For some reason the house was deficient in crockery and plate and table linen, hence quite needless discomfort was inflicted upon the family at mealtimes. The peasant-guards, inoculated with the anti-bourgeois theories, saw no particular hardship in their feeding out of one dish, as they themselves are accustomed to do in the villages. The torment that was endured by the captives was far worse than any merely physical privations. But one such privation did affect them very grievously: the utter impossibility of seeing anything at all beyond the painted glass of their windows. The youngest Grand Duchess (Anastasia) one day could not brook this privation any longer and managed to open a window in the girls’ room. She almost paid for this act with her life. The sentry in the inner hoarding immediately fired, just missing her. The bullet lodged in the window frame. Anastasia gained nothing except a fright. She saw nothing except the hoarding of the sentry, and did not wait for a second shot. In the room where the Imperial couple and Alexis lived and slept--next to the chamber in which their four daughters were crowded--Alexandra placed a good-luck sign. It was so unobtrusive that Gaida, the Czech commander who forcibly installed himself in this room, probably did not notice it. In pencil she formed the mystic sign of swastika and inscribed the date “17/30 April,” the day of her arrival in the house. [Illustration: ALEXANDRA’S GOOD LUCK SIGN] In the death-chamber in addition to the “Belsatzar” inscription was one that has yet to be deciphered. It is in thick black ink, written with an expert hand, and just below, on the window-sill are three groups of figures that may or may not have a meaning. [Illustration: THE MYSTERIOUS INSCRIPTIONS IN THE DEATH CHAMBER.] Some of the persons with whom the reader has become familiar have gone to their last account. The Russian regicide Medvedev died in prison of typhus early last year. His accomplice Yakimov died in prison of inflammation of the lungs at the end of last year. Their death and burial certificates are both in the _dossier_. Yurovsky wrote a letter to a certain Dr. A. before he fled from Ekaterinburg imploring him to protect his old mother “who does not share my views but who may suffer simply because I am her son.” It is at once an avowal of guilt and a proof that even the most blood-thirsty wretch has some good in him. This man had coolly tortured, murdered and cut up innocent children, and was not able to remove his old mother because he had to take the proofs of his crime to Moscow, yet he does not forget her.... Before the Kolchak armies left Ekaterinburg we heard that Yurovsky had been seen in the city. Had he come at great risk to look for his mother? Sokolov had had her removed to Irkutsk. She feared and loathed her son.