Rensselaer Journal, Volume 12, Number 34, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 January 1903 — THE MYSTERY OF COUNT LANDRINOF. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

THE MYSTERY OF COUNT LANDRINOF.

It may be well for European nations to keep in mind the fact that within two days of the coast of Venezeula is the strongest fleet ever assembled in American waters since the close of the civil war, and that it flies the American flag. The six-footer who grasped a ban-ner-after-Bryan’s nomination at the Chicago convention and marched about the hall at the head of a band of cheering Democrats, has been eleoted a member of the next congress. There are parts of the country that are a little slow in getting the news. The people of Indianola, Miss., are still walking four miles for their mail. The exercise is a bit strenuous, but not half as exciting, in the opinion of the local chivalry, as would have been the chasing and hanging of the postmistress if the government had not called off the performance. Representative Cochran of Missouri is entertaining considerable excitement on account of the alleged intention of the country to surrender to Canada certain disputed territory along our northwestern border. His impassioned remarks were badly disarranged the other day by Representative Hepburn, who reminded him that President Polk approved and a Democratic senate ratified a treaty with Great Britain by which this country “surrendered a territory in the north equal to eight states and the empire of Texas.”

The Indianapolis Sentinel is considerably shocked over the proceedings of the Colorado Republicans who are preventing the re-election of Senator Teller by the unseating process. It has not been so very long since the Sentinel was applauding a similar performance which resulted in the election of Senator Turpie. Moreover, by reason of Democratic gerrymanders the legislature which elected Senator Turpie represented a minority so far as the popular vote is concerned, while the opposition to Senator Teller represents a popular majority.

hile Senator Ben Tillman was making the capitolian dome resound with fishwife eloquence wherein the railroads were excoriated for failing to observe the law, and the administration was denounced as porticeps criminis, the senator’s nephew, a high official of the state of South Carolina, by grace of the senior Tillman’s influence in politics, was engaged in shooting holes through an unarmed editor who assumed the right, exercised only at the peril of life in hundreds of Southern communities, to criticize the leaders of the dominant party. Senator Tillman’s respect for law and human rights and equality before the law, as conditions in his own state attest, begins a good ways from home.

BY FRED WHISHAW.

COPVRIGHt IteSVe/THE AMERICAN PRESS ASSOCIATION.

“No less than seven other individuals drove or walked to that gate, sir, and entered the little wooden house, though I was not exactly on the spot when all arrived, for the first that came gave me a grievnik (10 kopecks) and bade me go farther, very much farther; but we need not specify the destination he had fixed upon me. The next was no more polite, and rather than cause anger or rouse suspicion I moved a few doors away. When all had arrived—nine or ten there must have been in all—l waited a few minutes and then departed. ’’ “Welldone, Borofsky,” said I. “You have certainly advanced matters today. It was undoubtedly a meeting of sorts. Our friend is up to no good, I'll be sworn! Well, now we know one of his haunts, anyway! We’ll catch him out yet, and then we’ll name our terms for saving his head from the only place it’s fit to fill, and that’s the noose.” “What manner of men were these friends of his?” asked Percy; “the other members of this charming committee? A set of desperate looking cutthroats, I’ll bet.” “They were very mixed,” said Borofsky. “There were some who looked quite respectable—officers; two fellows in civilian uniform; one or two awful looking specimens and a couple of stu-

dents with plaids and long hair and white faces and spectacles, all complete. Our own men were far the most respectable looking of the company.” We made Borofsky happy by praising him for his skill this afternoon. He had been and still was very sore over his London fiasco and needed encouragement. This interregnum was very trying, however, to mother and to me. To be obliged to hang about without advancing the matter we had so deeply at heart until such time as our impostor should think fit to commit himself to some villainy and we should find means to suspect or discover it and thus put himself in our power was tantalizing indeed.

Besides, there was always the chance that he had lied throughout and that in reality he had nothing to reveal as to father’s fate. Perhaps he had never seen father and knew nothing more of him than his name, excepting the fact that, by a stroke of excellent luck, he mrist so nearly resemble the real Landrinof that he was able to pass as the count with all hot his closest relations, and that the count’s house was uncommonly comfortable and that, thanks, from beginning to end, to the accidental resemblance, his lot had fallen in extremely pleasant places. - My mother was assured that our disreputable guest was none other than my father’s brother Andre. He could be no other, she said, for, though she now knew that there was nothing in the man’s face to recall that of her dear Vladimir excepting the shape of the features and that it had been the grossest calumny upon the count even to mistake this other’s photograph for his, yet the cast of the features was the same, and the man could be no other than the wretched Andre—supposed at this moment by the police to be far away in Siberia. Our friend, however, had assumed an absolute ignorance of the existence of any such person as Andre Landrinof, the count’s younger brother, when taxed by Borofeky with being that very individual. He had never heard of the man, he said. As for his own name, Borofsky would have to contrive to exist without knowing it if it depended on himself to tell it, because, said he, it was not Borofsky’s business to know it. But one evening our excellent friend rather gave himself away. He had taken to indulging somewhat freely in vodka, the spirit, distilled from rye, ! which is the favorite drink of the Russian people, and the vodka loosened his tongue. Borofsky often sat with him of an evening, the only one of us who did, and on this occasion our guest, being slightly overrefresbed, suddenly broached the subject of Andre Landrinof. “That brother of the count’s you were talking about the other day, Borofsky, ’’hesaid ; “where is he, and what is he doing? la he a count, too, and rich?” “He isn’t a count, but an infernal

