Rensselaer Journal, Volume 12, Number 33, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 January 1903 — THE MYSTERY, OF COUNT [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

THE MYSTERY, OF COUNT

Ms. Bryan’s closing words of advice to Mexico to hang to the silver standard and eschew gold are still revcrberting among the pinnacles of the Sierra Madre. —————— Senator Oghorn’s telephone bill provides that where there is more than »ne telephone exchange in a town »r city the exchange shall maintain a trank line, by which a subscriber on one exchange may talk to a subscriber on another exchange. A rate of 1 cent a minute is provided lor in Idle biitj three cents being the minimum charge. Senator Btewart’s committee is krying to place the blame for the Washington coal shortage and high prices. He says that somewhere among the regular or independent ■operators, the coal roads or the retail merchant, downright robbery is going on and he proposes to place the blame. We wHI keep this committee going until. March if necessary. Speaking ! of soft coal prices: “A price of §9 25 a ton for soft coal is outrageous, in view of the testimony of <J. N. Wilson that Georges Creek coal couid be purfihased at the mines for $3.50 a ton and shipped to Washington for $1.60, making it cost on board cars in this jity $5 1® a ton.”

Up to date the Indianapolis Sentinel has made something like thirty-seven suggestions on the convict labor question. The last one is that prisoners he put to work in a state coalmine. The scandals connected with employment of prisoners away from a fixed place of confinement in two or three es the Southern states will have to be torgotten before the people of Indiana will take the Sentinel seriously in its suggestion. In South Carolina, where prisoners have been put to wort on the roads, an investigation by the Philadelphia North American two years ago showed the existence »f conditions which were nothing abort of shameful. Indiana has made *ueh progress in the matter of prison reiorm during the past decade that we are hardly ready to turn our convicts loose in a coal mine, where one desperate criminal would have in his bands the life of every other prisoner *mf of every official, or to transport these prisoners over the state in aaravans, locked in cages at night and tugging a ball and chain along public highways during working hours The problem of prison labor is a serious am?perplexing one, and :t would be impossible to find any solution to which exceptions could not be taken. No one is so lost to all the promptings »fa humane spirit as to contend that the prisoner should be railroaded to the madhouse by the idleness route, and yet it is very difficult to devise a method by which the output of convict labor, if performed, would not «ome to some degree in competition with the products of free labor.

COfYRJQHr 160 ft BY THE AMCJHCAN PRESS ASSOCIATION.

CHAPTER XV. THE IMPOSTOR’S THREAT. When the silence was broken at length, it was poor old Percy who broke it. “This is a pretty business, ” he said. “And what a blithering, blundering pedigree ass I have made of myself! It is all my fanlt, old man, and I feel—l really do —that to chuck myself into the Neva is the only and certainly the most appropriate and endurable thing left for P. J. M. to do. ’ ’ “Nonsense!” I said. “It will all come right. We shall never find the right track until we have tried and rejected each wrong one that crosses it and leads us astray. Don’t look so glum, Percy, nor yon Borofsky either. It isn’t yonr fault. Yon did yonr best, and did it well. How could you tell he was not father, when even mother and I passed the photo as authentic?” “Still one feels what a mess one has made of the thing,” said Borofsky. “Bnt look here—Count Boris, and you, too, Mr. Percy, yon may both be witnesses—l hereby swear that I haven’t done with this sham count yet, not by a long way! He has got the better of us this time, but one day I shall turn the tables on him 1” “Don’t frighten him, Borofsky,” I said. “We shall be more likely to make him of nee to ns if we let him be awhile. ”

