As announced by Rasputin, the Emperor and Empress had visited Denmark and Norway on board the Standart, and were back again at Peterhof, when one day Rasputin received his friend Boris Stürmer, the bureaucrat, at that time struggling strenuously for advancement. In the monk's den Stürmer, chatting about Stolypin and the vindictive woman who had come to Petrograd to destroy him—for he was one of the paid servants of Potsdam, and in consequence knew most of the secrets—said:
"Have you, Father, ever met a Jew named Bagrov?"
"Never to my knowledge. Why?"
"Because I know from my friend Venikoff, one of the assistant-directors of Secret Police, that the man, a discharged agent-provocateur and incensed at the way he has been treated by Stolypin, has joined forces with some mysterious young woman named Baltz. There is a whisper that between them they are engineering a plot to assassinate the Prime Minister!"
Rasputin's strange eyes met mine. Both of us knew more than this struggling sycophant.
"Bagrov?" the saint repeated. "Who is he?"
"Oh! A fellow who was assistant to Azeff in some disgraceful matters in Warsaw—an agent-provocateur who lived afterwards for some time in Paris and on the Riviera. He attributes his downfall to Stolypin, and hence is most bitter against him. He has, I hear, fallen in love with the woman Baltz, who hails from Samara."
"Well?" asked the saint.
"Well?—nothing," laughed the man with the goat-beard. "I simply tell you what I know. There is a plot—that is all! And as far as I can discern the swifter Stolypin leaves the Court, the easier it will be for Her Majesty and ourselves—eh? While Stolypin is daily with the Emperor there is hourly danger for us."
"In that I certainly agree," declared Rasputin. "We must be watchful—very watchful."