As this looked bad we both left and ran
across the place, but the Reds would not let anybody in. Already there
were about fifteen men trying to break down the fence. The inside
guards resisted and some shots were exchanged. The assailants were
Reds, asking for "a treasury," and some of them were asking for the
Family as it was rumored that they had already been killed.
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.
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