“All right, all right,” said Borofsky. “I shall do nothing foolish. I intend to win next time, my friend; my reputation has leeway to make up. If you are kind enough to forget it, I cannot.” “So has mine,” said Percy, “and I’m with yon in this, Borofsky. If we can score off the rascals, we will. Is it a league?” “League or no leagne, ” growled Borofsky, who was despondent and not very genial, “I’m not going to rest until I’m quits with the fellow. We onght, of course, to inform the police that he is here—whoever he may be—and let them take this matter over. He is snre to be up to no good. Bnt the counteas wishes him left to himself, and I would prefer it that way, because if the police get a finger in the pie the fellow is as good as delivered out of our hands, and I, for one, have not done with him.” “Only don’t forget, Borofsky,” I said, “that the main idea is to find father. If there were not the hope of getting this rascal to disgorge some important information about the count, which mother seems to think he may possess, I ebonld be in favor of letting the police have him. ” “And remember, you,” said Borofsky, “that he will not stick at a lie, nor at a hundred lies, in order to be left in the house undisturbed! Why do yon suppose he has come here?” “To live well and luxuriously on nothing a year, I should think,” I laughed.

“Not a bit of it, ” said Borofsky, who was not overpolite tonight. I forgave him his discourtesy because he was sore after his defeat and disappointment. “Not a bit of it. He would not risk so much for the sake of comfortable quarters. He has a game on, a deep and probably a most infernal and murderous game, of some sort, and he is going to play it from the safe and convenient sanctuary of Count Landrinof’s town mansion and to pass—having found that he can do so with impunity—as the count himself. There, mark my words, and I will remind you of them presently. This man is going to play a deep game. He is a revolutionist, probably a nihiliist, and he is taking the advantage of his unexpected likeness to the count, your father, in order to carry on his machinations without suspicion. Do you follow me?” “Gad, Borofsky 1” exclaimed Percy, with admiration. “It’s a jolly good idea!” I concurred. “But,” I said, “how is father’s discovery to be advanced by allowing this fellow, or seeming to allow him, to do as he likes and hatch all manner of deviltry from the shelter of our house?” “We mustn't hurry,” said Borofsky. “We shall watch him. He may have the mystery of your father’s absence in the hollow of his hand. We must catch the rascal in some plotting and get him into our power and force his secrets out of him by threatening him with the police and Siberia.” “What if he is my father’s brother?’’ I said. “Well, but so he is, in all probability. I asked him, but he denied it, which, of course, means nothing, one way or the other. There could scarcely be another so like the count.” “But, for heaven’s sake, Borofsky, let us be careful what we do. What if the fellow were to commit a crime and be arrested as Count Landrinof and punished under his name?” “We don’t want him to commit any crime, of course, but we do want him to conspire, so that we may watch him and get him into our power; that’s all. ” “It’s dangerous, Borofsky, in many ways. Look at the disgrace of it, if anything were to go wrong, the horrible disgrace and dishonor to our family name,.father’s name to be mixed up with vile, murderous plottings and orimesl Bah I I hate to think of it. ”

“My dear sir,’* said Borofsky, “it need never come to that. If we move, we shall move carefully, and nothing shall be left to chance.” “And what if he ebrnld be my nncle Andre? Shall we deliver him up to justice when we have done with him ?” “Now yen are going too fasti” laughed Borofsky. “We have to catch our hare first before we can cook him. I should think, when one has an nncle of this kind, the sooner one gets rid of him, whether by means of the police or any other way, the better.” “Ought we not to organize some method of combined spying, Borofsky ?” said Percy. “One doesn’t like the work, but we must be spied upon if we wish to find out anything nsefnl. ” “We will do so, of course, presently. Bnt for awhile he most be left to himself, for he must not have the faintest suspicion that he is suspected crwatcl ed. Give the bird a short period to g<. over its first fear, so that it may lea. to hop about freely and pick up the seeds prepared for it. Bring the net along when it has fogotten its fears!” So for a little while we left the impostor count alone and allowed him to do what be would and go where he liked, unwatched and undisturbed. During this period only Percy and Borofsky ever spoke to him of onrparty. I would not allow my mother to go near the wretch; neither would I trust myself to approach or speak to him. Borofsky dayed his game well. He gave the fellow to understand that all in the establishment had the countess’ orders to see that he had everything he could possibly desire and that she was anxious to see him well satisfied in the hope that, if only in gratitude for her hospitality and kindness,he would repay her presently with some information as to the mystery of father’s disappearance. “Ha, ha!” said onr visitor at this. “I owe yon some little make np for the trick I played yon, Borofsky, eh ? Yon are very young, my son, and must learn yonr business by painful experience. All right; you shall have my secret some d&y—that is, if none of yon play the fool before the time comes. ” “Play the fool?” said Borofsky. “How; in what way?” “In any way that would displease me,” growled our impostor. “Never fear. I shall soon know it if any of you start playing the fool. ” But Borofsky disclaimed all intention of playing either the fool or anything else and repeated that the countess wished her guest treated well and hoped for the return he had indicated as soon as possible. “Well, she shall have it,” said the other, “when the time comes!” “News of her husband—that is what her excellence is longing for,” continned Borofsky. “She believes, rightly or

