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

"I certainly will," replied Rasputin promptly. "Truly, the idea is a most ingenious one—a disease which is as yet unknown!"

We remained in Stockholm for four days longer. The professor and his assistants were working strenuously, we knew, preparing death for the population of those two Russian towns.

One afternoon, after he had lunched with us at the hotel, he said:

"If our experiment is successful, then we mean to repeat it from South America to England. It is therefore most important that news of the epidemic does not reach the ears of the Allies. You will point out that to the Minister Protopopoff. When the plague breaks out the censorship must be of the strictest."

Rasputin nodded. He quite understood. He hated the British just as heartily as did the Tsaritza.

A week later we were back at Tsarskoe-Selo, and the monk—who pretended to have been on a pilgrimage to Our Lady of Tver—made to the Empress a full report of his journey to Potsdam. He also told her of the diabolical plot to sweep off the population of Vologda and Nijni as an experiment, in order to see how Hun "science" could win the war.

Protopopoff came to Rasputin's house half-a-dozen times within the next three days, and it was arranged that a firm of importers, Illine and Stroukoff, of Petrograd, should handle the consignment of preserved meat. Both partners in the firm were in the pay of the Ministry of the Interior, hence it was not difficult to arrange that the whole cargo should be sent to Vologda and Nijni to relieve there the growing shortage of meat.

I strove to combat the clever plot, but was, alas! unable to do so. Every precaution was taken against possible failure. The cargo arrived, and was at once sent on by rail to its destination, payment being made for it through ordinary channels, and nobody suspecting. Food was welcomed indeed in Russia in those days of 1916.

In the stress of exciting events that followed I forgot the affair for several weeks. One night, however, Rasputin, on returning from Peterhof, where the Court was at that moment, received Protopopoff, and the pair sat down to drink together.

Suddenly His Excellency exclaimed, with a laugh:

"Your mission to Berlin has borne fruit, my dear Gregory! For the past four days I have been receiving terrible reports from Vologda, and worse from Nijni-Novgorod. The inhabitants have been seized by a mysterious and terribly fatal disease. A medical commission left Petrograd yesterday to study it."

"Let them study it!" laughed Rasputin. "They will discover no mode of treatment."

"Both towns are rapidly becoming decimated. There have been over thirty thousand deaths, and the mortality is daily increasing."

"As I expected," remarked the monk. "The professor knows what he is doing. Later on we shall be sending the infection into England and cause our John Bull friends a surprise."

"But the position is terribly serious," said His Excellency.

"No doubt. Berlin is watching the result. One day they may deem it wise to infect our army. But that must be left to their discretion."

Truly the result of that devilish plot was most awful. In the three months that followed—though not a word leaked out to the Allies, so careful were Protopopoff and the camarilla to suppress all the facts—more than half the population of the two cities died from a disease which to this day is a complete mystery, and its bacilli known only to German bacteriologists.

CHAPTER XIII

THE "PERFUME OF DEATH"

"I am much grieved to hear of the disaster at Obukhov. The accident to Colonel Zinovief is most deplorable. Please place a wreath upon his grave from me. Pray always for us.

"Alix."    

This was the text of a telegram addressed to Rasputin from the Empress, which I opened when it was placed in my hands. It had been sent from Bakhtchisaray, the Oriental town in the Crimea, where Alexandra Feodorovna had gone to visit the military hospitals, it being necessary for her to pose before Russia as sympathetic to the wounded.

The disaster to which she referred had taken place at the great steel works at Obukhov, the outrage having been committed by two German secret agents named Lachkarioff and Filimonoff, who had visited Rasputin and from whose hand they had received German money. Nearly five hundred lives had been lost, as the foundry had been in close proximity to an explosives factory, where Colonel Zinovief, the director, had been blown to atoms.

It was late at night, and the monk, who was in a state of semi-intoxication, on hearing of the wish of Her Majesty, remarked:

"Ah! a clever woman, Féodor—very clever. She never misses an opportunity to show her sympathy with the people. Oh! yes—order the wreath to-morrow from Solovioff in the Nevski—a fine large one." Then laughing, he added: "The people, when they see it, will never suspect that Alexandra Feodorovna knew of the pending disaster eight days ago. But," he added suddenly, after a pause, "is it not time, Féodor, that I saw another vision?"

