MI5 in the Great War

by Nigel West

  It seems evident that Charles and Patricia had separated for the time being, for, late in October, ‘T’ had heard of her impending return and was preparing to see Mrs Riley after that had taken place. He also wanted to see Charles’s letters and was most anxious that the man should stay in Australia as it would be best for them all.

  Patricia and Edith returned to England in February 1910 and for a time Patricia settled at Gravesend. Then ‘T’ made a mistake: he stopped Hentschel’s allowance by a clumsy trick which would deceive no one. He must have argued that exposures would not matter much since Parrott was by then in prison.

  In March 1913, a mourning card announcing the death of Robert Tornow on a journey to America was sent to Hentschel via Klunder. Possibly this had something to do with Graves’s journey to America in company with Stammer in February 1913. Then, in July, the remittances stopped and Hentschel returned home, arriving on 23 September.

  The news must have been posted abroad at once for, on the 30th, ‘Ch. Fischer’ wrote from Berlin acquainting Mrs Riley with the reported death of Fels, and saying that anything that would have been of interest to Fels was to be sent to Miss Mary Kennedy, Brauerstrasse 1/2, Potsdam. ‘Flapper’ immediately wrote to inform Hentschel, who meanwhile sent Henri Adams a threatening letter to ‘Mr R. P. or Successor’. Hentschel was using the alias ‘Ch. J. Hills’.

  On 15 October Schulz wrote to Nellie promising further particulars of the death of Fels but Hentschel was not to be convinced. Fels, it appears, had been in England and at the Rileys as late as September 1913.

  On his return from Australia Hentschel went to Mrs Riley’s house at 82 Pagitt Street in Chatham and found that Patricia was earning her living as manageress at Bennett’s Hotel in Weybridge, a place much frequented by airmen. On 29 September Hentschel left Mrs Riley’s and went to London. He wrote begging his wife to return to him and she refused; on 15 October he went to Weybridge to see her again and she still refused to return. Meanwhile he had been communicating with Scotland Yard under the assumed name of Atlantis. He wrote three letters offering to give information about the German Secret Service and traffic in confidential naval books, on condition that the safety of everyone he mentioned should be guaranteed, that he should receive a sum of money, and employment in the British Secret Service. The expenditure of £100 was sanctioned and an advertisement in the terms required by Atlantis was put in the Daily Telegraph asking him to call. On the 10th Atlantis called at Scotland Yard and Mr Melville identified him as Hentschel.

  A further meeting was arranged which took place on the 15th, Hentschel received none of the guarantees he had asked for and was preparing to leave without making any revelations when Melville broke down further resistance by addressing him by name. Hentschel then told the story of his life and dealings with Parrott and the German Secret Service.

  Meanwhile, Hentschel had spared his wife and her family and continued his efforts to induce her to return to him. It was her final refusal that drove him to desperation. Late at night on 21 October he took his two little children to the police station at Chatham and there made a scene. The police persuaded him to go home with the children. He had been drinking heavily and was confused. In his rage he told the family that he had given himself up as a spy and had betrayed them.

  This was anticipating events but, as will be seen, it frightened the Rileys into concerted action to protect themselves and their connections. Emily Pelling clung to him to prevent the final rupture. On 22 October Hentschel came to town with the children and Mrs Felling and, after sending threatening telegrams to his wife, he gave himself up as a spy to the city police. He made a signed statement embodying the accusations he had made against Parrott and the German Secret Service in his interview with Melville.

  The exposure was highly inconvenient for once in the hands of the police the matter had to go forward. The Foreign Office would not, the Admiralty could not intervene. Hentschel was detained in custody for a fortnight in order that his statements might be investigated. He was brought up at Westminster on 8 November and charged with having on his own confession incited, ‘George Charles Parrott … to disclose official secrets … during the years 1910, 1911 and 1912’. At this hearing the written statement he had made to the police was referred to in general terms only, as it was inadvisable to make public the extent of the disclosures made to a foreign power.

