The Minister of Evil Part 30

"_Secret Instructions._--(1) You are to double the promised payment to Nicholas Meder and Irene Feischer for the blowing up of the works at Vologda and Bologoye, on condition that the affair is carried out within fourteen days of the receipt of this. If not, arrange with your friend P. [Protopopoff] to have both arrested with incriminating papers upon them. They may become dangerous to us unless implicated.

"(2) As you have failed to carry out the plans against Generals Brusiloff and Korniloff, then you must adopt other means against both generals, and thus ensure a lull upon the frontier. We note that the attempt made by Brusiloff's body-servant, Ivan Sawvitch, has unfortunately failed.

"The bearer of this will hand you a small packet. It contains two tubes of white powder. Peter Tchernine, who has succeeded Sawvitch as the general's servant, is to be trusted. You will send the tube marked No. 1 to him in secret at General Headquarters, with orders to mix the contents with the powdered sugar which the general is in the habit of taking with stewed fruit. The slightest trace of the powder will result in death from a cause which it will be impossible for the doctors to identify.

"(3) A young dancer at the Bouffes named Nada Tsourikoff, living in the Garnovskaya, will call upon you for the tube marked No. 2.

She is a close friend of General Korniloff, and is about to join him at headquarters at our orders. She has already her instructions as to the use of the tube. The two deaths will be entirely different, therefore doctors will never suspect.

"At all hazards the offensive must be ended. Greetings.

"S."

After I had read the instructions Hardt produced a box of Swedish safety matches, which he emptied upon the table, and among them we saw two tiny tubes of gla.s.s hermetically sealed, one containing a white chalk-like powder and numbered "1," while the other was half filled with pale green powder and marked "2." These he handed to the monk, saying:

"I will use your telephone, if I may? I have to ask the young woman Nada Tsourikoff to call here to see you."

The monk having granted permission, Hardt, pa.s.sing into the study, was soon speaking with the popular young dancer of the Bouffes.

"You will call here at noon, eh?" he asked, to which she gave a response in the affirmative.

Punctually at twelve I was informed that a young lady, who refused her name, desired to have an urgent interview with the Starets, and on going to the waiting-room, wherein so many of the fair s.e.x sat daily in patience for the Father to receive them, I found a tall, willowy, dark-haired and exceedingly handsome girl, who, after inquiring if I were Feodor Rajevski, told me that her name was Tsourikoff and that she had been sent to see the Father.

Without delay I introduced her to the "holy" man, who stood with his hands crossed over his breast in his most pious att.i.tude.

"My daughter, you have, I believe, been sent to me by our mutual friend,"

he said. "You wish for something? Here it is," and he produced a small oblong cardboard box such as jewellers use for men's scarf-pins. Opening it, he showed her the tiny tube reposing in pink cotton wool. "It is a little present for somebody, eh?" he asked with a sinister laugh.

"Perhaps," replied the girl as she took it and placed it carefully in the black silk vanity-bag she was carrying.

"You have already received instructions through another channel?"

inquired Rasputin.

"I have, O Father," was her reply.

"Then be extremely careful of it. Let not a grain of it touch you," he said. "I am ordered to tell you that."

She promised to exercise the greatest care.

"And when you have fulfilled your mission come to me again," he said, fixing her with his sinister, hypnotic eyes, beneath the cold intense gaze of which I saw that she was trembling. "Remember that!--perform what is expected of you fearlessly, but with complete discretion, and instantly on your return to Petrograd call here and report to me."

The girl promised, and then, kissing the dirty paw which the monk held out to her, she withdrew.

"Good-looking--extremely good-looking, Feodor," the monk remarked as soon as she had gone. "She might be very useful to me in the near future."

Then after a pause he added: "Ring up His Excellency the Minister of War and ask where Brusiloff is at the present moment."

I did so, and after a short wait found myself talking to General Soukhomlinoff, who told me that the Russian commander was that day at headquarters at Minsk.

When I told the monk, he said: "You must go there at once, Feodor, and carry the little tube to the Cossack Peter Tchernine, who is now Brusiloff's body-servant."

"I!" I gasped, startled at the suggestion that I should be chosen to convey death to our gallant commander.

"Yes. And pray why not? Someone whom I can trust must act as messenger.

And I trust you above all men, Feodor."

For a moment I hesitated.

Then I thanked him for his expression of confidence, but he at once noticed the reluctance which I had endeavoured to conceal.

"Surely, Feodor, you are not hesitating to perform this service for the Fatherland? Think of all the sacrifices we are making to bring the benefit of German civilisation into Russia," added the pious scoundrel.

"I will go--certainly I will go," I said. "But I cannot leave to-day. I shall require papers from the Ministry ere I can travel."

"His Excellency the General will order them to be furnished to you," he said. "I will see to it at once."

And five minutes later he went out to seek the Minister.

I was horrified at my position, compelled as I was to convey the means of death to the hands of the German spy Tchernine, who had been placed as servant to the Russian commander. I saw that I must leave Petrograd for Minsk that night; therefore I set about preparing for my adventurous journey. Indeed, shortly before midnight I left the Gorokhovaya with the box of Swedish matches in my inner pocket.

The journey from Petrograd due south to Polotzk, where I had to change, proved an interminable one and occupied nearly two days, so congested was the line by military traffic and ambulance trains. At last on arrival there I joined a troop-train with reinforcements going to Minsk, where I duly alighted, to discover that General Brusiloff's headquarters were out at a village called Gorodok, about five miles distant, in the direction of Vilna. The evening was bitterly cold, and as I drove along I became filled with ineffable disgust of Rasputin and the disgraceful camarilla who were slowly but surely hurling the nation to its doom.

Had I refused to undertake that devilish mission, the monk would have instantly suspected me of double dealing, and sooner or later I should have met with an untimely end, as, alas! so many others had done. So completely had he placed me beneath his thumb that I was compelled to act as he dictated, in order to save my own life, for, as I have already explained, the "holy" man held the lives of those who displeased him very cheaply.

At headquarters, which proved to be a veritable hive of military activity, I posed to a sergeant as Tchernine's brother, and begged that I might see him. It was nearly dark as I stood with the man, who had roughly demanded my business there.

"I fear you will not be able to see him," he replied. "The Emperor has just arrived on a visit to headquarters, and he is with the general, and your brother is in attendance upon them."

Tchernine, a spy of Germany, was actually in attendance upon the Emperor, and hence could listen to the conversation between His Majesty and the army commander!

"But I have come all the way from Petrograd," I whined. "I have a message to give my brother from his wife, whom I fear is dying."

This moved the honest sergeant, who, calling one of his men, told him to go to Tchernine and tell him he was wanted immediately.

"Only for a few moments," I said. "I will not keep him from his duty more than two or three minutes--just to give him the message."

I waited alone in a small, bare hut for nearly half an hour, when the man returned with Brusiloff's servant.

"Ah, dear brother Peter!" I cried, rus.h.i.+ng forward and embracing him ere he could express astonishment. "So I have found you at last--at last!"

As I expected, the man who had accompanied him, not wis.h.i.+ng to be present at the meeting, turned and left us alone.

The instant he had gone I pressed the box of matches into his hand, whispering:

"Take this. It has been sent to you from our friends in Berlin. Inside is a tube of white powder, which you will mix with the powdered sugar which General Brusiloff takes with fruit. It is highly dangerous, so be very careful how you handle it. Death will occur quickly, but the doctors will never discover the reason. It has already been used with effect by our friends among the Allies."

"I understand," was the spy's grim reply. "Tell our friends that I will put it into the sugar to-night, and both His Majesty and the general shall have some. How fortunate, eh?" he grinned.

I held my breath. It had never crossed my mind that Nicholas was to dine with the general.

"No," I said. "Keep it till to-morrow, so that the general has it alone.