I laughed. I knew how, during the week that had elapsed since our return from the secret visit to Potsdam, he was constantly holding reunions of his sister-disciples, many fresh "converts" being admitted to the new religion.

Both Lachkarioff and Filimonoff, authors of the terrible disaster at Obukhov, had been furnished with passports by Protopopoff, and were already well on their way to Sweden, but the catastrophe was the signal for a terrible period of unrest throughout Russia, and in the fortnight that followed, rumours, purposely started by German agents and the secret police under Protopopoff, assumed most alarming proportions.

All was the creation of Rasputin's evil brain. With the Emperor and Empress absent in the South, he had, with the connivance of "No. 70, Berlin," determined to undermine the moral of the whole nation by disseminating false reports and arranging for disaster after disaster.

In the "saint's" study in the Gorokhovaya there was arranged the terrible railway "accident" which occurred near Smolensk, in which a crowded troop train collided with an ambulance train, the wreckage being run into by a second troop train, all three trains eventually taking fire and burning. The exact loss of life will never be known.

Another outrage was the destruction of the big railway bridge over the River Tvertza, not far from Kava, thus blocking the Petrograd-Moscow line, while a train conveying high explosives made in England a few days later blew up while passing the station of Odozerskaja, completely wrecking the line between Archangel and Petrograd and killing nearly three hundred people.

Each of these outrages was arranged in my presence, and I was compelled to assist in counting the money which was afterwards given by the monk to their perpetrators as price of their perfidy.

"We must create unrest," Rasputin declared one night to His Excellency the Minister Protopopoff, as the precious pair sat together. "We must prepare Russia for disaster."

Hence it was that they arranged for a series of most alarming false rumours to be circulated throughout the length and breadth of the Empire.

Indeed, on the day following, I heard in a bank where I had business that all Moscow was involved in a great revolution, that the Moscow police were on strike, and that the troops had refused to fire upon the populace. Everyone stood aghast at the news. But the truth was that the telegraphs and telephones between Moscow and Petrograd had been wilfully cut in three places by agents of Protopopoff, and while those alarming rumours were current in Petrograd, similar rumours were rife in Moscow that revolution had broken out in the capital.

Rasputin and his friends in the course of a few days created a veritable whirlwind of false reports, hoping by that means to shatter or stifle all manifestations of patriotic feeling, and prepare Russia for a separate peace.

Meanwhile he had contrived, as the Kaiser ordered, to prevent the offensive being resumed in Poland; and yet so cleverly did he effect all this that General Brusiloff, who was at the south-west front, actually gave an interview to a British journalist, declaring that the war was already won, "though it was merely speculation to estimate how much longer will be required before the enemy are convinced that the cause for the sake of which they have drenched Europe in blood is irretrievably lost."

The cold white light of later events has indeed revealed the black hearts of Rasputin and his friends, for while all this was in progress Stürmer, though so active in the betrayal of his country, boldly made a speech deploring the fact that anyone credited the sinister rumours which his fellow-conspirators had started, and to save his face he warned the working-classes to remain patient and prosecute the war with vigour.

I recollect well the day he had made that speech—the day on which the Labour group of the Central War Industrial Committee issued its declaration. There was a reunion of the sister-disciples, at which three new members were admitted to the cult, all society women under thirty, and all good-looking. Their names were Baroness Térénine, whose husband had been Governor of Yaroslav; Countess Chidlovski, one of the acknowledged society beauties of Petrograd, who had of late had an "affair" with an Italian tenor named Baccelli; and Anna, the pretty young daughter of a woman named Friede, who was also a "disciple."

There was a large attendance, and Rasputin exhibited more than the usual mock piety. In his jumbled jargon, which he called a sermon—that mixture of quotations from the "Lives of Saints" mingled with horrible obscenities—he had referred to the terrible rumours.

"These, I fear, my dear sisters, are, alas! too true," he declared. "Being in the position of knowing much, I beg of you all to pray ceaselessly, and let these three who to-day join our holy circle take upon themselves the duty of obtaining fresh converts, and thus ensure to themselves the blessing of him who stands here before you—the saviour of Russia."

