"Ah, Yakowleff! I had quite forgotten, General! How foolish of me!" cried the monk. "The concession for the gambling casino at Otchakov has been granted to him, but we must have it. It will be a second Monte Carlo, and a mine of wealth for us."
"I quite agree, my dear Gregory. And it lies entirely with you whether we stand in Yakowleff"s place or not," exclaimed the woman who was the evil genius of the Tsaritza.
The fact was that a rich financier, Ivan Yakowleff, who had offices in Petrograd and in London, for certain personal services rendered to the Tsar--the buying off of an unwelcome female entanglement, it is said--had been granted a concession to establish public gaming-rooms at Otchakov, on the Black Sea, not far from Odessa. The financier, who was elderly, had recently married a young and rather pretty wife, and being a friend of Count Vorontsof Dachkof, was in the happiest circ.u.mstances, well knowing that a huge fortune awaited him.
"At the moment Yakowleff is in London, I hear, forming a syndicate to take over the concession," the general remarked.
Rasputin smiled evilly, and after a pause said:
"Anybody who puts money into the venture will never see that money again.
I will take care of that."
"Good!" laughed His Excellency the Minister, flicking some dust from the sleeve of his uniform. "We must have that concession for ourselves. But ought not we to know what is in progress in London--eh? Shall we get Protopopoff to send instructions to his agents in England?"
"No. Something might leak out. I do not trust the Okhrana in London,"
replied the wary woman, Vyrubova. "Have you forgotten the Meadows affair, and how they betrayed me and very nearly caused a scandal by their bungling? No, if we are to watch Yakowleff, let us do it ourselves. Why should you not go, Feodor?" she suggested, suddenly turning to me.
"I? To London!" I exclaimed, in no way averse to the journey, for I had been in England on three occasions previously.
"Yes," said Rasputin. "You shall go. Start to-morrow. Telegraph to Madame Huguet. She will help you, for she is not suspected, and all believe her to be French. Besides, she is pretty, and therefore useful."
"As a decoy, you mean?" I exclaimed.
"Of what other use is a woman?" laughed the scoundrel, whose unscrupulousness where the fair s.e.x were concerned was notorious. He rose, and, unlocking a drawer, took out a book in which were registered many addresses of those who were in his pay, and hence under his thraldom.
I searched the pages eagerly and found the address, together with notes of certain payments. Madame, I saw, lived in a flat in Harrington Gardens, South Kensington.
There and then I received instructions to leave next day by the through express to Ostend, seek the lady, and then watch the movements of the Russian, who was busily forming the syndicate for the new Monte Carlo.
"If we are to strike against him we cannot know too much of his doings.
Besides, when we do strike we must not blunder--eh, General?" laughed the monk, after which he opened a bottle of champagne, of which we all drank.
A week later I was in London, and one afternoon called upon Madame Huguet, who was expecting me. She was a vivacious, dark-haired young Frenchwoman, who had been one of the Father"s sister-disciples in Petrograd, and whom he had sent to London upon some secret mission, the purpose of which was not quite clear to me. She had lived for some years in London before, and was well known in certain go-ahead circles of society. Seated in her cosy, well furnished drawing-room, with its silken curtains and bright chintzes in the English style, I told her exactly what Rasputin and Anna had instructed me to say.
"The Father wishes you to lose no time in becoming acquainted with the financier Yakowleff," I said. "He has offices in Old Broad Street, and he lives in Fitzjohn"s Avenue, Hampstead, when in London."
"He is there now," she said. "I saw something about him in the papers three days ago--something concerning a concession for a gaming casino."
"Oh!" I cried. "Then it is in the papers--eh?"
She obtained the copy of the newspaper, and I saw it was announced that an "Establishment" was about to be constructed at Otchakov, which was to be a formidable rival to Monte Carlo, and that Monsieur Yakowleff, of Petrograd, was the originator of the scheme.
Fortunately Yakowleff did not know me by sight; therefore, while Madame Huguet set to work to sc.r.a.pe acquaintance with him, I spent my days watching his movements when he came to his City office, and noting his constant and busy peregrinations to and fro. Certainly his scheme was attracting around him many influential and wealthy men, to whom the prospect of huge profits proved alluring.
He was short, stout, rather Hebrew in appearance, unscrupulous no doubt, or he would not have stooped to do such dirty work as he did for Nicholas; nevertheless, he seemed highly popular in financial circles. He had left his wife in Petrograd; therefore the life he was leading was, I found, a pretty gay one. Each day he lunched at the best restaurants with his business friends, and discussed the great Otchakov scheme, and each night he took one of his lady friends out to dinner, the theatre, and the Savoy, Ritz or Carlton afterwards.
Within ten days of my arrival in London I found that his guest at dinner at the Ritz one night was the sprightly young Frenchwoman, Julie Huguet!
Next day she called me by telephone to Harrington Gardens, and said:
"I discovered a good deal last night. The syndicate is already formed.
One hundred thousand pounds has been subscribed, and next week Yakowleff is leaving for Paris, and thence back to Petrograd."
