"I was looking at Yakowleff's _dossier_ to-day, as you wished," remarked the Minister to the monk. "He seems a very honest, clean-living man for a financier. There are no suspicions of disloyalty, or even of anything." "Then they must be made," declared Rasputin. "I intend to hold that concession. He would never have had it had it not been for Dachkof. But the latter is already out of favour. The Emperor has promised me to dismiss him to-morrow. His Majesty prefers cheerful people, not men who are pessimists," he laughed. Indeed, next day the count, who was one of the most loyal and devoted servants of the Romanoffs, and who had risked everything in an attempt to open the Emperor's eyes, was actually dismissed. Such was the power of Rasputin. But the plot against Yakowleff to dispossess him of the concession for Otchakov was a much more deeply-laid and evil one. The financier had returned to Petrograd, flushed with his success with his moneyed friends in London. Already news had gone round that a wonderful casino was to be built to eclipse Monte Carlo, and he had given an interview to the _Novoye Vremya_ concerning it. One afternoon, while in the handsome room set apart for Rasputin's use at Tsarskoe-Selo, I was sitting writing at his dictation, when there suddenly entered the Emperor, who had just come in from one of his frequent solitary walks in the park. His Majesty flung himself wearily in a chair, and began to discuss a diplomatic matter concerning Austria, and to ask the Father's advice, for he now scarcely ever acted upon his own initiative. Rasputin reflected for a few moments as he stood gazing out of the window, and then, having given his opinion as to the proper course to pursue, he added: "There is another matter which should have thy attention--a matter which is being hidden very carefully from thee." "And pray what is that, Father?" inquired the Emperor. "It is the secret and traitorous dealings which one Yakowleff is having with British agents with a view to betraying Russia into the hands of the English," declared the sinister monk. "I do not follow." "To this man Yakowleff thou gavest the concession for improvements at Otchakov. On pretence of obtaining financial assistance he has been to London, and there, according to what my friends tell me, has been in consultation with certain British agents, whose intention it is to obtain our military and naval secrets." "Then you denounce Yakowleff as a traitor--eh?" snapped the Emperor. "I certainly do. If thou doubtest me, order Protopopoff to make a police search at his house in the Vosnesensky. Something will certainly be found there," he said, with insidious cunning, well knowing that Protopopoff's _agents-provocateurs_ had already taken steps to secure the financier's undoing.