The most important deposition was that of some peasants from the village of Koptiaki, twenty versts north-west of Ekaterinburg. They came to give evidence that on the night of July 16th-17th the Bolsheviks had occupied a clearing in a forest near their village, where they had remained several days. They brought with them objects which they had found near the shaft of an abandoned mine, not far from which could be seen traces of a large fire. Some officers visited the clearing and found other objects, which, like the first, were recognised as having belonged to the Imperial family.
The enquiry had been entrusted to Ivan Alexandrovitch Serguéief, a member of the Ekaterinburg tribunal. It followed a normal course, but the difficulties were very great. Serguéief was more and more inclined to admit the death of all the members of the family. But the bodies could still not be found, and the depositions of a certain number of witnesses supported the hypothesis that the Czarina and the children had been removed to another place. These depositions--as was subsequently established--emanated from Bolshevik agents deliberately left in Ekaterinburg to mislead the enquiry. Their end was partially attained, for Serguéief lost precious time and was long in realising that he was on the wrong track.
The weeks passed without bringing any new information. I then decided to return to Tioumen, the cost of living at Ekaterinburg being very high. Before starting, however, I obtained from Serguéief a promise that he would recall me if any new fact of importance came to light in the course of the enquiry.
At the end of January, 1919, I received a telegram from General Janin, whom I had known at Mohilef when he was chief of the French Military Mission at Russian G.H.Q. He invited me to join him at Omsk. Some days later I left Tioumen, and on February 13th arrived at the Military Mission sent by France to the Omsk Government.[73]
Admiral Koltchak, realising the historic importance of the enquiry into the disappearance of the Imperial family, and wishing to know the result, had in January charged General Ditériks to bring him from Ekaterinburg a copy of the evidence and all the clues that had been found. On February 5th he summoned Nicholas Alexiévitch Sokolof, “Examining