The Minister of Evil: The Secret History of Rasputin's Betrayal of Russia

"Ah! my dear Gregory," Azef said, after he had lit a fresh cigarette, "there will be no security until that man's mouth is closed. I see that you agree with me."

"Quite," replied the monk, who, I saw, was rather agitated because of something which the police spy had told him.

"Good! Then I will go further. To-day I have proposed to the Council of Workmen's Delegates that we should blow up the Central Bureau of the Okhrana, with Guerassimof in the centre of it. The killing of Guerassimof appealed to them. They hate him—as you know. Really, those people are humorous. They think I am their friend, and yet each day the police arrest one or two members regularly but quietly, and they disappear no one knows whither. I have suspicions of Menchikof, of the Okhrana at Moscow. The other day I met him at Princess Kamenskoi's, and what he told me set me wondering. He poses as your friend, but I feel convinced he is your enemy."

Rasputin's bearded face relaxed into that strange, sardonic grin of his as he replied:

"I know Menchikof. He is harmless. The only man we may fear is Burtsef. He knows far too much of the police organisation and the deeds of our provocating agents."

"I agree. But he lives in Paris, and hence the Okhrana cannot lay hands upon him. If only he would return to Russia, then he would not be long at liberty. That I assure you."

"He is in Paris. Could we not send him a message that his daughter Vera—who married young Tchernof last year—has been taken suddenly ill, and thus summon him at once to Vilna? Once on Russian soil he could be arrested."

Azef smiled. "Our friend Burtsef knows a little too much of our methods to fall into such a trap. He would recognise my hand in it in an instant. No, some other means must be found. Meanwhile we must deal with the person under discussion. We were agreed that he must be suppressed at all hazards, eh?"

"Exactly. And we must suppress Burtsef afterwards."

Paris, Lausanne, Geneva, Zurich and Nice swarmed with Russian secret agents, who, at orders from Azef and Rasputin, kept constant vigil upon the doings of everyone. The directors of the foreign service of our political police were Ratchkovsky in Paris, and Rataef in London. The latter posed as a Russian journalist, and usually spent his afternoons over cups of coffee in the cosmopolitan Café Royal in Regent Street.

All this I knew, and much more. I knew that Ivan Manuiloff, who was now secretary to Stürmer, had begun his lucrative career as the agent and catspaw of Ratchkovsky in Paris. But he intrigued against his chief, and was then transferred to Rome. Of that man and his dastardly doings I will tell more later. Suffice it to say that the Emperor so deeply believed in him that one day he gave him a gold cigarette-case with his initials in diamonds "as a mark of his esteem"!

Having listened attentively to the conversation between the two scoundrels, I at last came to the conclusion that they were conspiring against some mysterious person named Krivochein.

After the pair had consumed a bottle of champagne, Azef rose and, shaking his friend's dirty paw, said:

"I hope to have everything arranged when we meet. I would not yet mention the matter to the Empress."

"Of course I shall not," remarked Rasputin, with that crafty grin of his. "She would only worry over it—and just now she is greatly troubled over the Tsarevitch. He has had another attack."

The monk did not mention the fact that the cause of the attack was one of Badmayev's secret drugs which Anna Vyrubova had dissolved in his milk!

After Azef had left, Rasputin flung himself into his easy chair, and as he lit a cigarette remarked to me:

"Ah, Féodor! What a man! There is nothing he is unable to accomplish."

"He is very daring," I remarked.

"No, it is not daring—it is deep cunning. He has the police at his back; I have Alexandra Feodorovna—so we win always. But," he added, with a snarl, "we have enemies, and those must be dealt with—dealt with drastically. I hear they are setting about more scandals in Petrograd concerning me. Have you heard them?" he asked.

"Gossip is rife on every hand, and all sorts of wild stories are being circulated," I said.

"Bah! Let the fools say what they will of Gregory Rasputin," he laughed. "It only makes him the more popular. It is time, however, that I performed some more miracles among the poor," he added reflectively. "Let us arrange some, Féodor. Do not forget it."

The miracles were arranged a fortnight later. With the assistance of a clever German conjurer named Brockhaus, from Riga, who with others helped the mock saint on the occasions when he imposed upon the credulity of the mujiks, he pretended to "heal" a child of lameness, while a female assistant of Brockhaus, having posed as a blind peasant, was restored to sight.

The miracles took place out at Ligovo, a village outside Petrograd, and like wildfire the news was spread that the Holy Father had again taken compassion upon the people. Hundreds of men and women now flocked round him to kiss the edge of his ragged robe, and as he passed in the streets everyone crossed themselves. By such means did Rasputin retain the favour of the people and of the Empress herself.

One night he received a telegram in cipher, which he gave me to decode. It had been despatched from Paris and read:

"The appointment is at Savignyplatz, 17, Charlottenburg. Do not fail. Please inform A. [Alexandra Feodorovna] and obtain instructions.—Evno."

At once Rasputin became active. He went to Peterhof, where the Court was at that moment, and carried out Azef's desire. He was with the Empress and Madame Vyrubova for a couple of hours ere he rejoined me, and we took the evening train back to the capital.

