TRAITOROUS WORK
THE true story of the tragic death of a Russian civil servant named Ivan
Naglovski, and of the mysterious explosion which destroyed the great
munition works at Okhta and killed over four hundred and fifty persons
and injured seven hundred, has never been told.
There have been sinister whisperings in Russia, but I am here able to
unfold the amazing truth for the first time.
I had accompanied Rasputin to the Verkhotursky Monastery at Perm; the
house in the Gorokhovaya was closed, its wooden shutters were fastened,
and the Empress was desolate without her "holy Father." Stürmer, the
Prime Minister, was with the Emperor, daily plotting and striving for the
betrayal of our nation to the Germans, and "Satan in a silk hat"--as one
of the Grand Dukes had nicknamed the Minister of the Interior,
Protopopoff--had gone on a mission to London, ostensibly in Russian
interests, but really as a spy of Germany. The latter was, of course, not
known at the time, for the British Government sent him on a tour of
munition and other centres, showed him what they were preparing, and
fêted him in London as the representative of their ally. We now know
that, on his return to Petrograd, he at once became violently
anti-British, and made a full report of all he knew to the
Wilhelmstrasse!
The purpose of the monk's pilgrimage to Perm was to form a branch of his
believers in that city. He had left Petrograd dressed as a pilgrim, with
hair-shirt and staff complete, and as such he posed to everybody. The
world, however, did not know that the rooms allotted to him in the
monastery by the rascally bishop, whom he had himself appointed, were the
acme of luxury, and that in them he held drunken orgies every night.
After we had been there three weeks an Imperial courier brought him a
letter from Peterhof. It was night, and the monk was in an advanced state
of intoxication with his companions, three other mock-pious rascals like
himself.
When I handed him the letter he glanced at the Imperial cipher on the
envelope, and, grinning, exclaimed:
"It is from the Empress. Read out what the woman says."
I hesitated, suggesting that it would be better if I read it to him in
private.
"Bah!" he laughed. "There is nothing private in it. Read it, Féodor."
So, thus ordered, I obeyed. The letter was written in Russian, but with
mistakes in grammar and orthography, for the Empress had never learned to
write Russian correctly. These are the words I read for the delectation
of the dissolute quartette:
"HOLY FATHER,--Why have you not written? Why this long dead
silence when my poor heart is hourly yearning for news of you and
for your words of comfort?
"I am, alas! weak, but I love you, for you are all in all to me.
Oh! if I could but hold your dear hand and lay my head upon your
shoulder! Ah! can I ever forget that feeling of perfect peace and
blank forgetfulness that I experience when you are near me.
"Now that you have gone, life is only one grey sea of despair.
There was a Court last night, but I did not attend. Instead Anna
[Madame Vyrubova] and I read your sweet letters together, and we
kissed your picture.
"As I have so often told you, dear Father, I want to be a good
daughter of Christ. But oh! it is so difficult. Help me, dear
Father. Pray for me. Pray always for Alexis [the Tsarevitch].
Come back to us at once. Nikki [the Tsar] says we cannot endure
life without you, for there are so many pitfalls before us. For
myself, I am longing for your return--longing--always longing!
Without our weekly meetings all is gloom----"
Here I broke off. What followed ought, I saw, not to be read aloud to
that trio, who might at any moment turn to be enemies of the Starets.
"Yes," he said, smiling in gratification. "The woman evidently misses me.
It places a woman in her proper position to discard her for a while," he
added with a drunken laugh. "What else does she say?"
"Only that they are due to go to Yalta, but that Her Majesty awaits your
return," I replied.
"Then let her wait. I am very comfortable here. Perm is pleasant as a
change."
I knew well that he was enjoying himself hugely and had already formed a
great circle of hysterical women who believed in his divinity and
practised the rites of his disgraceful "religion."
The final words of that amazing letter, which in itself showed the terms
upon which Alexandra Feodorovna was with the convicted horse-stealer from
Pokrovsky, were as follows:
"Here, O dear Father, we have only the everlasting toll of war!
Germany is winning--as she will surely win. She must. You will
see to that! But we must all of us maintain a brave face towards
our Russian public. In you alone I have faith. May God bring you
back to us very soon. Alexis is asking for you daily. We are due
to go to Yalta, but shall not move before we meet here. I embrace
you, and so do Nikki and Anna.--Your devoted daughter, ALIX."
The unkempt quartette, treating the Empress's expressions of affection as
a huge joke, filled their glasses with champagne and drank heavily again,
while Rasputin began to regale his "saintly" companions with stories of
the intimate life of the pro-German Empress.
Truly, it was a gay, dissolute life that the verminous rascal was leading
at the Verkhotursky Monastery, and many were the women over whom he
exercised his weird, uncanny fascination.
"Believe in me and you will receive God's blessing," was his constant
blasphemous declaration to every woman whose looks were even passable.
"Doubt me and you will be damned."
By Russia's millions in the provinces he was looked upon as the holy man
sent by God to the Tsar. Did not the "saint" eat at the Emperor's table,
and did he not prompt His Majesty in fighting the Germans? None ever
dreamed that the unkempt miracle-worker, whose fascination for women was
so astounding, was the secret ambassador of the Assassin of Potsdam.
Two of those companions of his nightly drinking bouts at Perm were named
Rouchine and Yepantchine, brawny fellows whose evil life was almost as
notorious as Rasputin's. Rouchine had been a conjurer before he adopted a
"holy" life, and by reason of his knowledge of magic and illusions he
frequently assisted the Starets in performing those "miracles" that so
astounded the mujiks who witnessed them with open mouths.
Whenever things grew a little dull, or Rasputin believed that his
divinity was being doubted, he would calmly announce:
"I have had a vision. Last night the Holy Virgin appeared unto me and
declared that I must again perform a miracle so that the world should be
made aware that God, through me, is protecting our dear nation Russia."
Instantly the news would spread from mouth to mouth--Rasputin's name
being forbidden to be mentioned in the newspapers--that the Starets was
about to perform a miracle, and thousands would assemble in some open
place, where one of Rouchine's conjuring tricks would be performed.
By this time so deeply had Rasputin corrupted the Russian Church in its
centres of power and administration that half the highest ecclesiastical
dignitaries were of his creation, his fellow-thief in Pokrovsky having
been appointed to a bishopric.
Very naturally, Rasputin had made many enemies. His overbearing vanity,
his relentlessness in dealing with any who stood in his path, and the
exposure of his use of _agents-provocateurs_ in securing the conviction
and imprisonment of anyone who displeased him, had aroused against him a
fierce hatred in certain quarters both in Petrograd and Moscow. Many of
those who had sworn to be avenged were wronged husbands and fathers, a
number of whom it had been my duty to endeavour to pacify even at
personal risk to myself as the rascal's secretary.
It was while at Perm that Rasputin received news that a man named Ivan
Naglovski had been in Pokrovsky busily inquiring into his past, and
interviewing his sister-disciples who were living there. Further, it was
reported that he had been in communication with the monk Helidor, a man
named Golenkovski, whose young wife was a "disciple" in Petrograd, and
with Marie Novitski, who was preaching loudly against the erotic doctrine
of the new "religion."
It was plain that Ivan Naglovski was a secret enemy.
Acting upon the monk's instructions I returned to Petrograd, and at the
headquarters of the Secret Police made application that Naglovski's
movements should be watched. Three days later I was assured that a small
league of patriotic men and women had been formed, with Naglovski at
their head, determined to unveil and unmask the traitorous rascal who was
my employer.
I was compelled to return to Perm and inform Rasputin of the result of my
investigations. Before doing so I went, at Rasputin's instructions by
telegraph, to Peterhof and was admitted by Madame Vyrubova to the
Empress's presence.
The handsome woman was resting in a gorgeous negligée gown prior to
dressing for dinner, but she was quickly eager and interested when I
explained that I had come from the monk and was returning to Perm at
midnight.
"When will the Holy Father's pilgrimage end?" she inquired with a sigh.
"He has been away weeks, and never replies to my letters."
"His time is no doubt fully occupied with constant devotion," remarked
Anna Vyrubova in excuse.
"The Father is much occupied, Your Majesty," I said.
"Tell him for me that I am daily longing for his return," she said. "But
wait. I will write to him and you shall convey the letter," at which
order I bowed.
"The Father is much troubled and perturbed," I remarked.
"About what?" asked Her Majesty.
"He has enemies. Some men and women have leagued themselves with the
object of doing him harm."
"Harm!" she echoed. "What harm can come to him when, being sent to us by
God, he is immune from any harm that can befall us who are merely human?
