The City in the Clouds

"It would have been cheaper than this." I waved my hand to indicate the expensive crow's-nest of my future father-in-law.

Morse laughed.

"It wouldn't have made the least difference," he said. "The man couldn't hurt me at the time because he had to obey the orders of the villainous Society at his back. The old Marquis da Silva, who is simply a tool in their hands, insisted that I was not to be even interfered with in any way until the two years of grace from my first warning were up. Though their object was to get hold of half my fortune, and Midwinter's to revenge himself personally upon me, the Society and he didn't dare do anything until the moment struck. There were too many political issues still involved.

"That's why I made Mr. Mark Antony Midwinter dance out of the Ritz Hotel on that night."

"It's what Arthur Winstanley said."

"That young man will go far. Now, Kirby, I think you understand everything, and you've got to throw in your lot with Juanita and me, for a time at any rate, and never say you didn't know what you were up against."

I took a glass of claret and lit a cigarette.

"I understand the facts, as you say, but I don't understand you. Allowing for all your natural and deep anxiety about Juanita, I simply fail to understand why you regard this Midwinter and his companion or companions with such apprehension. Surely you could have the man locked up to-morrow, knowing what you know about him."

Morse sighed, with a sort of gentle patience.

"A few more facts," he said; "and do reflect that it's most improbable that a man of my intelligence and resources should act as he has done without being sure of what he was doing. In the first place, I've had Midwinter watched by the most famous detectives in America, watched for years. None of these people have ever been able quite to bowl him out – a simile from your English game of cricket. But three of the most trusted and acute agents have lost their lives during these investigations, and lost them in a singularly unpleasant manner."

He sighed again, this time wearily, and I saw that his face was old and without interest or hope.

"What on earth is the use," he went on, "of telling you all I know about this man? Sir" – his voice began to rise, and a light came into the dark depths of his eyes – "Sir, if I saw his corpse before me now, I wouldn't believe him dead or his power for evil ended until I had hacked his head from his shoulders with my own hand! You cannot, I say you simply cannot realize or understand the fiendish ingenuity, persistence, and icy cruelty of this being, for I will not insult our common humanity by calling it a man. If Juanita ever gets into his hands – "

His mouth, his whole face, was working, I thought he was going to have a fit, and truth to tell, something icy began to congeal around my own heart.

"Calm yourself, sir," I said, as authoritatively as I could. "Juanita is doubly safe now that I am here, and as for Midwinter, he'll never approach us here. It's beyond the wit of mortal man, and, meanwhile, I'll see that he's apprehended and removed from all power of doing harm. I am only a young man, Mr. Morse, but I'm rather a power in the land. You see I have an important newspaper at my back, and as for you, who have already made the Government feed out of your hand in the matter of these towers, you should have gone to the Home Secretary in the first instance. At any rate, we'll go together, and believe me, we shall be listened to."

"I thank you, my dear boy," he replied with an effort, "but there is such a thing as Fate, and Fate has whispered in my ear. I am not naturally a superstitious man, but during a life spent in strange places among strange people I have learnt to be very wary of a material interpretation of life. But this I will say, whatever I feel about myself, however my precautions might fail, I believe that my dear daughter will win to safety in the end, that the power of evil will be overcome, and that you will be her savior."

I could have sworn, as he shook hands and bade me good-night, there was a tear in the great man's eye, and I wondered how long it was since any one had seen that in this master of millions and of men.

A picturesque young Chinaman, a valet in flowing Oriental robes, who spoke English with the most appalling cockney accent you ever heard in your life, conducted me to a charming bedroom, provided me with everything necessary, and in five minutes I fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.

A really full day, wasn't it?

When I woke up the next morning my room was flooded with sunshine from a dome in the ceiling.

Seated upon my bed, and balancing a cup of tea, was Master Bill Rolston. His hair was restored to its natural red, his nose normal, and his high cheek-bones were gone. On each side of his chubby face his transparent ears stood out at right angles, and his button of a mouth was wreathed in a genial smile.

