miliukoff's exposure
Matters were now growing daily more desperate in Russia. Suspense, unrest, and suspicion were rife everywhere, while the deluded people were kept quiet by promises of a great offensive in the near future.
The Minister Protopopoff, wearing his gorgeous uniform, his breast covered with decorations—the man whom Great Britain regarded as so extremely friendly—had just paid a visit to the British Embassy, and on his way home called upon Rasputin.
"It is just as we heard from Moscow," he said to the monk anxiously. "Miliukoff intends to denounce you at the opening of the Duma. He has been in communication with both the French and British Embassies, and as far as I can learn both are in entire agreement with him."
"Then I must save myself," Rasputin declared, stroking his matted beard thoughtfully.
"The British never dream that I have been assisting you in your schemes with Alexandra Feodorovna. That is why they are so friendly with me at the Embassy. Indeed, only yesterday the French Ambassador handed me the latest report upon the output of munitions in France, and the details of their long-range gun. These I copied, and Hardt has left with them for Berlin."
"Truly, we have fooled the Allies exquisitely," laughed the Black Monk. "But if I am denounced, you also will be discovered as my associate, as well as Stürmer, Fredericks, and our other friends."
"That is why the Empress urges you to resort to the 'perfume,'" said the much-decorated traitor.
"Yes, but how?" asked Rasputin. "There is no time."
"There is sufficient."
"What do you suggest?" asked the monk.
"You know little Xenie, who married the Councillor of State, Kalatcheff, last year? She is one of your 'sisters,' is she not?"
The "saint" nodded.
"Well, according to a secret report made to me, she has conceived a violent hatred of Miliukoff, who was once a friend of her husband, and who still admires her. Miliukoff visits her home sometimes, and one day quite recently while in her salon he denounced you. She has been going about declaring him to be your bitterest enemy. If so, could she not invite him to take tea with her—and then?"
"An excellent idea!" cried Rasputin. "Xenie Kalatcheff warned me against Miliukoff some time ago, I recollect. I will see her and sound her upon the subject." Then, turning to me, he asked me to inquire over the telephone if Madame Kalatcheff was at home.
Five minutes later I informed the monk that the lady was at home, and was ready to speak with him if he wished.
At once Rasputin went to the instrument, and, after greeting her gaily, asked if she could possibly come round to see him "on a very urgent affair," to which she at once acceded.
"I had better not see her, so I shall get off," said His Excellency. "Be careful how you treat her. Recollect, her mind may have been poisoned against you by Miliukoff. These members of the Duma are often very clever and cunning."
"Leave the matter in my hands," said the "saint," with a grin. "I will soon ascertain her exact attitude, and act accordingly. First, we must remove Miliukoff, and next Purishkevitch—who is equally our enemy."
About twenty minutes later I ushered into the monk's presence a pretty, handsomely-dressed woman of about twenty-eight, who often attended our reunions, and who was one of the best-known society women in Petrograd.
I was about to turn and leave when Rasputin said:
"You can remain, Féodor. The matter upon which I have to speak with our sister here concerns you as well as myself."
Then, when the wife of the Councillor of State was seated, Rasputin carefully approached the subject of Miliukoff.
"It has been whispered to me that he is my bitter enemy, and that he is about to speak against me in the Duma," he said. "I believe your husband and he are friendly. Do you happen to know if there is any truth in this rumour?"
"Yes, Father, I do," was madame's instant reply. "I warned you of him three weeks ago, but you did not heed. I also told Anna Vyrubova, but her reply was that you, being divine, would be perfectly able to take care of yourself."
"So I am. But it is against God's holy law that human tongues should utter lies against me," he said, cleverly impressing upon her the fact that if Miliukoff were suppressed it would be no crime, but an act of duty.
"To me, in my own house, he has declared his intention of denouncing you—and also our dear Anna and the Empress."
