He turned over the former.
It was addressed to Count Skariatine, at his lodging, and it bore the postmark of a town in Great-Russia, between Petersburg and Moscow.

Schmidt took out the sheet, and his face suddenly grew very dark and angry.

The handwriting was either in reality Akulina's, or it resembled it so closely as to have deceived a better expert than the Cossack.
The missive purported to be written by the wife of Count Skariatine's steward, and it set forth in rather servile and illiterate language that the said Count Skariatine and his eldest son were both dead, having been seized on the same day with the smallpox, of which there had been an epidemic in the neighbourhood, but which was supposed to have quite disappeared when they fell ill.

A week later and within twenty-four hours of each other they had breathed their last.

The Count Boris Michaelovitch was now the heir, and would do well to come home as soon as possible to look after his possessions, as the local authorities were likely to make a good thing out of it in his absence.
The Cossack swore a terrific oath, and stamped furiously on the floor as he rose to his feet.