Within half an hour I had telegraphed the news to Box 296, Poste Restante, Petrograd, which was the one used by Rasputin.
In reply I received from the monk a message which read:
"Obtain names of subscribers."
This I succeeded in doing after some considerable trouble, and they were the names of some of the shrewdest speculators in the City, none of them over-scrupulous, no doubt. To Rasputin I wired that I had the list, and asked for instructions, to which I received the reply:
"Excellent! Return without delay.--GREGORY."
On my way back, during those many hours in the Nord Express between Ostend and Petrograd, I reviewed the whole affair, and saw the sinister working of the monk"s mind. That Count Vorontsof Dachkof was in danger I knew full well. The monk never allowed any person to express open enmity without retaliating quietly and patiently, but with a crushing blow.
I wondered what was being planned between the Ministers of War and Interior. No doubt the Empress had been informed of what the count had told the Emperor, and she would at once conspire with the holy Father to cast him into social oblivion--or worse!
That the cupidity of Rasputin knew no bounds I was well aware. He intended to obtain that most lucrative gambling concession for himself, for Russians are born gamblers, especially the better cla.s.ses, and the establishment of a casino on the Black Sea, with French hotels and restaurants, pretty villas, and an opera house in imitation of Monte Carlo, would in summer attract those thousands of rich Russians who in winter went to the Riviera to gamble.
It was a chance which Rasputin would never allow to slip. Of that I was quite certain.
The evening I returned to Petrograd the monk had left me a message to go to Tsarskoe-Selo; therefore I took my green pa.s.s, which admitted me past the many guards of the innermost holy-of-holies, the Imperial apartments, where I knew I should find the real ruler of Russia.
He had been spending the evening with the Empress, her daughter Olga, and Anna, and when I sent word to him he joined me in a small ante-room, and, closing the door, eagerly questioned me.
"When does Yakowleff return from Paris?" he asked when I had read over to him the list of those adventurous London financiers who had put their money into the Otchakov scheme.
"Next Thursday he leaves," I said. "Madame has gone to Paris on pretence of shopping, but in reality to keep watch. "Axanda, Poste Restante, Avenue de l"Opera," will find her. She arranged it with me before we parted."
"Then this money-bag has really formed an influential syndicate in London to exploit our country--eh?" asked the monk grimly. "I have been speaking to the Empress about it, and she declares that the whole circ.u.mstance of Nicholas granting a concession, and for such service, is scandalous."
Scandalous! Surely Alexandra Feodorovna knew that her own actions had caused her name to be execrated through the length and breadth of Russia.
Helidor and the "Blessed Mitia" had both attempted to reveal what they knew. Helidor and Mitia had many powerful friends, so they were severely left alone by the police; yet others who but opened their mouths and criticised had been sent to prison without trial, while those who had gained undue knowledge and might transmit it to England or America were sent to those dreaded oubliettes of Schlusselburg--worse even than the Bastille, and not one has ever returned across the lake alive.
Rasputin was at that moment occupied by two matters--first, the fierce antagonism of Vorontsof Dachkof; and secondly, his avariciousness concerning the concession for gambling at that pretty little town east of Odessa.
So wide was the monk"s influence that, hearing at that moment that the King of the h.e.l.lenes had granted to another British syndicate a concession to open public gaming-tables in Corfu, Rasputin had already been to Sturmer, the President of the Council, and contrived to have diplomatic pressure brought through Prince Demidoff, Russian Minister at Athens, to bear upon the King to cancel the concession as opposed to public morals! This view Rasputin contrived to have supported by the Wilhelmstra.s.se, because the Kaiser had his spring palace in the vicinity, and, with his mock piety, he discountenanced any Temple of Fortune. The result was that the Corfu casino was prohibited.
Thus the Otchakov scheme was the only one in Europe. San Sebastian was declared by the monk to be only on a par with Ostend, and Otchakov was to be the great rival of Monte Carlo, with more varied and added attractions.
In that room, while he was hearing me through, Protopopoff, who had been making a report to the Emperor, joined us, and listened to what I had to say.
"I was looking at Yakowleff"s _dossier_ to-day, as you wished," remarked the Minister to the monk. "He seems a very honest, clean-living man for a financier. There are no suspicions of disloyalty, or even of anything."
"Then they must be made," declared Rasputin. "I intend to hold that concession. He would never have had it had it not been for Dachkof. But the latter is already out of favour. The Emperor has promised me to dismiss him to-morrow. His Majesty prefers cheerful people, not men who are pessimists," he laughed.
Indeed, next day the count, who was one of the most loyal and devoted servants of the Romanoffs, and who had risked everything in an attempt to open the Emperor"s eyes, was actually dismissed. Such was the power of Rasputin.
But the plot against Yakowleff to dispossess him of the concession for Otchakov was a much more deeply-laid and evil one. The financier had returned to Petrograd, flushed with his success with his moneyed friends in London. Already news had gone round that a wonderful casino was to be built to eclipse Monte Carlo, and he had given an interview to the _Novoye Vremya_ concerning it.