by Cook, Andrew
Their difficulties were not ended. Although the almshouse was lighted with electric light, there was no light in it at all when they arrived, and no means of lighting it. The three gorodovois, who were there, said that no light was necessary, as ‘dead men need no light.’The judge and the surgeon declared that they must have some light. Accordingly, they sent out, and obtained two small lamps to hang upon the wall, whilst one of the gorodovois held a lantern. After a while, the gorodovoi declared that he felt ill, and that he could not hold the lantern any more. The judge and the surgeon, therefore, were left alone in the partially lighted room.
They found that Rasputin, although 46 years of age, had the look of a man of only 36. He was dressed, as was his habit, like a Russian mujik. He was wearing, however, a pair of very expensive boots and a blue shirt with yellow cornflowers sewn upon it. This shirt had lately been given him by the Empress. It should also be noted in this connection that two days afterwards, when a small and periodical operation was being performed on the Tsarevich’s knee, the blue shirt was noticed by the surgeon to be under the operating table.
The examination showed that there were three wounds, one in his back and two in his head, all showing signs that they have been made by shots at a very close range.
Whilst the examination was proceeding, one of the gorodovois announced that two ladies had come for the body. Sereda and Kosorotov declared that this was impossible. A message then came back that they must give up the clothes. This, they did.
At last the examination was finished, and Sereda and Kosorotov returned, frozen and dispirited, to Petrograd. Since then, Zarvastsky, the other examining judge, has resigned, and another judge, Staravitsky, has been appointed to replace him. The body was subsequently taken to Tsarskoe. Whilst it was being conveyed from the station to the church, the garrison was confined to barrack in order to avoid any demonstration. Bishop Isidor, and not the Metropolitan Pitirim, conducted the service in the church.
APPENDIX 4
The following document, found among the Scale Papers, lists the members of the British Intelligence Mission in Petrograd at the time of Rasputin’s murder:
Lt-Col. Hoare Lt Lee
Lt-Col. Benet Lt Urmston
Lt Rayner Lt L. Hodson
Capt. Scale Lt A. Hodson
Capt. Alley Mr H. Grant
Capt. Hicks Mr F. Hayes
Capt. Schwabe Mr F. Ball
Capt. Bromhead Mr L. Read
Lt MacLaren RNVR Mr L. Webster
Lt Garstin Mr H. Anderson
Lt Steveni
ABBREVIATIONS USED IN NOTES AND BIBLIOGRAPHY
CAB Cabinet (UK)
CUL Cambridge University Library
EGAF Central Archive of the Russian Federation
FO Foreign Office
GARF State Archive of the Russian Federation
GATO State Archive of the Province of Tyumen
HLRO House of Lords Record Office
MI1c Military Intelligence 1c (see SIS)
MI5 Military Intelligence 5 – the Security Service
MI6 Military Intelligence 6 (see SIS)
NYSC New York Supreme Court
PRO Public Record Offce (now TNA)
SIS Secret Intelligence Service (MI1c now MI6)
TFGATO Tobolsk Branch of the State Archive of the Province of Tyumen
TNA The National Archive
WO War Office
NOTES
CHAPTER ONE: MANHUNT
1 The Ochrana, A. T. Vassilyev (Harrup, 1930), p.47.
2 The statement of Fyodor Antonov Korshynov, yardkeeper, to Lt-Col. Popel of the Detached Gendarme Corps, 18 December 1916, Fond 102, Schedule 314, Case 35, GARF, Moscow.
3 Statement of Maria Grigorievna Rasputina to General Popov of the Detached Gendarme Corps, 18 December 1916, Fond 102, Schedule 314, Case 35, GARF, Moscow.
4 Statement of Anna Nikolaevna Rasputina to Lt-Col. Popel of the Detached Gendarme Corps, 18 December 1916, Fond 102, Schedule 314, Case 35, GARF, Moscow.
5 Statement of Ivan Manasevich Manuilov to investigator G. P. Girchich of the Provisional Government Extraordinary Commission 1917, Fond 1467, Schedule 1, Case 567, Folios 191-4, GARF, Moscow.
6 Statement of Akim Ivanovich Zhuk to investigator I.V. Brykin of the Provisional Government Extraordinary Commission 1917, Fond 1467, Schedule 1, Case 567, Folios 31-6, GARF, Moscow.
7 Telegram to Tsar Nicholas II from Okhrana, 17 December 1916, Fond 111, Schedule 1, Case 2981a, Page 1, GARF, Moscow.
8 Dmitri Pavlovich was the only son of the Tsar’s great-uncle Grand Duke Paul, who, after the death of Dmitri’s mother, had made a morganatic marriage and gone into exile, leaving Dmitri and his sister to be brought up by Grand Duchess Elizaveta and Grand Duke Sergei.
