Rensselaer Journal, Volume 12, Number 30, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 January 1903 — THEMYSTERY OF COUNT LANDRINOF. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

THE MYSTERY OF COUNT LANDRINOF.

BY FRED WHISHAW

The protective tariff was enacted, aad is continued, to shelter monopoly, is.the constant yelp of the free-trader iconoclasts. Yes, the Dingley tariff was enacted and is being continued ♦o insure a monopoly of American labor against that of foreign coun tries. The Asheville Register falls into the Sgrave error of referring thoughtlessly to-M*. Byran’s f4OO heifer. The Register should know that Atr. Bryan’s beifiSr cost $450, gold standard. And romor has it that it is no longer a beiitost ft looks now as if the Venezuelan matter might be adjusted without Moody war. The Venezuelans are very anxious to escape international ottfficulties, as they hope otherwise to get another revolution started within treasonable time, providing the present one peters out. The good roads question is likely to fie brought home to some sections of the country in a practical manner. The Post Office Department has been deluged with complaints from rural mail carriers about the roads on the routes; many during the wet seasons are impassable or nearly so. It has always been the Government’s policy to withhold or abolish city delivery in.towns which let their sidewalks fall hoto decay. It is now proposed to apply the same principle to rural de livery and to refuse to establish or abolish routes along roads which are not kept up. Such a policy will certainly have salutary effect. Where rural delivery has been tried its bene ffciaries will not readily dispense with H, even at the expenditure of considerable time and labor. Then any intelligent work done on the road rebounds to the farmer’s own benefit. Secretary of War Root has been aeported as contemplating retiring from the Cabinet, and this report has also been denied. Air. Root is but waiting, it is believed, to accomplish some of the reforms in army matters fax which he has been working dur log the past two years. He is a very able lawyer and before his entry on Bis present duties had one of the largest and most lucrative practices in the city of New York. His accession to the McKinley administration was most fortunate, for the WarDe was badly disorganized and S»e annexation of new territories had involved many perplexing legal questions. Possessed ot remarkable executive ability, with 11 wide experience at business and legal matters, broad minded, with a wonderful cftpiciry for work, he brought order out of chaos, and piloted our colonial policy through the dangerous shoals which threatened shipwreck at the outset of sur world power career. Should he leave the cabinet his passing wi'l be » distinct loss.

CHAPTER XI. DETECTIVE’S LIFE IN PERIL. Borofsky’s letter was the source of much thought and of much agitated conversation among our little party of three, for, though it seemed indeed to establish the fact that he had seen my dear father himself, yet it did little toward elucidating the painful mystery of his disappearance or the still more painful and bewildering mystery of his silence. Here was father obviously a free agent and able if he chose to write home with explanations of his absence, yet he preferred to live a secret and semi hidden life in a slnmmy, or at least third rate, quarter of London. He was free and living alone. Those rascals who had carried him off from Erinofka and conveyed him over the frontier and away were no longer with him. He was out of their power. Bnt, if out of their power, why did he not return or write? Had they some mysterious bold upon him, forbidding him under pain of sudden death —a death such as had befallen the unfortunate little talebearer at Erinofka—to communicate in any way whatever with those who were familiar with him at home? « “No,” said I heartily, when this theory was put forward by t*ercy, xtxtainly not. Father would never submit to such a thing. Once oat oft their hands and free to do as he liked, • father would soon find means to turn the tables on the rascals, blackmailers or whatever they may be, and it is quite possible, if they exist at all in connection with this affair, that they are blackmailers. ” “What would they blackmail yonr father for?” asked Percy qnite indignantly. “He is not at all the man to have a skeleton in the cupboard that he is afraid to show to all the world.” “Qnite true,” I said, “but there’s that precious brother that mother told us of, the nihilist Johnny, who murdered or helped to murder some one. These chaps, if they exist, may have found out all about it and are threatening father with heaven knows what if he does not pay up some huge sum of money. Bnt even this doesn’t explain his silence or his mysterious journey to London, either, unless he has gone to raise funds. But he would have let mother know as soon as he was free. I am cocksure of it. ” “Unless they have driven him ont of his senses for the time being." mother sighed. “No, mother,” I said, “I’ll tell yon what I think. I’ve come to the conclusion that those Erinofka rascals have nothing whatever to do with it or with ns. Their affair was merely a coincidence as regards father and his disappearance. They were there, granted,and they were up to some game which needed secrecy and even murdered a man who divulged their secret, but the drugged man (I conclude he was drugged) or the sick man was not father. We thought we had struck a trail, but it was a false scent.” “God grant it, dear Boris,” said mother, “for I cannot bear to think of yonr father having fallen into such hands. But why have you come to this conclusion ?” “For two reasons—one is that if these fellows had any good reason for bagging father and carrying him away they would not have let him go free as they have done, and the other is that, as I have said, now father is free and we know that he is. If his silence and disappearance and all had been brought about by these people, be would certainly communicate with us. There must be another reason for his flight. These Erinofka fellows had nothing to do with it. ” \ Yet, neither I nor mother nor Percy could put forth any good tfipory to replace the old one, and the situation remained unchanged and the mystery unsolved. We must await farther developments from the other side of the water, and trust to Borofsky’s talent and exertions to bring light into our dark places, and this he could only do by restoring poor father to his right mind and persuading him to return to ns. I think I should have set ont myself, presently, in order to see father and find ont, in person, what ailed him and whether an appeal from me, and in mother’s name, would restore him to reason, bnt a few days later we had a second and a very exciting letter from Borofsky. “I have met with astonishing success since my last letter,” he wrote, “though not without much patience and some personal risk.” “Personal risk!” echoed mother, interrupting me as I read aloud. “Then those rascals are still hanging about. May God protect dear Vladimir and also this poor Borofsky I” I, too, had been surprised to see the expression used—“personal risk.” I continued to read the letter aloud: “The count, at our last interview, had suddenly closed the conversation, angrily giving me to understand that he considered my last remark a liberty. He rose from the table, bowed and left the restaurant, I following a minute later. The count returned home. I saw him to hia lodgings and 1 re-entered my own, which were nearly opposite, and wrote and posted my letter. “That evening later I was surprised

