In the meantime I have been able to assure myself that all papers and documents have been kept intact. Any papers you may have bearing on this subject please keep in a very safe place as there is no knowing what may happen and it is very important that no inkling of what the scheme was should fall into the hands of the opposing parties.
Stockholm,
18 October
Dear Jeff,
I am on my way to Paris via London and hope to be with you on Thursday or latest Friday.
The position I am sorry to say is much worse than I had hoped from the information previously received. It appears that at the last moment just before they hoped to complete the whole business a party of four of them were prospecting in the forests nearby and were suddenly attacked by brigands. They put up a fight with the result that two were killed outright. Mutt was seriously wounded and the fourth taken captive.
Further information as to the whereabouts and conditions of the captives is difficult to get. Two parties were sent out to investigate. One, which went to the place of the fight, returned and confirmed the facts as given above. The second had not returned yet, but is expected daily. I hope by time I get to Paris to have some news of them.
It is not known yet whether this attack by the brigands was organised in connection with the business Mutt was engaged on, but it is thought that it was not, but was purely an unexpected occurrence having no direct bearing on the matter. It is none the less very disturbing as I very much fear, from the accounts brought back by the first party, that Mutt’s injuries were very serious. I sincerely hope that the other party will bring back more reassuring news.
When we meet we shall have to discuss the question of what future action is to be taken.
But I did not see Commander E. in Paris after all. On the 23rd I received a letter from him dated from London, which read as follows:
My dear Jeff,
I have had no later information and do not now see how I can get any as my only possible source, I hear, has left Helsingfors and is now on his way to Paris to see you. You will therefore be advised earlier than I shall. I don’t know when I shall hear any more about it as I find urgent business now which takes me abroad again immediately and prevents me coming to Paris.
Furthermore I shall have no permanent address for some time, but will let you know later where I am to be found if you will give instructions for letters to be forwarded from your present address. Au revoir and trusting you will soon get more definite and satisfactory information.
And so the last straw at which I was clutching in my agony had swam out of my reach. The one Englishman who had appeared in the whole transaction, the only person whom I felt that I could trust, had run away and left me. The people in whose hands I was left were strangers of a race which I had grown to loathe and fear. Any or all of them might be Bolshevik agents. I knew none of them. All I knew was that the Tcheka had thrown its net successfully at last, and Sidney had been cozened by the provocation agents, who had lured D. from London, Savinkoff from Paris, Mme Schovalovsky from New York.
Yes, it was all quite clear, and these people, in whose hands Commander E. had left me, to whose tender mercies my future hopes were consigned, were for all I knew agents of the Red Terror. Nay, I thought, why should Commander E. himself not be in the pay of the Tcheka?
Bunakoff arrived in Paris at last. He spoke nothing but Russian, but he handed over to me the letter, which, for reasons best known to himself, he had retained till now.
It was dated from Wyborg, 25 September, the very day on which Sidney had sent me his last telegram, and this is how it ran:
My most beloved, my sweetheart,
It is absolutely necessary that I should go for three days to Petrograd and Moscow. I am leaving tonight and will be back here on Tuesday morning. I want you to know that I would not have undertaken this trip unless it was absolutely essential, and if I was not convinced that there is practically no risk attached to it. I am writing this letter only for the most improbable case of a mishap befalling me. Should this happen, then you must not take any steps; they will help little but may finally lead to giving the alarm to the Bolshies and to disclosing my identity. If by any chance I should be arrested in Russia, it could be only on some minor, insignificant charge and my new friends are powerful enough to obtain my prompt liberation. I cannot imagine any circumstance under which the Bolshies could tumble to my identity provided nothing is done from your side. Therefore, if I should have some trouble, it would only mean a very short delay in my return to Europe – I should say a fortnight at the most. Knowing you I am certain you will rise to the occasion, keep your head, and do all that is necessary to keep the fort as regards my business affairs.
Naturally none of these people must get an inkling where I am and what has happened to me, and remember that every noise, etc., may give me away to the Bolshies.
My dearest darling, I am doing what I must do and I am doing it with the absolute inner assurance that, if you were with me, you would approve. You are in my thoughts always and your love will protect me. God bless you ever and ever. I love you beyond all words.
Capt. Reilly’s last letter to Mrs Reilly
That was all. There it was in his beloved handwriting. This had come back in the place of the man I had lost. I read the words through a mist of tears. The autumn sun sinking to his setting lit up the room with beams of lurid red. And somewhere far away my husband had met a fate which no man knew at the hands of his implacable enemies. The Tcheka had lured Sidney Reilly back to Russia at last.
4 Jeff is myself, and Mutt Sidney
Marie Schultz
PART THREE
MRS REILLY’S NARRATIVE CONTINUED
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
‘HE’S GONE-GONE-GONE,’ SAID the train speeding towards Dieppe, ‘and he’s gone-gone-gone.’
The passenger opposite was asleep, his face supported on his hand. Through the window the grey landscape unwound and hurried into the past. I now had no fear that I was followed. The Tcheka had achieved its purpose, and its agents had melted into the shadows from which they had come. And I was going to London – to find Sidney.
