Lady Georgina’s husband, the British Ambassador Sir George Buchanan, telephoned his friend Grand Duke Nikolai Mikhailovich, a relative of Dmitri Pavlovich, at half-past five on Saturday 17 December and told him the news. Stopford set off for the theatre, where he saw ‘Grand Duke Boris [Vladimirovich], Grand Duke Dmitri [Pavlovich] and a cousin of Felix Yusupov’s’ but nobody knew anything definite. The ‘cousin of Yusupov’s’ was probably Vera Koralli, a ballerina who was Dmitri Pavlovich’s lover at the time. She was briefly staying in Petrograd while engaged to perform with the Moscow Imperial Theatre.24
Stopford was shocked but not at all surprised that Rasputin had been done away with. He had heard ten days before, apparently from Dmitri Pavlovich himself, that what he coyly described in his diary as a ‘tragic dénouement’ might be on the cards.
By now the diligently lying Felix Yusupov had (according to his own later account) visited A. A. Makarov, the Minister of Justice, who seemed pretty well satisfied with the shot-dog story, 25 and Mikhail Rodzyanko, the Speaker of the Duma, who was a distant relation, and who ‘applauded my conduct in a voice of thunder’ for he knew that Yusupov had intended to kill Rasputin. As Yusupov nipped about town in his small brown motor car he might have been less sanguine had he known that the Okhrana were sceptical of everything he said and preferred to listen to the police witnesses and officials who had searched the yard at his palace on 94 Moika.
Dmitri Pavlovich, having rested that Saturday morning before his late lunch with Yusupov, was now running on adrenalin. He dined that evening at the Yacht Club. There he was seen by his father’s cousin Nikolai Mikhailovich, who had heard of the scandal, and of Felix’s involvement, from Sir George Buchanan at half-past five.26 Dmitri Pavlovich left the theatre early in order to avoid ovations.27 He had given orders for a party to be held in his apartment, and when his guests left theatres and restaurants, they began to arrive.
Yusupov returned to dine early at the palace of his father-inlaw Alexander Mikhailovich, where he was staying. Afterwards he was due at the station to catch his train out of town. As he entered the hall a porter told him that a lady was waiting. She had claimed that she had an appointment with him at seven. He had made no such arrangement and when he heard her description – ‘she was dressed in black, but he could not make out her features as she was wearing a thick veil’ – he was understandably suspicious and took a surreptitious peep at the waiting visitor. She was ‘one of Rasputin’s most fervent admirers’, so he told the porter to tell her he would be back very late, and hurried off to pack.28 And then, in Yusupov’s own account,
The whole town believed that I was responsible for Rasputin’s disappearance. Directors of factories and representatives of various businesses rang up to tell me that their workmen had decided to form a bodyguard to protect me if the need arose.29
Prince Felix Yusupov was having a long day, and it had not ended yet. He had just retired to his room to discuss events with Prince Fyodor Romanov, one of his brothers-in-law, when Nikolai Mikhailovich bustled in to see him. Nikolai Mikhailovich was about sixty, liberal in his views, and a very good friend of Sir George Buchanan, the British Ambassador.30 He had called much earlier in the evening and had been put off; but he was certainly persistent.
The others left, and Nikolai Mikhailovich tried to bluff Yusupov into telling the truth. He failed; he left; and at last Yusupov got some sleep.31
Purishkevich, the eccentric member of the Duma, steamed out of the city at ten o’clock that Saturday night on his hospital train. It was he who had first boasted of Rasputin’s murder to a policeman, yet, according to extant records, nobody had questioned him further.
At midnight, a couple of miles away across the icy Neva and the woods of Petrovski Island, Fyodor Kyzmin was to due to finish his shift at midnight. The beat policeman he’d seen in the morning came over to his hut shortly beforehand, and as soon as he had handed over to the night guard, Kyzmin and the policeman set off together through the snow to the police station with the boot. (From now on, most accounts refer to it as a single, brown boot).
A police inspector took it, at three o’clock in the morning on Sunday, to 64 Gorokhovaya Street. Most of the household were still up and Rasputin’s friend Aron Simanovich was with the girls. The boot was identified by Simanovich, Maria and Varvara Rasputina, two Okhrana agents and the lady dvornik, or concierge, of the block, as belonging to the missing Grigori Rasputin.
Dmitri Pavlovich’s party in the Sergei Palace reportedly continued until half-past seven on Sunday morning, and was ‘of a most riotous description’.32
TWO
FINGER OF SUSPICION
Prince Felix Yusupov was interviewed by General Popov of the Gendarmerie. The date on his statement is Sunday 18 December, and it seems likely that this interview took place early, because by the end of the morning Yusupov, by his own account, had moved out of the palace where he had been ordered to remain.
Yusupov began by explaining how he and Rasputin had become acquainted:
I had first met Grigori Efimovich Rasputin about 5 years ago at Mournya Evgenievna Golovina’s house. During the following years I saw him a couple of times at Golovina’s house. This year, 1916, I saw him in November also at Golovina’s house and he made a better impression on me than during previous years. I suffer from chest pains and my medical treatment does not help substantially. I discussed this with Mournya Evgenievna Golovina and she advised me to go to Rasputin’s apartment and talk to him about it. He had cured many people and could be of help to me. At the end of November I went to Rasputin accompanied by Golovina. Rasputin did his passes and I thought that my condition had improved slightly. During my last visits Rasputin told me ‘we will cure you completely, but we still need to go to the gypsies, you’ll see good women there and your illness will completely disappear’. These words made an unpleasant impression on me.
Questioning then apparently turned to Rasputin’s alleged visit to the Yusupov Palace on the night of Friday 16 December. Having had the best part of a day to concoct and perfect his version of events, Yusupov was clearly at pains to explain the circumstances surrounding the rumours:
Around 10th December Rasputin telephoned me and suggested we went to the gypsies. I refused and gave him an excuse that I had to sit exams the next day. During our meetings Rasputin initiated conversations about my wife, where and how we live. He said that he wished to meet my wife. I evasively responded that a meeting could be arranged when she returned from the Crimea. However, I did not want to introduce Rasputin to my household.
Having emphasised his reluctance to invite Rasputin to the Yusupov Palace, Yusupov was now pressed to give his account of the night of 16 December:
I’d had the rooms of my Moika house refurbished and Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich suggested I have a house warming party. It was decided to invite Vladimir Mitrofanovich Purishkevich, several officers and society ladies to the party. Given the obvious reasons I do not want to name the ladies who attended the party. I also do not want to name the officers who were at the party because this may create rumours and damage the careers of these innocent people. The party was planned for 16th December. In order not to embarrass the ladies, I ordered my servants to serve the tea and dinner in advance and not to enter the room later. The majority of guests were supposed to arrive not at the front entrance of the building at 94 Moika, but to the side entrance at number 92. I kept the key to that entrance on me. I arrived home at around 10.00p.m. I think that I entered the apartment through the side entrance at number 92, although I can’t be certain. Everything was ready for the guests in the dining room and the study. Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich arrived at around 11.30p.m.; he came through the front entrance, then the other guests started to arrive as well. All the ladies without doubt arrived at the side entrance at number 92. I can’t remember where the male guests arrived. The guests had tea, played the grand piano, danced and had dinner.