Page:John Feoktist Dudikoff - Beasts in Cassocks (1924).djvu/46

 opening it, gasped. The money was not there. Bishop Alexander began to shout: "My lord! What's this?! Surely the work of Satan! There was $115,000 in the valise."

It was clear what had become of the money. Mother Kokhannik had access to all the papers and moneys. She was the Bishops' favorite, and spent the night with them in their apartment where the bureau stood. Later on it turned out that my surmise was correct. This I gathered from Mother Kokhannik's conversation with the Bishops



and from the remarks Father Snegirev passed after having chanced upon Father Kokhannik in the hotel. When the Bishops told Mother Kokhannik about the loss, she answered: "Why do you want to torment me in vain?"

The police and detectives were summoned but when they began to probe into the affair, rather deeply, the Bishops found their cur-