The Seven Sleepers

Chapter 3-1

3

I receive an Invitation from my Grandmother

ON REACHING my room I carefully examined the pocket-book.

It contained nothing but a sheet of stout note-paper, one side of which was half covered with figures arranged in groups. It was obviously some sort of cipher, but the document was signed by seven persons whose autographs were en clair. I did not, however, take the trouble to examine it any further that night, but soon turned in and slept soundly.

I was tired, and the peculiar events at the Moulin Rouge had not sufficed to do more than ruffle the surface of my good spirits. Anyhow, I could do nothing about it till the morning, and during the War I had acquired the habit, which remains with me still, of putting off till to-morrow the things which cannot be done to-day. I like to think that this is a habit which I share with all the more attractive people of the earth. My dear mother calls it laziness, and Uncle James of Jebbutt and Jebbutt frequently prophesies that it will land me and mine in the office of the official receiver.

I awoke rather late on the following morning, and I had not yet begun to think of the little Jew and his pocket-book when my coffee arrived, with hot water and a letter.

I opened the letter sleepily, without stopping to consider how odd it was for me to receive one when, as far as I was aware, no one knew my address. It was written in German, and was as follows :

Pension Ephesus,

December 11th.

My dearest Grandson,

I am glad to know that you have arrived at last in Geneva. I am sorry, dearest boy, that circumstances, which you say in your telegram were inevitable, have caused you to be two days late. I trust, however, that you will lose no further time in coming to see me.

I am accordingly expecting you to take tea with me this afternoon at 4 p.m. precisely, at No. 140, rue Etienne Dumont. Uncle Ulric and Uncle Fritz will be there, and we must have a nice little chat together. We have quite a number of things to say to you.

I am anxiously awaiting the little present which you tell me you are bringing me. As it is small, I hope you will take the greatest care of it and that it will not be lost.

I should add, dear boy, a word of warning, 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 indulge 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,

I am,

Your loving,

Grandmother.

To say that I was astonished by this letter is to put it mildly.

I read it through twice and my first conclusion was that I must be the victim of a practical joke, but a moment's reflection showed me that there could be no one in Geneva who would wish to play such a trick on me. Lavelle, my French friend on the Secretariat of the League, was the last person from whom I should expect anything of the kind, and Beatrice Harvel had too excellent a sense of humour to prepare an elaborate hoax. Besides, neither of them yet knew that I was in Geneva.

My second thought was that the letter was directed to someone else, but on turning to the envelope, I saw it was correctly addressed to "Herr Thomas Preston."

I read it once more carefully, and 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 it, which one would not expect to find in an ordinary letter, were evidently meant to emphasize the importance of the gift. This seemed fairly clear, but the reference to the police and to the fact that I was two days late was beyond me.

"Two days late!" Where had I heard that phrase before ? Then I remembered that the little Jew had opened upon me with precisely those words on the previous evening. "You're two days late," he had said, and he added that I should hear of it from Ephesus.

Well, here was a letter addressed to me from the Pension Ephesus. Evidently there was a connection between this letter and the little Jew and the document he had thrust upon me in his panic.

But how on earth had he found me out, and who in heaven's name was my grandmother — not to mention Uncle Ulric and Uncle Fritz ? I had apparently spent the night in acquiring a number of anxious relatives who were entirely strange to me.

I took the document out of the pocket-book and examined it. Of the cipher I could make nothing, but the signatures were more illuminating. Five of the names were unknown to me, but the sixth and seventh I seemed to identify. "Von Bühlen " I knew I had come across, though I could not remember where, and "Von Stahl " was even more familiar. Then in a flash I remembered where I had seen the latter.

We had had some dealings with German firms after the War, and I recalled a small order from Germany for hardware of some kind — I forget what — which had passed through my hands. The various documents in connection with it had been signed "Von Stahl." My uncle had told me at the time that he was perhaps the richest man in Germany, but that he was very little known and kept himself entirely out of politics. A dangerous man, my uncle had said, because he was so quiet and appeared to do nothing, although he was reputed to be very influential.

Now that I had placed Von Stahl, I remembered at once that Von Bühlen was the head of the big armaments firm which had constructed most of Germany's guns and munitions, and it was fairly certain that the enormous profits which the War had brought to the firm had been invested abroad and had not suffered from the collapse of the mark. Von Bühlen must still be fabulously rich.