  The solicitor for the defence suggested that this was a confidential communication in return for which Hentschel had received £30 from the police, and an engagement in the British Secret Service at £5 a week. It is probable that Hentschel was too bemused to have realised the difference between his communication to Melville and his voluntary statements to the police, for after his arrest he had written to reassure the Rileys and to beg for the intervention of ‘Uncle’ or ‘Cousin’ in whose death he did not believe. But his mistake was eagerly seized upon by the prosecution, who withdrew the charge with a fine show of clemency. Sir Archibald Bodkin admitted in court that a confidential communication had been made to and a payment of £30 received from an authority specially constituted to deal with similar cases.

  Hentschel was discharged and John Bull contrasted the case of the self-confessed spy who could not secure a conviction, try how he might, with that of the convicted spy who was released and promoted to a post in the British Secret Service. Hentschel left prison on 18 November. He saw his wife on the 19th and fetched away his little boy. Then he took out a gun license, bought a pistol, and threatened his wife with it. At her instance he was rearrested on the 22nd and charged with threatening to kill Patricia Hentschel. The threat was useful to Patricia whose file became that of the innocent wife coerced into acting against her country’s interests.

  At the first hearing of the charge against Hentschel, the threatening telegrams he had sent to his wife on 22 October were produced. Further evidence was required as to the despatch of these telegrams and the case was adjourned. Between the first and the second hearing the GPO contrived to mislay the originals of five of these telegrams, with the result that, although Hentschel was committed for trial, the more serious charge was withdrawn, for lack of sufficient evidence. He was bound over for twelve months and discharged. The file does not contain any detailed press notice of the trial, for the DPP was not concerned, but Patricia Hentschel had complained of the result to the Chief Constable of Kent, who communicated with MO5 and they supplied the solution given above. Hentschel went abroad. He wrote to Nellie Riley once or twice from Antwerp and stated his intention of going to China.

  Hentschel had stated that the Annual Report of Torpedo School had been received from the Actaeon. It was discovered that First Writer W. R. H. Greene had been serving on the Actaeon from either 7 March or 8 April 1910, and had been relieved on 2 December 1911, at the request of his commanding officer who did not trust him. At the beginning of 1912, Greene was on HMS Diamond and he was discharged for unsatisfactory conduct on 24 April 1912. His shore address was 20 Imperial Road, Gillingham. He had spoken of his intention of emigrating.

  Enquiry concerning Parrott was also revived. Hentschel’s statement was shown to him and his reply to it has been already discussed. His comments on other points were interesting: he threw doubts on the integrity of George Pelling, Engine-Room Artificer on board a torpedo-boat of the Chatham Division and of Mrs Riley, who he said, had tried to blackmail him and had forced upon him in 1911, an introduction to Captain Fels; and he stated, that ‘Tom’ and ‘Richard’ were, he believed, identical and that his own trip abroad had been taken with a view to extricating himself from the position in which Hentschel had left him.

  Thus the Rileys and Pollings were definitely incriminated by Parrott and their relations with Fels, a German agent, exposed. On 22 October, the day after they thought Hentschel had betrayed them, anonymous information was given to the Secretary of the Commander-in-Chief at the Nore that Hentschel had returned from Australia, was living with the Rileys, his relations, that he had a brother-in-law, Ge
orge Palling, in the navy, and that he had given himself up as a spy. The informant was Philip Owen Penrose, civilian schoolmaster of the Mechanical Establishment Training at Chatham. His reason for anonymity was no doubt the fact that he had known the Rileys intimately for about a year and was engaged to be married to Edith Riley. His somewhat tardy information was inaccurate but represented what the Rileys believed at the time.

  Penrose next volunteered the information that Captain Friedel Fels had, during Hentschel’s absence, visited the Rileys for the purpose of paying his addresses to one of the daughters. Having been submitted to a severe interrogatory concerning his acquaintance with the Rileys, and his connection with Fels, Mrs Riley and Parrott, his replies were too guarded and showed too correct a knowledge of the Rileys’ doings to be satisfactory. Moreover he declared he had seen Fels only once and that in September 1913, whereas Mrs Riley had admitted that Fels had been frequently to see them in August of that year. Penrose repeated the story of the Rileys that Fels had originally come over to trace Hentschel who had embezzled money; he also repeated Mrs Riley’s explanation of her motives in going repeatedly to Rotterdam, and asserted her innocence. He was censured by his commanding officer for want of frankness, for not having kept his position or acted in accordance with his duty. There was an obstacle in the way of removing him from Chatham but, after war had broken out, when he went to live with the Rileys, he was told to choose between his connection with that family and his post. He preferred to resign. A search of his old rooms and of the premises at the Rileys was made without result. Subsequently in 1916 he obtained a post as draughtsman in the Royal Arsenal. This being reported to MI5 they eventually procured his discharge. He then obtained work with the Napier motor-manufacturing firm.

