Ace of Spies (47 page)

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.

T
HIRTEEN
–
P
RISONER
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.

F
OURTEEN
–
A
L
ONELY
P
LACE TO
D
IE

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.