921 (Reilly Papers CX 2616).

49. Ibid. Note appended to foot of letter by Sidney Reilly.

50. Letter from Sidney Reilly to SIS, 19 September 1921 (Reilly Papers CX 2616).

51. Letter from Sir Eyre Crowe (permanent under-secretary, Foreign Office) to Lord Curzon (Foreign Secretary), 28 December 1921 (Curzon Papers), reproduced in Winston S. Churchill, Vol. IV. 1917–1922, Martin Gilbert, companion volume III, pp.1703–05).

52. Ibid.

53. Letter from Sidney Reilly to SIS, 23 January 1922 (Reilly Papers CX 2616).

54. From SIS (Vienna), 1 February 1922 (Reilly Papers CX 2616).

55. From G7 (London) to SIS New York, 24 July 1923 (Reilly Papers CX 2616).

TWELVE – A CHANGE OF BAIT

1. Letter from Edward Spears to Robin Bruce Lockhart, 2 January 1967, Robert Bruce Lockhart Collection, Box 6, Hoover Institution Archives, Stanford, California.

2. Diary of Edward Spears, 1 April 1921 (Spears MSS SPRS 2/4 Churchill Archives Centre, Churchill College, Cambridge).

3. Diaries of Robert Bruce Lockhart, Kenneth Young (ed.), p.17.

4. Diary of Edward Spears, 17 July 1921 (Spears MSS SPRS 2/4 Churchill Archives Centre, Churchill College, Cambridge).

5. Herbert Guedalla, a pre-war director of the Russo-English Bank. As a director of the Imperial and Foreign Company, along with Edward Spears, he was also involved in Reilly/Spears Czech Radium deal.

6. Lt-Col. Robert Guy (1878–1927), a war-time acquaintance of Spears (see Who Was Who, 1916–1928)

7. Reilly had recently moved from 11 Park Place, St James’s, to Flat D3, the Albany, Piccadilly, an exclusive London address popular with peers, members of the government and upper-class society generally.

8. Reilly always liked to make out that he was a close confidant of Churchill’s. While close to Sir Archibald Sinclair, it is most unlikely that Reilly was ever more than the briefest of acquaintances with Churchill. In Churchill’s entire correspondence for the years 1919–25 there are but two letters written to Reilly, both in response to letters from Reilly. Both address him very formally as Mr Reilly. Anyone who was close or on personal terms with Churchill would have been addressed as ‘My dear Sinclair’ or ‘Dear Spears’, not as ‘Dear Mr’.

9. Diary of Edward Spears, 17 August 1921 (Spears MSS SPRS 2/4 Churchill Archives Centre, Churchill College, Cambridge).

10. Ibid., 21–25 October 1921.

11. Ibid., 25 October 1921.

12. Ibid., 23 November 1921.

13. Diary of Edward Spears, 20 April 1922 (Spears MSS SPRS 2/5 Churchill Archives Centre, Churchill College, Cambridge).

14. Ibid., 30 June 1922.

15. The Tatler, No. 905, 30 October 1918, p.133.

16. Letter from Sidney Reilly to Boris Savinkov, dated 7 May 1923, State Archive of the Russian Federation, Moscow (Fond R-5831, Inventory 1, File 177).

17. Entry 462, Register of Births in the Registration District of Lancaster in the County of Lancaster, 4 May 1862. Isobel Burton died at the age of eighty-six (Entry 463, Register of Deaths in the Sub-district of Hythe in the Registration District of Folkestone in the County of Kent, 20 June 1948).

18. Letter to British Consulate, Hamburg, from Isabel Burton, 5 June 1888 (A6 Vol 33, Alphabetisches Register weiblicher Fremder 1868–1890).

19. Franz Kurt Burton, born 5 July 1888, Hamburg, Germany (Freie und Hansestadt Hamburg, Standesamt).

20. Nelly Louise Burton, born 20 January 1891, Hamburg, Germany (Freie und Hansestadt Hamburg, Standesamt).

21. ‘Card File of inhabitants who left or died between 1892 and 1925’ (K44320, Fotoarchiv, Hamburg).