The monk was silent. While she was seated he stood before her with folded arms, looking straight at her. Suddenly, fixing her with those remarkable eyes of his, he asked in a deep, hard voice:
"Xenie, will you permit this man to besmirch the name of him whom God hath sent to you?"
"I don't understand!" she cried, surprised at his attitude. "How can I prevent it?"
"It lies in your hands," declared the mock saint. "You are his friend—and also mine. He visits your house—what more easy—than——"
"Than what?"
"Than you should invite him to take tea with you to-morrow—to discuss myself. He knows that you are a 'disciple,' I suppose?"
"Yes, he has somehow learnt it—but my husband is in ignorance, and he has promised not to reveal the truth to him."
"If he knows of our friendship he might tell your husband. He is unprincipled, and probably will do so. That is why I suggest you should ask him to tea."
As he spoke he crossed to the writing-table, and, opening a drawer with the key upon his chain, he took out the tiny bottle of exquisite Parisian perfume.
"What is that you have there?" she asked, with curiosity, noticing the little bottle. "Scent?"
"Yes," he said, with a mysterious grin. "It is, my dear sister, the Perfume of Death."
"The Perfume of Death?" she echoed. "I don't understand!"
"Then I will tell you, Xenie," he replied, his great hypnotic eyes again fixed upon her. "I do not use perfume myself, but others sometimes, on rare occasions, use this. It is unsuspicious, and can be left upon a lady's dressing-table. A drop used upon a handkerchief emits a most delicate odour, like jasmine, but a single drop in a cup of tea means death. For two hours the doomed person feels no effect. But suddenly he or she becomes faint, and succumbs to heart disease."
"Ah, I see!" she gasped, half-starting from her chair, her face ashen grey. "I—I realise what you intend, Father! I—I——"
And she sank back again in her chair, breathless and aghast, without concluding her sentence.
"No!" she shrieked suddenly. "No; I could not be a poisoner—a murderess! Anything but that!"
"Not for the sake of the one sent by God as saviour of our dear Russia?" he asked reproachfully, in a low, intense tone. "That man Miliukoff is God's enemy—and ours. In your hand lies the means of removing him in secret, without the least suspicion."
And slowly the crafty, insinuating criminal took her inert hand, and pressed the little bottle into its soft palm.
"One drop placed upon the lemon which he takes in his tea will be sufficient," he whispered. "Only be extremely careful of it yourself, and return the bottle to me afterwards. It is best in my safe keeping."
"No! I can't!" cried the wretched woman over whom Rasputin had now once again cast his inexplicable spell.
"But you shall, Xenie! I, your holy Father, command you to render this assistance to your land. None shall ever know. Féodor, who knows all my innermost secrets, will remain dumb. The world cannot suspect, because no toxicologist has ever discovered the existence of the perfume, nor are they able to discern that death has not resulted from heart disease."
"But I should be a murderess!" gasped the unhappy woman beneath that fateful thraldom.
"No. You will be fulfilling a duty—a sin imposed upon you in order that, by committing it, you shall purify yourself for a holy life in future," he said, referring to one of the principles of his erotic "religion."
She began to waver, and instantly I saw that Rasputin had won—as he won always with women—and that the patriot Miliukoff had been sentenced to death.
"Go!" he commanded at last. "Go, and do my bidding. Return to-morrow night, and tell me of your—success!"
Then he bowed out the reluctant but fascinated young woman, who in her silver chain-bag carried the small bottle of perfume.
That night Rasputin, after drinking half a bottle of brandy, retired to bed, declaring that women were only created to be the servants of men. Then I sat down, and taking a sheet of plain and very common writing-paper, I typed upon it a warning to the man who, at the Empress's suggestion, was to be so ruthlessly "removed." The words I typed were:
"You will be invited to tea to-morrow by Xenie Kalatcheff. Do not accept. There is a plot to cause your death. This warning is from—A Friend."
I typed an envelope with Monsieur Miliukoff's address, and then, slipping to the door quietly, I stole out and dropped it in the letter-box at the corner of the Kazanskaya.
