The Minister of Evil | Page 5

Empress?"
I saw with what ingenuity the plan was being laid, for well I knew the
amazing and quite uncanny fascination for women of all classes
possessed by the Starets.
At the time I naturally believed that Stürmer and his friend
Kouropatkine were both convinced that it would be to the advantage of
Russia if the holy man gained admission to the Imperial Court as
spiritual guide to Nicholas II. Such a widely popular figure had the
Starets become, and so deeply impressed had been the people of
Moscow and Warsaw, where he had performed some mysterious
"miracles," that there were hundreds of thousands of all classes who,
like the two Ministers of the Crown who sat in that room, really
believed that he was possessed of Divine power.
As we walked in the Nevski, people, mostly women, would rush to him
and kiss his dirty hand, or raise the hem of his greasy kaftan to their
lips, asking for the Father's blessing. By the enlightened Western
peoples the ignorance and superstitions of our great Russian people
cannot be understood. You, who have travelled in our Holy Russia,
know our trackless country where settlements are to distances, as one
of our writers has put it, as fly-specks upon window-panes, where
whole villages are the prey of disease, and where seventy-nine people
out of every hundred cannot read or write. You also know how in the
corner of every room hangs the ikon, how the gold or blue-domed
basilica strikes you in every street, the long-haired priests chanting in

their deep bass, the passer-by ceaselessly crossing himself, the
peasantry crushed and down-trodden, and the middle and upper classes
lapped in luxury and esteeming good manners more highly than morals.
Such is Russia of to-day--Russia in the age of my employer Rasputin,
the era of the downfall of the Imperial Romanoffs, and the fierce
struggle with the barbaric Hun.
In accordance with the plan formed by Boris Stürmer I next day
accompanied the Starets by rail direct to Nijni Novgorod, by way of
Moscow, thence taking steamer down the great Volga, a twelve-hour
journey, to that city where they make bells and ikons, Kazan.
Rasputin had put on his oldest and most ragged monk's habit, and
carried a staff. Over his threadbare dress he wore another of finer
texture which it was his intention to discard ere entering before the
shrine, in order to appear most lowly and humble in the eyes of the
shrewd Tsaritza. We left Petrograd at night, that our departure should
not be known and commented upon, but ere we did so I received a note
from the General to the effect that the director of Secret Police at
Tsarskoe-Selo had telephoned that Her Majesty was not leaving till the
following day.
Hence we were travelling a day ahead of the Empress.
Kazan is a city full of the odour of sanctity if judged by the number of
priests and monks one meets in its streets. It is situated about seven
versts from the river, an old-world picturesque place wherein one rubs
shoulders with people in all sorts of curious costumes, especially in the
Tartar suburb where the low houses border upon narrow unpaved
streets dotted here and there with mosques.
On arrival we drove up the hill to the great Preobrazhensky Monastery
where Rasputin, as became a holy man, sought hospitality and was
immediately very warmly welcomed, while I afterwards went on to the
Hotel Frantsiya, in the long busy Vozkrensenkaya, where I took a room
in order to watch the arrival of Alexandra Feodorovna, who would
travel incognita, and of whose coming I was to give warning to
Grichka.

For two days I waited, ever on the alert, and, of course, interested in the
adventure. It is not always that one waits in an hotel in expectation of
the arrival of an empress. Meanwhile I had made friends with the hotel
clerk, without, of course, explaining my business, and he had promised
to tell me of all new arrivals.
The Frantsiya is a very comfortable hotel, conducted upon French lines,
and the two days I spent in Kazan were certainly quite enjoyable ones.
On the evening of the third day my friend the hotel clerk sent a
message to my room, and in response I at once descended to the bureau,
when he informed me that the ladies had just arrived, a Madame
Strepoff, and her maid Mademoiselle Kamensky. He described the
first-named, and I at once recognised her as the Tsaritza herself, though,
of course, the tall, pale young man had no idea of her identity. I had
merely told him that I expected the arrival of a lady whom I had met in
Moscow some time ago.
"Madame has taken the best suite of rooms in