I do not understand."
Her words were in themselves sufficient to reveal how completely and
implicitly the Empress of Russia believed in the pretended divinity of
the blasphemous ex-convict.
"All I know, Your Majesty, is that the holy Father is unduly perturbed."
"Ah! surely he can have no apprehension?" she said. "Tell him from me
that as Christ had enemies so, of course, he has. But his enemies cannot
do him injury." Then rising and going across to a beautiful buhl
escritoire, she added: "I will write to him. I sent him another letter by
messenger only yesterday--eight letters, and not a line of response!"
For ten minutes or so, while the Empress sat writing, I chatted with
Madame Vyrubova, and gave to her news of the monk.
"Tell him to return as quickly as possible," the woman said in a low,
confidential voice. "If there really is a plot on foot against him he is
safer in Petrograd than in Perm. Besides, being on the spot, he will be
able to combat his enemies with a swift and relentless hand."
As Her Majesty was writing the telephone rang. Next moment it was plain
that she was speaking with the Emperor, who was away at the headquarters
of the army in Poland.
Having listened to something he told her, she said:
"The holy Father's secretary is here with me. The Father still remains at
Perm. I am writing him urgently asking him to return to us. I wish you
also to send a messenger to him to induce him to come back to Petrograd.
You will be back here next Friday, and is it not wise to hold another
séance next day, eh?"
Then she listened eagerly.
"Ah!" she exclaimed. "I am glad you agree with me, Nikki. Yes, let us try
and get the Father back by Saturday at latest. Good-bye."
And having rung off, she calmly finished the letter and secured it with
the well-known big seal of black wax.
"Remember," she said as she gave it to me, "the Father must be here next
Saturday for the séance, which the Emperor will attend. He wishes again
to consult the spirit of his father Alexander. Urge the Father to return
at once."
I promised to do her bidding, and, retiring, at once left the palace, and
at midnight was on my way back to the far-off town on the Kama.
On the evening of the following day I drove up to the monastery and there
found Rasputin at dinner with the ex-conjurer Rouchine. When I entered
the cosy little room in which the pair were seated, Rasputin had removed
his long robe and was seated in his shirt-sleeves like the peasant he
was. I handed him the letter from the German-born Empress, whereupon he
said:
"Oh! read it to me, Féodor. The woman's handwriting is always a puzzle to
me."
I knew how illiterate he was and the reason of his excuse.
I tore open the envelope and quickly scanned the scribbled lines.
"No," I replied, "not now, Gregory; later."
"But I insist!" cried the Starets fiercely.
"And I refuse!" was my determined reply. "I have reasons."
Those last three words were not lost upon him, for Grichka was nothing if
not the very acme of shrewdness. Not an adventurer or _escroc_ in Europe
could compare with him in elusiveness.
"Well, Féodor, if you have reasons, then I know that they are sound
ones," he said. Then, turning to the "holy" conjurer, he grinned and
said: "Féodor is a most excellent secretary. So discreet--too discreet, I
often think."
"One cannot be too discreet in the present international crisis," I
remarked. "Enemy eyes and ears are open everywhere. One can never be too
careful. Russia is full of the spies of Germany."
"Quite true, Féodor--quite true!" exclaimed Rasputin, smiling within
himself. "Don't you agree, friend Rouchine?"
"Entirely," replied his accomplice, who, though he was well paid to
assist in working "miracles" before the peasants, never dreamed that the
Starets, who handed him money with such lavish hand, was the chief agent
of Germany in Russia.
Indeed, Rouchine's only son had been killed in the advance on Warsaw,
hence he held the Hun in abhorrence, and I am certain that had he known
Rasputin was the Kaiser's personal agent matters would have gone very
differently, and in all probability the enemy plots so cleverly connived
at by Alexandra Feodorovna would have been exposed in those early days of
the war.
The Russian nation even to-day still reveres its Tsar. They know that he
was weak but meant well, and he was Russian at heart and intent upon
stemming the Teutonic tide which flowed across his border. But for "the
German," Alexandra Feodorovna, not one in all our Russian millions has a
word except an execration or a curse, and as accursed by Russia, as is
all her breed, she will go down in history for the detestation of
generations of those who will live between the Baltic and the Pacific.
