To Kill Rasputin: The Life and Death of Grigori Rasputin (Revealing History) (22 page)

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.