Part 20 (2/2)
”I discovered a good deal last night. The syndicate is already formed.
One hundred thousand pounds has been subscribed, and next week Yakowleff is leaving for Paris, and thence back to Petrograd.”
Within half an hour I had telegraphed the news to Box 296, Poste Restante, Petrograd, which was the one used by Rasputin.
In reply I received from the monk a message which read:
”Obtain names of subscribers.”
This I succeeded in doing after some considerable trouble, and they were the names of some of the shrewdest speculators in the City, none of them over-scrupulous, no doubt. To Rasputin I wired that I had the list, and asked for instructions, to which I received the reply:
”Excellent! Return without delay.--GREGORY.”
On my way back, during those many hours in the Nord Express between Ostend and Petrograd, I reviewed the whole affair, and saw the sinister working of the monk's mind. That Count Vorontsof Dachkof was in danger I knew full well. The monk never allowed any person to express open enmity without retaliating quietly and patiently, but with a crus.h.i.+ng blow.
I wondered what was being planned between the Ministers of War and Interior. No doubt the Empress had been informed of what the count had told the Emperor, and she would at once conspire with the holy Father to cast him into social oblivion--or worse!
That the cupidity of Rasputin knew no bounds I was well aware. He intended to obtain that most lucrative gambling concession for himself, for Russians are born gamblers, especially the better cla.s.ses, and the establishment of a casino on the Black Sea, with French hotels and restaurants, pretty villas, and an opera house in imitation of Monte Carlo, would in summer attract those thousands of rich Russians who in winter went to the Riviera to gamble.
It was a chance which Rasputin would never allow to slip. Of that I was quite certain.
The evening I returned to Petrograd the monk had left me a message to go to Tsarskoe-Selo; therefore I took my green pa.s.s, which admitted me past the many guards of the innermost holy-of-holies, the Imperial apartments, where I knew I should find the real ruler of Russia.
He had been spending the evening with the Empress, her daughter Olga, and Anna, and when I sent word to him he joined me in a small ante-room, and, closing the door, eagerly questioned me.
”When does Yakowleff return from Paris?” he asked when I had read over to him the list of those adventurous London financiers who had put their money into the Otchakov scheme.
”Next Thursday he leaves,” I said. ”Madame has gone to Paris on pretence of shopping, but in reality to keep watch. 'Axanda, Poste Restante, Avenue de l'Opera,' will find her. She arranged it with me before we parted.”
”Then this money-bag has really formed an influential syndicate in London to exploit our country--eh?” asked the monk grimly. ”I have been speaking to the Empress about it, and she declares that the whole circ.u.mstance of Nicholas granting a concession, and for such service, is scandalous.”
Scandalous! Surely Alexandra Feodorovna knew that her own actions had caused her name to be execrated through the length and breadth of Russia.
Helidor and the ”Blessed Mitia” had both attempted to reveal what they knew. Helidor and Mitia had many powerful friends, so they were severely left alone by the police; yet others who but opened their mouths and criticised had been sent to prison without trial, while those who had gained undue knowledge and might transmit it to England or America were sent to those dreaded oubliettes of Schlusselburg--worse even than the Bastille, and not one has ever returned across the lake alive.
Rasputin was at that moment occupied by two matters--first, the fierce antagonism of Vorontsof Dachkof; and secondly, his avariciousness concerning the concession for gambling at that pretty little town east of Odessa.
So wide was the monk's influence that, hearing at that moment that the King of the h.e.l.lenes had granted to another British syndicate a concession to open public gaming-tables in Corfu, Rasputin had already been to Sturmer, the President of the Council, and contrived to have diplomatic pressure brought through Prince Demidoff, Russian Minister at Athens, to bear upon the King to cancel the concession as opposed to public morals! This view Rasputin contrived to have supported by the Wilhelmstra.s.se, because the Kaiser had his spring palace in the vicinity, and, with his mock piety, he discountenanced any Temple of Fortune. The result was that the Corfu casino was prohibited.
Thus the Otchakov scheme was the only one in Europe. San Sebastian was declared by the monk to be only on a par with Ostend, and Otchakov was to be the great rival of Monte Carlo, with more varied and added attractions.
In that room, while he was hearing me through, Protopopoff, who had been making a report to the Emperor, joined us, and listened to what I had to say.
”I was looking at Yakowleff's _dossier_ to-day, as you wished,” remarked the Minister to the monk. ”He seems a very honest, clean-living man for a financier. There are no suspicions of disloyalty, or even of anything.”
”Then they must be made,” declared Rasputin. ”I intend to hold that concession. He would never have had it had it not been for Dachkof. But the latter is already out of favour. The Emperor has promised me to dismiss him to-morrow. His Majesty prefers cheerful people, not men who are pessimists,” he laughed.
Indeed, next day the count, who was one of the most loyal and devoted servants of the Romanoffs, and who had risked everything in an attempt to open the Emperor's eyes, was actually dismissed. Such was the power of Rasputin.
But the plot against Yakowleff to dispossess him of the concession for Otchakov was a much more deeply-laid and evil one. The financier had returned to Petrograd, flushed with his success with his moneyed friends in London. Already news had gone round that a wonderful casino was to be built to eclipse Monte Carlo, and he had given an interview to the _Novoye Vremya_ concerning it.
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