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

Very soon I noted that his closest friend was Stolypin, a good-looking man with beard and curled moustache, who was President of the Council of Ministers.

At that period Stolypin and the Emperor were inseparable. His Majesty gave him daily audiences, and sometimes, through Mademoiselle Zéneide Kamensky, the Empress's chief confidante, he had audience of Her Majesty.

I met Stolypin often. His Excellency was a bluff but elegant bureaucrat, who had succeeded Count Witte, a man of refinement, belonging to a very old boyar family. He was an excellent talker, and with his soft, engaging manners he could, when he wished, exercise a personal charm that always had a great effect upon his hearers. His Excellency's great virtue in the Emperor's eyes was that he never wearied him, and that was much in his favour; he always curtailed his business. Whatever he had to report to the Emperor was done quickly, without unnecessary comment, and the conference ended, they smoked together on terms of almost equality.

I beg the reader's pardon if I here digress for a moment. After Stolypin we had a well-meaning statesman as Prime Minister in Kokovtsov, who endeavoured to follow the same lines as his master. He was a talented and eloquent man, whom I often met, and who at first impressed the Tsar by his crystallised reports. But Emperor and Prime Minister had no personal attraction towards each other, as they should have if an empire is to progress. Nicholas never gave him his confidence.

Perhaps I may be permitted to reveal here a scene historic in the history of the Empire, being present with my master Rasputin in the Tsar's private cabinet. It was a very curious incident, and revealed much concerning the attitude of Nicholas towards the nation.

Kokovtsov, who had allowed Akimoff to be present—the latter, I believe, in eager anticipation of a triumph—read to the Emperor his new project for enlarging the Government monopoly system for the sale of vodka. This would have greatly increased the Government's exchequer, but would inevitably have ruined the people.

In the room Rasputin sat in his black robe and his big jewelled cross suspended by its chain, while I stood beside him.

The Emperor, with a cigarette in his mouth, sat in a big arm-chair at his desk, tracing circles and squares upon a sheet of paper, his habit when distracted. Now and then he scratched his head. He was attentive to the report, still drawing his circles, but making no comment, except that his lips relaxed in a faint smile.

Suddenly he turned to Rasputin and asked: "Well Father, what do you understand in all this?"

Kokovtsov ceased reading his project, and stood in wonder. Not a single item of the project had been criticised, no comment had been offered, therefore His Excellency naturally believed that his efforts were receiving approbation. Rasputin was silent.

Suddenly the Tsar rose from his chair with a sigh of weariness, and slowly selected a fresh cigarette from the big golden box upon his writing-table. Then he shook hands with Kokovtsov as a sign that the audience was at an end, and said:

"Really, my dear Excellency, I do not agree with your project at all. It is all utter rubbish, and will only lead the Empire into further difficulties. Surely Russia has sufficient alcohol!"

I watched the scene with wide-open eyes.

Poor Kokovtsov, so well meaning, bowed in assent and crumpled up before the Tsar of all the Russias. The blow was quite unexpected. When I left the Emperor's presence with Rasputin, the latter said:

"Well, my dear Féodor. The day of Kokovtsov is ended. One may be thankful for it, because it will mean less friction between the Emperor and the Empress."

Three days later His Majesty dismissed his Prime Minister, but gave him the title of Count. He had no son, therefore the distinction was a mere empty one.

With this digression, for which I hope I may be pardoned, I will return to Stolypin. The mystery of his assassination has always been carefully hushed-up by the Secret Police, but I here intend to lift the veil, and, at the risk of producing certain damning evidence, disclose the whole of the amazing and dastardly plot.

Few people know of it. Rasputin knew it, I know it, the Empress knows it, and a certain woman living in seclusion in London to-day knows it. But to the world the truth which I here write will, I venture to believe, come as a great surprise.

The cry "Land and Liberty" was being heard on every hand in the Empire. Peter Arkadievitch Stolypin, son of an aide-de-camp general of Alexander II., was in the zenith of his popularity. He had become a vermentchik, the traditional appellation applied to the favourite of the Emperor, and as such he loomed largely in the eyes of Europe. He had entered the public service as a youth, and had later on become governor of the province of Samara, where he had attracted the notice of Count Witte because of the drastic way in which he had suppressed some serious riots there. In due course he was called to Petrograd, where he was introduced to the Emperor, and later on the mantle of Count Witte had fallen upon him.

Though in high favour with the Emperor he was clever enough to court the good graces of Rasputin, knowing full well what supreme influence he wielded over the Imperial couple. For that reason I frequently had conversation with him both at Court and at the Poltavskaya. He was a man of complex nature. A lady-killer of the most elegant type, refined and determined, yet lurking in the corners of his nature was a tyrannical trait and a hardness of heart.

In Samara he had distinguished himself by various injustices to the population, and hundreds of innocent persons had, because they had been denounced by the agents-provocateurs of the secret police, been sent to prison or to Siberia by administrative order. At first there was a rivalry between him and General Trepoff in the Tsar's good graces, but Trepoff died, leaving Stolypin master of the situation.

