The City in the Clouds

"So far, so good," said Pu-Yi with a sigh of relief. "That was excellently managed, the motor-car was quite in keeping. Your wonderful little friend who speaks my language so well is already in the compound with some of the men. He will await here to take any orders that may be necessary."

I was trembling with excitement and could hardly reply.

Here I was at last, passed into the Forbidden City with the greatest ease.

"We will walk slowly towards tower number three, which is the one we shall ascend," said my companion, "and I will explain the situation to you. On the tower top I have supreme authority, except for one man, and that's the Irish-American, Boss Mulligan. This worthy is much addicted to the use of hot and rebellious liquors, and is generally more or less intoxicated about this time, though he is more alert and ferocious than when sober. To-night I have taken the opportunity to put a little something in his bottle, a little something from China, which will not be detected, and which will by now have sent him into a profound, drugged slumber. I then telephoned all down the tower to the lift men on the various stages, and also to Kwang there, that a doctor was to be expected and that I would come down to meet him and conduct him to Mr. Morse."

"Excellent!" I said, "and now – ?"

"Now we are going straight up to the very top. Every one will see us but no one will think anything strange. Moreover, and this is a fact in our favor, when Mulligan awakes no one will be able to tell him of the incident even if they suspected anything, for few, if any, of the tower men speak more than a few rudimentary words of English, and I am the intermediary between them and their master. This was specially arranged by Mr. Morse so that none of them could get into communication with Europeans. The fact is greatly in our favor."

I pressed my hand to a pocket over my heart, where lay a little note which had been mysteriously conveyed to me early in the evening – a little agitated note bidding me come at all costs – and passed on in silence until we came under the gloomy shadows of the mighty girders and columns which sprang up from an expanse of smooth concrete which seemed to stretch as far as eye could reach.

We changed our lift at each stage; and I could have wished that it was day or the night was finer, for the experience is wonderful when one undergoes it for the first time.

"We shall ascend by one of the small rapid lifts built for four or five persons only, and not the large and more cumbrous machines. Even so, you must remember, Doctor" – he chuckled as he called me that – "we have nearly half a mile to go."

On and on we went, amid this lifeless forest of steel with its smooth concrete and shining electric-lamps, until at last we approached a small, illuminated pavilion, where two silent celestials awaited us. We stepped into the lift, the door was closed, a bell rang and we began to move upwards. I sat down on a plush-covered seat and didn't attempt to look out of the frosted windows on either side until at length, after what seemed an interminable time, we stopped with a little jerk. Pu-Yi opened the door and led me down on to a platform.

"We are now," he said, "on the first stage – just fifty feet higher than the golden cross on the top of Saint Paul's. If you will come up this slant – see! here's the next lift."

I followed him along a steel platform for some twenty or thirty yards, the wind whistling all around. On looking to the right I saw nothing but a black void, at the bottom of which, far, far below, was the yellow glow of Richmond town. On looking to the left I stopped for a moment and stared, unable to believe my eyes. As I live, there was an immense lake there, surrounded by rushes that sang and swished in the wind, with a boat-house, and a little landing-stage!

Then, with a clang of wings and a chorus of shrill quacks, a gaggle of wild duck got up and sped away into the dark.

"Yes," said Pu-Yi, "that's the lake. There are many variety of water fowl fed there, who make it their home. On a quiet afternoon, walking round the margin, or in a canoe, one can feel ten thousand miles away from London. But that's nothing to what you will see if circumstances permit."

I have but a dim recollection of the second stage, which was only a stage in the particular tower we were mounting, and did not extend between the three as the lower and two upper ones did, forming the immense plateaus of which the lake was one and the City in the clouds itself another.

It was when we had slowed down, and even in the dark lift, that I began to have a curious sensation of an immense immeasurable height, and Pu-Yi gave me a warning look as who would say, "Now, get ready, the adventure really begins."

We stopped, the door slid back and immediately we were in a blaze of light. We were no longer out of doors. The lift had come up through the floor of a large room. It was divided into two portions by polished steel bars extending from ceiling to floor. A cat could not have squeezed through. On our side, the lift side, the floor was covered with matting but there was no furniture at all. Beyond the bars were a Turkey carpet, several armchairs, a mahogany table with bottles, siphons, newspapers, and a large, automatic pistol. An electric fire burned cheerily in one corner and at right angles to it was a couch. Upon this couch, purple-faced and snoring like a bull, lay Mulligan, huge, relaxed, helpless.

"Good heavens!" I whispered. "Gideon Morse is safe enough here."

"In ten seconds," Pu-Yi whispered, "by pressing that bell button, Mulligan could have the room full of armed guards, and as you see, this steel fence is impassable without the key. There are only three keys, of which I have one."

