Among the relics was a private code that was found in the ventilator of the Ipatiev lavatory. It bore the following inscription in the Empress’s hand: “For my own beloved Nicky, dear, to use when he is absent from his ‘spitzbu.’ Fr. his lovingly, Alice. Osborne, July, 1894.” The German word had been erased and rewritten in Russian! The owner of this little book had evidently prized it above everything else and fearing that it might be taken away from him had hidden it—hoping, no doubt, to claim it some day.
Also among the mementoes from her funeral pyre came a ruby that belonged to the murdered Empress. It was identified by her maid who told the following story: “The Emperor gave Her Majesty a ruby ring when she was only fifteen. They fell in love even then. It was at the wedding of her sister the Grand Duchess Elizabeth. After that they thought about each other for eight years. The Empress always wore the ruby ring hanging on a chain on her breast.”
The spaniel Joy also came to England. Both the dogs that were most highly prized by the Imperial family were of English breeds. Jemmy, who died with his masters, was a diminutive black-and-tan King Charles, so small that he could not mount the Ipatiev stairs unaided.
The sufferings of the Romanovs in Ipatiev’s house were so terrible that it is not seemly to misrepresent them, as some writers have done, in sordid fashion. I have the inventory of the house and its contents, signed by Ipatiev and the Komisars; I have the procès-verbal of Sergeiev’s inspection, made within a fortnight of the murder; lastly, I have the evidence of my own eyes. The house itself contained every comfort and convenience: electric light, excellent stoves, a well appointed bath-room and lavatory, electric bells everywhere, plenty of good and even luxurious furniture. The bath was in working order and, when Sergeiev visited it contained: firewood for the heater, sheets bearing the Imperial monogram and a cake of soap on the rack, besides numerous other signs of frequent usage. The brutal guards, being used to the Russian steam bath, were not interested in this “outlandish” contrivance, and except for their prying and offensive habits did not apparently stand in the way of personal cleanliness.
The story of girlish locks shorn because of the impossibility of other methods of combating dirt and its consequences is not borne out by the evidence. “Combings” of hair of four different hues were found; also some short hair in the bath-room. One would expect to find them. It is stated in the dossier that a barber visited the house to attend the Tsar and the Tsarevich.
Each member of the family had his or her bed. There were sheets, pillows and blankets. There was a wash-house in the court-yard.
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.
