Part 9 (1/2)

Instead of going to Tsarskoe-Selo we retired to the saint's little den, where we opened a bottle of champagne, of which we all three drank.

”Well, my friend Hardt?” asked the monk, flinging himself carelessly into his easy chair and unb.u.t.toning his long black coat for comfort. ”What has happened? You can, as you know, speak before our faithful Feodor,” he added.

”I have waiting outside a young woman whom I want you to see,” replied the German agent.

”Does she wish to enter our circle?” inquired the monk, adding with his usual avariciousness: ”Has she money?”

”No--neither,” was Hardt's reply. ”She does not want to become one of your disciples; indeed, the less you say on that matter the better!”

”Then why should I trouble to see her?”

”I will tell you all after you have chatted with her. May Feodor invite her in? She is sitting in a droshky outside.”

”If you wish,” growled Rasputin. ”But why all this mystery? I have much to do. I am due at Countess Ignatieff's--and am already late.”

”Remain patient, I beg of you, Father,” urged the German suavely. ”I am acting upon instructions--from Number Seventy.”

”From Number Seventy!” echoed the monk, instantly realising that Hardt, an agent of the German Secret Service, was carrying out some well-concealed and ingenious project. ”Very well,” he said. ”I rely upon you not to delay me longer than necessary. Feodor,” he added, turning to me with that lofty air which his low mujik mind sometimes conceived to be superiority, ”go and find this mysterious young person.”

A few minutes later I conducted into the saint's presence a dark-haired, extremely handsome young woman of about thirty, who spoke with considerable refinement and whose arrival mystified me greatly.

Hardt introduced her to the holy man, saying:

”This is Mademoiselle Vera Baltz, of Stavropol, a friend of His Excellency Peter Stolypin.”

”Ah! Welcome, my dear mademoiselle,” exclaimed the monk affably. ”So you are a friend of His Excellency--when he was Governor of Samara, I suppose?”

”Yes. I have come here because I crave your a.s.sistance. Monsieur Hardt knows all the circ.u.mstances, and will explain.”

The saint turned to the fair-haired man seated opposite him, Mademoiselle Baltz having been given an easy-chair close by Rasputin's table. It was a writing-table, but the scoundrel never wrote. Sometimes he pretended to do so, but the truth was that it was a long and painful procedure with him. He preferred to scrawl his initials to any typewritten letter which I prepared.

”The explanation is briefly this, Father,” said Hardt in his businesslike way. ”Mademoiselle has been the dupe of His Excellency, who, while Governor, often went to Stavropol, where he stayed at an hotel under another name. Mademoiselle never knew his ident.i.ty until a year ago, when she saw his photograph in the papers as Prime Minister. She never knew that he was married--though I have here a letter in which he proposes marriage to her.”

And he produced from his pocket a note, bearing the heading of the Centralnaya Hotel at Samara, which Rasputin read through.

”Well?” asked the Starets, blowing a cloud of cigarette smoke from his bearded lips.

”Mademoiselle is anxious to meet His Excellency.”

”Ah! I see,” exclaimed the monk, whose mind at once turned to blackmail, a course which he himself was actively pursuing. ”Mademoiselle wishes for money--eh?”

”No, Father,” replied the young woman stoutly. ”Not money--only justice!

Peter Stolypin misled me, as you see according to his letter. I am but one of his many victims, and I desire to expose him.”

”H'm!” grunted Rasputin, who, having ascertained that no monetary consideration was forthcoming, was not particularly interested in the affair. He never did anything without reward. Those who could pay him well obtained through his influence at Court high office and big emoluments. Within my own knowledge in at least twenty cases he was already receiving heavy percentages upon the salaries, including those of two bishops and three under-secretaries, who had been dug out from nowhere and pitchforked into office by him.

By his influence with Nicholas the rascal ruled Russia with a relentless recklessness unparalleled in all history.

”Mademoiselle has already had audience of Her Majesty, who has sent her here to interview you,” Hardt explained. ”I am placing her case in the hands of our friend Altschiller.”