Part 9 (2/2)
The latter was a well-known lawyer, who, by the way, was afterwards proved to be a spy of Austria.
”What do you desire of me, my dear young lady?” asked Rasputin in the paternal manner he so often a.s.sumed towards the fair s.e.x who hung about the hem of his ragged robe, and knelt so constantly before him for his blessing.
”You, Father, are all-powerful in Russia,” replied Vera Baltz. ”Her Majesty told me that you would help me to--to destroy Stolypin,” she said with a fierce expression in her black eyes.
Rasputin exchanged glances with the secret agent of Potsdam who, I knew, did so much dirty work on the Empress's behalf.
”What Her Majesty desires, I am here to obey,” was the monk's quiet response. ”I pray that no injustice be done,” the blasphemer added, piously crossing himself.
”Injustice!” cried the girl angrily. ”He deceived me, and left me to starve when he received his advancement and came here to Petrograd. He became the Tsar's favourite because of his cruel and harsh treatment of our poor people of Samara, and has climbed to office over the bodies of those shot down in the streets at his orders. Injustice! There is a.s.suredly no injustice to drag the ghastly truth concerning him into the light of day.”
”Not at all! I quite agree,” said Rasputin, rising and shaking her hand.
”You can tell your lawyer from me that you have my a.s.sistance, but in strictest secrecy, of course. Not a soul must know of it, remember!” he added, looking straight at her with that strange hypnotic glance of his, a gaze beneath which she quivered visibly.
”I shall remain silent,” she promised.
”If the truth leaks out that you have seen either Her Majesty or myself, then I shall instantly become your enemy, and not your friend,” the monk declared.
”Only Monsieur Hardt knows,” the girl said. ”It was he who took me to Peterhof.”
”You may rely upon the silence of both my friends,” Rasputin a.s.sured her, and a moment later I conducted her downstairs and out into the street.
When I returned to where Rasputin was still seated with his visitor, the latter was, I found, making explanation how he had, after considerable difficulty, traced the woman Baltz at the Empress's orders and taken her to the Palace, first, however, prompting her to seek revenge upon the Prime Minister.
”I cannot understand it at all,” Hardt added.
”I do. Cannot you see that Stolypin is violently anti-German and openly disapproves of the Germanophile party at Court?”
”But he is closeted daily with the Emperor, I understand. And the Empress grants him frequent audiences.”
”Because she is endeavouring to ascertain the true extent of His Excellency's knowledge of her own dealings with our friends in Berlin,”
was the monk's reply. ”Alix pretends to be most gracious to him, yet she is distinctly antagonistic, more from fear than anything else. To-day he is a favourite at Court, to-morrow----”
And Grichka made a wide sweep with his dirty knotted hand without concluding his sentence.
”Has Her Majesty spoken to you concerning her fears that Stolypin has discovered something?” asked the man Hardt eagerly.
The monk grinned meaningly.
”Her Majesty is taking precautions,” he replied evasively. ”Possibly Stolypin has discovered the reason you travelled to Berlin a month ago. I have an idea that you were watched by the Okhrana.”
”Do you really think so?” gasped the German in quick apprehension. ”Why do you suspect?”
”From something whispered to me a week ago.”
”Then Stolypin may know that Alexandra Feodorovna is behind the traitorous dealings of Colonel Mia.s.soyedeff on the frontier--eh?”
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