EIGHT CARDS ON THE TABLE

There was a lot of talk about murdering Rasputin, and that is what most of it was: just talk. The muzhik was seemingly so well guarded that practical possibilities could apparently not be found. Aristocratic officers were the most likely to assassinate him because they despised all he stood for, and would have had no compunction about killing such an upstart.

Some time in the autumn of 1916 a carefully thought-out plot to murder Rasputin began to take shape in somebody’s mind.

The murderer must be someone whose proximity would not cause Rasputin, or his minders, any concern.

This person should have a perfect alibi.

Rasputin should simply disappear. People would guess that he could have died in a drunken brawl on the Islands he was so fond of visiting. Were the body found, this would be confirmed.

Had the person who considered these principles been British, he would not pass the first hurdle; he would never get close to Rasputin.

Prince Felix Yusupov, on the other hand, had met Rasputin and knew Mounya Golovina, one of his intimate disciples, very well. He was married to a Romanov, which meant that he would probably be safe from prosecution. Also, he had personal reasons for taking revenge on Rasputin. According to Yusupov, his father had lost his job as Governor-General of Moscow because he denounced to the Tsar, with anger, the pro-German schemers who hampered his work.1

As for whether Yusupov could kill Rasputin in cold blood… the Prince had a lot to prove. As a member of the Corps des Pages, he was part of a militaristic band of brothers to which his reputation hardly qualified him for admittance. People suspected that he would fail his exams on purpose to avoid active service. On the other hand, participation in Rasputin’s murder would make him a hero in the eyes of his peers.

Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich had something better than an alibi. No Romanov could face a firing squad.

The identity of those involved in the planning of Rasputin’s murder is reasonably clear. What remains unclear is whether British intelligence officers proactively approached Yusupov and Dmitri Pavlovich with the idea of carrying out a murder by proxy or whether they heard about their desire to kill Rasputin at a very early stage and sought to exploit this opportunity for their own ends. Either way, the longstanding personal rapport between Yusupov, Stephen Alley, John Scale and Oswald Rayner was absolutely key to the collaboration.

John Scale’s two daughters, Betty and Muriel, have clear memories of hearing their father’s account of his involvement. According to Betty, he told them that he was ‘involved in the planning but was not at the murder’.2 Muriel also confirmed that

He was involved in the planning of it; they were all together… You see they had to do something, but in fact he wasn’t there when they actually killed him, he was somewhere else, so he didn’t actually take part in that, but he was involved in all the planning and how they were going to get rid of him… He knew the Yusupovs very well. He used to stay at their palace… palaces.3

We also have corroboration of British involvement in the planning from another source. William Compton was a chauffeur who worked for the Anglo-Russian Hospital from his engagement in June 1916 until its closure in February 1918 and the evacuation of its staff to England. He left a diary, from which it is clear that some of the chauffeurs used to moonlight as drivers for other members of the British community in Petrograd. Compton in particular drove Oswald Rayner and John Scale. Most significantly, his diary (in this respect, an account-book) confirms that on six occasions between late October and mid-November of 1916, he took Rayner and Scale to and from the Yusupov Palace. Two further visits are recorded after Scale’s departure for Romania on 11 November, the last of which was the night before the murder.

Whether the idea to murder Rasputin was initially Yusupov and Dmitri Pavlovich’s or the intelligence officers’, it is clear that the pair were to be the means of physically carrying out the deed. The Achilles heel of involving the two playboys was that everyone knew their business.

