The Minister of Evil Part 39

Come!--Your devoted daughter, "A."

Well I knew that the German-born Empress was sitting alone in the palace breathlessly anxious as to what disclosures were forthcoming. She was not blind to her increasing unpopularity and to the unkind things said openly of her. Somebody had just started a rumour that there was a secret wireless plant at the palace, by which she could communicate direct with Potsdam. Indeed, so many people believed this that, after the Tsar's abdication, every nook, corner and garret of Tsarskoe-Selo was searched, but without success. Sturmer, Fredericks, Protopopoff, the poison-monger Badmayev, Anna Vyrubova, and half-a-dozen others, who formed the dark and sinister forces that were rapidly hurling Russia to her doom, were that day as anxious and terrified as the Empress herself. Well they knew that if Miliukoff, armed with those incriminating doc.u.ments--the exact nature of which they knew not--spoke the truth in the Legislature, then a storm of indignation would sweep over them in such a manner that they could never withstand it.

Rasputin, thus summoned, went at once to the palace, and I accompanied him. He proceeded straight to the Emperor's private room, while I waited in a room adjoining.

I heard their voices raised. The Emperor's was raised in protest; that of the monk in angry threats.

"If thou wilt not postpone the Duma, then the peril will be upon thine own head!" I heard Rasputin shout. "Why allow these revolutionary deputies to criticise thy policy and undermine thy popularity with the nation? It is folly! Such policy is suicidal, and if thou wilt persist I shall withdraw and return to my home, well knowing that to-morrow the day of Russia's doom will dawn."

"The people are clamouring for the reopening of the Duma," replied the Emperor weakly. "I can do nothing else but submit."

"I have had a vision," declared the monk. "Last night there was revealed unto me the dire result of thy folly. I saw thee, the victim of thy nation's anger, dethroned, degraded and imprisoned."

But even that lie failed to induce the Tsar to alter his decision, and naturally so, for he was afraid of the dark cloud which he saw rising, and which he believed to be due to the long adjournment of the Duma.

Hence he was afraid to take the monk's advice.

Again I heard both men's voices raised in hot argument.

"I am Emperor!" cried the Tsar at last, angrily, in a high, shrill tone, "and I refuse to be thus dictated to!"

Next second there was a loud crash of gla.s.s, and I heard Rasputin shout:

"Thou refuseth to listen to good counsel! As I have smashed that bowl, so will the people, I tell thee, rise and smash the House of Romanoff!"

With those words he turned, and a moment later rejoined me, his face flushed with anger, and his knotted fingers clenched.

He went straight to the Empress and told her of his failure to move Nicholas from his decision.

"But surely this man Miliukoff must be prevented from speaking!" cried the unhappy woman, who saw all her deep-laid schemes crumbling rapidly away, and herself branded as a traitress. "Father, you must work yet another miracle. He must be seized by a sudden illness--an accident must happen to him, or--or something!"

Rasputin shook his head dubiously, declaring that there was no time to arrange a second attempt.

"Have you put it to Protopopoff?" she asked. "He might suggest some means, now that the woman Kalatcheff has failed us. If not--he will speak--and we are lost! Think, Father, what it all means! There is already public unrest created by the rumours that we have unfortunately spread of pending disaster, and if they are followed by such charges supported by doc.u.ments, then revolution is inevitable!"

I saw that the Tsaritza, now that every means to secure Miliukoff's silence had failed, was terrified lest she be exhibited in her own true traitorous colours.

Back we went to Petrograd, where we called at Protopopoff's house, and where still another attempt against Miliukoff's life was plotted.

By telephone an ex-agent of Secret Police named Stefanovitch, who had done much work as an _agent-provocateur_ for the camarilla, was called, and a price was at once arranged for the murder of the Deputy.

He was to be shot at and killed outside the Tauris Palace, just before two o'clock, as he was entering the Duma. He would probably be walking round to the Chamber from his house with his bosom friend M.

Purishkevitch.

"You will surely know somebody to whom the affair can be entrusted, Ivan," said the Minister of the Interior. "If arrested, he will be allowed ample opportunity to escape. Naturally he would not come up for trial. I would see to that. So you can give him my personal a.s.surance."

"I should suggest a woman," said the man Stefanovitch. "I know one who would not hesitate to act as we wish. Her name is Marie Grozdoff, a Polish Jewess. I can trust her. She has done something similar for us before."

"And the price?"

"The price will be all right," replied the provocating agent, with a business-like air.

"Then we entrust the affair to you, Ivan," said His Excellency. "You will receive for yourself ten thousand roubles if Miliukoff dies."

And the man went forth to find the woman, who, for money, would not hesitate to commit murder.

That night proved a sleepless one for us all. I tried to warn Miliukoff again by sending him an anonymous letter, which I posted in secret after the monk had retired. But my great fear was lest the letter would not reach his hand in time. Probably it would not be delivered till the midday post--and if so, he would not see it till after the opening of the Duma!

Next morning pa.s.sed anxiously. Protopopoff had told us over the telephone that Stefanovitch had seen the woman Grozdoff, and that all was arranged.

I went early to the Duma, and sat among the crowd in the public gallery, while Rasputin remained at home, and the Empress at the palace, with Anna near the telephone, she having arranged for brief reports of the proceedings to be telephoned to her at intervals of a quarter of an hour each during the sitting.

M. Michael Rodzianko, the President, gravely took his seat on the stroke of two, and the House was crowded. The diplomatic boxes were filled to overflowing, the British, French, Italian and United States Amba.s.sadors, together with the Ministers of most of the neutral countries, being present.

The usual prayer was offered, but neither M. Miliukoff nor M.

Purishkevitch was in his place!

Had the attempt been successful? I held my breath and wondered. I had been listening for a shot, but heard nothing.

Suddenly my heart gave a bound. A pleasant-looking, grey-haired man, in gold-rimmed spectacles, and carrying a big bundle of papers, had entered by the back way, and was walking to his seat. It was M. Miliukoff! He had had my anonymous letter, and had come in by the back way, being followed by his bearded, bald-headed friend. Once again had I been able to warn him of danger.

The Government was now dancing upon a volcano.

The sitting opened, the President Rodzianko made a speech in which he criticised severely the policy of the Sturmer Government, and everyone realised the seriousness of the situation now that the President of the Duma came out against the Prime Minister.

"The Government must learn from us what the country needs," said Rodzianko fiercely. "The Government must not follow a path different from the people. With the confidence of the nation it must head the social forces in the march toward victory over the enemy, along the path that harmonises with the aspirations of the people. There is no other path to be followed."

Then the President went on to declare that, though there was no discord among the Allies, yet there was no trick that the enemy would not play with the treacherous object of wrecking their alliance. "Russia will not betray her friends," he declared, "and I say she, with contempt, refuses any consideration of a separate peace."

The speech was greeted with thunderous outbursts of applause, while Sturmer, who was present, rose and left after its conclusion.

Then, when the applause and cheering of the Amba.s.sadors of the Allies had died down; Paul Miliukoff, the brilliant leader of the Const.i.tutional Democrats, rose gravely and began to speak.

That speech, which the camarilla had vainly striven strenuously to suppress, proved historic, and was mainly the cause of Sturmer's overthrow. Boldly and relentlessly he showed his hearers the favour with which the Teutons regarded Sturmer and the consternation caused in the Allied camp by his activities. Reading extracts from German and Austrian newspapers, he brought out the fact that the Central Powers regarded Sturmer as a member "of those circles which look on the war against Germany without particular enthusiasm"; that Sturmer's appointment to the Foreign Ministry was greeted in the Teutonic countries as the beginning of a new era in Russian politics, while the dismissal of Sazonov produced in the Entente countries an effect "such as would have been produced by a pogrom."

The crowning sensation, however, was what he revealed concerning Sturmer's connection with the blackmailing operations of his private secretary, Manasevitch-Manuiloff, who, a few weeks before, had been arrested on a charge of bribery. The secretary told the directors of a Petrograd bank that proceedings were being inst.i.tuted against them by the Ministry of the Interior for alleged trading with the enemy, and offered to suppress the affair "through influential friends" for a large consideration.

The representatives of the bank had special reasons to get even with the "dark forces," and especially Protopopoff, since the retired Minister of the Interior, A. N. Khvostov, was a brother of the bank's president.

Khvostov owed his dismissal to a plot to kill Rasputin, which was investigated by Manuiloff. The directors of the bank, therefore, accepted the fellow's offer, handing him over a large sum of money in marked notes.

Later Manuiloff was arrested by the military authorities with the bribe in his possession. His release, however, followed soon, and the name of Manuiloff was on everybody's lips. Miliukoff, in his speech, said, regarding Manuiloff's liberation:

"Why was this gentleman arrested? That has been known long ago, and I shall be saying nothing new if I tell you what you already know, namely, that he was arrested for extorting bribes, and that he was liberated because--that is also no secret--he told the examining magistrates that he shared the bribes with the President of the Council of Ministers."

Thus was Boris Sturmer denounced as a traitor and blackmailer!

But worse was to follow. M. Miliukoff vehemently condemned the Empress for her support of the plan, originated in Germany, of a speedy and separate peace, regardless of circ.u.mstances, conditions, or national honour. He quoted further pa.s.sages from German newspapers, in which "_die Friedens-partei der jungen Tzarin_" (the Peace Party of the young Tsaritza) was freely discussed. He was very outspoken in referring to the "dark forces" which surrounded the Throne and had lately a.s.sumed such overwhelming dimensions, and he openly declared "that man, the monk Gregory Rasputin, the ex-horse-stealer and pet saint of Alexandra Feodorovna, is, gentlemen, nothing more than an erotic charlatan, who is the catspaw of the Kaiser!"

The effect of this was electrical. The House sat staggered.