He produced it as he spoke, inserting it in a gleaming, complicated lock, slid back a portion of the steel-work, and we stepped into the guard-room.

"We are now," said my guide, "on the platform immediately under that on which the City rests, and about a hundred feet below it. This platform is entirely occupied by this guard-room, a range of store and dwelling houses, the elaborate electric installation, power for which is supplied from below, Turkish baths, a swimming bath, and so forth. Please follow me."

With a glance of repulsion at the drugged giant on the couch I went after Pu-Yi, through a door on the opposite side of the room, and down a long corridor with windows on one side and arched recesses on the other. At the end of this we came out again into the open air, that is to say that we were shielded by walls and buildings, walking as it were in a sleeping town upon streets paved with wood blocks, while instead of the vault of heaven above, about the height of a tallish church tower were the great beams and girders which supported the City itself, and from which, at regular intervals, hung arc lamps which threw a blue and stilly radiance upon the streets and roofs of the buildings.

It was colossal, amazing, this great colony in the sky. Now and then we heard voices, the rattle of dice thrown upon a board, and the wailing music of Chinese violins. Two or three times silent figures passed us with a low bow, and without a glimmer of curiosity in their impassive faces, until at length we came to a long row of lift doors, with an inscription above each one, and in the center, dividing them into sections, a large, vaulted stairway mounting upwards till it was lost to sight. It was lined with white tiles like a subway in some great railway terminus.

Pu-Yi unlocked the door of a small lift. We got into it, it rushed up for a few seconds and then we came out of a small white kiosk upon a scene so wonderful, so enchanted that I forgot all else for a second, caught hold of my conductor's thin arm and gave a cry of admiration and wonder. A mass of clouds had just raced before the moon, leaving it free to shed its light until another should envelop it.

The pure radiance, unspoiled by smoke, mist, or the miasma which hangs above the roofs of earthly cities, poured down in floods of light upon a vast quadrangle of buildings, white as snow and with roofs that seemed of gold.

I had the impression of immensity, though magnified a dozen times, that the great quadrangle of Christ Church, Oxford, or the court of Trinity, Cambridge, give to one who sees them for the first time. But that impression was only fleeting. These buildings seemed to obey no architectural law. They were tossed up like foam in the upper air, marvelous, fantastic, beautiful beyond words.

We hurried along by the side of a great green lawn which might have been a century growing, past bronze dragons supporting fountain basins, down an arcade, where the broad leaves of palms clicked together and there was a scent of roses, until we hurried through a little postern door and up some steps and came out in what Pu-Yi whispered was the library.

Wonder upon wonders! My brain reeled as we stepped out of the door in the wall into a great Gothic room with groined roof of stone, an oriel window at one end, and thousands upon thousands of books in the embayed shelves of ancient oak. It was exactly like the library of some great college or castle; one expected to see learned men in gowns and hoods moving slowly from shelf to shelf, or writing at this or that table.

"But, but," I stammered, "this might have been here for seven hundred years!" and indeed there was all the deep scholastic charm and dignity of one of the great libraries of the past.

For answer he turned to me, and I saw that his thin hand clutched at his heart.

"It's all illusion," he whispered, "all cunning and wonderful illusion. The walls of this place are not of ancient stone. They are plates of toughened steel. The old oak was made yesterday at great expense. 'Tis all a picture in a dream."

I saw that he was powerfully affected for a moment, but for just that moment I did not understand why.

"But the books!" I cried, looking round me in amazement – "surely the books – ?"

"Ah, yes," he sighed, "they are the collection of Mr. Gideon Morse, which is second to very few in the world. They were all brought over from Rio nearly two years ago. We cannot compete with the British Museum, or some of the great American collectors in certain ways, but there are treasures here – "

We had by now walked half-way up the great hall. He stopped, went to part of the wall covered with books, withdrew one, turned a little handle which its absence revealed, and a whole section of the shelves swung outwards.

"In here, please," said Pu-Yi, "this is a little room where I sometimes do secretarial work. At any rate it is hidden, and you will be quite safe here while I go to the Señorita and tell her that you await her."

The door clicked. I sat down on a low couch and waited.

The experiences of the night had been so strange, the intense longing of months seemed now so near fruition, that every artery in my body pulsed and drummed, and it was only by a tremendous effort of will that I sat down and forced myself to think.