This then appeared to be a document of some importance, and I soon came to the conclusion that the little present, to which my grandmother referred with such solicitude, was none other than the sheet of paper which had been so queerly thrust upon me at the Moulin Rouge. I had no idea what it meant but clearly it was of value. Otherwise the little Jew would not have been so eager to get rid of it before his arrest ; and my "grandmother" would not have taken steps so promptly to retrieve it.

Here was a touch of mystery that set the wits pleasantly to work. I thought it over while I was shaving and decided to talk to Beatrice about it— a notion which gave to the problem an added attraction.

I dressed as rapidly as possible and rang her up at the Secretariat. It was pleasant to hear the cry of astonishment with which she recognized my voice, and still more pleasant to reflect that she recognized it at all — on the telephone, too — after so long an interval. I answered about thirty-five questions in as many seconds (so it seemed) and then asked her to come to lunch with me. Luckily she was disengaged and we arranged to meet at the grill-room of the Hotel du Lac at one o'clock.

As I was leaving the telephone I met the proprietor of the pension, who hoped that I had received the note which had been delivered for me that morning.

The person who had left it had informed him that it was extremely urgent.

I took the envelope out of my pocket and saw that what I had first thought was an ordinary letter did not bear a stamp.

I enquired who had brought it to the pension, and was told that it had been delivered by a lady who had come early that morning before I was awake, about eight-thirty. She had given instructions that the note should be taken to me the moment I was called.

I asked what the unknown messenger had looked like. The proprietor said that he had not taken particular notice of her, but that she had been slight in appearance. He could remember no detail of what she wore except that as she paused an instant in front of a mirror to arrange her hat, he had remarked that it was trimmed with a pheasant's feather.

"You are sure she was young?" I queried.

"One can never be sure," replied the proprietor. "Not more than twenty-five, I should say."

"She was not by any chance old enough to be my grandmother?" I suggested.

"Certainly not," said the proprietor.

I thanked him for his information and prepared to go for a stroll before meeting Beatrice, to see the town and to think at leisure over possible ways and means of solving my mystery.

The rain of the previous day had ceased, though heavy clouds were still hanging over the city. I need not trouble you with a description of my walk beyond saying that I set out vaguely in the direction of the university and eventually found myself in the Jardin des Bastions, marvelling at an incredibly ugly monument. Calvin, Beza, Knox and Farel, twice the size of life, looked out from the wall with a fixed uncomprehending stare, flanked by other figures and scenes in low relief. Among them I noticed the regicide Cromwell and his secretary, John Milton.

Suddenly a hand clapped me on the shoulder, and turning round I found myself face to face with Jerry Cunningham.

Jerry had been the best of my battery subalterns; and I had not seen him since the day when he had been carried off, a blood-stained wreck of a man, from the remains of No. 3 gun which had stopped a five-nine on " the glorious 1st of July, 1916."

I was shocked at the change in his appearance. He had been something of a dandy, particularly about the cut of his tunic, and excessively proud of his field boots, which had been made by the most expensive bootmaker in London. Now I saw before me a medium-sized man, thin in the face, his forehead puckered with hard lines. He was slovenly dressed, although the clothes he wore were well cut, and he leaned heavily on a rubber-shod stick.

"Good lord, Jerry!" I exclaimed. "What on earth brings you to Geneva?"

"And what might you be doing?" he countered.

We walked across the gardens to a cafe where Jerry said the beer was from Munich, and as he limped slowly by my side, he told me of his life since our last meeting. I found him as changed in spirit as in appearance. He had been the gayest and most delightful of companions. Now, every word was bitter and disconsolate. Nor was this to be wondered at.

After spending months in hospital he had eventually been discharged with a pension of a hundred a year and a permanently game leg (poor old Jerry, the finest athlete of his year at Oxford). He had tried various jobs but never for very long. Having a little money of his own he had contrived to manage somehow. At the moment he was acting as tutor to two boys, sons of a rich French war-profiteer who was anxious that they should learn English, and had made sufficient money out of the War— said Jerry with a savage sneer— to justify the employment of an ex-officer as a kind of superior servant. He had taken the job out of general boredom. He was in Geneva with his youthful charges, he explained, for a fortnight or three weeks, before taking them up to the mountains for the winter sports.

"Not much good to me, old boy," he said; and I remembered how he had won the golden skis at Villars in 1913.

As we were about to enter the cafe, Jerry turned to me and said jokingly, " Who's the lady?"

I looked at him in surprise.

"My dear chap," I protested, " I only arrived last night. Give me at least a morning to myself."

"You may not know it," said Jerry, " but all the time we've been walking along a girl has been following us at a distance of about fifty yards and she has a friendly eye for you.