The Forgotten Spy

by Nick Barratt

  Lucy: Can I speak to Mr Holloway? Is that Mr Holloway? This is Mrs Oldham speaking. Your letter I received came as a great shock. I had no idea he had been doing those sorts of things. Now, can you come up tomorrow and have lunch with me?

  Holloway: I think it would be best if you met me at the National Liberal Club at 1.00 pm tomorrow and have lunch with me.

  Lucy: Very well, but I may be a bit late as I am going to see my solicitors.

  Holloway: All right. I’ll wait until you come.

  Lucy: He came out of the nursing home, you know, he goes into these places periodically and now he has pushed off abroad and we don’t know where he is.

  Holloway: Don’t you know where he has gone?

  Lucy: No, we haven’t any idea.

  Holloway: Well, don’t you worry about this, I expect it will be all right.296

  A note was made at the bottom of the page, stating that ‘from another conversation it appears that Mr Holloway (Oldham’s uncle) lent Oldham £500 and the latter has cleared off without repaying this.’ Oldham had therefore deceived even his closest relatives.

  However, he was eventually spotted by one of Vivian’s agents, purely by chance, boarding a train in Geneva on 28 July bound for Paris. He had remained undetected partly because he had still not used the diplomatic passport. Yet again, the trail went cold and Oldham disappeared from view once more; he had given his pursuers the slip. Harker wrote to Wavish at the GPO on 28 July to suspend the telephone trace on Oldham’s house, resigned to the fact that his quarry was abroad.

  With reference to the telephone check at present in operation on Western 4571, I have come to the conclusion that this may safely be suspended for the moment, though it may be necessary to reinstate it at a later date.

  The efficient operation of this check has been of the greatest assistance to us in dealing with the case, and I am very grateful for all the trouble you have taken in this matter.297

  Although Harker tried to put a brave face on things, the reality was that Oldham was at liberty somewhere in Europe and the British secret services were still none the wiser as to what he’d been up to in the Foreign Office on 13 July.

  Chapter eleven

  A NOOSE AROUND HIS NECK (AUGUST–OCTOBER 1933)

  In my opinion, Oldham is heading for a breakdown.

  HERBERT HUNTER, MI5 SURVEILLANCE OFFICER, 30 SEPTEMBER 1933

  At 5.45 pm on Friday 4 August, the phone rang in the offices of MI5; it was Superintendent Canning from Special Branch with some heartening news. Oldham had landed at Croydon aerodrome, having flown in from Basel. However, they had no idea where he went next. The previous day, Lucy had finally moved out of 31 Pembroke Gardens and taken up residence in a serviced suite of rooms at 8 Grenville Place, 82 Cromwell Gardens in South Kensington – a few doors down from where she had previously lived with Oldham. The post office informed MI5 and inquired whether the postal check should be transferred. The rather dejected response had ‘in the circumstances, instructed them to suspend the check’. This decision was hurriedly reversed as soon as Oldham’s reappearance was confirmed. A phone tap was installed on 5 August and Ottaway was instructed to keep watch on the property.298

  The fact that Oldham’s estranged wife remained MI5’s best lead says a lot about the state of the case. In the two days following Oldham’s return to the UK, the various security organisations had no idea of his whereabouts, other than to confirm he was not at his home address, the nursing home at Queen’s Gate or his wife’s new residence. Two further days of surveillance proved to be equally fruitless and Ottaway was told to ‘withdraw observation’ on 8 August.299

  It was at this point – four days after Oldham was spotted at Croydon and then promptly lost again – that Harker decided to inform Eastwood that his former employee was back, but that he had no idea where he was. On 9 August, a meeting was convened at the Foreign Office to discuss what steps, if any, should be taken. Harker, Eastwood and Mr Lee (deputising for Norton) were in attendance and they were clearly under pressure from the very top to produce results:

  It appears that Sir Robert Vansittart is dissatisfied with the information generally which we have regarding this individual and considers that more intensive enquiries should be made both into his past and present activities.

