"Who is Heckel?" I asked, surprised at being sent upon such a long journey in that sudden manner.
"A friend of Hardt and myself. Do not be inquisitive—only obey. When Heckel calls please give him this letter," and he handed me a rather thick letter in an official cartridge envelope of the Imperial Ministry of Foreign Affairs. "Heckel will tell you that he is from 'Father Gregory.' He is tall, fair, and rather slim—a German, as you may guess from his name. Your train leaves at two-forty this afternoon. Be careful of that letter and to whom you deliver it in secret. Heckel, after finding you at the hotel, will produce an English five-pound note and show it to you. That will be his passport. If he does not do so, then do not give him the letter."
That afternoon I left for Vilna by the Warsaw express, and after a long journey through the endless pines and silver birches duly arrived at the hotel indicated, and there awaited my visitor. He arrived next day, a fair-haired, slim man, just as Rasputin had described him, evidently an agent-provocateur from Berlin. After he had been ushered into my bedroom by a waiter, he greeted me warmly, and inquired if I had anything to hand him.
To this I made an evasive reply, in pretence of being in ignorance of his meaning, whereupon he said in German:
"Ah! I forgot. You wish first to establish my identity," and laughingly he produced from his wallet an English five-pound note, which he showed to me.
In consequence I handed him the letter from the Ministry, which he placed unopened in his pocket and then left, while that same night I returned to Petrograd.
Three days later I learned the truth.
Ivan Botkine, the trusted secret agent of the Prime Minister Kokovtsov, who had left Berlin on the twenty-second for Petrograd, had been found dead in one of the sleeping compartments on the arrival of the train at the frontier station of Wirballen. His pockets and valise had been rifled, and an inquiry had been opened. Though the doctors disagreed as to the exact cause of death, it was apparent that one of the dishes he had eaten in the restaurant car an hour before had been poisoned.
Further, I have since established the horrifying fact that the mysterious letter from the Ministry which I handed to Heckel in Vilna contained a secret poison! That it was used to remove poor Botkine, Rasputin afterwards admitted to me. Such were the methods of the camarilla who were ruling Russia!