We arrived back in Petrograd on the following Friday morning, but although the Empress sent a messenger to the Gorokhovaya urging the monk to go to Peterhof at once, as she desired to consult him, he disregarded her command and did not even vouchsafe a reply. Indeed, Rasputin treated the poor half-demented Empress with such scant courtesy that I often stood aghast. "The woman is an idiot!" he would often exclaim to me petulantly when she was unusually persistent in her demands. Next evening, however, we went to the palace, whither another French medium, a man named Fournier, had been summoned, having, of course, been administered palm-oil to the tune of some thousands of roubles to give a "message from the dead" in the terms required by the wire-pullers in Potsdam. I was not present at the seance, but later that night, when Rasputin was sitting alone with me over a bottle of champagne which an "Araby" flunkey had brought him, he revealed that the "message" from the Tsar's dead father had been precise and much to the point. "Nicholas, I speak unto thee," the spirit had said. "Though thou art brave and thine armies are brave, yet thine enemies will still encompass thee. Loss will follow upon loss. The great advance will soon become a retreat, and the hordes of William will dash forward and Poland will become German. Yet do not be afraid. Trust in the good counsel of thy wife Alexandra Feodorovna and in thy Father Rasputin, whom Heaven hath sent to thee. Believe no evil word of him, and let his enemies be swept from his path. Such is my message to thee, O my son!" As Rasputin repeated those words with mock solemnity, he laughed grimly. The pity of it was that Nicholas, Tsar of All the Russias, believed in those paid-for messages, uttered by those presented to him as mediums and able to call up the spirit of his lamented father. "Poor idiot!" Rasputin remarked, first glancing to see that the door was closed. "He must have something to occupy his shallow brain. That is why the Empress arranges the sittings. But Feodor," he added, "I must see this enemy of mine, Ivan Naglovski. He is not a person to be disregarded, and it seems from what you told me he has a number of important friends. We will discuss the matter to-morrow." He afterwards dismissed me with a wave of his dirty hand, and I retired to bed in a room at the farther end of the long softly carpeted corridor.