Kitabı oku: «The Minister of Evil: The Secret History of Rasputin's Betrayal of Russia», sayfa 7
"I know well," said the monk; "only last week Tchapline and Vilieff were given Stolypin's necktie owing to your denunciations. They came to Russia from Berlin, and were arrested immediately they set foot across the frontier."
"No," she protested. "Azef was here. It was he who put papers into their baggage, and then telegraphed to the police at Wirballen. Neither of the men was dangerous as far as I could see, but our friend Evno believed them to be; hence he deemed them better out of the way."
I could see that the young woman had some scruples regarding the dirty work for which she received money from the Ministry of the Interior in Petrograd. And surely hers was a highly dangerous profession.
Apparently it was not desired that Rasputin's arrival in Berlin should be known, for we were shown to our rooms by the stout old Russian woman, and I heard the handsome Paula speaking on the telephone in a guarded manner.
"And you will call at half-past nine to-night, eh?" I heard her ask, and presently she rang off.
We ate our dinner together, the monk being very gracious towards his mysterious hostess; and almost punctually at half-past nine the door of the drawing-room opened, and there entered a rather shabbily dressed man, whom I at once recognised as Count von Wedel, the inseparable companion of the Kaiser, and titular head of the German Secret Service. With him was no less a person than the German Foreign Minister, Kiderlen-Waechter. Our visitors were the two Men Behind the Throne of Imperial Germany. Standing with them was that man of kaleidoscopic make-up, the great Azef himself.
That meeting was indeed a dramatic one. Rasputin, taking bribes on every side from officials in Russia who desired advancement, and from the Germans to betray Russia into the hands of the Wilhelmstrasse, sat that evening in the elegant little room listening to the conversation, with all the craft and cunning of the Russian mujik. He made but few remarks, but sat with his hands upon his knees, his deep-set, fiery eyes glancing everywhere about him, his big bejewelled cross scintillating beneath the electric light of the pretty Paula's elegant, tastily furnished little room.
Von Wedel, though dressed so shabbily, was the chief spokesman. Kiderlen-Waechter, who had so cleverly pulled the strings of Germany's diplomacy in the Near East, and had now been recalled to Berlin and placed at the helm of the Fatherland's double-dealing with the Powers, spoke little. He seemed to be learning much of the Kaiser's duplicity.
"The Emperor William, I can tell you frankly, Father, is displeased," von Wedel said to Rasputin reprovingly. "Only by an ace has the whole of our arrangements with your Empress, and with yourself as our agent, been suppressed from Downing Street. And that by steps taken by our friend here, Monsieur Azef. But we are not yet safe. I tell you quite frankly that though you are a good servant of ours, yet your habit of taking intoxicants is dangerous. You boast too much! If you are to succeed you must assume an attitude of extreme humility combined with poverty. Be a second St. Francis of Assisi," added the Count, with humour. "You can act any part. Imitate a real saint."
"It surely is not through a fault of mine that any secret has leaked out," the monk protested.
"But it is," the Count declared severely. "I am here to-night at the Emperor's orders to tell you from him that, though he appreciates all your efforts on his behalf, he disapproves of your drunkenness and your boastful tongue."
"I am not boastful!" the monk declared. "Have you brought me here to Berlin to reprimand me? If so, I will return at once."
And he rose arrogantly from his chair, and crossed his hands over his breast piously in that attitude he assumed when unusually angry.
Von Wedel saw that he was going too far.
"It is not a matter of reproof, but of precaution," he said quickly. "Happily the truth has been suppressed, though a certain agent of Downing Street—a man known by the nickname of 'Mac'—very nearly ascertained the whole facts. Fortunately for us all he did not. But his suspicions are aroused, together with those of Krivochein."
"Cannot this man Mac—an Englishman, I suppose—be suppressed?" asked Rasputin. "If he is in Russia I can crush him as a fly upon the window-pane."
"Ah! but he is not in Russia," replied the Count. "He is a very elusive person, and one who tricks us every time. 'Mac the Spy,' as they call him at Whitehall, is the first secret agent in Europe—next, of course, to our dear Steinhauer."
"I disagree," interrupted the Foreign Secretary. "The man Mac is marvellous. He was in Constantinople and in Bucharest recently, and he learned secrets of our Embassy and Legation which I believed to be sacred. He even got hold of our diplomatic telegraph code a week after it had been changed. No, the English Mac is the most astute secret agent in Europe, depend upon it!"
