The men mentioned, together with half-a-dozen others with high-sounding t.i.tles, were bent upon ruining Russia, and giving her over body and soul as prey to Germany. All had been arranged, even to the price they were each to receive for the betrayal of their country. This was told to the Empress time after time by Count Kokovtsov, the Adjunct-Minister of the Interior Dzhunkovsky, the Grand Dukes Nicholas Michailovitch, Dmitri Pavlovitch, and others. But Her Majesty would listen to nothing against her pet "Saint," the Divine director, that disgracefully erotic humbug who pretended that he could heal or destroy the little Tsarevitch. When any stories were told of him, Anna, her favourite lady-in-waiting, would declare that they were pure inventions of those jealous of "dear Gregory's" position and influence.

While Boris Sturmer, frantically scheming for a separate peace with Germany, was with his traitorous gang engineering all sorts of disasters, outrages and military failures in order to prevent the Russian advance, Kurloff, another treacherous bureaucrat, sat in the Ministry of the Interior collecting the gangs of the "Black Hundred,"

those hired a.s.sa.s.sins whom he clothed in police-uniforms and had instructed in machine-gun practice.

Rasputin and Protopopoff were now the most dominant figures in the sinister preparations to effect Russia's downfall. Rasputin was busy taking bribes on every hand for placing his a.s.sociates into official positions and blackmailing society women who, having been his "disciples," had, from one cause or another, left his charmed circle.

Protopopoff, who once posed as our friend and hobn.o.bbed; with Mr Lloyd George, was a man of subtle intrigue. From being a friend of Britain, as he pretended to be when he came here as Vice-President of the Duma, he was enticed away by Germany to become the catspaw of the Kaiser, and was hand in glove with the holy rascal, with his miracle-working, behind the throne.

Rasputin, himself receiving heavy payments from Germany, had acquired already the most complete confidence of the Tsar and Tsaritza; indeed, to such an extent that no affair of State was even decided by the weak-kneed autocrat without the horse-stealer's evil counsel. Loyal to his Potsdam paymaster, Rasputin gave his advice with that low and clever cunning which ever distinguished him. He gave it as a loyal Russian, but always with the ulterior motive of extending the tentacles of German influence eastward.

In the voluminous confidential report here before me as I write, the disclosures of the rise and fall of Rasputin, I find an interesting memorandum concerning a certain Paul Rodzevitch, son of a member of the Council of the Empire. Alexander Makaroff, one of the three private secretaries of the Emperor, had died suddenly of heart disease, the result of a drinking bout at the Old Donon, and at the dinner-table of the Imperial family at Tsarskoe-Selo the matter was being discussed, Rasputin being present. He was unkempt, unwashed--with untrimmed beard, and a filthy black coat greasy at the collar, and his high boots worn down at heel, as became a "holy man."

The Tsar was deploring the death of this fellow Makaroff, a person whose evil life was notorious in Petrograd, and whose young wife--then only twenty--had followed the example of the Empress, and had become a "sister-disciple."

"Friend!" exclaimed the "Saint" with pious upward glance, for he had the audacity to address the Emperor thus familiarly, "Friend! Thou needst not seek far for another secretary; I know of one who is accomplished, loyal and of n.o.ble birth. He is Paul Rodzevitch. I will bring him to thee to-morrow as thy new secretary--and he will serve thee well."

His Majesty expressed satisfaction, for the holy man, the holiest man in all holy Russia, as was his reputation, had spoken.

Next day the good-looking young fellow was appointed, and into his hand was given His Majesty's private cipher. None knew, until it was revealed by the band of Russian patriots united to unmask the spy, that this fellow Rodzevitch had spent two years in Germany before the war, or that he was in receipt of a gratuity of twenty-five thousand marks annually from the spy bureau in the Koniggratzer-stra.s.se in Berlin!

By this means Rasputin placed a spy of Germany upon all the Tsar's most confidential correspondence.

Madame Vyrubova, and the infernal witchdoctor, were already all-dominant. Sturmer and Protopopoff were but p.a.w.ns in the subtle and desperate game which Germany was playing in Russia. The food scarcity engineered by Kurloff; the military scandals engineered by a certain creature of the Kaiser's called Nicolski; the successful plot which resulted in the destruction of a great munition works with terrible loss of life near Petrograd; the chaos of all transport; the constant wrecking of trains, and the breakdown of the strategic line from the Arctic coast across the Lapland marshes, were all combining to hurl the Empire to the abyss of destruction.