  With a view to achieving this end, Mr Lee is arranging to draw all previous papers in the Foreign Office, Board of Trade and Board of Education, in which Oldham has served. In addition, Mr Kemp has been instructed to get in touch with Mrs Oldham and find out anything he can regarding Oldham’s present whereabouts, where he banks and his present business activities. When this information has been collected, Mr Lee will let me know.

  Mr Lee expressed the view that, if possible, we should look at his banking account for the last few years. Explained to Mr Lee that this could only be done with the assistance of the DPP. Mr Lee gave me authority to say to the DPP that the Foreign Office would be glad it if were possible to have this inspection made. DSS informed.300

  Yet with the investigation going nowhere, Eastwood found time to take a short break, delegating responsibility to his number two, Commander Cotesworth. Aside from a request on 15 August from the Director of Public Prosecutions to Lloyds Bank to obtain a letter of introduction so that Harker could visit Oldham’s branch at 6 Pall Mall, another week had passed without any real progress in locating him.

  Background checks were made into Oldham’s career, though concern was expressed about the difficulty involved with obtaining details of his brief time at the Board of Education so Harker, accompanied by Nigel Watson, another MI5 agent drafted onto the case, visited the bank on 16 August to gather a sense of his financial history, focusing on the period from 1927 onwards. Although no unusual patterns of deposit or withdrawal were revealed, some of the transactions alerted the authorities to the fact that Oldham had been travelling overseas on a frequent basis.

  As regards the actual sums of money passing through Oldham’s account, with the possible exception of 1932 and 1933, there does not seem to be anything particularly remarkable. It is of interest to note that in 1932, on 6 May, 11 June and 19 October, cheques for £6.15.0, £9.10.0 and £17 were paid to Imperial Airways; also in 1933, on 26 May, 7 June and 21 June, cheques for £17.12.0, £15.4.0 and £15.4.0 were paid to Imperial Airways.

  It is also of interest to note that the account is dormant and the overdraft was paid by Mrs Oldham in June. The total sum of money paid into the account during 1933 is roughly £534. It is of interest to note that on 20 June the sum of 6,000 francs in cash was paid in.

  When we turn to Mrs Oldham’s account, which opened in 1927, we find from 1927 to 1933 there has been a turnover of £12,244.301

  A further visit to the bank was not ruled out while a decision was now made to search Oldham’s personal possessions in the safety deposit box in the Foreign Office, rather astoundingly late, given that a month had elapsed since his break-in and two weeks had gone by without any sight of the man. Bindon had claimed in his statement on 14 July:

  Oldham says his box, of which he has the key, contains valuable papers. It is usual to let old members of staff come in and I do not know what is in the box. He actually unlocked it in my presence after giving me back the keys, but I couldn’t see what was in it and he did not take anything out.302

  In fact there was not much worthy of note – a copy of Wellsted’s will, which showed he had left ‘about £22,000 to be divided between [Lucy] and her two sons’, details about their investments, correspondence about the mortgage on their house, and a paying-in book for the Charles Street branch in Haymarket for the Credit Lyonnais bank. It showed that Oldham had made large deposits of £821.18.14 on 22 June and a further £279.6.7 on 7 July.303

  However, Harker was able to update Cotesworth and Lee on 16 August about one significant piece of news.

  The only development in the case was that Oldham had telephoned to a Mr Oake with whom he had previously worked at the Foreign Office and the latter had a
ccordingly been instructed to ask him out to lunch, should he telephone again, and draw him as far as possible. Commander Cotesworth pointed out that possibly Oake owed Oldham money, as he [Oake] was generally hard up and in the habit of borrowing money from his friends; as far as work is concerned, however, he considers him reliable.304

  This was Raymond Charles Oake, who had been appointed a temporary clerk in 1920 but had never really risen any further. There is evidence from the Foreign Office day books that he was increasingly used as an informal King’s Messenger, deployed on runs from Paris to Dieppe – possibly taking the bags sent to the French capital from League of Nations council meetings held in Geneva back to London. It may be via this connection that Oldham had struck up an acquaintance.

