The Minister of Evil Part 13

In half an hour the servant returned with his master, the head of the political police, a short, fat man in general's uniform, with decorations, who, when he entered the room, betrayed unmistakable signs of having dined well. Indeed, he had been unearthed from a midnight carouse at a questionable restaurant.

At sight of Rasputin, a power to be reckoned with and a person of whom even the greatest in the land craved favours, he pulled himself together and cast himself into a chair to listen.

The monk was clever enough not to enlighten the Police Director regarding the plot to upset Kokovtsov's undue inquisitiveness. He merely told him that a certain secret agent named Botkine was leaving Berlin for Petrograd on the twenty-second.

"The man is dangerous," he added, "extremely dangerous."

"Why?" asked Gutchkoff, somewhat surprised at our midnight visit.

"Because--well, because I happen to know that he is in possession of certain facts concerning very high personages. He is a blackmailer, and has been to Berlin to endeavour to sell some doc.u.ments to Maximilian Harden--doc.u.ments which, if published, would place a certain member of our Imperial family in a very unsatisfactory light," Rasputin said. "My friend Rogogin here will bear me out."

The Police Director, after a few minutes' silence, asked:

"Has he sold the doc.u.ments in question?"

"I think not," was Rasputin's reply. "If he has not, he will have them in his possession on his return. We must secure them at all costs."

"You wish to close his mouth--eh?"

"Yes. He must be suppressed at all hazards," declared the monk. "It is the wish of the Emperor," he added, a glib lie always ready upon his tongue. "Further, I need not add that if this affair be conducted in secrecy and scandal in the Imperial House avoided, His Majesty will certainly see that you are adequately rewarded. I can promise you that."

General Gutchkoff was again silent. He well knew that if the Tsar had ordered the man Botkine to be silenced there must be some very unsavoury affair to be hushed up.

"There is an agent of yours in Berlin named Ostrovski, is there not?" the monk asked.

"Yes."

"Then he must also be removed at once to another post. Transfer him to Constantinople, or, better still, to Yokohama. He must not remain in Berlin another twenty-four hours, and he must, not, at any cost, be allowed to return to Russia," Rasputin said decisively.

"I scarcely follow you, Holy Father," was the amazed general's reply.

"Ostrovski is very reliable, and has been entrusted with the most delicate affairs. He has always given me the greatest satisfaction."

"I regret if he is under your protection, but that does not alter matters. He and Botkine have been acting in unison, and hence Ostrovski knows more of this scandal concerning a certain member of the Imperial family than is good for him to know. Promote him with increased salary to Yokohama, and send him there by way of Ma.r.s.eilles upon some confidential mission. But on no account must he return to Russia before going to j.a.pan--you understand? He will no doubt wish to travel by way of Siberia, but this must be forbidden. If you will write out his appointment, I will obtain the Emperor's signature to it to-morrow morning."

"You wish me to write out the order now--eh?" asked Gutchkoff, still much puzzled, but eager to get scent of the particular scandal known to Botkine.

"Yes, now," replied the monk, pointing to the writing-table, whereupon the Police Director sat down and wrote out the order transferring the agent Ostrovski to j.a.pan, an order which Rasputin, after pretending to read it, handed to me to place in my pocket.

"And now, what about this person Botkine?" asked Gutchkoff. "How do you wish me to act towards him?"

"In the way that I will direct to-morrow," replied the monk. "I must have time to devise some plan--a plan which will be secret and arouse no suspicion," he added grimly, with a sinister smile.

Early next morning I accompanied him to Peterhof, where the Imperial Court happened to be. Anna Vyrubova was away in Moscow, but without delay he sought the Empress and remained in her boudoir for a full hour, no doubt explaining the discovery of Kokovtsov's inquiries in Berlin.

I met the Prime Minister himself in the long corridor guarded by "Araby"

servants which led to the Emperor's private cabinet, and with him was General Gutchkoff, who had evidently also been summoned to audience regarding some matters concerning the police administration. Kokovtsov had no suspicion of what Rasputin had learned, or that Gutchkoff had promised to act as he directed against his trusted agent Ivan Botkine.

The pair strolled along the softly carpeted corridor, chatting affably, for they were apparently going to consult His Majesty together. Truly, the Court world is a strange life of constant intrigue and double-dealing, of lack of morals and of honesty of purpose and of patriotism. In our Holy Russia many good men and women have, because of their love for their own land, been sent to drag out their lives in the dreariness of the Siberian prison camps.

When the monk returned to me he asked for Ostrovski's appointment, written on the previous night, which I carried in my pocket. This he took at once to the Tsar. His Majesty was at that moment closeted with the Prime Minister, Gutchkoff having already seen the Emperor and, transacting his business, been dismissed.

Five minutes later Rasputin returned with the Emperor's scribbled signature still wet, and in my presence handed it to the Director of Political Police. Ostrovski had been transferred to j.a.pan, where he would be harmless, even though he might have learned facts from Botkine. But what had Rasputin decided should be the fate of the latter? For the sake of Alexandra Feodorovna and the whole camarilla Botkine's lips must, I knew, be closed. That had been decided. I longed to learn what the Empress had said when the monk had revealed the truth to her and pointed out her peril.

