Adventures of a British Master Spy

by Sidney Reilly

  His going brought a great relief to me. I sat and awaited the return of Sidney. We were catching our train in the early afternoon. We would be in Paris the same night.

  Then as I sat and waited there came a thundering at the door. A man stood there, hatless, coatless, breathless.

  ‘Mrs Reilly?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Mrs Reilly, can you come with me at once? Your husband has met with an accident and has been badly injured.’

  He had not finished when I was putting on my hat, and asking a multitude of questions. Where was Sidney? Was he badly hurt? How did it happen?

  ‘I have my car here,’ said the stranger. ‘He crossed the road just in front of me. I had not time to pull up. I cannot say whether he was badly hurt. They have taken him to a hospital. He was quite conscious. He asked me to come and fetch you at once.’ While the stranger was speaking, we hurried down to the road and entered a covered car which was waiting there. The chauffeur apparently already had his instructions, and no sooner had the door clicked behind my companion than we glided off towards the east.

  The car was a deep one, and, what struck me as particularly strange when I had sufficiently recovered from my shock to take note of anything, all the blinds were down. Thus, though it was now nearly midday, we sat in semi-darkness, and I had no idea in what direction we were going.

  ‘What hospital have they taken him to?’ I asked my guide.

  ‘It is quite close,’ he answered, evading a direct answer. ‘It won’t take us more than ten minutes.’

  How long we had already been travelling I did not know, for with the shock of the sudden news I had momentarily lost count of time. But we seemed to be moving fairly fast, and so far I had not noticed that we had encountered any serious traffic block. It seemed to me that the air inside the saloon was becoming unbearably stuffy and asphyxiating, and my nostrils seemed to detect a slight chemical smell.

  At this moment the car turned sharply to the left with the result that my companion was thrown suddenly up against me, and at the moment I felt a sharp prick in my right arm. In a second it flashed through my mind that it was a hypodermic syringe. I was being kidnapped. I raised my hand and struck with all my force. Then the car seemed to slip away from under me and all was blackness.

  Out of the pitch darkness which covered me beams of light seemed to glance and flicker. I seemed to be swinging round and round in a deep abyss: the light steadily grew brighter until it hurt my aching eyes.

  ‘Ah! that is better,’ said a voice. A bespectacled old gentleman was regarding me anxiously. Behind his head I saw shelves and row upon row of bottles. I was sitting on a chair.

  ‘Drink this,’ said the old gentleman, holding a glass to my lips. ‘You are all right. Don’t be alarmed. Your husband has driven off to fetch a doctor.’

  I opened my eyes wide. The place I was in was obviously a chemist’s shop. The chemist’s assistant, a bovine-looking youth, was regarding me stolidly over the counter. The chemist himself was apparently the bespectacled old gentleman who had just given me a draught. In the open doorway a crowd of curious spectators was gathered.

  ‘What happened?’ I asked dully.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ replied the chemist in a soothing tone of voice. ‘You’ll be all right now. You just came over faint in your car. Your husband has gone to fetch a doctor.’

  Then memory came back to me.

  ‘I’ve been drugged,’ said I.

  The chemist smiled in an exasperatingly sympathetic way.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ he kept on repeating, ‘you will be all right now.’

  My memory flashed back to the experiences of the last few minutes. Who had been the man who had attempted to carry me off? What had happened to Sidney?

  ‘Have you a phone?’ I asked. By way of answer the chemist repeated his exasperating formula.

  ‘I wish to ring up my husband,’ I went on, and I gave him the telephone number.

  ‘Your husband has gone to fetch a doctor,’ said the chemist.

  ‘Fool, that was not my husband. Please ring up the number I have given you, and ask for Mr Reilly.’

  With a patient air of humouring me the chemist did as I asked him, and by the time he had the number I was ready to take the receiver from him. My relief when I heard Sidney’s voice on the phone may be imagined, although his tone was disturbed and anxious.

  ‘I am just back from the station,’ he said, ‘and found your message waiting for me. I’m coming along at once.’

