Kitabı oku: «The Minister of Evil: The Secret History of Rasputin's Betrayal of Russia», sayfa 6
For half an hour Rasputin, much worried by the secret inquiries of the Premier into the doings of the pro-German camarilla, chatted with the general, more than once expressing fear regarding the perilous situation.
"Revelations seem imminent," he exclaimed anxiously. "The man Botkine must never arrive in Russia—you understand that, Rogogin!"
"I quite agree," said the Director of the Black Cabinet. "But Gutchkoff must see to it. I have done my part in the affair."
"You have done excellently, my dear friend—most excellently," declared the monk. "Nothing could have been better. I will mention your great services to the Empress. Yes, we must rely upon Gutchkoff."
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 documents to Maximilian Harden—documents 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 documents 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 Marseilles upon some confidential mission. But on no account must he return to Russia before going to Japan—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 Japan, 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 Japan, 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 Stürmer and Fredericks, traitors like Protopopoff and Soukhomlinoff, men like Azeff, Guerassimoff and Kurtz—one day the bosom friend of Ministers and powerful noblemen, 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 entitled under an agreement. Well did I know that the sum in question was payment for his active assistance 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 quantities 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-class 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.
"Féodor," 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 passport. 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 identity," 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 régime 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.
Every Russian subject of any note, and every foreign traveller, was watched, not because of his disloyalty, but because Rasputin and his camarilla, including the Empress, feared lest he should discover how they were daily betraying Russia and its Tsar.
I have been, at Rasputin's orders, many times in the central bureau of the Secret Police in search of the index-card of some person who had fallen beneath the monk's displeasure. In these indices and in the corresponding files the persons concerned were, I found, never designated by their own names, but by code-names that could be telegraphed if necessary from city to city. Thus the Deputy Cheidze (since become famous) was registered under the name of "drawing-room" (gostini), Lenin (also since famous) as "symbol," Miliukoff as "grass," and the traitor Soukhomlinoff as "glycerine."
Those were indeed terrible days in Holy Russia—days when the innocent were sent to their death, while Rasputin, the religious fraud, laughed and drank champagne with his high-born devotees, who believed him, even in this twentieth century, to be divine!
I remember that on May 16th, 1914, when the political horizon was cloudless and no one dreamed of war, I sat in the visitors' gallery of the Duma, having been sent there by Rasputin to listen to the debate and report to him.
The labour leader Kerensky, who afterwards became Minister of Justice in the Provisional Government, rose and from the tribune proclaimed the infamy of the police. He did not mince matters. He said:
"The most notorious jailers of the period of Alexander III. knew how to respect in their political enemies the man who thought differently, and when they shut him up in the fortress of Schlüsselburg they would sometimes come to chat with him. And some of those martyrs, those men struggling for liberty, have been able to return to us with the glamour about them of twenty years' hard labour. But now, the sons of those famous jailers do not hesitate to seize young men of seventeen or eighteen and make them die slowly, but surely, under the blows of the knout, under the strokes of the rod, or by the burns of a red-hot iron. Are we not returning to the days when political prisoners were walled up alive? And you imagine, gentlemen, that you can claim for this country the civilising mission of a European nation!"
He spoke of a man whom I knew well, one of the most sinister persons in all Russia, a man who, like Rasputin and Stürmer, accepted German gold. The man's name was Evno Azef, upon whom unfortunately the French Government bestowed the Legion of Honour.
Before he went to Paris, Azef was a close friend of Rasputin and of Stürmer. He was a criminal of the worst type, an expert in crime, though he was a recognised agent of the Russian Political Police. And yet so clever was he as an agent-provocateur that he actually managed to get himself elected as director of the Terrorist organisation of Petrograd, and as a member of the Central Committee of the Socialist Party!
In my presence he one night, when in his cups, boasted to the merry monk what he had to his credit as a revolutionary. He organised the murders of the Minister of the Interior, Plehve, and of the Grand Duke Sergius. It was he who prepared the attempted murders of Admiral Dubassof, the Governor-General Guerchelman, and the attempt on Nicholas II. The latter was with Rasputin's knowledge and consent! Perhaps Alexandra Feodorovna knew of it. Who knows? That she was not so devoted to "Nikki" as she pretended is well known to everyone who was at the Imperial Court at the time. Happily, however, the plot failed because of circumstances which Azef could not control.