Though Rasputin behaved graciously towards him and often dined at his table, he was in secret his enemy. So cleverly did the monk form and carry out his plot that to the last he never believed but that the holy man, who prayed so fervently for his success in the guidance of Russia, was his most devoted friend.

Many crimes have been committed in Russia beneath the shadow of the Black Wings, but perhaps none more ingenious than the one under notice.

The first I knew of the deep conspiracy was in the spring of 1911, by the visit one night to Rasputin's house in the Poltavskaya of a tall, fair-haired man named Hardt, whom I knew as a frequent visitor to the monk. He was a merchant in Petrograd and a man of considerable means, but, as I afterwards discovered, was an agent of Potsdam specially sent to Russia as the secret factotum of the Tsaritza. He was ever at her beck and call, and was the instrument by which she exchanged confidential correspondence with the Kaiser and other persons in Germany.

On that evening when Hardt called quite half-a-dozen of the sister-disciples were taking tea with the saint and gossiping, for each Thursday he would hold informal receptions, and with horrible blasphemy bestow upon the society women who attended his accursed blessing. The ladies there on that night were all of the most exclusive circle in Petrograd.

On Hardt's arrival the reception was cut short after he had whispered some words to the Starets, who made excuse that he had to leave to return to the palace.

Indeed, he went to the telephone at the farther end of the room and held a conversation with the Tsaritza's confidante, Mademoiselle Kamensky. None knew, however, that that private telephone by which the charlatan so impressed his visitors was merely a fake one, its wires not extending farther than the end of the garden.

Grichka sometimes when alone rehearsed those conversations, until he succeeded in producing a perfect series of answers which would strike the hearer as a most intimate conversation concerning either Emperor or Empress.

From the chatter upon the mock telephone the assembly concluded that his presence was required at the palace immediately, therefore they rose and retired, leaving the mysterious Hardt alone with us.

Instead of going to Tsarskoe-Selo we retired to the saint's little den, where we opened a bottle of champagne, of which we all three drank.

"Well, my friend Hardt?" asked the monk, flinging himself carelessly into his easy chair and unbuttoning his long black coat for comfort. "What has happened? You can, as you know, speak before our faithful Féodor," he added.

"I have waiting outside a young woman whom I want you to see," replied the German agent.

"Does she wish to enter our circle?" inquired the monk, adding with his usual avariciousness: "Has she money?"

"No—neither," was Hardt's reply. "She does not want to become one of your disciples; indeed, the less you say on that matter the better!"

"Then why should I trouble to see her?"

"I will tell you all after you have chatted with her. May Féodor invite her in? She is sitting in a droshky outside."

"If you wish," growled Rasputin. "But why all this mystery? I have much to do. I am due at Countess Ignatieff's—and am already late."

"Remain patient, I beg of you, Father," urged the German suavely. "I am acting upon instructions—from Number Seventy."

"From Number Seventy!" echoed the monk, instantly realising that Hardt, an agent of the German Secret Service, was carrying out some well-concealed and ingenious project. "Very well," he said. "I rely upon you not to delay me longer than necessary. Féodor," he added, turning to me with that lofty air which his low mujik mind sometimes conceived to be superiority, "go and find this mysterious young person."

A few minutes later I conducted into the saint's presence a dark-haired, extremely handsome young woman of about thirty, who spoke with considerable refinement and whose arrival mystified me greatly.

Hardt introduced her to the holy man, saying:

"This is Mademoiselle Vera Baltz, of Stavropol, a friend of His Excellency Peter Stolypin."

"Ah! Welcome, my dear mademoiselle," exclaimed the monk affably. "So you are a friend of His Excellency—when he was Governor of Samara, I suppose?"

"Yes. I have come here because I crave your assistance. Monsieur Hardt knows all the circumstances, and will explain."

The saint turned to the fair-haired man seated opposite him, Mademoiselle Baltz having been given an easy-chair close by Rasputin's table. It was a writing-table, but the scoundrel never wrote. Sometimes he pretended to do so, but the truth was that it was a long and painful procedure with him. He preferred to scrawl his initials to any typewritten letter which I prepared.

"The explanation is briefly this, Father," said Hardt in his businesslike way. "Mademoiselle has been the dupe of His Excellency, who, while Governor, often went to Stavropol, where he stayed at an hotel under another name. Mademoiselle never knew his identity until a year ago, when she saw his photograph in the papers as Prime Minister. She never knew that he was married—though I have here a letter in which he proposes marriage to her."

And he produced from his pocket a note, bearing the heading of the Centralnaya Hotel at Samara, which Rasputin read through.

"Well?" asked the Starets, blowing a cloud of cigarette smoke from his bearded lips.

"Mademoiselle is anxious to meet His Excellency."

"Ah! I see," exclaimed the monk, whose mind at once turned to blackmail, a course which he himself was actively pursuing. "Mademoiselle wishes for money—eh?"