atter was dropped. As a matter
of fact, I thought them too suggestive and important to my own Government
to part with them!'

"It is these letters that are the heart of the whole trouble, Grandfather
says. He heard nothing more about them till he came to stay at the hotel
here. Then he received a very threatening letter, declaring that if this
packet was not returned to the writer, serious consequences would result.
It didn't say _what_ consequences, but Grandfather suspected they might
even go as far as an attempt on his life. But he was determined not to
give up the letters. You see, they concerned a matter that might involve
his own country with China, and he felt they should be delivered to his
own Government. Beside that, he is just stubborn enough not to be bullied
into anything by threats.

"His man Geoffrey tried to persuade him to put the letters in a
safe-deposit vault in New York, but Grandfather says he is old-fashioned
in some things and doesn't trust even to safe-deposit boxes--says he
prefers to keep things he values in his own possession. He had the
letters in a queer little bronze box that was given him, years ago, by
the late Empress Dowager of China. It had a secret lock that was quite
impossible to open unless one knew the trick. He carried this in his
pocket, and slept with it under his pillow at night, and felt perfectly
safe about it."

Here Eileen paused a moment for breath, and the two other girls glanced
at each other guiltily, but they said nothing. Then Eileen went on:

"One night, just after I came, there was an attempt to rob him at the
hotel. The attempt failed because Geoffrey happened to be awake and
discovered some one prowling about Grandfather's sitting-room. Whoever it
was escaped through the window without even his face being seen, and
there was no trace of him later. Grandfather made Geoffrey keep the thing
quiet and not report it to the hotel, because he didn't want any
publicity about the matter. But he decided then that it would be safer to
have the thing hidden somewhere for a time--in some place where no one
would dream of hunting for it. And it struck him that down at the
bungalow where he had spent those quiet weeks, and which he supposed was
all shut up and deserted, would be as unlikely a spot as any to be
suspected of hiding such a thing. He supposed that the one next
door--this one--was closed also, or I do not think he would have
considered that hiding-place.

"So