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

"Cannot this man Mac—an Englishman, I suppose—be suppressed?" asked Rasputin. "If he is in Russia I can crush him as a fly upon the window-pane."

"Ah! but he is not in Russia," replied the Count. "He is a very elusive person, and one who tricks us every time. 'Mac the Spy,' as they call him at Whitehall, is the first secret agent in Europe—next, of course, to our dear Steinhauer."

"I disagree," interrupted the Foreign Secretary. "The man Mac is marvellous. He was in Constantinople and in Bucharest recently, and he learned secrets of our Embassy and Legation which I believed to be sacred. He even got hold of our diplomatic telegraph code a week after it had been changed. No, the English Mac is the most astute secret agent in Europe, depend upon it!"

Paula Kereicha sat listening to the conversation, but without making any remark. I noticed that Azef seemed very uneasy at her presence, and presently sent her from the room to ask for a telephone call. The instant she had gone he exclaimed in a low voice:

"It is a pity to have spoken before Paula! She knows too much. One day, when it suits her, she may reveal something unpleasant concerning us."

"But you made the appointment here, at her house!" Kiderlen-Waechter protested.

"Of course, because it is the safest meeting-place, but I did not know that matters were to be freely discussed before her."

"Then you do not trust the woman?" remarked Rasputin. "You are like myself, I never trust women," and he grinned. "Shall we drop our conversation when she returns?"

Azef reflected for a few moments.

"No," he said. "She knows most of the details of the affair. There is no reason why she should not know the rest. Besides, I may require her to assist me."

In the discussion which ensued I gathered that Rasputin and Azef had resolved, with the connivance and at the instigation of the German Foreign Office, to assassinate a certain well-known British member of Parliament who had been in Russia and had learned, through the British secret agent Mac, the betrayal of Russia into the hands of the Wilhelmstrasse. It was believed that this Englishman—whom Rasputin had nicknamed "Krivochein," so that in correspondence his identity should not be revealed—would place certain facts before the British Government to the detriment of the plans of the pro-German party in Russia.

Of the actual identity of the unfortunate member of Parliament whom Azef and Rasputin had marked down as their victim I could not learn. No doubt Paula knew who "Krivochein" was. And it was certain also that both von Wedel and the German Foreign Secretary were privy to the plot.

Apparently the Empress had been informed of the danger, and knew of the steps the conspirators were taking. Indeed, Rasputin declared:

"Alexandra Feodorovna is very anxious as to the future. She has had a violent quarrel with Nicholas regarding his refusal to dismiss Sheglovitof."

"He must be dismissed," declared von Wedel. "The Emperor William insists upon it. Each hour he remains in office he becomes more dangerous."

"I am already engineering disagreements in the Duma," the monk replied. "If he does not fall by them, then he will go naturally, for he is not a puppet hypnotised by the wishes of Tsarskoe-Selo, as are so many of our Ministers. The Tsar, who so quickly takes offence nowadays, prefers flunkeys to Ministers whose personality is too marked. Besides, we have the Woman [the Empress] ever on our side. No, Sheglovitof's hour has come."

The meeting lasted nearly three hours, until at last Azef and the two German officials left, and Rasputin went to his room, where he consumed half a bottle of brandy. Meanwhile I sat chatting with Mademoiselle Paula until it was time to retire.

Next day, in consequence of a telephone message, I left with Rasputin for Paris, where we put up at the Grand Hotel, being visited on the day following our arrival by Azef, who, dressed differently, I would certainly have passed in the street unrecognised. The two scoundrels retired to Rasputin's room, where they remained for half an hour, and then we all three went forth into the sunshine of the boulevard.

"It is about his time to pass," the notorious spy remarked to the monk, who, by the way, wore an ordinary suit of tweeds and a soft felt hat. "Let us sit here—at the Grand Café."

In consequence we took seats at one of the little tables on the terrasse and ordered "bocks."

Presently, as we watched the stream of passers-by, Azef raised the newspaper he had been pretending to read, so concealing his face, and whispered:

"Here he is! That is our friend Krivochein!"

I looked and saw a well-dressed, quiet-looking English gentleman passing along with his wife, who had apparently been shopping. Little did he dream that the eyes of the two most evil men in Europe were upon him.

"He leaves to-night on his return to London," remarked Azef, when five minutes later we rose and returned to the hotel.

That same afternoon Rasputin, who declared that he had a bad headache, sent me to an English chemist's in the Avenue de l'Opéra for a bottle of tabloids of aspirin. I was rather surprised, for he never took drugs. When I gave him the little bottle he drew out the plug of cotton-wool and extracted a tabloid, which he put upon his dressing-table, afterwards replacing the wool.

About six o'clock a lady was announced, and when she was shown up to our sitting-room I found to my surprise that it was Paula Kereicha.

Rasputin was out with Azef, so Paula declared that she would wait till their return.