Here I was, at her own invitation, to rescue my love. As my mind began to work I saw that I must be guided in my course of action by what she told me. Juanita obviously thought that her father's aberration was a form of madness without foundation. She did not know what I had discovered. If she did she might realize that her father was possibly not so mad as she imagined. For myself, after this space of time, I can say that I was very seriously disturbed by Arthur Winstanley's revelations in regard to the unspeakable Midwinter and the news that he was now in England. Perhaps you will remember that in Bill Rolston's telegram to me he hinted at some suspicious strangers having been seen in the private bar of the "Golden Swan." One of them, I had ascertained, answered to the description of Midwinter in every detail, and the two men were seen by Sliddim to drive away through Richmond Park in a large, private car.

Certainly I must tell Juanita something of this and help her to warn her father, perhaps…

And then I remembered the elaborate precautions of my ascent, the literal impossibility of any stranger or strangers ever getting to where I was, and I breathed again.

The place – one couldn't call it a room – in which I sat, was simply a little sexagonal nook or retreat, masked from the great library by its great door of books. Three of the panels which went from the floor to the vaulted ceiling were of dead black silk. The other three were of Chinese embroidery, stiff, with raised gold, and gems, which I realized must be from the choicest examples of their kind in the world. Still, I wasn't interested in dragons of tarnished gold, with opal eyes, ivory teeth, and scales of lapislazuli. I was getting restive when the black panel, which was the back of the entrance door, swung towards me, and I saw Juanita.

She was dressed in black, a sort of tea-gown I suppose you'd call it, though round her shoulders and falling on each side of her slim form was a cloak of heavy sable.

In her blue-black hair – oh, my dear, how true you were then to the fashions of the south, and how true you are to-day – there was a glowing, crimson rose.

We stood and looked at each other, in this tiny room, for I suppose two or three seconds.

What Juanita felt she told me afterwards, and it isn't part of this narrative.

What I felt was awe, sheer, impersonal awe, as I realized that I had surmounted incredible difficulties, endured ages of longing, plotting, planning, and now stood alone in front of the most Beautiful Girl in the World.

I saw her as that. I remembered the night at Lady Brentford's when the league was formed.

And then, thank Heaven, for in another second everything might have been quite spoiled, I remembered that she was just my Juanita, who had sent for me, and I took her in my arms and, and…

We sat hand in hand upon the odd little Chinese couch.

"Now look here, darling," I said, "you've told me all about your Governor. How he says that you must live up here in this extraordinary place and never go into the world again. You think him mad, and yet, d'you know, I don't."

"But, my heart – ?"

"I've got to tell you, dearest, that he has more reason than you think."

She shrugged her shoulders – it was about the most graceful thing I had ever seen in my life.

"But to tell me that I am to be a nun because, if I were to go back into the world, my life wouldn't be worth a moment's purchase. Caro! It is madness! It cannot be anything else."

I didn't quite know how to tell her, and I was considering, when she went on:

"It is getting dreadful. Father cannot sleep, he prowls about this nightmare of a place all the night long."

"Sweetheart," I said, "I've been making all sorts of inquiries and I've found out that your Governor is really in serious danger of assassination – or was until he built this place, to which I think the devil could hardly penetrate without an invitation. Don't think your father a coward. Remember what we saw that night in the Ritz Hotel, when I was just about to tell you that I adored you. No, I'd lay long odds, Juanita darling, that Mr. Morse is more afraid for you than for himself. And there I'll back him up every time."

She laughed, and her laughter was like water falling into water in paradise!

"I have you," she said; "I have father – what do I care?"

"Quite so," I replied. "I think you take a very sensible view of it. The obvious thing to do is to relieve your father by coming with me to-night, while the coast is clear. Lady Brentford is in town. She will be delighted to receive you. Once out of the place, we can be free within an hour. To-morrow morning I can get a special license from the Archbishop of Canterbury and we can be married.

"Once that happens, I'll defy all the Santa Hermandads, and all the Mark Antony Midwinters in the world, to hurt you. And as for Mr. Morse, we'll protect him too, in a far more sensible way than – "

I suppose I had been holding her rather tightly. At any rate she broke away and stood up in the center of the little room. The brightness of her face was clouded with thought.

I had not risen and she stared down at me with great, smoldering eyes.

"So it is true!" she said, nodding her head, "it is true, father and I are in peril, after all! Names escaped you just now, I think I have heard one of them before – "

She passed her hand over her brow, like some one awaking from sleep, and I watched her, fascinated.

Oh, how lovely she was at that moment, my dear, my perfect dear!

"But, caro, of course I cannot run away with you and be married. I must stay with father, cannot you see that?"

Well, of course I did, there were no two words about it. "Very well," I answered, "Little Lady of my heart, I'll stick by the old chap too. I've crept up here in a sort of underhand way, but not for underhand reasons. After all, I've just as much right to love you as anybody else in this world."

