The City in the Clouds

I was left alone in Birmingham House.

It was the queerest possible sensation, and as I crossed the great inner hall, with its tapestries and gleaming statuary, lit now by two single electric bulbs, I don't deny that my heart was beating a good deal faster than was pleasant. There is always something ghostly about an empty house, more especially when it is fully furnished and ready for occupation. The absence of all life is uncanny, and one seems to feel that it is hidden, not absent, and that at any moment a door may open and some enigmatic stranger be standing there with an unpleasant welcome in his eyes.

Well, I slunk through all the glories of the grand hall, passed down the passage, and came out into the servants' quarters. The little lobby, the floor of which was covered with cork matting, was well lit, and so were the stairs. I peered over the rail, but could not see to the bottom; but, standing in the door of the room called the butler's pantry, I saw that I could put a bullet through the head of any one appearing, before he could have the slightest inkling of my presence, before he could slew round, even, to face me.

The butler's pantry itself was a fair-sized, comfortable room, with a carpet on the floor and a couple of worn, padded armchairs by the fireplace. The walls were hung with photographs; on one side was a business-like roll-top desk, and in a corner a large safe which obviously contained the plate in daily use in the great household. I knew that the bulk of the valuables were stored in a strong room in Chancery Lane.

Upon the table Mr. Sliddim had thoughtfully placed a heavy cut-glass decanter half full of whisky, a siphon, and —glasses! The whisky was all right, but did he expect me to hobnob with Antony Midwinter, to speed the parting guest, as it were, with a stirrup-cup? It was difficult to suspect him of such grim humor.

I looked at my watch. There was still a good half-hour before Midwinter and Sliddim were due to meet in the little public house behind the Square. I saw that my pistol was handy, and sat down in one of the armchairs by the fireside. A pipe of the incomparable "John Cotton" would not be amiss, I thought, wondering if I should ever taste its fragrance again, and for some minutes I sat and smoked, placidly enough. Then, I suppose a quarter of an hour or so must have elapsed, I began to fidget in my chair.

The house was so terribly still! Still, but not quite silent! Time, that was ticking away so rapidly, had a score of small voices. There was the faint noise of taxicabs out in the Square, the drip of the rain, an occasional stealthy creak from the furniture, the scurry of a mouse in the wainscot; the more remote chambers of my brain began to fill with riot, and once my nerves jerked like a hooked fish.

And even now I do not think it was fear. Terror, perhaps – there is a subtle distinction – but not craven fear. I think, perhaps, it was more the sense of something coldly evil that might even now be approaching through the fog and rain, a lost soul inspired with cunning, hatred, and ferocity, whom I must meet in deadly contact within a short, but unknown, space of time…

"This won't do at all!" I thought, and then my eye fell on Mr. Sliddim's hospitable preparations. I got up, went round to the other side of the table, put my pistol down upon it, and mixed a stiff peg.

My back was now to the open door, and I was just lifting the glass to my lips, eagerly enough, I am afraid, when, very softly, something descended upon each of my shoulders.

I had not heard a sound of any sort, save the gurgle of the aerated water in the glass, but now a shriek like that of a frightened woman rang out into the room, and it came from me.

I was gripped horribly by the back of the throat, whirled round with incredible speed and force, and flung heavily against the opposite wall, falling sideways into an armchair, gasping for breath and my eyes staring out of my head.

Then I saw him. Mark Antony Midwinter was standing on the other side of the table, smiling at me. He wore a fashionable morning coat and a silk hat. Under his left arm was a gold-headed walking-cane, and he carried his gloves in his left hand. In the right was the gleaming blue-black of an automatic pistol, pointed at my heart.

At that, I pulled myself together. In an instant I knew that I had failed. The brute must already have been in the house when Sliddim admitted me – he had outwitted all of us!

"Ah!" he said, "Sir Thomas Kirby! You have crossed my path very many times of late, Sir Thomas, and I have long wished to make your acquaintance."

His voice was suave and cultured. The rather full, clean-shaved face had elements of fineness – many women would have called him a handsome man. But in his dull and opaque eyes there was such a glare of cold malignity, such unutterable cruelty and hate, that the whole room grew like an ice-house in a moment; for it is not often that any man sees a veritable fiend of hell looking out of the eyes of another.

"You have come a little earlier than I expected," I managed to say, but my voice rang cracked and thin.

"It is a precaution that I frequently take, Sir Thomas, and one very much justified in the present instance. To tell the truth, I had little or no suspicion that I was walking into a trap – that much to you! But a life of shocks" – here he laughed pleasantly, but the little steel disk pointed at my heart never wavered a hair's breadth – "has taught me always to have something in reserve. I see that I shall not have the pleasure of settling accounts with Mr. Gideon Morse and his daughter to-night. Well, that can wait. Meanwhile, I propose within a few seconds to remove another obstacle from my path – do you think the mandarin, Pu-Yi, will be waiting for you at the golden gates, Sir Thomas Kirby?"

So this was the end! I braced myself to meet it.

"How long?" I said.

"I will count a hundred slowly," he answered.

He began, and I stared dumbly at the pistol. I could not think – I could not commend my soul to my Maker even. The function of thought was entirely arrested.

"Thirty … thirty-one … thirty-two!"

