The City in the Clouds

CHAPTER NINE

It was four o'clock in the morning. A bitter wind had risen and was wailing around the "Golden Swan," interspersed with heavy storms of hail which rattled on roof and windows. Outside the tempest shrieked and was accompanied by a vast, humming, harp-like noise as it flung itself against the lattice-work of the towers and vibrated over Richmond like a chorus of giant Æolian harps. Arthur and I sat in the shabby sitting-room, which had been the theater of so much emotion that night, and stared at each other with troubled faces.

There was a little pattering noise, and Bill Rolston came in, closing the door carefully behind him.

"He wants you to go up to him, Sir Thomas. You told me to use my own discretion. Since we carried him up and I gave him the bromides, I haven't left his bedside. I talked to him in his own language, but he wouldn't say a word until I threw off every disguise and told him who I really was and who you were also."

"But, Rolston, you may have spoiled everything!"

He shook his head.

"You don't know what I know. Now that he's aware you are of his own rank, and that I am your lieutenant, his life is absolutely your forfeit. If you were to tell him to commit suicide he would do it at once as the most natural thing in the world, to preserve his honor. He is your man from this moment, Sir Thomas, just as I am."

"Then I'll go up. Arthur, you don't mind?"

"Mind! I thought I brought a bomb-shell into your house to-night, and so I have too, but to find all this going on simply robs me of speech. Meanwhile, if you will introduce me to this Asiatic gentleman who speaks such excellent English, and whom, from repute I guess to be Mr. William Rolston, I daresay we can amuse ourselves during the remainder of this astonishing night. And," he continued, "if there is such a thing as a ham upon the premises, some thick slices grilled upon this excellent fire, and some cool ale in a pewter – "

I left them to it and went upstairs to my chamber. It was lit with two or three candles in silver holders – I had made the place quite habitable by now – and lying on my bed, covered with an eiderdown, his eyes feverish, his face flushed, lay the Mandarin.

His eyes opened and he smiled. It was the first time I had seen the delicate, melancholy lips light up in a real smile.

"What's that for?" I said, as I sat down by the bedside.

"You are so big, and strong, Prince," he replied, "and large and confident; and your disguise fell from you as you came in and I saw you as you were."

I knelt beside the bed and my breath came thick and fast.

"For God's sake don't play with me," I said, "not that you are doing that. You have met Her – Miss Morse I mean, my Juanita?"

"Prince, she has deigned to give me her confidence in some degree. I do my work in the wonderful library that Mr. Morse has built. It's a great hall, full of the rarest volumes; and there are long windows from which one can look down upon London and gaze beyond the City to where the wrinkled sea beats around the coast. And, day by day, in her loneliness, the Fairest of Maidens has come to this high place and taken a book of poems, sat in the embrasure, and stared down at the world below."

He raised a thin hand and held it upright. It was so transparent that the light of a candle behind turned it to blood red.

"Let my presumptuous desires be forever silent," he chanted. "'East is east and west is west,' and I erred gravely. But, worship is worship, and worship is sacrifice."

I could hardly speak, my voice was hoarse, his words had given me such a picture of Juanita up there in the clouds.

"Prince – "

"I am not a Prince, I only have a very ordinary title. If you know England, you understand what a baronet is."

"I know England. Prince, your Princess is waiting for you and sighing out her heart that you have not come to her."

I leapt to my feet and swore a great oath that made the attic room ring.

"You mean?" I shouted.

"Prince, the Lily of all the lilies, the Rose of all the roses, alone, distraught, another Ophelia – no, say rather Juliet with her nurse – has honored me with the story of her love. She never told me whom she longed for, but I knew that it was some one down in the world."

I staggered out a question.

"It is my humble adoration for her which has sharpened all my wits," he answered. "It seemed an accident – though the gods designed it without doubt – that made you save my life to-night, but now I know you are the lover of the Lily. And I am the servant – the happy messenger – of you both."

"You can take a letter from me to her?"

"Indeed, yes."

"My friend, tell me, tell me all about her. Is she happy? – no, I know she cannot be that – but – "

He lifted himself up in the bed, and there was something priest-like in his attitude as he folded his thin hands upon his breast and spoke.

