Page:John Feoktist Dudikoff - Beasts in Cassocks (1924).djvu/83

 On February 6, 1919, the Soviet Armies once more cleaned Kiev of the Poles and Petlura's Bands. I was still a patient at the hospital when a Soviet Committee came there. Colonel Muravyov approached me, introduced himself, and asked whether I was Dudikoff. He also inquired of the nurse whether I could sit up. She replied, "No." Then turning to me, the Colonel asked: "Were you arrested and. if so, why?" I replied that I had been arrested and had reason to believe because of an order and false information furnished by a certain person. "Yes, we know," said Muravyov. "And who is this person, isn't it Platon Rozhdestvensky?" I confirmed this, and Colonel Muravyov reassured me and told me that most of the documents in my case against Platon were with the General Staff. "Well, don't worry, Dudikoff," he said, "we will find the Metropolitan for you."

Soon afterwards I was discharged from the hospital and went back to my post. I was warned that I had a number of enemies among Platon's followers, and that they were circulating false rumors and doing all in their power to harm me. I knew who those enemies were. They were the very same psrsons [sic] who had, togther [sic] with Platon, obtained my signature and sent assansins [sic] to kill my children; the same persons, on whose false evidence I was arrested; the same persons, two of whom had come to see me at the hospital.

When I returned to the factory, I found that there was no money in the cash-box, and there were no funds from which to pay the workmen. I telephoned to the "Sovnarchoz" and they told me to call for the money, also that they had set apart 18,000,000 rubles for my pay roll. I went for the money by myself, without guards and took along my own 3,500,000 rubles. I arrived at Kiev in a phaeton, which was stopped by two bandits—one wore a mask, the other was so rouged and powdered, that his make-up looked like a mask. They levelled their revolvers at me, and took my money and my gun. As they were making their getaway, I began to shout. Four soldiers came running to my aid and fired at the robbers. One of them was killed on the spot, the other escaped. The soldiers found my money on the man they had killed, took it off his body, and led me to the Lukianov Precinct Police Station. I was released the next day by the manager of the "Sovnarchoz." My money was returned to, me, and the robbery entered on the station blotter. After this, I secured guards, and having received the 18,000,000 rubles in Petlura notes returned to the factory. The workmen refused to accept Petlura