I took her by her sweet hands and I laughed in her face.

"I'm not the Duke of Perth," I said, "but, but, Juanita – ?"

There came a little knocking at the door.

Juanita swirled round, flung up her arm – I saw her sweet face glowing for an instant – and then she seemed to whirl away like an autumn leaf.

The only thing I could possibly do was to light a cigarette.

Juanita, having met me, having delivered her ultimatum, having turned me into a jelly, flitted away quite oblivious of the fact that I was a burglar, an intruder into what was probably the most guarded and secret place in Europe at that moment.

My heart sang high music, and that was well. But at the same time I recognized that I was in the deuce of a mess and had planned out no course of action at all.

I prayed, almost audibly, for Pu-Yi.

But nobody came. There I was in the sexagonal room, with the gold dragons with their jeweled eyes leering at me.

A dull anger welled up within me. On every side, mentally as well as physically, I seemed baffled, hemmed in. I determined, at any risk to myself, to get out into the library. I took two steps towards the door through which Juanita had gone, when I heard a sharp snap just behind me.

I whipped round, clutching the only weapon I had – which was a brass knuckle-duster in the side pocket of my coat, and then I stood absolutely still.

One of the dragon panels had rolled up like a theater curtain, and standing in what appeared to be the end of a passage, was the great brute Mulligan, with a Winchester rifle at his shoulder, covering me.

As a man does in the presence of imminent danger, I swerved out of the line of the deadly barrel.

As I did so – click! A second panel disappeared, and I was confronted by Gideon Morse, his hands in the pockets of his dinner jacket, his mouth faintly smiling, his eyes inscrutable.

Imagine it! let the picture appear to you of the fool, Thomas Kirby, trapped like a rat!

Once, twice I swallowed in my throat, and I swear it wasn't from fear but only from an enormous, immeasurable disgust.

I turned to Morse.

"You've been listening," I said, "you and your servant here."

"I have been listening, Sir Thomas Kirby, that's true. I have every right to. When a man breaks into my house without my knowledge and makes clandestine love to my daughter, he's not the person to accuse one of eavesdropping. As for my servant there, you do me an injustice, which I find harder to forgive than anything, when you suggest that I allowed him to overhear what passed in this room just now. He was not at his post until Juanita had been gone from here some seconds. Mulligan, you can go now. Sir Thomas, please come with me into the library."

There was something so magnetic about this strange and compelling personality that I followed him without a word.

"Then you knew," I asked in a husky voice, "you knew all the time?"

He smiled.

"Yes," he said, "I arranged a little comedy. The faithful Mulligan was not drugged at all, and I did everything to facilitate your entrance."

"Then that treacherous cur, Pu-Yi, was playing with me the whole time! And yet I could have sworn that he was genuine. When I meet him – "

"You will shake hands with him if you are a wise man. Pu-Yi was absolutely genuine, but he, in common with my daughter, knew nothing of the truth until you told it him. He had believed me a madman. Then he understood not only the peril in which I was, and am, but also that of my daughter. Do you think, Kirby, that I should have built these towers, let imagination transcend itself, made myself the cynosure of Europe, unless I was sure of what I was doing? Now, alas, you've told Juanita, and brought terror into her life as well as mine."

"Sir," I said, "her relief is greater than any fear. I'll answer for that."

I faced him fair and square.

"God knows," I said, "I'm not worth a single glance of her sweet eyes, but somehow or other she loves me, though she wouldn't fly with me when I suggested it."

"She has some decent feeling left," he answered, with a dry chuckle. "Well, I overheard everything that passed in that little room and I must say I rather appreciate the way in which you behaved. You are a rapid thinker, Sir Thomas. What suggests itself to you as the next move in our relations?"

"Quite obvious, sir. You give your consent to my engagement with your daughter. You please her, you bind me to your interests by hoops of steel – though as a matter of fact I'm bound already – and you add a not invaluable auxiliary to your staff."

"Very well," he said, perfectly calmly, and held out his hand. "Now come and have some supper and tell me all you know."

Then that astonishing man thrust his arm through mine and led me down the great library.

"What a marvelous intellect that fellow Pu-Yi has," he said confidentially. "He saw the situation in all its bearings, from all sides at once, and made an instant decision. I'll tell you now, Kirby, that he actually predicted every detail of what has just come to pass. He told me that he owed you his life and was perfectly ready to die for you, as of course for me and my daughter, but that it had occurred to him that his living for all three of us might be by far the wisest attitude to adopt under the circumstances. I quite agree with him."

Then again came the little dry, strange chuckle.

"But no more peddling poppy-juice to my Chinese, my boy. It plays the devil with their nerves in the end!"