"Two thousand feet above London there is a Palace of all delights. Immeasurable wealth, the genius of great artists have been combined to make a City of Enchantment. And in every garden with its plashing fountains, in its halls of pictures and delights, upon its aerial towers, down its gilded galleries, lurking at the banquet, mingling with the music, great shapes of terror squeak and gibber like the ghosts Shakespeare speaks of in ancient Rome."

"Morse?"

"There is a noble intellect overdone and dissolved in terror. In all other respects sane as you or I, my savior and benefactor, Gideon Morse is a maniac whose one sole idea is to preserve himself and his daughter from some horror, some vengeance which surely cannot threaten him."

Twice, thrice I strode the attic.

Then at last I stopped.

"Will you help me now, Pu-Yi, will you take a letter from me, will you help me to meet Her, and soon?"

He bowed his head for answer, and then, as he looked up again his face was suffused with a sort of bright eagerness that touched me to the heart.

"I am yours," he said.

"Then quickly, and soon, Pu-Yi, for you are only half informed. Gideon Morse may be driven mad by fear, no doubt he is. But it is not an imaginary fear. It is a thing so sinister, so real and terrible, that I cannot tell you of it now. I am too exhausted by the events of this night. I will say only this, that within the last hour a faithful friend of mine has returned from the other side of the world and brings me ominous news."

I believe that Pu-Yi, whose movements were, of course, not restricted like those of the lower officials, returned to the towers in the early morning. As for me, I caught a workmen's train from Richmond station, slunk in an early taxi to Piccadilly with Arthur Winstanley, and slipped into lavender-clean sheets and silence till past noon, when Captain Patrick Moore arrived to an early lunch. Dressed again in proper clothes, with dear old Preston fussing about me with tears in his eyes, I felt a thousand times more confident than before. Old Pat had to be informed of everything, and as a preliminary I told him my whole story, from the starting-point of the "Golden Swan."

"And now," I said, "here's Arthur, who has traveled thousands of miles and who has come back with information that fits in absolutely with everything else. He gave me an epitome last night, under strange and fantastic circumstances. Now then, Arthur, let's have it all clearly, and then we shall know where we are."

Arthur, whose face was white and strained, began at once.

"I went straight to Rio," he said, "and of course I took care that I was accredited to our Legation. As a matter of fact the Minister to the Brazilian Government is my cousin. The news about the towers was all over Brazil. Everybody there knows Gideon Mendoza Morse. He's been by a long way the most picturesque figure in South America during the last twenty years. He has been President of the Republic. Of course, I had the freshest news. My mother had given a party to introduce Juanita to London society. I had danced with her. I had talked to her father – I was the young English society man who brought authentic news. I told all I knew, and a good bit more, and I sucked in information like a vacuum-cleaner. I learnt a tremendous lot as to the sources of Morse's enormous wealth. I was glad to find that there were no allegations against him of any trust methods, any financial tricks. He had got rich like one of the old patriarchs, simply by shrewdness and long accumulation and rising values. But I had to go a good deal farther back than this, I had to dive into obscure politics of South America, and then – it was almost like a punch on the jaw – I stumbled against the Santa Hermandad."

Pat Moore and I cried out simultaneously.

"What on earth do you mean?"

"Our League?"

"It's sheer coincidence," he answered. "I hope it's not a bad omen. During the time when the last Emperor of Brazil, Pedro II, was reigning, it was seen by all his supporters, both in Brazil and in Spain, that his power was waning and a crash was sure to come. In order to preserve the Principle of the Monarchy, a powerful Secret Society was started, under the name of the Holy Brotherhood or Santa Hermandad. Gideon Morse, then a young and very influential man, became a member of this Society. But, after the Emperor was deposed, and a Republic declared, Morse threw in his lot with the new régime. I have gathered that he did so out of pure patriotism; he realized that a Republic was the best thing for his country, and had no personal ax to grind whatever. He prospered exceedingly. As you know he has, in his time, been President of the Republica dos Estados Unidos de Brazil, and has contributed more to the success of the country than any other man living."

"Fascinatin' study, history," said Captain Moore, "for those that like it. Personally, I am no bookworm; cut the cackle, Arthur, old bean, and come to the 'osses."

"Peace, fool!" said Arthur, "if you can't understand what I say, Tom will explain to you later, though I'll be as short as I jolly-well can."

He turned to me.

