Chapter XIII: The Jackals

Around the tigers of the Soviet and their feasts of blood hovered the jackals, singly, in twos and threes, and in packs, waiting to snatch some morsel.

It would be impossible to mention all the sorry scavengers that thronged around the Romanovs before and after their martyrdom. I refer only to such of them that affected, one way or another, the course of the tragedy and its investigation.

Chronologically I record the name of Soloviev first, because he figures in the _dossier_ as an actor while the family was still at Tobolsk. The depositions of numerous witnesses, substantiated by Soloviev himself, show that he was receiving a salary of Rs.40,000 (nominally £4,000) from a banker named X. (well known in Petrograd and reputed to be a Jew), who acted as the chief of the German secret service during the war, having the disbursement of secret funds from Berlin in his hands.

Having married a daughter of Razputin, named Matrena, after the “saint’s” death, and formed a connection with Anna Vyrubova, then at liberty in the Red capital, and with other friends of Grishka, this young man, an ex-officer in the Russian Army and former A.D.C. to Guchkov, started on a “mission” to Siberia. Ostensibly he went to his wife’s home. His own explanation is that he was interested in the fisheries of the Ob; also that he took money and comforts to Tobolsk to the Imperial family from their friends in Petrograd. He deposes that he handed the money to the priest Vasiliev, also the presents. He accuses the priest of appropriating the one and the other. The priest makes counter accusations.

There appears to be reason to believe that the Empress knew of this “mission,” and, retaining to the very end all her illusions regarding Grishka and Anna, gave her confidence to Soloviev as his son-in-law and the associate of Vyrubova. How he repaid this confidence will be seen.

The agent of X. naturally kept him and the Germans informed as to all the happenings at Tobolsk, but one may be quite sure that he did not stop there. Information given to the Germans meant, of course, its communication, when Berlin so desired, to the Bolshevists, its servants. Is it surprising in these circumstances that each of the four separate and independent organizations formed to release the Imperial exiles was betrayed before anything could be attempted?--for the Solovievs were many and the tentacles of X. were far-reaching.

It could not be a coincidence that officers who met Soloviev in Tiumen were arrested by the Reds and “disappeared.” Two such cases are recorded in the _dossier_. It is certainly more than a coincidence that before and after the fall of the Kolchak Government he was in mysterious association with persons who were strongly suspected of being German agents, and could give no satisfactory account of the source of his income since he had been cut off from the supplies of X.

N. A. Sokolov found him and Matrena at Chita, enjoying the confidence and support of Maria Mihailovna, the so-called “Queen of Diamonds,” who presided over the destinies of the Ataman’s household and had a decided finger in the Trans-Baikalian pie. The “Queen” bore a striking likeness to a certain Jewess who had spied on the Russian South Western front in the days of the war. She came in person to release the Solovievs from the House of Detention to which they had been relegated by Sokolov’s legal order. Sokolov himself had to flee from Chita to avoid worse consequences.

The priest Vasiliev was of another stamp. His antecedents should have dispensed him from ecclesiastical office. He had killed the sexton of the church where he had previously served. The plea of accident, of which he availed himself to secure a nominal punishment of “penitence,” could not engender a proper recognition of his responsibilities. The man was a self-seeker; he saw in the captivity of the Romanovs an opportunity to advance his own and his son’s interests. He indulged in all manner of demonstrations of “loyalty”--bell-ringing and prayers--without regard to their effect upon the captives and their gaolers. As a matter of fact, they did much harm to the family.

The accusation brought against him by Soloviev appears to be borne out in part by the discovery of a certain quantity of articles belonging to the Imperial family in his (Vasiliev’s) house.

The Czech pharmacist Gaida, commanding their rearguard when they were stopped by orders from Berlin and Moscow, who afterwards entered the service of the Omsk Government, played a sorry part in the investigation of the Tsar’s murder. Immediately after the occupation of Ekaterinburg by the Whites, Gaida requisitioned Ipatiev’s house for his personal use and took for himself the room in which the Tsar and his wife had lived. The judiciary begged him not to do so, explaining that it was most necessary that the house should not be disturbed, in the interests of justice. They were brushed aside. Gaida threatened violence if they did not leave him alone. They drew up a _procès-verbal_ on the matter. It is in the _dossier_.

