In 1918 Paul Dukes was sent back to Petrograd, using a false identity as a Ukrainian member of the Cheka. He joined up with other British secret agents that included John Scale and Stephen Alley. Dukes spoke fluent Russian and was able to pass himself off as a member of the secret police. He also joined the Bolshevik Party. His biographer, Michael Hughes claims that: "Dukes showed himself to be a master of disguises during his time in Russia, frequently changing his appearance and using more than a dozen names to conceal his identity."
In his autobiography, Red Dusk and the Morrow: Adventures and Investigations in Soviet Russia, Dukes recalled his work as a spy: "I wrote mostly at night, in minute handwriting on tracing-paper, with a small caoutchouc (latex bag) about four inches in length, weighted with lead, ready at my side. In case of alarm, all my papers could be slipped into this bag and within thirty seconds be transferred to the bottom of a tub of washing or the cistern of a water closet. In efforts to discover arms or incriminating documents, I have seen pictures, carpets, and bookshelves removed and everything turned topsy-turvy by diligent searchers, but it never occurred to anybody to search through a pail of washing or thrust his hand into the water-closet cistern. Only on one occasion was I obliged to destroy documents of value, while of the couriers who, at grave risk, carried communications back and forth from Finland, only two failed to arrive and l presume were caught and shot."
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/SSdukes.htm
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