It was terrible – doing nothing in Paris. I felt like a lost wanderer in the crowd of life. I could not remain. My Russian acquaintances there – I had no friends – were dumbly sympathetic. They were helpless. They could do nothing. What was to be done? They had spent years waiting in the antechamber of Fortune. They were fatalists. They were content to wait. They were sorry, very sorry, but— They had lives, cares, worries of their own. They were strangers to me. Who could help me? Z. could not. General K. could not. There was Commander E. And Commander E. had gone abroad. He would be ‘away some time’. There was no one to help. And I knew nothing. I was ignorant. It was as if the world had combined in a conspiracy against me – against me and Sidney. I remembered how at dinner in Paris, before Sidney had set forth upon that fatal journey, Commander E. had mentioned, in the course of conversation, that when in London he usually stayed at the — Street Hotel. If he had not yet gone abroad, he would be there now. It was a poor chance, but one who drowns proverbially clutches at a straw. I might catch him there. Something I must do. I could not wait. I could not sit still and do nothing. And so I set forth from Paris on my wild-goose chase – for London and the hotel.
I had no suspicions now of my fellow travellers. I was past fearing. I did not think that I was watched. The thought gave me no pleasure, only another stab of anguish every time that my mind recurred to it, and I remembered – each time with a new and entirely fresh realisation – that the Tcheka’s work was done, and he was gone, for whom they had watched and waited.
The crowd at the Gare du Nord was indifferent. People were seeing off friends, relations, dear ones. For me, the tide of life had passed over my head and engulfed me.
I arrived late in London. I called a cab and drove to the hotel. A feeling almost of suffocation came over me as I approached it. Had I come on a wild-goose chas
e after all? Would I find Commander E. there? Had he already departed on the journey of which he had spoken in his last letter?
I arrived at the hotel and booked a room for the night. I was tired out. I asked to be shown immediately to my room.
‘By the way,’ I asked the porter as I followed him across the foyer, ‘is Commander E. staying here?’
‘Yes, madam,’ he replied. My heart gave a little bound, but I veiled my excitement with a yawn.
‘It doesn’t matter,’ I said with an affected carelessness of manner. ‘I will see him in the morning perhaps. At what time does he take breakfast?’
‘About nine o’clock, madam,’ replied the porter.
So the first part of my mission was successfully accomplished. I was determined. Come what might I was going to find out what had happened to Sidney. I was going to him – even if I had to go to Russia to find him – I was going to him. Nothing should stop me. I would find him.
Next morning I waited until E. had finished his breakfast before I revealed myself to him. For my part I was too disturbed to eat anything. As he came out of the room I emerged from the recess in which I had concealed myself and called him by name. To say that Commander E. was surprised to see me but faintly describes the stress of emotion under which he suffered at that moment.
‘You,’ he gasped. ‘You?’
‘Where can we talk in peace and quietness?’ I asked him.
Without a word he turned and led me to a seat. His hand was trembling like a leaf.
My arrival had obviously disconcerted Commander E., but he was quite ready with an explanation of his conduct in having sought to avoid me. In the circumstances of Sidney’s death, it was impolitic for a British official to be seen in my company, and he had received an instruction to that effect from his superiors. The explanation was satisfactory. Sidney himself had repeatedly told me that ‘the service must not be brought into it’.
I talked with E. for some time. He could add nothing to what I already knew. The party of men, with which Sidney was, had been attacked by bandits as it returned to the frontier. Sidney had been badly wounded. What his ultimate fate was E. did not know, but he feared the worst.
‘But we have our agents in Russia,’ he assured me. ‘They will find out in time, you may be certain of that.’
There was obviously no help here. But I had another string to my bow. There was the Foreign Office. I had written to Captain Hill, telling him of my news. He came at once to my aid. But the Foreign Office either could or would do nothing. The papers were strangely silent. Not a word had escaped from the Bolsheviks of the fate of Sidney Reilly.
What to do? I was like a caged lion. I could not rest. The precious time was slipping by. The suspense was terrible – waiting, waiting. I must move. Nobody could help me. I must act for myself.
Then somewhat to my surprise, Commander E. invited me to dine with him and to meet a friend. As soon as he saw me the Commander reminded me that I had in my keeping many confidential documents, including letters from himself. As these papers would be of the utmost value to the Bolsheviks, I would be in the gravest personal danger if they remained in my keeping, and Commander E. suggested that I should hand them over to him for safe custody. This, however, I flatly refused to do. The friend whom I was to meet, turned out to be Bunakoff, who had arrived in London on a mission to Commander E. The Commander had described him as ‘a man who does not ask money for his services, but does not refuse money if offered’; a sufficiently apt description. I saw Bunakoff and questioned him, Commander E. acting as interpreter. Bunakoff knew nothing. He had acted but as an intermediary for higher powers. Marie Schultz was his immediate superior. Who was Marie Schultz? That he could not say. He knew that she was in close touch with a world-wide anti-Bolshevik organisation, of which the headquarters were in Moscow itself. Beyond that – nothing. Could I see Marie Schultz? Bunakoff shrugged his shoulders. She was in Helsingfors.
