“Friend, I cannot command, but I beg of you to return instantly to us. We want your help. Without it, Alexis will die, and the House of Romanoff is doomed. I have sent the Imperial train to you. It leaves in an hour. – Nicholas.”
Of this summons the villainous ex-thief took no notice.
Helidor says: “He showed me the telegrams and laughed triumphantly, saying, ‘Nikki seems very much troubled! Why does he not return to the front and urge on his soldiers against the advancing hosts.’ The greater our losses the nearer shall we be to peace. I shall take care that ignorant Russia will not win against the causes of civilisation and humanity.”
“Civilisation and humanity!” This illiterate and dissolute peasant, who each night became hopelessly intoxicated and who in his cups would revile his paymasters the Huns and chant in his deep bass voice refrains of Russian patriotic airs, was actually the dear “friend” of the Tsar of All the Russias! The vicious scoundrel’s influence was reaching its zenith.
To Western readers the whole facts may well appear incredible. But those who know Russia, with its complex world of official corruption and “religious” chicanery, are well aware how anything may happen to that huge Empire when at war.
After a fortnight’s silence, during which the sinister hand of Anna Vyrubova regularly administered that secret drug to the poor, helpless son of the Emperor, Rasputin, with amazing effrontery, dared again to put his foot in Petrograd. On the night of his arrival the Tsaritza, awaiting him anxiously at Tsarskoe-Selo, sent him a note by Ivan Radzick, the trusted body-servant of the Emperor for fifteen years, a note which the miracle-worker preserved most carefully, and which ran as follows:
“Holy Father, – I await you eagerly. Boris (Stürmer) and Frédéricks are with me. Things are increasingly critical. Hasten to us at once and cure poor little Alexis, or he will die. The doctors are powerless. I have had urgent news from Berlin. Miliukoff must be removed, and so must Kerensky and Nicholas (the Grand Duke). Boris has arranged it. You have the means. Something must happen to them within the next forty-eight hours. Nicholas has handed Nikki an abominable letter of threats. The British Ambassador is wary and knows of this. His despatches to London to-night must be intercepted. I am sending the car for you, and await in eagerness once again to kiss your dear hands. – Your devoted sister, Alec.”
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.
The four wooden boxes which the spy had brought from America, and which contained the bacilli of anthrax and bubonic plague, were, two days later, handed by the monk to the Professor. But the latter, carelessly handling them when opening them, became infected with anthrax himself, and subsequently died in great agony. By the scoundrel’s timely death Russia was spared an epidemic of those two terrible diseases, it being the intention of Rogovitch and Rasputin to infect with plague the rats in Moscow and other cities.
The fact can never, of course, be disguised that the Tsar was fully cognisant of Rasputin’s evil influence at the Imperial Court, though it seems equally certain that he never suspected him to be the arch-plotter and creature of the Kaiser that he really was. Before the war, Nicholas II had lived a hermit’s life at Tsarskoe-Selo. Every foreign diplomat who has been stationed in Petrograd since his accession knows that he was the echo of everyone’s opinion except his own. The flexibility of his mind was only equalled by its emptiness. Personal in everything, weak, shallow-minded, yet well-intentioned, he had long been interested in spiritualistic séances and table-turning. Indeed, the most notorious frauds and charlatans who brought psychical studies into disrepute have had the honour of “performing” before His Majesty, and have even received decorations from the hands of the gulled Emperor. It is, therefore, not surprising that this bold and amazingly cunning Siberian peasant known as “Grichka,” with his mock miracles – worked by means of drugs supplied to him by the fellow Badmayeff, another charlatan who represented himself as an expert upon “Thibetan” medicine and who had a large clientèle in Petrograd society – could so gull the Emperor that he actually consulted “the Holy Father” upon the most important matters concerning the State.
Through the critical Year of Grace, 1916, when the future of the world’s civilisation was trembling in the balance, the Allies lived utterly unsuspicious of this astounding state of affairs. Downing Street and the Quai d’Orsay were in ignorance of the deeply-laid plot of the Emperor William to crush and destroy that splendid piece of patriotic machinery, “the Russian steam-roller.” We in England were frantically making munitions for Russia, and lending her the sinews of war, merely regarding the erotic monk as a society tea-drinking buffoon such as one meets in every capital.