Rasputin grew indignant because I crushed the woman's letter into my
pocket without reading it aloud, but I knew well how to treat him,
therefore I began to explain all that I had learnt from the Secret Police
concerning the activities of Ivan Naglovski.
Both men listened with rapt attention.
"Then the fellow really intends evil?" asked the monk, as he laid down a
chicken-bone, for he always ate with his fingers.
"I fear he does," was my reply. "But Her Majesty wonders why you should
trouble. She says that you, being sent as Russia's saviour, are immune
from bodily harm."
"Ah! but remember when that young fellow shot at you and grazed two of
your fingers at Minsk," remarked the conjurer with a grin.
"Yes, quite so. I don't like this fellow Naglovski and his friends. I
will see Kurloff."
Now, Kurloff was another treacherous bureaucrat, a creature of
Rasputin's, who sat in Protopopoff's Ministry of the Interior, and who
later on collected the gangs of the "Black Hundred," those hired
assassins whom he clothed in police uniforms and had instructed in
machine-gun practice--those renegades who played such a sinister part in
the first Revolution.
I then gave the monk the urgent message from the Empress.
"Very well," he replied, "I will be back by Saturday; not because I obey
the woman, but became I must see Kurloff, and I must take active steps
against this Ivan Naglovski and his accursed friends."
Half-an-hour later, when alone in the bare little room allotted to me, I
took out the Empress's letter to the Starets and re-read it. It was as
follows:
"HOLY FATHER,--It is with deepest concern that from your trusted
Féodor I hear of the plot against you. That you can be harmed I
do not believe. You, sent by God as Russia's guide to the bright
future of civilisation which Germany will bring to her, cannot be
harmed by mere mortal. But if there are any who dare dispute your
divine right, then, with our dear Stürmer, take at once drastic
steps to crush them.
"We cannot afford to allow evil tongues to speak of us; neither
can we afford the vulgar scandal that some would seek to create.
If you, O Father, feel apprehensive, then act boldly in the
knowledge that you have your devoted daughter ever at your side
and ever ready and eager to place her power as Empress in your
dear hands. Therefore strike your enemies swiftly and without
fear. Lips prepared to utter scandal must be, at all costs,
silenced.
"Our friend Protopopoff has returned from England and tells me
that Lloyd George and his friends are exerting every effort to
win the war. Those British are brave, but, oh! if they knew all
that we know--eh? They are in ignorance, and will remain so until
Germany conquers Russia and spreads the blessing of civilisation
among the people.
"Nikki is returning. A séance is to be held on Saturday. You must
be back in time. He is sending a messenger to you to urge you to
return to us to give us comfort in these long dark days. Anna and
the girls all kiss your dear hand.--Your devoted daughter, ALIX."
On the following day a middle-aged, fair-haired, rather well-dressed man,
who gave the name of Nicholas Chevitch, from Okhta, a suburb of
Petrograd, was brought to me by the monk who acted as janitor, and
explained that he had private business with Rasputin.
I left him and, ascending to the monk's room, found him extremely anxious
to meet his visitor.
"I will see him at once, Féodor. I have some secret business with him.
Here is the key of a small locked box in your room. Open it and take out
ten one-thousand rouble notes and bring them to me after you have brought
in Chevitch."
This I did. Having admitted the visitor to Rasputin's presence, I opened
the small iron box which the Starets always carried in his supposed
"pilgrimages," and took out the money, leaving in it a sum of about
twelve thousand roubles.
The ten thousand I carried to Rasputin, but as I opened the door I heard
the fair-haired man say:
"All is prepared. The wire is laid across the river. We tested it five
days ago and it works excellently."
"Good! Ah, here is my secretary Féodor!" the monk exclaimed. "He has the
ten thousand roubles for you, and there will be a further ten thousand on
the day your plan matures."
I wondered to what plan the Starets was referring. But being compelled to
retire I remained in ignorance. The man Chevitch stayed with the monk for
over an hour, and then left to return to the capital.
Later on I referred to the visit of the stranger, whereupon Rasputin
laughed grimly, saying:
"You will hear some news in a day or two, my dear Féodor. Petrograd will
be startled."
"How?"
"Never mind," he replied. "Wait!"
We arrived back in Petrograd on the following Friday morning, but
although the Empress sent a messenger to the Gorokhovaya urging the monk
to go to Peterhof at once, as she desired to consult him, he disregarded
her command and did not even vouchsafe a reply. Indeed, Rasputin treated
the poor half-demented Empress with such scant courtesy that I often
stood aghast.
