The question most discussed in connection with the death of this sinister adventurer was whether he was to be allowed a Christian burial. He had been, after all, but a sectarian, a heretic, the follower of a creed which was not only reproved by the orthodox church, but also prosecuted by the law of the land. The synod was called upon to pronounce itself on the subject when the advice of the Metropolitan Pitirim of Petrograd, one of the personal friends of Rasputin, at last prevailed, and he was buried with the rites of Holy Church. Some of the ladies who had been the first cause of his having obtained the importance which grew to be attached to his strange figure did not wait, however, for the permission of the ecclesiastical authorities, and a few hours after the body had been discovered Madame W., one of the most hysterical among the many women followers of Rasputin, caused solemn prayers to be celebrated in her apartments for the repose of his soul. She went to fetch his two daughters, girls of sixteen and fourteen years of age, who were living with him at Petrograd, taking them to her house and declaring that she would henceforward consider and treat them as her own children. But apart from this small group of blind admirers no one regretted him, not even the crew of parasites that had surrounded him and exploited him. By one of those strange anomalies, such as can only take place in Russia, Mr. Manassevitsch-Maniuloff, who had been the indirect cause of his death, was appointed, together with other secret police agents, to investigate the details connected with the murder of his former friend and patron. Of course, the inquest led to nothing. No one had any wish to see it end otherwise than in oblivion. Every political party in Russia was agreed in thinking that with the disappearance of this dangerous man the dynasty had won a battle just as important for the safety of its future existence as would have been a victory on the battlefield against a foreign foe. The names of the murderers, though pronounced nowhere, were blessed by all sincere Russian patriots, who cried out when they heard that Rasputin was no more, “Thank God that this adventurer is dead and long live the Czar!” CHAPTER IX