"When this Secret Society failed, Tom – the Hermandad, I mean – it wasn't dissolved. It was agreed by the Inner Circle that it was only suspended. But as the years went by, nearly all the prominent members died, and the Republic became an assured thing. But a few years ago the Society was revived, not with any real hope of putting an Emperor on the throne again but as a means to terrorism and blackmail. All the most lawless elements of Spanish South America became affiliated into a new and sinister confederation. You've heard of the power of the Camorra in Italy – well, the Hermandad in Brazil is like that at the present time. It has ramifications everywhere, the police are becoming powerless to cope with it, and a secret reign of terror goes on at this hour.

"These people have made a dead shot for Gideon Morse. He has defied them for a long time, but their power has grown and grown. I understand that two years ago the Hermandad fished out of obscurity an old Spanish nobleman, the Marquis da Silva, who was one of the original, chivalrous monarchists. He was about the only surviving member of the old Fraternity, and they got him to produce its constitutions. He came upon the scene some two years ago and Morse was given just that time to fall in with the plans of the modern Society, or be assassinated together with his daughter."

He stopped, and it was dear old Pat Moore who shouted with comprehension.

"Why, now," he bellowed, "sure and I see it all. That's why he built the Tower of Babel and went to live on the top, and drag his daughter with him – so that these Sinn Feiners should not get at 'm."

"Yes, Pat, you've seen through it at a glance," said Arthur, with a private grin to me.

Pat was tremendously bucked up at the thought that he had solved a problem which had been puzzling both of us.

"All the same," he said, "the place is too well guarded for any Spanish murderer to get up. Besides, Tom here is makin' all his arrangements and he'll have Miss Juanita out of it in no time."

"The circumstances," Arthur went on calmly, "are perfectly well known to a few people at the head of the Government in Brazil. I had a long and intimate conversation with Don Francisco Torromé, Minister of Police to the Republic. He told me that the Hermandad is intensely revengeful, wicked, and unscrupulous. Moreover, it's rich; and money wouldn't be allowed to stand in the way of getting at Morse. What is lacking is energy. These people make the most complete and fiendish plans, they dream the most fantastic and devilish dreams, and then they say 'Manana' – which means, 'It will do very well to-morrow' – and go to sleep in the sun."

"Then after all, Morse is in no danger!" I cried, immensely relieved. "You said the danger was real, but you spoke figuratively."

"Sorry, old chap, not a bit of it. There's some one on the track with energy enough to pull the lid off the infernal regions if necessary. In short, the Hermandad have engaged the services of an international scoundrel of the highest intellectual powers, a man without remorse, an artist in crime – I should say, and most Chiefs of Police in the kingdoms of the world would agree with me – the most dangerous ruffian at large. You've seen him, Tom, I pointed him out to you at a little Soho restaurant where we dined once together. His name is Mark Antony Midwinter, and he traveled from Brazil, together with a friend, by the same boat that I did."

"Then he must be in London now!" said Pat Moore, with the air of announcing another great discovery.

"But look here!" I cried. "I told you, before you sailed for South America, I told you what I saw at the Ritz Hotel that night. It was the very same man, Mark Antony Midwinter, as you call him, running like a hare from old Morse, who was shooting fireworks round him with a smile on his face. That's not the man you think he is. He may be a devil, but that night he was a devil of a funk."

"Wait a bit, my son," said Arthur. "I have thought about that incident rather carefully. Remember that Morse was given a certain time in which to come in line and join the Hermandad. From what I have heard of the punctilious, senile Marquis da Silva, he wouldn't have allowed the campaign against Morse to be started a moment before the time of immunity was up. Might not Midwinter at that time, quite ignorant that the towers were being built as a refuge for Morse, have tried to go behind his own employers and offer to betray them, and to drop the whole business for a million or so? From what I know of the man's career I should think it extremely probable."

I whistled. Arthur seemed to have penetrated to the center of that night's mystery. There was nothing more likely. I could imagine the whole scene, the panther man laying his cards on the table and offering to save Morse and Juanita from certain death – Morse, already half maddened by what hung over him, chuckling in the knowledge that he had built an impregnable refuge, dismissing the scoundrel with utter firmness and contempt.

"I believe you've hit it, Arthur," I said. "It fits in like the last bit of a jig-saw puzzle."