The truth has, however, been revealed by the amazing results of diligent inquiries made by that patriotic little band of Russians who united at the end of 1916 to rid the Empire of its most dangerous enemy, and have placed their secret reports in my hands. The Emperor, though exceedingly rancorous, and though in appearance a quiet, inoffensive little man, was yet capable of the utmost cruelty and hardness. He has been responsible for some terrible miscarriages of justice. His callousness is well-known. After the catastrophe of Khodinska, which cost the lives of nearly two thousand of his subjects, he danced the whole night at a ball given by the French Ambassador, while on reading the telegram which told him of the disaster of Tsushima, which cost Russia her whole fleet and the loss of so many precious lives, he made no remark, but continued his game of tennis in the park of Tsarskoe-Selo.
Those of his personal entourage wondered. They asked themselves whether it was stoicism, indifference, or a strength of mind abnormal. It was neither. Throughout the whole career of Nicholas II his only thought had been to flee from danger, and to leave to others the task of pulling the chestnuts from the fire.
Rasputin and his shrewd and clever fellow-traitors knew all this, and were acting upon the Emperor’s weaknesses, more especially upon His Majesty’s belief in spiritualism and his fear to thwart the imperious declarations of his German-born wife. Alexandra Feodorovna, the complex neurotic woman who had begun her career as Empress by determining to exclude from Court all ladies with blemished reputations, and all those black sheep who creep by back-stair influence into every Court of Europe, had now under Rasputin’s influence welcomed any of the monk’s lady friends, however tarnished their reputations.
There can be no doubt that the Empress’s nerves were not in a sound condition. True, she was in constant communication with Germany, and her actions showed her readiness to betray Russia into the hands of her own people. This fact the world ought to take into consideration. The Empress is the most interesting character-study in the world to-day. We can have no sympathy with those who are traitors, yet it has been clearly proved that the horrors of the Revolution had left a deep impression on her mind. She had no fatalism in her character, and she lived in daily dread of seeing her children and husband murdered. She had no courage. Her highly-strung nature took more seriously to the soothing effect of the evil monk Rasputin’s teaching than would the mind of a woman of normal calibre; hence, while “Nikki” her husband believed implicitly in “dear Gregory’s” advice, she also believed him to be the heaven-sent deliverer of Russia, to wrest it from disaster, and to give to the poor little Tsarevitch good health as Heir to the Romanoff dynasty.
Those latter days of 1916 were truly strenuous ones in the Imperial household. On December 8th the Emperor had left for Moscow, and to him the Tsaritza telegraphed in their private code, as follows:
“Tsarskoe-Selo, December 8th, 11:30 a.m.
“Gregory says that Zakomelsky is proposing a resolution denouncing him at the Council of the Empire to-morrow. At all costs this must be prevented. Boris and Frédéricks agree. You must stop it. – Alec.”
To this there was sent a reply, the copy being on record:
“Moscow, December 8th, 10 p.m.
“Quite agree with undesirability of allowing Z. to criticise, but cannot see how I can prevent it, unless by arrest. I am communicating with a certain quarter. Shall return to-morrow. – Nikki.”
Apparently the Emperor, whatever steps he took, was unable to secure the arrest of the Leader of the Centre, for on the following day, at the meeting of the Council, the resolution was moved by the Baron Meller Zakomelsky, who recognised M. Trepoff’s honest and sincere desire to combat the so-called “dark forces,” but warned the Prime Minister that the method chosen by him was wrong. The only effective weapon, he said, was light, and the Duma and the Council called on the Government to join them in revealing and denouncing the notorious sinister influence. The whole of Russia awaited the eradication of the plague which was corroding the State organism.
This resolution apparently stirred into action the forces gradually arising to combat the camarilla, for on December 13th, Baroness Mesentzoff, wife of Baron Paul Mesentzoff, chamberlain and councillor of State, and a fair-haired “sister-disciple” of Rasputin’s, sent him a letter of warning which is in existence, and of which I here give an English translation.
