by Andrew Cook
…with Reilly to a Russian Charity Fête – very popular and hot – did not like it. R[eilly] made great friends with some Russian singers. Poor people they are having a bad time. Lost children… one of them, a colonel in Russian army former ADC to an Archduke and a friend of Polovtsoffs. R[eilly] dragged me to dine at the place they play at. They sang gipsy songs to us… overcome by R[eilly]’s generosity.4
By the following month, Reilly’s unreliability was becoming apparent to Spears; who wrote:
Reilly was to have seen Guedalla5 at 3 did not turn up, absorbed in Russian business, I rather annoyed… Guedalla and Guy6 gave me the impression they are not at all keen on Reilly – saw R[eilly] at the Albany7 – he delighted as he saw Churchill who wants him to see L[loyd]G[eorge].8
The atmosphere was hardly improved when Spears received what he considered to be a ‘rude’ telegram from Reilly two weeks later. ‘I won’t stand cheek’, 9 Spears recorded in his diary that day. Within months, however, their relationship had taken an even greater turn for the worse. What had started out as misgivings about reliability and protocol now focused on Reilly’s honesty in his dealings with the company. Suspicions had apparently been raised as to the amount of money Reilly was taking from company funds and receiving in expenses.10 Matters came to a head on the morning of 25 October when Spears arrived at the office and was outraged to find that the phone had been cut off ‘owing to Reilly not having paid’.11 After a row over an inflated expenses claim, Reilly appears to have placated Spears with yet another of his ‘get-rich-quick’ schemes, for as Spears’ diary records, on 22 November he and Reilly proceeded to the British and North European Bank ‘to see Rheiar re a Bulgarian egg scheme’. The following week Spears was again lecturing Reilly:
…on the danger of dealing with shady people and mixing politics with business – for R[eilly] has I fear compromised his position in Prague by identifying himself too much with Savinkov who is now out of favour there. R[eilly]’s great danger is his associates before he worked with us, he is not careful enough.12
If 1921 had seen its ups and downs so far as the Spears/Reilly relationship was concerned, then 1922 was downhill all the way. On 20 April another Reilly ‘get-rich-quick’ scheme hit the dust. Held out as another sure-fire winner, the ‘big Moravian scheme’, in Spears’ own words, ‘went fut’.13 Following another row over Reilly’s business methods in June,14 Spears no doubt decided that he had no other option but to terminate his business relationship with him. On 2 August over lunch, he ‘very pleasantly’ severed his connection with Reilly.
This was a further blow to Reilly’s already depleted bank balance, which was still bearing the brunt of funding Savinkov’s activities. His chance meeting in Berlin with the wealthy widow Pepita Bobadilla, some four months after parting company with Spears, can therefore be seen as a somewhat fortuitous lifeline.
Like Reilly, much mystery has surrounded Pepita Ferdinanda Bobadilla’s true identity, nationality, parentage and origins. Many have claimed that she was born in Latin America and came over to England, where she found celebrity as an actress. According to an interview Pepita gave to The Tatler magazine in October 1918, she was born in Equador.15 On various other occasions over the years she claimed to have been born in Argentina and Chile. Reilly himself told a number of friends and acquaintances that she had an Equadorian mother and an Irish father,16 although it is not clear whether he actually believed this himself or was simply a willing accomplice in perpetuating the myth. She herself also did much to encourage and perpetuate this myth. The truth, however, is somewhat less exotic and very much more down to earth. Her mother, Isobel, was born in 1862 in Lancaster, the daughter of a flour warehouseman.17 On 5 June 1888 Isobel arrived in Hamburg, and registered at the British Consulate where she informed them she was looking for a job as a servant.18 It would seem that Isobel had met Franz Brueckmann in England and on his return to Germany had followed him. One month after her arrival in Hamburg, on 5 July, she gave birth to a son, Franz Kurt Burton.19 Although Franz Kurt’s record of birth does not indicate the name of his father, he was almost certainly Brueckmann. In fact, Isobel moved into an apartment owned by Brueckmann shortly after Franz Kurt’s birth.
