574 • WHEATLEY, JOAN
Knight’s instructions with the intention of cultivating the press atta-
che ́. The contact led to a single dinner at the famous Hungaria Res-
taurant, but although Wheatley was later to write an article for the
Daily Mailabout Stalingrad’s defender, nothing more was achieved.
Although his wifeJoan Wheatley, stepson, and stepdaughter were
employed by MI5, Wheatley was never formally employed as an of-
ficer of the Security Service, although, through the intervention of
his wife, he later joined the War Planning Staff, where he worked
closely with Colonel Gilbert Lennox, one of MI5’s experts on strate-
gicdeception.
After the war Wheatley resumed his literary career and achieved
phenomenal success as a writer and, before his death in November
1977, finished more than 60 books. In the third volume of his mem-
oirs,The Time Has Come: Pen and Ink, Wheatley recalls an episode
when ‘‘Uncle Max’’ Knight sought out his help to watch a suspected
Nazi agent. The person concerned is unnamed but Wheatley’s de-
scription of her would appear to fit Judith, Countess of Listowel. She
was born in Hungary, the daughter of a diplomat, and married the
Labour peer Lord Listowel in 1933; they were divorced in 1945, two
years after the release of her autobiography,This I Have Seen.WHEATLEY, JOAN.When Joan Johnstone metDennis Wheatleyin
1929 she had five children and had been both divorced and widowed.
Her marriage toWilliam Youngerhad resulted in separation, and her
subsequent marriage to Hubert Pelham Burn had ended when he was
killed in a car accident. Wheatley, who was then virtually a bankrupt
after his wine business had collapsed, obtained a divorce from his
wife in 1931 and then married Joan.
In 1935 Joan Wheatley adopted the pen name Eve Chaucer and
wrote her first novel,No Ordinary Virgin. This was followed byLife
as Carola,Return to Elysium(using the name Joan Grant),Winged
Pharaoh,Eyes of Horus,Lord of the Horizon,Scarlet Feather, and
finallySilksheets and Breadcrumbs. She also wrote two books for
children,The Scarlet Fish and Other StoriesandRedskin Morning,
as well as the travelogueVague Vacation.
On the outbreak of World War II, at the invitation ofMax Knight,
she joinedMI5, where her son and daughter, William and Diana
Younger, both already worked. She started as a driver, carrying sen-