It was handed to him late at night at his home in the Gorokhovaya. Seated with him in that little sanctum into which his neophytes were admitted by his discreet body-servant, and drinking heavily as usual, were Stürmer, the ex-Premier, and a man named Kartchevsky, a renegade, who was actually at that moment secretary to General von Beseler, the German Governor-General of Warsaw.
The letter read as follows:
“Holy Father, – I have been with Anna (Madame Vyrubova) and Olga (the Tsar’s daughter) an hour ago. I have told them to warn Her Majesty the Empress of a desperate plot against you. Do beware, I pray you, of Youssoupoff, and of the Grand Duke Dmitri. There is a conspiracy to kill you!
“Your pretended friend Pourichkevitch dined with me to-night, and he, too, intends that you shall be removed. We all pray that no harm shall befall you. But I send this at once in warning. I shall be at the séance tomorrow, when I hope to have an opportunity of speaking with you alone. A young friend of mine, Nadjezda Boldyieff, daughter of the General at Kiev, is anxious to enter our circle. So I shall bring her with me. But do, I beg of you, heed this warning, and avoid all contact with the persons herein named. – Your sister, Feo.”
The monk, who was in his cups, as he usually was after midnight – according to his servant’s statement – handed the letter to Stürmer with an inane laugh. And stroking his beard, said with his extraordinary egotism:
“Enemies! Why do these silly impetuous women warn me? I am careful enough to look after myself. I rule Russia – at the orders of the Emperor William! The Tsar is only Tsar in name. The Emperor is myself, Gregory the monk!”
“But Pourichkevitch is dangerous,” declared the traitorous ex-Prime Minister. “He is the fiercest member of the Extreme Right, and our friend Protopopoff has lately received many reports concerning him through the Secret Police.”
“If so, then why is he not imprisoned?” asked Rasputin. “Protopopoff is far too hesitating. A few compromising documents introduced into his house, a police search, an arrest, a word to the Emperor – and he would have an uncomfortable little room beneath the lake in the Fortress of Schüsselburg. No, our friend Protopopoff is far too weak. He dallies too much for the public favour. What is it worth? Personally, I prefer their hatred.”
“And yet you are the great healer – the idol of the working-class, just as Gapon was long ago!” laughed the ex-Premier.
“Yes, I am their Grichka,” laughed Rasputin in his drunken humour. “It is true, my dear Boris. There is but one Tsar, and it is myself – eh?” And he chuckled as he drained his glass of champagne, and laughed at the warning sent him by the woman who had sat at his knee and who had given over her whole private fortune to him, just as a dozen other society women in Petrograd had done. If his “sister-disciples” failed him in funds, then he simply held their letters and blackmailed them till he drove them to desperation, and in six known cases to suicide. The fears of the Empress Alexandra Feodorovna for the safety of her pet monk in whom she believed so devoutly, seem to have been aroused by the warning given by the Baroness Mesentzoff, for next day there came to him an urgent telegram from Gatchina, where the Tsaritza had gone on a visit to the Dowager Empress. It read:
“You are in grave danger. Mother Superior Paula, of the Novo-Devitsky Nunnery, has disclosed something to me. Come to Tsarskoe-Selo at once. Nikki is eager to consult you. – A.”
The monk was quick to realise by this telegram his true position in the Imperial household. Only a few weeks before Anna Vyrubova, the high-priestess of his disgraceful cult, had warned him of his waning influence. But he had not cared one jot, because, in his safe, he had stowed hundreds of letters and telegrams from society women compromising themselves. By the sale of these he could obtain sufficient money to establish a fortune for the rest of his life.
Here, however, a new phase had arisen.
He was in active communication with Germany, he had already wrecked Russia’s splendid offensive, and was gradually bringing the Empire into bad odour with neutrals. For this he had, in secret, received the heartfelt thanks of his Imperial paymaster the Kaiser. German money was flowing to him from all quarters, and German agents were swarming in Petrograd, as well as across the Russian front. Brusiloff was doing his best, but having gauged the position, had realised that it was becoming hopeless. German influence was eating the heart out of Russia as a canker-worm – and that canker-worm was Gregory Rasputin himself.