"The woman is an idiot!" he would often exclaim to me petulantly when she
was unusually persistent in her demands.
Next evening, however, we went to the palace, whither another French
medium, a man named Fournier, had been summoned, having, of course, been
administered palm-oil to the tune of some thousands of roubles to give a
"message from the dead" in the terms required by the wire-pullers in
Potsdam.
I was not present at the séance, but later that night, when Rasputin was
sitting alone with me over a bottle of champagne which an "Araby" flunkey
had brought him, he revealed that the "message" from the Tsar's dead
father had been precise and much to the point.
"Nicholas, I speak unto thee," the spirit had said. "Though thou art
brave and thine armies are brave, yet thine enemies will still encompass
thee. Loss will follow upon loss. The great advance will soon become a
retreat, and the hordes of William will dash forward and Poland will
become German. Yet do not be afraid. Trust in the good counsel of thy
wife Alexandra Feodorovna and in thy Father Rasputin, whom Heaven hath
sent to thee. Believe no evil word of him, and let his enemies be swept
from his path. Such is my message to thee, O my son!"
As Rasputin repeated those words with mock solemnity, he laughed grimly.
The pity of it was that Nicholas, Tsar of All the Russias, believed in
those paid-for messages, uttered by those presented to him as mediums and
able to call up the spirit of his lamented father.
"Poor idiot!" Rasputin remarked, first glancing to see that the door was
closed. "He must have something to occupy his shallow brain. That is why
the Empress arranges the sittings. But Féodor," he added, "I must see
this enemy of mine, Ivan Naglovski. He is not a person to be disregarded,
and it seems from what you told me he has a number of important friends.
We will discuss the matter to-morrow."
He afterwards dismissed me with a wave of his dirty hand, and I retired
to bed in a room at the farther end of the long softly carpeted corridor.
At noon next day we had news of a terrible disaster. Precisely at
half-past eleven the city of Petrograd had been shaken to its foundations
by a terrific explosion, followed by half a dozen others, which shattered
windows and blew down signs and chimneys in all parts of the city. At
first everyone stood aghast as explosion followed explosion. Then it
transpired that the great munition works at Okhta, across the Neva,
opposite the Smolny Monastery, had suddenly blown up, and that hundreds
of workers had been killed and maimed and the whole of the
newly-constructed plant wrecked beyond repair.
I was just entering Rasputin's room at the palace when a flunkey told me
the news.
When a moment later I informed the Starets he smiled evilly, remarking:
"Ah! Then that further ten thousand roubles is due to Nicholas Chevitch.
If he calls when we return to Petrograd this afternoon, you must pay him,
Féodor. He has done his work well. Russia will be crippled for munitions
for some time to come."
On our return to Petrograd we found the city in the greatest state of
excitement. The succession of explosions had caused the people to suspect
that the disaster was not due to an accident, as the authorities were
fondly declaring, but the wilful act of the enemy. Rasputin heard the
rumour and piously declared his sympathy with the poor victims.
Yet we had not been back at the Gorokhovaya an hour when the man Chevitch
called, and at the monk's orders I handed him the balance of his
blood-money.
That same evening Hardt, the secret messenger from Berlin, arrived,
having travelled by way of Abö, in Finland.
"I have a very urgent despatch for the Father," he said when he was
ushered in to me, and he handed me a letter upon strong but flimsy paper,
so that it could be the more easily concealed in transit.
At once I took him up to the monk, who was washing his hands in his
bedroom.
"Ah, dear friend Hardt!" exclaimed the Starets, greeting him warmly. "And
you are straight from Berlin! Well, how goes it, eh?"
"Excellently well," was the reply of the messenger from the Secret
Service Department in the Königgrätzerstrasse. "Germany relies upon you
to assist us, as we know you are doing. Count von Wedell has sent you a
letter, which I have handed to your friend Féodor."
"Read it, Féodor," said the monk. "There are no secrets in it that may be
hidden from our dear friend Hardt."
He spoke the truth. Hardt was the confidential messenger who passed
between the Emperor William and Alexandra Feodorovna, and nowadays he was
travelling to and fro to Germany always, notwithstanding that Russia was
at war with her neighbour.