22. No record of Alice Burton’s birth has been found in Britain. She may have been born on the continent or registered in Britain under a name other than Burton. On her Marriage Certificate (Entry 124, Register of Marriages in the Registration District of St George Hanover Square in the County of London, 18 January 1918) column 7 – ‘Father’s name and Surname’ has been left blank. Unusually, column 6 of her Death Certificate – ‘Date and place of birth’ (Entry 87, Register of Deaths in the Registration District of Westminster in the City of Westminster, 5 February 1972) simply states ‘about 1894’

23. Programme of show ‘Cache ton nu’, 20 April 1914 (Ro 15743, Arsenal Library, Paris).

24. ‘Pepa’ is a shortened version of Josephina and ‘ita’ is a diminutive form, so Pepita literally means ‘small Josephina’. Bobadilla is a town in the province of Jaen in the south of Spain and derives from the Arabic Boab’dil. Nelly first adopted the stage name Bobadilla in the summer of 1914. In 1916 her mother Isobel was interviewed by MI5, who were interested in her liaison with a Dutch merchant seaman. In a statement she explained that Pete Reyers was her intended second husband and that her first husband’s name was Bobadilla. She never married Reyers and in fact never married anyone any time during her life. When she died in 1948 her death certificate claimed she was the widow of ‘Frank Burton’.

25. The Sketch, 29 November 1916, p.6.

26. US Bureau of Investigation/ONI, memorandum to H. Hunnewell and A. Smith, 6 September 1918.

27. 1924 Electoral Register, City of Westminster, Knightsbridge St George’s Ward.

28. Entry 96, Register of Marriages in the Regis-tration District of St George Hanover Square in the County of London, 29 October 1920.

29. This story is contained in a letter from Dame Rebecca West to Robin Bruce Lockhart, 29 February 1968 (Robert Bruce Lockhart Collection, Box 6, Hoover Institution Archive, Stanford, California).

30. The London Directory 1921.

31. Entry 95, Register of Deaths in the Sub-district of Mayfair and Knightsbridge in the Registration District of St George Hanover Square in the County of London, 28 March 1921; Charles Haddon Chambers died intestate. On 2 May 1921 the High Court of Justice (Principal Probate Registry) granted his full estate to Nelly (£9,195 gross, £8,240 net).

32. Britain’s Master Spy – The Adventures of Sidney Reilly, Sidney and Pepita Reilly, p.105.

33. Ibid., pp.108–09.

34. Caryll Houselander: That Divine Eccentric, Maise Ward, p.75–76.

35. Nelly’s claim to have been staying at the Hotel Adlon in December 1922/January 1923 is called into question by this letter. The Hotel Adlon was situated at Unter den Linden 77, Berlin (it was destroyed in the Battle of Berlin in 1945, but rebuilt on the same site in 1997). Reilly’s letter of 9 January is addressed to her at Bamberger Strasse 38, IV Stock (4th floor), Berlin Wilmersdorf – not at the Adlon.

36. Cita is a reference to her sister Alice Menzies, who often referred to herself as Cita Bobadilla. She also aspired to a career on the stage, but was unsuccessful. During Nelly’s marriage to Haddon Chambers she was apparently kept short of funds and was therefore dependent upon her sister Alice for support.

37. Letter from Sidney Reilly to Nelly Haddon Chambers, 9 January 1923 (Robert Bruce Lockhart Collection, Box 6, Hoover Institution Archive, Stanford, California).

38. Entry 29, Register of Marriages in the Registration District of St Martin in the County of London, 18 May 1923.

39. Britain’s Master Spy – The Adventures of Sidney Reilly, p.111.

40. Ibid., p.115.

41. Ibid.

42. Margaret referred to their last meeting in her interview with HM Vice Consul Darrell Wilson in Brussels, Despatch No. 156, 29 May 1931 (PRO FO 372/2756) and in her untitled synopsis of November 1931.

43. In September 1921 Margaret journeyed to America (US Immigration Records, Port of New York, Vol. 6887, p.20, 16 September 1921). She was hardly in a position to fund her own passage, thus raising the question of who financed her trip and why. According to US Immigration Records, she stated that she was visiting the US in order to visit her friends ‘Edward Moon and wife’. From the time Reilly initially filed a claim against the Baldwin Locomotive Company in 1920, their lawyers White and Case began assembling evidence on Reilly and his reputation. Private investigators were hired, including one Edward Moon.