That I had saved the deputy's life I knew next afternoon when Madame Kalatcheff sent round a hurried note to Rasputin, explaining that, though she had invited him to her house, he had rather curtly refused the invitation.
At this the monk telephoned her to come round, and once again she sat in his room explaining that she had sent Miliukoff a note urging him to see her at four o'clock, as she wished to make some revelations concerning the monk that might be useful to him when speaking in the Duma. The reply, which she produced, was certainly couched in most indignant terms.
"Can he suspect, do you think, Féodor?" he asked, turning to me.
"How can he?" I asked. "Perhaps, knowing madame to be a 'disciple,' he doubts the genuineness of her promised disclosures."
"Perhaps so," Xenie said. "But what can I do if he suspects me? Nothing that I can see."
The pair sat anxiously discussing the situation for the next half-hour, until at last the State Councillor's wife, handing back the little bottle of perfume to the monk, rose and left.
I was secretly much gratified that I had been able to save the Deputy's life, yet Rasputin continued to discuss other plans with me, repeating:
"The fellow must die. Alexandra Feodorovna has willed it. While he lives he will always be a constant menace. He must die! He shall die!"
Our national hymn, "Boje Tzaria khrani" ("God save the Tsar"), was being sung at the moment in the streets, because news of a victory in Poland had just been given out to the public.
Already the foundation stone of the revolution had been laid, and M. Miliukoff, with purely patriotic motives, had assisted in cementing it. The Senatorial revision which was ordained to inquire into General Soukhomlinoff's treachery had, owing to Miliukoff's activity, ordered a search at the amorous old fellow's private abode early in the spring, with the result that he found himself incarcerated in the fortress of Peter and Paul. When the general was arrested, madame his wife—an adventuress named Gaskevitch, who had commenced life as a typist in a solicitor's office, and who was many years his junior—had a terrible attack of hysteria, for things had taken for her a most unexpected turn. The woman had been implicated in intrigue and treachery ever since. After copying some secret papers for a man in Kiev, she had blackmailed him, obtained a big sum of money, and then married a man named Boulovitch, a prosperous landed proprietor. By thus entering the higher circle of society in Kiev, she got to know General Soukhomlinoff, its Governor-General, who connived with her to obtain a divorce from Boulovitch, so that she subsequently married the bald-headed old Don Juan a few months after his appointment as War Minister.
Madame and Rasputin were ever hand-in-glove. From the moment the general was arrested she had worked with singular energy and adroitness to retrieve her husband's fallen fortune, and in doing so she assisted to lay the beginning of the first Revolution. She enlisted the sympathy of Rasputin, Anna Vyrubova and the Empress, all of whom were gravely apprehensive as to what might come out at the general's trial. She even threw herself at the feet of Alexandra Feodorovna, imploring her to intercede with the Emperor so as to save her calumniated and injured husband. And at last she succeeded.
The inquiries were suspended, the newspapers were silent regarding the scandal, and suddenly it became known that, "owing to the general's mental state," it had been decided, on the advice of a board of well-known medical specialists, to liberate him!
This astounding news passed from mouth to mouth, and Miliukoff, the patriotic fire-brand, declared everywhere that it was Rasputin's work. The news produced the most sinister impression upon the people, especially on those connected with the Army. The man who had been the primary cause of Russia's reverses was to escape punishment! It was, indeed, this insensate act of folly on the part of the Tsar which had undermined the people's trust in their Emperor, and gave Rasputin's enemies—and more especially Miliukoff—opportunity for his bitter denunciation.
On the afternoon of the day before the opening of the Duma, Rasputin received another letter from the Empress, in cipher, as follows:
"Dear Father,—Nikki still refuses to postpone the Duma, though I have done all I can to induce him to do so. Come to us at once and try to force him to our views. Not a moment should be lost. I have just heard that Miliukoff is still active, so conclude that what you told me has failed.