to see a cab drive up to the door of the count’s lodging. Tbe count himself then came ont with bis portmanteau, stepped into the vehicle and was driven toward Marylebone cbnrch. “When I had recovered my breath, I seized my hat and rushed after cab. Luckily I found a hansom at the corner. Jumping breathlessly into it, I bade the driver follow the cab at a respectful distance. So the count suspected me—heaven knows what of—and was endeavoring to escape me. He bad nearly done it What If I had been napping? I should not have had this great news to tell, that’s all, and I might have lost touch with bis excellence altogether. “On drove the cab, and on I followed. Right down into Edgeware road it went and across into a street called Harrow road, and here it stopped at a small hotel. I bade my man drive a short distance farther, 100 paces or so, and then I stopped also and jnmped ont on the pavement, just in time to see the count disappearing with his bag into the hotel. Then I crossed the road and stood nearly opposite the dirty little hotel, pretending to look at Bhop windows, but keeping a good lookout upon the door within which our good count had disappeared. “Presently be came out, looked up and down the road and started to walk down Edgeware road and toward Hyde park. It was dark now, except for the gaslight, and I hoped to be able to follow him unobserved, for, I thought, if I had an opportunity I would speak to him where it was quiet in order to bid him not be afraid, since I wished him no harm. “So I walked after him, be never looking round not once, and so we came into the great park at the end of Edgeware road. The park was gloomy and deserted, and about way down the middle road he suddenly turned and came toward me. I drew my hat over my eyes and hoped to pass unrecognized, for I was taken by surprise and had nothing ready to say. Bnt, instead of going by me, he seized me roughly ly tbe collar of my coat with his fingers in my neck and mattered through his teeth in Russian: ‘Now, then, you little spying skoteena, I have you, you see. You are caught this time, my man I’ “ ‘Let go,’ I said, half choking, ‘or I’ll shout for help I’ “ ‘Not I,’ he said; ‘there’s a nice lake near here, and you’re going into it unless you’d prefer this.’ “He showed me a revolver in bis other hand. “ ‘Come, not a sound, now, or I’ll shoot; I swear it!’ “He looked so evilly at me that my tongue froze in my mouth, and I could not have cried out if I had wished it. “ ‘I know you,’ he said. ‘You are a government spy. and there’s only one

place such offal is fit for, and that's the lake. Come; stop a moment Open yonr •mouth—quickly, I say.’ “Half dead with terror, I opened my mouth. He instantly pushed a rolled

np handkerchief into it. I tried now to call for help, but could not utter a cry. He was twice my size and etrength, and with a neckerchief that he wore he tied me round the face in such a way that my mouth remained gagged. Then he took my arm and walked me toward the lake, called the Serpentine, going over grass and railings; I praying hard the while, for 1 thought the man was fftark mad and that my last hour had come.” [to be continued.]

“Now, then, you little spying skoteena."