Thoroughly aroused, the Empress now ordered Protopopoff to make an investigation of the whole affair. She called into council also Minister of War Belaieff, a good man, afterwards murdered by the Bolsheviki. The police, at their commands, went to the deserted Yusupoff palace, first searching for and finding the body of the dog which Felix said they had shot. But the bullet hole in the dog’s head had let out little blood, and when the men entered the palace they found it a veritable shambles of blood and disorder. Evidences of a terrific struggle were found in the downstairs study of Prince Felix, on the stairs leading to an upper room, and in the room itself. Then, indeed, the whole power of the police was invoked, and somebody was found to testify that in the dead of night a motor car without any lights was seen leaving the Yusupoff Palace and disappearing in the direction of the Neva. Winter nights in Russia are very dark, as everyone knows, and the car was soon swallowed up in the shadows. The river was next searched, and by a hole in the ice, not far from Krestovsky Island, the police found a man’s golosh. By Protopopoff’s orders divers immediately searched the hole in the ice, and from it was soon dragged the frozen body of Rasputine. Arms and legs were tightly bound with cords, but the unfortunate man had managed to work loose his right hand which was frozen in a last attempt to make the sign of the cross. The body was taken to the Chesma Hospital, where an autopsy was performed. Although there were bullet holes in the back and innumerable cuts and wounds all over the body, the lungs were full of water, proving that they had thrown him alive into the icy river, and that death had occurred by drowning.
As soon as the news became public all Petrograd burst into a wild orgy of rejoicing. The “beast” was slain, the “evil genius” had disappeared never to return. There was no limit to the wild hysteria of the hour. In the midst of these demonstrations came a telephone message from Protopopoff asking the Empress’s advice as to an immediate burial place for the murdered man. Ultimately the body would be sent to his Siberian village, but in the present circumstances the Minister of the Interior thought a postponement of this advisable. The Empress agreed, and she replied that a temporary interment might be arranged at Tsarskoe Selo. On December 29 (January 12) the coffin, accompanied by a kind-hearted sister of mercy, arrived at Tsarskoe. That same day the Emperor came home from the front, and in the presence of the Imperial Family and myself the briefest of services were held. On the dead man’s breast had been laid an ikon from Novgorod, signed on the reverse by the Empress and her daughters as a last token of respect. The coffin was not even buried in consecrated ground, but in a corner of the palace park, and as it was being lowered a few prayers were said by Father Alexander, priest of the Imperial chapel. This is a true account of the burial of Rasputine, about which so many fantastic tales have been embroidered.