Ace of Spies (19 page)

Beatrice Madeline Tremaine, Reilly’s twenty-eight-year-old mistress, lived with her mother at 140 Wadsworth Avenue, New York. Sometimes referred to as Reilly’s ‘ward’, he had first met her at ‘Lucille’s’, a dressmaking establishment in the spring of 1916, where she worked as a model. Shortly thereafter Reilly had taken her from Lucille’s, sent her to a finishing school in Orange, New Jersey, and paid her an allowance of $200 per month.
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She had then entered the ‘moving picture’ industry and was clearly making some headway. According to her testimony, Reilly had stated that Nadine intended to divorce him, and as a result she and Reilly were to marry on his return to New York.

Beatrice Madeline Tremaine also corroborated the fact that Reilly had been forced by the Mann Act to marry Nadine. Her account was supported by two former acquaintances at Lucille’s, Madame Paul, the head of millinery and Madamoiselle Chauson, a salesperson. Madamoiselle Chauson also stated, however, that Miss Tremaine was a ‘most skilled and dangerous liar’.
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It was from Chauson that the investigators got the name and address of Norbert Rodkinson, who they were told knew a great deal about Reilly and Weinstein. Investigators later spoke with Beatrice’s friend Delores Rose, an English chorus girl in the Follies show. Miss Rose is described as ‘not of the best reputation, but loyal to her country’.
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She worked at Lucille’s at the time Beatrice had been a model there, and said it was an open secret among the models that Reilly had taken a liking to her. She also corroborated Beatrice’s claim that Reilly had asked her to marry him, and related how she had told Beatrice of Norbert Rodkinson’s claim that Reilly had deserted a family in Russia.
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Denying that this was true, Beatrice had become angry and almost slapped her face. At the instigation of the investigators, Miss Rose met Beatrice again at her apartment
and engaged her in conversation on several topics the investigators were interested in. Beatrice said that she did not believe that Reilly was in anyway disloyal to his own country. She confirmed that she was still receiving the monthly allowance from Reilly, even though he had not returned in June as she had expected.
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She was then interviewed for the third and final time, when it was reported that, ‘in spite of careful questioning, Tremaine professed not to know any more about Reilly and his affairs than she had already related on the two previous occasions’.
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It was concluded that her attitude was ‘not altogether frank’, and doubt was expressed that she was telling the whole truth. Quite possibly because of the investigation, which Delores Rose reported had ‘greatly disturbed’ her, Beatrice decided to leave New York and spend the winter in Florida, as she had been ‘working hard in moving pictures and needed a rest’.
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The investigators never questioned Nadine herself, although it is clear that she was kept under very close observation. Enquiries suggested that she was aware of Reilly’s attachment to Beatrice Tremaine and was very jealous. The investigators had, so they thought, good grounds for believing that in Reilly’s absence Nadine had affairs with Weinstein and Jahalsky. Her maid Alice Todd had described Weinstein as her constant companion. However, although it was ‘generally understood about the club that Mrs Reilly and Weinstein are intimate’,
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Alice Todd denied this, saying that while there was no doubt that a strong friendship existed she had never seen anything in their relations that might be interpreted to prove any immorality. The nearest the investigators got to an incriminating statement was an admission from Miss Todd that Weinstein ‘is in the bungalow late at night’.
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It is clear that they fared much better when they questioned a man named Murray, the superintendent of the apartment block where Jahalsky lived. At the time they met Murray, Jahalsky was away in Texas. Murray volunteered that he did not like Jahalsky and was able to recall a number of women who had visited him. He had been particularly intimate with Gertrude Grimes and the
actress Nita Naldi before he left for Texas. To the astonishment of the investigators, Murray stated that Nadine Reilly had come to Jahalsky’s apartment at around 11 p.m. one night shortly after Reilly had left for Canada. He thought she had stayed all night, as the maid had seen her leave the following morning.
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At the time of the investigation Nadine was living alone in a bungalow in the grounds of the Allenhurst Club, in New Jersey. Thomas Harrison, the clerk of the Allenhurst Club, described as a ‘loyal American’, had assisted the investigators and stated that Russians of good standing at the club would have nothing to do with either Weinstein or the Reillys.
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While Weinstein was staying at the club he handed in a business suit to be pressed. In it were found four papers, including ‘an elaborate type-written description, on a single piece of paper, of a new machine gun’.
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Thomas Harrison showed the papers to another guest at the club, Alfred Johnson, City Chamberlain in New York, suggesting that Weinstein should be investigated as the matter seemed suspicious. Suspicious or not, this, like much else in the investigation, failed to lead to anything concrete.

