rot in jails and fortresses, while upon
dozens there was placed "the necktie of Stolypin."

"Ah! my dear Gregory," Azef said, after he had lit a fresh cigarette,
"there will be no security until that man's mouth is closed. I see that
you agree with me."

"Quite," replied the monk, who, I saw, was rather agitated because of
something which the police spy had told him.

"Good! Then I will go further. To-day I have proposed to the Council of
Workmen's Delegates that we should blow up the Central Bureau of the
Okhrana, with Guerassimof in the centre of it. The killing of Guerassimof
appealed to them. They hate him--as you know. Really, those people are
humorous. They think I am their friend, and yet each day the police
arrest one or two members regularly but quietly, and they disappear no
one knows whither. I have suspicions of Menchikof, of the Okhrana at
Moscow. The other day I met him at Princess Kamenskoi's, and what he
told me set me wondering. He poses as your friend, but I feel convinced
he is your enemy."

Rasputin's bearded face relaxed into that strange, sardonic grin of his
as he replied:

"I know Menchikof. He is harmless. The only man we may fear is Burtsef.
He knows far too much of the police organisation and the deeds of our
provocating agents."

"I agree. But he lives in Paris, and hence the Okhrana cannot lay hands
upon him. If only he would return to Russia, then he would not be long at
liberty. That I assure you."

"He is in Paris. Could we not send him a message that his daughter
Vera--who married young Tchernof last year--has been taken suddenly ill,
and thus summon him at once to Vilna? Once on Russian soil he could be
arrested."

Azef smiled. "Our friend Burtsef knows a little too much of our methods
to fall into such a trap. He would recognise my hand in it in an instant.
No, some other means must be found. Meanwhile we must deal with the
person under discussion. We were agreed that he must be suppressed at all
hazards, eh?"

"Exactly. And we must suppress Burtsef afterwards."

Paris, Lausanne, Geneva, Zurich and Nice swarmed with Russian secret
agents, who, at orders from Azef and Rasputin, kept constant vigil upon
the doings of everyone. The directors of the foreign service of our
political police were Ratchkovsky in Paris, and Rataef in London. The
latter posed as a Russian journalist, and usually spent his afternoons
over cups of coffee in the cosmopolitan Cafe Royal in Regent Stree