The first rumours of approaching murder reached Simanovich at the Fire Club, a gambling club he ran in Countess Ignateva’s house on the Champ de Mars… Ivan came to him to say that there were mysterious meetings at the National [a rival club] where a lot was said about Rasputin. Alexis sometimes worked in the room where the meetings were held. Simanovich gave him 500 roubles and told him to ask Alexis to find out as much as he could. Alexis reported back that the meetings were chaired by Purishkevich and were attended by Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich, Prince Felix Yusupov, and some young officers. ‘They spoke a lot about Rasputin in these meetings,’ Simanovich said; the name of the English Ambassador, Buchanan, and those of the Tsar and Tsarina were also mentioned.4

Yusupov’s famously gothic account of the murder, translated by, and essentially co-written with, Oswald Rayner in 1927, naturally makes no mention of British involvement. Despite a degree of cynicism about Yusupov’s account on the part of historians, the book more or less became the authorised account of the murder for the best part of nine decades. Rayner himself certainly felt that it was very much a shared endeavour and ensured that his name appeared in big bold letters, only slightly smaller than Yusupov’s, on the title page of the British edition. In fact, it seems that it was he, rather than Yusupov, who initially approached London publishers Jonathan Cape with a proposal for the book. According to Yusupov, the conspiracy was all his own idea. He talked to Princess Irina first, and she agreed with him that something must be done. He began (no date is given) by making sure he was doing the right thing.

I decided to attach no particular importance to all the disturbing rumours which were rife, but first of all to obtain irrefutable evidence of Rasputin’s treason.5

He put the case against Rasputin to Mounya Golovina, and she happily admitted that the Tsar and Tsarina discussed affairs of state with the man he called an ‘unenlightened and uneducated muzhik.’ ‘There are obviously people behind him who are secretly directing him,’’he told her sternly.

She wouldn’t listen; he didn’t understand the essential holiness of Rasputin, she said. That was enough.

I realised that no more time must be wasted in talk; it was necessary to take action, deliberately and with energy, while all was not yet lost.6

He decided ‘To consult certain influential people’ and to tell them all he knew of Rasputin’s doings. These were all people who in the past had bemoaned the man’s influence, but now that he approached them with a view to taking action, backed off. They had ‘an addiction to a quiet life, and an eager desire for their own welfare’. One who saw the point of what he was saying, but was not in a position to do anything, was Rodzyanko, a relation of Yusupov’s, a huge fellow who was Speaker of the Duma at the time. He agreed that it was all quite dreadful, but what could one do when ‘The entire Government, and those who are in close contact with the Emperor, are without exception Rasputin’s nominees?’ The only way out, said Rodzyanko, was ‘To kill the blackguard’.7

This was more like it. Yusupov was full of trepidation, but an inner voice strengthened his resolve:

Every murder is a crime and a sin, but in the name of your country you must take this sin on your conscience. You must take it without faltering. At the front, millions of innocent men have been killed…8

His decision was made, and he wondered ‘To whom I could entrust my secret’. This is typical of Yusupov, as it begs the question of why he didn’t just get on and figure out how to do it alone, or pay for it to be done, in a way that would remain undiscovered. But his first impulse was to unburden himself – of what by now was barely secret.

He decided on Dmitri Pavlovich and Lt Sukh-otin. Sergei Sukh-otin, from the smart Preobrazhenski Regiment, was twenty-nine, like Yusupov, and currently convalescing in the Anglo-Russian Hospital from wounds received in action. Yusupov visited him practically every day.

Both agreed at once to participate in the plot. Yusupov dismissed a qualm of trepidation about ‘The most distressing possibilities’ that might arise from all this, as

I was buoyed up by the hope that the destruction of Rasputin would save the Tsar’s family, and that the Emperor, roused from the spell which had been cast on him, would lead the country to a decisive victory at the head of his united people.

Somehow, all three of them convinced themselves that inside that weak little man was a valiant warrior, all ready to burst forth in shining armour brandishing the sword of freedom. Yusupov’s inner hero was not much in evidence at the moment; Dmitri Pavlovich, who had to go back to the Stavka soon, was sure he was being drugged.