Her second child, Nelly Louise Burton, was also born in Hamburg on 20 January 1891.20 Again, no father’s name appears on the record. Isobel was still living at the apartment owned by Brueckmann at the time, and Brueckmann may possibly have fathered the child too. On 27 April 1892, Isobel returned to England with her two young children in tow.21 Two years later, Isobel gave birth to her third and last child, a daughter named Alice. Again, no father is indicated on any records.22
In 1910 Nelly made her modest entry into show business as a dancer and in 1912 was engaged by the Bal du Moulin Rouge, in the Pigalle district of Paris.23 The Moulin was reputedly the centre of Parisian sinfulness and was famous for having first commercialised the cancan in the 1890s. It was here that she adopted the stage name of Josefina Bobadilla.24 In 1915 the Moulin burnt down and Nelly returned to England. The war had provided a great stimulus to all forms of entertainment, and the theatre in particular. Musicals proved a popular form of escapism, and were packed out by servicemen wanting to make the most of their brief period of leave. Nelly’s initial break in London was with Charles B. Cochran, who recruited her as a chorus girl after an audition in spring 1916.
With more productions and performances came the demand for more actors and actresses. This was good news for chorus girls like Nelly, as the chorus line was a ready source for promoters to tap into. In November 1916 she was given her first acting role by Cochran, who cast her as Gladys in Houp-La, which was to be the first production staged at his new theatre, the St Martin’s, which was due to open in December. Houp-La, described by Cochran as ‘a comedy set to music’,25 starred Gertie Millar and George Graves. Gertie Millar, eleven years Nelly’s senior, was an old hand and had been on stage since the age of thirteen. She had been the mistress of a Russian businessman, who had only recently left London for New York, by the name of Alexandre Weinstein.26
The London stage was a honey pot for rich ‘playboys’ like Weinstein and Reilly, and it was some three years later in January 1920, after a performance of Daddies, at the Haymarket Theatre that Nelly was first introduced to Reilly. It would also seem that Reilly had met her wealthy brother-in-law, Stephen Menzies, during his time in New York. By all accounts, Alice and Stephen Menzies had a very ‘open’ marriage, and it was rumoured that she and Reilly had been more than acquaintances on his return to London. Alice, the more extrovert of the two sisters, threw herself headfirst into the ‘Roaring Twenties’, as an emancipated Flapper, dancing the Charleston till dawn and maintaining her own apartment at Pembroke Mews in Belgravia.27
In October 1920, Pepita married the sixty-year-old playwright Charles Haddon Chambers, thirty-one years her senior.28 The marriage was a great surprise to everyone, not least the forty-year- old widow engaged to Haddon Chambers, who only learned that her intended had deserted her when she picked up the Evening Standard the following day.29 Pepita, like her sister, had now found herself a husband of substance and, like Alice, maintained her own apartment, at 35 Three Kings Yard in Mayfair.30 The adjective that could most accurately describe their marriage would have to be ‘short’, for five months later Haddon Chambers died of a stroke at the Bath Club, leaving the newly wed Pepita the not insub-stantial sum of £9,195.31
Although she had first met Reilly in 1920, her 1931 book tells of a ‘love at first sight’ encounter with ‘Master Spy’ Reilly the year after Haddon Chambers’ death:
My first meeting with Sidney Reilly took place at the Hotel Adlon in Berlin. It was in the December of 1922, and the Reparations Commission was in session in the German capital. I was staying there with my mother and sister and among the acquaintances we made was an English delegate on the Commission.32
This delegate apparently regaled Mrs Burton and her two daughters with tales of Britain’s Master Spy and his da
ring exploits. That same evening at dinner, Pepita claims to have had her first glimpse of Reilly:
When raising my eyes from my coffee I found them looking straight into a pair of brown ones at the other side of the room. For a moment his eyes held mine and I felt a delicious thrill running through me. The owner of the eyes presented a well-groomed and well-tailored figure, with a lean, rather sombre face, which conveyed an impression of unusual strength of resolution and character. The eyes were steady, kindly and rather sad. And with it all there was an expression, which might almost have been sardonic, the expression of a man, who not once but many times had laughed in the face of death.33
In this romantically charged account, Reilly gets a member of the British delegation to introduce him to Pepita, and by the end of the week they have become secretly engaged. History again repeated itself when they married the following May, and Caryll Houselander discovered almost at the last moment that the man she was devoted to was about to marry another. Devastated by Reilly’s marriage, she was never really able to recover emotionally or fill the void he left. In 1947 she confided to a friend:
I know what it can feel like to part from a man whom one is in love with, for I too have done so, years and years ago… A few years of grief on earth are nothing compared to being together in eternity in God’s presence.34
Reilly was not alone in being secretive about their engagement; Pepita, too, kept it hidden from those closest to her: ‘Our engagement was a secret one and I carefully kept it from my mother and my sister during the short time we were together’.