"Good old Pu-Yi came for me about two o'clock this morning, Sir Thomas, and told me all that had happened. I say, sir, what a man to have on the staff of the Evening Special! What an intellect!" – I seemed to have heard that phrase before. "Why, we'd have him dictating to Cabinet Ministers within a year!"

I lay idly watching this brilliant and faithful boy; journalist once, I reflected, journalist forever. There's no getting it out of the blood, and here, if I'm not mistaken, when many of us have faded away from Fleet Street forever, will be the biggest of us all.

I was surprised to find that Bill was distinctly on the side of Gideon Morse in his anticipation of evil. We argued it out while I was dressing and I insisted that the City was impregnable.

"To all ordinary appearance, to all ordinary efforts, yes. But I shall never change my belief that there's nothing that human wit can invent that human wit cannot circumvent."

After breakfast, which I took alone, the servant led me to a great white house standing among conservatories, which I learned was almost an exact reproduction of the Palacete Mendoza, the residence of Gideon Morse at Rio. And there, in her own charming sitting-room, fragrant with flowers and stamped in a hundred ways with her personality, Juanita was waiting. She was radiant. Happiness lay about her like sunbeams. I never saw any one more changed than she was from the girl I had met the night before.

"Come, dearest," she said, "and I'll show you some of our wonders. I could not show you all of them in one day. Oh, Tom, isn't it all splendid, couldn't you sing and shout for joy!"

I helped her into a fur coat – for it was bitter cold outside, though the wind of the night before had dropped – and was provided with one myself as we left the house. Standing in the patio was a little two-seated automobile, a tiny toy of a thing run from electric storage batteries, which made no noise louder than the humming of a wasp. We got into this and Juanita was like a child as she pulled the starting lever and we rolled away.

I have said I woke to find my bedroom full of sunlight, but, as we glided down an arcade of conservatories, upon each side of the road, so that the illusion of passing among a palm grove was almost complete, I noticed that dark and angry clouds were gathering not far above our heads, and it was through one single aperture that the sunlight poured. The effect of this, when we ran through the tunneled archway and came out into a great square, was curious. A third of the buildings which towered up on every side were bathed in glory, the rest, gray, sullen, and throwing shadows of sable upon the lawns, gravel sweeps, and parquet flooring. We investigated a dozen marvels of which I shall not speak here. The whole experience was a dream of luxury so wonderful, and so fantastic also, that my readers must wait for William Rolston's book, now nearing completion. It was impossible to believe that we were actually walking, motoring, more than two thousand feet above London in a little world of our own which bore no relation whatever to ordinary human life.

This was especially borne in upon me with overwhelming force when we had ascended the steps of a tower and came out into a glass chamber on the roof, where an old Chinese gentleman with tortoise-shell spectacles showed us the great telescope which Morse had installed. Following the shifting path of sunlight, I got a dim glimpse of the English Channel over a far-flung champaign of fertile woods and downs, studded here and there with toy towns the size of threepenny-pieces. Once, but only for a moment, I made out the great towers of Canterbury Cathedral, but the sun shifted and the vision passed. London itself, brought immediately to our feet, was an astonishing sight, but as every one has seen the photographs taken from aeroplanes I will not dilate upon it, though it differed in many ways from these.

Perhaps the most pleasing sight of all was that of Richmond Park, where the winter Fair had just begun. We could see the roundabouts, the swings, and so forth, with great clearness, and even, as the wind freshened, catch a faint buzzing noise from the steam organs. Then a captive balloon rose up, I suppose a thousand feet, and some quarter of a mile away. With powerful field glasses we could see the big basket crammed with adventurous trippers, till she was hauled down again to make another ascent and add a few more pounds to the profits of her proprietors.

I was quite tired when we went back to the house to lunch.

During the meal, which was long and elaborate, Morse showed a side of his nature I had never before seen. He was not jovial or in high spirits – distinctly not that – but he was strangely tender and human. I realized the immense love he had for Juanita, and wondered how he could ever bear to see her love me. But he was kindness itself – like a father, to the interloper who had stormed his fortress, and I always like to think of him as he was on that afternoon, full of anecdotes about his youth, of Juanita's mother, of the old days in Brazil. It was my formal whole-hearted reception into his life. Henceforth I was to be – he said it once in well and delicately-chosen words – a son to him, who had never had a son.

In the afternoon I went back to my own quarters, which consisted of a villa at the end of the Palace gardens, where I was lodged with Rolston, and attended by various well-trained Chinamen. I had rarely seen a more delightful bachelor dwelling. I took a cup of tea with Bill about four o'clock. It was now quite dark, and the bitter wind was rising again, but heavy curtains of tussore silk were pulled over the windows, a fire of yew logs burned in the open hearth, and softly shaded electric lights all combined to produce the coziest and most homelike effect it is possible to imagine.

It was then that a man came in to say that Mr. Pu-Yi begged the honor of an audience.

Bill vanished, and my thin, ascetic friend glided in, and at my invitation sank into a chair by the fire. I don't think, in the whole course of my life, I could recall a conversation which touched, interested, and excited my admiration more than this, and I have met every one "from Emperor to Clown." He apologized profoundly for his seeming treachery. With a wealth of lucid self-analysis and the power of presenting a clear statement which I have seldom heard equaled, he showed how he was torn between his new-born debtorship to me, his loyalty to Morse, for whom he professed a profound esteem, and – here he hinted with extraordinary finesse– his mute adoration for Juanita.

"It was, Sir Thomas, touch and go, of course. I was in the position of a surgeon who has to risk everything upon one heroic stroke of the knife. I did so, and behold, all the conflicting elements are reconciled. The pieces of the puzzle have come together."

"My friend," I said, "betray me twenty million times if you can bring me such happiness as you have brought. Besides, it wasn't a betrayal, it was a great brain leading a smaller one to its appointed goal."

We talked a little more, he drank tea, he smoked, and, to my growing discomfort, I found in him the same note of pessimism and apprehension that Morse could not conceal, and Rolston himself had partially revealed.

"But I won't believe that any harm can come to Miss Morse," I said, almost angrily.

The thin lips smiled.

"That I never said, Sir Thomas. There are no indications of that. You and your lady are in peril, but you will win through."

"Confound it, man, your liver must be out of order. It seems to me that captivity in this magnificent bird-cage has the same effect on every one. I shall get Morse to come and hunt with me in the Shires. I've got a nice little box in Gloucestershire, close to Chipping Norton, and by Jove, Pu-Yi, I'll mount you and give you a run with the Heythrope. You talk as if you actually knew something. As if you had information of a calamity."

"I hear it in the wind," he said strangely, and his voice was like a withered leaf blown before the wind. Then he left me.

I dined with Juanita and her father. Bill was asked too, and he kept my girl, and sometimes even Mr. Morse, in fits of laughter with stories of his short but erratic career, and especially a racy account of his illicit opium-selling down below.

"You see, sir," he said, "you brought it on yourself, by kidnaping me in the first instance. I had to get my own back."

Morse's face clouded over for a moment.

"It was a disgraceful thing to do," he said. "I quite admit it, but had the necessity arisen I'd have kidnaped George Robey or the Prince of Wales," and from that moment always I seemed to see that a faint but perceptible shadow was creeping over his spirits.

We had a little music, in a charming room built for the purpose. Juanita played upon the guitar and sang little Spanish love songs. Bill "obliged" with a ditty which he said was a favorite of the revered Charles Lamb, which seemed to consist entirely of the following lines:

"Diddle-diddle-dumpling, my son JohnWent to bed with his breeches on."

I think that when Juanita said good-night to us all – and to me privately in the passage – she went to bed quite happy and cheerful.

About half-past ten Bill slipped off and I remained to smoke a final cigar with Morse.

"I'm low, Thomas," he said, "I'm very low to-night."

I made him take a little whisky and potash – a thing he rarely did.

"It's the unnatural life, sir, that you've condemned yourself to recently. You come out of this and hunt with me in Gloucestershire and I'll protect you as well as you're protected here, and you'll get as right as rain."

"You're very kind," he replied, "but – take care of her, Kirby, for God's sake, take care of her. She'll have no one else in the world but you if they get me or Pu-Yi."

I was about to expostulate again when the door opened and Boss Mulligan slouched in.

"Been all round the City, governor, with the usual patrol. Everything quiet, nothing unusual anywhere. All the servants have given in their tallies and are safe in their quarters."

Morse looked at me.

"That's our system, Tom," he said. "At a certain hour all the servants go to the lower stage, except those that may be urgently wanted. For instance, there's a fellow in your house to valet you to-night. Juanita has her little Spanish maid, and I think Pu-Yi keeps some one. Otherwise we are all to ourselves up here. All the lift doors are locked on the second stage and so is the central staircase. Mulligan here is on guard all night in the room where you saw him."

"An' watchin' ye from the ind of me eye, Sorr Thomas," said the genial ruffian, "av ye'll belave ut."

"You're a good actor, Mulligan," I said – it seemed about the only thing I could say.

"Sure, an' I am that," he said, "I am that, sorr, but I'm a bether doer. An' av ye'd reely bin staling in – "

His immense fist clenched itself and he shook it in my direction.

"Mulligan, go back to the guard-room," said Morse, "you're drunk."

The giant's face changed from ferocity into pained surprise.

"But av course, sorr," he said, "it's me usual time, as your honor must know. But begob, I'm efficient!"

The mingled grin and glare on his countenance when Mr. Mulligan went away left no doubt in my mind about that.

A few minutes afterwards, certainly not drunk, and I hope efficient, I left the Palacete Mendoza, and walked through the gardens to the villa. Morse himself barred the door after me.

It was bitter, aching cold and the wind was razor-keen. Gaunt wreaths of mist were all around like a legion of ghosts, and I realized that the clouds were descending upon us, and soon I should not be able to see a yard before me, though the electric lamps that never went out all night, over the whole City, glowed with a dim blueness here and there through the fog.

However, I found the villa all right, and my Chinese boy waiting in the hall. He took my coat, saw that the fires in the sitting-room and the adjoining bedroom were made up, and then I told him he might be off to his quarters on the second stage, for which he seemed extremely thankful.

I don't suppose he had been gone more than a minute when the door of my sitting-room opened and Rolston came in quickly. He was wearing a dressing-gown and pyjamas and his hair was all rough like one recently aroused from sleep.

"What on earth's the matter?" I said.

"I undressed," he said, "in my bedroom, which is just above yours as you know, and fell asleep in my chair with all the lights on. I woke only a short time ago, and before switching off the lamps I went to the window to see what sort of a night it was."

"Hellish, if you want to know."

"The light streamed out upon a great curtain of mist, almost like the projector lamp upon a screen of a kinema. Sir Thomas, as I stood there I could swear that something big, black and oblong sank down from that darkness above, passed through my zone of light and disappeared in the blackness below."

"What on earth do you mean, what sort of a thing?"

He hesitated for a moment and then he said:

"Almost like a group of statuary, though I only saw it for a mere instant."

He had obviously been half dreaming when he went to the window, his eyes, even now, were heavy with sleep.

"Simply and solely a trick of the wind upon the mist, and your own figure interposing between the light and the window, and throwing a momentary shade on the swaying white curtain outside. The mist's as thick as linen and it changes every moment. You go to bed properly, and sleep the sleep of the just."

He didn't attempt to argue, but looked a little ashamed of himself for obtruding for such a trivial reason. Ten minutes afterwards I was also in bed and fast asleep.

CHAPTER TWELVE

I had ordered my Chinese boy to wake me at eight. In one corner of the Grand Square was a beautifully fitted gymnasium with a swimming-bath adjoining. I proposed three-quarters of an hour's vigorous exercise before dressing.

At it happens I generally wake more or less at the time I want to. This morning, however, it was half-past eight. There was no sound of Chang whatever. I got out of bed, put on a sweater, Norfolk jacket, flannel trousers, and tennis shoes – I had sent for a portmanteau of clothes from the "Golden Swan" – went across the hall and let myself out into the gardens.