They arranged that when Dmitri next returned from the Stavka, between Saturday 10 December and Thursday 15 December, they would ‘work out a detailed plan for Rasputin’s destruction, and prepare everything for its fulfilment’.9

When Dmitri left Petrograd, the convalescent Sukhotin (who had been upstairs from Dmitri’s in the Anglo-Russian Hospital all the time) paid Yusupov a visit ‘at home’ – possibly at the palace of his father-in-law, Grand Duke Alexander, where he was staying while the Yusupov Palace apartments were being finished; or, more likely, Privately at the Yusupov Palace. They decided that Yusupov should get to know Rasputin better, and try to persuade or bribe him to go away from Tsarskoye Selo. But,

…we had to decide on the method to use in case this failed and we were obliged to resort to violence. I proposed that we cast lots to decide which of us would shoot the starets.10

Two meetings took place between Yusupov and Rasputin; the first on the pretext that Yusupov required healing, and the second because Rasputin wanted to hear gypsy music (which the Prince was still good at, despite no longer being a soprano). Then he had to work for an exam, and did not see Rasputin for a while, until Mounya Golovina insisted he go with her to Rasputin’s flat.

When their car was quite close, she told the driver to stop around the corner, and explained to Felix that Okhrana men watched Rasputin round the clock and kept a record of visitors. Yusupov explained later that she ‘knew how intensely my family disliked the starets, and spared no effort to keep my relations with him secret’.11

After the meeting at Gorokhovaya Street, Yusupov was sure that Rasputin was too comfortably set up to leave Petrograd of his own volition, and not at all in need of money; he could have as much as he wanted from people seeking positions of power. He went back to Rasputin’s again, this time for a hands-on healing session. ‘After this hypnotic séance I repeatedly went to him, sometimes with Mounya, sometimes alone.’ He recounts Rasputin’s boasting in detail and claims that Rasputin, drunk, told him,

When it’s all settled, we’ll hail Alexandra as Regent for her young son and we’ll send ‘him’ [the Tsar] to Livadia for a rest… There! Won’t that be a treat for him? To be a market gardener! He’s worn out… he must have a rest.12

At one point in this account mysterious strangers enter and Yusupov peeps from behind a door.

Four of them were typically and unmistakeably Jewish in appearance. The remaining three were singularly alike; they were fair-haired, with red faces and small eyes.13

German spies, the lot of them! That settled it. Yusupov was now convinced that Rasputin ‘was at the root of all the evil, and the primary cause of all the misfortunes which had befallen Russia’.

However he also perceived that, were Rasputin to be shot in his own flat, the Tsar would interpret his death as a ‘demonstration against the Tsar and his family’. The consequences that might arise from this are not stated. Yusupov, therefore, thought it would be best for Rasputin to disappear in such a way that assassination, rather than accidental murder, was not provable and no perpetrators could be discovered.

If he really wanted this, he had certainly failed to grasp that the more people knew about the murder, the more likely it was that he would be found out. And as if being overheard in the Fire Club was not bad enough, he proceeded to enlist more conspirators.

There had recently been two outbursts against Rasputin in the Duma: one from Maklakov, and one from Purishkevich (on 19 November). This was significant in that it was the first time that Rasputin had been openly denounced by name, as opposed to coded references such as ‘Dark Forces’. Maklakov was a distinguished lawyer. Purishkevich was the same monarchist anti-Semite who before the war had so despised the Duma that he once attended a session wearing a flower in his fly-button. Since the Tsar had fallen under Rasputin’s spell, Purishkevich had changed. He now saw the point of the Duma, and was an active member. With his loudly expressed disdain for ‘Titled riff-raff’, as he called them, he had even attracted a popular following.

Yusupov resolved to go and see both of them. Maklakov was intrigued, but claimed a prior engagement. He did, however, encourage him with the gift of a truncheon.

Purishkevich was keen, although he pointed out at once that Rasputin was well guarded and it would be hard to get close to him. Yusupov explained that that aspect of the affair had already been sorted out. Purishkevich then suggested they also enlist the help of Dr Lazovert – the medical doctor of his military detachment, who would be a useful driver. Now they were five: Dmitri, Yusupov and Sukhotin the original conspirators, and Purishkevich and Lazovert the second rank.

