On July 20th the Whites, as the anti-Bolshevik troops were called, captured Tioumen and saved us from the fanatics who had so nearly claimed us as victims. A few days later the papers published a reproduction of the proclamation that had been placarded in the streets of Ekaterinburg, announcing that the sentence of death passed on the ex-Czar Nicholas Romanoff had been carried out on the night of July 16th-17th and that the Czarina and her children had been removed to a place of safety. At last, on July 25th, Ekaterinburg fell in its turn. Hardly was communication re-established--which took a long time as the permanent way had suffered severely--when Mr. Gibbes and I hastened to the town to search for the Imperial family and those of our companions who had remained at Ekaterinburg. Two days after my arrival I made my first entry into Ipatief’s house. I went through the first-floor rooms, which had served as the prison; they were in an indescribable state of disorder. It was evident that every effort had been made to get rid of any traces of the recent occupants. Heaps of ashes had been raked out of the stoves. Among them were a quantity of small articles, half burnt, such as tooth-brushes, hairpins, buttons, etc., in the midst of which I found the end of a hair-brush on the browned ivory of which could still be seen the initials of the Czarina, A. F. (Alexandra-Feodorovna.). If it was true that the prisoners had been sent away, they must have been removed just as they were, without any of the most essential articles of toilet. I then noticed on the wall in the embrasure of one of the windows of Their Majesties’ room the Empress’s favourite charm, the swastika,[72] which she had put up everywhere to ward off ill-luck. She had drawn it in pencil, and added, underneath, the date, 17/30 April, the day of their incarceration in the house. The same symbol, but without the date, was drawn on the wallpaper, on a level with the bed, occupied doubtless by her or Alexis Nicolaïevitch. But my search was to no purpose, I could not find the slightest clue to their fate. I went down to the bottom floor, the greater part of which was below the level of the ground. It was with intense emotion that I entered the room in which perhaps--I was still in doubt--they had met their death. Its appearance was sinister beyond expression. The only light filtered through a barred window at the height of a man’s head. The walls and floor showed numerous traces of bullets and bayonet scars. The first glance showed that an odious crime had been perpetrated there and that several people had been done to death. But who? How?