The scoundrel also assisted in the drawing up of the plans for the military mutinies at Moscow, Viborg, and Kronstadt, while he knew beforehand of the preparations for the assassination of General Sakarof, and of Governor Bogdanovitch at Ufa, as well as a number of Terrorist crimes which succeeded.
One of his crimes in conspiracy with Rasputin I will here relate, because it is a mystery which has long puzzled the London police.
On the morning of January 11th, 1909, the London newspapers contained a report of a strange discovery. Four days before there had arrived at Victoria Station a young French lady, dark-haired and extremely good-looking, who took a cab to a small but highly respectable private hotel in the vicinity. There she gave the name of Mademoiselle Thomas, and her profession as governess. Next morning a tall, thin young foreigner called for her, and they went out together, she returning very late that night apparently exhausted after a long motor journey. Next day she remained in her room all day. On the third day an elderly man called, and she went out with him, being absent about a couple of hours. On her return she went straight to her room and nothing was seen of her further until the next day at noon the chambermaid failed to arouse her by knocking. The police were informed, the door was forced, and Mademoiselle Thomas was found dead. She was lying upon the floor fully dressed.
The medical evidence at the inquest was that the pretty French governess had been dead fully eighteen hours. Upon her or in her small hand-luggage there was nothing to establish her identity. That she had taken poison was the opinion of the expert medical witness. Yet the poison could not be established. Apparently it was a case of suicide, for the laundry marks and names of the makers of her clothing had been deliberately removed.
One thing, however, was extremely mysterious. Upon the marble top of the washhand-stand in the bedroom the police found some scrawled words in a character they could not decipher. Experts were brought in, when it was found that the writing was in Russian character, and the words were: "The holy Starets is–"
This conveyed nothing to the London police, who, of course, knew nothing save that a "Starets" in Russia is a "saint."
Therefore the experts at Scotland Yard were, after much patient investigation, compelled to dismiss it as one of London's unsolved mysteries.
Now for the truth.
One night, a year before, when I had returned with Rasputin from Tsarskoe-Selo, we found awaiting us the somewhat dandified man of a hundred aliases and as many disguises, the notorious Azef. He greeted us both warmly, and being a close friend of Rasputin, the monk took him into his cosy little den, where for over an hour they remained closeted together.
I was one of the few who knew the secret of Azef's crimes. Indeed, when I entered the room while the pair were talking I heard him ask with a laugh:
"What if we give him a taste of the necktie of Stolypin—eh?"
"It certainly would be best, my dear Evno," the monk agreed. "That is if you think the accusation can be well made."
"Trust me," laughed the great agent-provocateur. "A denunciation, the discovery of papers—you have those of Buchman in your safe, by the way, and they could be used—arrest, trial, and the necktie! It would be quite easy, and his mouth would be closed."
"He is growing dangerous," growled Rasputin. "What you say is perfectly true."
Then turning to me, he said:
"Féodor, bring those papers which Manuiloff brought me a week ago—the papers used for the arrest of Professor Buchman in Warsaw."
I obeyed, well knowing how that file of incriminating correspondence with an Anarchist group in Zurich had been forged by Stürmer's secretary Manuiloff, and how it had been found among the professor's effects.
"The necktie of Stolypin," was Azef's playful allusion to the ever-ready gallows to which he, plotting with Rasputin, Manuiloff, Guerassimof, and others, was so constantly sending innocent persons. Truly, Russia was a strange country even before the outbreak of war.
The immediate object of Azef's activities, combined with Rasputin's, was at Germany's direction to extend the Terrorist action and thus cause trouble and unrest in the Empire. By every fresh success he obtained more money from Berlin, and at the same time strengthened his privileged position in the ranks of the Terrorists, while his worth was increased in the eyes of both the Minister of the Interior and of the Emperor. The scoundrel's revolutionary career and his police career were inseparable. He was a Terrorist to-day, a police official to-morrow, but, like Rasputin, a secret agent of Germany always!
