He was short, stout, rather Hebrew in appearance, unscrupulous no doubt, or he would not have stooped to do such dirty work as he did for Nicholas; nevertheless, he seemed highly popular in financial circles. He had left his wife in Petrograd; therefore the life he was leading was, I found, a pretty gay one. Each day he lunched at the best restaurants with his business friends, and discussed the great Otchakov scheme, and each night he took one of his lady friends out to dinner, the theatre, and the Savoy, Ritz or Carlton afterwards. Within ten days of my arrival in London I found that his guest at dinner at the Ritz one night was the sprightly young Frenchwoman, Julie Huguet! Next day she called me by telephone to Harrington Gardens, and said: "I discovered a good deal last night. The syndicate is already formed. One hundred thousand pounds has been subscribed, and next week Yakowleff is leaving for Paris, and thence back to Petrograd." Within half an hour I had telegraphed the news to Box 296, Poste Restante, Petrograd, which was the one used by Rasputin. In reply I received from the monk a message which read: "Obtain names of subscribers." This I succeeded in doing after some considerable trouble, and they were the names of some of the shrewdest speculators in the City, none of them over-scrupulous, no doubt. To Rasputin I wired that I had the list, and asked for instructions, to which I received the reply: "Excellent! Return without delay.--GREGORY." On my way back, during those many hours in the Nord Express between Ostend and Petrograd, I reviewed the whole affair, and saw the sinister working of the monk's mind. That Count Vorontsof Dachkof was in danger I knew full well. The monk never allowed any person to express open enmity without retaliating quietly and patiently, but with a crushing blow. I wondered what was being planned between the Ministers of War and Interior. No doubt the Empress had been informed of what the count had told the Emperor, and she would at once conspire with the holy Father to cast him into social oblivion--or worse! That the cupidity of Rasputin knew no bounds I was well aware. He intended to obtain that most lucrative gambling concession for himself, for Russians are born gamblers, especially the better classes, and the establishment of a casino on the Black Sea, with French hotels and restaurants, pretty villas, and an opera house in imitation of Monte Carlo, would in summer attract those thousands of rich Russians who in winter went to the Riviera to gamble. It was a chance which Rasputin would never allow to slip. Of that I was quite certain. The evening I returned to Petrograd the monk had left me a message to go to Tsarskoe-Selo; therefore I took my green pass, which admitted me past the many guards of the innermost holy-of-holies, the Imperial apartments, where I knew I should find the real ruler of Russia.