At Rasputin's bidding I tore open the letter, but found it to be written
in cipher.
Therefore I sat down at the little desk and at once commenced to decode
it. It was in the German spy-cipher, the same used all over the world by
German secret agents--the most simple yet at the same time the most
marvellous and complicated code that the world has ever known.
The keys to the code were in twelve sentences that one committed to
memory. Hence no code-book need ever be carried. The cipher message, in
its introduction, told its recipient the number of the sentences being
used--a most ingenious mode of correspondence.
With the paper before me I discovered that in sentence number eight I
would find the key. The sentence in question, a proverb something like
"Faint heart never won fair lady," I wrote down, and then at once began
to decipher the cryptic message from Berlin.
And I read out the following:
"MEMORANDUM NO. 43,286.
"From No. 70 to the Holy Father.
"If the blowing up of the Okhta Munition Works is successful,
endeavour to get your friend C. [Chevitch] to do similar work at
the new explosive factory at Olonetz, where a sub-inspector named
Lemeneff is one of our friends. Tell this to C. and let them get
into touch with each other.
"We approve of C.'s suggestion to destroy the battleship
_Cheliabinsk_, and it is suggested that this be carried out at
the same price paid for Okhta.
"From what we are informed you are in some danger from a man
named Naglovski, who has shown himself far too curious concerning
you of late. Steps should be taken against him.--Greetings, W."
The initial, I knew, stood for von Wedell, one of the directors at the
Königgrätzerstrasse.
Rasputin heard me through, and, taking the cipher message, applied a
match to it, after which Hardt, having swallowed a glass of vodka, left
us.
But the monk, as a result of that message, was at once aroused to evil
activity, and by means of a clever ruse invited Ivan Naglovski to dinner
next day. He accepted, hoping, of course, to discover more concerning the
monk, and quite unconscious that Rasputin knew of his hostile intentions.
To dinner there were invited the Prime Minister, Boris Stürmer, and a
sycophant of his named Sikstel. Stürmer was in uniform and Sikstel in
civilian attire. Naglovski, I found, was a youngish man, who, when I
introduced him, appeared highly honoured to meet at Rasputin's table the
Prime Minister of Russia, while the monk went out of his way to
ingratiate himself with his enemy. Naglovski and his friends had been
preparing a plot either to expose or assassinate the monk, hence the head
of the conspiracy was congratulating himself that the plot was
unsuspected by anybody.
The dinner passed off quite merrily until, of a sudden, Stürmer,
addressing his fellow-guest, said:
"News has been conveyed to the holy Father that you and your friends have
formed a plot against him. Is that true?"
Naglovski started and turned pale. For a moment he was taken entirely off
his guard.
"Ah!" went on Stürmer in his deep, thick voice, Rasputin having risen to
go to the sideboard, "I see it is true. Now, what can you gain by
endeavouring to belittle the efforts of our dear Father for the salvation
of Russia? Think. Are you patriots? No. Well," he went on, "the reason
the Father has invited you here to-night is to come to terms with you.
For a list of your friends--a secret list that will be afterwards
destroyed--the Starets will pay you twenty thousand roubles, and,
further, I will give you a diplomatic appointment in one of the embassies
abroad--wherever you desire."
"What!" cried the young man. "You ask me to betray my friends to that
blasphemous rascal!" and he pointed his finger at Rasputin, who moved
aside. "Never! I refuse! And, further, I tell you," he shouted, rising as
he spoke, "I intend to expose the mock-saint and his conjuring tricks;
the criminal miracle-worker who, according to secret information I have
just received, was the actual instigator of the terrible disaster at
Okhta. This is what my friends, when I reveal to them the truth, will
expose."
As Ivan Naglovski uttered his biting condemnation Rasputin had crept up
behind him, and drawing his revolver suddenly cried in a loud voice:
"Enough! You don't leave this house alive. Gregory Rasputin knows how to
crush his enemies, never fear. All your friends will share your fate.
Take that!"
And he fired, the bullet striking the unfortunate man in the back, where
it entered a vital spot.
Two hours later the body of Ivan Naglovski was discovered on some waste
ground out at Kushelevka, on the other side of the city. Though the
Director of Secret Police guessed what had occurred, he pretended that it
was a complete and unfathomable mystery--and a mystery it has ever
remained until this present exposure.