Terrible as it may seem, the Okhrana, with the connivance of the Wilhelmstrasse, and with the Empress's full knowledge—of this there is no doubt, because documentary evidence exists which proves it—caused the highest personages in Russia to be murdered or hanged in order to prove to those lucky ones who survived how necessary was the organisation for their own existence!
A hundred dramas could be written upon the intrigues of Grichka and Azef. Some of them were amazing; all were disgraceful. The life of the most upright and honest man or woman was not safe if marked down by the pair of scoundrels. The attempt upon Admiral Dubassof, in which Count Konovnicin met his death; the attempt upon General Guerchelman, Governor-General of Moscow; the assassination of General Slepzof at Tver, with half a dozen other murders of the same kind, were all the work of Azef. Why? Because both Azef and General Guerassimof, chief of the Secret Police, were in the toils of Germany. The Wilhelmstrasse paid well, but threatened exposures if this or that person were not removed. Hence Azef, as one of the heads of the Terrorists, received his orders through Rasputin, and, obeying, was paid his blood-money.
Many of the dastardly crimes which Azef, aided by the monk, committed at Germany's orders will never be known. Hundreds of innocent persons were arrested, and when the police searched their homes the most incriminating documents were found concealed—documents which when produced they had never before seen. Hundreds of men and women were hurried to Siberia, and hundreds of others were sent to rot in jails and fortresses, while upon dozens there was placed "the necktie of Stolypin."
"Ah! my dear Gregory," Azef said, after he had lit a fresh cigarette, "there will be no security until that man's mouth is closed. I see that you agree with me."
"Quite," replied the monk, who, I saw, was rather agitated because of something which the police spy had told him.
"Good! Then I will go further. To-day I have proposed to the Council of Workmen's Delegates that we should blow up the Central Bureau of the Okhrana, with Guerassimof in the centre of it. The killing of Guerassimof appealed to them. They hate him—as you know. Really, those people are humorous. They think I am their friend, and yet each day the police arrest one or two members regularly but quietly, and they disappear no one knows whither. I have suspicions of Menchikof, of the Okhrana at Moscow. The other day I met him at Princess Kamenskoi's, and what he told me set me wondering. He poses as your friend, but I feel convinced he is your enemy."
Rasputin's bearded face relaxed into that strange, sardonic grin of his as he replied:
"I know Menchikof. He is harmless. The only man we may fear is Burtsef. He knows far too much of the police organisation and the deeds of our provocating agents."
"I agree. But he lives in Paris, and hence the Okhrana cannot lay hands upon him. If only he would return to Russia, then he would not be long at liberty. That I assure you."
"He is in Paris. Could we not send him a message that his daughter Vera—who married young Tchernof last year—has been taken suddenly ill, and thus summon him at once to Vilna? Once on Russian soil he could be arrested."
Azef smiled. "Our friend Burtsef knows a little too much of our methods to fall into such a trap. He would recognise my hand in it in an instant. No, some other means must be found. Meanwhile we must deal with the person under discussion. We were agreed that he must be suppressed at all hazards, eh?"
"Exactly. And we must suppress Burtsef afterwards."
Paris, Lausanne, Geneva, Zurich and Nice swarmed with Russian secret agents, who, at orders from Azef and Rasputin, kept constant vigil upon the doings of everyone. The directors of the foreign service of our political police were Ratchkovsky in Paris, and Rataef in London. The latter posed as a Russian journalist, and usually spent his afternoons over cups of coffee in the cosmopolitan Café Royal in Regent Street.
All this I knew, and much more. I knew that Ivan Manuiloff, who was now secretary to Stürmer, had begun his lucrative career as the agent and catspaw of Ratchkovsky in Paris. But he intrigued against his chief, and was then transferred to Rome. Of that man and his dastardly doings I will tell more later. Suffice it to say that the Emperor so deeply believed in him that one day he gave him a gold cigarette-case with his initials in diamonds "as a mark of his esteem"!
