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.
Returning empty handed to England in January 1924, the failures of the past year were clearly beginning to take their toll on his health. When advised by his doctor that he was on the verge of a breakdown due to business worries, he reluctantly agreed to follow the doctor’s advice and take a long holiday in the south of France for a complete rest and change of surroundings.
With their hotel reservations and railway passage booked, the Reillys were ready to depart from London during the third week of January 1924, when an unannounced visitor called at their home. In her ghostwritten book, Britain’s Master Spy, published a decade later, Pepita refers to the mysterious bearded visitor as ‘Mr Warner’ and gives a dramatic account of the events that unfolded during the week following his appearance on their doorstep.53 According to Britain’s Master Spy, Mr Warner was, in fact, an anti-Bolshevik Russian whose real name was Drebkoff. Having been invited into their sitting room, he proceeded to explain that he had been delegated by anti-Bolsheviks in Russia to visit Reilly and beseech him to return and lead them to power. Appealing to Reilly’s vanity, he is quoted by Pepita as telling Reilly, ‘We want a man in Russia… a man who can command and get things done, whose commands there are no disputing… a man who will be master’. As ‘excitement was surging up within him’ Reilly found it hard not to be seduced by the call as Drebkoff told him ‘we still have no leader… with one accord they all, Balkoff, Opperput, Alvendorff, Vorislavsky and the others, call for you – we are ready to strike – we wait for your hand to guide us’.54
Drebkoff produced documentation that seemed to substantiate his claims and invited Reilly to lunch at the Savoy. Clearly moved by this turn of events, Reilly took up the offer and consequently decided to postpone the French holiday for a week in order that he could ‘learn fully… the prospects of our friends in Russia’.55 Barely able to resist the temptation to return, Reilly finally resolved that due to ill health he could not accept, but promised Drebkoff that once he had recovered they could count on him.
After accompanying a disappointed Drebkoff to the station to see him off on his journey back to Russia, Reilly returned home to find the house empty. Within minutes a stranger appeared at the door to tell him that Pepita had been knocked down by a car and was in hospital. Just as he was about to leave for the hospital, Pepita telephoned to tell him that shortly after he left for the station, a man called to tell her that he had been knocked down by a car and had been taken to hospital. On being offered a lift to the hospital, she readily agreed, but was drugged in the car by a hypodermic needle, and came to in a chemist’s shop where she had been left by the occupants of the car. Reilly concluded immediately that this was an attempt to kidnap him and take him back to Russia.
This cloak and dagger story of Pepita’s has understandably met with much cynicism over the years and is certainly typical of the highly dramatised stories included in her book. Before dismissing the account out of hand, however, a passage from a letter written on 25 January 1924 by Pepita to her sister Alice, who was holidaying in Cannes, should be considered: ‘after yesterday’s events it would seem there are no lengths to which Sidney’s enemies will not go’.56
Whether the attempted kidnapping was a reality, an embellishment or a fantasy, it seems clear that something sinister occurred during their last week in England.
By the following week they had joined Pepita’s sister Alice at the Hotel de la Terrasse in Theoule, a short distance from Cannes. Despite the fact that he was supposed to be taking things easy, Reilly’s correspondence indicates that he was in almost daily communication with both political and business contacts.
In letters to Savinkov, for example, Reilly frequently refers to his perilous financial state. While his finances were indeed far from satisfactory, his repeated references to the lack of ready cash could well be a ploy, for by this stage he was more than likely tiring of his role as Savinkov’s principal coffer: ‘I am unable to send you even 500 francs. I am waiting for a few pounds from London, but have not received them yet’. After seven weeks in the south of France, Reilly was now desperate to get back to New York in pursuit of his Baldwins claim:
Made up my mind to leave this imaginary paradise and get back to the austere reality. Nothing to live upon. Staying here would be like letting grass grow under my feet… Wrote letters to a few friends who owe me about £200 in total… the situation with my creditors in London is that at any minute I can be declared insolvent. To successfully finish my lawsuit in New York, I need to be present there personally, but have not the slightest chance to go there. To buy a return ticket I need at least £200, which is similar to dreaming about mines on the moon.57
Despite this plea of poverty, Reilly’s mine on the moon clearly came up trumps, for after spending a month tidying up his affairs in London, he and Pepita booked a passage on the SS New Amsterdam, which sailed for New York on 7 May.58
While Reilly was closeted with lawyers in New York, the OGPU were putting the final touches to their plan to entrap Savinkov. Having infiltrated a number of OGPU agents into Savinkov’s inner circle, moves were set in hand to persuade him to return to Russia. After several weeks of soul-searching, he finally succumbed to temptation, despite advice to the contrary from Reilly, who now travelled back across the Atlantic aboard the SS Paris to bid him farewell.