Mosul and Kirkuk. By May 1919, the proposal appeared to be quite empty. By May 1919, the Intelligence Directorate had changed hands, on the authority of Lord Curzon (acting foreign secretary while Arthur Balfour was negotiating in Paris) from Aubrey's chief General George Macdonogh to Sir Basil Thomson of Scotland Yard Special Branch i.e. from military to civilian in view of the Bolshevik threat on the home front. Thus it was possible for Aubrey in February 1921 to amaze a friend he could confide to, Lord Robert Cecil, that he was going abroad as a Scotland Yard inspector: he went to Berlin to interview Talaat Pasha for intelligence. Villa in Portofino From his mother Elsie Howard he inherited Villa Alta Chiara (an Italian rendering of "Highclere", the English seat of the Earldom) at Portofino in Italy, inherited by her from, and built in 1874 by, her husband and Aubrey's father the 4th Earl. It had been a favoured retreat of Aubrey's elder brother the 5th Earl, but following their father's death it became the property of his step-mother Elsie Howard, who died there, having frequently entertained "eminent folks from the world of politics, religion (mainly Catholic, of course) and science". Aubrey declared: "if a man can have a second country, Italy is my second country". Aubrey bequeathed the Villa to his wife Mary Vesey, and it later became "a veritable literary colony for poets, painters and writers", including their son-in-law Evelyn Waugh, Alfred Duggan, Peter Acton and Brooke Astor. Marriage and progeny Aubrey Herbert married his distant cousin, the Hon. Mary Gertrude Vesey (1889–1970), "striking looking with a ferocious temper", only child and sole heiress of John Vesey, 4th Viscount de Vesci (1844–1903), eldest son and heir of Thomas Vesey, 3rd Viscount de Vesci (d. 1875) by his wife Lady Emma Herbert (1819–1884) youngest daughter of George Herbert, 11th Earl of Pembroke. The 4th Viscount was a member of the Protestant Ascendancy in Ireland, but together with his wife had converted to Roman Catholicism and the couple raised their children in that faith. Herbert's mother-in-law (Lady Evelyn Charteris, eldest daughter of Francis Charteris, 10th Earl of Wemyss) gave the family a fine house in London. By his wife he had four children, one son and three daughters: Auberon Mark Henry Yvo Molyneux Herbert (25 April 1922 – 21 July 1974), only son and heir, who inherited his father's Pixton Park