At noon next day we had news of a terrible disaster. Precisely at half-past eleven the city of Petrograd had been shaken to its foundations by a terrific explosion, followed by half a dozen others, which shattered windows and blew down signs and chimneys in all parts of the city. At first everyone stood aghast as explosion followed explosion. Then it transpired that the great munition works at Okhta, across the Neva, opposite the Smolny Monastery, had suddenly blown up, and that hundreds of workers had been killed and maimed and the whole of the newly-constructed plant wrecked beyond repair.
I was just entering Rasputin's room at the palace when a flunkey told me the news.
When a moment later I informed the Starets he smiled evilly, remarking:
"Ah! Then that further ten thousand roubles is due to Nicholas Chevitch. If he calls when we return to Petrograd this afternoon, you must pay him, Féodor. He has done his work well. Russia will be crippled for munitions for some time to come."
On our return to Petrograd we found the city in the greatest state of excitement. The succession of explosions had caused the people to suspect that the disaster was not due to an accident, as the authorities were fondly declaring, but the wilful act of the enemy. Rasputin heard the rumour and piously declared his sympathy with the poor victims.
Yet we had not been back at the Gorokhovaya an hour when the man Chevitch called, and at the monk's orders I handed him the balance of his blood-money.
That same evening Hardt, the secret messenger from Berlin, arrived, having travelled by way of Abö, in Finland.
"I have a very urgent despatch for the Father," he said when he was ushered in to me, and he handed me a letter upon strong but flimsy paper, so that it could be the more easily concealed in transit.
At once I took him up to the monk, who was washing his hands in his bedroom.
"Ah, dear friend Hardt!" exclaimed the Starets, greeting him warmly. "And you are straight from Berlin! Well, how goes it, eh?"