Paula Kereicha sat listening to the conversation, but without making any remark. I noticed that Azef seemed very uneasy at her presence, and presently sent her from the room to ask for a telephone call. The instant she had gone he exclaimed in a low voice:
"It is a pity to have spoken before Paula! She knows too much. One day, when it suits her, she may reveal something unpleasant concerning us."
"But you made the appointment here, at her house!" Kiderlen-Waechter protested.
"Of course, because it is the safest meeting-place, but I did not know that matters were to be freely discussed before her."
"Then you do not trust the woman?" remarked Rasputin. "You are like myself, I never trust women," and he grinned. "Shall we drop our conversation when she returns?"
Azef reflected for a few moments.
"No," he said. "She knows most of the details of the affair. There is no reason why she should not know the rest. Besides, I may require her to assist me."
In the discussion which ensued I gathered that Rasputin and Azef had resolved, with the connivance and at the instigation of the German Foreign Office, to assassinate a certain well-known British member of Parliament who had been in Russia and had learned, through the British secret agent Mac, the betrayal of Russia into the hands of the Wilhelmstrasse. It was believed that this Englishman—whom Rasputin had nicknamed "Krivochein," so that in correspondence his identity should not be revealed—would place certain facts before the British Government to the detriment of the plans of the pro-German party in Russia.
Of the actual identity of the unfortunate member of Parliament whom Azef and Rasputin had marked down as their victim I could not learn. No doubt Paula knew who "Krivochein" was. And it was certain also that both von Wedel and the German Foreign Secretary were privy to the plot.
Apparently the Empress had been informed of the danger, and knew of the steps the conspirators were taking. Indeed, Rasputin declared:
"Alexandra Feodorovna is very anxious as to the future. She has had a violent quarrel with Nicholas regarding his refusal to dismiss Sheglovitof."
"He must be dismissed," declared von Wedel. "The Emperor William insists upon it. Each hour he remains in office he becomes more dangerous."
"I am already engineering disagreements in the Duma," the monk replied. "If he does not fall by them, then he will go naturally, for he is not a puppet hypnotised by the wishes of Tsarskoe-Selo, as are so many of our Ministers. The Tsar, who so quickly takes offence nowadays, prefers flunkeys to Ministers whose personality is too marked. Besides, we have the Woman [the Empress] ever on our side. No, Sheglovitof's hour has come."
The meeting lasted nearly three hours, until at last Azef and the two German officials left, and Rasputin went to his room, where he consumed half a bottle of brandy. Meanwhile I sat chatting with Mademoiselle Paula until it was time to retire.
Next day, in consequence of a telephone message, I left with Rasputin for Paris, where we put up at the Grand Hotel, being visited on the day following our arrival by Azef, who, dressed differently, I would certainly have passed in the street unrecognised. The two scoundrels retired to Rasputin's room, where they remained for half an hour, and then we all three went forth into the sunshine of the boulevard.
"It is about his time to pass," the notorious spy remarked to the monk, who, by the way, wore an ordinary suit of tweeds and a soft felt hat. "Let us sit here—at the Grand Café."
In consequence we took seats at one of the little tables on the terrasse and ordered "bocks."
Presently, as we watched the stream of passers-by, Azef raised the newspaper he had been pretending to read, so concealing his face, and whispered:
"Here he is! That is our friend Krivochein!"
I looked and saw a well-dressed, quiet-looking English gentleman passing along with his wife, who had apparently been shopping. Little did he dream that the eyes of the two most evil men in Europe were upon him.
"He leaves to-night on his return to London," remarked Azef, when five minutes later we rose and returned to the hotel.
That same afternoon Rasputin, who declared that he had a bad headache, sent me to an English chemist's in the Avenue de l'Opéra for a bottle of tabloids of aspirin. I was rather surprised, for he never took drugs. When I gave him the little bottle he drew out the plug of cotton-wool and extracted a tabloid, which he put upon his dressing-table, afterwards replacing the wool.
About six o'clock a lady was announced, and when she was shown up to our sitting-room I found to my surprise that it was Paula Kereicha.
Rasputin was out with Azef, so Paula declared that she would wait till their return.
"I am staying at the Hôtel Chatham, and have to go to London to-morrow," she told me. "Krivochein has left the Chatham with his wife, and I am to follow."
