t.

All this I knew, and much more. I knew that Ivan Manuiloff, who was now
secretary to Stuermer, had begun his lucrative career as the agent and
catspaw of Ratchkovsky in Paris. But he intrigued against his chief, and
was then transferred to Rome. Of that man and his dastardly doings I
will tell more later. Suffice it to say that the Emperor so deeply
believed in him that one day he gave him a gold cigarette-case with his
initials in diamonds "as a mark of his esteem"!

Having listened attentively to the conversation between the two
scoundrels, I at last came to the conclusion that they were conspiring
against some mysterious person named Krivochein.

After the pair had consumed a bottle of champagne, Azef rose and, shaking
his friend's dirty paw, said:

"I hope to have everything arranged when we meet. I would not yet mention
the matter to the Empress."

"Of course I shall not," remarked Rasputin, with that crafty grin of his.
"She would only worry over it--and just now she is greatly troubled over
the Tsarevitch. He has had another attack."

The monk did not mention the fact that the cause of the attack was one of
Badmayev's secret drugs which Anna Vyrubova had dissolved in his milk!

After Azef had left, Rasputin flung himself into his easy chair, and as
he lit a cigarette remarked to me:

"Ah, Feodor! What a man! There is nothing he is unable to accomplish."

"He is very daring," I remarked.

"No, it is not daring--it is deep cunning. He has the police at his back;
I have Alexandra Feodorovna--so we win always. But," he added, with a
snarl, "we have enemies, and those must be dealt with--dealt with
drastically. I hear they are setting about more scandals in Petrograd
concerning me. Have you heard them?" he asked.

"Gossip is rife on every hand, and all sorts of wild stories are being
circulated," I said.

"Bah! Let the fools say what they will of Gregory Rasputin," he laughed.
"It only makes him the more popular. It is time, however, that I
performed some more miracles among the poor," he added reflectively. "Let
us arrange some, Feodor. Do not forget it."

The miracles were arranged a fortnight later. With the assistance of a
clever German conjurer named Brockhaus, from Riga, who with others helped
the mock saint on the occasions when he imposed upon the credulity of the
mujiks, he pretended to "heal" a child of lameness, while a female
assistant of Brockhaus, having posed as a blind peasant, was r