  ‘What message?’

  ‘The man who knocked you down drove straight back here from the hospital.’ Of course I lost no time in reassuring Sidney on that point.

  ‘The plan is obvious,’ said Sidney as we drove to the station that afternoon, ‘I was to be kidnapped and carried off to Russia. The best way to do it was to send me on a wildgoose chase after you. All that was necessary was to hide you away for a couple of hours. We were saved by a miracle. Do you know what the miracle was?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘The hypodermic needle pierced your sleeve only. The injection did not go into your arm.’

  CHAPTER NINE

  I FEEL SURE THAT we were watched the whole way from London to Paris. Having seen to what length the Bolsheviks were prepared to go, I could have no doubt that, having so nearly had us in their clutches, they would not tamely submit to their defeat. The eyes with which I regarded what was probably a harmless old lady in the opposite corner of the railway carriage were dilated with fear and horror. Every stranger was charged with an indescribable menace. Sidney too was very much on the alert. I saw him scrutinise our fellow traveller very keenly. Once or twice he went out into the corridor and looked about him. He clearly suspected the presence of a hostile agent in the immediate vicinity.

  On our arrival in Paris, Sidney was greeted by somebody whom he apparently knew. A small bearded man, obviously a Russian, was standing on the platform talking with a group of others when we alighted from the train. As soon as he saw Sidney he detached himself from his companions and came over to him, almost throwing his arms round his neck and apparently very excited at the encounter. They started talking rapidly in Russian together, while I took a hasty look at the group which Sidney’s friend had just left. There were three of them, and they were all looking narrowly at Sidney. Then suddenly my blood froze in my veins. There in the group was Drebkoff. I could not doubt it. He had shaved off his beard. His hat was pulled well down over his eyes and his coat collar was turned up. He was so changed as to be almost unrecognisable, but there over his collar loomed one tell-tale ear, frostbitten and curiously distorted in the manner which, I felt, I would know anywhere. That it was Drebkoff I am absolutely certain. When he saw me he turned hastily away, and, whispering a word or two to his companions walked rapidly out of the station.

  My feet and heart were like lead. Hours seemed to pass before Sidney had finished speaking to the little Russian. When he rejoined me I lost not a moment in telling him of what I had seen.

  ‘I am not very afraid of Drebkoff at present,’ said Sidney. ‘I think the man was genuine enough. If he was not, it is bad for our organisation, because he obviously knew all about it from the inside. He told me things which he could only have heard from Pavlovsky or Savinkoff, and other things which I thought were known only to Savinkoff and myself. Savinkoff must trust him absolutely, and Savinkoff is not the sort of man to misplace his confidences.’

  ‘All the same,’ I replied, ‘I am certain that the man I saw was Drebkoff.’

  ‘Well, we will ask Savinkoff about him,’ said Sidney.

  As it proved, however, we were not able to put the question to Savinkoff that night. The great Russian leader had been summoned to a conference by Mussolini, who apparently was prepared to lend Savinkoff the full weight of his financial support. The Italian dictator however had demanded a personal interview with Savinkoff first. So far, the two men had never met and negotiations between them had been conducted through an age
nt in Paris.

  Mme Dehrental was full of enthusiasm about the possible outcome of this meeting, and on Sidney too the news acted like a tonic. To satisfy me Sidney asked Mme Dehrental whether she knew of Drebkoff. She had nothing but good to report of him. He was well known to Savinkoff, acted in close collaboration with Pavlovsky in Moscow, and was bien vu by both the French and British Foreign Offices.

  The feeling that we were being watched by unseen eyes had followed me to Paris. That all visitors to Savinkoff’s apartments were known we knew for certain. At dinner that night I felt that we were being closely scrutinised.