Turning again to the British authorities, the investigators made an appointment with Col. F.W Abbott at 165 Broadway, who was responsible for Russian contracts on behalf of the British government. He confirmed that he had met Reilly when the British Mission took over the management of Russian munitions contracts. Reilly had given him a great deal of trouble and implied that he had held up production to demonstrate that nothing could be done unless it went through him first. Abbott’s conclusion was that Reilly was ‘a clever schemer’,
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who was probably dishonest, although proof was so far lacking.

In search of that elusive proof, the decision was made to make a search of Reilly’s office in the hope of at last unearthing some hard evidence. The search was carried out by agents Hunnewell and Smith, accompanied by two Russian translators. They opened a large portmanteau (a leather travelling trunk) that Reilly had brought with him from Japan. Inside they found a bag concealed
within a compartment, which contained two packets of letters. These were clearly exchanges of correspondence between him and Nadine dating back to when she was in the south of France and he was in Russia, Japan and New York. She signed her letters ‘Kisenka’, meaning kitten in Russian. The two bundles of letters were shown to the interpreters, who concluded that they were merely love letters and of little consequence.
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Hunnewell and Smith were, however, puzzled by her frequent references in the letters to his ‘system’ and how she hoped it would be successful. There was no indication anywhere to suggest what she meant or what the system was.
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Richard Spence has claimed that Reilly’s ‘system’ was an approach to business dealing gleaned from the arms dealer Basil Zaharoff.
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To Zaharoff, ‘
le systeme
was essentially the strategy of playing all sides off against each other in order to maximise profit. As we have already noted in Chapter Five, there is no concrete evidence that Reilly and Zaharoff ever met, let alone knew each other. His assertion must therefore remain at best speculation.

Hunnewell and Smith next turned their attention to Reilly’s safe, which was opened and the contents searched. What they found confirmed that he did indeed have ‘tremendous political backing in Russia’.
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They also found many ammunition contracts made by Reilly on behalf of the Imperial Russian government for ‘vast amounts’.
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Of particular interest were the records of cheques issued by Reilly and by office manager Upton Dale Thomas on Reilly’s behalf. Several had been written to the NewYork Club, where Reilly was a member. A cheque written to a Carl Lowie caught their eye as this showed that Reilly was transacting business with ‘someone who apparently has a German name’.
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Thomas, who had issued the cheque, volunteered that Lowie was in fact Danish. Also of interest were several large cheques, one for $6,000 made out to Weinstein and another for $2,000 made out to Jahalsky. Thomas stated that Weinstein’s cheque was in part settlement of a shipping commission, while Jahalsky’s was in part payment of money he had loaned to Reilly. A search ofWeinstein’s desk was equally fruitless.

Thomas was questioned about his knowledge of Reilly, Weinstein and Jahalsky. He told them that he knew very little about Reilly’s or Weinstein’s affairs and confirmed that he was also representing Jahalsky while he was away in Texas. The investigators found Thomas convincing and referred to him in their report as a ‘loyal American’.
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With little to show from their search at 120 Broadway, the investigators had to face the fact that their enquiry was running out of steam and out of time. The war in Europe was now drawing to its bloody conclusion as thousands of fresh American troops flooded into France, tipping the scales in favour of the Allies.

Of the three individuals the investigators initially focused upon, Reilly, Weinstein and Jahalsky, very little of worth was found that corroborated the view that they were either in sympathy with Germany or that they had aided or abetted the enemy in any way. Of the three, only Jahalsky would seem to have warranted any real cause for suspicion, although this in itself was founded on the flimsiest of circumstantial grounds. He was later arrested and closely questioned in Texas, but was released through lack of evidence.

The investigation’s inconclusive result also calls into question the reliability of those who testified against Reilly. To a greater or lesser extent, a good number were themselves up to their necks in the murky pool of war profiteering. Some, like Vauclain, would later justify their actions by claiming their involvement was motivated purely by a desire to shorten the war, or in the earlier days of the conflict to ‘keep America out’.
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Some had lost out to Reilly in the scramble for contracts, while others had been double-crossed or conned by him. Reilly’s perceived permissive lifestyle would equally have made him a marked man among the ‘respectable’ business community.

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.
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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.
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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:
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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.
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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’
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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.
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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.
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