In consequence of the telegram from the Empress, followed by a letter sent by Imperial messenger by the Grand Duchess Olga, the monk hastened to the Palace and had a long interview with Her Majesty.
He left with Anna Vyrubova soon after noon in one of the Imperial cars which were always at his disposal, in consequence of the séance arranged at his house in Petrograd, and more especially because the Baroness Mesentzoff had sent him a photograph of Nadjezda Boldyieff, who was anxious to join the “disciples.”
Notwithstanding the critical situation, the séance was held, and the handsome Nadjezda was admitted to the “sisterhood.”
Truly those were critical days in Russia. The rascal had been warned, but did not heed. The Allies, fighting for the just cause, were in ignorance of the fierce resentment now aroused in the hearts of the Russian people by the denunciation in the Duma by those who were bold enough to speak their minds and defy the camarilla. The news allowed out of Russia during the last month of the year was most meagre. Protopopoff, the Kaiser’s silk-hatted creature, controlled it, and only allowed intelligence of the most optimistic character to filter through to us. Hence while the British, American, and French Press were publishing wholly fictitious accounts of Russia’s gains, the “miracle-worker” was daily driving the Imperial House of Romanoff towards the abyss of oblivion.
Chapter Twelve
The True Story of Rasputin’s End
Events were now proceeding apace.
The Grand Duke Nicholas Michailovitch had dared to seek audience of the Tsar, at which he had handed him a memorandum of protest. In this letter, which is still upon record, the Grand Duke wrote:
“Where is the root of the evil? Let me explain it in a few words.
“So long as your manner of choosing Ministers was known to narrow circles, things could muddle along, but when it became a matter of public knowledge and all classes in Russia talked about it, it was senseless to attempt to continue to govern Russia in this fashion. Often did you tell me that you could put faith in no one, and that you were being deceived.
“If this is so, then it applies particularly to your wife, who loves you and yet led you into error, being surrounded by evil-minded intimates. You believe in Alexandra Feodorovna. This is natural. But the words she utters are the product of skilful machinations, not of truth. If you are powerless to liberate her from these influences, then at all events be on your guard against constant and systematic influence of intriguers who are using your wife as their instrument… If you could remove the persistent interference of dark forces in all matters, the regeneration of Russia would instantly be advanced, and you would regain the confidence of the enormous majority of your subjects, which you have forfeited.”
This was pretty outspoken. But further, during the course of the conversation, the Grand Duke spoke of Protopopoff and asked Nicholas II whether he was aware that this politician had been palmed off on him by the agency of Rasputin, whom Protopopoff had first met at the home of the charlatan Badmayeff, the man who secretly practised so-called “Thibetan” medicine and who supplied the “Saint” with his drugs.
The Emperor smiled and declared that he was already acquainted with the facts.
The Emperor took the memorandum to the Empress and read it aloud to her. When he came to the passage dealing with the evil influences surrounding her, she flew into a rage, seized the document, and tore it up in the Tsar’s face!
Meanwhile the camarilla were still plotting further the downfall of Russia, and endeavouring to implicate Stürmer’s successor.
Suddenly, on December 26th, the greatest consternation was caused both in society circles in Petrograd and at the Palace of Tsarskoe-Selo, owing to rumours that Rasputin was missing.
He had been absent from the capital on many occasions, travelling upon his supposed pilgrimages, but there was persistent gossip on the Nevski that something had happened.
After the débâcle three telegrams in English were found in the Department of Posts and Telegraphs. They had been sent by the Empress from Tsarskoe-Selo to the Emperor, and read as follows:
“Tsarskoe-Selo, December 26th.
“I am worried by the awful rumours. No details. Remember what I wrote to you. – Alec.”
Four days later Her Majesty telegraphed again to the Tsar:
“Tsarskoe-Selo, December 30th, 4:37 p.m.
“Can you send Voyeipoff to me at once? I want his help and advice. We still hope for the best. Dmitri and Felix are implicated. – Alec.”
Six hours later she again telegraphed frantically:
“Tsarskoe-Selo, December 30th, 10:24 p.m.
“Nothing discovered yet. Felix stopped on his way to Crimea. How I wish you were here. – Alec.”
