banker's
draft for one hundred thousand roubles."

"Did I not say that I had been doing some good business, Gregory?" asked
his friend.

"Yes--and it will prove better business later--you will see."

At Rasputin's orders I went round to Malinovsky, Assistant Director of
Police, who at the monk's request telephoned to Tver to inquire what
suspicions there were against the banker Ganskau. When Malinovsky
returned to where I was sitting, he told me that the reply of the Chief
of Police of Tver was to the effect that there was no doubt that Ganskau
was guilty of a very brutal murder, committed in most mysterious
circumstances. The banker's wife, with whom he lived on very disagreeable
terms, had discovered a letter from the girl Elise, and duly handed it
to the police out of revenge. This led them to find the box at Warsaw
wherein were other letters, one of which forbade her to come to Russia,
and threatening her with violence if she disobeyed.

I returned at once to the Gorokhovaya, where the monk and the prince sat
with a bottle of champagne between them, and gave them the message.

A quarter of an hour later the banker returned excitedly, and was ushered
in to Rasputin, who saw him alone. They remained together for about ten
minutes, and then the victim departed.

At once the monk came to us, waving in one hand Ganskau's confession of
guilt, and in the other a draft on the Azov Bank for one hundred thousand
roubles.

"I suppose we had better pretend to do something--eh, Peter?" asked the
monk, with an evil grin.

"Of course," was the reply.

Then I sat down, and at the "holy man's" dictation wrote to the Minister
of the Interior as follows:

"There is a charge of murder against Nicholas Ganskau, banker, of
Tver. I wish to see all documents concerning the crime. Orders
must be given not to arrest the assassin for one month, and that
due notice be given me before any action is taken."

To this the monk scrawled his illiterate signature.

From that moment the unfortunate banker was irretrievably in Rasputin's
hands, and I saw much of his dealings with him. Pretending to leave
everything with his friend Prince Gorianoff, he refused to see the guilty
man again. In the meantime the prince, whom I accompanied as the monk's
secretary, went to Tver three weeks after the first transaction, and we
saw the victim in secret. Gorianoff told him that, although the monk had
been able to prevent his ar