"P. [Protopopoff] has told me an hour ago that Skoropadski Purishkevitch. They will be produced in the Duma to-morrow. The police traced Skoropadski to Riga, but they have failed to arrest him, and he has, alas! escaped to Sweden.
"Holy Father, do not delay a moment in coming to your daughter to comfort her in this her blackest hour! Miliukoff must be prevented from denouncing you. I cannot conceive how your arrangement with Madame Kalatcheff has failed. The perfume has never failed before. Alix is constantly asking for you, and Olga kisses your dear hand. Seek the Emperor at once before coming to me, or he may suspect us to be in collusion. I have quarrelled with him, because by his obstinacy he will ruin us all. How I wish that Miliukoff would be stricken down! Do not delay. Come!—Your devoted daughter,
"A."
Well I knew that the German-born Empress was sitting alone in the palace breathlessly anxious as to what disclosures were forthcoming. She was not blind to her increasing unpopularity and to the unkind things said openly of her. Somebody had just started a rumour that there was a secret wireless plant at the palace, by which she could communicate direct with Potsdam. Indeed, so many people believed this that, after the Tsar's abdication, every nook, corner and garret of Tsarskoe-Selo was searched, but without success. Stürmer, Fredericks, Protopopoff, the poison-monger Badmayev, Anna Vyrubova, and half-a-dozen others, who formed the dark and sinister forces that were rapidly hurling Russia to her doom, were that day as anxious and terrified as the Empress herself. Well they knew that if Miliukoff, armed with those incriminating documents—the exact nature of which they knew not—spoke the truth in the Legislature, then a storm of indignation would sweep over them in such a manner that they could never withstand it.
Rasputin, thus summoned, went at once to the palace, and I accompanied him. He proceeded straight to the Emperor's private room, while I waited in a room adjoining.
I heard their voices raised. The Emperor's was raised in protest; that of the monk in angry threats.
"If thou wilt not postpone the Duma, then the peril will be upon thine own head!" I heard Rasputin shout. "Why allow these revolutionary deputies to criticise thy policy and undermine thy popularity with the nation? It is folly! Such policy is suicidal, and if thou wilt persist I shall withdraw and return to my home, well knowing that to-morrow the day of Russia's doom will dawn."
"The people are clamouring for the reopening of the Duma," replied the Emperor weakly. "I can do nothing else but submit."
"I have had a vision," declared the monk. "Last night there was revealed unto me the dire result of thy folly. I saw thee, the victim of thy nation's anger, dethroned, degraded and imprisoned."
But even that lie failed to induce the Tsar to alter his decision, and naturally so, for he was afraid of the dark cloud which he saw rising, and which he believed to be due to the long adjournment of the Duma. Hence he was afraid to take the monk's advice.
Again I heard both men's voices raised in hot argument.
"I am Emperor!" cried the Tsar at last, angrily, in a high, shrill tone, "and I refuse to be thus dictated to!"
Next second there was a loud crash of glass, and I heard Rasputin shout:
"Thou refuseth to listen to good counsel! As I have smashed that bowl, so will the people, I tell thee, rise and smash the House of Romanoff!"
With those words he turned, and a moment later rejoined me, his face flushed with anger, and his knotted fingers clenched.
He went straight to the Empress and told her of his failure to move Nicholas from his decision.
"But surely this man Miliukoff must be prevented from speaking!" cried the unhappy woman, who saw all her deep-laid schemes crumbling rapidly away, and herself branded as a traitress. "Father, you must work yet another miracle. He must be seized by a sudden illness—an accident must happen to him, or—or something!"
Rasputin shook his head dubiously, declaring that there was no time to arrange a second attempt.
"Have you put it to Protopopoff?" she asked. "He might suggest some means, now that the woman Kalatcheff has failed us. If not—he will speak—and we are lost! Think, Father, what it all means! There is already public unrest created by the rumours that we have unfortunately spread of pending disaster, and if they are followed by such charges supported by documents, then revolution is inevitable!"
