Rensselaer Journal, Volume 12, Number 25, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 November 1902 — THE MYSTERY OF COUNT LANDRINOF. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

THE MYSTERY OF COUNT LANDRINOF.

BY FRED WHISHAW.

COJWKjHT IdS&QfTHE AMERICAN PRESS ASSOCIATION.

CHAPTER V. FOLLOWING THE TRAH,. Percy arrived just 24 hours after me —good old Percy I He had not tarried one unnecessary minute in London#, knowing that I needed him. I told him all. I had seen and done, and he was kind and encouraging. “Well done, old man I” he said. “You haven’t let the grass grow under your feet. It may be a good clew, and it may not. These chaps are such frightful liars, but we’ll test it at Balota. It doesn’t seem quite a likely story, does it? Why should two fellows have pounced upon your father and carried him off to the post station ? You see, you yourself put a lot of the tale into the fellow’s head by inquiring whether any one had driven the count to Balota, and he could easily invent the rest. It seems to me that they would have robbed him, more likely, and left him.” “Heaven only knows 1” I said sagely. “Let’s get ready at once and drive over to the post road. We may hit the trail. I fancy it rather myself for want of a better clew.” So we drove at once to Balota and asked to see the postmaster. A surly peasant came out and said his horses were all cut. If we wanted to travel, we must pay double prices. I explained that we should do so presently with pleasure on condition that he first answered a few questions. The man looked suspicious, but he bade me enter the house and sit down. “Now,” I said, “had you a traveler or two or three travelers journeying together from Erinofka last week?” “Stop a minute,” he said. “Have you been speaking to that fool of fools Ivan Arbuzof ?” I could honestly reply that I did not know whom he referred to by that name. “Why do you inquire about three men from Erinofka, then?” he said. “Well, it may be one man or two or three,” I explained. “It is only one that I care to know about. This gentleman drove over, as I believe, intending to take post horses for St. Petersburg. We wish to know the date, and are prepared to pay for information.” The fellow reflected a short while. He glanced furtively at me once or twice from under his black, bushy eyebrows. I did not like the look of the man. / “It is against rules to give such information,” he said, “or at least against my practice. You may be spies upon the track of some unfortunate who is innocent of offense. ” “We are no spies,” I said, “and this is a 10 ruble note. ” “I will look in my book, ” he growled. “Give me the money!” The fellow brought a greasy, filthy account book and turned over page after page. “Here is an entry of three barins from Erinofka, ’ ’ he said presently. My heart beat with excitement “Yes; that will be it!” I exclaimed. “Go on.” “Who engaged a three horse carriage to Riabova, ” he continued. “Good!” I cried, jumping up. Percy was equally excited, though he only understood half that was said. “You have earned your money, my man. Get us a carriage and horses to the same place quickly, and you shall be paid treble fare. ” The savage looking rascal beamed and departed without loss of a moment. He was not sorry, I thought afterward, to discontinue the conversation. It appeared that he had horses in the stable, after all, for he certainly never left the yard, and yet, five minutes later, there stood a “troika,” or three horsed vehicle, ready for us. We jumped in. “To Riabova quickly !” I cried to the driver, who was busy listening to his chief’s instructions. Rather complicated ones, it appeared, for the fellow wore an expression as of one who is being taught a difficult lesson. The postmaster whispered his last word, and we were off. “I hope they’re not hatching any deviltry between them,” said Percy. “I don’t like that postmaster Johnny at all. Do you ?’ ’ I was bound to admit that I did not. “But we can take care of ourselves, I expect,” I added, and in this proposition Percy laughingly concurred. “We must try and get in a talk with the fellow at Riabova before this little rascal on the box has an opportunity to square him or warn him, ” he continued. “Ten to one the postmaster at Balota has sent him down instructions to lie as freely as his tongue will turn the redhot falsehoods out. We must certainly have the first look in.” But at Riabova things did not turn out precisely as we had intended, for our little driver contrived, in spite of our intentions, to deliver his message, whatever it may hpve been, before we could obtain a word with the postmaster. This he did by throwing his reins to the moujik who met us at the yard gate and running quickly within the house, leaving us wondering where the chief man was to be found. Percy thought the matter very suspicious. “These fellows are playing some deep game with us,” he said. “I don’t like it” . X... But I was less inclined to suspect evil—-that is, anything more‘evil than designs against our money bags.