Then he paused, and all the kneeling women crossed themselves, piously murmuring, as was part of the creed:

"God's will be done! God's will be done! Truly, our Father Gregory is holy! Truly, the sacrifice which each and all of us make is made to God!"

The three newly-admitted aspirants, dressed in very flimsy black in the mode which the monk imposed upon them, knelt before the Father and kissed his hands, while from his lips fell those awful blasphemies, which, amazing as it was, hypnotised, neurotic society women believed to be the truth.

Afterwards Rasputin gave them all tea and cake, he being personally waited upon by the three neophytes. Then, half-an-hour after the last one had departed—for the three had remained behind with him for further private instruction and conversation, as was usual—the Prime Minister Stürmer was announced.

"I have made the speech you suggested," he declared to the monk as he sank into a chair. "Phew! what a smell of perfume, my dear Gregory!" he laughed. "Your sister-disciples have left it behind them. Open the window, Féodor," he exclaimed, turning to me. "Let us have some fresh air."

The monk then explained that while Stürmer had made that public declaration he had told the women that the situation was grave, well knowing that they, in turn, would tell their husbands, and the rumours would quickly be propagated.

"I have had another reassuring telegram from Downing Street," Stürmer remarked, with a grin. "I dare not publish it, otherwise it would upset our friends in Berlin."

"As I have told you, the Kaiser forbids the publication of any of our reassurances from France or England—especially from the English, whom he hates so deeply. What, I wonder, will be the fate of the English when he is able to send an army of invasion across the North Sea?"

"If he is ever able. I doubt it," remarked the traitorous Premier of Russia.

"He certainly intends doing so," said Rasputin. "And when he does I should be sorry to be in Britain. They will treat the civilians worse than they did the Belgians."

"Yes; he intended being in Paris two years ago," replied the goat-bearded débauché in uniform.

"It is time I saw another vision," said the monk presently. "I shall see one to-night most probably—one concerning our defeat."

"Do," urged Stürmer. "You have not had a vision for quite a long time. It impresses all classes, and we can make so much use of it when dealing with Nicholas. He believes as thoroughly in your visions as in the spirit-voice of the dead Alexander."

Next day the whole world of Petrograd was startled.

To Grichka the Blessed Virgin had once again revealed herself, just as she had done years ago to the peasant girl at Lourdes.

The Procurator of the Holy Synod called to see him at noon to inquire of him personally, and ascertain what he had seen. Rasputin, with his hands crossed over his breast, turned his dark eyes heavenward, and said:

"It is true that last night, just after midnight, as I was praying in my room, Our Lady appeared unto me in a cloud of shining light. She was clothed in bright blue, and in her hands she bore a bunch of lilies. Behind her I saw a picture of a great battlefield, where our soldiers were retreating in disorder, being shot down in hundreds by the machine-guns of the enemy—and worse—and worse!" And the charlatan hid his face in his hands as though to shut out the horror of the recollection.

"What else?" asked the head of the Russian Church. "Tell me, O Father."

"It is too terrible—the public must not know–" he gasped, as though in fear. "I saw our Emperor killed on the field of battle; he was struck in the head by a piece of shell from one of the German long-range guns, and half his face was blown away. Ugh!" And he shuddered. "The sight of it was terrible. My blood ran cold. Nicholas, our Emperor, dead! I saw Brusiloff, too, lying shot, with a dozen other generals. Then the scene changed, and I saw the burial of the Emperor with all pomp, and his widow Alexandra Feodorovna following the coffin."

"And then?"

"Then Our Lady opened her lips, and I heard her voice," went on the "holy" liar. "She spake to me slowly and solemnly, saying: 'O Gregory, what thou hast witnessed is decreed to take place within forty days from to-day! These scenes will be enacted upon Russian soil—and worse. The people of Petrograd, Moscow and Warsaw will be put to the sword by the enemy, who have right and justice upon their side. Russia has fallen away from God, and is now accursed.' I shrieked at those fateful words. But she repeated them, adding: 'Thou, O Gregory, canst still save Russia if thou wilt raise thy voice in warning. Peace must be effected. Let those who are in alliance with Russia fight on if they will, but let Russia remain holy for the sake of its innocent people and its great Imperial house. Warn His Majesty at once, warn his Ministers, to cut themselves adrift from those nations which are seeking to profit by their alliance with Russia. Compel them to make peace with the Emperor William. If this is not concluded within forty days, then God's wrath will fall upon this land. Thou art sent by God as His apostle, therefore take heed and take instant action!' And a second later she had faded out, and there was nothing but darkness."