Certain decisions were taken. The problem of gunshot noise and wounds was addressed. Rasputin would be poisoned by cyanide of potassium because ‘poison was the surest means of killing him without leaving any trace of murder’. He would be lured to the basement dining room in Prince Yusupov’s private apartment, which ‘lent itself admirably to the accomplishment of our scheme’. It was at a distance from the rest of the palace, nobody could approach without being heard, the walls were thick and the windows high and small. And there was no way out.

The date of 16 December was chosen, as this was the date by which Princess Irina was expected back from the Crimea. Rasputin had always wanted to meet her. (It was also the day before Yusupov expected to go to the Crimea – he told different stories at different times – and the day before Purishkevich was to receive the entire Duma on his hospital train, but apparently neither would require cocoa and an early night).

Irina’s real position in all this – she rather fades out of it in her husband’s account – was that she didn’t like it one bit, but if it was going to take place she had better be there. (Indeed, as a Romanov, she would be further back-up against police intrusion.) Her letter to Yusupov on 25 November makes her feelings clear:

…Thanks for your insane letter. I didn’t understand half of it. I see that you’re planning to do something wild. Please be careful and don’t stick your nose into all that dirty business. The dirtiest thing is that you have decided to do it all without me. I don’t see how I can take part in it now, since it’s all arranged. Who is ‘M.Gol.’? I just realised what that means and who they are while writing this! In a word, be careful. I see from your letter that you’re in a state of wild enthusiasm and ready to climb a wall… I’ll be in Petrograd on the 12th or 13th, so don’t dare to do anything without me, or else I won’t come at all. Love and kisses. May the Lord protect you.14

Yusupov would invite Rasputin to the Moika on the promise of meeting Irina. ‘You will serve as the lure’,15 he wrote back to her on 27 November. And Rasputin would cheerfully deceive his minders that night, as he did not want to make things awkward for his new friend Yusupov. He would know that if the Tsarina heard, from the Okhrana, that Yusupov was visiting Rasputin, then Yusupov’s parents would sooner or later find out and be angry.

All went according to plan, but for one thing: Princess Irina, overwhelmed by trepidation or horror at the last moment, stayed in the Crimea. Yusupov kept this from Rasputin. He had agreed to come, and did not suspect anything was amiss. He told Yusupov to collect him from Gorokhovaya Street after midnight, when the minders had been dismissed, and to come in by the back door.

Purishkevich’s account of Yusupov’s approach to him, and of the night of the murder, is presented as a diary. He recounts his triumphant denunciation of ‘Dark Forces’ in the Duma on 19 November and the many congratulations he received then and on the following day. One of them, from Prince Yusupov, whom he did not know, he found particularly intriguing, and when the Prince visited him the next day in uniform (‘evidently he is fulfilling his military obligation as an officer’) Purishkevich

was very much taken with both his external appearance, which radiated inexpressible elegance and breeding, and particularly with his inner self-possession. This is obviously a man of great will and character – rare qualities among Russians, especially those in aristocratic circles.16

He goes on to describe a meeting between himself, Sukhotin (‘slow-moving but forceful’) and Dmitri (‘a tall, stately and handsome man’). In this company, Purishkevich, with his gleaming bald pate, thick black beard and black-rimmed pebble glasses, must have felt conspicuously out of his element.

According to him, Yusupov said Irina was in the Crimea and had no intention of returning, but Rasputin was being enticed to Yusupov’s palace on the promise of her presence. They must now decide how to kill him, how to avoid suspicion, and how to get rid of the body. They all decided on poisoning: ‘Yusupov’s palace, which stands on the Moika Canal directly across from the police station, ruled out the use of a revolver.’ Getting rid of the body was more difficult. They needed a driver and didn’t want to use the servants. Hence ‘Dr S Lazovert, an old [sic] doctor who had served with me for two years in my military unit’ was to be roped in. Purishkevich made the first mention of time constraints. ‘I intended to leave for Iasi on the Romanian front in the middle of December, once I had procured all the necessary supplies for my work in our army zone there.’

