It was in June 1935 when Conrad went to Riks gränsen in Lapland to find good skiing, and to be near Maud in Stockholm whose time was near. His hotel overlooked the railway
lines. He noticed more and more trains laden with Iron Ore were passing by? On an impulse he pocketed his passport and hopped on one of the passing trains.
The journey took him along the Norwegian coast to the seaport of Narvik. There he found the Ore being loaded onto German and Dutch
ships. He sought out a Dutch sailor and enquired where the Ore was going? The sailors reply was that it was destined
for the Rhineland, either for the Krupps munitions factory
or the steelworks of Saar. He asked how long this had been going on. Not very long, he was told, only since Hitler had started to rearm. This
was news indeed! Conrad headed for Stockholm and searched out the Consul General. They had no idea of the flow of Iron Ore to Germany. Conrad wired Menzies, now C the Director
of British intelligence, with the news. Menzies telephoned him with warm congratulations and requested he return to London without delay. As Maud was so close
to her time Conrad explained he could not come until after the birth. It was agreed he should come at his earliest convenience.
While he waited Conrad bought an English sports car and toured round the mines checking how many were exporting Ore to Germany. Most were and he gathered information
of the quantities being shipped to corroborate his initial report. On the 9th of July Christina was born he stayed to see
that she and her mother were in good health and then booked passage to England.
He met Menzies and provided him with all the information he had compiled.
He had a brief break in Ireland with Rozzie at Monivea. Since Kathleen’s departure things had not
gone well. All monies from Kathleen had stopped and the house was in disrepair. He sent a letter to Kathleen in Harbin offering to take things in hand and
restore the estate for her. He shared this action with Rozzie, a bad move; she treated him with suspicion thereafter. He had always secretly held aspirations to have Monivea but this letter saw an end to any hopes
he had entertained in that respect. He returned to London and had a meeting with Menzies in White’s gentleman’s
club. He expected to be returning directly to Austria but SM had different ideas. Conrad was bound for Harbin using a visit to Kathleen as cover.
He returned to Kitzbühel packed his bags and headed for Berlin and the Manchuria express. After a long and largely
uneventful journey across Russia and Siberia, Conrad arrived at his destination. Harbin was of ill repute an “evil city”. It had over 200,000 Asiatic and 65,000 Europeans living under a tyrannical Japanese rule. It had
been little more than a village until the Russians had built a massive bridge over the Sungari river a few years earlier,
since then it had mushroomed into the crowded and squalid city Conrad found. He booked himself into the Hotel Modern. Then
he contacted the British representative so he may acquaint him of the local conditions. They took a launch up the Sungari so they could be certain of not being
overheard. One could only venture six miles upstream as any further would have taken them into bandit country. He recalls
seeing a Japanese officer beheading some malefactor as they passed then just letting his body fall into the river. This was
a barbaric place Conrad was left in no doubt of that on his first day. When they returned he made his way to Kathleen’s
residence at 16 Bolshoi Prospect. It was a large villa shared by Kathleen and her friend and ladies companion a Princess Uhtomski
and a largely unseen Russian orthodox Abbess. It was Conrad’s luck that Kathleen despite her relative poverty still
entertained regularly and it seems her villa had become a focal point of political discussion if not intrigue in Harbin. Her supper parties were often attended
by the British French and Italian Consuls. Another visitor was a Latvian man who became a valuable contact and provided him
with much information. He introduced him to Ivan a Russian working for the Japanese at their military
headquarters. Ivan provided him with maps and documents and gave him the exact details and disposition of Japanese troops
in Manchukuo. This was a scoop beyond his hopes Conrad was soon making plans for his return. He had tried and
failed to get Kathleen to discuss Monivea. He reluctantly accepted that hopes of tenure there for him were unlikely. Conrad
also tells of a Japanese’s plot against western morals in Harbin. They provided cheap heroin to the many Russian addicts
which inhabited the place. On a night the Hotel porter would use his pass key and let young once prosperous Russian girls,
now reduced to earning their living through prostitution, into the rooms of single men. He awoke one night to the sound of
a key in the door and shouted out “Go to the devil!” to the unseen female intruder. She replied in perfect English
“That’s just what I thought I was doing.” Before she left he had gained much knowledge of this plot against
western ethics and morality. It was time for him to leave. He went to see Kathleen for the last time. She gave him a set of
golden Russian enamelled spoons as a parting gift. Conrad would never see her again, she would end her days in Harbin despite harbouring hopes to return
to Monivea to die. He was making ready to leave for the station the following morning when the Latvian came to him. They went
for a drink of coffee. Ivan, he was told, had been arrested for espionage, he tells us in his book
“I looked at my informer blankly and took another lump of sugar in my coffee. ‘This coffee is awfully
bitter.’ I remarked ‘perhaps the Russian coffee is bitter too, and the German coffee as well.’ said the
Latvian significantly. ‘Yes I said, café au lait is best.” dm p144 This guarded and inscrutable conversation in
a public place was the closing remarks of another successful mission for Conrad.
On the train he met a young Russian girl Irene who was going to England to her father’s family. She
spoke almost no English and had too much luggage. Conrad saw it would cause attention to be taken by Dimitri the OGPU informer
on the train. She had intended to pass on a mink coat and other articles to an aunt in Moscow. But on their arrival no aunt was
to be seen. There were two Chinese trunks to be explained, Irene was on the point of being arrested by the Soviets when Conrad
intervened. He emphatically explained the trunks were bound for Berlin despite the tickets ,that her mother had given him express
instructions to see they were taken for the remainder of the journey, to have them re-stamped
immediately and put back on the train. Luckily Dimitri was from Moscow and keen to be on his way home so
he gave no argument. The trunks were reloaded on the train and their journey continued. But Conrad had been noticed by the
new guard. Very early that morning he came to their compartment and woke Conrad by flashing his torch in his face and asking
a question as he awoke. Conrad answered in Russian inadvertently. “So you ‘Do’ speak Russian said the guard.
Conrad was watched closely for the remainder of the journey, until at the Polish border they left the Russian train behind
and enjoyed comfort of the Polish restaurant car. He travelled from Berlin to London for debriefing and then back to Austria and Southern Germany to get on with, “talking to
Politicians and hobnobbing with swells. *” Getting the goods on Hitler’s political machinations and in the lead
up to total war. Conrad was in the centre of things again. In a TV feature on him from 1985 when he was 92 he says quite candidly
“I was M’s number three!” Given his reports were passed on minus its
source within the people he mentions and their associates he had ears and influence in the very heart of the New Order. Until
one innocent remark, “My aunt has arrived!” A fictitious Aunt, of course. One had begun Conrad’s extraordinary
career as a Secret Agent. The casual mention of another, equally non existent Auntie, would end it forever. He was in the
post office in Kitzbühel, mid morning on March 11th 1938.
*From the article “The James Bond of West Vancouver” by Walter Stuart
