At a meeting of the soldiers on the 24th, Degtiarev, backed by Yakovlev, attacked Zaslavsky with such vim that the men threw him out, and he made haste to escape to Ekaterinburg to relate a purely imaginary story of Yakovlev’s designs to release the Romanovs. But there is evidence to show that he first communicated by wire with Sverdlov. Zaslavsky’s poisonous character may have been the only prompting necessary, but it is not impossible that he may have been “inspired” from Moscow to play a part in the intricate conspiracy that was to exterminate the Romanovs. Certainly Yakovlev underrated his capacity for mischief, as will appear later. Sverdlov tried to make the world believe that Nicholas II. was to be brought to Moscow for trial. But this may have been only an afterthought. In any case, it was easy to have him intercepted by playing upon local ignorance and suspicion through Zaslavsky. Meanwhile, during these two days (the 23rd and 24th), Yakovlev had been repeatedly inside the governor’s house, and on each occasion had gone to the boy’s room, appearing suddenly, looking fixedly at the patient, and then going away. Nobody noticed his strange behaviour at the time. They remembered it afterwards. No one knew as yet what he had come for. On the night of the 24th Yakovlev went to the telegraph office, taking with him an expert operator who had come with him from Moscow, and had a long conversation over the wire with Sverdlov, the substance of which--as transpired later--dealt with the boy’s sickness and the impossibility of moving him. Sverdlov gave him “new instructions” to the effect that he was to bring Nicholas and that since the boy could not come he would have to be left behind for the present. From the telegraph office, Yakovlev went straight to Colonel Kobylinsky and, for the first time, disclosed the object of his mission. “But what about Alexis?” remonstrated the commandant. “That is the trouble,” was the reply. “I have satisfied myself that he is really too ill to travel, so my orders now are to take the ex-Tsar alone and leave the family here for the present. I propose to start tomorrow. Arrange for me to see him at once.” It should be explained that as the roads would, in a few days, become impassable, and the river-ice break up any moment, owing to the advance of spring, it was necessary to leave Tobolsk at once or wait several weeks till the rivers were clear of ice. Hence Yakovlev’s haste. But as he was apparently well acquainted with the character of the Empress, he insisted that Nicholas should receive him alone.