I could see how greatly our visitor was impressed.

"The Emperor should surely know," he said, astounded.

"Yes, but we must not alarm the public too greatly," Rasputin replied.

"Already it is on everyone's lips," exclaimed the other. "The wildest stories are afloat concerning the Blessed Virgin's appearance to you. We certainly must have peace with Germany. That is what everyone is saying, except members of the Duma and the war party."

Thus, by pretending to have seen a vision at an hour when, truth to tell, he had been snoring in a drunken sleep, half Russia grew alarmed, including the Emperor and Empress, who both hurried back to Tsarskoe-Selo, where Rasputin repeated with much embellishment what he had told the Procurator of the Holy Synod.

Just at the moment Rasputin was engaged upon a piece of outrageous blackmailing, which I think ought to be recorded against him.

The facts were briefly as follow. The German agent Lachkarioff, who with his accomplice had blown up the Obukhov steel works and was now safe in Sweden, had, while in Petrograd, made the acquaintance of a certain Madame Doukhovski, the young wife of the President of the Superior Tribunal at Kharkof. She was a giddy little woman, and the monk had plotted with old Countess Ignatieff to entice her to join the cult, but she had always refused. Lachkarioff was a good-looking, well-dressed man, who posed as a commercial magnate of Riga, and she, I suppose, fell beneath his charm. At any rate, for a long time the pair were inseparable.

One day the German agent, who was an exceedingly wily person, came to Rasputin and told him that he had induced the young lady of Kharkof to reveal to him certain secrets concerning the dealings of Soukhomlinoff and the supply of machine-guns for the Army—facts which had been presented in strictest confidence by one of the War Minister's enemies to the President of the Kharkof tribunal.

Rasputin smiled in triumph when he heard the exact details which Madame Doukhovski had divulged.

"Sit down yonder, my friend, and put that into writing, and sign it," said the monk, indicating the table by the window.

"You will not punish her for her indiscretion, I hope," remarked the man, who was at the moment plotting that series of terrible disasters.

"Not in the least," Rasputin assured him. "Your friend is my friend. But when such statements are made I like to have them on record. If Soukhomlinoff comes up for trial—which I very much doubt—then the memorandum may be of use to prove what silly and baseless gossip has been in circulation."

In consequence of this assurance, Lachkarioff wrote down what had been told him by the judge's wife, a document which the "saint" preserved with much care—until the Obukhov catastrophe had taken place and its author was out of Russia. Then he wrote to Madame Doukhovski and asked her to call upon him upon an urgent matter concerning her husband.

In surprise, and perhaps a little anxious, she kept the appointment one afternoon, and I ushered her into the monk's room.

He rose, and, addressing her roughly, said:

"So you have obeyed me, woman! And it is best for you that you have done so. Hitherto you have held me in contempt and refused all invitations to visit me. Why?"

"Because I am not a believer," was her open, straightforward answer.

"Then you will believe me ere I have done," he declared, with an evil grin, stroking his ragged beard, and fixing his eyes upon her.

"You insult me," she cried angrily. "Why should you speak to me like this?"

"Because you have been an associate of Felix Lachkarioff—a traitor and a spy," he declared in that deep, hard voice of his. "Oh! you cannot deny it. Your husband has no knowledge that you were an intimate friend of the man who has fled from Russia after causing that frightful disaster at Obukhov. Is not that so?"

The handsome, dark-haired woman whom the spy had so grossly betrayed turned pale, and sat utterly staggered that her secret was out. She had never dreamed that the handsome, polite man who had one day been presented to her in the lounge of the Hôtel d'Europe was a German agent, that he was engaged in committing outrages on behalf of the enemy, or that he was friendly with the monk.

