Therefore he bade farewell to his dozen "sister-disciples," the head of whom was the opulent "Sister Vera," sister of the dissolute Bishop Teofan whom Rasputin himself had created. Teofan was a fellow-criminal of his who had been imprisoned for horse-stealing in Tobolsk, and now he wore richly embroidered ecclesiastical robes and bent the knee before the altar daily.

In consequence of this message from his friend Anna, Rasputin hastened back to Petrograd.

Now Madame Vyrubova was Rasputin's tool throughout. Hers had been a strange history. Her past had been shrouded in mystery, yet I here disclose it for the first time. As Mademoiselle Taneieff, daughter of the director of the private chancellerie of the Tsar, she became five years before one of the maids-of-honour of the Empress. A pretty, high-spirited girl, she at first amused and afterwards attracted the neurotic spouse of the stolid, weak-minded Autocrat. In due course she married a rather obscure but good-looking naval officer named Vyrubova-- a lieutenant on board the cruiser _Kazan_. The husband, after a year at sea, learned certain scandals, and therefore he went one night boldly to the Emperor--who happened to be at Peterhof--and asked that he might divorce his wife.

His Majesty was both surprised and angry. He made inquiry, and discovered a very curious state of affairs--a scandal that had been hushed up and is now revealed by the new light shining upon Russian Court life and the internal scandals of the Empire.

Briefly put. His Majesty found that his wife the Empress had fallen in love with a certain General O--. The dark-haired Madam Vyrubova had acted as go-between for the couple--a fact which her husband knew, and threatened to expose as a vulgar scandal if the Emperor did not allow his divorce! It seemed that General O--had rather slighted the Empress, and had taken up with a certain Princess B--, who had been on the stage, and who was declared to be one of the prettiest women in all Russia.

The General had followed the beautiful princess to Cairo. A week later at a.s.souan, in Upper Egypt, he had been seized by a mysterious illness and died. The explanation given to the Emperor by the husband Vyrubova was that the General had fallen a victim to the jealousy of his wife the Empress.

The Tsar made secret inquiry, and to his surprise found that all the officer had a.s.serted had been correct. Madame Vyrubova had at the Empress's orders followed the General and arranged his death. Therefore His Majesty could do nothing else than allow the officer to divorce his wife, who, truth to tell, was the catspaw of the poisoner Rasputin, who held her in his grip.

These widespread ramifications of the mock-monk's influence and his power created by the judicious expenditure of German palm-oil are utterly astounding. The more deeply one delves into this voluminous _dossier_, the more amazing does it become, until the enemy's wicked attempts to undermine Russia, our ally, almost stagger belief.

When Rasputin at last returned to Petrograd, in response to the orders of the handsome Anna, he was handed a secret communication from Germany.

This confidential despatch, as it lies here before me, speaks for itself. It is in a German letter-cipher, different from all the others, and for a considerable time it defied all efforts, to decipher it. At last it was accomplished by the Russian Secret Police, and it certainly reveals a most dastardly series of amazingly cunning plots. Here it is:

"Memorandum 26874.327.

"`Number 70' is sending to you Sister Molfetta, of the Italian Red Cross, whose number is 168. She will leave Berlin on the 3rd prox, and travel by way of Gothenburg. Please inform P. (Protopopoff) and request him to give her his protection and prepare her dear pa.s.sport.

She will stay at the house of B. (Bukoff, a furrier in the Vereiskaya, who was a German agent and a.s.sistant to Rasputin); you will call upon her there.

"The object of her mission is to cultivate friendly relations with the barrister Alexander Kerensky, who, though at present obscure, will, it is here believed, shortly make his influence felt very strongly against us. The woman 168 has orders to compromise him, and afterwards create a public scandal in order to discredit him in the eyes of the public.

"Further, we seriously view the strength of Kerensky and the influence he may exert in the prosecution of the war, therefore we leave it to your personal discretion whether or not he should be removed. Number 168 possesses the means, and will act upon your orders.

"_Secret Instructions_.--You are to inform His Majesty in confidence that M.I. Tereshchenko (now Minister for Foreign Affairs) is dangerous, and should be arrested. If his house in Kiev is searched, compromising papers which have been placed there by S. (a German agent named Schumacher) will be discovered. Tereshchenko is threatening to expose your friend S. (Sturmer, Prime Minister), and should it once be suppressed by imprisonment.

"The letter herewith enclosed please give into the hands of Her Majesty the Empress in secret. Also inform her that the wishes she has expressed in her last letter to His Majesty shall be carried out.

"You are to inform S. and P. (Sturmer and Protopopoff) that the shortage of food in Russia is, owing to Birileff's indecisive policy, not sufficiently marked. He must be dismissed upon grounds of incompetence, and they must appoint a new Food Controller who will, connive, by holding up supplies, to create a famine. An epidemic, if spread in Moscow, Kazan, Kharkow, Odessa, and other cities at the same time as the famine, would greatly contribute towards Germany's success.

The matter has already been discussed, and an outbreak of cholera suggested. You should consider the suggestion at your end, and if you decide upon it, the necessary steps can easily be taken, though we consider nothing should be done in Petrograd, because of yourselves and the Imperial family.

"The bearer of this will remain in Petrograd four days, and then bring back any news you can send regarding the future situation. Matters are now becoming desperate with us. Hindenburg has decided that at all hazards we must withdraw troops from your frontier, and send them to the west. We rely upon you and your friends to create a famine, for which you will receive increased gratuities, as in the case of the retreat from Warsaw."

Thus will it be seen that the "holy" blackguard, the right-hand and adviser of the Emperor Nicholas, was posing as the saviour of the great Russian Empire, whom Great Britain was supplying with munitions of war, and while he was everywhere declaring that Brusiloff's strategy would wreck the German offensive, yet at the same time he was plotting famine and pestilence in the very heart of the Empire!

None knew this secret--except the German-born Tsaritza. From her, Rasputin held back nothing. In secret he showed her all the despatches he received from the Koniggratzer-stra.s.se. His influence upon Her Majesty at this stage is made vividly apparent by significant remarks which he made to Sturmer on the night after his return to Petrograd, and the delivery into his hands of that cipher despatch from Berlin as revealed above.

"My dear Excellency!" he said, tossing off a gla.s.s of vodka and eating some caviare at the great carved sideboard in his own room before sitting down to dinner, "you have been speaking of the Tsar and the Tsaritza. To the Tsar I am Christ, the saviour of Russia and the world!

Their Majesties salute me; they bow to me and they kiss my hand. What higher sphere can I achieve? The Imperial children prostrate before me; they kiss my hands. Ah! my dear Excellency, I could disclose to you things which--well, which I could not relate without blushing!"

It was at this period, when a friend of the "holy" peasant, Striaptcheff, a fellow-thief of Pokrovsky and a man convicted of burglary, pressed his attentions upon the "Holy Father" and demanded an appointment. Incredible as it may appear, yet the criminal in question was six days later appointed as a bishop of the Russian Church, with the usual fat emoluments, and he could scarcely read or write. Truly Holy Russia was progressing beneath the Rasputin _regime_. She had a burglar as bishop.

Meanwhile, the monk proceeded at once to carry out his secret orders from Berlin.

We know that the camarilla held council a week later, and that Sturmer, Protopopoff, Striaptcheff--who had now become inseparable from Rasputin--as well as Manuiloff, an ex-journalist who conducted the secret police under Sturmer, were present at the monk's house. At the meeting the false Red Cross sister from Berlin was also present.

It was agreed that it would be best to remove Kerensky, who, though a headlong enthusiast, would be a very difficult man for a woman to compromise. It was known that he possessed secret sources of knowledge regarding the intention of the camarilla to betray Russia into Germany's hands, therefore the woman Molfetta was given orders to carry out her plot, to secure his a.s.sa.s.sination at the hands of a renegade Jew of Warsaw named Levinski, who was ready to commit any crime if paid for it.

The attempt was made three weeks later. While Kerensky, who lived to become afterwards Prime Minister of the new Government, was turning the corner by the Alexandra Hospital to cross the Fontanka to the Sadovaya, late one night, on his way home to the Offitzerskaya, he was shot at three times by the fellow Levinski. Each shot happily went wide, and as a result Alexander Kerensky still lives to pilot Russia to her freedom.

The manner in which the traitorous camarilla brought about a famine in the capital, and in certain districts in the Empire, until the people of Petrograd paraded the city crying "Give us bread, or end the war!" is well known to all. But how they attempted to carry out the dastardly orders of Berlin to create an epidemic of cholera at the same time, I will reveal with quotations from official doc.u.ments in the next chapter.

CHAPTER SEVEN.

THE PLOT TO SPREAD EPIDEMICS IN RUSSIA.

In my work of unmasking Rasputin I find that constant secret communications were at that time pa.s.sing between the "holy" scoundrel and his infamous paymasters in the Koniggratzer-stra.s.se, while messages were continually being exchanged in strictest confidence between the Kaiser and the German-born Tsaritza, who lived beneath the thraldom of this common horse-stealer.

Berlin, with all its devilish inventions for unfair warfare prohibited by the Hague Convention, had not overlooked the fact that owing to the primitive sanitation of Russia, epidemics had very often been widespread and most difficult to stamp out; therefore the suggestion to artificially produce outbreaks of bubonic plague and Asiatic cholera in the heart of the Empire had been suggested to that traitor, the Prime Minister Boris Sturmer, and his fellow-conspirators of the "camarilla,"

of whom the Siberian charlatan known as "Holy Father" was the head.

While the Imperial Court bowed its knees to the erotic rascal, yet strangely enough the people doubted him, and in secret jeered at him.

The satanic suggestion from Berlin, however, appealed to the camarilla of pro-German plotters.

