In this way
will the letter of an American who was held incommunicado at Geneva by
the Swiss Government in the latter part of 1919, be found exceedingly
persuasive in the process of reconstructing the tragic comedy which
struts around the vacant Russian throne. The American was en route to
Turkestan under proper credentials from the United States; yet there
were certain powerful combinations sufficiently interested in his
mission to cause his imprisonment for a time sufficiently lengthy to
enable their emissaries to precede him beyond the Caspian, where other
secret combinations were incubating that American foreign traders
would have given much to understand.
It was during this period of restraint that the American, whose name
we will call Fox, wrote to a friend in the United States: "You have
often heard me speak of my brother who was in Turkestan when the
Russian Revolution burst upon the world. He is now resting in Tasmania
after going through one of the most remarkable experiences ever given
to an ordinary _tea merchant_ intrusted with some secrets of _the
greatest land monopoly in the world_. You may call it a fairy tale;
and if you did not know me as a business man of ordinary sense, I
should hesitate to intimate that Nicholas R---- and all the family are
quite well, I thank you, not a million miles distant from my brother."
Fox had learned from his experience at Geneva that governments are
sometimes cajoled by diplomatic pressure to do undreamed-of things.
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