9 Statement of Yulia Dehn to investigator F. P. Simpson of the Provisional Government Extraordinary Commission 1917, Fond 1467, Schedule 1, Case 567, Folios 364-7, GARF, Moscow.
10 To General Voikov, Palace Superintendent, December 1916, from Head of Interior Ministry, Fond 102, Schedule 314, Case 35, GARF, Moscow.
11 The bridge is just as long nowadays but is no longer wide. It was two carriage-widths before and is now essentially a footbridge.
12 Statement number 1740 of Police Inspector Asonov, Station no.4, 17 December 1916, Fond 102, Schedule 314, Case 35, GARF, Moscow.
13 Lost Splendour, Prince Yusupov (Jonathan Cape Ltd, 1953), p.235.
14 Yusupov, ibid.
15 Statement of Ivan Nefedev to Lt-Col. Popel of the Detached Gendarme Corps, 17 December 1916 and statement of Mounya Golovina to Lt-Col. Popel of the Detached Gendarme Corps, 17 December 1916, Fond 102, Schedule 314, Case 35, GARF, Moscow.
16 The Murder of Rasputin, V.M. Purishkevich, translated from the original Russian by Bella Costello, ed. Michael Shaw (Ardis Publishers, Ann Arbor, 1985), p.4.
17 Purishkevich, ibid., editor’s introduction.
18 Purishkevich, ibid.
19 The full text is quoted in The Ochrana, A.T. Vassilyev (Harrap, 1930). Vassilyev was the last Director of the Department of Police.
20 Lt-Col. Sir Samuel Hoare was an officer of the SIS, which was founded in 1909, and at this time (1916) operated under the name MI1c. It had stations throughout Europe and around the world. The Petrograd MI1c Station, run by Hoare, is referred to here and throughout this book as the British Intelligence Mission. SIS operates today under the name MI6.
21 Report ‘The Death of Rasputin’, from Lt-Col. Sir Samuel Hoare to C, 1 January 1917, Papers of the British Intelligence Mission, Petrograd, Templewood Papers, Part II, File 1, (16), CUL.
22 The news was in the 6.00p.m. edition.
23 The Russian Diary of an Englishman, Anon. (the Hon. Albert Stopford) (Heinemann, 1919), p.21.
24 Report on Vera Koralli by Major-General Globachev, Fond 111, Schedule 1, Case 2981 (b), List 12, GARF, Moscow.
25 Samuel Hoare claims that Makarov ‘in the early morning… was rung up by an unknown voice that said ‘Rasputin has been murdered. Look for his body in the Islands.’ The Fourth Seal, Sir Samuel Hoare (Heinemann, 1930), p.151.
26 Diary of the Grand Duke Nikolai Mikhailovich, 17 December 1916, Fond 670, GARF, Moscow.
27 Lost Splendour, Prince Yusupov (Jonathan Cape Ltd, 1953), p.186.
28 The existence of this mysterious woman may be fiction. Yusupov included the story in Lost Splendour along with a similar one about threats to Pavlovich which is not independently verified. Golovina is supposed to have heard a group of people at Rasputin’s flat swearing revenge.
29 Yusupov, 1953, ibid., p.239; a similar account of the evening is in Yusupov, 1927, ibid., p.203.
30 Dissolution of an Empire, Meriel Buchanan (John Murray, 1932), p.49.
31 The Fourth Seal, Sir Samuel Hoare, (Heinemann, 1930), p.139. Hoare has a story about Yusupov being at the party with Dmitri Pavlovich and being carried shoulder high, but it is not a first-hand account and Hoare isunreliable.
32 Sir Samuel Hoare, 1930, ibid.
CHAPTER TWO: FINGER OF SUSPICION
1 Statement of Prince Felix Yusupov, Count Sumarokov-Elston, to General Popov of the Detached Gendarme Corps dated 18 December 1916, Fond 102, Schedule 314, Case 35, GARF, Moscow.
2 Rasputin i evrei, Aaron Simanovich (National Reklama, 1923), p.45.
3 Quoted in Rasputin, the Last Word, Edvard Radzinski (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2000), p.476.
4 Lost Splendour, Prince Yusupov (Jonathan Cape Ltd, 1953), p.241.
5 Statement of Anna Nikolaevna Rasputina, to Lt-Col. Popel of the Detached Gendarme Corps dated 18 December 1916, Fond 102, Schedule 314, Case 35, GARF, Moscow.
