The Spy Who Painted the Queen

by Phil Tomaselli

  ACC

  But to one who loves both countries, reconciliation between the two would be most agreeable.

  PAL

  I would be very happy if Hungary would make friends. (Paper shown him)

  PAL

  Professor Haeckler gave me that: he is a very strange old gentleman. He was a great friend of the Duke of Teck and gave lessons to his children. He goes to all kinds of meetings. I would like to give an explanation of the German papers. Old Baron Schleintz lived in this country; he was in charge for Leipsic to write what happens on art matters. He was to write the biography of British Artists and one day he came to me and said ‘I have been asked to write your life’, so I had to give him all material. He died nearly two years ago and the old Baroness and an old Fraulein live alone; we visit them sometimes, and I got my German papers from there.

  ACC

  Where did you get the Blue Book on the papers found in the possession of Archibald – the man who was caught at Falmouth carrying papers?

  PAL

  I do not know, but I expect Professor Haeckler gave me that too.

  ACC

  Do you receive any Hungarian papers from your relatives?

  PAL

  No, never.

  ACC

  Did you know Mr Arthur Diosy?

  PAL

  I met him once in my life, many years ago. I was never a member of the Hungarian Society here, or of the Austrian, but once I went to a concert with my wife and we met him, but I do not believe I have seen him since, and he sent me a book he wrote.

  ACC

  Now, I want to go rapidly through another matter. Your transmission of funds to your mother. You gave an explanation about the £200, intended to be sent through Baron Mayendorff. The police officer made a report that you said this was to be part of the £1,000 that Mayendorff owed you for a picture, but you explained afterwards that you had given him a cheque. Was that the only amount that you sent your mother?

  PAL

  No, I sent her more money, but not through him.

  ACC

  When you sent this other money was it before or after June of this year?

  PAL

  I must have sent the last money in June or July last year.

  ACC

  Nothing since then?

  PAL

  No.

  ACC

  When you saw Sir Charles Mathews on the subject of this money did you tell him you had sent any money besides the £200?

  PAL

  Yes.

  ACC

  He says ‘No’.

  PAL

  He knew about it.

  ACC

  Did you tell him you had sent it through the Dutch Legation Bag?

  PAL

  I never sent money that way.

  ACC

  How did you do it?

  PAL

  It was always done through my bank.

  ACC

  You sent £400 to Blydenstein, but that did not go from the bank, apparently. We have here a list of the amounts, making a total of £2,100 up to the 21st November 1915. Then we come to 1916; there was the £200 to Mayendorff: there was also £400 paid to Blydenstein, what was that?

  PAL

  Madame van Riemsdyk wrote to me and I sent a letter to the London and Counties Bank asking them to send so much to Madame van Riemsdyk; that was done constantly. One day I had a letter from Madame van Riemsdyk in which she said there were complications with regard to getting the money, and I said ‘Would it not be wiser for me to write to Blydenstein and he sends it straight through to your bank in The Hague?’, and I did that once: my niece married and I sent her some money. After that, Madame van Riemsdyk wrote to me ‘Please do not send more money through Blydenstein until you do not hear from me again.’ I think that was the time my brother-in-law told me that I ought to have permission.

  ACC

  Last March you sent through the National Foreign Securities £500 – what was that for?

  PAL

  They are shares that I bought through my broker.

  ACC

  There is a letter to Mayendorff. (Letter read to him as follows: ‘29th October 1916. My dear good friend, I congratulate you on the good news. We have had reason to foresee that the question will turn out badly for the enemies (les adversaires). I see with what joy you have learnt the good news.’) What was the news?

  PAL

  I really do not know what he meant by that.

  ACC

  That is your cheque.

  PAL

  Yes.

  ACC

  Do you know what Baron Mayendorff’s position is as regards the revolution? From conversation with him what would you take him to be, for the New Regime or the Old Regime?

  PAL

  That I cannot say.

  ACC

  Now I want to go back to what we talked about last time – sending letters through the bag. Have you refreshed your memory at all as to the number of letters you sent.

  PAL

  I have asked Miss Lundquist, my wife’s maid who took the letters for me to Mr van Swinderen. I just said to her, ‘Will you tell me how many letters you have taken to the Dutch Legation’, and she said to me ‘About four or five’.

  ACC

  Did you ever hand them over yourself?

  PAL

  Yes, once or twice. The very first and I think the very last one in August last year.

  ACC

  Did you have had [sic] them coming through the bag coming the other way quite recently?

  PAL

  Yes. Immediately after I saw the Director of Public Prosecutions I wrote to Madame van Riemsdyk, and I think one or two letters came through the bag afterwards. Since August last year there have been no letters from me, and I have seen van Swinderen only once.