Having listened attentively to the conversation between the two scoundrels, I at last came to the conclusion that they were conspiring against some mysterious person named Krivochein.
After the pair had consumed a bottle of champagne, Azef rose and, shaking his friend's dirty paw, said:
"I hope to have everything arranged when we meet. I would not yet mention the matter to the Empress."
"Of course I shall not," remarked Rasputin, with that crafty grin of his. "She would only worry over it—and just now she is greatly troubled over the Tsarevitch. He has had another attack."
The monk did not mention the fact that the cause of the attack was one of Badmayev's secret drugs which Anna Vyrubova had dissolved in his milk!
After Azef had left, Rasputin flung himself into his easy chair, and as he lit a cigarette remarked to me:
"Ah, Féodor! What a man! There is nothing he is unable to accomplish."
"He is very daring," I remarked.
"No, it is not daring—it is deep cunning. He has the police at his back; I have Alexandra Feodorovna—so we win always. But," he added, with a snarl, "we have enemies, and those must be dealt with—dealt with drastically. I hear they are setting about more scandals in Petrograd concerning me. Have you heard them?" he asked.
"Gossip is rife on every hand, and all sorts of wild stories are being circulated," I said.
"Bah! Let the fools say what they will of Gregory Rasputin," he laughed. "It only makes him the more popular. It is time, however, that I performed some more miracles among the poor," he added reflectively. "Let us arrange some, Féodor. Do not forget it."
The miracles were arranged a fortnight later. With the assistance of a clever German conjurer named Brockhaus, from Riga, who with others helped the mock saint on the occasions when he imposed upon the credulity of the mujiks, he pretended to "heal" a child of lameness, while a female assistant of Brockhaus, having posed as a blind peasant, was restored to sight.
The miracles took place out at Ligovo, a village outside Petrograd, and like wildfire the news was spread that the Holy Father had again taken compassion upon the people. Hundreds of men and women now flocked round him to kiss the edge of his ragged robe, and as he passed in the streets everyone crossed themselves. By such means did Rasputin retain the favour of the people and of the Empress herself.
One night he received a telegram in cipher, which he gave me to decode. It had been despatched from Paris and read:
"The appointment is at Savignyplatz, 17, Charlottenburg. Do not fail. Please inform A. [Alexandra Feodorovna] and obtain instructions.—Evno."
At once Rasputin became active. He went to Peterhof, where the Court was at that moment, and carried out Azef's desire. He was with the Empress and Madame Vyrubova for a couple of hours ere he rejoined me, and we took the evening train back to the capital.
That night he called upon Stürmer, who had with him his sycophant and ex-policeman Manuiloff, and they held counsel together. Then, next afternoon, we both left Petrograd for Berlin.
We had no difficulty in discovering the house in the Savignyplatz. It was a good-sized one on the corner of the Kantstrasse, and the old woman who opened the door at once ushered us into a pretty drawing-room, where we were greeted by a rather tall, dark-haired and refined young lady, who welcomed us in Russian, and whose name Rasputin had told me was Mademoiselle Paula Kereicha.
"You must be very tired after your long journey, Father," she said, bowing her head and crossing herself as the monk mumbled a blessing upon her.
"No; travelling is very easy between Petrograd and Berlin," he replied affably; and then he introduced me.
I could see that somehow she resented my intrusion there. She glanced at Rasputin inquiringly.
"Oh, no," laughed the monk. "I quite understand, mademoiselle; you need have no fear." Then lowering his voice to a whisper, he said: "I know full well that living here as secret agent of the Okhrana you have to exercise every caution."
Paula Kereicha—who I afterwards found was a second-rate variety actress who sometimes took engagements in order to blind people to her own calling, that of police-spy—smiled and admitted that she had to be very careful.
"It is not the Germans that I fear," she said. "They know me well at the Wilhelmstrasse, and I am never interfered with. Indeed, they assist me when necessary. No. It is the Terrorists who would do me harm if they could. There is a dangerous group here—as you know."
