The Minister of Evil Part 36

"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 a.s.sist 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 circ.u.mstances 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 gla.s.s with brandy, some of that choice old cognac which the Empress sent him regularly, and turning to me, said:

"Feodor, 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 Koniggratzerstra.s.se possesses, and is so essentially a ladies' man."

After a pause Rasputin, lighting a cigarette, laughed lightly to himself, and said:

"The report furnished to me yesterday shows that Madame was one of the Plechkoffs of Lublin, and her balance at the Azov Bank is a very considerable one. The price of my silence is the money she has there. And I shall obtain it, Feodor--you will see," he added with confidence.

So ruthlessly did he treat the unfortunate woman that, by dint of threats to place the original of that statement of Lachkarioff before the Minister Protopopoff, he had before a week had pa.s.sed every rouble she possessed.

I was present on the night when she came to him to make the offer, the negotiations having been opened and carried on by a man named Zouieff, one of the several professional blackmailers whom Rasputin employed from time to time under the guise of "lawyers." She was beside herself in terror and despair, and carried with her a cheque-book.

The interview was a strikingly dramatic one. She penitent, submissive, and full of hatred of the spy under whose influence she had fallen; the monk cold, brutal, and unforgiving.

"Yes," he said at last, when she offered him a monetary consideration in exchange for his silence. "But I am not content with a few paltry roubles. I am collecting for my new monastery at Kertch, and what you give will atone to G.o.d for your crime."

Within ten minutes she had written out a cheque for the whole of her private fortune, while at the monk's dictation I wrote out a declaration that his allegations were false, a doc.u.ment which he signed and handed to her, together with Lachkarioff's original statement.

Even then Rasputin's cunning was not at its limit.

Lachkarioff's usefulness to Germany in Russia was at an end. He was in Gothenburg, and being a close friend of an English journalist there, it was feared lest he should allow himself to be interviewed, and reveal something of the truth concerning the subterranean working of Germany in Petrograd.

"The man's lips ought to be closed," Steinhauer had written to Rasputin only a week before. "Can you suggest any way? While he lives he will be a menace to us all. Filimonoff is safe in an asylum in Copenhagen, though I believe he is perfectly sane. Only it is best that no risk should be run."

Here were means ready to hand to close the mouth of Felix Lachkarioff, for the woman whom he had betrayed was furiously vengeful.

"You said the other day that you would be ready to strike a blow at that enemy of Russia who has so grossly misled you," Rasputin said to her in a deep, earnest voice, as she sat in his room. "Would not such a course be deeply patriotic? Why not, as expiation of your sin, travel to Gothenburg and avenge those hundreds of poor people who were his victims at Obukhov?

I can give into your hand the means," he added, looking her straight in the face.

"What means?" she asked.

He crossed to his writing-table, and, unlocking a drawer with a key upon his chain, he took out a tiny bottle of extremely expensive Parisian perfume, a pale-green liquid, which he handed to her.

"It looks like scent," he remarked, with a grin, "but it contains something else--something so potent that a single drop introduced into food or drink will produce death within an hour, the symptoms being exactly those of heart disease. That is what deaths resulting from it are always declared to be. So there is no risk. Meet him, be friendly, dine with him for the sake of old days in Petrograd, and before you leave him he will be doomed," added Rasputin, in a low whisper. "He surely deserves it after deceiving you as he has done!"

"He certainly does," she declared fiercely, unable to overlook how he had betrayed her. "And I will do it!" she added, taking up the little bottle.

"Russia shall be avenged."

"Excellent, my dear sister. You will indeed be rewarded," declared Rasputin, crossing himself. "When you return to Petrograd, give me back that precious little bottle of perfume, which I call the Perfume of Death."

That the woman did not fail to carry out her promise was certain, for within a fortnight we heard in a secret dispatch that Hardt brought us from Berlin that the agent Lachkarioff had died suddenly from heart disease after dining with a Russian lady friend at the Grand Hotel in Stockholm.

Truly, the grip in which Germany held Russia and its Government was an iron one, and death most a.s.suredly came to those whom Berlin feared, or who were in any way obnoxious to the German war party.

Ten days later a small packet was left at the house, addressed to the monk. When I opened it I found the little Parisian perfume bottle.

One morning, a week later, I went with Rasputin to the Ministry of the Interior, where we were ushered into the small, elegant private room of "Satan-in-a-silk-hat" Protopopoff, who greeted us cordially. But as soon as the door was closed, and he had invited us to be seated, he rose, turned the key, and, facing us, gravely said:

"Gregory, I fear something serious is about to happen. Late last night I received an urgent visit from the Under-director of Secret Police of Moscow, who had come post-haste to tell me that there has been a secret meeting between Miliukoff and the Grand Dukes Serge and Dmitri in that city, and it has been decided that at the reopening of the Duma Miliukoff will rise and publicly expose us."

"What?" shrieked the monk, starting. "Is that what is intended?" he asked breathlessly.

"Yes. He apparently knows the authors of the outrage at Obukhov and our a.s.sociation with them. It is believed that he actually holds doc.u.mentary evidence of the money which we pa.s.sed through the Volga-Kama Bank, in Tula."

"But this must be prevented at all hazards," declared Rasputin. "We cannot allow him to denounce us. Not that anybody will believe him. But it is not policy at this moment. Public opinion is highly inflamed."

"I agree. Of course, n.o.body will believe him. Yet he is dangerous, and if he denounces us in the Duma it will come as a bombsh.e.l.l. I called upon Anna Vyrubova early this morning, and she has gone to the palace," said Protopopoff.

Rasputin remained silent, his hand stroking his ragged beard, a habit of his when working out some scheme more devilish than others.