blackguard,"' said Boroisuy, '-ana i should say he is just about as rich as the folks he has robbed are the poorer.” “Ha. ha! Good!” said the fellow. “So you think badly of him. Why ?” “Ask the police,” said Borofsky. “Not I! A set of infernal rascals!” exclaimed the other. “I tell yen they are 50 times worse, any one of them, than this Andre Landrinof. Now. Andre”— “Whom you don’t know,” laughed Borofsky. “Wait—l—l think I have met him under a different name. I think he is one who is or was known as Kornilof I met him in London.” “Not in Siberia—are you sure?” Borofsky put in. “Curse you, why do you interrupt me?” shouted the other angrily. “I tell you I know nothing.of Siberia. I met this man in London—Kornilof. He lives in London owing to persecutions in this infernal country, and has lived there for years.” “Then it can’t be Andre,” interrupted Borofsky again, “for Andre has spent the flower of his life in the mines of Siberia, where, it is to be hoped, he still blooms and will continue to bloom until judgment day or so.” “Oh, indeed! You seem to know a gre&t deal of this Andre!” said our guest, with tipsy dignity and scorn. “Would you be surprised to learn that he is not such a confounded fool as you suppose, and, at the present moment, is thou—thousands of miles from Siberia and has no intention of re—returning there?” “Kornilof, that is?” suggested Borofsky. “Yes, Kornilof, or Andre—same thing—same man. Siberia is for fools, my friend, and the sooner you go there yourself the sooner you’ll be in the place that’s best suited for you.”

CHAPTER XVII. ANDRE’S STUDENT VISITOR. After this conversation Borofsky declared that he had no doubt whatever that our sham count was Andre Landrinof. But, though mother and I were quite disposed to agree with him, we could not think of any way in which this fact could be brought into connection with the mystery of father’s disappearance. Nevertheless, though we knew it not, we were now at last on the eve of more important discoveries than that of the mere identity of our guest. We were about to strike a trail and a strong one. Among those who visited our guest, whom 1 .shall crave permission to call Andre henceforth, since it was from this time that we became accustomed to regard him as undoubtedly father’s worthless brother; among the shabby looking persons who visited Andre and held longconsultations with him in the

apartments set aside to his use was a student, one of that plaided and spectacled class of individuals, half famished and obviously ill nourished and poverty ridden, of whom there are many hundreds in St. Petersburg and from among whom the ranks of the disaffected are principally recruited, for the lot of the Ruesian student is a miserable one indeed, and it is no wonder that he is a reckless, discontented individual, only too ready to become the dupe or the accomplice of those who preach crusades against property and those who possess it. For he is not like the undergraduate of Oxford or Cambridge, passing rich Opon a more or less liberal allowance from his father or his guardian. The Russian student keeps himself and pays his own fees in most cases. He gives lessons during the hours which are free of lectures, and by means of the income thus earned he gains just enough to pay his university fees and to starve handsomely on what is left over. The little student who visited Andre caused poor Borofsky an immense amount of annoyance and trouble, for he was the only one of Andre’s visitors (of whom there were several) whom he had hitherto failed tp track to his home, wherever that might be. Borofsky now knew the address of all 'the rest of the friends of our highly respectable guest. He also knew all the houses haunted by Andre himself, which were doubtless the homes of these same worthies, but the student had been too clever for Borofsky and would never allow himself to remain long enough in view to be shadowed for more than a few minutes at a time. “He’s like a will o’ the wisp,’’ Borofsky complained. “You think you’ve got him safe in your eye, and, batzl—he’s gone—Whither? Heaven knows; I don’t. Yet he doesn’t suspect me. He has never seen me, except in disguise, and not twice in the same. Why is he so suspicious?” “Bad conscience,” said Percy, and I’ve no doubt he hit the right nail on the head. One afternoon in November Borofsky came hurriedly into the billiard room, where Percy and I were busy knocking the balls about fcr want of a better occupation. “I want your help, both of you,” he said. “That confounded young student is in with Andre. When he goes away, we must make another attempt to follow him. I must and will knew where he goes. Will you help, both of you?’’ Though I did not quite see of what use the addresses of all these rascals were to be to us, excepting as strengthening a case against Andre in the event of our requiring such evidence, I consented to help Borofsky to shadow his will o’ the wisp, and so did Percy. “Good,” said Borofsky. “Now, see here. lam going to take up my stand at the corner of the palace bridge. I shall be in disguise. One of you can go toward the Liteynaya, to the right along the quay, and watch in sortie gateway or porch in case he goes that way. The other should wait until he hears the fellow departing. Keep this door open, and you’ll bear him go down into the grand halL I shall warn the porter to look which way be turns up or down the quay and to let you know the instant you appear. Don’t lose a minute, but follow him.” Percy and I tossed up for the choice of duties, and I won. I chose that of shadowing our man from the very door. I preferred a chase to an ambush, having a strong objection to shivering in a gateway in hopes of catching sight of the quarry. So away went Borofsky to the Dvortsovui Most, or palace bridge, and out sallied Percy to stand and shiver in his porch up Liteynaya way. I sat and read, expectant, prepared to dart forth after my quarry, like a tiger that lies and waits for the native postman just about due (as he knows) to trot through the jungle with the afternoon post; like a spider on the lookout for the fly which is audible, buzzing close at hand, but has not yet quite made up its mind to come and be eaten, and like a great many other things too numerous to specify. At last I heard Andre’Bdoor open and shut. There were light steps running quickly down the marble stairs into the hall, the great door was open, and—and thea I was up and after him. “He’s gone to the left,” whispered old Gregory, the hall porter, “running like a hare. ” Well, if it came to running like a hare, I flattered myself I could probably go one better than any Russian student, will o’ the wisp or otherwise, that ever “sprinted a hundred!” f 'y, Fro be continued.]

“I was disguised .”