No doubt Her Majesty would see to it that the affair was hushed up. I knew full well that she understood that once Kokovtsov obtained evidence too many people would be implicated, and perhaps a public trial might result. Both she and Rasputin, no doubt, realised that it would be unwise to allow a member of the Okhrana--as Botkine had been--to be arrested, for fear of the scandal public revelations would cause. The capital teemed with Germans like Sturmer and Fredericks, traitors like Protopopoff and Soukhomlinoff, men like Azeff, Guera.s.simoff and Kurtz--one day the bosom friend of Ministers and powerful n.o.blemen, and the next cast into the fortress of Peter and Paul--Rogogin, the sycophant Raeff--whom Rasputin had made Procurator of the Holy Synod--and the drunken "saint" Mitia the Blessed--at last dismissed--spiritualists, charlatans, and cranks. Upon such fine society was the Throne of the Romanoffs based! Was it any wonder that it was already tottering preparatory to its fall?

I left Peterhof with Rasputin at about three o'clock that afternoon, and on our return to the Poltavskaya I spoke over the telephone, at the monk's orders, to Doctor Badmayev, the expert herbalist who prepared those secret drugs with which Madame Vyrubova regularly doped the little Tsarevitch, keeping him in a constant state of ill-health and in such a condition that he puzzled the most noted physicians in Europe.

Badmayev, a small, ferret-eyed man, his features of Tartar cast, came and dined with us, after which Rasputin signed a cheque for twenty-eight thousand roubles, a sum to which "the doctor" was ent.i.tled under an agreement. Well did I know that the sum in question was payment for his active a.s.sistance in supplying certain drugs of which the monk in turn declared that he himself held the formula. The drugs--which he pretended to be the secret of the priests of Tibet--were those which he doled out in small quant.i.ties to his sister-disciples, and which produced insensibility to physical pain, drugs which were so baneful and pernicious that the monk always warned me against them, and never took any himself.

After dinner, at which they both drank deeply of champagne, the monk and his friend went out to spend the evening at a low-cla.s.s variety theatre, while I was left alone until midnight.

In consequence I visited some friends in the Ivanovskaya, and returned to Rasputin's at about a quarter-past twelve. Twenty minutes later he returned in a hopeless state of intoxication; therefore I did not speak to him till next morning.

Such was the fellow's vitality that he was up before six o'clock. At seven he went out, and returned about nine, when he called me to his den.

"Feodor," he said, "I wish you to leave to-day for Vilna, and go to the Palace Hotel there. Remain until a friend of ours named Heckel calls upon you."

"Who is Heckel?" I asked, surprised at being sent upon such a long journey in that sudden manner.

"A friend of Hardt and myself. Do not be inquisitive--only obey. When Heckel calls please give him this letter," and he handed me a rather thick letter in an official cartridge envelope of the Imperial Ministry of Foreign Affairs. "Heckel will tell you that he is from 'Father Gregory.' He is tall, fair, and rather slim--a German, as you may guess from his name. Your train leaves at two-forty this afternoon. Be careful of that letter and to whom you deliver it in secret. Heckel, after finding you at the hotel, will produce an English five-pound note and show it to you. That will be his pa.s.sport. If he does not do so, then do not give him the letter."

That afternoon I left for Vilna by the Warsaw express, and after a long journey through the endless pines and silver birches duly arrived at the hotel indicated, and there awaited my visitor. He arrived next day, a fair-haired, slim man, just as Rasputin had described him, evidently an _agent-provocateur_ from Berlin. After he had been ushered into my bedroom by a waiter, he greeted me warmly, and inquired if I had anything to hand him.

To this I made an evasive reply, in pretence of being in ignorance of his meaning, whereupon he said in German:

"Ah! I forgot. You wish first to establish my ident.i.ty," and laughingly he produced from his wallet an English five-pound note, which he showed to me.

In consequence I handed him the letter from the Ministry, which he placed unopened in his pocket and then left, while that same night I returned to Petrograd.

Three days later I learned the truth.

Ivan Botkine, the trusted secret agent of the Prime Minister Kokovtsov, who had left Berlin on the twenty-second for Petrograd, had been found dead in one of the sleeping compartments on the arrival of the train at the frontier station of Wirballen. His pockets and valise had been rifled, and an inquiry had been opened. Though the doctors disagreed as to the exact cause of death, it was apparent that one of the dishes he had eaten in the restaurant car an hour before had been poisoned.

Further, I have since established the horrifying fact that the mysterious letter from the Ministry which I handed to Heckel in Vilna contained a secret poison! That it was used to remove poor Botkine, Rasputin afterwards admitted to me. Such were the methods of the camarilla who were ruling Russia!

CHAPTER VI

RASPUTIN IN BERLIN

TRULY, our Russia was a country of blood and tears under the last of the Romanoffs. Its creed and its motto was "Gallows and Siberia!"

No man's life was safe under a regime run by scoundrels, of whom "Grichka," my chief, was the worst.

An unlimited secret fund was placed at the disposal of the Ministry of the Interior for purposes of the Secret Police, and when I say that Rasputin controlled that Ministry as well as the Emperor himself, it can easily be understood that all who were loyal Russians were "suspect," and denunciation throve on all sides. The Okhrana recruited its agents from all quarters. That is why one was never sure that the stranger who denounced Rasputin and his friends was not an _agent-provocateur_.