The Rescue Begins

It was now fifteen minutes to midnight. We shook hands, looked at each other for consolation and encouragement, and Holmes stepped outside the church.

He had been blessed and kissed by Father Storozhev before, he began walking slow and straight, and if I did not know better, I would have believed him to be the Father. I watched him fade into the night and found myself muttering silent prayers of my own.

I learned later from the various participants all that I shall now recount.

At the rear of Hotel America, the Cheka headquarters, Stravitski and six men had crouched and waited in the area where rubbish was stored. After a few moments, Stravitski and one hand-picked man, Tsukov, had slit the throats of the two guards on duty and had put two of his own men in place. The rest had entered through the main door. At this point, two had stayed at the head of the stairwell leading down, while Stravitski and Tsukov had gone to free Reilly and Obolov.

They knew that if the Cheka slept, all would go well.

At the same time as this was going on, Yuri Gablinev lay flat on his stomach on a hill overlooking Ekaterinburg Station 2, just north of where Reilly’s men were under guard. He had five other men with him. South of the station, in a marshy part of the lake near the Verk-Isestsk factory, seven other men waited. At twenty minutes past twelve, they would begin moving towards the station.

Gablinev noted happily that most of the guards who were supposed to be awake, were not. But there were four guards drinking vodka and singing just below his hill. Their rifles were stacked neatly as prescribed by their training, still close enough to be of deadly use.

Holmes approached the Ipatiev House.

The guards had been given their orders, as Yurovsky promised, and as Holmes passed by, he was not even given a second glance.

Once through the main archway, he was met by a corporal of the guard who commented to Holmes that it was a nice night. Holmes understood, nodded agreement and continued following after a perfunctory, “Da.”

The corporal led Holmes into the house; there was only one guard semi-awake that he could see, sitting in a large char, his head falling to his chest. Then Holmes followed the corporal to the rear, and then down a flight of steps. Holmes remembered to walk with arthritic care.

At the foot of the steps were two guards on either side of an open door. They were sitting on wooden stools; and although alert, they did not regard this Father Storozhev as a major hazard to their health.

Holmes said nothing, but I suspected his heart would be beating so loudly he would suspect the guards to hear; not only from the strain of this ordeal, but knowing that within scant seconds, he would be in the presence of the Imperial Family.

The Corporal pointed to the door, mildly saluted Holmes and went back upstairs. Holmes walked in and looked around. The room was bare except for a table and seven chairs set up for the mass. As Holmes covered this table with the sacramental cloth as he was instructed to do, and went about the motions of setting the religious items in their appropriate places, he was really looking for the specific bolts in the wooden flooring which Father Storozhev had told him about. For with the loosening of just two of these bolts, which the Father would have the men in the tunnel do from the underside, the boards could be lifted, giving access to the tunnel.

As he heard many footsteps coming down the stairs outside, Holmes located the bolts to the extreme left rear of the basement. He quickly went to the front of the table and placed his hands in imitation of Father Storozhev.

Then with the footsteps ever closer, the moment he had come these many thousands of miles for, rushed up at him as Tsar Nicholas II entered the room carrying his son, the Tsarevich Alexei. They were followed in quick order by the Tsarina and the four Grand Duchesses, the Grand Duchess Tatiana giving her mother support.

As each filed in, Holmes had to remember to make the sign of the cross, to hold out his cross for each to kiss, and, as he finally admitted, to hold his knees stiff for his own support; so deeply did this moment affect him. Especially at the sight of the Tsar holding the Tsarevich.

Yes, Sherlock Holmes admitted to me, he turned to go to the rear of the table to hide his emotion from the Imperial Family. But when he turned and saw them all sitting there so erect, in defiance of their physical appearance and belying all that had happened to them, Holmes felt emotion once again bestirring itself.

As the guards closed the doors, he took his paper from under his robe and glanced at his timepiece. It was seven minutes past midnight.