And again at midnight she sent two further telegrams. The first read:
“Tsarskoe-Selo, December 30th, 11:47 p.m.
“Father (Rasputin) is no more. Punish the enemies of Russia and of our House. Come back at once. I can bear it no longer. – Alec.”
The second was addressed:
“To Father Makarius, Verkhotursky Monastery, Perm.
“December 30th, midnight.
“Great misfortune. Something happened to Father (Rasputin). Pray for him and for us. Those responsible will be punished. Come at once to us. – Alexandra.”
For days the sensational affair was hushed-up from the public by order of the Tsar, and with the connivance of Protopopoff. Many fictitious accounts have appeared in the Press regarding the final hours of the amazing rascal who, as tool of the Emperor William, brought to an end the Imperial House of Romanoff.
I am here enabled, however, to explain the truth from an authentic source, namely, from the statement of a lady – a Russian nursing-sister – who was an eye-witness and who is in London at the moment when I write. The lady in question is well known in London, and I have begged her to allow me to disclose her name, but for certain reasons she has held me to my promise of secrecy. There are, one must remember, still influential friends of Rasputin in Russia, and as she is returning there, her objection is obvious.
It seems that on December 15th (Russian style) the “Saint” had been invited to the elegant house of Prince Youssoupoff to a merry supper. The penchant of the monk for a pretty face and a mysterious adventure being well-known, it had been hinted to him that a certain lady who desired to remain incognito, wished to meet him.
Now the house of Prince Youssoupoff in Petrograd – who, by the way, had a house in London before the war and was well-known in Mayfair – runs from the Moskaya to the Offitzerskaya, where at a back entrance, the wine from the famous estate in the Crimea is sold, just as wine is sold at the mediaeval palaces of Florence.
The Prince was supposed to be alone to meet his guest and this mysterious young and pretty lady who desired to enter the cult of the “Sister-Disciples.” As a matter of fact, however, there were assembled in a room on the first floor several persons determined to rid Russia of this erotic traitor who was daily betraying her into the hands of the Huns.
They were the Prince Youssoupoff, the Grand Duke Dmitri (who was suspected by the Empress), the Deputy of the Extreme Right, Pourichkevitch, a man named Stepanoff, a well-known danseuse (the mysterious lady who acted as decoy, named Mademoiselle C – ), and the lady who has described the scene to me.
Eleven o’clock struck. It was a dramatic scene. All were anxious for Rasputin’s arrival, but he did not come.
The Prince went to the telephone and asked for the monk at his house.
The reply was that the Father had gone out to dine somewhere early in the evening.
Would he come? Would he walk into the trap so cunningly baited for him?
The moments seemed hours as the little assembly sat waiting and discussing whether any one could have given him warning, for it was known that the “miracle-worker” had, through his catspaw Protopopoff, spies set everywhere.
At twenty minutes past eleven a car was heard at the back-door in the Offitzerskaya, and his host, rushing down, admitted him mysteriously. The monk removed his big sable-lined coat, disclosing his black clerical garb and big bejewelled cross suspended around his neck. Then he removed his galoshes, for it was snowing hard outside.
“You need not be afraid, Father,” said his host. “We are alone, except for my friend Stepanoff. He is one of us,” he laughed merrily.
Then he conducted the “Saint” into the large handsome dining-room, where a tall, fair-bearded man, Paul Stepanoff, came forward to meet him.
Upon the table were two bottles of wine. Into one cyanide of potassium had been introduced, and its potency had an hour before been tried upon a dog, which at the moment was lying dead in the yard outside.
After Stepanoff had been introduced, the Prince said in a confidential tone:
“The lady I mentioned has not yet arrived. I shall go to the door to await her so that the servants are not disturbed.”
Thus the Father was left with his merry, easy-going fellow-guest, who at a glance he saw was a bon viveur like himself.
The two men began to talk of spiritualism, in which Stepanoff declared himself to be much interested, and a few minutes later he poured out some wine, filling the Father’s glass from the poisoned bottle while he attracted his attention to a picture at the end of the room.
They raised their glasses, and drank. Some dry biscuits were in a silver box, and after Rasputin had drained his glass, he took a biscuit and munched it.