  Born in April 1894 and growing up in Finchley not far from Oldham’s childhood home, Oake had previously enjoyed a career in the Royal Naval Reserve during World War I and served on HMS President, so may equally have been associated with Oldham’s friend Billy Everett. Either way, by 1929 Oake was trusted to the extent that he was deployed on longer routes such as Bucharest and Constantinople, alongside another one of Oldham’s closer associates among the King’s Messengers, Charles Jesser-Davies. To contact Oake was a highly significant move by Oldham; it showed that he considered Oake to be someone he could trust.

  Once more, Kemp was pressed about where Oldham might be.

  Mr Kemp, in whose room Oldham previously worked, was asked if he could throw any light as to Oldham’s present address. He suggested that the solicitors, Messrs Walbrook and Hoskens, 4 St Paul’s Churchyard, might know, and in our presence rang up Mr Walbrook (whom he had met with Oldham but of whom he had not formed a very good impression) and asked him if he knew Oldham’s address as he (Kemp) had papers of the latter’s which he wished to hand over to their owner. Mr Walbrook however could give no information on this point.

  Mr Kemp was seeing Mrs Oldham, who has now definitely broken with her husband, later in the day, and it was arranged that he should obtain Oldham’s pouch from her and also his camera and any films which might be found lying about in the house.305

  Kemp duly visited Lucy and obtained the pouch but was unable to procure Oldham’s camera. On inspection, the pouch turned out to be empty. With the trail growing increasingly cold, attention turned to the payments made to Imperial Airways. On 19 August, Watson reviewed the traffic logs for the company and confirmed Oldham’s movements between May 1932 and June 1933, revealing that he had often travelled with his wife. In consultation with the traffic manager, Mr Handover, further searches were completed on 21 August but only provided further background information. There was still no clue as to his whereabouts, although the potential extent of his activities was growing clearer. Oldham would have a lot of explaining to do.

  The only other lead available was the name Joe Perelly, which had been provided by Kemp, so the traffic indexes were searched under his name. No reference to him could be found. MI5 decided to press for further information, so they returned to the Foreign Office once more the next day to grill the hapless Kemp. However, even under questioning by Watson in the presence of Cotesworth, Kemp neglected to reveal the extent of his own rather amateur investigation after Perelly had failed to show up for their meeting scheduled for 20 July. This was when he had gone from hotel to hotel in the vain hope of spotting the count. Instead, Kemp tried to cover his tracks and had only the following to say:

  He thinks that Pirelli [sic], who is a Jew, is in Vienna and will report if he hears of him again in London. He was unable to give any information as to Pirelli’s address whilst in London but will endeavour to find this out.306

  This information was clearly gleaned from Lucy’s conversation with Oldham on 24 July, as recorded on the phone tap – she must have passed the information to Kemp at one of their meetings. Kemp also confessed to still having failed to obtain Oldham’s camera. However, he did have a rather momentous revelation up his sleeve: Oldham had finally been spotted in London.

  [Kemp] had been informed by an official of the Sleeping Car company, St James Street, that afternoon, that he had seen Oldham the previous evening [21 August] at the Unicorn public house, Jermyn Street.307

  The Sleeping Car company was regularly used by King’s Messengers for their overseas journeys; doubtless Kemp had put in a quiet word with their officials to alert him if they spotted Oldham. He would have been familiar to them on account of his own travels to the continent. Immediately, MI5 followed up on this crucial lead:

  Further inquiries would be made as to Oldham’s whereabouts and, should he be seen at the Unicorn, arrangements would be made to ‘house’ him.308

  The breakthrough was not long in coming. Three days after Oldham had first been spotted in Jermyn Street, Ottaway phoned in with some good news on the morning of 25 August:

  Oldham is staying at Jules hotel, Jermyn Street and that watch is being maintained on him. This address has been added to the HOW.309

  A later report provided more details about how Oldham had been run to ground:

  Observation was taken up on 24th instant in Jermyn Street where, at 6.00 pm, the above named man was seen and followed to The Chequers public house, Duke Street, where he remained in the saloon bar until 7.05 pm and, after calling at Gray’s chemist nearby, entered Jules hotel, Jermyn Street. At 8.15 pm he again visited the said public house until 10.10 pm when he returned to the hotel.310

  Estranged from his wife and with no home to go to, Oldham was drawn to an area familiar to him from his bachelor days, when he regularly visited the pubs and clubs around St James. His new residence was the Jules Restaurant Hotel, 85–86 Jermyn Street, one of a number of such establishments in the area.

