21. History’s Hardest Murder?
At Yusupov’s palace, while waiting for his host’s wife to “freshen up”, Rasputin was offered cakes and tea laced with cyanide. He ate and drank with no ill effects. He was then offered poisoned wine. He quaffed it without a problem, asked for another glass, then one more after that. Exasperated, Yusupov retrieved a pistol and shot Rasputin in the chest. Believing him dead, the conspirators went about covering their tracks. Then Rasputin rose hours later, and attacked Yusupov.
The prince managed to free himself and fled up the stairs. Rasputin left via the palace courtyard, where the panicked conspirators caught up with and shot him again. They then wrapped his body in a rug, cut a hole in a frozen river’s surface, and shoved him in. When his body was eventually recovered, it was reported that it had not been the bullets or poison that had killed him, but drowning – he was presumably still alive when thrown into the river.