  ACC

  Beyond the hint that he gave on the telephone, did he ever suggest to you that it was irregular for your letters to go that way?

  PAL

  No, he never said it.

  ACC

  You remember you told me last time that your correspondence with Forster probably went by that means as far as you could remember.

  PAL

  One letter I got from Switzerland, but there must have been one or two letters which went to Madame van Riemsdyk.

  ACC

  But you told me that last time and you also said you had kept all Forster’s letters.

  PAL

  Yes, I have them all.

  ACC

  We cannot find them. Could you lay your hands on them at lunchtime and let us have them?

  PAL

  Certainly.

  ACC

  I did put this question to you last time, but I will put it to you again. I quite understand that Madame van Riemsdyk found it convenient to send her letters via the Foreign Office, but I do not understand now why you adopted that method. Why should you have gone to the trouble of sending a maid all the way to Green Street, when she could have dropped the letters into the pillar box at the corner of the street?

  PAL

  I never thought about it really.

  ACC

  But why did you do it? – it was not a question of postage which deterred you. You were sending letters through the post to Madame van Riemsdyk at the same time, and some went through the Legation Bag.

  PAL

  All my letters went straight to her with the exception of those five or six times when they went through van Swinderen. Madame van Riemsdyk made me the offer because she knew how anxious I always am to hear from my people.

  ACC

  My point is that you did not do it every time.

  PAL

  I probably did not want to annoy him so often.

  ACC

  You said to me last time that you had been in communication with Baron Forster who is an enemy, a Hungarian, and you then admit to me that your letters to Baron Forster probably went through this means, but at the same time Madame van Riemsdyk, you tell me, had ask
ed you to do this, and yet at the same time you were sending ordinary letters through the post which were not addressed to Baron Forster.

  PAL

  I have sent all my letters straight with the exception of five or six times.

  ACC

  Was it not because you thought the Censor might stop them?

  PAL

  No.

  ACC

  Then why not send them by post?

  PAL

  Because it was an easier and quicker way.

  ACC

  But it involves a criminal charge.

  PAL

  I was not thinking of that.

  ACC

  The point is that you did send some by the ordinary route. I should have thought very little of it if you had had that request and from that point onwards had sent your letters through the Legation Bag, but you did not: you used the post for certain letters and others you sent through the bag. When you had to communicate with a Member of the Upper House in Hungary, a Member of Parliament for the Enemy, you did it secretly.

  PAL

  No, there was nothing secret in it at all.

  ACC

  But it is a secret way; we had not got access to the Dutch Bag. Who is Professor B?

  PAL

  That is the man I spoke to you about who took news of me to my family. I cannot remember his name.

  ACC

  Who is Dr R? Is that Dr Revess?

  PAL

  I have been told he was working here for years studying British law and constitution and Hankinson wrote to me to ask if I would help his wife.

  ACC

  Could Miss Lundquist have put a letter of her own into the bag?

  PAL

  No, my letters were in an envelope addressed to him.

  ACC

  I think really the point now is that we should like to see the Forster letters. There are a good many of your papers we can now return to you.

  He was told he would be communicated with further.

  Following the interview, Vernon Kell, in his capacity as head of MI5 and a competent military authority, wrote a detailed report on the case, along with his recommendation to the home secretary that De László be interned immediately. After giving a very brief resumé of De László’s life and pointing out that he had naturalised after the outbreak of the war, MI5 turned to the meat of the matter:

  He first came to the attention of MI5 in February 1915 by reason of an intercepted telegram addressed to him to van Riemsdyck, 8 Orange-straat, The Hague, on the 16th of that month that ran as follows:

  ‘Please forward amount to Laszlo rootos Uteza 28 and wire Lamar postponing journey writing’

  As this telegram apparently referred to the despatch of money to a Hungarian subject at a Hungarian address, MI5 communicated with the Bath Police and requested them to obtain an explanation from the sender.

  When interviewed by the Bath Police de László stated that the telegram merely requested a friend of his at The Hague to send particulars to Hungary regarding the recent death of his mother.

  Information was subsequently received from a reliable source to the effect that de László was sending money from this country to his relatives in Hungary, and steps were taken to exercise special supervision over his correspondence.

  This special supervision soon brought to light the fact that he was corresponding freely with his relatives, and with a Baron Forster in Hungary through the medium of a Madame van Riemsdyk in Holland. Nothing calling for special notice was, however, observed until November 1916 when a letter addressed to Madame van Riemsdyk was intercepted. This letter, which was subsequently sent to the Foreign Trade Department, disclosed the fact that he had sent some money to his relatives in Hungary with the aid of a friend in Madrid.

