Part 36 (2/2)
The interview was a strikingly dramatic one. She penitent, submissive, and full of hatred of the spy under whose influence she had fallen; the monk cold, brutal, and unforgiving.
”Yes,” he said at last, when she offered him a monetary consideration in exchange for his silence. ”But I am not content with a few paltry roubles. I am collecting for my new monastery at Kertch, and what you give will atone to G.o.d for your crime.”
Within ten minutes she had written out a cheque for the whole of her private fortune, while at the monk's dictation I wrote out a declaration that his allegations were false, a doc.u.ment which he signed and handed to her, together with Lachkarioff's original statement.
Even then Rasputin's cunning was not at its limit.
Lachkarioff's usefulness to Germany in Russia was at an end. He was in Gothenburg, and being a close friend of an English journalist there, it was feared lest he should allow himself to be interviewed, and reveal something of the truth concerning the subterranean working of Germany in Petrograd.
”The man's lips ought to be closed,” Steinhauer had written to Rasputin only a week before. ”Can you suggest any way? While he lives he will be a menace to us all. Filimonoff is safe in an asylum in Copenhagen, though I believe he is perfectly sane. Only it is best that no risk should be run.”
Here were means ready to hand to close the mouth of Felix Lachkarioff, for the woman whom he had betrayed was furiously vengeful.
”You said the other day that you would be ready to strike a blow at that enemy of Russia who has so grossly misled you,” Rasputin said to her in a deep, earnest voice, as she sat in his room. ”Would not such a course be deeply patriotic? Why not, as expiation of your sin, travel to Gothenburg and avenge those hundreds of poor people who were his victims at Obukhov?
I can give into your hand the means,” he added, looking her straight in the face.
”What means?” she asked.
He crossed to his writing-table, and, unlocking a drawer with a key upon his chain, he took out a tiny bottle of extremely expensive Parisian perfume, a pale-green liquid, which he handed to her.
”It looks like scent,” he remarked, with a grin, ”but it contains something else--something so potent that a single drop introduced into food or drink will produce death within an hour, the symptoms being exactly those of heart disease. That is what deaths resulting from it are always declared to be. So there is no risk. Meet him, be friendly, dine with him for the sake of old days in Petrograd, and before you leave him he will be doomed,” added Rasputin, in a low whisper. ”He surely deserves it after deceiving you as he has done!”
”He certainly does,” she declared fiercely, unable to overlook how he had betrayed her. ”And I will do it!” she added, taking up the little bottle.
”Russia shall be avenged.”
”Excellent, my dear sister. You will indeed be rewarded,” declared Rasputin, crossing himself. ”When you return to Petrograd, give me back that precious little bottle of perfume, which I call the Perfume of Death.”
That the woman did not fail to carry out her promise was certain, for within a fortnight we heard in a secret dispatch that Hardt brought us from Berlin that the agent Lachkarioff had died suddenly from heart disease after dining with a Russian lady friend at the Grand Hotel in Stockholm.
Truly, the grip in which Germany held Russia and its Government was an iron one, and death most a.s.suredly came to those whom Berlin feared, or who were in any way obnoxious to the German war party.
Ten days later a small packet was left at the house, addressed to the monk. When I opened it I found the little Parisian perfume bottle.
One morning, a week later, I went with Rasputin to the Ministry of the Interior, where we were ushered into the small, elegant private room of ”Satan-in-a-silk-hat” Protopopoff, who greeted us cordially. But as soon as the door was closed, and he had invited us to be seated, he rose, turned the key, and, facing us, gravely said:
”Gregory, I fear something serious is about to happen. Late last night I received an urgent visit from the Under-director of Secret Police of Moscow, who had come post-haste to tell me that there has been a secret meeting between Miliukoff and the Grand Dukes Serge and Dmitri in that city, and it has been decided that at the reopening of the Duma Miliukoff will rise and publicly expose us.”
”What?” shrieked the monk, starting. ”Is that what is intended?” he asked breathlessly.
”Yes. He apparently knows the authors of the outrage at Obukhov and our a.s.sociation with them. It is believed that he actually holds doc.u.mentary evidence of the money which we pa.s.sed through the Volga-Kama Bank, in Tula.”
”But this must be prevented at all hazards,” declared Rasputin. ”We cannot allow him to denounce us. Not that anybody will believe him. But it is not policy at this moment. Public opinion is highly inflamed.”
”I agree. Of course, n.o.body will believe him. Yet he is dangerous, and if he denounces us in the Duma it will come as a bombsh.e.l.l. I called upon Anna Vyrubova early this morning, and she has gone to the palace,” said Protopopoff.
Rasputin remained silent, his hand stroking his ragged beard, a habit of his when working out some scheme more devilish than others.
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