"The Father and Azef have gone round to the Chatham," I said. "They are evidently hoping to find you there."
"Ah! Then I will return and see if they are there," she said, and, rising, she left.
I did not see her again. She went to London next day, according to Azef's instructions, and as a French governess took a room in that quiet hotel near Victoria Station—the room wherein she was afterwards found dead.
At the time I had no knowledge of the tragedy, but later on I learned from Rasputin's own lips, while in one of his drunken, boastful moods, how he had introduced into the bottle of aspirin a single tabloid of one of Badmayev's secret poisons, made up to resemble exactly the other tabloids. With Azef he had gone to the Hôtel Chatham on purpose to extract from her dressing-case her own bottle of aspirin—which she had purchased on the previous day from the same chemist in the Avenue de l'Opéra—and replace it by the one containing the fatal dose.
The latter she had swallowed in ignorance because of a headache, death ensuing in a few seconds, and the post-mortem revealed nothing.
"Ah! my dear Féodor, that girl knew far too much! Besides, we discovered that, though she had been sent by our friend Azef to assist two of our friends to bring 'Krivochein's' career to a sudden end, she had actually warned him, so that he has succeeded in escaping to America to avoid us!"
CHAPTER VII
SCANDAL AND BLACKMAIL
As the power of the monk Rasputin increased, so also my own social position became advanced, until as the "saint's" confidential secretary, and therefore as one who had his ear, I became on friendly terms with half the nobility of Petrograd.
The pious fraud declared to true believers, "If you do not heed me, then God will abandon you."
Leading as he was, freely and openly, a life of shameless debauchery, wholesale blackmail and political intrigue, it is marvellous how his power became so unlimited. To those who disbelieved in his doctrine or in his divinity, he simply smiled evilly, and said: "If you fail to do my bidding you will be punished by my friends."
Such warning was sufficient. Everyone knew that Rasputin's power was already, in 1912, greater than that of the Tsar Nicholas himself. Day after day ambitious men called at the house in the Gorokhovaya, to which we had now moved, all of them anxious for ministerial and clerical appointments, which he obtained for them at prices fixed by himself. The highest in the land bowed before the rascal, while any man who dared to belittle him, or attempt to thwart his evil designs, was at once removed from office. Through Madame Vyrubova, who received her share of the spoils and acted upon the Empress, Rasputin reigned as Tsar, the Emperor doing little but sign his name to documents placed before him.
Thus Russia was compelled to witness a regular procession of officials whom the "man of God" appointed, in accordance with value received. Even Goremykin was compelled to bow before the mystic humbug. Rasputin for five years caused to be appointed or dismissed all the bishops, and woe betide any person who attempted to interfere with his power.
The Archbishop Theophanus, full of remorse at having lent a helping hand to the scoundrel, tried to overthrow him by publicly denouncing his evil practices, while the Bishop Hermogenes, who knew of the monk's past, attempted to reveal it. In an instant the vengeance of Rasputin fell upon them, Theophanus being sent to Tadriz, and Hermogenes confined to a monastery. Helidor was hunted by the police and sought asylum abroad; while a man named Grinevitch, who had also known Rasputin long ago at Pokrovsky, was invited to dinner by the monk one night, and next morning was found dead in his bed; while another was arrested by the police on a false charge of conspiracy, and sent to prison for ten years, though perfectly innocent.
Rasputin's overbearing insolence knew no bounds. Now that he was the power behind the Throne, he compelled all to bow to him, the educated as well as the peasantry. On entering a house, whether that of prince or peasant, he would invariably kiss the young and pretty women, while he would turn his back upon and refuse even to speak with those who were older.
Our new house was larger and more luxurious than the old one. But it also had the false telephone in the study, which was supposed by the "saint's" dupes to be a private wire to the palace of Tsarskoe-Selo! The house had been furnished entirely at the expense of the Empress, with valuable Eastern carpets, fine furniture, tasteful hangings of silk, beautiful pictures, autographed portraits of their Majesties, and, of course, ikons of all sorts and sizes to impress the pious.
An example of the rogue's impudence occurred on Easter Day in 1912. We were breakfasting with Madame Vyrubova's sister at her house just off the Nevski. With us was Boris Stürmer and two minor officials of the Court, and we were awaiting the coming of the Tsaritza's favourite lady in waiting.