  Savinkoff had been away from Paris more than a week when we arrived there, and we were not alone in awaiting his return. Mme Dehrental introduced to us two Russians, who had arrived from the Moscow centre six days before, bearing an important letter from Pavlovsky to Savinkoff. The two men had taken obscure lodgings somewhere and were in close hiding. Mme Dehrental however had managed to see them every day. Sidney questioned them both closely, but neither would admit any knowledge of the contents of the letter which they had brought to Savinkoff. Sidney then tried to question them separately. He asked me to engage the attention of the one, while he dealt with the other. But it was no good. The two men could not be separated. Everybody engaged in Russian politics is suspicious of everybody else – and with reason.

  ‘The difficulty of this game,’ said Sidney with a sigh, ‘is that you never know who is with you, and who is against you. Many agents are taking the pay of both sides.’

  The little man who had greeted Sidney at the station, and whom I had seen talking to Drebkoff, visited us at our hotel. Sidney did not tell him where we were staying, but apparently he had no difficulty in finding out. Once having found us, there was no getting rid of him. He questioned me about Sidney’s movements, his intentions, his relations with Savinkoff, his hopes of the counter-revolution, etc. He asked us for photographs of ourselves, and was very distressed that we could not supply him.

  He had been one of the most seriously compromised of Sidney’s Russian agents in Moscow in 1918, while ostensibly holding a responsible position in the Soviet government. After the fiasco his life had been in supreme danger, and the Tcheka was hot upon his track. At great personal risk Sidney had got him out of Moscow disguised as a peasant woman, and after innumerable dangers he had escaped from Russia, by way of Archangel. Penniless in France he had been largely supported by Sidney. Surely if any man had cause to feel gratitude to another it was he.

  Unfortunately of his treachery there could be no doubt. Having seen him with Drebkoff was enough for me. But there was other evidence against him. He was known to be in close touch with the Soviet legation in Paris, and he was equally known to be trying to worm his way into the confidence of the man whom I will call Z. I do not give Z.’s full name because he is still alive in Paris, working in the counter-revolutionary cause there. Much will be heard of him in the course of my narrative.

  I did not see Z. on the occasion of this visit, nor indeed for more than twelve months after, when my husband had already been betrayed to the Bolsheviks, and when he came forward to volunteer his assistance. But Sidney saw him frequently for a reason which I will now explain.

  The reasons why Savinkoff had cabled to Sidney, why he was even now interviewing Mussolini, and why the emissaries of Pavlovsky were in Paris were as follows. A great counter-revolutionary plot was nearing completion. It was agreed that the moujiks would support any anti-Bolshevik campaign. The only difficulty consisted in transporting an organised armed force to Russia. At this stage Z. had come forward with a suggestion.

  It is well known that at this time – the summer of 1924 – a German scientist had perfected a poison gas more horrible and more deadly than any heretofore known. Z. claimed to be in touch with this man, and able to get the formula from him. A mere handful of men to manage the projectors would thus be all the expeditionary force necessary. Sidney was to be in command. But to start with, my husband was to go to Germany to see the inventor, investigate the nature of the gas and form of the projector, and thus be in a position to arrange for the transport to the Russian frontier.

  It is now my conviction for reasons which will appear later that Z.’s story of the poison gas was a pack of lies. However Z. seemed to be a very keen worker in the cause and was trusted by Savinkoff. He was a man of culture and had enjoyed a distinguished and adventurous career. He had been a member of the Imperial Duma. He spoke French, English and German fluently.

  When we were out during the day our rooms at the hotel were submitted to a systematic search. Everything was gone through, but all to no avail. It was obvious that somebody on the hotel staff was in the pay of the Bolshevists, a fact which naturally did not add to my peace of mind. Sidney’s friend of the railway station returned during the evening, and asked many questions, particularly in relation to Savinkoff: but Sidney let it be very clearly seen that he knew of our visitor’s relations with the Soviet embassy.

  As a matter of fact in the embassy itself Sidney had his ears. A woman employed there kept him au courant with the names of all the visitors to the Soviet ambassador. Among them was one whose name was unknown to us, but whose description I had occasion to remember afterwards. He was described as a tall, thin man with a deep scar which completely disfigured one side of his face.

