Suspicions of the truth were rife from the outset. It was known that five motor-lorries had been requisitioned; that all had been absent several days; that two had carried petrol, and that one had returned covered with mud and gore. Too many persons were involved to conceal the truth for long; the peasants who had to come by the forest road from Koptiaki village at once detected something amiss, and quickly drew their conclusions, which turned out to be correct. But “suspicions” are not proof. Somewhere within the purview of the disused iron mine “proof” was obtainable--on that point there seemed to be no doubt. We took up our residence in the wood--Sokolov, Diterichs, myself, and others--and remained there throughout the late spring and early summer of 1919. We descended the mine, found water and ice and a floor. We searched the ground and scoured the woods, living from day to day in alternate hope or despair of settling the gruesome mystery. Sometimes I felt as if we were seeking the proverbial needle. The woods were full of disused workings, each easily capable of concealing what we sought. Day by day we discovered fresh relics around the pit where the bodies had, we knew, been destroyed. Sokolov tirelessly passed through his searching examination every likely witness; not a peasant, or _dachnik_ (summer resident), or railway servant that had been anywhere near the place escaped him. Slowly, but surely, the scope of possible error lessened. We had got well away from the versions carefully sown by agents of Yurovsky, who remained in the city, that the bodies had been buried in one place, then re-buried in another. One of the witnesses cited in the preliminary inquiry (before Sokolov took charge) had described overhearing a conversation between several Bolshevists about the bodies. The speakers were said to be: Ermakov (whom we know), Mlyshkin, Kostuzov, Partin, Krivtsov, and Levatnykh. They spoke cynically of feeling the corpses while they were still warm. Levatnykh boasted that he had felt the Tsaritsa and that he “could now die in peace.” They also spoke of the “valuables sown in their clothes.” The presumable genuineness of these confidences misled the earlier investigator into believing their other statements or perhaps the additions made to them by the spy who may have been a Red agent--to wit, that the bodies had been buried in various places round the city. This was a “red” herring that unfortunately drew the investigator off a hot trail. He did not even go near the wood. Had he done so, he could not have helped discovering easily then what we had such difficulty in finding a year later. His excuse had been that the wood was “dangerous” on account of Red bands; but even if this were so, he could have deputed a less timorous person. A number of self-appointed “investigators” took this opportunity of “gleaning” relics--perhaps invaluable clues.