Evening star., 1925-03-29
THE SEVEN SLEEPERS
A Thrilling NoreI Of By FRANCIS BEEDING
lnLeTHOLLOn05 by
By FRANCIS BEEDTNC
Copyright, 1925. by Little. Brown CO..

present which you tell me you are
bringing me. AS II is small, j hope
you will take the greatest care of 1t
and that 1t will not be lost
'T should add, dear boy, a word of
waning, which I hope you will not
misunderstand, since you know my
great love and affection for you. You
are of a high spirited nature, and as
the city of Geneva is at the moment
en- fete you may be tempted to in
dulge those high spirits of yours in
the company of the other participants
in the carnival. Now, the police here
are lenient, but they do not permit
undue brawling or noise in the
streets. I therefore beg you most
earnestly to be careful not to let your
excitable nature run away with you
and thus bring you into unpleasant
contact with the guardians of the
law.
Assuring you once more Of my
great affection, and of the warmth of
the welcome which you may expect
to receive, / am your loving
GRANDMOTHER"
To say that was astonished by
this letter is to put it mildly
| ] read it through twice, and my
| first conclusion was thai ! must be
the victim of practical joke, but a
moments reflection showed re that
| there could be no one in Geneva who
would wish to play such n trick on
me. Lavelle my French friend or
the secretariat of the league. was the
last person from whom l should ex-
pect anything of the kind. and Bea-
trice Harvel had too excellent sense
of humor to prepare an elaborate
hoax. Besides, neither of them yet
knew that ] was in Geneva.
| My second thought was that the
letter was directed to some one else
but, on turning the envelope, / saw
it was correctly addressed to Herr
Thomas Preston"
| 1 read 1t once more, carefully, ant
noted that my estimable grandmother
| whoever she might be, was evidently
very anxious to receive the small
present of which she spoke. The
| words Of warning about not losing II
| which one would not expect TO fine
in an ordinary letter, were evidentl!
meant to emphasize the Importance o
the gift. This seemed fairly clear
but the reference to the police ant
! to the fact that j was two days lat,
was beyond me.
1.-TWO days late" Where had
heard that phrase before? Then
Remembered that the little jew ha,
1
lwords on the previous evening
You're two days late" he had said
and he had added that I should hea
of II from Ephesus.
| Well, here was letter addresse,
to me from the Pension Ephesus
Evidently, there was connection be
tween this letter and the little jew
and the document he had thrust upol
me in his panic.
But how on earth had he found m
out. and who in Heavens name wa
my grandmother-not TO mention
Uncle Uric and Uncle Fritz. l hai
ing a number of anxious relative
who were entirely strange to me.
/ took the document out of tn
pock etbook and examined 1t. OF tn
cipher 1 could make nothing, but tn
signatures were more illuminating G
Five of the names were unknown Z
me, but the sixth and seventh
| seemed to identify. Won Buhlen
knew I had come across, though
could not remember where, and ''vol
Stahf' was even more familiar. Then
IN flash. I remembered where 1 ha,
seen the latter.
| We had had some dealings will
German firms after the war, and
recalled a small order from German!
for hardware OF some kind forge
what-which had passed through m,
| hands. The various documents il
connection with it had been signed
won Stahl." My uncle had told M
| at the time that he was perhaps tn,
richest man in Germany, but that h
was very little known and kept him
self entirely out of politics. A dan
gerous man, my uncle had said, be
cause he was so quiet and appearet
to do nothing, although he was re
puted to be very influential.
Now that I had placed Won Stahl,
| remembered at once that Won Buhlel
was the head of the big armament
firm which had constructed most o
lGermany's guns and munitions, an,
1t was fairly certain that the enor
nous profits which the war ha'
brought to the firm had been invested
| abroad and had not suffered from
the collapse of the mark. Won Buh
len must still be fabulously rich.
This, then, appeared to be a docu
ment of some Importance, and 1 sooI
came to the conclusion that the littl,
present to which my grandmother re
ferred with such solicitude was non,
other than the sheet of paper which
had been so Queerly thrust upon m,
at the Moulin Rouge. 1 had not ides
what 1t meant, but clearly II was O
not have been so eager to get rid O
it before his arrest, and my grand