That night he called upon Stürmer, who had with him his sycophant and ex-policeman Manuiloff, and they held counsel together. Then, next afternoon, we both left Petrograd for Berlin.

We had no difficulty in discovering the house in the Savignyplatz. It was a good-sized one on the corner of the Kantstrasse, and the old woman who opened the door at once ushered us into a pretty drawing-room, where we were greeted by a rather tall, dark-haired and refined young lady, who welcomed us in Russian, and whose name Rasputin had told me was Mademoiselle Paula Kereicha.

"You must be very tired after your long journey, Father," she said, bowing her head and crossing herself as the monk mumbled a blessing upon her.

"No; travelling is very easy between Petrograd and Berlin," he replied affably; and then he introduced me.

I could see that somehow she resented my intrusion there. She glanced at Rasputin inquiringly.

"Oh, no," laughed the monk. "I quite understand, mademoiselle; you need have no fear." Then lowering his voice to a whisper, he said: "I know full well that living here as secret agent of the Okhrana you have to exercise every caution."

Paula Kereicha—who I afterwards found was a second-rate variety actress who sometimes took engagements in order to blind people to her own calling, that of police-spy—smiled and admitted that she had to be very careful.

"It is not the Germans that I fear," she said. "They know me well at the Wilhelmstrasse, and I am never interfered with. Indeed, they assist me when necessary. No. It is the Terrorists who would do me harm if they could. There is a dangerous group here—as you know."

"I know well," said the monk; "only last week Tchapline and Vilieff were given Stolypin's necktie owing to your denunciations. They came to Russia from Berlin, and were arrested immediately they set foot across the frontier."

"No," she protested. "Azef was here. It was he who put papers into their baggage, and then telegraphed to the police at Wirballen. Neither of the men was dangerous as far as I could see, but our friend Evno believed them to be; hence he deemed them better out of the way."

I could see that the young woman had some scruples regarding the dirty work for which she received money from the Ministry of the Interior in Petrograd. And surely hers was a highly dangerous profession.

Apparently it was not desired that Rasputin's arrival in Berlin should be known, for we were shown to our rooms by the stout old Russian woman, and I heard the handsome Paula speaking on the telephone in a guarded manner.

"And you will call at half-past nine to-night, eh?" I heard her ask, and presently she rang off.

We ate our dinner together, the monk being very gracious towards his mysterious hostess; and almost punctually at half-past nine the door of the drawing-room opened, and there entered a rather shabbily dressed man, whom I at once recognised as Count von Wedel, the inseparable companion of the Kaiser, and titular head of the German Secret Service. With him was no less a person than the German Foreign Minister, Kiderlen-Waechter. Our visitors were the two Men Behind the Throne of Imperial Germany. Standing with them was that man of kaleidoscopic make-up, the great Azef himself.

That meeting was indeed a dramatic one. Rasputin, taking bribes on every side from officials in Russia who desired advancement, and from the Germans to betray Russia into the hands of the Wilhelmstrasse, sat that evening in the elegant little room listening to the conversation, with all the craft and cunning of the Russian mujik. He made but few remarks, but sat with his hands upon his knees, his deep-set, fiery eyes glancing everywhere about him, his big bejewelled cross scintillating beneath the electric light of the pretty Paula's elegant, tastily furnished little room.

Von Wedel, though dressed so shabbily, was the chief spokesman. Kiderlen-Waechter, who had so cleverly pulled the strings of Germany's diplomacy in the Near East, and had now been recalled to Berlin and placed at the helm of the Fatherland's double-dealing with the Powers, spoke little. He seemed to be learning much of the Kaiser's duplicity.

"The Emperor William, I can tell you frankly, Father, is displeased," von Wedel said to Rasputin reprovingly. "Only by an ace has the whole of our arrangements with your Empress, and with yourself as our agent, been suppressed from Downing Street. And that by steps taken by our friend here, Monsieur Azef. But we are not yet safe. I tell you quite frankly that though you are a good servant of ours, yet your habit of taking intoxicants is dangerous. You boast too much! If you are to succeed you must assume an attitude of extreme humility combined with poverty. Be a second St. Francis of Assisi," added the Count, with humour. "You can act any part. Imitate a real saint."

"It surely is not through a fault of mine that any secret has leaked out," the monk protested.

"But it is," the Count declared severely. "I am here to-night at the Emperor's orders to tell you from him that, though he appreciates all your efforts on his behalf, he disapproves of your drunkenness and your boastful tongue."

"I am not boastful!" the monk declared. "Have you brought me here to Berlin to reprimand me? If so, I will return at once."

And he rose arrogantly from his chair, and crossed his hands over his breast piously in that attitude he assumed when unusually angry.

Von Wedel saw that he was going too far.

"It is not a matter of reproof, but of precaution," he said quickly. "Happily the truth has been suppressed, though a certain agent of Downing Street—a man known by the nickname of 'Mac'—very nearly ascertained the whole facts. Fortunately for us all he did not. But his suspicions are aroused, together with those of Krivochein."