44. Incorporation, Registration and Statement in Lieu of Prospectus documents in the file of the Modern Medicine Company Ltd, Registration No. 189767 (PRO BT 31/27894).

45. Ibid. Two further directors, Frederick Martin and Kenneth Fraser, joined the board in July and September 1923 respectively.

46. For documentation regarding Humagsolen, see PRO FD 1/953 and FD 1/3354.

47. Telegram from G7 London to SIS New York, 24 July 1923 (Reilly Papers CX 2616).

48. Letter from William Field Robinson to George Hill, 9 September 1935 (Robert Bruce Lockhart Collection, Box 6, Hoover Institution Archives, Stanford, California).

49. Ibid.

50. Letter from Edward Spears to Sidney Reilly, 19 July 1923 (SPRS 1/301 Churchill Archives Centre, Churchill College, Cambridge).

51. Ibid.

52. Reilly resigned as a director on 24 May 1924. A liquidator was appointed to wind up the company on 20 May 1925 (File of the Modern Medicine Company Ltd, PRO BT 31/27894).

53. Britain’s Master Spy – The Adventures of Sidney Reilly, p.123ff.

54. Ibid.

55. Ibid.

56. Letter from Pepita Reilly to ‘Cita’ (Alice Menzies), 25 January 1924 (Papers of Mrs A.C. Menzies).

57. Letters from Sidney Reilly to Boris Savinkov, dated 19 February and 15 March 1924. (Fond R-5831, Inventory 1, State Archive of the Russian Federation, Moscow).

58. US Immigration, Port of New York, Volume 7978, p.50, 15 May 1924.

59. Letter from Sidney Reilly to Winston Churchill, 3 September 1924 (CHAR 2/134/110 & 111–114, Churchill Archives Centre, Churchill College, Cambridge).

60. Morning Post, 15 September 1924, p.11.

61. Letter from Winston Churchill to Sidney Reilly, 15 September 1924 (CHAR 1/134/130, Churchill Archives Centre, Churchill College, Cambridge).

62. Letter from Sir Archibald Sinclair to Winston Churchill, 23 September 1924 (CHAR 2/134/130, Churchill Archive Centre, Churchill College, Cambridge).

63. Because Reilly had destroyed his contract with Baldwins, his case was very much his word against Samuel Vauclain’s. The best line for White and Case to take was therefore demonstrating to the court that Reilly was a dishonest and disreputable character whose word could not be trusted. This was not a difficult case to make and as the Bureau of Investigation had found during their probe, there was no shortage of people in New York willing to offer testimony. It is notable that Reilly did not permit Pepita to accompany him to court, which would clearly have exposed her to the many tales of his less than salubrious past.

64. Trading Ventures Inc., Certificate of Incorporation in the State of New York No. 1716116, 23 December 1924, p.4.

65. Letter from Sidney Reilly to Edward Spears, 22 January 1925 (Robert Bruce Lockhart Collection, Box 6, Hoover Institution Archives, Stanford, California).

66. Ibid.

67. See note 64, p.2.

THIRTEEN – PRISONER 73

1. Letter from Ernest Boyce to Sidney Reilly, 24 January 1925 (Robert Bruce Lockhart Collection, Box 6, Hoover Institution Archives, Stanford, California). Also reproduced in Britain’s Master Spy – The Adventures of Sidney Reilly, pp.172–74.

2. Reilly’s reply. Ibid., pp.175–77.

3. Letter from Sidney Reilly to Nikolai Bunakov, 27 March 1925 (Trust File No. 302330, Vol. 37, Central Archives of the Federal Security Service, Moscow).

4. Ibid.

5. Letter from Sidney Reilly to Ernest Boyce, 4 April 1925, Britain’s Master Spy – The Adventures of Sidney Reilly, pp.182–83.

