Of its exact details I have no knowledge. I give--as I have given all through this narrative of fact--only what I _know_ to be actual truth. On December 29th, at eleven o'clock, I left the palace to take a message to Protopopoff, and to interview the much-travelled Hardt, who was coming to Petrograd from Stockholm with his usual fortnightly dispatch from Berlin. I returned to the Palace about eight o'clock in the evening, when I received a message through one of the silk-stockinged servants, whose duty it was to wait upon "his holiness," to the effect that the monk had gone suddenly to Petrograd upon urgent business, and would return on the morrow. Naturally, I accepted the message, ate my dinner, read the paper, and after a chat with Madame Vyrubova, who lived in the adjoining apartments, I retired to bed. Next day I returned to the Gorokhovaya, but the monk had not come back. Countess Ignatieff called upon him, but I had to express my ignorance as to his whereabouts. I told her that he might possibly have gone upon another pilgrimage. Late that night I went back to the palace, where I found Madame Vyrubova much perturbed. "It is strange, Feodor!" she exclaimed. "He never leaves Petrograd without first informing me." I set her mind at rest by suggesting that, as affairs were so critical, he was probably with Stuermer and Protopopoff plotting further manoeuvres. Next night, however, a thrill went through the Court, as well as through the Russian people, by the six-word announcement in the Exchange newspapers, which coldly said: "_Gregory Rasputin has ceased to exist._" I read the statement aghast. I saw Anna Vyrubova, who was beside herself with grief and anxiety, and for a moment I spoke with the distracted Empress. Then I left with all haste for the capital. On arrival I learnt at the Ministry of the Interior that a policeman on night duty along the Moika Canal had heard shots and cries coming from a house belonging to the young Prince Felix Youssoupoff, who had married a cousin of the Tsar, and who was well known in London, where he passed each "season." In the house were the Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovitch, ex-Minister of the Interior Kvostov, Deputy Purishkevitch, and others. When the policeman went to ask what had happened, he received no explanation. A little later two motor-cars drove up to the door. In one of the cars a large bundle was placed. It was the body of Rasputin. Beside this bundle a man took his seat and ordered the chauffeur to drive to an island at the mouth of the Neva. Traces of blood were left in the garden. There were also marks of blood on the ice of the frozen Neva, where the car had stopped. Near these marks was a freshly made hole, and close to the hole lay a pair of blood-stained rubber shoes.