But to Stepanoff’s amazement the poison took no effect! Was the monk after all under some divine or mysterious protection? Stepanoff was expecting him to be seized by paroxysms of agony every moment.
On the contrary, he was still calm and expectant regarding the mysterious lady whom he was to meet.
Suddenly, however, Rasputin, slightly paler than usual, exclaimed: “Curious! I do not feel very well!”
And he crossed the room to examine an ancient crucifix, beautifully jewelled, which was standing upon a side table.
Stepanoff rose and followed him, remarking on the beauty of the sacred emblem, yet aghast that the “Saint” could take such a dose of poison and yet remain unharmed.
Prince Youssoupoff with the others, was standing silent in the upstairs room eagerly awaiting Stepanoff’s announcement that the traitor was no more. Those moments were breathless ones. What, they wondered, was happening below! They listened, and could hear the voices of the pair below still in conversation.
“Ah! That spasm has passed!” Rasputin was heard to declare.
Passed! Was he immune from the effects of that most deadly poison? They looked at each other astounded. The fact was that he had only sipped the wine, and having had sufficient already to drink he had contrived to empty his glass into a dark porcelain flower-bowl.
The monk had taken the big crucifix in his hand to examine it the more closely, when Stepanoff, seeing that Rasputin was still unharmed suddenly drew a big Browning pistol, and, placing it under the monk’s arm and against his breast, fired.
The others above, hearing the shot, rushed out upon the wide balcony, while Stepanoff dashed up the stairs to meet them, crying:
“The Saint is dead at last! Russia is freed of the scoundrel!”
The others shouted joy, and re-entering the room, toasted the liberation and regeneration of Russia. Suddenly, they heard a noise and went out upon the balcony again, when, to their horror, they saw the door of the dining-room opened, and Rasputin, haggard and blood-stained, staggering forth, with an imprecation upon his lips, to the door opening to the street, in an effort to escape!
The attempt at poisoning him had failed, and he had only been wounded.
The tension was breathless. Was he after all endowed with some supernatural power?
“You have tried to kill me!” shrieked the monk, his hands stained with blood. “But I still live – I live! – and God will give me my revenge!” With his hands clasped over the spot where he had been wounded, he gave vent to a peal of demoniacal laughter, which held the little knot of witnesses on the balcony utterly dumbfounded and appalled.
Only one man seemed to have courage to stir.
According to the lady who was present and who gives me the description which I here reproduce – the only true and authentic account of the affair – Stepanoff, his revolver still in his hand, again dashed down the stairs, and preventing the monk from opening the outer door, sprang upon him and emptied the contents of his weapon, barrel after barrel, into the monk’s head.
At last the spy and traitor was dead!
Ten minutes later a closed car arrived containing Doctor Stanislas L – , and driven by a soldier in uniform named Ivan F – . In the car the body of the monk was placed by the doctor, the soldier, and the patriotic executioner Stepanoff.
Leaving the Prince and those who had assembled to witness the death of the hated agent of the Kaiser who had so misled the Russian Imperial family and the Russian people, and who had been directly and indirectly responsible for the death of thousands of brave men, British and French, on the various battle-fronts, the men drove with the fellow’s body, the great golden cross still dangling around its neck, to the Petrovsky Bridge.
It was very dark and snowy. Nobody was about, therefore the doctor, the soldier, and the man who had that night lopped off the tentacle of the German octopus in Russia, carried the body to a point between the second and third arches of the bridge. Here it had been ascertained earlier in the night that the ice was broken, and a large hole existed.
They raised the body to cast it over when, horror! The dead hand caught in the soldier’s shoulder-strap!
“Is this a curse upon me?” gasped Ivan.
“Curse or not, he goes!” cried Stepanoff, and all three hurled him over the parapet.
There was a loud splash. Then all was silent again, and the trio, re-entering the car, drove hurriedly away.
For six days there were rumours everywhere in Petrograd that “something” had happened. Frédéricks, Stürmer, and Protopopoff were frantic. The Secret Police, at orders of the Emperor, were making every inquiry, for the Holy Father was missing!