6. Ibid, p.185.

7. Ibid, p.187.

8. Letter from Sidney Reilly to Pepita Reilly, 22 September 1925, Papers of Nelly Haddon Chambers (Pepita Reilly). Also reproduced in Britain’s Master Spy – The Adventures of Sidney Reilly, pp.188–89.

9. Ibid.

10. Undated report from Alexander Yakushev in ‘Trust’ File No 302330, Vol. 37, p.112 (Central Archives of the Federal Security Service, Moscow).

11. Ibid.

12. Letter from Sidney Reilly to Pepita Reilly, 25 September 1925, Papers of Nelly Haddon Chambers (Pepita Reilly). Also reproduced in Britain’s Master Spy – The Adventures of Sidney Reilly, pp199-203.

13. Undated Report from Alexander Yakushev in ‘Trust File No 302330, Vol. 37 (Central Archives of the Federal Security Service, Moscow).

14. Ibid. Margaret Reilly also quotes her husband as having said ‘that he would believe Russia would be entering the convalescent stage when she would turn round and massacre at least one million Jews’ (Letter from Margaret Reilly to SIS, 28 December 1931, Reilly Papers CX 2616)

15. See note 13.

16. Ibid.

17. SIS translation of letter written by Mikhail Trilisser of OGPU (INO), 1 October 1925 (Reilly Papers CX 2616). The ‘valuables’ more than likely belonged to Yaroslavsky, the former secretary to the Soviet Legation in Vienna. In June 1924 he absconded from his post with a considerable sum of legation funds and disappeared. The OGPU (INO) suspected that Yaroslavsky had asked Reilly to retrieve valuables of his located in Leningrad.

18. Telegram from Ernest Boyce to Pepita Reilly, 30 September 1925, Papers of Nelly Haddon Chambers (Pepita Reilly). Also reproduced in Britain’s Master Spy – The Adventures of Sidney Reilly, p.193.

19. Letter from Ernest Boyce to Pepita Reilly, 1 October 1925, Papers of Nelly Haddon Chambers (Pepita Reilly). Also reproduced in Britain’s Master Spy – The Adventures of Sidney Reilly, pp.193–94.

FOURTEEN – A LONELY PLACE TO DIE

1. Boris Gudz – interview with the author, 24 August 2002, Moscow.

2. Report by Vladimir Styrne, 7 October 1925, in ‘Trust’ File No. 302330, Vol. 37, p.241 (Central Archives of the Federal Security Service, Moscow). As we already know, Reilly attended neither Heidelburg nor the Royal Institute. Had he been an active Conservative, he would have been a member of the St George Hanover Square Conservative Association. Although the association’s records still exist they contain no reference to him as a member (Records of the St George Hanover Square Conservative Association, 487/8–9, 487/13, City of Westminister Archives Centre). However, there is no reason to believe that his letter to friend Paul Dukes (see note 27), advocating the Conservative cause is anything less than sincere.

3. Ibid.

4. Ibid, 9 October 1925.

5. Mutt was Boyce’s reference for Sidney – Pepita he referred to as Jeff.

6. Letter from Ernest Boyce to Pepita Reilly, 18 October 1925, Papers of Nelly Haddon Chambers (Pepita Reilly). Also reproduced in Britain’s Master Spy – The Adventures of Sidney Reilly, pp.197–98.

7. Britain’s Master Spy – The Adventures of Sidney Reilly, p.199.

8. Letter from Sidney Reilly to Vladimir Styrne, 13 October 1925 (Trust File No. 302330, Vol. 37, Central Archives of the Federal Security Service, Moscow).

9. Letter from Sidney Reilly to Vladimir Styrne, 17 October 1925 (Trust File No. 302330, Vol. 37, Central Archives of the Federal Security Service, Moscow).

