Part 39 (2/2)

”Then we entrust the affair to you, Ivan,” said His Excellency. ”You will receive for yourself ten thousand roubles if Miliukoff dies.”

And the man went forth to find the woman, who, for money, would not hesitate to commit murder.

That night proved a sleepless one for us all. I tried to warn Miliukoff again by sending him an anonymous letter, which I posted in secret after the monk had retired. But my great fear was lest the letter would not reach his hand in time. Probably it would not be delivered till the midday post--and if so, he would not see it till after the opening of the Duma!

Next morning pa.s.sed anxiously. Protopopoff had told us over the telephone that Stefanovitch had seen the woman Grozdoff, and that all was arranged.

I went early to the Duma, and sat among the crowd in the public gallery, while Rasputin remained at home, and the Empress at the palace, with Anna near the telephone, she having arranged for brief reports of the proceedings to be telephoned to her at intervals of a quarter of an hour each during the sitting.

M. Michael Rodzianko, the President, gravely took his seat on the stroke of two, and the House was crowded. The diplomatic boxes were filled to overflowing, the British, French, Italian and United States Amba.s.sadors, together with the Ministers of most of the neutral countries, being present.

The usual prayer was offered, but neither M. Miliukoff nor M.

Purishkevitch was in his place!

Had the attempt been successful? I held my breath and wondered. I had been listening for a shot, but heard nothing.

Suddenly my heart gave a bound. A pleasant-looking, grey-haired man, in gold-rimmed spectacles, and carrying a big bundle of papers, had entered by the back way, and was walking to his seat. It was M. Miliukoff! He had had my anonymous letter, and had come in by the back way, being followed by his bearded, bald-headed friend. Once again had I been able to warn him of danger.

The Government was now dancing upon a volcano.

The sitting opened, the President Rodzianko made a speech in which he criticised severely the policy of the Sturmer Government, and everyone realised the seriousness of the situation now that the President of the Duma came out against the Prime Minister.

”The Government must learn from us what the country needs,” said Rodzianko fiercely. ”The Government must not follow a path different from the people. With the confidence of the nation it must head the social forces in the march toward victory over the enemy, along the path that harmonises with the aspirations of the people. There is no other path to be followed.”

Then the President went on to declare that, though there was no discord among the Allies, yet there was no trick that the enemy would not play with the treacherous object of wrecking their alliance. ”Russia will not betray her friends,” he declared, ”and I say she, with contempt, refuses any consideration of a separate peace.”

The speech was greeted with thunderous outbursts of applause, while Sturmer, who was present, rose and left after its conclusion.

Then, when the applause and cheering of the Amba.s.sadors of the Allies had died down; Paul Miliukoff, the brilliant leader of the Const.i.tutional Democrats, rose gravely and began to speak.

That speech, which the camarilla had vainly striven strenuously to suppress, proved historic, and was mainly the cause of Sturmer's overthrow. Boldly and relentlessly he showed his hearers the favour with which the Teutons regarded Sturmer and the consternation caused in the Allied camp by his activities. Reading extracts from German and Austrian newspapers, he brought out the fact that the Central Powers regarded Sturmer as a member ”of those circles which look on the war against Germany without particular enthusiasm”; that Sturmer's appointment to the Foreign Ministry was greeted in the Teutonic countries as the beginning of a new era in Russian politics, while the dismissal of Sazonov produced in the Entente countries an effect ”such as would have been produced by a pogrom.”

The crowning sensation, however, was what he revealed concerning Sturmer's connection with the blackmailing operations of his private secretary, Manasevitch-Manuiloff, who, a few weeks before, had been arrested on a charge of bribery. The secretary told the directors of a Petrograd bank that proceedings were being inst.i.tuted against them by the Ministry of the Interior for alleged trading with the enemy, and offered to suppress the affair ”through influential friends” for a large consideration.

The representatives of the bank had special reasons to get even with the ”dark forces,” and especially Protopopoff, since the retired Minister of the Interior, A. N. Khvostov, was a brother of the bank's president.

Khvostov owed his dismissal to a plot to kill Rasputin, which was investigated by Manuiloff. The directors of the bank, therefore, accepted the fellow's offer, handing him over a large sum of money in marked notes.

Later Manuiloff was arrested by the military authorities with the bribe in his possession. His release, however, followed soon, and the name of Manuiloff was on everybody's lips. Miliukoff, in his speech, said, regarding Manuiloff's liberation:

”Why was this gentleman arrested? That has been known long ago, and I shall be saying nothing new if I tell you what you already know, namely, that he was arrested for extorting bribes, and that he was liberated because--that is also no secret--he told the examining magistrates that he shared the bribes with the President of the Council of Ministers.”

Thus was Boris Sturmer denounced as a traitor and blackmailer!

But worse was to follow. M. Miliukoff vehemently condemned the Empress for her support of the plan, originated in Germany, of a speedy and separate peace, regardless of circ.u.mstances, conditions, or national honour. He quoted further pa.s.sages from German newspapers, in which ”_die Friedens-partei der jungen Tzarin_” (the Peace Party of the young Tsaritza) was freely discussed. He was very outspoken in referring to the ”dark forces” which surrounded the Throne and had lately a.s.sumed such overwhelming dimensions, and he openly declared ”that man, the monk Gregory Rasputin, the ex-horse-stealer and pet saint of Alexandra Feodorovna, is, gentlemen, nothing more than an erotic charlatan, who is the catspaw of the Kaiser!”

The effect of this was electrical. The House sat staggered.

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