While it is clear that Reilly used his exceptional networking skills to their full advantage and no doubt made the acquaintance of a large number of businessmen in NewYork, these often tenuous relationships have been used to associate Reilly with a range of events with which he had no connection whatsoever. His rivalry with J. Pierpont Morgan, the Anglophile American financial magnate, is a prime example. Morgan, best remembered today for his ownership of the White Star Line and its ill-fated flagship the RMS Titanic, was the main player in the allied quest for munitions in the United States. His desire to monopolise the arms trade on behalf of the Allied powers alienated him from the small army of independent brokers, like Reilly, who sensed they would be squeezed out of the munitions marketplace if Morgan succeeded in his aims. The very month that Reilly arrived in New York, Morgan had signed an agreement with the British Commercial Agency that made him the sole agent in the USA for munitions purchases. As part of this deal, Morgan made his ambitions clear so far as the Russian market was concerned, by offering Russia a $12 million credit on the proviso that his company acted as agent for all contracts signed as a result.14
On 3 February 1915 an explosion rocked the DuPont Powder Plant in DuPont, near Tacoma, Washington. According to the Tacoma Daily News (an afternoon publication):
With a detonation that was heard for miles, the black powder plant of the DuPont company at DuPont, near Tacoma, exploded at 9.30 this morning, demolishing the building, killing Henry P. Wilson, thirty- five, unmarried, and seriously injuring Harry West, married. As Wilson and West were the only men in the vicinity at the time officers of the company said the exact cause could not be given. The roof was lifted off the building and the sides blown to pieces, corrugated iron being scattered for a radius of 200ft. The building was one of a chain and was known as the ‘press’ building, where the powder is pressed into cakes. Wilson’s body was blown about 50ft from the building. West was thrown about 150ft.15
Richard Spence has speculated that Reilly’s hidden hand was behind the explosion, as DuPont had opted to do business with Pierpont Morgan rather than Reilly.16 Spence believes that German saboteur Kurt Jahnke executed the deed on Reilly’s instructions, drawing attention to Jahnke’s supposed later admission to his German superiors that he was responsible. The more likely scenario was that Jahnke was seeking to take credit for something that was none of his doing, and was, in all likelihood, a complete accident. Indeed, the official verdict remains, in the absence of any compelling evidence to the contrary, that it was an accident. According to former DuPont employees, explosions at the DuPont Works were not unusual. They did not happen often, but when they did they were usually due to accidental causes.
Furthermore, Reilly had been in America for less than three weeks when the explosion occurred. It would have been somewhat difficult for him to have sought a powder contract with DuPont, to have been rebuffed by the company, and then to have planned and executed such a response, all within the space of some nineteen days. In short, there is no tangible evidence to connect Reilly with either Jahnke or this tragic accident.
Since his departure from St Raphael back in July 1914, Reilly and Nadezhda had been exchanging letters. Her divorce, which had recently been granted, meant that they could now marry. Although there is no doubt that she was in love with him and that he was very fond of her, doubt remains as to whether he actually wished to marry her. Although in his letters to her he promised to send for her as soon as he arrived in New York, she could well have had reason to doubt him. The fact that throughout their three-year relationship she had been married and latterly awaiting a divorce meant that the issue of marriage had not been a consideration. Once the divorce came through in 1914, he may well have had second thoughts, being perfectly content for her to remain as his mistress. If this was not the case and he really did have every intention of marrying her, there would have been absolutely no need for the Machiavellian scheme Nadezhda now embarked upon.
At her own expense she purchased a ticket in the name of Nadine Zalessky at Le Havre and took the SS Rochambeau to New York. As the liner neared New York she cabled Reilly to notify him of her arrival in order that he might meet her at the pier. She also cabled the New York police, informing them that Reilly was importing a woman into the state for immoral purposes – a criminal offence under the Mann Act.17 When her ship docked on 15 February,18 Reilly was there to meet her and so too were the police. The police arrested Reilly and, despite his insistence that she was his fiancée, informed him that he could only avoid prosecution and possible imprisonment if he married her immediately. As he had already promised to marry her and she had stated that this was the purpose of her journey, he did not have a leg to stand on. It was the first day of Lent under the Orthodox calendar, however, and Orthodox weddings do not, by custom, take place during the first week of Lent. Reilly, therefore, had to appeal to the head of the Russian Orthodox Church in America, Metropolitan Platon, to give special dispensation for the wedding to take place.19 As luck would have it, for Nadine at any rate, Platon gave his permission, and the wedding took place the next day at St Nicholas’s Cathedral in Manhattan.20 Nadine claimed in the marriage register that she was the twenty-seven-year-old daughter of Pierre and Barbara Massino, residing at the Ritz Carlton Hotel, at 313 East 63rd Street. She was, in fact, twenty-nine years old. Reilly stated that he was a forty-one-year-old bachelor, the son of George and Pauline Reilly of Clonmel, Ireland, residing at 260 Riverside Drive, an address that did not exist until 1925. Petr Rutskii from the Russian Consulate was one of the witnesses.
G.L. Owen21 believes that the Reillys left New York shortly after their wedding and undertook a visit to Petrograd. The timing of this visit may seem incidental, but it is of crucial importance in terms of authenticating a claim by Owen that the Reillys sailed back to New York on the same ship as a prominent German spy. Franz Von Rintelen was sent to America by German intelligence to co-ordinate a campaign of sabotage and disruption that would hopefully stem the flow of munitions to the Allies. Von Rintelen arrived in New York on 3 April aboard the SS Kristianiafjord, travelling on a Swiss passport under the name of Emil V. Gasche.22 A search of the passenger list, however, reveals no Sidney or Nadine Reilly on board, nor indeed any male passenger fitting Reilly’s general physical description (around 5ft 9 or 10ins tall, brown eyes, dark hair, in the region of forty years of age). This is purely and simply because the Reillys had been in New York all the time. They did not, in fact, leave the city until 27 April, when they boarded the SS Kursk bound for Archangel.23
Arriving in the north Russian port on 11 May, they proceeded immediately to Petrograd. While Nadine spent some time with her family, Reilly entered into negotiations with the Russian Red Cross, with a view to securing, on their behalf, ambulances and auto-mobiles from Newman Erb and the Haskell and Barker Car companies.24 He also met with the Tsar’s cousin, Grand Duke Alexander Mikhailovich. The grand duke had been head of the Directorate of Commercial Navigation and Ports during the war, and worked closely with Ginsburg in organising coal supplies to Vladivostok. A keen photography enthusiast, Alexander Mikhailovich was no doubt much impressed by the American automatic camera Reilly brought with him.25 According to G.L. Owen, the Reillys were in Petrograd between June/July and September of 1915, a view shared by Richard Spence.26 Although originally intending to leave Archangel on 13 June,27 their departure was postponed until 26 June, when they headed back on board the SS Czar.