im man, just as Rasputin had described him, evidently an
_agent-provocateur_ from Berlin. After he had been ushered into my
bedroom by a waiter, he greeted me warmly, and inquired if I had anything
to hand him.

To this I made an evasive reply, in pretence of being in ignorance of his
meaning, whereupon he said in German:

"Ah! I forgot. You wish first to establish my identity," and laughingly
he produced from his wallet an English five-pound note, which he showed
to me.

In consequence I handed him the letter from the Ministry, which he placed
unopened in his pocket and then left, while that same night I returned to
Petrograd.

Three days later I learned the truth.

Ivan Botkine, the trusted secret agent of the Prime Minister Kokovtsov,
who had left Berlin on the twenty-second for Petrograd, had been found
dead in one of the sleeping compartments on the arrival of the train at
the frontier station of Wirballen. His pockets and valise had been
rifled, and an inquiry had been opened. Though the doctors disagreed as
to the exact cause of death, it was apparent that one of the dishes he
had eaten in the restaurant car an hour before had been poisoned.

Further, I have since established the horrifying fact that the mysterious
letter from the Ministry which I handed to Heckel in Vilna contained a
secret poison! That it was used to remove poor Botkine, Rasputin
afterwards admitted to me. Such were the methods of the camarilla
who were ruling Russia!

CHAPTER VI

RASPUTIN IN BERLIN

TRULY, our Russia was a country of blood and tears under the last of the
Romanoffs. Its creed and its motto was "Gallows and Siberia!"

No man's life was safe under a regime run by scoundrels, of whom
"Grichka," my chief, was the worst.

An unlimited secret fund was placed at the disposal of the Ministry of
the Interior for purposes of the Secret Police, and when I say that
Rasputin controlled that Ministry as well as the Emperor himself, it can
easily be understood that all who were loyal Russians were "suspect," and
denunciation throve on all sides. The Okhrana recruited its agents from
all quarters. That is why one was never sure that the stranger who
denounced Rasputin and his friends was not an _agent-provocateur_.

Every Russian subject of any note, and every foreign traveller, was
watched, not because of his disloyalty, but because Rasputin and his
camarilla, including the Empress, feared lest he should discover how th