Page:John Feoktist Dudikoff - Beasts in Cassocks (1924).djvu/58

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.

then located at Washington Square, New York, came to see me in prison. Victor Hartz issued stringent orders to me not to disclose anything about residence, my work or the machinations of the Russian spies employed by the Russian Orthodox Mission under the management of Archbishop Platon, the leader of the Mission, and in the General Consulate under the leadership of Baron Schlippenbach, General Oustinov and Mr. Rutzky. I was ordered to keep my council about all I knew. For example, I knew that on the eve of my arrest members of the Consulate and of the Mission went to Fort Hamilton in Brooklyn and Governor's Island, where they took photographs of the fortifications. This they accomplished by bribing heavily the Poles, Russians and Lithuanians who served in the U. S. Army detachments, and were quartered in these forts. I knew that espionage ran rampart, but it was not clear to me for whom it was carried on. This became plain to me when I returned to Russia, only to learn that the Secret Service work of the Russian Orthodox Mission and of the General Consulate of the Russian Embassy was in behalf of the Germans. By mere chance I happened to see a few snapshots of American forts, American ammunition plants and many other photographs of military significance in the hands of the German general whose name I know. These photographs were transmitted to Germany by Archbishop Platon, who, having accomplished his task, left for Russia. This does not complete the sum total of Platon's crimes, but more of that later on.

On leaving me, Hartz told me not to worry because I would be released in a day or two. But I was not released. Instead, I was taken to various prisons, workhouses, islands and houses of detention, where I was photographed in different postures and had my fingerprints taken. This went on for exactly fifty days, after which time I was finally released.


CHAPTER XVIII.

I Return to Russia.

Immediately after I was set free, I came to the Russian Consistory on East 97th Street, where I found Bishop Alexander Nemolovsky and the Secretary, Father Peter Kokhannik. To my question,

— 53 —