By 9 January 1923 Reilly was back in London and wrote to his ‘sweet little pal’, who was still in Berlin,35 letting her know that due to the ongoing legal dispute with Baldwin Locomotives, he would be unable to visit her on 15 January. He hoped, however, that she would be able to come to London to meet him instead. Although containing little of importance, the letter is significant in that it is one of the few personal letters he wrote to a wife or lover that has survived. The final part of the letter is particularly telling in that it typifies his ‘affectionate’ charm:
I need not tell you what it will mean to me to see you here. But again, considering your dependence on Cita,36 I beg you not to violate any of your plans on my account. Thank you many times for your sweet letters. They have been to me like a caress from your lovely little hand. With infinite tenderness, yours Sidney37
For a couple who had, supposedly, only just met a few weeks before, and had spent a little over a week together, a great deal of detailed knowledge about each other’s affairs is evident from this letter. Their marriage took place on 18 May 1923 at the St Martin Register Office in London.38 The witnesses were George Hill and Stephen Alley, formerly of SIS, and Pepita’s sister Alice. A lavish reception at the Savoy Hotel was attended by many theatrical acquaintances of Pepita’s and a smaller number of Reilly’s former SIS colleagues. A number of those present on the groom’s side knew or suspected that this was a bigamous marriage, but said nothing. In fact, it was his second if not third bigamous union. Although she would be blissfully unaware of this for ten years, the realities of the world Reilly moved in dawned on Pepita much quicker:
Gradually I was initiated into those strange proceedings which were going on behind the scenes of European politics. I learned how beneath the surface of every capital in Europe was simmering the conspiracy of the exiles of Russia against the present tyrants of their country… in this whole movement Sidney was intensely interested and was devoting much time and money to the cause.39
So too were the Bolsheviks. On 6 February 1922 the Cheka had been disbanded and the State Political Directorate (GPU) created in its place. When the Soviet Union came into being later that year the GPU was renamed the Unified State Political Directorate (OGPU). Having established an iron-like grip on internal dissent, the organisation now began to focus on dissidents and opposition leaders outside the Soviet Union who it perceived to be a threat to the Bolshevik regime. The ultimate eradication of such opponents was now given top priority.
To this end the OGPU was to perpetrate one of the biggest and most successful hoaxes in the history of counter-espionage. Perfecting an old Ochrana tactic, the OGPU’s Counter-Intelligence Department (KRO) set up an organisation called the Monarchist Organisation of Central Russia, whose cover was a trust based in Paris by the name of the Moscow Municipal Credit Association. The Trust was a deception operation devised to entice counterrevolutionary exiles back into Russia where they could be executed or imprisoned. Its ostensible purpose was to offer support to anti-Bolsheviks, and by so doing could infiltrate KRO agents into exile groups. This not only gave KRO impeccable first-hand knowledge of what was being planned, but also enabled it to directly influence events in groups where agents had been able to infiltrate the inner circles and take up posts of responsibility.