"I am staying at the Hôtel Chatham, and have to go to London to-morrow," she told me. "Krivochein has left the Chatham with his wife, and I am to follow."

"The Father and Azef have gone round to the Chatham," I said. "They are evidently hoping to find you there."

"Ah! Then I will return and see if they are there," she said, and, rising, she left.

I did not see her again. She went to London next day, according to Azef's instructions, and as a French governess took a room in that quiet hotel near Victoria Station—the room wherein she was afterwards found dead.

At the time I had no knowledge of the tragedy, but later on I learned from Rasputin's own lips, while in one of his drunken, boastful moods, how he had introduced into the bottle of aspirin a single tabloid of one of Badmayev's secret poisons, made up to resemble exactly the other tabloids. With Azef he had gone to the Hôtel Chatham on purpose to extract from her dressing-case her own bottle of aspirin—which she had purchased on the previous day from the same chemist in the Avenue de l'Opéra—and replace it by the one containing the fatal dose.

The latter she had swallowed in ignorance because of a headache, death ensuing in a few seconds, and the post-mortem revealed nothing.

"Ah! my dear Féodor, that girl knew far too much! Besides, we discovered that, though she had been sent by our friend Azef to assist two of our friends to bring 'Krivochein's' career to a sudden end, she had actually warned him, so that he has succeeded in escaping to America to avoid us!"

CHAPTER VII

SCANDAL AND BLACKMAIL

As the power of the monk Rasputin increased, so also my own social position became advanced, until as the "saint's" confidential secretary, and therefore as one who had his ear, I became on friendly terms with half the nobility of Petrograd.

The pious fraud declared to true believers, "If you do not heed me, then God will abandon you."

Leading as he was, freely and openly, a life of shameless debauchery, wholesale blackmail and political intrigue, it is marvellous how his power became so unlimited. To those who disbelieved in his doctrine or in his divinity, he simply smiled evilly, and said: "If you fail to do my bidding you will be punished by my friends."

Such warning was sufficient. Everyone knew that Rasputin's power was already, in 1912, greater than that of the Tsar Nicholas himself. Day after day ambitious men called at the house in the Gorokhovaya, to which we had now moved, all of them anxious for ministerial and clerical appointments, which he obtained for them at prices fixed by himself. The highest in the land bowed before the rascal, while any man who dared to belittle him, or attempt to thwart his evil designs, was at once removed from office. Through Madame Vyrubova, who received her share of the spoils and acted upon the Empress, Rasputin reigned as Tsar, the Emperor doing little but sign his name to documents placed before him.

Thus Russia was compelled to witness a regular procession of officials whom the "man of God" appointed, in accordance with value received. Even Goremykin was compelled to bow before the mystic humbug. Rasputin for five years caused to be appointed or dismissed all the bishops, and woe betide any person who attempted to interfere with his power.

The Archbishop Theophanus, full of remorse at having lent a helping hand to the scoundrel, tried to overthrow him by publicly denouncing his evil practices, while the Bishop Hermogenes, who knew of the monk's past, attempted to reveal it. In an instant the vengeance of Rasputin fell upon them, Theophanus being sent to Tadriz, and Hermogenes confined to a monastery. Helidor was hunted by the police and sought asylum abroad; while a man named Grinevitch, who had also known Rasputin long ago at Pokrovsky, was invited to dinner by the monk one night, and next morning was found dead in his bed; while another was arrested by the police on a false charge of conspiracy, and sent to prison for ten years, though perfectly innocent.

Rasputin's overbearing insolence knew no bounds. Now that he was the power behind the Throne, he compelled all to bow to him, the educated as well as the peasantry. On entering a house, whether that of prince or peasant, he would invariably kiss the young and pretty women, while he would turn his back upon and refuse even to speak with those who were older.

Our new house was larger and more luxurious than the old one. But it also had the false telephone in the study, which was supposed by the "saint's" dupes to be a private wire to the palace of Tsarskoe-Selo! The house had been furnished entirely at the expense of the Empress, with valuable Eastern carpets, fine furniture, tasteful hangings of silk, beautiful pictures, autographed portraits of their Majesties, and, of course, ikons of all sorts and sizes to impress the pious.

An example of the rogue's impudence occurred on Easter Day in 1912. We were breakfasting with Madame Vyrubova's sister at her house just off the Nevski. With us was Boris Stürmer and two minor officials of the Court, and we were awaiting the coming of the Tsaritza's favourite lady in waiting.

At last she arrived from Tsarskoe-Selo bearing a parcel for Grichka, which she gave him merrily, saying:

"The Empress has made this for you with her own hands. She spent part of last night in finishing it for you, so that you should have it as an Easter present."

The "saint" cut the string and withdrew a blue silk coat of the kind he was in the habit of wearing, in the Russian style, over loose trousers and high boots of patent leather.

"Alix wishes you to wear it to-day," Madame Vyrubova went on, "after you have taken Holy Communion."

Rasputin, with a disappointed look, cast it and its paper upon the floor, and said: