Kitabı oku: «The Minister of Evil: The Secret History of Rasputin's Betrayal of Russia», sayfa 3
He ushered us into a pretty room, with a long balcony upholstered in pale grey silk, with thick soft carpet to match, an apartment which might have been the boudoir of the Empress herself.
"I am here at Her Imperial Majesty's command," replied the Father, ready for the crowning of the slow and subtle plot which Stürmer had engineered with Kouropatkine. "She desires to speak with me."
Next instant the servant, who no doubt knew of Grichka's wonder-working with his mock miracles, threw himself upon his knees, and craved:
"Oh, our Father, I beseech thee to place thy blessing upon me, and upon my wife and my invalid child. The doctor who came yesterday said that she is suffering from phthisis, and that the case is serious. I beg of thee to cure her."
"Thy name?" he asked quickly, looking straight into his face with those wonderful eyes.
"Aivasoff—Ivan Aivasoff."
"Whence do you come?"
"From Ossa, in the Government of Perm."
"And you are His Majesty's valet, eh?"
"I am one of His Imperial Majesty's valets. He told me that the Tsaritza had commanded you here, and that I was to introduce you and your secretary, Féodor Rajevski."
Rasputin halted, and assuming his most pious demeanour—that same attitude which had attracted Petrograd society—and incidentally extracted hundreds of thousands of roubles from its pockets—crossed his hands, muttered some words, and bestowed his blessing upon the Tsar's body servant.
A minute later the man Aivasoff straightened himself and, pointing to a door on the opposite side of the room, asked:
"Are you both ready? The Tsaritza is awaiting you."
Rasputin, though pretending to be careless of his personal appearance, stroked his long beard, and then announced his readiness to pass into the presence of the Empress.
"You will go first, and bow," said our attendant. "Your secretary will remain within the door with hands crossed before him," he said.
Then with his knuckles he rapped thrice upon the white enamelled door, and, turning the handle of the lock, entered, walking before to announce us.
In front I saw a deep glow of electricity shaded with daffodil silk, a pretty artistic room with high palms, choice cut flowers, and soft luxurious couches upholstered in grey and gold brocade. There sat two ladies, one of whom was in a silk gown of bottle green, which was, no doubt, the latest creation of the Rue de la Paix—the Empress—while the other, who was in elegant black, I afterwards recognised as her bosom friend who had accompanied her to Kazan, Mademoiselle Zéneide Kamensky.
Ivan Aivasoff bowed low as he uttered his stereotyped words of introduction. He was one of those ignorant persons with whom the unscrupulous bureaucrats had surrounded the person of the Tsar. He was an honest, well-meaning fellow from the Urals, who had been selected to pose as a palace official, and to act just as I was acting, as the tool of others; a peasant chosen because he would naturally be less affected by revolutionary and progressive influence.
Aivasoff was, as I afterwards learnt, but one of many peasants in immediate contact with the Emperor and Empress, the other servants being German.
As we bowed before the two ladies they rose smiling, while the Father with raised hands pronounced upon them his blessing in that pious, slightly hoarse, but deeply impressive voice of his. Then, after the Empress had welcomed him he fixed her with that impelling, hypnotic gaze of his, and in pretence of never having met her before, exclaimed:
"O Gracious Lady, I have come here at thy bidding, though I am but a poor and unlettered wanderer, unfamiliar with palaces. My sphere is in the houses of the very poor in order to direct, to advise, and to succour them. Such is God's will."
"Already, Father, we have heard of you," responded the Empress, fascinated by the extraordinary thraldom of his gaze. "Your great charitable works are well known to us, as they are known through the length and breadth of our Empire. It is said by many that you have been sent unto us as saviour of Russia."
"Yes—it is so, by God's Almighty grace," the mock saint said, bowing low at the Empress's words, while Mademoiselle Kamensky exchanged inquiring glances with myself.
That scene was, indeed, a strange one, the dirty, unkempt monk in his faded, ragged habit, greasy at collar and sleeves, his black matted beard sweeping across his chest, and his hair uncombed, standing erect and rather imperious, posing as a Divine messenger, in that luxurious private apartment of the Empress herself.
"It is but right that you, as our spiritual guide, should be in direct touch with the Emperor and myself," she said, without, however, referring to the meeting at Kazan, to which I had certainly expected she would allude. "From our friend Stürmer I have learnt much concerning your good works, Father, and I wish to support them financially, if I may be permitted, just as I did those of Father Gapon."
"Truly I thank thee, O Lady," he replied, bowing low again. "My convent at Pokrovsky is in urgent need of funds."
"Then I shall give orders for you to receive a donation immediately," she said in a low voice, and with that pronounced German accent which always reminded those with whom she came into contact that she was not a true-born Russian. "Stolypin, too, has told me of the wonderful miracle you performed in Warsaw."
I knew of that miracle, an outrageous fraud which had been perpetrated upon an assembly of ignorant peasants by means of a clever conjuring trick in which Rasputin's friend, the chemist Badmayev, and another, had assisted. Stürmer had been laughing heartily over it at Rasputin's house on the previous night.
"God hath given me strength," replied the monk simply, and with much humbleness. "I am His servant, sent by Him unto Russia as her guide and her deliverer. As such I am before thee."
As he stood there with devout piety written upon his sallow, shrunken countenance, he certainly presented a most saintly, picturesque appearance, his attitude being that of a most humble ascetic of the Middle Ages. Saint Francis of Assisi could not have been humbler.
That Her Majesty was much impressed by the crafty charlatan was quite apparent. In that strange jumble of quotations from the Scriptures which he so often used, he declared to her that by Divine command he intended to guide Russia in her forthcoming progress and prosperity, so that she should rise to become the all-powerful nation of Europe.
"It is well, O Lady, that thou hast sent for me," he added. "I am thy most devoted servant. I am entirely in thy hands."
And again crossing his begrimed hands upon his breast he raised his eyes to Heaven, and repeated his blessing in that same jumbled jargon which he used at the weekly séances of the sister-disciples.
"O Father, I sincerely thank you," replied Her Majesty at last. "The Emperor is unfortunately away in Moscow, but when he returns you must again come to us, for I know he will welcome you warmly. We are both striving for the national welfare, and if we receive your goodwill we shall have no fear of failure."
"There are, alas! rumours of plots against the dynasty," said Rasputin. "But, O Lady, I beg of thee to heed these my words and remain calm and secure, for although attempts may be made, desperate perhaps, it is willed that none will be successful. God in His grace is Protector of the House of Romanoff, to whom a son will assuredly soon be born."
Alexandra Feodorovna held her breath at hearing those words. That scene before the shrine of Our Lady of Kazan was, no doubt, still vivid in her mind.
"Are you absolutely confident of that?" she asked him in breathless suspense.
"The truth hath already been revealed unto me. Therefore I know," was his reply. "I know—and I here tell thee, O Lady. The Imperial House will have a son and heir."
That prophecy, duly fulfilled as it was later on, caused the Empress to regard the dissolute "saint" as a "holy" man. In that eventful hour at Tsarskoe-Selo the die was cast. The Empress had fallen irrevocably beneath the spell of the amazing rascal, and the death-knell of the Romanoffs as rulers had been sounded.
When we backed out of the Empress's presence the peasant Ivan, who had introduced us, handed us over to the Tsar's chief valet, an elderly grey-bearded man in the Imperial livery, a man whose name we understood was Tchernoff, and who had been valet of the old Emperor Alexander III.
The Starets left the palace full of extreme satisfaction, and indeed, when an hour later we were alone together in the train returning to Petrograd, he grinned evilly across at me, and said meaningly:
"Alexandra Feodorovna did not forget our meeting at Kazan, though she did not allude to it. Ere long, though she is Empress, I intend that she shall sit at my feet and do my bidding!"
And he chuckled within himself as was his peasant's habit when mightily pleased.
Truly, that meeting with the Tsar's valet Tchernoff was quite as fateful to Russia as the meeting with the neurotic spiritualistic Empress herself.
CHAPTER III
THE POTSDAM PLOT DEVELOPS
About a week after Rasputin's first audience of the Empress Alexandra, the Bishop Theophanus, confessor of the Imperial family, paid him a visit at the Poltavskaya.
The Bishop, a big, over-fed man, had a long chat with the Starets in my presence.
"Her Majesty was very much impressed by you, my dear Grichka," said the well-known cleric to the man who, having pretended to abandon his profligate ways, had parted his hair in the middle and become a pilgrim. "She has daily spoken of you, and you are to be commanded to audience with the Tsar. Hence I am here to give you some advice."
The "holy" man grinned with satisfaction, knowing how complete had been the success of Stürmer's plans. At the moment Theophanus was in ignorance of the deeply laid plot to draw the Empress beneath the spell of the Starets whom the inferior classes all over Russia—as well as the well-to-do—believed was leading such a saint-like, ascetic life in imitation of Christ.
Truly, Grichka dressed the part well, and gave himself the outward appearance of saintliness and godliness. Even the Bishop was bamboozled by him, just as Petrograd society was being mystified and electrified by the rising of "the Divine Protector" of Russia.
Of his doctrine I need not here write. Dark hints of its astonishing immorality have already leaked out to the world through chattering women who were members of the cult. My object here is to expose the most subtle and ingenious plot which the world has known—the Teutonic conspiracy against our Russian Empire.
Rasputin's "religion" was not a novel one, as is generally supposed. It was simply a variation conceived by his mystically-inclined mind upon the one devised by Marcion in the early days of the Christian era. He had conceived the theory that the only means by which the spirit could be elevated was to mortify and destroy the flesh.
The Bishop Teofan, or Theophanus, was a mock ascetic, just as was Rasputin. Bishop Alexis of Kazan, after Rasputin's visit there, had introduced him to the Rector of the Religious Academy, and already the mock saint had established a circle of ascetic students, of whom Teofan and another Starets named Mitia the Blessed (a name derived from Dmitry), who came from Montenegro, were members. But Rasputin, although the leader, had entirely imposed upon Teofan.
In all seriousness the Bishop told the Starets of the interest in him which the Empress had aroused in the mind of the Tsar.
"He is a keen spiritualist, just as is the Empress," said the confessor. "At Court everyone has heard of your marvellous powers. I can promise you great success if you carry out the views I will place before you. You must form a Court circle of disciples. The woman most likely to assist you is Madame Vyrubova, who, with Mademoiselle Kamensky, is Her Majesty's greatest confidante."
"Very well, I will meet her. You arrange it."
"To-morrow is Monday, and there will be the usual clerical reception at the Countess Ignatieff's. I will see that she is there to meet you."
"Excellent, my dear Teofan!" said the "saint." "In this affair we will help each other. I will form a circle of believers at Court, and Alexandra Feodorovna shall be at their head."
The fact is that Teofan knew that Rasputin was possessed of a marvellous hypnotic power, and, being aware of the vogue of hypnotists at Court, saw in the Starets an able assistant by whom to gain power in the immediate entourage of Their Majesties. Thus, quite unconsciously, he was furthering the plans of Kouropatkine and Stürmer, who were receiving money from Berlin.
Already one of Rasputin's principal disciples was Madame Golovine, the elder sister of the Grand Duke Paul's morganatic wife, Countess Hohenfelsen, a woman who had become his most ardent follower, and who never failed to attend, with her two daughters, the famous séances held weekly in that big upstairs room.
On the following evening I went with Rasputin to the great house of the Dowager Countess Ignatieff to attend the usual Monday gathering of prelates and ascetics, for her salon was a rendezvous for all kinds of religious cranks, theologians, and people interested in pious works. Rasputin's unexpected appearance there caused a sensation.
Outside his circle of "disciples" he was unapproachable. The instructions given me by Boris Stürmer were absolute and precise. The reason that I was always at the charlatan's right hand was because he could only write with difficulty, and was therefore unable to make any memoranda. His letters were the painful efforts of an unlettered mujik, as indeed he was.
And yet already he had become the most renowned man in the Russian capital!
Our Empire's quarrel with Japan had not been finally settled. The country was in a state of serious unrest. While the revolutionary spirit, started by the death of the girl Vietroff, was seething everywhere, the dynasty was threatened on every hand. Yet the ever-open eye of the Okhrana was upon everyone, and arrests of innocent persons were still continuing.
That night the salon of the Countess Ignatieff was responsible for much concerning the downfall of the Romanoffs. In the great luxurious drawing-room there were assembled beneath the huge crystal electroliers a curious, mixed company of the pious and the vicious of the capital. There was the Metropolitan in his robes and with his great crucifix, Ministers of State in uniforms with decorations, Actual Privy Councillors and their wives, and dozens of underlings in their gaudy tinsel, prelates with crosses at their necks, and women of all classes, from the highest aristocracy to the painted sister of the higher demi-monde.
The gathering was characteristic of Petrograd in those times of Russia's decadence, when Germany was preparing for war. The fight with Japan had already been engineered through Kouropatkine as a preliminary to the betrayal and smashing of our Empire.
Of the conflict with the Mikado I have no concern. My pen is taken up in order to reveal what I know regarding the astounding plots conceived in Potsdam and executed in Petrograd, in order fearlessly to expose those who were traitors to their country, and to whom the débâcle of 1917 was due.
In that great well-lit saloon, crowded by religious personages of all kinds, the old Dowager Countess Ignatieff, in stiff black silk, came forward to receive the popular Starets as the newest star in Russia's religious firmament. With Stürmer behind him to advise and to plot, aided by an obscure civil servant named Protopopoff—who afterwards became Minister of the Interior and a spy of Germany—the "saint" never held himself cheap. That was one of the secrets of his astounding career. Though he possessed no education and could scarcely trace his own name, he possessed the most acute brain of any lawyer or banker in Petrograd. In every sense he was abnormal, just as abnormal as Joan of Arc, Saint Anthony, Saint Francis, or a dozen others who have been beatified.
The rheumatic old countess, after shaking hands with us both, introduced us to a dozen other persons around her. Suddenly she said:
"Ah! Here is my dear friend the Lady-of-the-Court Anna Vyrubova. Allow me to introduce you, Father."
The Starets instantly crossed his hands piously over his breast and bowed before a good-looking, sleek-faced woman of forty, who was elegantly dressed, and who greeted him with a humorous smile. Having heard much of the woman's scandalous past, I naturally regarded her with considerable curiosity. She was a woman of destiny. Petrograd had not long before been agog with the scandal following her marriage with a young naval officer, who had gone to the Baltic, and unexpectedly returning to his wife's room in the palace at Tsarskoe-Selo, had been shut out by the Empress herself. The husband had afterwards died in mysterious circumstances, which had been hushed up by the police, and madame had remained as the personal attendant upon Her Majesty with her inseparable friend Zéneide Kamensky.
As I watched the monk's meeting with this woman of adventure, I saw that he had at once fascinated her, just as completely as he had hypnotised her Imperial mistress. She stood before him, using her small black fan slowly, for the room was overpoweringly hot, and began to chat, assuring him that she had for a long time been desirous of meeting him.
As I stood beside Rasputin I heard him say, in that humble manner which always attracted society women:
"And, O Lady, I have heard of thee often. It is with sincere pleasure that I gaze upon thy face and speak with thee. It is God's will—let Him be thanked for this our meeting."
The blasphemy of it all appalled me. I knew of certain deep plots in progress, and I watched the handsome lady-in-waiting, with whom the monk crossed the room, nodding self-consciously to the bishops, prelates, and mock-pious scoundrels of all sorts, with their female victims. I held my breath in wonder.
As I followed I saw Stürmer, the goat-bearded traitor, standing chatting to a pretty young girl in turquoise blue. Then I overheard Madame Vyrubova say to the Starets:
"I came here to-night, Father, especially to meet you. Her Majesty gave me a message. She is in despair. She requires your help, prayers, and advice."
"Ah! my dear lady, I regret; I am fully alive to the high honours which our Tsaritza has done me to command me to Court. But my sphere is with the poor. My life is with them—for their benefit and guidance."
"I bear you a message," said the well-preserved woman of whom a thousand tongues had gossiped evilly in Petrograd. "To-morrow the Empress expects you informally. She will take no refusal."
"Refusal—how can I refuse my Empress?" he replied. "I can beg of her to excuse me. I have to attend a meeting in the lowest quarter of the city to-morrow among those who await me. And in the evening I go upon a pilgrimage. Her Majesty will not begrudge the poor my ministrations. Please tell her this. My sphere, as designed by God, is with the masses and not in the Imperial Palace."
That was all I overheard. Stürmer called me aside to whisper, and as he did so I saw that the Starets had at once become surrounded by women, of whom he always became the centre of attraction, with hands crossed so humbly over his breast.
His refusal to go to Court was in accordance with his extraordinary intuition and acumen, though his meeting with the woman Vyrubova marked another milestone in the history of Russia's betrayal.
The days passed. The world was, of course, in ignorance, but we in the Poltavskaya, the monk and myself, knew of the despatch of Admiral Rozhdestvensky's blundering fleet on its voyage half-way round the world, how he was ordered to fire upon anything he saw in the North Sea, and how, as soon came out, he fired upon some of your British trawlers on the Dogger Bank, for which our Government paid quite willingly sixty-five thousand pounds in compensation.
