"Gregory Novikh has been sent to Russia by Divine Providence. He has no fear!" Soon after his narrow escape in Moscow he received a letter from the father of the two young girls who had so completely fallen beneath his pious blandishments--a letter in which the angry father declared that he would shoot him at sight. To that letter Rasputin, with the overbearing impudence of one who smoked and spat upon the carpet actually in the Empress's presence, and, who had the audacity to prompt the Tsar in making his appointments and dealing with the affairs of State, replied by telegram--a message still upon record--sent over the private wire from the Winter Palace: "Shoot--and God will reward your daughters bountifully.--Gregory." Though Rasputin presented a remarkably calm exterior, he no doubt, was much perturbed by that threat. A single false step would certainly land him either in oblivion or in prison. But criminal lunatics of his sort are notoriously clever and astute. "Jack-the-Ripper" was of exactly similar type, and he defied the whole detective police of the world. The Secret Police of Russia, the wiles of which have been so vaunted by the modern novelist, were as childish idiots when their brains became pitted against those of the uncouth Siberian peasant, who, calling himself a "saint," could induce every silly woman to follow his immoral directions. Just then the Empress, whose shallow impressionable mind led her to adopt any new craze, and to seek any new sensation, met a person in whom she indiscreetly placed her trust--a treacherous, long-bearded political adventurer, named Boris Sturmer. This man was a boon companion of the "Saint" in his debaucheries in the midnight wilds of Petrograd, for Rasputin, when believed to be absent for a week of prayer and self-denial, usually bathed himself, and wearing a well-cut evening-suit plunged into the gay midnight life at the Old Donon, the Belle Vue, or the Bouffes, on the Fontanka. Thus Boris Sturmer, a strong pro-German who had many family connections with the enemy--and the bosom friend of Rasputin--actually became Prime Minister of Russia, such being the mock-monk's astounding influence over the Imperial Autocrat, whose wife and family were, alas! as but clay within his filthy hands. This latest triumph proved conclusively to Rasputin that his power was as great as that of the Emperor--indeed, to certain of his intimates he used laughingly to declare himself to be the uncrowned Tsar! "I live in the Palace," he would declare. "The Empress does my bidding; her daughters are as my children; the Court bows to me; Nikki only smiles as an idiot--therefore, am I not the real Emperor of Russia?"