The Russian army was gallantly holding out, even though many traitors held highest commands. The Germans had reached the height of their offensive power on that front, and a separate peace with Russia was in Berlin admitted to be, highly necessary, if the ultimate success of their arms was to be achieved. Therefore, if a devastating epidemic broke out, then Sturmer would have excuse to go to the Tsar and strongly urge the necessity for peace as the only salvation of the Empire.

Hence the necessary steps were at once taken by the conspirators who were in the habit of meeting almost daily in the Gorokhovaya. Proof of what was on foot is disclosed by the following secret despatch from Berlin, which is included in Rasputin's private papers, which so fortunately fell into the hands of the patriotic party of Russia. I here reproduce it:

"Memorandum 26932.366.

"`Number 70' has placed your communication and suggestions before a high quarter, and they are all approved. He is sending you, by way of Malmo, Karl Johnke, whose number is 229, a bacteriologist of the Frankfort Inst.i.tute, who will arrive in Petrograd on the 18th, and seek you. By the same ship will arrive, consigned to our friends the firm of Yakowleff and Company, wholesale fruiterers, of the Nikolskaya, in Moscow, one hundred and twenty-six barrels of Canadian apples, with ninety cases of Canary bananas. These will be distributed in the ordinary course of trade to Kazan, Kharkow, Odessa, and other centres.

See that P. (Protopopoff) grants easy facilities for rapid transport to the consignees in Moscow, as they are perishable.

"`Number 229' has full instructions to deal with Ivan Yakowleff, who is our `fixed post' in Moscow, and who is receiving his instructions in secret by the messenger who brings you this. The fruit must not be handled or eaten, as it has been treated and is highly dangerous.

"Cholera should occur within three weeks of the arrival of the fruit.

We rely upon P. taking steps to facilitate its rapid delivery. Some of it should be presented to charitable inst.i.tutes for distribution among the poor.

"Inform A. (Anna Vyrubova) that Korniloff (General Korniloff, whom all know to be one of the most successful of Russian generals) suspects her concerning the Zarudni affair and has at his house some correspondence which is incriminating. It is in a cupboard in his bedroom and should be secured at once. (G. Zarudni was active in political law cases before the Revolution, and has since been appointed Minister of Justice in the Kerensky Cabinet.) Zarudni is working against both S. (Sturmer) and yourself. If an accident happened to him it would render the atmosphere more clear. The same applies to his friend N.V. Nekrasov, who is on the Duma Budget Committee and on the Railway Committee. Both may upset our plans.

"Against General Ostrogradski, Inspector-General of Cavalry, a charge of treason should be made. The bearer brings doc.u.ments in order to arouse suspicion that he has sold military secrets to Austria. These can be produced at his trial. His continued activity against us, and his hatred of yourself are both dangerous.

"`Number 229' will make personal reports to you concerning the negotiations with Roumania and also regarding the efforts we are making to prevent war material from England reaching Russia.

"`Number 70' notes with gratification that the explosion at the nitro-glycerine works at Viborg has been effected, and that the factory was totally destroyed and most of the workmen killed. Please pay E.

(an a.n.a.lytical chemist named Paul Eck, who was a friend of Rasputin's) the sum promised.

"It would be best if their Majesties removed to Tsarskoe-Selo. Anna Vyrubova should cultivate Boris Savenkov, Commissioner to the Seventh Army. (This suggestion shows the remarkable foresight of Berlin, for to-day Boris Savenkov is acting Minister of War.) You yourself should lose no time in becoming acquainted with Countess Vera Kokoskin, who lives at Potemkinskaya, 29. She is eager to meet you. Admit her as a disciple, for being an attractive and ambitious woman, she has considerable knowledge of what is in progress in certain quarters in the Duma. Being in want of money, and being blackmailed by a penniless lover named Sievers, she would probably be ready to become our friend.

`Number 70' therefore throws out this suggestion, yet at the same time impresses upon you and your friends the necessity of the creation of the epidemic and the bringing in of Roumania on the side of the Allies."

Those final words of that cipher despatch disclose a cunning that was indeed unequalled. I know full well that readers may be inclined to pause and to doubt that such dastardly methods could actually be pursued against civilisation. To such I can only point out that boxes of the same microbes were found in the German Legation in Bucharest, and were officially reported by the United States Legation in that city.

The fierce German octopus--so carefully fostered and so well prepared-- had alas! stretched its thousand searching tentacles upon the patriotic Russian people who were ruled by their weak and careless Emperor, while the pro-German Empress listened to every rumour, and in her heart hoped for a separate peace with Germany as the only salvation of her land.

Truly the Romanoffs have proved themselves a weak-kneed and irresponsible dynasty. Alexander, however, was never weak. In the long-ago days when I had audience with his late Majesty one morning in his small reception-room in the Winter Palace, he wore a rough drab shooting suit; bluff and full-bearded as any of his ministers, he talked to me fully of his regret that the Nihilists should be ever plotting to kill him, and a.s.sured me of his own personal efforts to free his people from a corrupt Church and an iron bureaucracy.

"Please tell your British people that as Tsar I am doing the utmost in my power to improve and civilise my dear Russian people, to whom I am devoted, and to whom I will if necessary give my life."