10. The OGPU made photographic enhancements of the diary for the period 30 October–2 November 1925, which Reilly wrote in English, with occasional words or abbreviations in Russian. The entries for 3–4 November 1925 were not photographed but translated into Russian with the aid of magnification techniques. English translations of the Russian section of the diary have been published on several occasions during the past decade. The four most noteworthy are: ‘How the Russians Broke the Ace of Spies’, Philip Knightley (The Observer, 12 April 1992, pp.49–50); Deadly Illusions, John Costello and Oleg Tsarev, pp.38–40; ‘Sidney Reilly’s Lubyanka Diary’, Richard Spence, Revolutionary Russia, Vol. 8, No. 2, pp.179–94; and Iron Maze, Gordon Brook-Shepherd, pp.300–04. Of the four, Spence is the most thorough, providing speculative additions where the original text is abbreviated by single or multiple letters. Due to the nature of English/Russian translation, there have inevitably arisen differences of interpretation in the above publications. The method used throughout this book to translate from Cyrillic Russian to English is based on a modified Library of Congress system and names have therefore been translated according to popular usage, i.e. Savinkov instead of Savinkoff, Gorky instead of Gor’kii, Zalessky instead of Zalesskii.

11. Ace of Spies (1992 edition), p.188.

12. Reilly’s ‘diary’ is in ‘Trust’ File No. 302330, Vol. 37, p.366 (Central Archives of the Federal Security Service, Moscow).

13. Ibrahim Abisalov, an expert marksman with a pistol.

14. Pepita Reilly.

15. On the assumption that the diary was written for the consumption of Western eyes rather than the OGPU, this piece of bravado is perhaps not surprising. Although obviously not an ‘Englishman’, it is debatable whether he was, in fact, a Christian either. Caryll Houselander clearly regarded him as a fellow Catholic and from the testimony of Eleanor Toye and others we know that he certainly had a keen interest in the Christian religion and Jesus Christ. However, in the absence of any real evidence, his religious beliefs or lack of them must remain conjecture.

16. ‘Trust’ File No. 302330, Vol. 37, p.300 (Central Archives of the Federal Security Service, Moscow). The letter was first published in Moscow in the Literaturnaia gazeta, No. 51, 20 December 1967, p.2.

17. Iron Maze, Gordon Brook-Shepherd, p.301.

18. Secret Assignment. Edward P. Gazur (St Ermins Press, 2001), p.526.

19. Ibid.

20. Ibid.

21. ‘Boris Savinkov pered voennoi kollegiei verkhovnogo suda SSSR, Iron Maze, Gordon Brook- Shepherd, p.276.

22. Mikhail Dmitriyevich Kushner was an OGPU doctor and mortician.

23. Veronal is a diethyl-barbituric acid or barbitone. As a white crystalline powder it would have been given to Reilly by Kushner to induce sleep. As we already know, Reilly was possibly subject to severe headaches and mild epilepsy at times of acute stress. In New York he was apparently consulting Dr Anthony Bassler of 21 West 74th Street, who specialised in such conditions (US Bureau of Investigation/ONI, Memorandum of 9 October 1918, p.4).

24. A reference to the American Consulate’s involvement in the 1918 ‘Lockhart Plot’.

25. A reference to the Soviet’s claim that Reilly was involved in sabotaging food trains at Voronezh in 1918. See ‘Sensational Plot discovered to overthrow Soviet Government’ by Greorgi Chicherin (a handbill distributed to Allied troops in Archangel in August 1918). Reilly had always denied this.

26. Alexei Stark, a former naval Tsarist officer employed by the OGPU.

27. Ilya Kurtz had worked with Reilly in 1918 and Paul Dukes (ST25) in 1919. He is thought to have defected to the Bolsheviks in 1920 and become an OGPU agent.

28. Eduard Opperput, an OGPU agent involved in the ‘Trust’ operation. He defected to the West in Finland with Maria Shultz (Maria Zakharchenko) in April 1927 and disclosed that the Trust was an OGPU sham. He returned to Russia on behalf of anti- Bolshevik forces and was shot by the OGPU in Smolensk in June 1927. Richard Spence argues that his death was a sham and that he was re-recruited by the OGPU and sent to China (Revolutionary Russia, Vol. 8, No. 2, December 1995, p.189, note 38).

29. Alexander Yakushev, the OGPU agent who met Reilly on his arrival in Helsingfors on 22 September 1925.

30. Sir Robert Hodgson was a British diplomat assigned to Moscow in May 1921 by Lord Curzon as head of the British Commercial Mission. In March 1924 he was appointed Britain’s chargé d’affaires by Ramsay MacDonald. The OGPU believed Hodgson’s Commercial Mission was a cover for espionage.

