New Jersey wildlife agents continued yesterday to count tigers at a private refuge in Ocean County, trying to confirm suspicions that a 431-pound Bengal tiger shot to death as it wandered loose last Wednesday had escaped from the compound. But there were no signs that the mystery was nearing solution.

As Jackson Township neighbors worried and wondered about the world-class concentration of tigers in their midst, investigators for the State Division of Fish, Game and Wildlife again scouted craggy lairs and other hiding places in the dense woods of the 12-acre reserve called Tigers Only Preservation, trying to account for about 20 of the big cats.

Mayor William J. Allmann of Jackson Township said the investigators were probably on the right track. ''All indications are that the tiger came from this property,'' he said, noting that Six Flags Great Adventure Safari Park nearby had accounted for its nine tigers. ''The only other possibility is that someone could have dropped it off, but that's very far-fetched.''

But the owner of Tigers Only, Joan Byron-Marasek, insisted through a lawyer, Valter H. Must, that the wayward tiger had not come from her property, that a 20-foot perimeter fence was intact, and that the episode -- and the curiosity and suspicions it has aroused -- had turned her quiet, private life upside down.