One day the Grand Duke Nicholas visited Tsarskoe-Selo, where he had a private interview with the Emperor--Rasputin's creature, the new secretary Rodzevitch, being present. The Emperor had every belief in the man's loyalty. His Majesty, weak and easily misled, never dreamed of treachery within his private cabinet.

The words spoken by the Grand Duke that afternoon were terse, and to the point.

"The Empire is doomed!" he said. "This verminous fellow Rasputin--the man contemptuously known in the slums of the capital as `Grichka,' is working out Germany's plans. I have watched and discovered that he is the a.s.sociate of pro-Germans, and that his is the hand which in secret is directing all these disasters which follow so quickly upon each other."

"But he is a friend of Protopopoff!" the Emperor exclaimed.

"Protopopoff has been to England. He has gone over the munition factories in Scotland that are working for us; he has visited the British fleet, and when I gave him audience a few weeks ago, he expressed himself as a firm supporter of our Allies. Read his speech in the Duma only the night before last!"

"I have already read it," replied the Grand Duke. "But it does not alter my opinion in the least. He is hand-in-glove with the monk and with the Duke of Mecklenburg-Strelitz. Why you continue to have either of them about you I cannot imagine. If you do not dismiss them, then the House of Romanoff must fall, I tell you that," he declared quite bluntly.

His Majesty pandered for a moment and replied--"Then I will give orders to the Censor that the names of neither are in future to be mentioned publicly."

This is all the notice the Emperor took of the Grand Duke's first warning. The people did not dare in future to mention "Grichka," for fear of instant arrest.

Since the outbreak of war Mother Grundy has expired in every country in Europe. An unfortunate wave of moral irresponsibility seems to have swept the world, and nowhere has it been more apparent than in Russia.

This unwashed rascal who posed as a saint, who, by his clever manoeuvres, his secret drugs and his bribes, had become so popular with the people, was entirely unsuspected by the simple folks who comprise the bulk of Russia's millions. To them he was a "holy man" whom the great Tsar admired and fed at his table. No one suspected the miracle-worker to be the secret amba.s.sador of the a.s.sa.s.sin of Potsdam.

Everywhere he went--Moscow, Kazan, Odessa, Nijni, and other cities, he was fierce in his hatred of the Kaiser, and while cleverly scheming for the downfall of his own people, he was yet at the same time urging them to prosecute the war.

A man of abnormal intellect, he was a criminal lunatic of that types which the world sees once every century; a man whose physical powers were amazing, and who though dirty and verminous, with long hair unbrushed and beard untrimmed for a year at a time, could exercise a weird and uncanny fascination which few women, even the most refined, could resist.

The terms upon which Rasputin was with the Empress it has been given to me to reveal in this volume. They would have been beyond credence if the German spy who had been placed as secretary to the Emperor, had been loyal to his unscrupulous employers. But he was not. Money does much in these war-days, and in consequence of a big payment made to him by Rasputin's enemies, the patriots of Russia--and they were many--he intercepted a letter sent by the Empress to her "Holy Father" early in 1916--a copy of which I have in the formidable dossier of confidential doc.u.ments from which I am culling these curious details.

The "Holy Father" in hair-shirt and sandals had gone forth upon a pilgrimage, and the female portion of Petrograd society were in consequence desolate. The house in the Gorokhovaya stood with its closed wooden shutters. Sturmer was at the Empress's side, but Protopopoff--Satan in a silk hat as he has been called--had gone upon a mission to Paris.

The letter before me was addressed in her Majesty's hand to Rasputin, at the Verkhotursky Monastery at Perm, whither he had retired in order to found a provincial branch of his "Believers" and initiate them into the mysteries of his new religion.

This amazing letter which plainly shows the terms upon which the Empress of Russia was with the convicted criminal from Pokrovsky, contains many errors in Russian, for the German wife of the Tsar has never learnt to write Russian correctly, and reads as follows--

"Holy Father! Why have you not written? Why this long dead silence when my poor heart is hourly yearning for news of you, and for your words of comfort?

"I am, alas! weak, but I love you, for you are all in all to me. Oh! if I could but hold your dear hand and lay my head upon your shoulder! Ah!

can I ever forget that feeling of perfect peace and blank forgetfulness that I experience when you are near me? Now that you have gone, life is only one grey sea of despair. There was a Court last night, but I did not attend. Instead, Anna (Madame Vyrubova) and I read your sweet letters together, and we kissed your picture.

"As I have so often told you, dear Father, I want to be a good daughter of Christ. But oh! it is so very difficult. Help me, dear Father.

Pray for me. Pray always for Alexis (the Tsarevitch). Come back to us at once. Nikki (the Tsar) says we cannot endure life without you, for there are so many pitfalls before us. For myself, I am longing for your return--longing--always longing!

