Popularity has its drawbacks. The people of Perm did not realise that their attentions to the exile might arouse suspicion among his Red enemies. When things came to such a pass that the Tsar’s brother found himself running the gauntlet of popular ovations, it became necessary to avoid too frequent appearances in the streets. Znamerovsky warned the Grand Duke that the Reds at the suburban Motoviliha arsenal were beginning to grow restive and openly agitating against the liberty allowed to the exiles. So thereafter the familiar figure of Michael Alexandrovich in his shabby grey suit and top boots was seen no more, and he took his exercise under the cover of darkness. The Grand Duke had left his wife and children at Gachina. Countess Brasova (his morganatic spouse) came to visit her husband in the middle of May. Madame Znamerovskaia had also arrived in Perm. It was a rash step. Countess Brasova had much difficulty in getting away; in fact it was only managed by a stratagem. The komisars were told that if they interfered the matter would be referred to Moscow. This frightened them. Reaching Moscow on the 22nd or 23rd of May Countess Brasova decided to take a still bolder step to save her husband. Conscious of his complete aloofness from politics, she imagined that personal intercession with the Red chieftains would move them to let him go. Of course it was an illusion excusable only in a distracted wife. I mention it because Lenin himself intervened in the matter. It was the lofty idealist of Sovietdom that absolutely refused to permit the departure of Michael, and thereby assumed responsibility for what happened. Madame Znamerovskaia did not leave Perm. She was there when her husband was shot and later shared his fate. But I am anticipating. Unbeknown to any member of the family or even to N. N. Jackson, Colonel Znamerovsky had conceived a plan of escape which he intended to put into practice, fearing that the Motoviliha workmen might be goaded into violence. I am in possession of the details of this plan, and I can state most positively--in the light of subsequent events--that it was not carried out, nor even attempted. On the 13th June a telegram reached Gachina from Perm, announcing that “our general favourite and Johnny had been removed by whom and whither unknown.” This message was supposed to have come from Znamerovsky--it could have come only from him. The first feeling was one of unmixed joy; then doubts began to arise, and no small anxiety as to the probable repression that would at once fall upon the household at Gachina. Surely enough soon afterwards Countess Brasova was arrested by Uritsky, the bloodstained Komisar of Petrograd, who himself was assassinated two months later by another Jew. After innumerable tribulations, she managed to escape with her children out of Russia.