6 Ibid.
7 Statement of Maria Vasilyevna Zhyravleva, to Lt-Col. Popel of the Detached Gendarme Corps dated 18 December 1916, Fond 102, Schedule 314, Case 35, GARF, Moscow.
8 Statement of Fyodor Antonov Korshynov, to Lt-Col. Popel of the Detached Gendarme Corps dated 18 December 1916, Fond 102, Schedule 314, Case 35, GARF, Moscow.
9 Statement of Flor Efimov Efimov, to Lt-Col. Popel of the Detached Gendarme Corps dated 18 December 1916, Fond 102, Schedule 314, Case 35, GARF, Moscow.
10 Statement of Stepan Fedoseev Vlasuk to Lt-Col. Popel of the Detached Gendarme Corps dated 18 December 1916, Fond 102, Schedule 314, Case 35, GARF, Moscow.
11 The Forgotten Hospital, Michael Harmer (Springwood Books, 1982), p.117.
12 Rasputin, Prince Yusupov (Jonathan Cape, 1927), p.212.
13 Department of Police Report, 17 December 1916, Papers of the British Intelligence Mission, Petrograd, Templewood Papers, Part II, File 1 (47), CUL. Also reproduced in Appendix III of The Russian Diary of an Englishman, Anon. (the Hon. Albert Stopford), (Heinemann, 1919).
14 Ibid.
15 Appendix II ‘Memorandum privately circulated on December 31, 1916’ in Stopford, 1919, ibid.
16 Ibid.
17 Telegram from Lt-Col. Sir Samuel Hoare to C, 31 December 1916, Papers of the British Intelligence Mission, Petrograd, Templewood Papers, Part II, File 1 (47), CUL.
18 Ibid.
19 Report on Vera Koralli by Major-General Globachev, Fond 111, Schedule 1, Case 2891 (b), List 12, GARF, Moscow.
20 The Russian Diary of an Englishman, Anon. (the Hon. Albert Stopford), (Heinemann, 1919), p.44.
21 Ibid.
22 Report ‘The Death of Rasputin’, from Lt-Col. Sir Samuel Hoare to C, 1 January 1917, Papers of the British Intelligence Mission, Petrograd, Templewood Papers, Part II, File 1 (16), CUL.
CHAPTER THREE: BODY OF EVIDENCE
1 A Collection of Historical Materials, Grigori Rasputin, Vol. 4 (Moscow, 1997), p.236/7.
2 Ibid.
3 The Times, Thursday 4 January 1917, p.7 col. f. (‘From our own correspondent,’ Petrograd 3 January 1917.) It is obvious from his earliest bulletin, which didn’t reach London, that he had seen the Police Report that Stopford and Buchanan saw at the embassy on the Sunday afternoon, as had other journalists.
4 Rasputin, Prince Yusupov (Jonathan Cape, 1927), p.193ff.
5 Ibid., p.191.
6 Thirteen years at the Russian Court, Pierre Gilliard (Hutchinson, 1921), p.47.
7 Telegram from Lt-Col. Sir Samuel Hoare to C, 1 January 1917, Papers of the British Intelligence Mission, Petrograd, Templewood Papers, Part II, File 1 (48), CUL.
8 Report No.2, Death of Rasputin, Lt-Col. Sir Samuel Hoare to C, 2 January 1917, Papers of the British Intelligence Mission, Petrograd, Templewood Papers, Part II, File 1 (50), CUL.
9 The Fourth Seal, Sir Samuel Hoare (Heinemann, 1930), p.156.
10 Report No.3. Further details obtained from the Examining Magistrates and other reliable sources, Lt-Col. Sir Samuel Hoare to C, 5 February 1917, Papers of the British Intelligence Mission, Petrograd, Templewood Papers, Part II, File 1 (20), CUL.
11 Tsaritsa i Rasputin, I. Kovyl-Boybyl (Petrograd, 1917), interview between Kossorotov and Kovyl-Boybyl, a Petrograd journalist.
12 See note 10 above.
13 Report of the Autopsy on the body of Grigori Rasputin by Professor Kossorotov, 20 December 1916 (Museum of Political History, St Petersburg). Also reproduced in Raspoutine est innocent, Alain Roullier (France Europe Editions Livres, 1998), p.514ff.
14 The Fourth Seal, Sir Samuel Hoare (Heinemann, 1930), p.156ff.
15 The Times, 3 January 1917, p.8, col.d.
16 The Fourth Seal, Sir Samuel Hoare (Heinemann, 1930), p.67ff.
17 The Russian Diary of an Englishman, Anon. (the Hon. Albert Stopford), (Heinemann, 1919), p.83.
18 Like her mother, a woman of many accomplishments. ‘Among her close friends were the Churchills, Maurice Baring, Arthur Rubinstein, J.M. Barrie, Rose Macaulay, Greta Garbo, Noël Coward, Jean Cocteau, Vita and Eddy Sackville-West and Hilaire Belloc (who was so fond of her that he wrote silly poems lauding her virtues).’ The Maugham-Duff Letters, Loren R. Rothschild, the letters of W. Somerset Maugham to Lady Juliet Duff (Rasselas Press, 1982).
