Whether out of cowardice or common sense, he had done the right thing. Already the British were being mentioned in connection with the murder.
In London, meanwhile, it was New Year’s Day, when little political news was generally reported. The Times’s Night Editor rifled through everything that had come in and suddenly found an astonishing message from Reuters in Petrograd:
The body of the notorious monk Rasputin was found on the bank of one of the branches of the Neva this morning.
He printed the bare sentence and Wickham Steed, the famous Foreign Editor, added some obituary to pad it out (‘…[Rasputin] described in unblushing detail the amazing attentions he had extorted from and paid to women of all classes. His actions gave rise to much scandal…’). If an obituary can be salacious, this was. There had been nothing at all from Wilton, their own correspondent, and a sharp query was sent.
Rasputin, even in death, perhaps especially in death, might cause scenes ugly enough to rattle the Tsar. The body had to be got away from the Petrovski Bridge for a rapid autopsy and immediate burial. Yet as usual, nobody in this bumbling government could work out how to get from intention to action. Samuel Hoare’s report was written one month later (British date 5 February). He had heard a convincing version of what happened:
The body was put into a motor lorry and ordered to be taken to the Vyborg Military Hospital. The whole party, examining judges, police, and the rest, then went off to have luncheon with a German Jew who is now known as Artmanov. They had not begun luncheon when they received a telephone message from Protopopov saying that on no account must the body be taken to the Vyborg side, because it was a workman’s quarter and there might be demonstrations. They replied that it had already been sent there but Protopopov said that it must be stopped. They asked how it could be stopped. He said that he did not mind how, but stopped it must be. Accordingly they informed all the police at the street corners along the route through which it was to pass that they were to stop the lorry when they saw it approaching. The lorry was finally stopped, and was ordered to proceed instead to the Tchesminskis Almshouse, a desolate institution on the road to Tsarskoye.10
According to Hoare, Protopopov insisted that the body must be returned to Rasputin’s family by eight o’clock the next morning and he didn’t care if it was impossible, it was necessary. The whole party then wanted to know how they were to examine a body out in the back of beyond when they didn’t have transport. A motor car would cost 200 roubles and it wasn’t in the budget. Protopopov told them the cost would be taken care of and one of the examining magistrates went off to find the pathologist Professor Kossorotov and take him out there in a car.
This account has the authentically chaotic ring of Protopopov, carrying out the unreasonable demands of an autocratic Tsarina, challenged by a group of underlings fortified by a lunchtime drink and community of feeling. However, Hoare had not seen the Autopsy Report, which shows the body was in fact examined a day later. The post mortem was not signed off by Professor Kossorotov until ten o’clock on the night of Tuesday 20 December/2 January. Kossorotov himself said, in an interview the following year, that he expected to perform the autopsy on Wednesday morning. But at seven o’clock on Tuesday evening, not long after his arrival at a professional dinner being held in his honour, he was called to the telephone and Protopopov told him to go and perform the autopsy now, or else.11
Whenever the autopsy took place, according to Hoare:
Although the almshouse was lighted with electric light, there was no light at all when they arrived and no means of lighting it. The three gorodovois [watchmen] who were there said that no light was necessary as ‘dead men need no light’. The judge and the surgeon declared that they must have some light. Accordingly they sent out and obtained two small lamps to hang upon the wall, while one of the gorodovois held a lantern. After a while the gorodovoi declared that he felt ill and could not hold the lantern any more. The judge and the surgeon therefore were left alone in the partially lighted room.12
The Autopsy Report appears competently done, given such circumstances. Professor Kossorotov wrote:
The body is that of a man of 50 years of age, of above average height, dressed in a blue embroidered smock over a white shirt. His legs, in high goatskin boots, were bound with a cord, and the same cord was used to bind his wrists. His light chestnut coloured hair, moustache and beard were long, dishevelled, and soaked in blood. His mouth was half-open, teeth clenched. The upper part of his face was covered in blood. His shirt was also blood-stained.
Three bullet wounds can be identified.
The first penetrated the left-hand side of his chest and passed through his stomach and liver.
The second entered the right-hand part of his back and passed through his kidneys.
The third hit the victim on the forehead and penetrated the brain.
Ballistic analysis
The first two bullets hit the victim when he was standing
The third bullet hit the victim when he was lying on the ground.
The bullets came from revolvers of various calibres.
Examination of the brain
The cerebral matter exudes a strong smell of alcohol.
Examination of stomach
The stomach contains an amount corresponding to approximately 20 soup-spoonsful of a brownish, alcohol-smelling liquid. Examination reveals no trace of poison.
Examination of the lungs
The lungs contain water (which prompts the assumption that the victim was still breathing when he was thrown into the river).
Wounds
The left-hand side has a gaping wound inflicted by some sharp object or possibly a spur.
The right eye has come out of its orbital cavity and fallen on to the face. At the corner of the right eye the skin is torn.
The right ear is torn and partially detached.
The neck has a wound caused by a blunt object.
The victim’s face and body bear the signs of blows inflicted by some flexible but hard object.
The genitals have been crushed due to the effect of a similar object.
Cause of death
The victim must rapidly have been weakened by haemorrhagia arising from a wound to the liver and a wound to the right-hand kidney. Death would then have been inevitable within 10 to 20 minutes. At the moment of death the deceased was in a drunken state. The first bullet passed through the stomach and liver. This mortal wound was inflicted by a shot from a range of 20cm. The wound to the right-hand side, inflicted almost simultaneously with the first, would also have been lethal; it passed through the right-hand kidney. At the time of the attack the victim was standing and not wearing a cloak. The body was already on the ground when the frontal wound was inflicted.
Objects found on the body
A heavy gold chain.
A small gold cross on which are engraved the following words: Save and Protect. A gold and platinum bracelet with a clasp bearing the letter N and the Imperial Russian crown with the two-headed eagle.