Andrew Cook - Ace of Spies

D’Arcy was staying at the Grand Hotel while the Rothschild negotiations were taking place, and there would seem little point in the kind of approach featured in Reilly’s story. Where better to approach D’Arcy than at his own hotel, and who better to do so than a fellow guest?

Le Littoral very helpfully lists comings and goings during the period that Alphonse de Rothschild and William Knox D’Arcy were in Cannes. Of the many British visitors passing through, one particular couple stand out – Mr and Mrs William Melville, who stayed at the Grand Hotel throughout D’Arcy’s stay there. 44

Melville was no stranger to France, 45and was a fluent French speaker. 46Whatever transpired during the Melville’s ‘holiday’ in Cannes, D’Arcy was soon in receipt of Pretyman’s letter and on his way back to London to meet with the Admiralty’s Oil Committee, who approached Burmah Oil to undertake the formation of a British syndicate.

This process was not, however, quite as speedy and seamless as Pretyman implied fifteen years after the event. In fact, negotiations between D’Arcy and the Burmah Group did not begin for another six months. In the intervening period D’Arcy was experiencing more difficulties with Lloyds Bank, who were pressing him to put forward the concession itself as security against his overdraft, something D’Arcy fiercely resisted. As a result, D’Arcy once again turned to Alphonse de Rothschild, although this time he did not negotiate directly, but sent John Fletcher Moulton to Cannes as his representative. 47Melville, by virtue of the fact that he was now a known quantity so far as Fletcher Moulton was concerned, perhaps felt that his presence could compromise the situation, and appears at this point to have enlisted Reilly’s assistance.

Back in February, the threat that the oil concession might slip into foreign hands had been successfully averted. Now, three short months later, the possibility was again in contention, and it was deemed essential from the Admiralty’s point of view that the renewed talks be stopped dead in their tracks. Unable to again play the same hand that had worked so well before, namely to appeal to D’Arcy’s patriotism, other means of stalling the negotiations had now to be found.

One of the surest ways of scuttling the discussions would have been to sow seeds of doubt in de Rothschild’s mind concerning the chances of oil being found in the location D’Arcy was drilling. By the time the talks commenced in June, Fletcher Moulton was already complaining that de Rothschild’s terms were now somewhat less favourable than when they had last met. 48His despondence was even more evident when, on 24 June, he cryptically referred to an ‘unhelpful outside interest’ whose influence had led to de Rothschild questioning the location of drilling. 49Although the ‘unhelpful outside interest’ is never actually identified by Fletcher Moulton, it seems clear that there is a distinct connection between this involvement and de Rothschild’s acquisition of a report that seems to have been the source of his misgivings.

Meanwhile, some 30km down the coast, where ‘Mr and Mrs Reilly’ were guests at the Continental Hotel in St Raphael, Reilly wrote a letter dated 30 June, in which he referred to ‘a most useful report’ that had helped him ‘turn the tide’. 50The tide had indeed turned for Fletcher Moulton, who apparently found that there was little he could do to dispel de Rothschild’s misgivings or to reassure him. Their discussions finally broke down during the first week of July 1904. 51On cabling Knox D’Arcy in London with the regrettable news, Fletcher Moulton was surprised to find that his friend was not at all downcast by the news. On the contrary, out of the blue, the Admiralty-sponsored talks with Burmah Oil were suddenly back on the agenda with a renewed sense of urgency. 52An agreement was finally signed on 20 May 1905 and, almost three years later, oil was struck at Masjid-i-Suleiman. In April 1909 the Anglo-Persian Oil Company was founded, today known as BP Amoco. Apart from making D’Arcy and his syndicate rich beyond their wildest expectations, the find also guaranteed the Royal Navy a substantial and dependable source of oil.

The Reillys appear to have stayed on the Côte d’Azur for the remainder of the summer. Apart from the mystery report referred to by both Reilly and Fletcher Moulton, a secondary puzzle in this episode concerns the identity of ‘Mrs Reilly’. If, as will later become evident, there is a strong case for believing that Reilly bigamously remarried after the Russo-Japanese War, we can confidently discount the possibility that the ‘Mrs Reilly’ at the Continental was in fact Margaret, as she herself declared that the first occasion on which she saw her husband after their parting in Port Arthur was Christmas 1904. 53

Following his departure from the Continental Hotel, Reilly returned to Brussels. 54In the new year he moved on to St Petersburg, where he arrived alone on 28 January 1905, checking into room 93 at the Hotel Europe on Nevsky Prospect. 55If he had remarried, where was the new Mrs Reilly, and why did he go to such extraordinary lengths to successfully keep the marriage a secret?

If Reilly did marry bigamously after the Russo-Japanese War, the question arises as to how he managed to conceal his second wife’s existence for so long. The most likely explanation is that she was found secreted away in ‘backwater’ locations where he had contacts and connections who would ensure she was well taken care of. Odessa and Port Arthur are two such possibilities. 1After Russia’s defeat in the war of 1904/05, the Liaotung peninsula became a Japanese possession, eventually becoming part of the Japanese puppet state of Manchukuo. Whatever the reality of Reilly’s connections with the Japanese during the war, it is evident that he had, and continued to have, very close business connections with a number of businesses in Japan and her occupied territories. As someone known to the Japanese authorities, Reilly would have had no trouble in accommodating his new spouse in Port Arthur, which after the war was rebuilt and restored by the Japanese. His representative and principal agent in Japan was William Gill, in Narunouchi, Tokyo. 2Again, Gill would have been well placed to act as conduit and to ensure that Reilly’s wife was well provided for.

Likewise, Alexandre Weinstein became a trusted lieutenant of Reilly’s before the Russo-Japanese War, and remained such for over a quarter of a century. If Reilly did take a second wife, then Weinstein above all would not only have been aware of her, but would more than likely have played a pivotal role in liaising between ‘husband and wife’. When a decade later Reilly joined the Royal Flying Corps, he named his next of kin as his wife, ‘Mrs A. Reilly’, who in the event of his death could be contacted at 120 Broadway, New York City, a business address being run on his behalf at the time by Alexandre Weinstein. 3Further evidence concerning a possible second marriage is examined in later chapters.

In contrast to the comings and goings of wives, ex-wives and mistresses, one female relationship that survived the test of time was that with his first cousin Felitsia. Born in the Grodno gubernia of Russian Poland, she later moved to Vienna during the closing years of the 1890s. The city’s large Jewish population lived principally in the old quarter, and it was here that Reilly visited Felitsia 4whenever he could. She was the only member of his immediate family that he kept in touch with after leaving Odessa in 1893, and her existence was kept a closely guarded secret from all who knew him. It was through these visits to Vienna that he made the brief acquaintance of an influential businessman whose precise role in Reilly’s story has since become a source of some controversy.