Andrew Cook

So is it no surprise that he's not penniless, but he's got big money problems by the early 1920s?

He was a serial bigamist.

That was another one of his money-making approaches.

Sometimes he married or associated with women from an intelligence point of view, but Margaret, who he married in 1898, almost certainly murdered her husband.

He inherited an absolute fortune from her, indirectly from him.

When he married Pepita Bobadilla, he marries her effectively because her husband, Hayden Chambers, has just died and left her a lot of money.

And when he bumps into her in the Hotel Adlon in Berlin, he thinks this might be useful for his awful financial state.

He can't control his lifestyle.

He's still spending money like there's no tomorrow, but there is no tomorrow because there's no today.

He's not actually earning anything like what he was earning before.

And if his legal cases go wrong, he's going to owe even more.

What's the offer?

The offer is we're dissidents within Russia, we're fighting the Bolsheviks.

The only problem is we haven't got a ruble to rub together.

So they meet Riley and cut a very long story short, they say to him, there are an awful lot of works of art, priceless works of art in Russia.

They're in galleries and museums, no security, all the rest of it.

Why don't you come over here, Mr. Reilly?

You're a great leader.

Come over here, lead us.

We'll break into these museums and we'll fence all the stuff to you.