But let the first war-chapter of Russia's history pass. With it Rasputin had but little to do. The person who, unwilling or not, carried out the will of Potsdam's Kaiser was the Empress Alexandra. And having done so she, with her curious nature, suddenly turned from gay to grave. She became strange in her conduct and discarded her wonderful Paris gowns—in which, by the way, she was eclipsed by "Liane," the dark-haired diva of the Paris cafés chantants, in whom Nicholas II. took such a very paternal interest.
Time after time I had been present when Stürmer and Rasputin, chuckling over the undoubted success of their conspiracy, discussed the situation.
Since Her Majesty had met the rascal monk at Tsarskoe-Selo she had never appeared in public. On certain occasions, when a Court pageant or function had to be held according to custom and the calendar, it was the Emperor's mother who, with her well-known charm and honesty, received the guests. Excuses were made for Alexandra Feodorovna's non-appearance. The truth was that the Empress, full of spiritualistic beliefs, had suddenly developed a religious mania, centred around the amazing personality of the mock monk.
Thrice had Her Majesty sent him commands through her pro-German puppet Fredericks, and thrice he, at Stürmer's suggestion, refused to comply. This illiterate Siberian monk, ex-horse-thief and betrayer of women, actually disregarded the Imperial order! He had declared himself to be the saviour of Russia, and greater than the Romanoffs.
"The Empress is furious!" declared the Bishop Teofan one day as, with his heavy bejewelled cross upon his breast and wearing clothes of the richest texture, he sat with the rascal in his den. "Sometimes she is in anger, at others in despair. Anna Vyrubova is frantic. Why do you not come to audience?"
"She promised that I should see Nicholas," was the reply. "After I have spoken with him I will see her. It does a woman good to wait."
"I agree, but your refusal may be stretched too far," said the Bishop.
"None will tell the truth concerning her," Rasputin said. "I hear on one hand that she thinks herself too fat and is taking the 'Entfettungscur' against the advice of the Court physician. Others say that she has eczema and dare not show her face, while others say she is mad. What is the truth?"
"Come and ascertain for yourself."
"Her devotion is that of a fanatic—I take it?"
"Exactly. She lives only for the entertainment of monks and pilgrims. You are lucky, my dear Grichka. Madame Vyrubova was evidently entranced by you at Countess Ignatieff's. She will do your bidding. Only, I beg of you to come to Court."
The charlatan, however, steadily refused the Bishop's advice. Instead, he left Petrograd that night alone, and went away to his wife and sister-disciples at Pokrovsky, in Siberia.
For more than two months he was absent from Petrograd. One day a frantic message came to me over the telephone from Madame Vyrubova, who inquired the whereabouts of the Starets.
"The Father has gone to his convent at Pokrovsky, Madame," I replied.
"What!" she gasped. "Gone to Siberia! Why, Her Majesty is daily expecting him here at the Palace. When will he return?"
"I regret, Madame, that I cannot say," was my reply. "He has told me nothing."
"Will you please take a confidential message to Boris Stürmer for me?" she asked. And when I replied in the affirmative, she went on:
"Please go at once to him and ask him to come to the Palace this evening without fail. I am very anxious to see him concerning a highly important matter. A carriage will meet the train which arrives at seven-thirty."
I promised to carry out the wishes of the Tsaritza's favourite lady-in-waiting, and half an hour later called upon Stürmer at his fine house in the Kirotshnaya, where I delivered the message.
During the next few weeks I merely called at the Poltavskaya each morning for the monk's letters, which I opened and dealt with at my leisure.
His correspondence was truly amazing. The letters were mostly from wealthy female devotees, missives usually couched in pious language. Some contained confessions of the most private nature, and asking the Father's advice and blessing. All these latter he had given me strict instructions carefully to preserve. Any letter which contained self-condemnation by its writer, or any confession of sin, was therefore carefully put away, after being duly replied to. At the time, it did not occur to me that the impostor ever intended to allow them to see the light of day, and, indeed, it was not until several years later that I discovered that he was using them for the purpose of extracting large sums from women who preferred to pay the blackmail he levied rather than have their secrets exposed to their sweet-hearts or husbands.
