| Show THE PUNCHED the annals of the russian police if they could bo read would excel the most extravagant imaginings of your belota and Gabori ius said a handsome heavily whiskered man who was one of a little party of five gentlemen in a small room in a st petersburg private palace we have excellent writers of fiction amre in russia two of his auditors were frenchmen and they sometimes go to the real for material but I 1 am sure that the shrewdest of them have never heard of the punched kopeck which belongs to the annals of the police just mentioned the man with the whiskers emptied bis wineglass and pushed it away as he continued about fifteen years ago count basil was one of the best known nobles of the empire his st petersburg establishment lish ment waa conducted on a style of I 1 royal magnificence and he had the imperial ear oftener than any other man of his rank well one morning the count was found dead in his mansion and under circumstances which went to prove that somebody had helped him out of the world As a matter of course the russian police took the affair in hand and that was the last we heard of it at that time there was said to be attached to the third section a man named paritz rumor invested him with all the attributes of the ideal sleuth nobody could be found who had ever seen him but all the same the great discoveries in crime continued to be placed to his credit he worked out great results from impossibly beginnings and some said that it was paritz who was adding most to the criminal population of siberia of course every one expected to see count enemy dragged to light through the agency of this secret man hound but as weeks and months passed without anything of the kind transpiring paritz became the laughing stock of st petersburg count Ya was known far and wide as a numismatist his collection of coins was the most complete of any in the country and had drawn from the mint large offers of purchase in the collection were two kopecka kopecks which had been curiously punched through the center count Ya valued these coins above any in his possession and it was understood that they had a history which he would not reveal when the police came to examine the counts coins after his death ered that a number of pieces wore missing and among them was one of the kopecka kopecks ko pecks of course the authorities did not care to publish their discovery from motives which you can easily understand and the world at large knew nothing about it the coin which was not taken by the assassin admitting this for our story s sake was given to the misty paritz with orders to find its mate and the counts enemy as well paritz took the case with his usual bow and there the chief of police left it the counts coins were put up for sale and the numismatists who were drawn to st petersburg by the event wondered what had become of the punched kopeck half a dozen bidders stood ready to purchase it at any price time rolled on and everybody forgot paritz and his trail we did not hear so much about his prowess now and there were fewer great discoveries in crime although the number of exiles was not lessened 1 I recollect that I 1 took considerable interest in the trail of the kopeck at the time I 1 was rather intimate with a member of the police and he tola me much about the counts death and the hunt but question him as adroitly aa I 1 would I 1 could leam nothing of the identity of the renowned indeed I 1 was more than ever inclined to consider him a myth anil tu believe that the name had become a general term for the third section I 1 went abroad a few months after tho basil mystery was sprung on society and traveled almost incessantly for ten years I 1 visited nearly every part of the globe fending wherever I 1 went secret representatives of our police with whom being a native russian myself I 1 became as possible I 1 tried by these means to keep track of tho mythical paritz and his trail the secret agents had heard about the missing kopeck but they did not know how far paritz had processed nor where he was then there was something ludicrous in the story of paritz and the punched kopeck the coin had continually baffled the azars czars spy and he had heard nothing of ic from the time it left count possession your french detectives might have done better but poor paritz he could fiad nothings not hingl about a year ago interest in me counts death was suddenly revived by the arrest of a man who had a lot of rare coins on his person thero was said to be some of these missing from the murdered mans collection and they were subjected to the closest the fellow arrested was an honest and illiterate who averred that he had found the chind in the weed grown garden attached to the late counts residence he was not released till the garden haa been spaded over for more coin by the authorities whose labors were re warded by the finding or several rare coubles roubles known to have been described in the Ya catalogue now more than ever paritz and the punched hopeck became objects of derision several of the russian newspapers received pasquinades pasqui nades on the sub eject but as a matter ot course they were not published A russian editor is supposed to know just how far to go to eat his bread this ride of the frontier for fifteen years the punched kopeck has been missing to the russian police the Ya case is as great a mystery now as it was then and for once paritz has been thoroughly baffled if he is not a police fiction he knows no more today of the whereabouts of the mutilated kopeck thin doea the gentleman who inhabits the moon our police stand baffled by one of the most insignificant ant coins of the world for until paritz can place the kopeck in his possession alongside the one he has not of I 1 course the mystery of count death cannot be solved now let mo show how completely this paritz has been beaten and a smile stole over the whiskered face of the bus 61 an while he refilled his wineglass and drank it off 1 I am by no means a detective myself bat we pick up queer thing in our everyday wanderings wherever I 1 went during my tour I 1 examined every coin that fell into my hands tor 1 was quite familiar wren count collection and believed I 1 would be able to recognize any parts of it at eight I 1 might even admit that I 1 gradually grew to be a hunter of lost coins and of the punched kopeck in particular but I 1 came home unsuccessful one morning in the markets of st petersburg I 1 received in change a lot of small coin which being in a hurry at the time I 1 earned home without an examination in my library I 1 fell to looking at the little pieces and what was my astonishment when I 1 found in my hand a punched kopeck there was no doubt that I 1 had the identical coin which had baffled the acumen of the russian police for fifteen years and for which the wonderful paritz coald almost afford to trado his head yes I 1 had found in st petersburg burg the punched kopeck which the sleuth of the empire may have chased around the worl and in order to wind up my story with the proper climax gentlemen here it at the samo time colonel samovar Sim ovar who had just finished the narrative drew from his waistcoat pocket a small coin which he placed carefully and with the proper emphasis of gesture on the table under the lamp his auditors two frenchmen and two russians leaned forward with gaze riveted on the coin now I 1 would like to see paritz match the punched kopeck and thus vindicate the fame of the russian police continued colonel samovar Sim ovar looking up at his auditors with a smile of triumph if he does not I 1 may hold him up as the laughing stock of the world and prove that the third section is not infallible the last words had barely left simo vars lips ere a very dark hand rose over the edge of the table and the next second to the utter consternation of four men another kopeck punched exactly like the first lay on the cloth colonel samovar fell back and stared first at the second kopeck and then at the guest who had placed it where it was paritz gentlemen has chased the kopeck around the world said the guest without the semblance of a smile on his swarthy face he takes great pleasure in vindicating the russian police by matching colonel kopeck I 1 am paritz colonel samovar broke into a derisive laugh yon are my fraud and guest captain basil said he to the so called paritz 1 I recollect that we met in constantinople and agun in milan and athens come come gentlemen captain Basil is a man of honor we will drink to his little joke the face of paritz did not relax rising to his feet he drew forth a small diary the leaves of which he turned with provoking coolness at length he began to rard of colonel Simo vars minutest doings in france and among the pyrenees Pyre nees from this he jumped to the tourist in america and was following him step by step back to tae azars czars dominions when samovar threw up his hand it is he with quivering lip there is but one devil and his came is Pa the police spy bowed 1 I take the punched kopecka kopecks ko pecks gentlemen and the murderer of count Ya as well and gathering up the two coins with one hand he touched samovar on the shoulder with the other Ther ewas not the least resistance on the colonels part and he went with paritz and the punched kopecka kopecks to the station the little wine supper thus startlingly start linsly broken up by the indefatigable spy of alo czar was never resumed and the two frenchmen left st petersburg the next day fully convinced of the power and the efficiency of the russian empire colonel samovar paid the severest penalty of the law for his secret crime and from the day of the finding of the punched kopeck the name of paritz has been invested with a new dread and terror T 0 harbaugh Har bauch in new york mercury |