wrongly, mat you may be in possession of knowledge which would assist her to find the count. ” ‘‘Yes. rightly or wrongly, she believes this,” said the impostor, with an ugly laugh. “Ha, ha I I shall have plenty !o tell her when the time comes.” “When will that be?” asked Borofsky. “Oh, come, cornel Let a man rest after his journey!” said the impostor. “Everything comes to those who wait. ” CHAPTER XVI. ANDRE LANDRINOF,THE COUNT’S BROTHER. So we three men settled down to watch the one man, though we allowed him to observe no indication that we were interested in his actions. And at first we thought we must be mistaken as to his connection with revolutionary people, anarchists and malcontents and shady characters generally, for his conduct was quiet and exemplary, and he came and went in and out of the house, mistaken by mopt of those who saw him for Count Landrinof. “Confound the fellow!” said Percy one day after a fortnight or more of this blameless existence. “When is he going to start nihilist meetings in the house, and so on ? He gives us nothing to go upon!” “A watched pot never boils,” I laughed; “at least not till one is sick of watching. ” Nevertheless presently a little steam began to issue from the spout of our kettle, and we knew that the water was on the move. In other words, our friend began to show a little activity. He went about the town more frequently. Queer, weird looking people came at intervals to see him and sat in father’s study in consultation with the impostor. The time had come for us to start work as amateur detectives, an occupation I most cordially disliked. But father was still unsound. Indeed we were no further on toward clearing up the mystery than we had been a week after his disappearance, and mother fretted and wept. Great heavens! To set all this right and see dear mother happy once more I should spy with the best and meanest. One evening Borofsky returned home in the best of spirits. “What is it. Borofsky?” I inquired, for I saw that he was longing to be asked. “I’ve had a good haul today,” he said, rubbing his hands. “Our friend’s busy over some deviltry, I’d stake my existence on it. He has been present at a secret committee meeting this afternoon, and I know where they met and bow many were present.” “And what they plotted, ” I asked, “and who they were?” “You are going too fast, my dear sirl” said Borofsky. “How could I possibly know all that? I was not in the room and all these people I have seen today for the first time.” “But how did you get to see them at all?” I asked. “Didn’t you run a great risk?” “Some risk, no doubt, but I wasn’t Borofsky, mind you—l was disguised. I went to my lodgings early in the afternoon and put on a beggar’s dress that I have in stock—a perfect disguise. In this I returned here, standing outside this verv door till our friend reran ont.

I did the same yesterday, but he kept mo waiting several hours and never came at all. Well, this afternoon I had hardly been here a quarter of an hour when out comes my man, jumps into a drosky and drives away. “Luckily I, too, had a drosky waiting round the corner and into this I jumped, throwing the cloak over me that was already prepared for my use in case of need and lay folded ready on the cushion. “I followed his drosky right across to the island side, down the first line, over the Tuchkof bridge and into the Peterburgskaya. He turned into a small street that led out of the prospekt, and I stopped in the main thoroughfare a few yards farther on, threw the cloak to my driver and hurried back to the corner of the small street. “His drosky was returning empty, and he had disappeared, and I thought I had lost my man; but almost immediately another trap drove up, turned into the street and stopped at a little wooden house half way down it. So I limped toward the gate of that house—a beggar again, now—and took my stand near by f [to be continued. J