On the evening of 24 November, he and Lazovert, Yusupov, Dmitri Pavlovich and Sukhotin met at precisely ten o’clock in the library coach of his hospital train, which was parked in the freight section of the Warsaw Station.

At this point Prince Yusupov showed us some potassium cyanide which he had obtained from V. Maklakov. Some of this was in the form of crystals and some in a solution contained in a small phial which he continued to shake during the whole time he was in the coach.

Our conversation lasted almost two hours and together we worked out the following plan: on the appointed day, or rather night, we would all meet at Yusupov’s at precisely midnight. At 12.30, having completed all the necessary preparations in Yusupov’s dining room in the lower storey of the palace, we would go up to his study. At approximately one o’clock Yusupov would leave in my car to pick up Rasputin at Gorokhovaya. Dr Lazovert would be his chauffeur.

From then on, the plan was neither economical nor elegant. In the hands of men as undisciplined, intemperate and unpunctual as these, it bristled with opportunities for error and misunderstanding.

Lazovert was to drive Purishkevich’s car into the courtyard of number 92 Moika and park close to the side door, so that Yusupov could take Rasputin straight into his wing of the palace and show him directly downstairs to his private dining room.

Lazovert would then take off the chauffeur’s uniform he would be wearing and climb the staircase to Yusupov’s study, where Dmitri Pavlovich, Purishkevich and Sukhotin awaited, ready to rush downstairs if things went wrong.

Within ten or fifteen minutes of arriving, Rasputin would have drunk poisoned Madeira and died. Prince Yusupov would report to the others, who would follow him downstairs and bundle up his clothes. Sukhotin, wearing Rasputin’s overcoat, and Dmitri Pavlovich, with a bundle of other clothes, would then leave in the car. The car would be driven, as before, by Lazovert dressed as a chauffeur. He would take them to the hospital train where Mrs Lazovert and Mrs Purishkevich (who had not so far as we know been consulted on this point) would burn the clothes. Presumably this was intended to delay identification, were the body to be found. However, it never quite makes sense. Rasputin wore a selection of smocks hand-embroidered by the Tsarina, but it later transpires that only his outer clothing was ever meant to be burned.

Purishkevich’s car would be loaded onto the train. Lazovert, Sukhotin and Dmitri Pavlovich would go ‘by taxi or by foot’ to the Sergei Palace on Nevski Prospekt (which is quite a distance from the Warsaw Station). There they would pick up Dmitri’s car, again drive it into the courtyard and park it close to the wall, and go up to the study to collect Yusupov and Purishkevich.

Together they would descend to the basement dining room, truss Rasputin up like a mummy in ‘some suitable material’, heave him upstairs and drive with the body in Dmitri’s car to a spot yet to be arranged, where they would drop it in the water. It would be bound with chains and ‘Two-pood weights’17 to prevent it from resurfacing through a hole in the ice – although by now, the winter was so far advanced that finding some un-iced water in the first place was going to be the hard part.

They parted, Purishkevich having agreed to buy chains and weights at the Alexandrov market. On 28 November, Yusupov invited him to view the room where the dark deed was to be carried out. Purishkevich entered through the main entrance of 94 Moika, a baroque foyer designed on an appropriately palatial scale and illuminated by a blazing chandelier, the better to display a rich carpet laid on a pale marble floor which led up a wide marble staircase which divided and soared up out of sight under an exquisite moulded ceiling. It was the foyer through which glittering throngs of princes with medals and princesses afire with jewels customarily passed before making a grand entrance to the enfilade of reception rooms and galleries on the first floor.

But Purishkevich noticed none of it. Instead, he was horrified by the number of servants, and especially by the faithful Tesphé, an Ethiopian manservant Felix and Irina had picked up in Jerusalem.

‘Listen, Prince,’ I said, ‘Surely this whole gang sitting in your hallway, headed by that liveried blackamoor, won’t be around on the night of our reception for Rasputin?’