Then I hesitated in amazement. A thick, heavy, impenetrable mist hid everything from sight. It seemed as solid as wool. One literally had to push one's way through it, and when I say that I couldn't see more than a yard before my face, I mean it in the strict sense of the words. Still, I remembered that I have a good sense of topography, and I was quite confident that I could find my way to the central Square, where there would be sure to be people about whom I could ask.

From my front door there was a good hundred and twenty yards of wide gravel path to the Palacete Mendoza. I sprinted up this in less than twenty seconds I should say, and then warily turned into the palm-tree grove – the great sheets of plated glass on either side of the way were in place now, but I knew where I was because of the different quality of the ground, which was here paved with wood blocks. Soon, a faint gray mass to my right, the palace itself loomed up, but the blanket of mist was too thick for me to discern windows or doors. One could see nothing but the gray hint of mass.

The curious thing was that one could hear nothing either. That had not struck me as I did my sprint, but now it did, and most forcibly. Of course there was no sound of wind – had there been any wind we should not have been buried in the very heart of this fog – thicker and more sticky than anything I had ever experienced in the Alps themselves. But there were no sounds of occupation such as an extensive place like the City might have been expected to produce at this hour, and in fact, as I realized, did produce, when I remembered yesterday. The place was never noisy. It was a haunt of peace if ever there was one. But the sound of gardeners and servants going about their daily toil, the distant throbbing of an engine perhaps, a subdued voice giving an order, the plashing of fountains, and the strains of music, all these were utterly and entirely absent. It was as though the mist killed not only vision but hearing also. I might have been on the top of Mont Blanc.

"What little town by harbor or sea-shoreIs empty of its folk this pious morn?"

I quoted to myself with a laugh, just as I entered the arched tunnel wide enough for two coaches to be driven under it abreast, which I knew led to Grand Square.

I laughed, and then quite suddenly all laughter went out of me. I couldn't explain it at the moment, but the mist, the loneliness, my whole surroundings, seemed quite horrible.

Surely something had passed me? I called out, and my voice seemed like the bleating of a sheep. Of course, it was illusion. My nerves had suddenly gone wrong. But, honestly, I felt that there was something nasty in the atmosphere, nasty from a psychic point of view I mean. There are moments when the human soul turns sick and retches with disgust, and I experienced such a moment now. I think it was exactly then that I knew, though I wouldn't allow myself to believe it, that I knew inwardly all was not well. I walked on and my india-rubber shoes seemed to make a sly, unpleasant noise – it was the only one I heard even now.

I could see nothing, I was quite uncertain of where I was, so I turned and walked straight to the right until, from the impact of the air upon my face, I knew that I was within a yard or so of some building. This was correct. My hand touched what seemed like stonework, and glancing up I became aware that a building rose high above.

I followed this along, keeping my hand on the stone, moving it round projecting buttresses and going with great caution. This insect-like progression seemed to be endless. I took out my watch, which I had shoved into the breast pocket of my Norfolk jacket. It was nearly nine o'clock, and not a single sound!

A second or two afterwards I came to a balustrade, felt my way along it, and found that I was at the foot of a broad flight of steps. There seemed something vaguely familiar here, and as I ran up them I began to be sure that I was at the library. I knew that Pu-Yi lived somewhere on the premises and I felt all over the great iron-studded door until I came to the small postern wicket through which one generally entered. This was locked, but a bell-pull of wrought iron hung at the side and I pulled at it lustily for a considerable time.

It opened with a jerk and Pu-Yi stood there in his skull cap with the coral button on the top and wrapped in a bear-skin robe.

"Thank goodness I've found some one," I said. "I've lost my way. I was going to the gymnasium, to exercise a little and then have a swim. My boy didn't turn up so I came out by myself."

"Come in, come in, Sir Thomas," he said, peering out at the white curtain. "What a dreadful morning! I've been here some months now, but I have never seen it so bad as this. I daresay it will blow off by nine o'clock or so when the sun gets up."

"It's nine o'clock now," I told him.

He started violently.

"Then my servant also is at fault," he said. "I ordered my coffee for eight. I was reading far into the night and must have overslept myself. This is very curious."