  Parrott had not hesitated to denounce Patricia and the part she had played as beguiler. She herself acknowledged this part: she was to find out, she said, those officers and non-commissioned officers who were in need of money and open to bribery.

  Eventually in May 1914, through a friend of Hentschel’s, certain definite charges were made against the Rileys. These charges had been made to the friend by Hentschel himself. Thanks to their efforts Hentschel had received information which he could not otherwise have attempted to get; his own pay was increased and Patricia had received a gratuity of £150; she had obtained from Parrott in lieu of Talbot, who was moved, specimens of the English high explosives and information about the manoeuvres; she had been repeatedly to Ostend and was sometimes accompanied by her sister, Emily (later Mrs Pelling, who was then unmarried); Emily had typed out confidential reports about secret signals, torpedoes, minesweepers etc. Nellie and Edith had often gone with Patricia and Emily on their excursions in search of information. Mrs Riley had gone to Ostend twice, to Rotterdam once and had received money and instructions. She had known she was being shadowed. The same informant stated that Pelling had known Hentschel since 1910, when he took lessons in German.

  He and Hentschel had always been enemies but he became extremely friendly with Fels and was photographed with him. Pelling had spoken of having had a Manual of Torpedo School given to him ‘by an officer who had forgotten to ask for it back’. As regards Penrose, the only cause for suspicion was that he had known Fels.

  Patricia assumed the name of Howarth and continued her work at Weybridge. She worried the Chief Constable of Kent with her fears about Hentschel and even hinted that a fresh case of espionage was developing in her neighbourhood. In May, after receipt of the specific statements made by Hentschel to a friend, enquiries were made as to the date of her marriage, the £150 received from German sources, and her addresses when she returned to England in 1913. On the whole Hentschel’s statements were substantiated. In August 1910, Hentschel and his wife had bought furniture from a local firm on the agreement that the total cost of £154 should be paid off in monthly installments of £10 but on 19 October 1910, £136 was paid by, it was believed, Mrs Hentschel: the sum was made, of two £50 notes, two £5 notes and gold.

  Talbot, an employee of Chatham Dockyard who was to have given Patricia specimens of high explosive in 1910, was also identified from data given by Hentschel and was connected with the Pellings. When he promised the specimens Talbot was expecting to be transferred to Upnor Magazine, the transfer did not come off so Patricia obtained the specimens later on from Parrott.

  On the outbreak of war Bennett’s Hotel was searched but nothing incriminating was found. In February 1916, enquiry was made as to Patricia’s residence and she was still managing Bennett’s Hotel. A check was placed upon her correspondence, but it was cancelled in March 1917 having produced nothing of interest.

  Following Hentschel’s confession to Melville, MO5 undertook further investigations concerned with German agents abroad and the connections of the Rileys at home. Hentschel had mentioned four agents:

  – Robert Tornow, whom he identified with Theisen, aged sixty-four and Chief of the German Secret Service;

  – Captain Fels, Theisen’s assistant, aged about thirty-five and a captain in the German Army;

  – Captain Steinhauer, a police officer, aged forty-five, resembling a Maltese, who had journeyed through England in 1911 as a traveller in optical instruments;

  – Max Dressler, a confectioner and keeper of a private hotel in which German agents met their employees and photographed documents brought from England.

  The statements regarding Dressler were verified. Dressler had opened a confectioner’s shop at rue d’Ouest 22, Ostend in 1909, and had run it in conjunction with the Hotel Pension Gretry, 70 rue Longue. The rooms over the shop at 23 rue d’Ouest were used as an annexe. Dressler had had electric light installed in them. The business had not paid and had been given up at the end of October 1910. Two Germans had stayed there on and off.

