ent which he signed and handed to
her, together with Lachkarioff's original statement.

Even then Rasputin's cunning was not at its limit.

Lachkarioff's usefulness to Germany in Russia was at an end. He was in
Gothenburg, and being a close friend of an English journalist there, it
was feared lest he should allow himself to be interviewed, and reveal
something of the truth concerning the subterranean working of Germany in
Petrograd.

"The man's lips ought to be closed," Steinhauer had written to Rasputin
only a week before. "Can you suggest any way? While he lives he will be a
menace to us all. Filimonoff is safe in an asylum in Copenhagen, though I
believe he is perfectly sane. Only it is best that no risk should be
run."

Here were means ready to hand to close the mouth of Felix Lachkarioff,
for the woman whom he had betrayed was furiously vengeful.

"You said the other day that you would be ready to strike a blow at that
enemy of Russia who has so grossly misled you," Rasputin said to her in a
deep, earnest voice, as she sat in his room. "Would not such a course be
deeply patriotic? Why not, as expiation of your sin, travel to Gothenburg
and avenge those hundreds of poor people who were his victims at Obukhov?
I can give into your hand the means," he added, looking her straight in
the face.

"What means?" she asked.

He crossed to his writing-table, and, unlocking a drawer with a key upon
his chain, he took out a tiny bottle of extremely expensive Parisian
perfume, a pale-green liquid, which he handed to her.

"It looks like scent," he remarked, with a grin, "but it contains
something else--something so potent that a single drop introduced into
food or drink will produce death within an hour, the symptoms being
exactly those of heart disease. That is what deaths resulting from it are
always declared to be. So there is no risk. Meet him, be friendly, dine
with him for the sake of old days in Petrograd, and before you leave him
he will be doomed," added Rasputin, in a low whisper. "He surely deserves
it after deceiving you as he has done!"

"He certainly does," she declared fiercely, unable to overlook how he had
betrayed her. "And I will do it!" she added, taking up the little bottle.
"Russia shall be avenged."

"Excellent, my dear sister. You will indeed be rewarded," declared
Rasputin, crossing himself. "When you return to Petrograd, give me back
that precious little bottle of perfume, which I call the P