The Minister of Evil Part 38

The monk was silent. While she was seated he stood before her with folded arms, looking straight at her. Suddenly, fixing her with those remarkable eyes of his, he asked in a deep, hard voice:

"Xenie, will you permit this man to besmirch the name of him whom G.o.d hath sent to you?"

"I don't understand!" she cried, surprised at his att.i.tude. "How can I prevent it?"

"It lies in your hands," declared the mock saint. "You are his friend--and also mine. He visits your house--what more easy--than----"

"Than what?"

"Than you should invite him to take tea with you to-morrow--to discuss myself. He knows that you are a 'disciple,' I suppose?"

"Yes, he has somehow learnt it--but my husband is in ignorance, and he has promised not to reveal the truth to him."

"If he knows of our friends.h.i.+p he might tell your husband. He is unprincipled, and probably will do so. That is why I suggest you should ask him to tea."

As he spoke he crossed to the writing-table, and, opening a drawer with the key upon his chain, he took out the tiny bottle of exquisite Parisian perfume.

"What is that you have there?" she asked, with curiosity, noticing the little bottle. "Scent?"

"Yes," he said, with a mysterious grin. "It is, my dear sister, the Perfume of Death."

"The Perfume of Death?" she echoed. "I don't understand!"

"Then I will tell you, Xenie," he replied, his great hypnotic eyes again fixed upon her. "I do not use perfume myself, but others sometimes, on rare occasions, use this. It is unsuspicious, and can be left upon a lady's dressing-table. A drop used upon a handkerchief emits a most delicate odour, like jasmine, but a single drop in a cup of tea means death. For two hours the doomed person feels no effect. But suddenly he or she becomes faint, and succ.u.mbs to heart disease."

"Ah, I see!" she gasped, half-starting from her chair, her face ashen grey. "I--I realise what you intend, Father! I--I----"

And she sank back again in her chair, breathless and aghast, without concluding her sentence.

"No!" she shrieked suddenly. "No; I could not be a poisoner--a murderess!

_Anything but that!_"

"Not for the sake of the one sent by G.o.d as saviour of our dear Russia?"

he asked reproachfully, in a low, intense tone. "That man Miliukoff is G.o.d's enemy--and ours. In your hand lies the means of removing him in secret, without the least suspicion."

And slowly the crafty, insinuating criminal took her inert hand, and pressed the little bottle into its soft palm.

"One drop placed upon the lemon which he takes in his tea will be sufficient," he whispered. "Only be extremely careful of it yourself, and return the bottle to me afterwards. It is best in my safe keeping."

"No! I can't!" cried the wretched woman over whom Rasputin had now once again cast his inexplicable spell.

"But you shall, Xenie! I, your holy Father, command you to render this a.s.sistance to your land. None shall ever know. Feodor, who knows all my innermost secrets, will remain dumb. The world cannot suspect, because no toxicologist has ever discovered the existence of the perfume, nor are they able to discern that death has not resulted from heart disease."

"But I should be a murderess!" gasped the unhappy woman beneath that fateful thraldom.

"No. You will be fulfilling a duty--a sin imposed upon you in order that, by committing it, you shall purify yourself for a holy life in future,"

he said, referring to one of the principles of his erotic "religion."

She began to waver, and instantly I saw that Rasputin had won--as he won always with women--and that the patriot Miliukoff had been sentenced to death.

"Go!" he commanded at last. "Go, and do my bidding. Return to-morrow night, and tell me of your--_success_!"

Then he bowed out the reluctant but fascinated young woman, who in her silver chain-bag carried the small bottle of perfume.

That night Rasputin, after drinking half a bottle of brandy, retired to bed, declaring that women were only created to be the servants of men.

Then I sat down, and taking a sheet of plain and very common writing-paper, I typed upon it a warning to the man who, at the Empress's suggestion, was to be so ruthlessly "removed." The words I typed were:

"You will be invited to tea to-morrow by Xenie Kalatcheff. Do not accept. There is a plot to cause your death. This warning is from--A Friend."

I typed an envelope with Monsieur Miliukoff's address, and then, slipping to the door quietly, I stole out and dropped it in the letter-box at the corner of the Kazanskaya.

That I had saved the deputy's life I knew next afternoon when Madame Kalatcheff sent round a hurried note to Rasputin, explaining that, though she had invited him to her house, he had rather curtly refused the invitation.

At this the monk telephoned her to come round, and once again she sat in his room explaining that she had sent Miliukoff a note urging him to see her at four o'clock, as she wished to make some revelations concerning the monk that might be useful to him when speaking in the Duma. The reply, which she produced, was certainly couched in most indignant terms.