‘f’lt’s absurd to suppose mat an tnese chaps are in the secret of father’s disappearance, ” I said. “They have a game on, but it is only to obtain three or four times their due for the horses, and so on. The other fellow merely sent a message to this fellow that we were two young greenhorns who could be fleeced ad lib. “Maybe!” said Percy. This postmaster was a very different looking personage. He was suave and oily, and he came out to speak to us, a bending thing of bows and wreathed smiles. He had no more original lie to tell us, however, than that bis horses were all out. “That doesn’t matter, my friend, *’ I said, “for maybe we shall not require any,” at which his countenance fell. This looked as though my theory were correct—namely, that the plot, if plot there were, was a monetary one. “The fact is,” I continued, “I wish to ask a few questions rather than to travel. I shall pay you well if you answer satisfactorily. Firstly, do you remember three gentlemen traveling from here to town a short while since; one was a sick person and required assistance in getting into the carriage?” The man smiled obsequiously and said he remembered such a party perfectly. “Did they travel to St. Petersburg from here?” I asked. The man assented. “This seems all right, Percy,” I whispered. “Ask him if he remembers the house they drove to in St. Petersburg,” suggested Percy. I did so. The fellow put on an air of deep thought. Then he shook his head.

He did not think he had ever heard the address mentioned, he said. Perhaps the man who drove the party would remember. The man was in; he would send him. The driver came out, and we put the question to him. He scratched bis head, he expectorated with great freedom, then he made a gesture which clearly conveyed to us that it was “no go.” Hie memory failed him. “Would a 8 ruble note help you to remember?” I asked. The fellow said that for this sum he would, at any rate, invoke numerous hearty blessings upon our beads. Here the postmaster made a suggestion which distinctly advanced the matter. “Possibly Grishka” (the driver’s name) “might remember the way to the house and the very house itself if he were to drive your merciful highness into town, though the name of the street has escaped his memory. I might hire horses for your highnesses at—at a certain rate!” “Hire them, hire them, little father, ” I cried, “at any price you please, and Grishka here shall drive us to the very house! Gad, Percy,” J added in English, “we’re on the scent now with a vengeance. This fellow will take us to the very house the rascals carried father to. It’s splendid!”

“It does seem rather rosy I” said Percy. Within five minutes the horses were harnessed and ready. We jumped into the trap and drove rapidly toward St. Petersburg. Three hours later the city lights danced before us, and we knew that in a quarter of an hour the secret of dear old dad’s whereabouts, or at all events a strong clew, would be in our hands. “Sherlock Holmes is not in it,” had been the burden of our conversation during the exciting drive. We had done this thing well and were in full swing for success—the reward of patience and good management. Now we were driving through the streets. Over the Tuchkof bridge we dashed, and through Vassili Ostrof and across the Nicholas bridge; then to the left by the English quay to the Winter palace and straight on to the Palace quay—the most fashionable of all quarters of the town. “Grishka, you fool I” I shouted. “Where are you taking us to? It could not have been here the party came?” “There’s no mistake, highness,” said Grishka over his shoulder. “This was certainly the way.” “Good heavens, Boris!” eaid Percy. “Do you know what ? He’s taking us to your own house. He must have brought the count and the others here on some former occasion. ” It was too sickeningly true. Straight as an arrow he drove us to our own door—l 47 Palace quay—and drew up there! .. .. , “There!” said Grishka. “The very house. I remember It by the big stone