"Without our weekly meetings all is gloom.

"Only the everlasting toll of war! Germany is winning--as she will surely win. But we must all of us maintain a brave face towards our Russian public. In you alone I have faith. May G.o.d bring you back to us very soon. Alexis is asking for you daily. We are due to go to Yalta, but shall not move before we meet here. I embrace you, and so do Nikki and Anna.

"Your devoted daughter, Alec." Has history ever before recorded such an astounding letter written by a reigning Empress to a sham saint?

It must not be thought that Rasputin was without enemies. He had hosts of them, but in an almost incredible manner he seemed to scent danger wherever it lurked, and eluded the various traps set for him. This was probably because he had surrounded himself by creatures ready to do any evil work he ordered. Not only had he earned the most bitter vengeance of wronged husbands and fathers, but he had against him a small league of patriotic Russians, men and women, headed by a civil servant named Vilieff, who had banded themselves together with a view to tear away the veil and unmask the traitor. The rascal knew this, and was ever upon his guard, while Sturmer and Kurloff used their great influence for his protection. At the same time Rasputin had corrupted the Russian Church in its centres of power and administration until nearly half its high ecclesiastics were agents of Germany.

In order to exhibit a swift, relentless hand in dealing with any enemy who should arise against him, Rasputin one evening cordially invited Vilieff, who had sworn to open the eyes of the people to the mock-monk's villainy. Indeed, he had travelled to far-off Pokrovsky and collected much d.a.m.ning evidence concerning Grichka's past. Kurloff was at dinner to meet the young man, the bait offered by Rasputin being that the official of the Ministry of the Interior intended to promote him to a highly lucrative post in his department.

According to a statement made by the monk's wily accomplice, Yepantchine, who afterwards came forward and made so many revelations, only the trio sat down to dinner, whereupon the traitorous bureaucrat openly suggested that the band he had formed against Rasputin should be betrayed to the Palace police, in return for which he had ready for him five thousand roubles in cash, and, in addition, would there and then appoint him to a lucrative position in the chancellerie of the Ministry.

On hearing this, the young man sprang up and angrily denounced both monk and minister as traitors, declaring that he would at once expose the effort to purchase his silence.

Without further ado Rasputin drew a revolver and, secretly approaching him, shot him dead.

His body was found in the snow near the corner of the Kazanskaya early next morning. The dead man's friends, who knew of his visit to Rasputin that night, informed the police, but the monk was already before them.

At dawn he sought the Emperor at the Tsarskoe-Selo, and found him in his dressing-gown. To him he complained that enemies were making a disgraceful charge against him, and added:--

"I seek thy protecting hand, friend. Wilt thou give orders to the police to leave me unmolested?"

The Emperor, who believed in him as implicitly as his wife, at once gave orders over the telephone, and thus the murder was suppressed.

A week later a man named Rouchine, who had, with Yepantchine, a.s.sisted him in his mock-miracles, discovered him with a certain Swede named Wemstedt, who was chief of the German Secret Service in Stockholm, and who had come in disguise to Petrograd to obtain certain reports furnished by Sturmer. His secret visit to Rasputin's house was to get the doc.u.ments for transmission to Germany, and to make one of the large monthly payments to the monk for his services as the Kaiser's agent.

Their meeting was watched by Rouchine, who overheard greater part of the conversation of the pair ere the "Saint" became aware there was an eavesdropper. Instantly he scented danger, for he trusted n.o.body; the monk made no sign, but when Wemstedt had gone he placed a bottle of vodka in a spot where he knew that Rouchine would find it.

As he expected, his servant drank a gla.s.s, and within half-an-hour he expired in terrible agony, with Rasputin jeering at him in his death-throes.

It is computed that during 1916 no fewer than twenty persons lost their lives in consequence of visits to that sinister house within the shadow of the Winter Palace. Armed with those secret Chinese drugs, the pious a.s.sa.s.sin could administer baneful doses which proved fatal hours afterwards, with symptoms which completely deceived the doctors.

Knowing his own danger, he one day hit upon a new plan for his own protection, and when at dinner at the Imperial table he, addressing the Empress, said:

"A vision of the fixture hath to-day been revealed unto me! It is a warning--one that thou surely shouldst heed! When I die, Alexis will live but forty days longer. Surrounded as I am by those who seek my downfall and death, I know not what plots may be formed against me. I only know that a.s.suredly Alexis will only survive me through forty days.

If G.o.d wills it, my end may be to-morrow!" he added, raising his eyes piously.