  Mademoiselle Fotsch, the manageress, who was staying at Sunderland at the time of the enquiry, denied having ever heard the name of Hentschel, or having seen Tornow but she had heard Dressler speak of him. So far as she knew the rooms had not been used for photographic purposes. Enquiry about Fels was more complicated and led to preventative action.

  When the Hentschels went to Australia on 24 June 1911, they took with them Nellie and Edith Riley, who returned at some date unknown, but before February 1912. Mrs Riley remained at Chatham with her daughter, Emily Pelling, and in July 1911 Captain Fels appeared at Chatham, posing as a schoolfriend of Hentschel, and an author. Ostensibly at work on a guide book, he struck up a great friendship with the Pellings through whom Hentschel later said, that he had been able to find out anything he chose about naval matters. Hentschel heard of Captain Fels’s visit and threatened Parrott with exposure. According to Parrott, Mrs Riley also tried to blackmail him. In January 1912, the Germans were dealing with these attempts from Berlin, while Mrs Riley was backing them up by wiring to Hentschel: ‘No business doing here.’

  These details are necessary to assess the correspondence between Mrs Riley and ‘T’. Concerning these letters and several visits which she paid to Rotterdam, Mrs Riley afterwards declared in an interview with William Melville that they dealt solely with the affairs of Karl Hentschel and her daughter, Patricia. She had doubts of the validity of her daughter’s marriage, and Fels had told her to write and enquire of Hubert Carr, known also as ‘T’ or Thompson, about the matter.

  She did so, went abroad repeatedly, once even in July, while George Parrott was under arrest, and saw Thompson. Her description of the man left no doubt she had seen Theisen, who had told her that Hentschel had got into trouble with a woman abroad and had embezzled money. Melville thought she was lying and certainly her pretended ignorance of the fact that she was dealing with German agents was a lie. But there is some truth in the statement about the woman abroad (particularly the story of Hentschel being already married, and of his engagement to Amelie Wetzel); he had certainly wrung money from his employers, although it is not certain that he embezzled money entrusted to him. Analysis of Mrs Riley’s relations with ‘T’ bears out
her statement that she was wholly concerned about Hentschel and her daughter’s affairs.

  On the other hand, ‘T’ sent messages by her to Parrott, when direct communication was unadvisable and Mrs Riley’s efforts on behalf of her daughter seem to have been designed to secure provision for Patricia and the buying of Hentschel’s silence. Here her interests and those of the German Secret Service were identical.

  In December 1911 MO5 became aware of Mrs Riley’s existence through a letter sent via Carl Gustav Ernst, acknowledging Mrs Riley’s communication of mid-November, and arranging a meeting with her at the Maas Hotel in Rotterdam on 25 December. The meeting was then postponed and ultimately put off for weeks. But when ‘T’ heard that Patricia was on the way home, he sent Mrs Riley £6 and arranged to meet her on 25 February 1912.

  Mrs Riley evidently accepted the meeting, but did not go. Her house was being watched: detectives even went to Rotterdam, and saw there Theisen, travelling under the name of Thibaut, and another man who seems to have been somewhat younger than Fels. The detective stated that Theisen was also known as Charles ‘T’ of Cologne.

  On 17 March Mrs Riley went to Rotterdam, and, almost immediately afterwards, Patricia and Hentschel resumed communication with the German Secret Service.

  While Hentschel was still in England and negotiations were being continued, Mrs Riley was refused an interview, but when his departure for Australia either was immediately at hand or had taken place, she was summoned once more to Rotterdam for an interview to take place on 25 June. At this time, according to Hentschel, she was blackmailing Parrott for £500, an unlikely story but she may have asked for a small sum. At that meeting some small fixed pension or payment was arranged for her on condition that Charles gave no further trouble. The sum sent for July and August was £5. It was some time after this meeting that ‘Richard’ wrote to Parrott acknowledging the receipt of ‘three nice novels’; these might have been conveyed abroad by Mrs Riley.