"I'm pretty sure myself, but even now you don't know all. Quite early in his life, when Midwinter – he's the last of the Staffordshire Midwinters, an ancient and famous family – was expelled from Harrow, he went out to South America. Morse was at that time in the wilds of Goyaz, where he was developing his mines. There was a futile attempt to kidnap the child, Juanita, who was then about two years old, and Midwinter was in it. The young gentleman, I understand, was caught. Morse was then, as doubtless he is now, a man of a grim and terrible humor. He took young Midwinter and treated him with every possible contemptuous indignity. They say his head was shaved; he was birched like a schoolboy by Morse's peons; he was branded, tarred and feathered, and turned contemptuously adrift. The fellow came back to Europe, married a celebrated actress in Paris, who is now dead, and has been, as I say, one of the most successful uncaught members of the higher criminal circles that ever was. He made an attempt at the Ritz, swallowing his hatred. It failed. His employers in Brazil know nothing of it. He is here in London – as Pat so wonderfully discovered – supplied with unlimited money, burning with a hatred of which a decent man can have no conception, and confronted with his last chance in the world."

As he said this, Arthur got up, bit his lip savagely and left the room.

It was about two-thirty in the afternoon.

Though he closed the door after him, I heard voices in the corridor, and the door reopened an inch or two as if some one was holding it before coming in.

"You are not well, my lord?"

"Oh, I'm all right, Preston; just feeling a little faint, that's all. Sorry to nearly have barged into you; I'll go and lie down for half an hour."

The door opened and Preston came in with a telegram.

I opened it immediately and felt three or four flimsy sheets of Government paper in my hand.

The telegram was in the special cipher of the Evening Special, and was from Rolston.

"The tower top is connected with Richmond telephone exchange by private wire. I have been rung up and in long conversation with Pu-Yi. Early in the evening you will receive a letter from certain lady. Owing to certain complication of circumstances your attempt at storming the tower and seeing lady must be carried out to-night. Our friend is making all possible arrangements to this end and urgently begs you to be prepared. He implicitly urges me to warn you the attempt is not without grave danger. Please return to 'Swan' at once. There is much to be arranged, and at lunch time two strange-looking customers were in the bar whose appearance I didn't like at all. Also Sliddim thinks he recognized one of them as an exceedingly dangerous person."

For to-night! At last the patient months of waiting were over and it had all narrowed down to this. To-night I should win or lose all that made life worth living; and the fast taxi that took me back to Richmond within twenty minutes of receiving the telegram, carried a man singing.

CHAPTER TEN

The wind was getting up on Richmond Hill and masses of cloud were scudding from the South and obscuring the light of the moon, when at about half-past nine a small, well-appointed motor coupé drew up in front of the great gate at the tower inclosure.

The small closed-in car was painted dead black, the man who drove it was in livery, and a professional-looking person in a fur coat stepped out and pressed the electric button of a small door in the wall by the side of the huge main gates. In his hand he had a little black bag.

In a moment the door opened a few inches and a large, saffron-colored, intelligent face could be seen in the aperture.

"The doctor!" said the gentleman from the coupé. The door opened at once to admit him.

He turned and spoke to the chauffeur.

"As I cannot tell you how long I shall be, Williams," he said, "you had better go back to the surgery and wait there. I have no doubt I can telephone when I require you."

The man touched his cap and drove off, and the doctor found himself in a vaulted passage, to the right of which was a brightly lit room. Standing in the passage and bowing was a gigantic Chinaman, Kwang-su, the keeper of the gate, in a quilted black robe lined with fur. The man bowed low, and a second Chinaman came out of the room, a thin ascetic-looking person.

"Ah, Dr. Thomas!" he said, "we've been expecting you. I am secretary to Mr. Morse. Perhaps you will come this way."

He led the doctor down the passage, unlocked a further door and the two men emerged into the grounds, proceeding down a wide, graveled road, bordered by strips of lawn and lit at intervals with electric standards. In the distance there were ranges of lit buildings with figures flitting backwards and forwards before the orange oblongs of doors and windows. In another quarter rose the lighted dome of the great Power House from which the low hum of dynamos and the steady throb of engines could be faintly heard in pauses of the gale. It was exactly like standing at night in the center of some great exhibition grounds, save that straight ahead, overshadowing everything and covering an immense area of ground, were the bases of the three great towers, a nightmare of fantastic steel tracery such as no man's eye had beheld before in the history of the world.