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 scrape 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