During the past few days of vain labour and grief a plan had been slowly forming in my mind.
I must go to Helsingfors. Helsingfors had been Sidney’s base of operations. Helsingfors had been the site of the ‘factory’. In Helsingfors was Marie Schultz. Yes, I must go to Helsingfors. There could henceforth be no rest for me until I had found something definite, till I could be assured whether Sidney was dead or alive. Henceforward I was enrolled in the anti-Bolshevik cause as an active agent. There should be no rest for me in the fight against that enormity, against which Sidney had fought until it had swallowed him. To Helsingfors, then. And then? Over the border into Russia, if need be – to Petrograd, to Moscow itself – to find out. I knew no fear. My sorrow – my rage against the Bolsheviks was too great for that.
Such were the thoughts which swarmed in my mind as I dined with Bunakoff and Commander E.
I booked my passage to Helsingfors on the Hull steamer Astraea. There were several days to wait. I put my affairs in order, made a will, left final instructions in case I did not return. Then suddenly the desire came to me to put the whole matter to somebody absolutely independent. My mind went to Dr Harold Williams, of The Times, a man who knew Russia and had been acquainted with my husband. To Dr Williams I went and told him the whole story, and that I counted on him to take the matter up if I did not return. He was absolutely dumbfounded when he heard the story. At first he earnestly tried to keep me from going to Finland, but when he saw it was useless he promised to do all he could. Further I arranged for him to publish the announcement of my husband’s death, should I wire him to do so. I had to make this arrangement as Sidney was expected back in New York on urgent business and, though I had held the fort until now, I could not do so much longer.
It was a foggy morning when I got in the train for Hull. I boarded the Astraea that night. Such a queer little ship. Such a queer little cabin. Such a dear old captain. Such excellent food. Hardly ever have I tasted the like.
A telegram was waiting for me: ‘Good luck to a plucky brick. Hill.’
I was on the captain’s bridge most of the time. He looked after me like a father. He took it upon himself to be perturbed when he found that I was going to Helsingfors alone without knowing a word of the language. When he heard that friends were meeting me, he became happier. He said that he would hand me over to them himself.
It was bitterly cold, but I think that the sharp frosty wind, blowing across the bows of the Astraea, cleared my fevered mind and helped me to see things in a better perspective. The weather was fine. Never have I seen such stars. The nights were like day.
On our arrival at Copenhagen the captain took me to see the town and buy provisions. Next morning we were nearing Helsingfors. This was the first time I had been in this part of the world, and never, I thought, had I seen such a pretty picture as the entrance to Helsingfors harbour. It had been snowing in the night, but now there was brilliant sunshine. The place looked so small, so quaint, so white, so golden, that it seemed to me for all the world like one of those old-fashioned German Christmas cards, in which the little spire of the little church and all the little houses stand out against the white landscape.
Helsingfors! I woke from the dream. I was back to earth and stark reality. On the quay three men were awaiting me. I recognised Bunakoff at once and waved to him. The dear old captain bade me goodbye, and I left the friendly little ship.
One of the two men with Bunakoff turned out to be his brother. The other, an insignificant looking boy, was Schultz. I could almost recognise him from my husband’s picture – ‘perhaps a very fine boy and undoubtedly a very brave boy, but what you would call a nincompoop.’
The air was very shrewd. My hands were so cold that I could not open my trunks for the Customs, and my legs were almost frozen, though I was wearing thick woollen stockings.
At last we got into a motor car and drove through streets white with snow. Bunakoff had engaged me a room in a pension, because, as he explained, the best hotel was known to be a meeting-ground of all the Bolsheviks. Helsingfors was a
hot-bed of intrigue. Measure and counter-measure were being taken there, plot and counter-plot proceeded daily. It was important that I should be unobserved.
I had no complaints to make about my pension. It was spick and span and very clean. The bed looked very comfortable. The appointments were first class. The room had double windows and was very warm. To this day I laugh when I recall the chambermaid’s cry of alarm when she brought my coffee in the morning and found that I had slept with my window open.
And here I was. The man-boy Schultz told me in broken German that his wife would call on me in one hour’s time, and I was left alone. And how alone I felt God only knows. My courage seemed to have ebbed away. For the first time I felt like breaking down.
But after a good meal I began to feel more mistress of myself, and I awaited the coming of Marie Schultz with the greatest curiosity to see the woman on whom so much depended. I was naturally highly suspicious, and in my own mind had very little doubt but that she was a provocation agent.
Punctually at the hour there was a knock at the door, and in came a slender woman with plain yet attractive, capable face, steady, honest, blue eyes, obviously well bred, and answering very well to Sidney’s description of her as a school ma’rm. At my first glance I decided that I could trust her. At my second I knew that I was going to like this woman.
Seeing me thus, looking very mournful, very desolate, very lonely, Mme Schultz embraced me with great emotion, telling me that she felt herself entirely responsible for my husband’s death, and that she would not rest until all the circumstances had been discovered and a rescue effected if he were still alive, or a revenge secured if he were in truth dead.
Adventures of a British Master Spy Page 16