Andrew Cook - To Kill Rasputin

Rasputin’s daughters, having identified their father’s footwear, were desperately worried and willing to tell Popov anything they knew that might help. Maria, the elder girl, admitted that her father had been expecting to see Yusupov ‘the Little One’ late on Friday night, and that Mounya Golovina had seemed concerned yesterday after she had spoken to the Prince on the telephone.

I saw Prince Yusupov at our apartment only once – about five or six days ago, that must be around the 12th December this year. The prince has the following distinctive features: taller than average, skinny, pale, long face, large circles under the eyes, brown hair. I can’t remember whether he has a moustache or a beard.

Varvara, who was sixteen, had nothing much to add. Popel’s interrogation of Anya, the niece, confirmed what Maria had said but brought another visitor into the frame.

Around 1.00p.m. on 16th December my uncle Grigori Efimovich returned from the bath house and went to sleep. During that day my uncle had many visitors who had also visited him previously. Around 10.00p.m. a plump blonde called Sister Maria arrived, she was called Sister although she wasn’t a nurse. Shortly after midnight my uncle lay down on the bed fully clothed. Katya who lives with us and myself came up to my uncle and asked him why he did not get undressed. My uncle replied that ‘today I am going to visit the Little One.’ Later I went to sleep and did not hear when my uncle left or who with.

Katya the maid confirmed what Rasputin had said, as he rested ‘fully clothed and in his boots’.

When I asked him who [he would be visiting] Rasputin replied ‘the Little One, he is going to pick me up’ and ordered me to go to bed… I went into the kitchen but did not fall asleep. Rasputin had put on a silk shirt embroidered with basilisks but could not do up all the collar buttons. He came into the kitchen and I did up his buttons. At the time somebody rang the back entrance bell. Rasputin opened the door himself. The visitor asked ‘Is nobody here?’ Grigori Efimovich replied ‘Nobody and the children are asleep. Come in dear’. Both of them went through the kitchen past me into the rooms. At the time I was behind the kitchen partition for the maid. I moved aside the curtain and saw that the visitor was the Little One, known to me as Irina Alexandrovna’s husband… I recognised his face. I can’t tell whether the collar of his coat was up. A short time later Rasputin went through the kitchen. I was in bed by that time. Grigori Efimovich said in a low voice that he had locked the front door and was going to leave by the back entrance, and that he would come back through that entrance, and ordered me to lock the door behind him. I replied ‘Yes’ to all these orders while still in bed and locked the door when they went out. I have not seen Grigori Efimovich since. 5

Mounya Golovina had told her that Yusupov denied having been there, but when Katya heard this she had insisted that she was not mistaken; the person she saw had been ‘the Little One’.

After that Maria Evgenievna Golovina has not visited us. The distinctive features of the Little One are the following: quite tall, slim, slim face, straight nose, dark hair, no moustache and no beard, blue circles under the eyes.

Popel then questioned the dvornik , the concierge, who would have been in the pay of the Okhrana. She was a woman of twenty-eight, illiterate, and held no great opinion of the tenant of number 64.

On 16th December I saw Grigori Rasputin only once, at about 3.00p.m. when he returned from the bath-house, when he went through the back entrance. He had not received any visitors in the morning because he was very drunk. 6Even when he came back from the bath-house he was not quite sober. He had not more than seven visitors between 3.00p.m. and midnight; they used to visit him previously as well. Only at around 10.00p.m. a lady I had never seen before arrived and stayed with Rasputin until 11.00p.m., when she left. The lady had the following distinctive features: blonde hair, about 25 years of age, medium height, medium build. She was wearing a flared dark brown coat and same colour, only slightly darker, boots and a black hat with no veil. When I locked the front door at midnight Grigori Rasputin was home. I don’t know when he left the house or with whom because he left through the back door. 7

The yardkeeper who had been on duty at the apartment block that night said he had been outside, near the gates, when

…soon after 1.00a.m. a large car arrived at the gates. The car was khaki in colour, had a canvas top and safety glass windows; there was a spare tyre on the back. The car had come from the Fontanka direction. It reversed and stopped. A person unknown to me came out of the car and came straight to the wicket gate. I asked who he was visiting and he responded ‘Rasputin.’ I opened the gate and told him ‘Here is the front door’ but the stranger said he was going to go in through the back entrance. He swiftly went straight to that entrance. It was obvious that the person was familiar with the layout of the building. About 30 minutes later the stranger came out with G.E. Rasputin. They got into the car and drove off towards Fontanka… The driver looked slightly older than the stranger, about 35 years of age, had black medium-sized moustache, no beard, was wearing a black coat with lambskin collar, fur hat and red long gloves. Having left, Rasputin did not return home. 8

Popel set off for Morskaya Street. There he interviewed Efimov, the policeman who had been on sentry duty outside the Ministry of the Interior, across the canal from the Yusupov Palace at 94 Moika and its adjoining house, number 92, on the night of the disappearance.

I was on my post at Morskaya Street building number 61. At 2.30a.m. I heard a gunshot and 3 to 5 seconds later three more shots followed fast one after another. The sound of gunshots came from Moika Street in the region of building number 92. The first gunshot was followed by a low scream as if it was a woman’s; there was no noise. In 20 to 30 minutes after the shot no car or carriage went along Moika Street. Only half an hour later a car drove along Moika from the Blue Bridge towards Potselyev. It did not stop anywhere. I reported the shots by telephone to the 3rd Kazan Police Station and went towards the place of shooting. 9

Reluctantly, perhaps. Officer Efimov was fifty-nine and hardly looking for trouble. A moment later he saw the beat policeman, Vlasuk, coming across the Pochamski Bridge over the canal from the Moika side. He too had heard shots but he thought they were fired somewhere near the German church on the Moika. But Efimov insisted the bangs had come from number 92. Vlasuk, ten years younger but probably no more keen than Efimov to hunt down a gunman in the middle of the night, turned back to investigate.

Questioned by Popel, Vlasuk confirmed that there had been ‘three or four gunshots one after another’. The yardkeeper at number 92 hadn’t heard a thing, he said, but then Vlasuk looked through the fence and saw ‘two people wearing tunics and no hats’.

When they approached us I recognised them. It was Prince Yusupov and his butler Byzhinski. I asked the latter who had fired the shots. Byzhinski replied that he had not heard any shots. However it was possible that somebody could have fired a toy pistol for fun. I think the Prince also said that he had not heard the shots.

They left. Vlasuk claims that he stayed there, looked through the fence, and saw nothing suspicious in the yard or the street. Then he went back to his post, not bothering to report the incident ‘because I often heard similar sounds being made by burst car tyres’. Fifteen or twenty minutes later Byzhinski came, saying that Prince Yusupov would like to see him. There followed the interview in which Purishkevich allegedly said to Vlasuk: