Part 14 (2/2)
I obeyed, well knowing how that file of incriminating correspondence with an Anarchist group in Zurich had been forged by Sturmer'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, Guera.s.simof, 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 Wilhelmstra.s.se, and with the Empress's full knowledge--of this there is no doubt, because doc.u.mentary 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 Duba.s.sof, in which Count Konovnicin met his death; the attempt upon General Guerchelman, Governor-General of Moscow; the a.s.sa.s.sination 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 Guera.s.simof, chief of the Secret Police, were in the toils of Germany. The Wilhelmstra.s.se 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 doc.u.ments were found concealed--doc.u.ments 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 Guera.s.simof in the centre of it. The killing of Guera.s.simof 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 a.s.sure 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 Cafe Royal in Regent Street.
All this I knew, and much more. I knew that Ivan Manuiloff, who was now secretary to Sturmer, 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.”
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