31. Paul Dukes was a musician, civil servant and journalist who served as an SIS agent between 1918 and 1920. Knighted for services in the field, he was a friend of Reilly’s during the 1920s. In 1922 Reilly endeavoured to persuade Dukes to stand in the 15 November General Election as a Conservative candidate (Letter from Sidney Reilly to Paul Dukes, 23 October 1922, Robert Bruce Lockhart Collection, Box 6, Hoover Institution Archives, Stanford, California).

32. Zinovy Peshkov was the adopted son of Maxim Peshkov (Maxim Gorky). He served with the White forces in 1918.

33. A Lycée was a secondary school organised along French lines. Both Christian and foreign, they were objects of suspicion. Jeanne Morans was the headmistress of the Moscow Lycée, a catholic girls’ school, and had been arrested in connection with the Lockhart Plot in September 1918. She was tried but found not guilty.

34. Mikhail Gniloryboff was a member of Boris Savinkov’s People’s Union for the Defence of the Motherland and Liberty.

35. OGPU official working with Dr Kushner.

36. OGPU agent Grigory Feduleev worked undercover on the ‘Trust’ operation and was in on the Reilly interrogation with Vladimir Syrne.

37. It would appear that what Reilly actually told Styrne about SIS was superficial, fabricated or already known to the OGPU, or a combination of all three. Following the breach of diplomatic relations between Britain and Russia in 1927, the OGPU arrested two of Ernest Boyce’s agents and put them on trial for terrorism. The Leningrad Sunday Worker reported on 2 October that, ‘evidence given by the notorious British spy, Capt. Sidney Reilly, in October 1925, was read out during the present trial of terrorists at Leningrad’. Reilly was quoted as declaring, ‘The British secret service – called the Secret Intelligence Service – is an institution standing quite apart from any ministerial department… it is absolutely secret: neither the names of the chief nor staff are known to anyone except the principal cabinet ministers and military chiefs of the highest rank… since 1923 SIS has been headed by Rear-Admiral Gaygout’ (this would appear to be a translation error for ‘Guy Gaunt’). In reality, the chief was Rear-Admiral Sinclair, as Reilly well knew. (A copy of the Sunday Worker article is among the Reilly Papers CX 2616.)

38. Reilly could volunteer nothing here as he was completely unaware of SIS activities since his ties with the organisation were severed in 1921.

39. Norwegian military attaché in Moscow at the time of Reilly’s interrogation.

40. SIS station chief in Prague, Czechoslovakia.

41. Reilly may sincerely have believed that SIS had placed no spies in Russia after Dukes. The OGPU, however, knew differently, thus their reluctance to take no for an answer.

42. Rear-Admiral Thomas Kemp had ordered Reilly’s confinement on HMS Glory following his arrest in Murmansk, due to a passport irregularity, in April 1918.

43. This no doubt refers to the meeting with Lockhart following Reilly’s visit to the Kremlin on 7 May 1918.

44. Artur Artuzov was head of the OGPU’s counter-intelligence section (KRO), and therefore Vladimir Styrne’s immediate superior.

45. The Zinoviev Letter was almost certainly a forgery and the Russians were keen to learn more about the anti-Bolshevik émigrés who were the prime suspects in the eyes of the OGPU.

46. Mikhail Frunze, Bolshevik Commissar for Military and Naval Affairs.

47. Wyndham Childs, Deputy Assistant Commissioner, New Scotland Yard.

48. John Carter, Deputy Assistant Commissioner, New Scotland Yard.

49. Sir Basil Thompson, superintendent, New Scotland Yard (Special Branch).

50. According to Winston Churchill, in a letter to Col. Stewart Menzies of SIS, dated 29 October 1920, ‘the other man whom I should be glad of any information which you can give me is one Boris Said [sic]. I am informed by certain persons that he was the principal Zionist agent in London before the revolution and having in his hands an exceedingly large sum of money he decided to appropriate it and throw in his lot with the Bolsheviks. I am told that he is now the principal Bolshevik agent and lives in style at the Ritz’ (CHAR 16/49/64–66, Churchill Archives Centre, Churchill College, Cambridge).