  De László was, accordingly, interviewed by the Metropolitan Police, and, as will be seen from the accompanying copy of their report that the money sent from Madrid to his brother in Hungary had been despatched by Baron Mayendorff of the Russian Embassy in Madrid, and was part of a sum of £1,000 owed by Baron Mayendorff to him, De László, in respect of a portrait which he had painted. De László, at this interview, also admitted having sent money from this country to his brother in Hungary via Holland.

  It is understood that the Director of Public Prosecutions, to whom the matter was reported, saw de László and cautioned him not to offend in this manner again.

  On the 7th July 1917 we received a secret service report from Paris to the effect that the Austrian Services in Switzerland had been receiving information from a certain Madame ‘G’ in England; and shortly afterwards, on the 12th July, the French secret service reported that the Austrian Services in Switzerland were receiving information from a Dutch subject who, in turn, received by him from de László stated by them to be a person who moved in official English circles, and they asked us to make very careful enquiries about this man, and communicate the results to them.

  On the 14th July an agent of Mr Basil Thomson succeeded in obtaining a copy of a translation of a letter written in the Hungarian language by a Hungarian representative in Switzerland to de László, together with the enclosure contained therein. It will be seen that in this letter de László is encouraged to hope that he will attain his desire to be re-admitted to Hungarian nationality, that he is thanked for the numerous and valuable reports which he has sent from England to Hungary since the war started, through the medium of some person in Holland, and that he is evidently regarded by the writer as a valuable and trustworthy Hungarian agent in this country. The writer has apparently taken such steps as lie within his power to ensure de László’s re-admission to Hungarian nationality.

  Immediate and exhaustive enquiries about de László himself, and the mysterious ‘Madame G’ were made but without any tangible results.

  Meanwhile, however, it had transpired that on the 17th July, about midday, an Austrian officer, named Horn, who had escaped from Donington Hall, had called on de László asking for money. De László gave him £1, and failed to inform the police of Horn’s call until 1.40 pm on 18th July – over 24 hours after he knew of it.

  An interesting piece of evidence of de László’s real sentiments had also fallen into the hands of Mr Basil Thomson. It took the form of a note made by a sitter to de László, a person of foreign origin who moves in diplomatic and court circles in London, early in 1915. It will be seen from this note, which was made because the sitter was so struck with de László’s pro-Hungarian sentiments, that the painter displayed marked anti-British bias, violent hatred of the Serbians and the Russians, the greatest admiration of the Kaiser, and interest in military matters.

  This sitter’s impression of de László was subsequently corroborated by the Norwegian Minister.

  Mr Basil Thomson is prepared to vouch for the reliability of his informant, and for the accuracy of the statements made.

  On the 24th July 1917 another Paris report further stated that de László was principally concerned with pacifist propaganda and gave further information about ‘Madame G’.

  On the same day a letter from Madame van Riemsdyk, stating that she was forwarding something ‘by the ordinary route’ was intercepted.

  It was clear from this letter that de László had been communicating with Madame van Riemsdyk by some channel other than the ordinary post.

  On the 4th August our Rotterdam agent reported that Adrienne Riemsdyk was known to have acted as intermediary for correspondence with Austria.

  On the 8th August 1917, Mr Basil Thomson obtained from an informant whom he sent to de László with instructions to talk nothing but art to him, the report, of which a copy is attached. The informant found it impossible to confine de László to art, for he insisted on talking politics, and, in addition to displaying his usual antipathy to Russia, contended the USA did not intend to fight, and that the present was a splendid opportunity for Great Britain to make peace.

  On the 14th August further information was received from a most reliab
le source from a sitter, who is employed in the Output Department of the Ministry of Munitions (a well-known public man who does not wish to appear). This gentleman reports that when having his portrait painted by de László in August 1917 he was asked two questions:

  What was the output of munitions at the present time?

  What was the consumption per week in France?

  Matters which de László must have known to be within his knowledge.

  At this stage it was decided that, in view of de László’s opportunities for obtaining confidential information (he has painted the portraits of many well-known people, including Admiral Beatty and Lord Harding), of the fact that he was undoubtedly in correspondence by some route not supervised by the Censor, and that reports to the effect that he was an active enemy agent were in our possession, it would be dangerous to risk further delay, even with the object of securing definite evidence of espionage by him.

  In these circumstances on the 15th August his premises were searched, and he was arrested and taken to Scotland Yard for examination. The scrutiny of his papers revealed the following facts:

  He is the son of a Jew tailor of Budapest, and has a brother named Marcell and two or three sisters in Hungary. He married Lucy Guinness of Dublin by whom he has five sons. His bank books and income tax returns show that his income is about £12,000 a year, and that he has about £32,000 invested in England and America.