At last she arrived from Tsarskoe-Selo bearing a parcel for Grichka, which she gave him merrily, saying:
"The Empress has made this for you with her own hands. She spent part of last night in finishing it for you, so that you should have it as an Easter present."
The "saint" cut the string and withdrew a blue silk coat of the kind he was in the habit of wearing, in the Russian style, over loose trousers and high boots of patent leather.
"Alix wishes you to wear it to-day," Madame Vyrubova went on, "after you have taken Holy Communion."
Rasputin, with a disappointed look, cast it and its paper upon the floor, and said:
"Now let us have breakfast," and promptly began to eat with his fingers, as he always did, in order to show his contempt for the more refined manners of those about him.
A few weeks after this incident there occurred the Ganskau affair, which was a most disgraceful transaction, and which was very carefully hushed up. Though there were many rumours in Petrograd concerning it, I am able to place the whole of the astounding facts on record here for the first time.
Rasputin, tiring of his lascivious pleasures, also became bored by those who called in order to enlist his influence in their cause for monetary consideration. Hence he surrounded himself with a trio of expert swindlers. They consisted of a certain adventurous prince named Gorianoff, a man named Striaptchef—who had been his companion in his early horse-stealing days in his native Pokrovsky—and a notorious woman named Sabler. These precious persons constituted a sort of bodyguard, and they first interviewed any petitioner, fixed the amount of the gift proposed to the "holy man" for the exercise of his influence, and carried out the "deal."
If a wealthy man desired a Government appointment; if an under-secretary desired a portfolio; if a wife desired her husband's advancement or his appointment to an office at Court; if a father desired a lucrative job for his profligate son; or if a rich man, who was being watched by the police because of some crime he had committed, wished to escape scot-free, then they interviewed the elegant Prince Gorianoff at his house in the Zacharievskaya. This individual, whom the police of Europe know as a Continental swindler, would quickly gauge the petitioner's means, and screw from him every rouble possible before putting the matter before the caster out of devils.
One day, as I sat alone at lunch with Rasputin, the prince called, and sitting down at the table unceremoniously declared:
"I have done a very good stroke of business this morning, my dear Gregory. You have probably heard of Ganskau of Tver."
"The great banker, eh?"
"The same. He is one of the wealthiest men in Russia. He wants something, and he can afford to pay, though he seems very close-fisted at present."
"What does he want?" growled the monk.
The scoundrel who bore the title of prince made a grimace, and said:
"He wants to put a suggestion before you. He refuses to tell me what it is—except that it is very urgent and brooks no delay. I told him that he would have to pay five thousand roubles if he desired to have an interview—and he has paid it. Here is the money!" And he drew from his pocket a bundle of banknotes.
"But, my dear Peter," exclaimed the pious fraud, "I have no time to barter with these people. I cannot see him."
"Take my advice, Gregory, and listen to what he has to say," replied the adventurer, who had lived all his life on his wits in London, Paris and Rome—and had lived well too. "If I am not mistaken he will tell you a strange thing, and if you get it down in writing—in writing, remember—that letter will be worth a very large sum of money in the near future. As I have said—he wants something urgently—and he must be made to pay."
"Very well," Rasputin replied grudgingly. "I will see him—at four o'clock this afternoon. Féodor," he added, turning to me, "make a note that I see this banker man."
At four o'clock punctually a fine car drew up, and a stout, overdressed, full-bearded man alighted and was shown into the room where I awaited him with the prince.
"Ah!" cried the latter, welcoming him warmly. "You had my message over the telephone. I have, after great difficulty, induced the holy Father to consent to see you. He is due at Tsarskoe-Selo, but he has just telephoned to the Empress that he is delayed. And the delay is in order to hear you."
"I am sure I am most grateful, Prince," declared the banker, who seemed very pale and much agitated. His wealth was proverbial in Russia, and even in banking circles in Paris and London. His brother was one of the secretaries of the Russian Embassy in Paris.
With due ceremony, after the banker had removed his light overcoat, I conducted him into the monk's presence.
As Ganskau bowed towards the mysterious influence behind the Imperial Throne, I saw the quick, inquisitive hawk's glance which Rasputin gave him. Then I turned and, closing the door, left the pair together, and returned to where the prince was waiting. Gorianoff was a clever and unscrupulous scoundrel of exquisite manners and most plausible tongue. It was for that reason that the holy Father employed him.