And then I suddenly burst out laughing.

My laughter, I know, was perfectly natural, full of genuine merriment. Something had happened which seemed to me irresistibly comic. He stopped and stared at me, his face changing ever so little.

"May I ask," he said, "what tickled your sense of humor?"

What had tickled my sense of humor was this. Stealing round from behind him, right under his very nose, so to speak, but quite unseen, was an arm which with infinite care and slowness was removing the heavy cut-glass decanter from the table. It vanished. It reappeared in the air behind him in a flashing diamond and amber circle.

"Have some whisky, Mr. Midwinter," I said, as it descended with a crash upon the side of his head.

Without a sound he sank into a huddled heap out of my sight, hidden by the table.

"You little devil!" I said, staggering to my feet, for Bill Rolston stood there, white-faced and grinning. "I had to come, Sir Thomas," he said, "it wasn't any use."

"Have you killed him, Bill?"

We bent down and made an examination. Midwinter's face was dark and suffused with blood, but his pulses were all right.

"What a pity!" said Rolston. "Help me to get him on to that chair, Sir Thomas, and we'll tie him up. If I had killed him, it would have been so much simpler!"

We dragged the unconscious man to the very armchair where I had sat under the menace of his pistol, and, tearing the tablecloth into strips, tied him securely.

"Fortunately," said Bill, "I didn't break the decanter. The stopper didn't even come out! You look pretty sick, Sir Thomas" – and indeed a horrible feeling of nausea had come over me, and my hands were shaking – "let's each have a drink and then I'll tell you what I think."

We sat down on each side of the table, and I listened to him as if the whole thing were some curious dream. For the second time I had been snatched from the very brink of death, and though I suppose I ought to have been getting used to it my only sensation was one of limpness and collapse.

"Can you do it?" my little friend said, pointing to the pistol between us.

I took it up, weighed it in my hand, half-pointed it at the stiff, red-faced figure in the chair, and laid it down again.

"No, I'm damned if I can!" I answered. And then – I must have been more than half-dazed – I actually said: "You have a go, Bill."

He looked at me in horror.

"Murder him in cold blood! I should never know a moment's peace, Sir Thomas!"

"Well, you nearly did it in hot, and you've just been tempting me – "

"Let us bring him to, if we can," he said, tactfully changing the conversation and advancing upon our friend with the siphon of soda-water.

There was a grotesque horror about the whole of our adventure that night. I laughed weakly as the soda hissed and the stream of aerated water splashed over Midwinter's face.

Before the final gurgle he awoke. His eyes opened without speculation. Then his jaw dropped. For a moment his face was as vacant as a doll's, and then it flared up into a snarl of realization and hatred, only, in another instant, to settle down into a dead calm.

"My turn now," I said.

He knew the game was up. I will do him the justice to say he did not flinch.

"Very well, count a hundred," was his answer, and his eye fell to the two pistols on the table – his own and mine.

I shook my head. "I can't do it – I wish I could!"

"You'll find it quite easy – I speak from experience," he replied, with a desperate, evil grin.

"No. I have talked the situation over with my friend. You are going to die, that is very certain, but not by my hand now, and not, Mr. Midwinter, by the hand of the English law."

He was very quick. Even then he had an inkling of my meaning, for a perceptible shadow fell over his face and his eyes narrowed to slits.

"You mean?"

"We are going to telephone to the City in the Clouds. People will come from there and take you away – that will be easily managed. You will have some form of trial, and then – execution."

I never saw a change from red to white so sudden. That big face suddenly became a hideous, sickly white, toneless and opaque like the belly of a sole.

"You won't deliver me to the Chinese?" he gasped. "You can't know them as I do. They'd take a week killing me! They have horrible secrets – "

His voice died away in a whimper, and if ever I saw a man in deadly terror, it was that man then.

But I hardened my heart. I remembered how Morse and Juanita had suffered for two years at this man's hands. I remembered four murders, to my own knowledge, and I shrugged my shoulders.

"I can't help that. You have made your bed, and you must lie upon it."

"But such a bed!" he murmured, and his head fell forward on his chest.

His arms were bound at the elbow, but he could move the lower portion, and he now brought his right hand to his face.

"I'll telephone," said Bill, and went to the wall by the door where hung the instrument.

I sat gloomily watching the man in the chair.

What was he doing? His jaw was moving up and down. He seemed biting at his wrist.

Suddenly there was a slight, tearing, ripping noise, followed by a jerk backwards of his head and a deep intake of the breath.

"What is he doing?" Rolston said, turning round with the receiver of the telephone at his ear.

Midwinter held out his arm. I saw that the braid round the cuff of his morning coat was hanging in a little strip.

"I told you I always had something in reserve," he said, showing all his teeth as he grinned at me. "Always something up my sleeve – literally, in this case. I have just swallowed a little capsule of prussic acid which – "

If you want to learn of how a man dies who has swallowed hydrocyanic acid – the correct term, I believe – consult a medical dictionary. It is not a pleasant thing to see in actual operation, but, thank heavens, it is speedy!

The sweat was pouring down my face when it was over, but Bill Rolston had not turned a hair.

"Put something over his face, Sir Thomas," he said, "and I'll get through to Mr. Morse."