I saw that the Tsaritza, now that every means to secure Miliukoff's silence had failed, was terrified lest she be exhibited in her own true traitorous colours.
Back we went to Petrograd, where we called at Protopopoff's house, and where still another attempt against Miliukoff's life was plotted.
By telephone an ex-agent of Secret Police named Stefanovitch, who had done much work as an agent-provocateur for the camarilla, was called, and a price was at once arranged for the murder of the Deputy.
He was to be shot at and killed outside the Tauris Palace, just before two o'clock, as he was entering the Duma. He would probably be walking round to the Chamber from his house with his bosom friend M. Purishkevitch.
"You will surely know somebody to whom the affair can be entrusted, Ivan," said the Minister of the Interior. "If arrested, he will be allowed ample opportunity to escape. Naturally he would not come up for trial. I would see to that. So you can give him my personal assurance."
"I should suggest a woman," said the man Stefanovitch. "I know one who would not hesitate to act as we wish. Her name is Marie Grozdoff, a Polish Jewess. I can trust her. She has done something similar for us before."
"And the price?"
"The price will be all right," replied the provocating agent, with a business-like air.
"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 passed 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 Ambassadors, 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 Stürmer 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 Stürmer, who was present, rose and left after its conclusion.
Then, when the applause and cheering of the Ambassadors of the Allies had died down; Paul Miliukoff, the brilliant leader of the Constitutional 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 Stürmer's overthrow. Boldly and relentlessly he showed his hearers the favour with which the Teutons regarded Stürmer 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 Stürmer as a member "of those circles which look on the war against Germany without particular enthusiasm"; that Stürmer'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 Stürmer'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 instituted 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 Stürmer 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 circumstances, conditions, or national honour. He quoted further passages 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 assumed 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.
"Yes, gentlemen," he went on, striking the bundle of papers which lay upon the desk before him, "I have here documentary evidence of the traitorous actions of this camarilla, who are attempting to lead Russia to her doom—papers which shall be revealed to you all in due course. It is said that the Prime Minister has already left the Chamber to make a personal report to His Majesty of the President's speech. All I trust is that the words I have just uttered will also reach the Emperor's ears, and that he will trouble himself to examine the irrefutable evidence of Rasputin's diabolical work at the Palace and in the Ministries, and the crafty machinations of the 'black forces' in our midst."
The Manuiloff disclosures were sufficiently dramatic, but this outspoken exposure of Rasputin, the more bitter, perhaps, because of my warnings of the two attempts to assassinate him, caused the House to gasp.
The very name of Rasputin had only been breathed in whispers, and his cult was referred to vaguely as something mysterious connected with the occult. But in that speech, to which I sat and listened, Miliukoff hit straight from the shoulder, and called a spade a spade. One of his phrases was, "Russia can never win so long as this convicted criminal and seducer of women is allowed to work his amazing power upon the rulers of the Empire. Remove him!" he went on. "Let him be placed safely within the walls of Peter and Paul, together with his 'sisters,' and with all his brother-traitors, and then there will be no more suggestion of a separate peace. Remove his evil influence!" shouted the fine orator, his voice ringing through the Chamber. "I say, remove him from the Imperial circle, or Russia is doomed!"
I left the Duma by that long stone staircase with a feeling that at last the power behind the Throne, nay, the very Throne itself, was broken.
I sped to Rasputin's house, and with pretended regret related all that had occurred.
Hearing it, he sprang to the telephone, declaring in a hoarse voice: "The Censor must prohibit every word of it from publication. I will demand this of Nicholas!"
And a few moments later he was speaking with the Emperor, urging that an order to the Censor be immediately issued—a suggestion that was at once carried out.
Meanwhile a dramatic scene was being enacted in the Empress's boudoir, for that day proved the beginning of the end of the holy Father's career, as well as that of Alexandra Feodorovna, Empress of Russia.