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 – including Stepan Shahumyan – of a Soviet client, the Centrocaspian Dictatorship, in September 1918. The commissars had earlier fled the Mussavatist Azerbaijan advanced guard in the September Days of 1918 just before the Turks occupied Baku. They planned to sail to Astrakhan, the only Caspian port still in Bolshevik hands but were instead dumped at the port of Krasnovodsk where they were summarily executed by the local Menshevik garrison. Ellis fundamentally disagreed with claims by the Socialist Revolutionary journalist Vadim Chaikin that British officers were responsible for the deaths of the Commisars, pointing out that it had been a triumph for Soviet propaganda. In a letter to "The Times" in 1961, Ellis placed the blame with the "Menshevik-Socialist Revolutionary" Transcaspian Government, which had jurisdiction over the prisoners. According to Ellis the claim of British involvement arose only after the Socialist Revolutionaries found the need to ingratiate themselves with the stronger Bolsheviks.