He was reassured that there would be only two men on duty, and they would be in the main palace, not in Felix’s wing. The rest of the servants would have the night off ‘including the blackamoor’. As for the basement dining room, currently a chaos of builders’ gubbins and workmen installing electricity, he could see its thick walls and scant windows would make it perfect for their purposes because ‘even if shots had to be fired from there, the sound of their report would not be heard in the street’.

He asked Maklakov to participate. Maklakov said he would be in Moscow on and around the projected date but he would act in their defence if required. He asked Purishkevich to send a telegram when the assassination had been carried out successfully; the message would be ‘When are you arriving?’

On 29 November, Purishkevich took his wife with him to Alexandrov market to help carry the weights and the chains back. They carried them carefully onto the train so that the crew would not get curious. (It is hard to imagine a well-born, well-dressed St Petersburg lady lifting so much as a Fabergé egg, far less staggering, red-faced, across the goods yard with a 16-kilo weight – but she was a nurse. And she had put up with Purishkevich for many years, indicative in itself of considerable grit.) They hid their booty in the pharmacy and behind books in the library coach. Purishkevich spent the afternoon being driven around by Lazovert ‘examining every ice-hole in the Neva and in the little streams and bogs around Petrograd’. They found just two that were suitable. One was on a canal that ran from the Fontanka to the Tsarskoye Selo station; it was badly lit at night. The other was outside the city limits, on ‘The old Neva’ by the bridge across to the Islands.

The following day,

I saw the costume Dr Lazovert acquired today on my orders for 600 roubles: a chauffeur’s fur coat, a sort of Astrakhan cap with ear flaps, and chauffeur’s gloves. Lazovert modelled all of these for me, looking like a typical chauffeur – foppish and impudent. For the time being he took all these purchases to the Astoria Hotel, where he stays during our visits to Petrograd.

The next decision was serious. They had to fit the murder into their busy schedules. Yusupov and Dmitri Pavlovich wanted to have it over with by 12 December, but Dmitri’s diary was full until Friday 16 December. In passing, Yusupov told them (as his own account confirms) that Rasputin had offered to get him a job in government.

‘And what did you say to that?’ the Grand Duke asked, throwing him a meaningful look while taking a drag on his cigarette.

‘I?’ replied Yusupov, who lowered his gaze and, fluttering his eyelashes, assumed an ironically languid look, ‘I modestly informed him that I consider myself too young, inexperienced and unprepared for service in the administrative field, but that I was gratified beyond belief that one so well known for his perspicacity as Grigori Efimovich should have such a flattering opinion of me.’

We all burst out laughing.

They were concerned that Rasputin might tell his Okhrana minders where he was going. To deflect suspicion, they decided that after the clothes had been taken for burning to the hospital train, Sukhotin would telephone the Villa Rhode from a phone booth in the Warsaw Station. He would ask whether Rasputin was there, and on being told that he wasn’t, would be overheard saying ‘He’s not there yet. That means he’ll be arriving any minute.’ So that if they were later asked whether Rasputin had been at the Yusupov Palace they would say yes, he came and later left for the Villa Rhode.

They were swept along on a tide of bravado. Plan A could go wrong at any juncture; but there was no Plan B.

On Tuesday 13 December they met for the last time. ‘Vanya has arrived’, the telephone signal, summoned them to the Yusupov Palace. Friday 16 December was to be the night. Another refinement was bolted onto the plan: a gramophone was to be put in the lobby outside the study, on the floor above the basement dining room. It would drown the voices of the men and make Rasputin understand that he must wait for the Princess Irina who, he would be told, was entertaining some ladies upstairs. And Yusupov showed them the sort of Indian club, or ‘twopound rubber dumb-bell like those used for indoor gymnastics’ he had got from Maklakov and was keeping ‘just in case’.