As he leaned back in a padded arm-chair, smoking lazily while he awaited his victim's reappearance, he laughed merrily and whispered to me that the rich man from Tver would, "if properly handled," prove a gold mine.
"Mind, Féodor—be careful to impress upon the Father to obtain something incriminating from the banker in writing. He is hard pressed, I know, and in order to save himself he will commit any folly."
"Men who are pushed into a corner seldom pause to think," I remarked.
"If the police are upon them, as I know they are in this case, then no time is afforded for reflection."
By the prince's manner I knew that he felt confident of making big profits. The great Ganskau, the Rothschild of Russia, desired Gregory's aid, and Gregory would assist him—at a price. While we were talking Madame Vyrubova rang on the telephone to inquire if Rasputin had left for Tsarskoe-Selo.
I replied in the negative, whereupon she said: "Tell him not to come to-night. The Emperor has quarrelled with Alix, and it will be best for him to be absent. The boy [meaning the little Tsarevitch] will be taken ill in the night, and then he can come to-morrow and heal him."
I understood. The woman Vyrubova, so trusted by the Tsaritza, was about to administer another dose of that baneful drug to the poor invalid boy—a drug which would produce partial paralysis, combined with symptoms which puzzled every physician called to see him.
It was not until nearly half an hour later that Rasputin opened the door of his room, and, crossing himself piously, laid his hands upon his breast and dismissed his petitioner.
"Your desire shall be granted," he said in final farewell. "But you must write me the reason you desire my assistance. I always insist upon that in every case."
"But—well, it is not nice to confess," declared the desperate man, pausing on the threshold of the room.
"Probably not. But you do confess to me, and surely you can trust me, a servant of Heaven, with your secret? If not, please do not rely upon Gregory Rasputin," he added proudly.
For a second the victim hesitated. Then he said in a low, hard voice: "I will do as you wish—well knowing that you will keep the truth a secret."
Rasputin, his hands still crossed upon his breast, bowed stiffly, and the banker, recognising us standing at the end of the passage, walked towards us.
As soon as he had left the house, Rasputin called us, and throwing himself into a chair became unduly hilarious.
"Really, Peter, you are extremely clever!" he declared. "Where you find these people I do not know. You said you had done a good stroke of business, but I did not believe you. Yet now I see that the banker's millions of roubles are entirely at our disposal. We must be diplomatic—that is all!"
"Why does he require your influence?" inquired the prince.
"In order to extricate himself from a very dangerous position. At any moment he may be arrested for murder!"
"For murder!" Gorianoff echoed. "Is he guilty of murder?"
"Yes. He has confessed the truth to me as a father confessor. Now he has promised to put his confession down in black and white."
In an instant I saw the trend of Rasputin's evil thoughts. By the written confession he would, through his princely friend, be able to extort money without limit.
"Of what is he in fear?" asked the prince eagerly.
"Of arrest for the murder of a young French girl, Elise Allain, who had been singing at the Bouffes in Moscow," Rasputin replied. "He has just told me how he committed the crime three months ago, in order to rid himself of her, and escaped to Brussels believing that the police would never be able to establish his guilt. On his return to Tver three days ago, however, he found that the police had been making active inquiries, having discovered in one of the dead girl's trunks that had been left at the station cloak-room in Warsaw, certain letters from him. Indeed, he has received a visit from the Chief of Police at Tver, who closely questioned him."
"Ah! Then he may be arrested at any moment—eh?"
"That is what he anticipates," said the monk. "He has gone to his hotel to write his confession, and will return here in an hour with a banker's draft for one hundred thousand roubles."
"Did I not say that I had been doing some good business, Gregory?" asked his friend.
"Yes—and it will prove better business later—you will see."
At Rasputin's orders I went round to Malinovsky, Assistant Director of Police, who at the monk's request telephoned to Tver to inquire what suspicions there were against the banker Ganskau. When Malinovsky returned to where I was sitting, he told me that the reply of the Chief of Police of Tver was to the effect that there was no doubt that Ganskau was guilty of a very brutal murder, committed in most mysterious circumstances. The banker's wife, with whom he lived on very disagreeable terms, had discovered a letter from the girl Elise, and duly handed it to the police out of revenge. This led them to find the box at Warsaw wherein were other letters, one of which forbade her to come to Russia, and threatening her with violence if she disobeyed.
I returned at once to the Gorokhovaya, where the monk and the prince sat with a bottle of champagne between them, and gave them the message.