"Can he suspect, do you think, Feodor?" he asked, turning to me.

"How can he?" I asked. "Perhaps, knowing madame to be a 'disciple,' he doubts the genuineness of her promised disclosures."

"Perhaps so," Xenie said. "But what can I do if he suspects me? Nothing that I can see."

The pair sat anxiously discussing the situation for the next half-hour, until at last the State Councillor's wife, handing back the little bottle of perfume to the monk, rose and left.

I was secretly much gratified that I had been able to save the Deputy's life, yet Rasputin continued to discuss other plans with me, repeating:

"The fellow must die. Alexandra Feodorovna has willed it. While he lives he will always be a constant menace. He must die! He _shall_ die!"

Our national hymn, "Boje Tzaria khrani" ("G.o.d save the Tsar"), was being sung at the moment in the streets, because news of a victory in Poland had just been given out to the public.

Already the foundation stone of the revolution had been laid, and M.

Miliukoff, with purely patriotic motives, had a.s.sisted in cementing it.

The Senatorial revision which was ordained to inquire into General Soukhomlinoff's treachery had, owing to Miliukoff's activity, ordered a search at the amorous old fellow's private abode early in the spring, with the result that he found himself incarcerated in the fortress of Peter and Paul. When the general was arrested, madame his wife--an adventuress named Gaskevitch, who had commenced life as a typist in a solicitor's office, and who was many years his junior--had a terrible attack of hysteria, for things had taken for her a most unexpected turn.

The woman had been implicated in intrigue and treachery ever since. After copying some secret papers for a man in Kiev, she had blackmailed him, obtained a big sum of money, and then married a man named Boulovitch, a prosperous landed proprietor. By thus entering the higher circle of society in Kiev, she got to know General Soukhomlinoff, its Governor-General, who connived with her to obtain a divorce from Boulovitch, so that she subsequently married the bald-headed old Don Juan a few months after his appointment as War Minister.

Madame and Rasputin were ever hand-in-glove. From the moment the general was arrested she had worked with singular energy and adroitness to retrieve her husband's fallen fortune, and in doing so she a.s.sisted to lay the beginning of the first Revolution. She enlisted the sympathy of Rasputin, Anna Vyrubova and the Empress, all of whom were gravely apprehensive as to what might come out at the general's trial. She even threw herself at the feet of Alexandra Feodorovna, imploring her to intercede with the Emperor so as to save her calumniated and injured husband. And at last she succeeded.

The inquiries were suspended, the newspapers were silent regarding the scandal, and suddenly it became known that, "owing to the general's mental state," it had been decided, on the advice of a board of well-known medical specialists, to liberate him!

This astounding news pa.s.sed from mouth to mouth, and Miliukoff, the patriotic fire-brand, declared everywhere that it was Rasputin's work.

The news produced the most sinister impression upon the people, especially on those connected with the Army. The man who had been the primary cause of Russia's reverses was to escape punishment! It was, indeed, this insensate act of folly on the part of the Tsar which had undermined the people's trust in their Emperor, and gave Rasputin's enemies--and more especially Miliukoff--opportunity for his bitter denunciation.

On the afternoon of the day before the opening of the Duma, Rasputin received another letter from the Empress, in cipher, as follows:

"DEAR FATHER,--Nikki still refuses to postpone the Duma, though I have done all I can to induce him to do so. Come to us at once and try to force him to our views. Not a moment should be lost. I have just heard that Miliukoff is still active, so conclude that what you told me has failed.

"P. [Protopopoff] has told me an hour ago that Skoropadski [a German agent living in Petrograd as a jeweller in the Nevski] has betrayed us all, and has placed some most incriminating doc.u.ments in the hands of Miliukoff, who has, in turn, shown them to Purishkevitch. They will be produced in the Duma to-morrow. The police traced Skoropadski to Riga, but they have failed to arrest him, and he has, alas! escaped to Sweden.

"Holy Father, do not delay a moment in coming to your daughter to comfort her in this her blackest hour! Miliukoff must be prevented from denouncing you. I cannot conceive how your arrangement with Madame Kalatcheff has failed. The perfume has never failed before. Alix is constantly asking for you, and Olga kisses your dear hand. Seek the Emperor at once before coming to me, or he may suspect us to be in collusion. I have quarrelled with him, because by his obstinacy he will ruin us all. How I wish that Miliukoff would be stricken down! Do not delay.