The Plehve Mystery.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XLVI, Issue 212, 12 September 1904, Page 4

The Plehve Mystery.

WHO THREW THE BOMB ? (By Perclval Gibbon, in Daily Mail.) St. PETERSBURG, July 29 The prophets were loud who foretold disaster when M. de Plehve, tw D years ago, stepped for wand to fill a murdered man's shoes in the most dangerous post in a ll the Russias. But yesterday, when the bomb a t last laid him shattered on the cobblestones, no feeling ran sp strongly as that of litter surprise. Conscious of the risks he ran as Minister for the Interior, and aware —none bietter—of the hatred towards himself which his ruthless policy engendered, M. Ide Plehve hedged himself in with precautions against assassination. Day land night" the sleepless eyes of the secret police watched his safety; the gieat spy system of Russia centred about his person. When he drove through the streets, armed men, mdagiang unknown with the crowds, waited to pounce on any threatening gesture. Even as ho rode to his death a cyclist ahead was a detective, and a cabi behind carried two more. The naked fact that at last a mam of the people reached him and killed him demonstrates the mightiness 0 f the hatred which burned agfainst him. —Chance.— Even with good introductions, money, and a plausible purpose, it was hard to Come under the samo roof with Mm. A ladder,of subordin- 1 ates must be scajted, a moifoss of formality and routine waded, diplomacy, tact, and influence employed. But for am artisan, a cipher in the sum of Russia, even to hear of his movements or know his route, caa scarcely have bieen other than a matter of the merest chance. The Minister's method of life eliminated the possibility of treachery among those that served him ; and it wll have been ohance alone, the unknown factor in the equation, Wat was his enemy in tha end. Someone dropped a wontf carelessly; spoke too loudly, or to thus wrong person. It was by no manner of means a th ng that could happen often, and perhaps it could not even happen twice. But when i£ did happen* the man who should not •have heard, but did hear, was a man ready for violence, primed for murder. So terrible and common was the hatred M. de Plehve had reared up against himself that the first chance hs spilled was snapped up at once. So he was killed in the street like a mad dog. The lemailsky Prospekt is a long street running up from the Neva to the Warsaw station. The greater part of it is bounded 'by small shops, little drinking-places, and cheap eat-ing-houses. It does the lesser trade of Its quarter, and ds a rather mean, rather ugly, -and very busy thoroughfare* At ten minutes before ten in the mon»ing, whe» the Minister was killed, the pavements were full, and many people saw the throwing of the bomb cuid its consequences. —Tha Woman at thu Stall A woman who had her stall jieijr enough to the point of the explosion to be overthrown amongst her i wares and hurt by it, says that the man who threw tha bomb ran round the corner with an object in his hand as large as a large cabHage—say, ten i inches or a f o ot in diameter—sprang into the roadway and flung it down. Then he raa away again, and the point is that this man in no way resembled the man who is now in custody aS the murderer. She has been interrogated and cross-examin- i

Ed to a standstill, and adheres to her story ,1 II it were the only one it would be plain Bailing. But against this is the rambling, but obstinate, testimony of a number of people employed in a publicbouse, tile Warsaw Hotel. The man charged with the murder, who also confesses to it, drank , a glass of tea in the house, paid for it, and went and stood at the door, his hands in his pockets, smoking a cigarette. Their evidence goes no further, for they were all indoors wheal the explosion took place ; but a policeman at tha roadside saw this man run out past him towards the Minister's carriage, and actually pushed him aside, He threw something, and then tha explosion blinded the policeman wittt dust. The next he saw of the man was when a throng of bystanders had seized him. Ho was unablo to describe the bomb, or to guess what the size of it migfht have been* Other bystanders, and notably the driver of tha cab which followed tha Minister, era of opinion that the b o mb pas thrown from fitie window o! tha hotel b$ eomaone thej did not

see ; and there is, further, the choice | of an alternative version .which i makes tho murderer a.ppear from a shop three doors away from the hotel. —Tim Other Alan. Hut no one save the woman who kept the stall has anything to say about tho -infernal machine, which the man now in custody, to have been guilty of the crime he claims, I must have withdrawn from his pocket at tihe minute lie .sprang forth from the door. A metal shell of dynamite as largo as a football would be a noticeable pocketful, but no one connected with the hotel in which he was served with tea appears to have noticed it. Nobody but tho ladv of the stall, however, saw the main who rwn away presumably uninjured', while the confessed murderer sustained severe Iterations from tho stones splinters which sprang abroad. If the mysterious first mail could be shown to ho tho mundierer, the unsuspicious and inconsistent appearance of the other, with no remarkable bulge about his pockets, would be explained ; without this-, it is at least puzzling.

r ThetV is .aflfcolutely nothing l to :l show that ho threw the bomb ; the - policeman did not see it, but only ■> swears to a gesturo o 1 throwing—or - some (gesture; whilo those who favour the idea that tiro bomb came I from the window only weaken his - tale, and somewhat strengthen that > of the stall-keeper, who at least , names a definite agency and direcl tion. And at last, as evidence not . to bo disregarded, there is the statement of the mail who drank tea at 1 the hotel, and is now in hospital ■ under arrest, that he and no other is j the guilty person. But he offers no further enlightenment. Ho either will not or is too l badly hurt to clear up the contr. a - I dictions in the conflicting testimonies . but is content with claiming the crime on the strength of his mere neighbourhood to it. That is what it amounts to, and the whole thing is so perplexing and* lacking im coherence, that the police have taken the obvious remedy of deducing a • conspiracy, to which tho man now in custody was a mere auxiliary, a decoy duck, perhaps, or a signaller. —The Official Account.— j But this is not the only real mystery in the case, for the unofficial ! and merely civilian seeker after facts ; is aggravated Ivy the reticence of the ! authorities on another point. They will have it tJiat the Minister was killed by tho shock; and .tiluat his ; body, when it was stripped for examination, -had no wounds save about the jaw a nd face. Yet the bomb, exploding under the carriage, 1 was of such dire potency that it rip■peri up some three yands of coWblestonee, wrenched the carriage to kindling wood, killed the coachman and M. de Plehve, and injured a number of other people, some of whom were ten yards away. And to add to mere probabilities, I have myself spoken with and questioned not one, tat a round dozen of eye witnesses, who unanimously declare that the corpse was horribly mangled. Both legs and the left anil < were blown from the trunk, they say, and offer their oaths in corroboration ; and (another fact adds itself that at the requiem mass at one o'clock'in the afternoon, and at the semi-puWfctmeiss at eigjht in the evening, botib of which were 'held in the house in whlich the body lay, the custom of celebrating the service in tile presence of the dead was not adhered to. Of those who furnish the official account, only one man is named as having seen the body. I challenged his story immediately, and asked that mino should -be disproved. The official charged with conveying the ' facts hedged in the most pronounced 1 fashion, and conceded that his informant was "short-slighted !" He might be wrong. There only remains to conclude the official investigation and lntry the torn body. It is what survives of a - dominating personality, a monumen- i tal man. Only a month ago he talked to me about Nihilists. "Their crimes are singularly few," he Said, and wuved this hand to dispose of them. Bnt the Nihilists worn ! < ___________ I