51. Leonid Krasin was, from 1920, the head of Soviet Russia’s Economic Mission to Britain. Reilly assisted Krasin in securing a trade agreement with Marconi, although it was suspected, but never proved, that both Krasin and Reilly pocketed money from this and other deals.

52. Amtorg was a joint Soviet-US trading company.

53. Arcos (Anglo-Russian Co-operative Society) was established by Leonid Krasin in 1921 to encourage joint enterprises with British companies. It was raided by Special Branch in 1927 who found evidence that it was being used as a front for Soviet espionage.

54. Edward Wise was a member of the British government’s negotiating team that met with Krasin’s Trade Delegation (Secret Service, Christopher Andrew, p.262ff).

55. Leslie Urquhart was one of a small number of British businessmen who endeavoured to negotiate trade deals with Arcos.

56. Reilly’s approach to business.

57. During 1925, industrial unrest increased following Winston Churchill’s first budget in April, which heralded Britain’s return to the Gold Standard. This added greatly to the cost of exports and caused the mine-owners to announce wage cuts on 30 June. On 10 July the TUC General Council agreed to support the Miners Federation and declared a national embargo on the movement of coal. Prime Minister Baldwin judged that the time was not right for a national confrontation with the TUC and on 31 July – Red Friday – climbed down. The government offered the mining industry a subsidy of £23 million to stave off wage cuts.

58. Lieutenant Alexandr Alexeevich Abaza, a former Tsarist naval officer and White Russian.

59. Philip Faymonville had been in Russia during 1918/20 and was US Military Attaché in Tokyo in 1925.

60. See note 1.

61. Ibid.

62. This photograph appears on page 223 of this book. When the overcoat was later examined, a small Union Jack was found sewn into its lining. The Union Jack is now on display at the FSB Museum, Moscow, and was seen by the author on 26 August 2002, during a visit to FSB Headquarters.

63. This was more than likely necessary due to the fact that he had been officially dead since 28 September. Only the small circle of OGPU officers involved in the Trust operation knew otherwise.

64. Secret Assignment, Edward Gazur, p.519.

65. Ibid.

66. OGPU File no. 249856. See also, Deadly Illusions, J. Costello and O. Tsarer, p.22.

67. By 1921 Hill, like Reilly and many others, found that due to budget constraints he had no future with SIS. Now unemployed he was reduced to living in a caravan in Sussex with his wife. He eventually found work in theatre management (‘SOE’s man in Moscow’ by Martin Kitchen, Intelligence and National Security, Vol. 12, No. 3, July 1997, p.96.

68. Kim Philby was one of Hill’s pupils at Brickendonbury Hall in Hertfordshire, a sabotage training school in 1940 (‘SOE’s man in Moscow’ by Michael Kitchen, p.96).

69. Britain’s Master Spy – The Adventures of Sidney Reilly, pp.285–88.

70. In a letter to Capt. William Isaacs, dated 17 November 1931, Margaret Reilly states, ‘My firm belief is that Reilly is still alive in Russia working for England against Bolshevism’ (Reilly Papers CX 2616).

71. Reilly: The First Man, Robin Bruce Lockhart, p.28ff.

72. Master Spy, Edward Van Der Rhoer, p.231ff.

73. ‘Sidney Reilly’s Lubyanka Diary’ by Richard Spence.

74. Reilly: The First Man contains sixteen chapters. Chapters six–fifteen contain few references to Reilly, concentrating in the main on general East-West espionage issues.

75. Ace of Spies (1992 edition), p.188.

76. Letter to the author from Robin Bruce Lockhart, dated 9 January 2000.

77. CXM 159, 29 March 1918 (Reilly Papers CX 2616).

78. Report by Agent L.S. Perkins (US Bureau of Investigation), dated 3 April 1917 describes Reilly as of ‘oriental appearance’.

79. Report by Kenneth Linge, BA, MSc, FBBIPP of DABS Forensic Ltd, 27 December 2001.

80. Ace of Spies, preface.

81. The Messenger of the Sacred Heart, Caryll Houselander, p.59.

APPENDICES