The allegations made by Norbert Rodkinson are the most significant, as they again raise the possibility that Reilly had married bigamously during the period 1904–1909, before he met Nadine. He could, of course, have heard about Margaret’s earlier appearance in St Petersburg while living in the city. There is also a possibility that Margaret was actually in St Petersburg at some point in 1916. She herself referred to having been in Russia for a period of time during the course of the war, a claim given some credence by Foreign Office records indicating that she was issued with a passport in January 1916.47 If she was there, her presence might be explained by her work for the Red Cross or in order to take up a position as a nanny in the city’s large English colony.48 The latter scenario could also explain how children might have made their way into Rodkinson’s story of the ‘deserted family’.
Rodkinson is also important in that he seems to be the direct source for the claims about Reilly’s past which were later recycled by others and which resurface in a number of intelligence files, including those of SIS. When subjected to scrutiny, Rodkinson hardly emerges as a particularly savoury or reliable witness. Although the investigators believed him to be an Englishman, he was certainly not born in Britain. In fact, he later claimed to be an American. A memorandum from the Office of the Counselor at the US State Department, shortly after the war had ended, casts Rodkinson in an entirely new light:49
26 November 1918
Copy to: ONI, MID, Justice Department
Subject: Norbert Mortimer Rodkinson, Care Renskorff, Lyon & Co.
From the information on file in this office it appears that he is a native American citizen, born at Baton Rouge, of Russian-Jewish and French-Creole parentage. He has no birth certificate but says it was destroyed in a fire. His wife’s maiden name was Polens and she was English of German parentage and doubtful morals.50 He is a man of pleasing personality and apparently some ability – a linguist, with intimate knowledge of Russian life and affairs. His business reputation is doubtful. When, in January 1918, he obtained a passport to visit the United States, it was marked ‘No Return’ by the British authorities, but a protest from Rodkinson caused this decision to be reversed – as he was, at that time, apparently connected with the Ministry of Information. On reaching America he applied for a position under the State Department, giving five references. Of these, only one vouches for him without reserve. Another can give no definite information about him. Two of the remaining three believe him to have been born in Germany, neither believe him to be on the square, and one says he would hesitate in employing him in a government position.
As for his private life – he has been married twice and was once stabbed by a ‘fille-de-joie’51 while visiting in Berlin. He asserts he has been employed by the British Intelligence Department. Of this there is no record.
More revealing is a Bureau of Investigation memorandum, written some three months earlier, based upon information supplied by Col. Proskey, who sparked off the Reilly investigation in April 1917. Agent R.W Finch of the Bureau’s New York City office states that:
Col. Proskey, of Flint & Co., 120 Broadway, NY, very confidential informant of this office, advises that he has been informed that a man by the name of Rodkinson, formerly employed by Flint & Co., desires to go on the proposed Russian Commission to Russia. He desires a letter of recommendation from Flint & Co. It is said that Rodkinson recently saw Senator J. Hamilton Lewis, who has promised to secure Rodkinson an audience with President Wilson.52
Proskey goes on to relate that Rodkinson had formerly represented Flint & Co. in Petrograd, during which period his house had been raided twice by the police. He also refers to Rodkinson’s ability to speak German and Russian and states that after his ‘troubles in Russia’ he returned to the US and joined the firm of Renskorff, Lyon & Co. What lay behind his troubles in Russia is not known for sure. There was certainly a great deal of substance to the concerns outlined by the US State Department and Bureau of Investigation. For example, in the 14th US Census held in 1920, Rodkinson appears at 159 West 78th Street, New York City, living with Corinne, his English-born wife, and their English maid, Maud Peddar. He declared in his Census return that he was born in Louisiana. However, there is no record in Louisiana of anyone of that name or similar being born in or around 1874, his declared year of birth.53
He first appears in US Immigration records on arrival in New York on 10 June 1903 aboard the Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse, which sailed from Bremen, Germany. Over the next two decades he, his first wife Susanne and second wife Corinne, crop up repeatedly, criss-crossing the Atlantic. Prior to the First World War, all journeys to New York began in Germany. Although he always described himself as a US citizen, as we have seen, he was never able to prove that he was born in the USA. While his general statements about Reilly’s character are very much along the lines of a good many other people who knew him, his claim about Reilly being born in Bendzine and allegedly deserting his family in 1916 are very different matters. Whether Rodkinson’s statements were true or not, he was certainly not an unblemished witness.
The result of the investigation was, to put it kindly, inconclusive. Roger Welles, the director of Naval Intelligence, who had initiated the enquiry back in April 1917, probably best summed it up, when, two months after the end of the war, he wrote to the director of the Bureau of Investigation, Bruce Bielaski, enclosing a copy of the file containing the results of the investigation:
While the investigation disclosed nothing definite, there is a mass of interesting data that might be of use to your department should any of the individuals in question come under your observation. This office believes that these men are international confidence men of the highest class.54
On that rather resigned note, Welles signed off. In spite of everything he now knew about Reilly’s nefarious disposition, even he would have found it hard to comprehend that within months of joining the RFC, the ‘international confidence man’ would be walking into the London headquarters of SIS for a personal audience with C, the service’s legendary chief.
EIGHT
CODE NAME ST1
When Col. Abbott of the British Mission in New York first heard that Reilly had been seen wearing the uniform of a British officer he was ‘astonished’.1 Knowing of Reilly’s dubious form, he could not understand how such a blackguard had been permitted to join the British Army, let alone be awarded a commission. Another officer, Col. Gifford, had spoken with the equally incredulous Maj. Thwaites, who implied he would be making clear his views to London in no uncertain terms.2 Gifford assumed from this that Reilly would be recalled and probably asked to resign. In fact, nothing of the sort happened. Thwaites’ attitude is somewhat strange to say the least in light of the following passage from his 1932 autobiography:
In 1917 as a man of about thirty-eight he [Reilly] came to me in New York with the request that I should get him into the service. He felt that he ought to be doing his bit in the war… Reilly expressed the desire to join the Royal Air Force. I sent him to Toronto to the officer in command and he was promptly given a commission. But he was too valuable a find to be wasted as an Equipment Officer, to which department he was assigned. I reported to HQ at home that here was a man who not only knew Russia and Germany, but could speak almost perfectly at least four languages. His German was indeed flawless, and his Russian hardly less fluent.3