"Your husband does not know that spy? Answer me?" demanded Rasputin roughly.

"I have told my husband nothing," was her faltering reply.

"That is not surprising, Madame," laughed the "saint," leaning back in the chair where he had seated himself, "especially when you have told that spy certain secrets of our Government, which you obtained by examining the dossiers which have been passing through your husband's hands."

"What do you mean?" she cried, starting up in indignation.

"Ah, no," he said; "it is useless to pretend ignorance, Madame. Read this!"

And he handed her a copy of what the German agent had written, saying: "I have the original, which I am passing to the authorities, so that they may take what action they deem best against you as a traitor and against your husband for negligence!"

The unfortunate woman, when she scanned the statement, went pale to the lips, fully realising the extreme seriousness of the nature of her offence, now that her admirer was known to be a spy of Germany.

"But you won't do that?" she gasped. "Think, Father, what it would mean both to my husband and myself! Think!" she cried hoarsely.

"You have revealed the contents of certain highly confidential documents to the Germans," the monk said. "You do not deny it. You, Madame Doukhovski, are a traitor to Russia, and evidence of your treachery is contained in that confession of a German spy whom you assisted and whom you–"

"I looked at the dossiers on my husband's table because Monsieur Lachkarioff asked me to do so," she declared. "He told me he was a friend of Soukhomlinoff, and that he was doing all he could to assist in clearing him of the charges levelled against him. I believed him, alas!—I was foolish enough to believe that he spoke the truth. And now he has betrayed me!"

"I suppose you were infatuated by the man," laughed the monk scornfully. "If you were so weak, then you must pay the penalty."

"And that is—what?" she asked breathlessly, and pale as death.

"Exposure," replied the charlatan who was the head of the traitorous camarilla around the throne. "Our dear land is in serious peril to-day, therefore those who attempt to betray her should be held up as examples to others."

"But you will not—you'll not let anyone know of my indiscretion!" she begged.

"That certainly is my intention," was his hard reply. "This statement was made to me by your lover, and it is but right that it should be investigated, so that we may know the extent of the harm that you have done."

The frantic, despairing woman, bursting into tears, threw herself at the feet of the "miracle worker," begging hard for mercy.

"Think!" she cried. "Think what it will mean to my husband and myself. He will probably be placed under arrest and lose his post, while I—I would rather die than face such exposure."

"Ah! my dear Madame," said Rasputin tauntingly. "Life is very sweet, you know."

"But you must not do this!" she shrieked loudly. "Promise me, Father, that you will not! Promise me—do!"

Rasputin drew his hand roughly from her, for she had seized it as she implored him to show her mercy.

"There may be some extenuating circumstances in your case—but I doubt it," he said.

"There are!" she declared. "I grew to love the man. I was blind, mad, infatuated—but now I hate him! Would that I could kill the man who wrought such disaster in our land! Would that I could kill him with my own hand!"

Rasputin drew a long breath. The wish she expressed had suddenly aroused within his inventive brain a means of executing a sharp and bitter revenge.

"Perhaps one day, ere long, you may be afforded opportunity," he said in a changed voice. "If so, I will call you here again and explain what I mean."

"Ah! Then I may hope for your pity and indulgence, eh?" she cried quickly, but still in deep anxiety.

Yet Rasputin would not commit himself, for he was playing a very deep and intricate game.

When the erring woman had gone the monk filled his glass with brandy, some of that choice old cognac which the Empress sent him regularly, and turning to me, said:

"Féodor, the man Doukhovski is wealthy, I understand. Protopopoff has been making inquiry, and finds that he is owner of a large estate near Ryazhsk, and that from an uncle quite recently he inherited nearly a million roubles. He only retains his office because he does not regard it as patriotic to retire while the war is in progress. What will he think of his wife's betrayal when he knows of it?"

"But you will not inform him," I exclaimed.

"Not if Madame is reasonable. She is wealthy in her own right," replied the monk. "If women err they must be compelled to pay the price," he went on in a hard voice. "Felix Lachkarioff evidently deceived her very cleverly. But there—he is one of the most expert agents that the Königgrätzerstrasse possesses, and is so essentially a ladies' man."