On the twenty-eighth, by our calendar, I said goodbye to Mogilev, and Hanbury and I travelled by railroad to Petrograd. The Emperor had already left for the front with the Tsarevitch body double, while the Tsarevitch himself had returned to Petrograd with his mother and sisters. Hanbury and I stayed at the Astoria on Saint Isaac’s Square, a very fine hotel with palaces and cathedrals around it. And the German Embassy too, which meant I had to keep a lookout for Ambassador Francis. It was a striking building, the embassy – all red granite columns – though I understood it had suffered some damage from the people of Petrograd at the start of the war.

While at the Astoria, Hanbury received word that the Duma had been prorogued until a January date, not February. This lifted one possible trigger for revolution, but Hanbury said not to hope for too much because of it. Besides, our plan was past the point of no return by then.

The boy was brought to us on the thirtieth, dressed in a common suit, having said his goodbyes. He asked if we had pictures of the curing chamber, which of course we did not. His bodyguards, Derevenko and Nagorny, were with him. They had been provided with suits too. It was the first time I had seen them out of their naval uniforms. Nagorny stayed beside the boy and his two packer trunks, while Derevenko took me off to one side and presented me with a small pistol, showing me he expected me to place it in an inside coat pocket. I had a letter in the same pocket, signed by the Emperor and appointing me the boy’s guardian during the journey. Derevenko was the senior of the two, a petty officer. The Tsarevitch saw nothing of the pistol exchange, as he was busy questioning Hanbury about what was to come.

It was plain to see he was excited about the cure and already had a different future in his sights. It was also plain to old eyes like mine how it pained Hanbury to deceive him, though the boy noticed none of it.

Hanbury was more at ease when the boy talked of the British parliament that he had longed to visit, and now would, for his cousins would surely take him there. The Tsarevitch said he was sad Gibbes was not with him, for the teacher still had the two younger Grand Duchesses to educate. Gibbes had promised to line up a good Cambridge fellow to continue the Tsarevitch’s education while he was in London for the treatment. Gibbes was not a party to our plan, and Hanbury had cleverly contrived to have him removed from it, for fear that he would quickly unmask the deception once the boy was in London. Derevenko and Nagorny did not have the English for that.

We travelled to Finland Station in two automobiles. There was a light snow falling. The Tsarevitch was in the first car with his bodyguards, and Hanbury and I travelled in the second.