A quarter of an hour later the banker returned excitedly, and was ushered in to Rasputin, who saw him alone. They remained together for about ten minutes, and then the victim departed.
At once the monk came to us, waving in one hand Ganskau's confession of guilt, and in the other a draft on the Azov Bank for one hundred thousand roubles.
"I suppose we had better pretend to do something—eh, Peter?" asked the monk, with an evil grin.
"Of course," was the reply.
Then I sat down, and at the "holy man's" dictation wrote to the Minister of the Interior as follows:
"There is a charge of murder against Nicholas Ganskau, banker, of Tver. I wish to see all documents concerning the crime. Orders must be given not to arrest the assassin for one month, and that due notice be given me before any action is taken."
To this the monk scrawled his illiterate signature.
From that moment the unfortunate banker was irretrievably in Rasputin's hands, and I saw much of his dealings with him. Pretending to leave everything with his friend Prince Gorianoff, he refused to see the guilty man again. In the meantime the prince, whom I accompanied as the monk's secretary, went to Tver three weeks after the first transaction, and we saw the victim in secret. Gorianoff told him that, although the monk had been able to prevent his arrest, the police were not satisfied, and pressure was being placed upon them by one of his enemies in high places.
This, of course, greatly alarmed him.
"All is unfortunately due to your wife!" the prince remarked. "It is a pity you have not made peace with her. It was she who took one of the girl's letters to the police."
The banker started up as though electrified.
"My wife!" he gasped. "Is it her doing?"
"Most certainly," was the prince's cool reply. "Féodor knows it. He had it from the Chief of Police of this city himself."
I confirmed my companion's statement, while the banker, terror and despair written upon his pale features, stood staring like one who saw death before him.
"My wife left me a fortnight ago!" he stammered. "That is why. She expected me to be arrested. What can I do? How can you help me? Who is this enemy in a high position who is determined upon my arrest?"
"The holy Father alone knows; I do not," declared the prince very seriously. "It is somebody at Court—somebody who is a friend of his and who let the fact drop in the course of conversation. I regret it, but I may as well tell you that your arrest is imminent."
"But what can I do to avoid the scandal?" cried the murderer in despair.
"Well—the only way is to propitiate your unknown enemy," replied the prince insinuatingly.
"I gave the Father a hundred thousand roubles," he remarked.
"True; and the Father used his influence so that the inquiries were dropped. He had no knowledge of the fact that you had such a bitter and relentless enemy in the higher Court circle."
"Nor had I. I wonder who it can be—except, perhaps, Boyadko, with whom I once had some financial dealings over which we quarrelled."
As a matter of fact, the unknown enemy only existed in Rasputin's fertile imagination.
"Well, as I have said, the Father may find means of propitiating him—if the payment is a liberal one," said Gorianoff. "I suggest that you return with us to Petrograd at once, and I will endeavour to accomplish something."
Eagerly he acted upon the adventurer's advice. During the journey the banker was nervous lest at any moment the police might lay hands upon him. At each station the sight of a grey uniform caused him to hold his breath. Thus to work upon his nerves was part of the prince's game, for he well knew that the more terrified Ganskau became, the greater amount of money he would be prepared to pay.
Back in Petrograd he begged of Rasputin to receive him, and the monk, after two refusals on the plea that he was too busy, at last consented ungraciously.
The result of that interview was that Nicholas Ganskau disgorged a further hundred thousand roubles for the bribing of an enemy who did not exist!
After the banker had left, Rasputin, full of satisfaction as he held the draft for the amount in his dirty paw, dictated to me another letter addressed to the Minister of the Interior, which read:
"His Majesty the Emperor, having full knowledge of the charge of murder made against Nicholas Ganskau of Tver, orders that the inquiries concerning the case be abandoned and that the person suspected be not further molested."
This was duly signed by the monk and delivered by me at the Ministry an hour later.
Such orders Rasputin frequently gave in the name of His Majesty, who, even if he knew of them, never questioned them.
This, however, did not end the affair, for twelve months afterwards Ganskau, who, scot-free, had taken up his residence in the Avenue Villiers, in Paris, where he was leading a very gay life, received an unexpected visit from Prince Gorianoff, who, making pretence that he had severed his friendship with Rasputin, hinted that as the monk held in his possession the written confession of his crime, it might be worth while to obtain and destroy it.
