Brontë family "Wuthering Heights" and "Agnes Grey", had launched a rumour that the three novels were the work of one author, understood to be Ellis Bell (Emily). George Smith was extremely surprised to find two gawky, ill-dressed country girls paralysed with fear, who, to identify themselves, held out the letters addressed to "Messrs. Acton, Currer and Ellis Bell". Taken by such surprise, he introduced them to his mother with all the dignity their talent merited, and invited them to the opera for a performance of Rossini's "Barber of Seville". Emily Brontë's "Wuthering Heights" was published in 1847 under the masculine pseudonym Ellis
Dick Ellis in-house CIA historian, Thomas F. Troy, stated that James Angleton had warned him in 1963 that Ellis was under investigation as a suspected Soviet agent. Pincher alleged that in 1965 Ellis was challenged and admitted to spying for Germany. "The Independent"'s James Dalrymple said that Ellis 'sold "vast quantities of information" about the British secret service to the Germans', aiding the production of the Gestapo handbook for the Invasion of Britain. In retirement C. H. Ellis wrote a book about the Malleson mission: "The Transcaspian Episode". Among the incidents addressed in the book was the execution of 26 Commissars –