19 See note 17 above.
20 My Mission to Russia, Vol. II, Rt Hon. Sir George Buchanan (Cassell & Co, 1923), p.43.
21 Ibid.
22 Rt Hon. Sir George Buchanan, ibid., p.50ff. Also, The Buchanan Collection, GB 0159 Bu, University of Nottingham Library.
CHAPTER FOUR: THE SPIES WHO CAME INTO THE COLD
1 Memoirs of a British Agent, R. H. Bruce Lockhart (Putnam, 1932), p.308ff.
2 Ibid.
3 He was a Foundation Scholar and Staffordshire County Scholar.
4 Letter from Oswald Rayner in Finland to parents, 19 February 1907 (Papers of Joyce Frankel, sister of Oswald Rayner).
5 Ibid., 19 February 1907.
6 Ibid., 18 April 1907.
7 Entry 186, Register of Births, Registration District of Paddington in the County of London, John Felix Hamilton Rayner, born 1 February 1924.
8 Letter to O. T. Rayner from C. F. Mobley-Bell (editor of the Times), 19 September 1910, Letter Book 55, No.814, Times Newspapers Ltd Archives, London; Letter to O. T. Rayner from C. F. Mobley-Bell, 22 September 1910, Letter Book 55, No.837, Times Newspapers Ltd Archives, London.
9 Memorandum on Censorship by Lt-Col. H. Vere Benet, 25 February 1917, Papers of the British Intelligence Mission, Petrograd, Templewood Papers, Part II, File 1 (29), CUL.
10 College Register, Evening Classes No.3, 1877–1895, Archive of King’s College, London.
11 www.steamindex.com has the origins of the firm.
12 Matriculation Record of Stephen Alley, Ref R8/5/15/1, academic year 1894/5, Glasgow University Archive.
13 Memorandum – Biographical Details of Stephen Alley (The Alley Papers).
14 The Fourth Seal, Sir Samuel Hoare (Heinemann, 1930), p3ff.
15 Sir Samuel Hoare, ibid., p.29.
16 Rasputin, Prince Yusupov (Jonathan Cape, 1927), p.11ff.
17 The Mystery of Lord Kitchener’s Death, Donald MacCormick (Putman, 1959), p.91ff.
18 Source Records of the Great War, Vols I-VII, Charles F. Horne (editor), (National Alumni, 1923).
19 The Russian Diary of an Englishman, Anon. (the Hon. Albert Stopford), (Heinemann, 1919), p.45.
20 Anon. (the Hon. Albert Stopford), ibid., 28 August 1915, p.56.
21 Anon. (the Hon. Albert Stopford), ibid., Letter to Lady Ripon, 5 September 1915.
22 Anon. (the Hon. Albert Stopford), ibid., Letter to Lady Sarah Wilson at the Allied Forces Hospital, Boulogne, 22 August 1915.
23 My Mission to Russia, Vol. I, Rt Hon. Sir George Buchanan, p.250.
24 Lost Splendour, Prince Yusupov (Jonathan Cape Ltd, 1953), p.186.
25 The Russian Diary of an Englishman, Anon. (the Hon. Albert Stopford), (Heinemann, 1919), Letter to Lady Juliet Duff, 17 October 1915.
26 My Mission to Russia, Vol. I, Rt Hon. Sir George Buchanan, p.250.
27 Petrograd, the City of Trouble, Meriel Buchanan (Collins, 1919), p.78.
28 Telegram from the Tsarina to the Tsar, 3 November 1915, Fond 640, GARF, Moscow.
CHAPTER FIVE: DARK FORCES
1 Rasputin,
Prince Yusupov (Jonathan Cape, 1927), p.74ff.
2 Petrograd, the City of Trouble, Meriel Buchanan (Collins, 1919), p.67.
3 The Story of ST25, Sir Paul Dukes (Cassell & Co, 1938), p.16ff.
4 Rasputin: The Man Behind the Myth, Maria Rasputin & Patte Barham, p.10ff.
5 Rasputin, the Last Word, Edvard Radzinski (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2000), p.25ff.
6 Marriage of Efim Yakovlevich Rasputin and Anna Vasilievna, 21 January 1862, Register of the Church of the Mother of God, Pokrovskoe, Fond 205, GATO.
