his downfall to Stolypin, and
hence is most bitter against him. He has, I hear, fallen in love with the
woman Baltz, who hails from Samara."

"Well?" asked the saint.

"Well?--nothing," laughed the man with the goat-beard. "I simply tell you
what I know. There is a plot--that is all! And as far as I can discern
the swifter Stolypin leaves the Court, the easier it will be for Her
Majesty and ourselves--eh? While Stolypin is daily with the Emperor there
is hourly danger for us."

"In that I certainly agree," declared Rasputin. "We must be
watchful--very watchful."

We remained alert--all of us. That same night Rasputin informed the
Empress of the secret plot of the black-haired Vera and her lover
Bagrov.

The Court left for the Crimea next day, and Rasputin travelled with the
Imperial family. Stolypin, in ignorance of what was in progress, was of
the party, I being left in Petrograd to follow three days later.

On arrival at Kiev, where the Emperor had arranged to review the troops,
a gala performance was held in the theatre that night. Opposite the
Imperial box sat Stolypin, with two other high officials of the Court,
when, during the entr'acte, a man dashed in, and in full view of the
Emperor and Empress fired a revolver at the Prime Minister.

The confusion this caused was terrible. Her Majesty fainted and was
dragged out of the box by Mademoiselle Kamensky, while the Tsar swiftly
jumped to his feet and regarded the scene calmly.

"I'm done!" gasped the patriotic and honest Stolypin, as those present
seized the assassin, who was none other than the ex-_agent-provocateur_
Bagrov.

Six hours later the Prime Minister breathed his last, a victim of the
Empress and her Potsdam camarilla, while Vera Baltz fled to Switzerland.

Rasputin afterwards told me that he urged the Court to leave Kiev at
once, adding:

"It was far best for Alix and Nicholas to pretend horror of the tragedy
than to offer condolences."

And so ended another chapter of Russia's underground history.

CHAPTER V

THE POWER BEHIND THE THRONE

THE murder of Stolypin, though unsuspected by the chancelleries of
Europe, was, as I have explained, the work of the Hidden Hand of Germany.
Stolypin had suspected the true state of affairs at the Russian Court,
therefore the success of Germany in the coming war depended upon closing
his mouth; so Potsdam, using the erotic monk Rasputin as its catspaw,
effected a coup which had, alas! sad res