One of KRO’s top targets was Boris Savinkov, who they aimed to lure back to Russia through a similar deception operation codenamed ‘Syndicate II’. When in July 1923 Sidney and Pepita visited him at the Chatham Hotel in Paris, they found him closeted by bodyguards, who were clearly taking the possibility of OGPU abduction very seriously. While Reilly himself greatly admired the ‘Napoleonic’ Savinkov, his actress wife knew a ham performance when she saw one and was not the least bit impressed by ‘the portly little man who strutted in with the most amusing air of self assurance and self esteem’.40 Pepita could hardly contain her disdain as Savinkov ‘posed in front of the mantelpiece’ thrusting his hand ‘into his breast in the approved Napoleonic manner’.41
The main subject under discussion in Paris was the growing realisation that funding for Savinkov’s cause was running thin, due to the recent decisions of the French, Czech and Polish governments to cease their contributions. Like many other European governments, they were slowly coming to the conclusion that despite the dedicated efforts of the Russian opposition, the Bolsheviks were not to be budged from power. The net result was that Reilly was left as the main source of income for Savinkov’s organisation.
In addition to this burden, Margaret was still hovering in the background exerting her mysterious hold over him. Their last meeting occurred just prior to Reilly’s departure from France, and no doubt involved a further plea from Margaret for money.42 Her own fortunes had shown little sign of improvement over the years. There seems little she would not do for money when in a tight corner, and could well have supplied information about her estranged husband to the Baldwin Locomotive Company, who were in the process of preparing their defence against his claim for outstanding munitions commission.43
Despite Pepita’s money, Reilly was intent upon restoring his own fortunes. Ever a creature of habit he again returned to the world of patent medicine as a means of making money. With Hugh Coward and long-time associate Alexandre Weinstein he set up Modern Medicine Ltd, with £5,000 capital.44 The three founder directors were joined shortly afterwards by William Barclay Calder, who had been a partner in the Ozone Preparations Company.45 Reilly had high hopes for the company and placed particular faith in a preparation known as Humagsolen,46 which he intended to market in America. To this end he and Pepita planned to visit America in July, where Reilly also hoped to further pursue his legal claim against the Baldwin Locomotive Company, which seemed to have become bogged down in the legal mire of claim and counter claim.47 Shortly before he was due to depart he called in at the London office of his friend Maj. ‘Robbie’ Field Robinson in the Strand, and pleaded to him, ‘Robbie, I am broke. My credit in London is finished. I must get over to New York to fight my case. It is my last chance. Will you help?’48 Field Robinson immediately went to the bank and withdrew two £100 notes which he gave to Reilly in exchange for an IOU. This enabled Reilly to book their passage. ‘Of course, I never saw the money again’, Field Robinson told George Hill twelve years later when he was assisting Hill in researching his Reilly biography.49
The only true statement Reilly made about himself in the Marriage Register was his
address; everything else from his name, age, former rank and the status of his father, was a complete fabrication.
It would seem that Reilly was viewed by some acquaintances as akin to a naughty child that you could never remain angry with for too long. On this basis, Reilly was often able to return to people he had previously crossed or dropped into hot water, like Lockhart, C and Field Robinson, for small favours. Edward Spears would appear to be a further example, for the week after he had procured £200 from Field Robinson, Reilly approached Spears for letters of introduction to two of his American business contacts in Chicago. On 19 July Spears wrote to Reilly:
Herewith the introductions promised… your best introduction to Mr Borden is through Mr Hertz. If he is interested, the fact that you have a direct introduction to Mr Borden will be an additional advantage, but nothing will have such an effect as Mr Hertz’s recommendation, as Mr Borden has great faith in him. Wishing you all good luck on your journey.50
According to Spears’ introduction, the Modern Medicine Company Ltd had ‘a brilliant future before it’.51 Sadly, when Reilly arrived in Chicago, he was unable to interest Messrs Borden and Hertz in the wonders of Humagsolen. Modern Medicine’s brilliant future failed to materialise and the company eventually went bankrupt.52 Neither was Reilly to find any joy concerning the other purpose of his American visit. The Baldwin Locomotive Company was to remain resolute that it was not legally obliged to pay him a cent in commission.