Chapter Eleven.
Bamboozling the Allies.
As a result of the denunciation in the Duma of “Russia’s dark forces,” Boris Stürmer was deprived of the Premiership and appointed by the Tsaritza’s influence to a high office in the Imperial household, where he could still unite with Baron Frédéricks in playing Germany’s game.
A few days after this re-shuffling of the cards, M. Trepoff, the new Premier, made a reassuring statement to the Duma, in which he said: “There will never be a premature or separate peace. Nothing can change this resolution, which is the inflexible will of the august Russian sovereign, who stands for the whole of his faithful people.”
How Rasputin and the camarilla must have chuckled when they read these words of reassurance!
On the very day that declaration was made the monk had received a telegram in cipher from Stockholm, whither it had been first sent from the Königgratzer-strasse in Berlin, and which, de-coded, reads as follows:
“Gregersen (a well-known German agent who had actively assisted von Papen in America) is arriving at Archangel upon a munition ship from New York. You will have early news of him. See that he is placed under P.’s (Protopopoff’s) protection. He will bring you four boxes. Do not open them, but see they are stored carefully. Hand them to our friend R. (Professor Rogovitch, of Samara, a bacteriologist and friend of Rasputin).—Number 70.”
The monk had “early news” of the arrival of the spy Gregersen, for on the day following the receipt of that advice of his coming, the ship upon which he had travelled from New York blew up in Archangel harbour, and no fewer than one thousand, eight hundred persons were killed or injured! Gregersen arrived at the Gorokhovaya that same night, and there met Protopopoff, who furnished him with false papers, upon which his photograph was pasted and sealed.