  So what had he been doing all this time? After the rather hurried departure from London on 24 July, Oldham had changed planes in Paris and flown on to Geneva. There, he travelled to Interlaken, Switzerland, to meet Bazarov and Bystrolyotov. The latter had stayed in London right to the very end to ensure Oldham’s safe departure and was in ‘real danger of failure with all its consequences’ – there was a genuine fear that he would be caught and exposed. The OGPU centre later praised Bystrolyotov for his ‘selflessness, discipline and bravery’ in circumstances that were ‘exceptionally complex and dangerous’.311

  After the habitual request to reveal his source was refused by Oldham, a change of tack was agreed. Instead of exposing himself to further risk by attempting to gain access to the cipher codes in person, Oldham was now charged with finding a successor within the Foreign Office who could do this for him. In addition, he was ordered to find out as much as possible about Britain’s SIS operatives across Europe – essentially a request to compromise the entire international intelligence gathering operation, potentially putting at risk dozens of lives. It was while leaving Switzerland for Paris by train that Oldham was spotted by one such agent before his return to Basel to fly back to England on 4 August.

  During this early August meeting, it was made clear to Oldham the consequences of failure; the interview was ‘conducted in such a way that ARNO had formed the impression that we’re on the verge of breaking off with him’ and that they would financially ‘cut him off completely’.312 On his return to England, Oldham used money given to him by the Soviet agents to check into the hotel, informing Bazarov of his location on 9 August. Once he was safely settled, Oldham cautiously started to approach his network of personal contacts, including Raymond Oake.

  Having lost contact with Oldham once before, MI5 were not about to let him out of their sight again. Indeed, in an attempt to find out more about his activities, a decision was taken to step up surveillance and risk ‘direct contact’. In one of the most remarkable episodes of the entire affair, two MI5 operatives were despatched the following day to engage with Oldham. A detailed report on the events that transpired was filed on 28 August by one of the agents, a young man with a Scottish accent and the initials TAR.

  On instructions from Mr Harker, with whom I had been in
conference early in the morning, I proceeded to Jules hotel, Jermyn Street, on Saturday 26 August and arrived by taxi at 3.00 pm.

  Having taken a room, No 54, on the fourth floor, I proceeded downstairs with a view to taking a look round and seeing of what the hotel consisted. At the same time I made it my duty to impress upon the hall porter and his satellites that I knew very little about London and that I stayed in the West End very rarely and that I was only in London for the weekend and was on my way to Scotland.

  I then went and took up a position in one of the sitting rooms just on the left of the front door as you come up, with a view to keeping observation on the hall in order to see whether the subject of my enquiries (Ernest Holloway Oldham) should at any time leave or enter the hotel.

  Having stayed in this position for some considerable time I decided that it looked pretty peculiar for a person of my age to be seen in this hotel at such an hour (it was then about 5.00 pm) and I therefore decided to go out and get into touch with Captain Boddington – making it look to all those who were present as though I was going out for a walk.313

  Captain Horace Frank Boddington – known to all as ‘Con’ – was Harker’s personal assistant in B Division, with a broad remit for undertaking ‘special inquiries’. Boddington had risen from a colourful background; his father somewhat euphemistically described himself on the 1901 census as a racing commission agent, more commonly known as a bookie. Eschewing a similar line of work, Boddington had found employment in 1911 as a second division clerk in the post office, before enlisting during the war to the Worcestershire Regiment as a second lieutenant, seeing active service in France. After two promotions and a mention in despatches, he was seen as a useful no-nonsense man and was given a special appointment, initially in a military capacity, at Dublin Castle. This was the heart of the British administration during the Irish war of independence, which broke out early in 1919.