On the day before the murder, a Thursday, with Purishkevich and his family no longer living in their town apartment but having moved into the hospital train,

Dr Lazovert having bought a brush, khaki paint, and dressed in a leather apron, spent all day today on the car which will serve us tomorrow night to fetch our exalted guest. All the cars in my detachment have inscribed on them, in large red letters, semper idem, my motto. This inscription… could be that clue that could immediately lead the authorities to the Yusupov Palace and to my train.

Quite. Temperatures well below freezing are not generally the best for allowing paint to dry; but no matter. And Dr Lazovert, busily daubing icy coachwork in the freight area of the Warsaw Station, did look a little conspicuous. ‘The train crew crowded round him’, asking questions. He told them he was off on a spree to the Islands tomorrow night, and didn’t want the car to be spotted – the motto could be painted on again later, en route for Romania.

Purishkevich gave his staff Friday night off, to get them out of the way. He was perfectly satisfied there was no circumstantial evidence to link him with Rasputin’s murder.

Purishkevich’s Diary was published in Russia in 1918 and in Paris in 1923, when, its author having died, Maklakov was asked for his comments before publication.

Maklakov was now living in Paris. He had served as Ambassador to France under the Provisional Government in 1917. His letter makes certain points which are worth bearing in mind. One thing he very much doubted was the dates. As for the bits he was certain of, because he was there, they are all wrong in essential aspects.

Purishkevich’s diary is not a diary at all. It is merely the literary form he chose for his memoirs… This story of Purishkevich’s is a nonsensical mixture of various conversations which took place at different times and even with different people, about which Purishkevich could only have learned at second hand…

I remember his first approach to me and even my surprise at it – a surprise related exclusively to the fact that Purishkevich was in the plot… Purishkevich told me the names of the participants, the day of the murder and that was all… I would never have talked to Purishkevich about it, since I did not consider him to be serious enough nor especially discreet enough for such an undertaking.

It seems that Yusupov approached Maklakov first, and got a dusty answer; then he asked Purishkevich, who agreed to participate; and then went to see Maklakov again and was given a truncheon (according to Yusupov). This Maklakov did not deny, but as to the potassium cyanide,

It was not I who gave Yusupov potassium cyanide, or more precisely, what to Yusupov passed for potassium cyanide – had it been genuine no amount of hardiness on Rasputin’s part would have saved him.18

At the very least, Yusupov had told Irina, Purishkevich, Maklakov and Rodzyanko; Pavlovich had told Stopford and Purishkevich had told Hoare in November. Purishkevich had also enlisted Lazovert, who had told the train crew he was going to the Islands. Purishkevich was a blabbermouth, as were Dmitri Pavlovich and Yusupov. If this murder were to take place, it would be a miracle if all eyes did not turn in their direction. Yusupov was a tad worried about his legal position if he got caught, and Maklakov was a distinguished lawyer.

Just before the murder the participant, with whom I happened to talk, began to beg me urgently not to leave Petersburg on the day of the murder but to be there in case my advice might be needed. I will emphasise that… I did not suggest at any time to any of the participants that I would be their defender at a trial.19

Maklakov made it clear, he later wrote, that while he thought it impossible that the perpetrators would be tried, as it would be ‘Too upsetting for Russia’, on the other hand ‘To allow obvious murderers to go unpunished would also be impossible’.

Therefore it was their duty to act in such a way that they would not be discovered. In essence this would not be difficult since the authorities, understanding the significance of the affair, would hardly try to find the murderers. They need only make it possible that they not be discovered. Therefore the conspirators must refrain from any vainglorious urge to reveal themselves, must brag to no one, and on no account should they confess.20

Maklakov was close to putting off his prior appointment, which was a speaking engagement at the Law Society in Moscow, but found at the last moment that he couldn’t; he must catch a train out of town. He happened to meet Purishkevich at the Duma late in the afternoon of Friday 16 December, and told him to pass on that message to Yusupov. It was now, he said, that Purishkevich agreed to send him a telegram ‘if the affair ended successfully’.

Загрузка...