balcony.” I climbed sadly out—dejected and disappointed. Percy was scarcely merrier. “Grishka,”! said, “do you tell me you brought those gentlemen here last week?” “Last week? Have mercy, barin, no; not last week—many weeks, months ago.” I paid the fellow and sent him away. We had been done—whether intentionally or not, I bad not the, heart as yet to think out. We had, I firmly believe, struck a true trail, but had lost it almost in the finding. CHAPTER VL DETECTIVE IN THE CASE. After thia failure, which had promised at one moment to be a grand success, Percy and I felt so humbled that we actually consulted with mother as to whether the police should be invited to take over the matter, or at least asked to assist us in our further inMy dear mother was, however, very much adverse to such a step. She had always felt horror of the Russian detective force, that “terrible third section, ” the ununiformed, secret, mysterious, spying creatures who swarm, or swarmed at that time, in the capital city of the czar. “For the love of heaven,” she entreated us, with tears in her eyes, “let u» keep our sorrow out of their knowledge. I would not have those hateful people to know of our grief or to bandy about your dear father’s name as a stalking horse for their arrestings and spyings. We will leave them out as long as we can.” Mother was convinced that Percy and I had, as I have said, struck the trail of the mystery at Erinofka, and this opinion received a kind of terrible confirmation a few days later when, walking in the Nefsky with Percy, I met Hulbert, the Englishman, who, with father and another, rented the shooting of that splendid moor. Hulbert was decorously sympathetic about our family trouble, for of course he knew of it, though we carefully preserved it from becoming a matter of general knowledge and tittle tattle. Then he told me that he had just been to Erinofka, and that an extraordinary and horrible murder had been committed in the village. No stranger had been seen about the place, it was said, yet one of the villagers had been stabbed dead in his hut—heaven only knew why or by whom, for he hadn’t an enemy in the world. My heart almost stopped beating when I heard this. I glanced at Percy and caught his eye. His face had suddenly gone quite pale; so, he said afterward,. had mine. “What is it?” said Hulbert. “Are you one who can’t bear to hear of bloodshed? I’m sorry I told you.” “I don’t like horrors,” I said,, “but do go on; what was the poor fellow like? Did you go and see him?” “I did, as it happens. A small fellow with a bald head, rather; little eyes and a longish beard.” It was our mysterious informant to tba Ufa.

Then his tale had been true, and the unfortunate fellow had actually met his doom for breaking faith with his terrible employers. How did the rascals know that he had broken faith ? Was it our fault? God forbid! I had tried my beet to shelter him. It was his own fault. He ran the risk with his eyes open. Probably the poor wretch did not really believe the threats of those fearful people whom he had driven to Balota. And these were the very persons into whose hands father must have fallen. If it were indeed so, then God help him I We decided to tell mother nothing of this last development, for it could only frighten and shock her and would do no good. But we persuaded her to allow us to engage the services of a private detective, one who should be entirely unconnected with the police. If we could find ‘,a suitable person, we explained, he could go to Erinofka and take up the trail where we had lost it We were known there now and would be taken in at every turn by those, or their agents, whose interest it. was to keep the truth from us.. A professional defective would be far more likely to manage successfully this delicate matter of clew hunting than we should. Somewhat regretfully, my mother agreed to allow us to employ such a man, and by dint of many inquiries we hit upon a young fellow, by name 86rofsky, who suited us very well. Borofsky was not very much older than L He may have been 22, at most, while my age was just 19 and Percy’s about the same; not a very aged trio to undertake and conduct so delicate an inquiry as this of ours. He dined with us on the evening of his engagement, and we talked over the entire subject Borofsky thought well of the work we had done at Erinofka. We had hit upon the right track, no doubt, he said. But probably the rascals who had drugged and carried father off had long since placed him in safety, and even if we could follow the trail as far as St. Petersburg we should lose it there. “But what do you suppose they wanted with the count, Mr. Borofsky?” asked Percy. “Money, by way of ransom, or what?” “Heaven knows!” said Borofsky. “That is one of the things we must find out.” Then our friend startled us by saying: “By the way, the pristaf of the police department of this district mentioned your father to me today. I was at the office on another matter of business which does not concern this affair. What do you think the pristaf said?” “I am sorry you spoke to the police about my father,” I replied somewhat warmly. “It is the very thing we are trying to avoid. ” “I did not, believe ma It waa the pristaf who mentioned him, apropos of nothing particular, and, mind you, thqugh I am no great lover of the police, I am ready to admit that their eystem is marvelous, and they generally know where to laj their hands upon

any given person, i was not speaking of your father, nor had I mentioned him. But the pristaf said, ‘You are to undertake business for Count Landrinof, Borofsky, I conclude, since you have been for two days in communication with the young count’ (They watch us, you see, these fellows.) ‘lt is odd that the old bird should have gone to prosecute his inquiries in London, whatever they may be, while the young one leaves London in order to work here.’ [TO BE CONTINUED.]

We drove rapidly toward St. Petersburg.