Seeing that nothing could be done from this side I went to the rear and squeezed in, for Ch. was there and he let me do so; but he said that he had heard shots inside and that he thought all was finished, and said also that Leinst and three others went to search in Syvorotka's home--they evidently don't know that all was taken out yesterday. In the house I found complete commotion. The family had disappeared, and no one knew where or how. Pytkan was shot in the stomach and in the throat and I saw him lying on the floor in the room. Khokhriakov and his men were shaking the rest of his life out of him, asking where the E. and the jewelry were, but all that Pytkan could say was "they were taken away." No one could make out what really had happened and who had shot him; some said that they went away in trucks, yet, in the evening, some that a detachment sent by the Soviet took them secretly out, some said aeroplanes. All were wrong, for Philip had just come back and the trucks were in place, no one came into the Ipatiev's house as I was on guard, and there had been no aeroplanes since six o'clock. Pytkan was almost dead when Khokhriakov finally got from him that the family had been shot and taken away--and then he began to expire. Later the German appeared and chased us all away,--he sent for his assistant, but they could not find him. The family disappeared,--it is true; there was no trace of them. I continued to look everywhere up to the time that the Soviet representatives arrived, having been ordered to arrest all people who were with the family, and commenced searching for the bodies. The whole place was surrounded by Reds, and all were ordered out, but nothing was there. Then a resolution was made that the prisoners had been taken away and shot, and they sent a wire to Moscow. I only know that inside the house they killed two people and nobody else, anyhow. Pytkan and Kramer were dead; Kramer probably had been shot from a distance--the bullet was in his head. There were no more than two men killed, I know it; so you may feel sure, when you hear that all were killed in the house that it is a lie. Somebody must have been burning things in the stove long before--maybe in the daytime or the early evening; the stove was almost cold,--the Reds got something out of it, I did not see what it was. When I understood that the whole family had been taken away, dead or alive, or had somehow disappeared, and that there was nothing for us to do, I took Philip and we rushed back to Syvorotka. The trucks and the chauffeurs were all gone. In the garage we found Syvorotka tied with a rope and shot in the spine, and bleeding from scratches and other wounds. From the appearance of the garage we understood that there had been a struggle, but he could not speak comprehensively; all we got from him were moanings, separate phrases and words like "treason," "run away," "leave me die here," etc., etc.,--he was decidedly raving and very weak. We helped him as