While Rasputin, having thrown off his cloak of piety, was leading a dissolute life in far-off Pokrovsky, and refusing to obey the Empress's repeated invitations, the guns of Peter and Paul one day boomed forth salvo after salvo, announcing to the world that the prayer uttered by the Starets before our Lady of Kazan had been granted.
An heir had been born to the Romanoffs!
There was but little public rejoicing, however, for Russia was, at the moment, plunged into grief over the disastrous result of her attack upon Japan. Nevertheless, the event more than ever impressed upon the neurotic Empress that Grichka was possessed of some mysterious and divine influence. Her Majesty believed entirely in his saintliness, and her faith in the power of his prayers was complete. God had granted his prayer and sent an heir to the Romanoffs because of his purity and perfect piety. Already she was wondering whether, in some mysterious way, the child's life was not linked with that of the holy Father whom the Almighty had sent to protect her son's existence.
Because of this the Empress sent to Rasputin, at Pokrovsky, a number of telegrams, which eventually the monk gave over to me to docket and put away with the incriminating letters of his foolish and fascinated admirers. The women of Russia, from the Empress to the lowly superstitious peasant, were now at the charlatan's feet.
One telegram from Alexandra Feodorovna read as follows:
"Father and Protector of our House, why do you refuse to come and give us comfort? God has given the Romanoffs an heir, and we desire your counsel and your prayers. Do, I beg of you, return to sustain us with your presence. When we met our conversation remained unfinished. I confess that I doubted then, but I now believe. Make haste and come at once to us. From your sister—Alexandra."
Of this appeal the Starets took no notice. He preferred the society of his sister-disciples at Pokrovsky to that of the Tsaritza. Besides, was it not part of his clever plan to place the Empress beneath his influence by bringing her to the brink of despair? He had not yet met Nicholas II., and it was his intention to place his amazing and mysterious grip upon him also at the crucial moment. So again the Empress sent him a communication—a letter written in her own hand, and delivered by one of the Imperial couriers.
"Why do you still hesitate?" she asked. "I sent you word by Anna [Madame Vyrubova] that I desired eagerly to see you again. Your good works are to-day in everyone's mouth. All at Court are speaking of you and your beautiful soul-inspiring religion, of which I am anxious to know more details from your own lips. It is too cruel of you to sever yourself from Petrograd when all are longing for your presence. What can I do in order to induce you to come? Ask of me anything, and your wish shall be granted. Do reply.—Alexandra."
Again he treated her invitation with contempt, for following this, ten days later, she sent him another telegram:
"If you still refuse to come I will send Anna to you to try and induce you to reconsider the situation. Nicholas is extremely anxious to consult you. Father, I again implore you to come to us.—A."
Rasputin, who had created such a favourable impression upon the lady-in-waiting Vyrubova, certainly had no intention of allowing her to go to Pokrovsky and see the sordid home which Russia believed to be a wonderful "monastery," and to which Petrograd society had subscribed so freely. He therefore sent Her Majesty a message—the first response she extracted—to the effect that he was leaving for Petrograd as soon as it was possible to fulfil his Divine "call."
In the meantime I had been introduced by Boris Stürmer, whom I met almost daily, to Stolypin, a friend of Rasputin's principal disciple in Petrograd, Madame Golovine, and to Monsieur Raeff, who afterwards, by Rasputin's influence, received the appointment of Procurator of the Holy Synod. At Stürmer's fine house there were, in the absence of the Starets, constant meetings of Raeff, General Kurloff, the Chief of the Political Police, and a beetle-browed official named Kschessinski, who was director of that secret department of State known as "the Black Cabinet," a suite of rooms in the central postal bureau in Petrograd, where one's correspondence was daily under examination for the benefit of the corrupt Ministers and their place-seeking underlings. In addition, at these dinners, followed by the secret conferences, there attended a certain smart, well-set-up officer named Miassoyedeff, a colonel stationed at Wirballen on the East Prussia frontier, and who had received gracious invitations from the Kaiser to go shooting and to hob-nob with him. This man afterwards became a spy of Germany, as I will later on reveal.
Kurloff, as head of the Political Police, had, before my appointment as secretary to the Starets, been my superior, and therefore I well knew the wheels within the wheels of his department. Naturally he was hand-in-glove with the director of the Black Cabinet, the doings of which would require a whole volume to themselves, and to me it was evident that some further great and deep laid plot was in progress, of which Rasputin was to be the head director.
