The prince had sent his own motorcar—the black Bentley with the family crest on the doors—to pick up Rasputin and bring him to the palace. Checking his gold pocket watch, he saw that the car should be arriving any minute. From the upper floor, he could hear the gramophone playing “Yankee Doodle Dandy”—a very popular tune among Russian society these days—and the sound of his coconspirators’ voices, simulating the merriment of a party in full swing.
Snow was falling on the flagstones of the court outside and sticking to the thin sheet of ice that covered the canal beyond the gates. Downstairs, in the vaulted chambers where the deed was to be done, all was in readiness. The dainty cakes, laced with cyanide, were arrayed on silver salvers. The Madeira, also poisoned, was decanted and waiting only to be drunk. And when Yussoupov saw Dr. Lazovert, disguised as a chauffeur, pilot the car through the iron gates, he stepped outside to greet his guest.
“Welcome!” he shouted, throwing open his arms, as Rasputin disembarked.
“Felix!” Rasputin replied, grasping him in a bear hug.
For the mad monk, he was positively presentable tonight. Yussoupov could tell the man had bathed—the scent of cheap soap clung to his skin—and he was wearing an intricately embroidered silk blouse and black-velvet trousers. Even his leather boots were shined and clean.
But the pectoral cross that usually dangled around his throat, its emeralds reputedly imbued with some mystical powers of enchantment—for how else could a brute like this have risen to such eminence and power?—was nowhere visible. Yussoupov took it as a stroke of luck, like entering the lists against an opponent with a broken lance.
Cocking his head at the noise from the upper windows, Rasputin said, “You’ve started the merriment without me!”
But the prince was already guiding him into the vestibule and away from the main staircase. Rasputin resisted, and Yussoupov had to whisper, “The princess will join us downstairs, for our own party, later.”
“What’s wrong with that one?” Rasputin said, with a glint of indignation in his eye.
“It’s a rather stuffy affair,” Yussoupov said, urging him again toward the stairs to the cellar. “Several of those troublemakers from the Duma are there.”
“I’m not afraid of them!” Rasputin said. “They can rail about me all they want! I eat politicians for breakfast.”
“But we have something far better waiting for you.”
Reluctantly, Rasputin allowed himself to be led down the winding stairs to the vaulted rooms below. A roaring fire had been set in the hearth, and the air had been perfumed with incense. Grand Duke Dmitri, standing nervously by the bar, held up a glass of champagne and echoed the welcome from their host.
Rasputin looked mollified by his presence. He was an interesting mix, this so-called holy man—one moment a man of the people, speaking for the peasants, and the next a craven adventurer, eager to find favor with the nobles whom he pretended to despise. One thing Yussoupov did know was that Rasputin had become a liability to the aristocracy; with the Tsaritsa completely in his thrall, he was able to make or break the fortunes of anyone at court. And he had begun to use that influence, more and more, to meddle in affairs of state—and even to influence the course of the war. With Rasputin trying to second-guess everything from the military’s strategy to the Tsar’s choice of ministers, it was plain to patriots like Prince Felix and the Grand Duke Dmitri that something had to be done.
And tonight, they would do it. When the news got out, the prince was certain that he would be miraculously transformed in the public mind from notorious, rich wastrel to the Savior of Mother Russia.
“We’ve made your favorites,” Dmitri said, proffering the platter of cakes that Rasputin normally adored, but to his and Felix’s consternation, the starets declined them. He wandered around the room, passing under the stone arches and admiring the objets d’art that filled the glass vitrines. The granite floors were covered with thick Persian carpets and a white bearskin rug, the bear’s head still attached and fangs bared.
“Music!” Yussoupov said, clapping his hands, and Dmitri picked up a balalaika and began to strum. Rasputin began to wave his hand in time to the music, then slumped onto a carved divan. On the table beside him, the cakes beckoned, and as Yussoupov pretended not to notice, Rasputin idly picked one up and gobbled it down.
Dr. Lazovert, who had personally ground up the potassium cyanide and sprinkled it into each pastry, had sworn that death would be nearly instantaneous.
Even Dmitri slowed his strumming to watch.
But Rasputin simply grinned, and said, “Again! And play something more cheerful this time!”
The prince looked on in wonder as the monk picked a crumb from his bushy beard and ate it.
Along with a second cake.
Dmitri’s fingers fumbled at the strings of the instrument. Yussoupov waited with bated breath. Rasputin appeared unaffected.