In the light of this incident, it is rather strange to read the Red proclamations denouncing the Czecho-Slovaks as the agents of the counter-revolution who were coming to deliver Nicholas Romanov. Gaida’s complete indifference to the Romanovs and their fate was shared by his countrymen, and it is extremely doubtful if they would have behaved better towards the Romanovs than they did afterwards to Kolchak.[12]

Among the spies and officers employed by Gaida, some are known to have been Bolshevist agents. One of the officials of his intelligence branch proved to be the Nikolsky who had behaved so brutally to the exiles at Tobolsk and was afterwards president of the local Soviet. When the Russian officers at Ekaterinburg heard of his previous exploits they killed him, without giving the investigation an opportunity to obtain his deposition.

Another hostile Czech was a certain Zaiêek, a former Austrian officer, who was in charge of an important section of the Intelligence Department. When the former Extraordinary Komisar Yakovlev, repenting of the part he had played in the removal of the Tsar from Tobolsk, came over to the Whites and applied to General Shenik for service, he happened to come into the hands of Zaiêek, who, being a traitor and a spy, took measures to have Yakovlev sent away, perhaps knowing that he had been in the confidence of Mirbach and might give the whole German show away.

The Omsk Government, largely composed of Socialist-Revolutionaries, gave little encouragement to the investigation. To them the murder of the ex-Tsar appeared to be a matter of quite inferior interest. The investigating magistrate, being in straits for money, applied to the Governor-General of the Ural, a mining engineer named P----, for a sum of 100 roubles (then worth about £1) to provide the monthly stipend of a typist. Being a member of the S.R. party, this high official refused, explaining that in his opinion no inquiry was needed, as it was clearly “a simple case of the shooting of hostages,” too common to worry about.

When, at a later stage, this person was making his way eastward in a luxurious car stuffed with “loot,” the officers of Ataman Semenov searched it, found several millions of Romanov roubles (the currency of the old _régime_, worth even now about 250 to the £) besides gold and platinum, and shot him on the spot as a “speculator.”

The investigating magistrate was able to discover the whereabouts of a noted Bolshevist named Ilmer, who had come to Siberia secretly with an important mission from Moscow. He communicated with the Secret Service at Omsk, requesting that an officer should be sent to apprehend Ilmer. But Ilmer did not turn up. It was ascertained that the Secret Service instead of sending the officer had sent a telegram, with the result that Ilmer escaped.

Perhaps the worst enemies of the investigation were in the Ministry of Justice. It being a cardinal maxim of the Kolchak Government that it wielded supreme authority over the Russian dominions pending the convocation of a constituent Assembly, the blessed formula consecrated by advanced politicians and adopted as a _sine qua non_ by the Powers of the Entente, the Minister of Justice had to be a Socialist-Revolutionary. M. Starynkevich, a lawyer who had been exiled by the former _régime_, fulfilled the necessary requirements.

He persistently and deliberately declined to treat the Tsar’s murder as anything more than an ordinary penal offence and would not appoint a special investigator. The inquiry was therefore conducted casually. A member of the Tribunal of Ekaterinburg without special training in criminal investigation had the case in hand. (Curiously enough he was of Jewish extraction.) The blunders or worse then committed are directly ascribable to Starynkevich.

It was only by direct and categorical orders from the supreme ruler (Admiral Kolchak) that the appointment of a special investigator (N. A. Sokolov) was assured. But realising that renewed and constant attempts would be made to upset the investigation, Kolchak gave Sokolov a special warrant of appointment and otherwise supported him in his work. It was very necessary, for all that Omsk would allow him for expenses was Rs.4.50 per diem (about 6d.), and when he arrived in Ekaterinburg he had exactly 165 Siberian roubles (then about £2) in his possession for all outlays.

Bad enough, this was nothing to what came after. The investigation was frequently embarrassed by the excessive zeal of amateur Sherlocks or Pushfuls. In some cases their thirst for information could not be ignored, as they claimed to make their demands from a high personage friendly to the Omsk Government. In February of last year Sokolov prepared a confidential report for transmission abroad, and handed it to Admiral Kolchak. The next morning it appeared in full in the local organ of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party. The paper was suppressed a few hours later, but, of course, the mischief had been done. The murderers knew exactly how the investigation stood. All the names of the accused and witnesses were printed in full for the whole world to read, and there also was the name of the investigator (Sokolov), whose appointment had been so distasteful to Starynkevich, practically inviting anybody to come and kill him. (A summary of the disclosed information was published in _The London Times_ of February 18, 1919.)

This same Starynkevich, now an ex-Minister, has lately come out in another “disclosure.” He has informed the representatives of Jewry that not a single Jew was concerned in the murder of the Imperial family. It seems almost incredible, but here is the document. It is a letter from the Secretary of the Joint Foreign Committee of the Jewish Board of Deputies and the Anglo-Jewish Association, giving details of an interview with M. Starynkevich. It says: “the Minister, in a statement given to me written down with his own hand, and herewith literally translated, declares that:--

“On the strength of the data of the preliminary inquiry, the course
of which was reported to me every week by the Attorney-General, I
can certify that, among the number of persons proved by the data of
the preliminary inquiry to have been guilty of the assassination of
the late Emperor Nicholas II. and of his family, there was not any
person of Jewish descent.”

The letter proceeds:--

“I put to him the question as to how he explains the fact of
General Knox having sent to the British War Office a report to the
contrary. M. Starynkevich ... said that the Russian military
circles had vehemently asserted from the very outset that the
assassination of the Tsar’s family was the handiwork of the Jews,
and that this point must be established by the inquiry. They
started an investigation of their own, and insisted on the whole
course of their inquiry being left to themselves. The Minister of
Justice had to contend with great difficulties before he obtained
that the inquiry should be carried out by the regular organs of his
department. Even the impartial investigation did not cease to be
hampered by the interference of the military. Thus, when the First
Examining Magistrate, Sergeiev, had failed to discover any trace of
Jewish participation in the crime, these military circles
vociferously protested against him and insinuated that M. Sergeiev
was a Jew himself. This campaign was so violent and persistent that
the Minister of Justice had to discharge M. Sergeiev from the case
and to entrust the further proceedings to another examining
magistrate. His successor (_i.e._, Sokolov) was likewise unable to
discover any trace of Jewish participation in the murder of the
Tsar’s family.”

I have given this “statement” in full to prevent any subsequent “misapprehensions.” M. Starynkevich’s record is known to the reader. He shows himself in his written “denial” to be a quibbler. The degree of “guilt” of the implicated persons had not been fully established in the initial stages of the inquiry, but they were known to be implicated and known to be Jews. The names of Yurovsky, Goloshchekin, Safarov, Voikov are in Sergeiev’s own _procès-verbaux_, and they were perfectly known by him to be Jews.

It was only natural that the maintenance of Sergeiev, reputed to be of Jewish descent, at the head of the investigation alarmed all who were concerned with the establishment of the truth, but M. Starynkevich carefully conceals another, still more important, reason for their anxiety. Sergeiev was a judge, not an investigating magistrate. He had been deputed to take over the conduct of the investigation from the first magistrate (Nametkin) in the early days of August, 1918, and, contrary to law and to the rules of criminal investigation in Russia as well as in other countries, had continued to conduct the inquiry after the formation of the government at Omsk and despite the fact that fully qualified investigating magistrates were available.

The persistent refusal of the Minister to relieve Sergeiev could be understood only in one sense. Not till February of the following year did Starynkevich at last comply with the law, but even then it was not by his own initiative. Soon afterwards he himself had to leave. Hence his complete ignorance of the subsequent course of the investigation. His slurs upon the military are beneath contempt. But on this and on any other points, Sokolov and the _dossier_ are here to answer him, if necessary.