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 crushing 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 classes, 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 pass, 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'Opéra,' will find her. She arranged it with me before we parted."