Republican news item. [volume] (Laport, Pa.) 1896-19??, 1899-07-20
An Unexplained Mystery.
THE STRANGE DISAPPEARANCE ENGLISH
EXTRAORDINARY.
EXTRAORDINARY.

horses were now in, the positions
had clambered into their clumsy sad
dies and the valet stood at attention
at the open door of the carriage.
They waited and waited, but still
Mr.. Bathurst did not appear, and then
the wind being bitterly cold-they
must all have grown impatient and
scattered right and left to look for the
missing man.
One of them went into the hotel to
see if he had gone in there again,
another sped along the road that the
carriage would have taken, while the
| secretary went to the guardhouse to
find out if Bathurst could possibly
have returned there to ask for an
armed escort for the journey, but all
to no purpose.
Suddenly, inexplicably, without a
cry, word, warning of any kind, he
was gone-spirited away-and what
really became of him will never be
known.
! The officer in command of the Brad
enburg Cuirassiers acted with the
greatest promptitude. The alarm that
the missing man had displayed that
afternoon had made deep impression
on him, and without loss of time he
| put the secretary and valet under ar
rest, placed guard over the Swan
Inn, took possession of the travelling
carriage, and then began an exhaustive Q
search, which lasted for days.
The river was dragged; marshes,
woods and bitches were examined for
miles around; the houses in the lower
part of the town were entered, and
there was rot barn, hedge, clubhouse
or copse that was not searched; while
bloodhounds also failed to track him.
The English ambassador at Vienna
and through him the English govern
ment-was communicated with. A
thousand pounds reward was offered
by the latter for any authentic infor-
nation; his own family offered as
much, and Prince Frederick of Russia,
who, for friendships sake, took the
deepest interest in the fate of Bath
dor, either for the discovery of the
body or any clue that would lead to
the solution of the mystery.
The only discovery worthy the name
was made by two poor women of
Perleberg, who, more than month
after the disappear ance of Bathurst,
found in copse, whittier they had
gone to pick up sticks, the gray
pantaloons that he had worn on the
eventful night. Two bullet holes
were in the trousers, but no traces of
III I'll. Al
had the bullets struck man wearing
them. They were stained on the out
| side, as if the wearer had been lying
on the earth; and in the pocket was a
| half finished letter, OF rather a few
words scratched in pencil, to his young
wife, to whom he was tenderly at
| tached. In these few words he ex-
pressed the certainty he felt that he
would never reach England alive, babe
her touching farewell and entreated
| her by the love she bore him never to
marry again. There was no ending to
the letter, which was barely legible
but though there is no doubt that it
was written by Bathurst, or that the
| pantaloons were his also, no one for a
moment believed that they had lain
| there undiscovered for more than q
month. They had been placed there
| to divert suspicion from the right di-
rection and perhaps to encourage the
theory adopted by some, that he had
been the victim of mere ordinary
highway robbery and murder.
1t is hardly possible to overestimate
the sensation caused by the sudden
disappearance OF the late envoy extra
ordinary from the court of England
| to that of Austria. Reports of all
kinds were rife, and information that
was never verified was freely circu-
lated
The Times took the matter up and
not obscurely charged the Emperor
Napoleon with having made away with
Bathurst. The Moniteur, on the other
hand, in leading article published
December. 1909, stated that ''Sir
Bathurst on his way from Berlin,
had shown signs OF insanity and had
destroyed himself in the neighbor-
hood OF Perleberg.
According to some he had been
murdered in wood by his servant, who
had robbed him and escaped. Others
believed that he had been attacked by
brigands; while mysterious story APP
peared in print suggesting that he
had been drowned at sea.
Bathurst himself had always de-
clared that his ruin would be brought
about, not by the Emperor Napoleon,
but by the Count d 'En.raigues, a name
we'll known in the secret history of
those times as that of Russian spy,
and there is no doubt that the latter
had been heard to say that he could
prove that Bathurst had been shot in
Magdeburg fortress. But as both
d'Entraigues and his wife were them
selves murdered by an italian servant
| believed in his turn to be spy not
long after Bathursts disappearance,
his words were never proved.
The theory that he had been carried
off to Magdeburg and there murdered
| waa also hold nv Mr. Underwood Of