  Shortly afterwards this woman, Madame Schovalovsky, coming to see Sidney at the hotel, passed at the door his friend of the railway station. She recognised the man at once and realised that she herself was discovered. By the time that she reached our room she was almost fainting. Her terror was painful to witness. She was in despair. She was of opinion that no power on earth could save her from the vengeance of the Soviet, and in fact seemed to have lost even the will to save herself.

  Sidney’s resourcefulness however was equal to the occasion. Mme Schovalovsky actually left the hotel in a packing case, in which she was conveyed to the house of a friend of my husband’s. There her hair was cut short and, disguised as a man, she took up her residence in a flat in a poor quarter of Paris. She left Paris safely and went to New York, where we were to meet her again the following year.

  Mme Schovalovsky had brought us information of the greatest value and of a nature which I may not reveal. But she knew nothing of Drebkoff. With regard to this however I shall have more to say later.

  My husband was closely watched, but no attempt was made upon him in Paris.

  Savinkoff returned from Italy in a despondent mood. His negotiations with Mussolini had broken down. Probably the natural shrewdness of the Italian dictator made him suspect the sincerity of the would-be Russian dictator. Savinkoff himself represented the interview as a clash of strong wills. Mussolini was jealous of him as of a greater spirit. He gave us a very circumstantial account of their conversations together, in which it appeared that he had dictated to the dictator. I can see him now posing and attitudinising in front of the fireplace and delivering his words with a dramatic emphasis. The long and short of it was that he could get no financial help from Mussolini. The utmost the dictator was prepared to do was to provide him with Italian passports, and to instruct the Italian legation to render him personally every assistance in their power.

  Sidney had almost ruined himself financially through assisting this man, and, failing a favourable outcome of his lawsuit, could not continue his remittances to him. I think that it was his failure with Mussolini, coupled with the knowledge that there was no more money to be had from his supporters, which determined Savinkoff on his next step, with which I now have to deal.

  In his letter, which the two men from Moscow had brought, Pavlovsky stated that he had met with an accident, which prevented his coming to see his chief in person: he begged Savinkoff to return to Russia with the two men as his presence was absolutely necessary to the future welfare of the party.

  Of the two men one was known to and trusted by Savinkoff, the other was a stranger. The letter was undoubtedly in Pavlovsky’s handwr
iting. When Savinkoff had read out the letter, the eyes of all present – of Savinkoff, of the Dehrentals, of the two messengers – turned automatically to Sidney for his verdict.

  ‘Don’t go,’ said Sidney shortly.

  The conversation was carried on in Russian. I did not know a word of the language. All I could do was to watch the varying expressions on the faces of each, and trace the course of the argument in that manner.

  Sidney’s jaw was set firmly and uncompromisingly. He said little, but whatever he said was concise and weighty. Savinkoff was thoughtful, now waxing expansive and spreading out his arms in dramatic delivery, now sinking his chin into his palm and keenly watching the others. Dehrental was worried, and seemed to shift his ground continually. Mme Dehrental was voluble and persuasive, now pleading with my husband and Savinkoff, now shooting a kindly and half-apologetic smile at the two messengers.

  But it was these who particularly riveted my attention. The one who was known to Savinkoff was white and trembling and had hunted and despairing eyes. The other, Andrea Pavlovitch, was grimly sardonic, and kept his eyes the whole time fixed on his companion. Terrible eyes they were, cruel, cold and piercing. Somehow he reminded me of a cat playing with a mouse. As I watched I could have no doubt of the mission of these men. The one who was known to Savinkoff had come under the stress of some terrible threat: if he betrayed his employers there was no help for him: even in the security of civilised Paris the tentacles of the Tcheka were coiled round him. But to make assurance doubly sure an agent had been sent with him to see that he did not give the show away once he was out of the country. As for Pavlovsky, either he had turned traitor or the accident which had befallen him was simply the torture to which he had been put to compel him to write the letter.