The City in the Clouds

He put his head close to mine and I felt his hot breath upon my cheek.

"It's Mr. William Rolston, Sir Thomas," he said. "I'm not in his confidence, though I have long admired his abilities and predicted a great future for him. He's come to me in distress and I am doing what I can to 'elp 'im – this being a day when they've no job for me at the office."

"Good Lord! why didn't you speak to me this morning, if you've been following me all day?"

He shook his head.

"Wouldn't have done. Mr. Rolston's instructions was different and he has his reasons, though I'm not in his confidence. I've done it out of admiration for his talents, and no doubt some day he'll be in a position to pay me for my work."

"Pay you, you idiot!" I could have taken him by the throat and shaken the fool. "Mr. Rolston knows very well that he can command any money he chooses. He's a member of my staff."

We were now walking along together towards Westminster.

"That's as may be," said my seedy friend, "but 'e 'adn't a brass farthing this morning, and come to that, Sir Thomas, if you'd got into another blinking taxi, you'd have snookered me!"

"Where do you live?" I asked impatiently.

"Not far from where you 'ad your lunch, Sir Thomas. 15, Imperial Mansions, Royal Road, Stepney."

"It's a magnificent address," I said, as I held out my stick for a cab.

"It's a block o' workmen's buildings, reely," he replied gloomily, "and in the thick of the Chinese quarter, which makes it none too savory. But an Englishman's house is his castle and he has the 'progative to call it what he likes."

Back east we went again and in half an hour I was mounting interminable stone steps to a door nearly at the top of "Imperial Mansions," which my guide, who during our drive had introduced himself to me as Mr. Herbert Sliddim, announced as his home. In a dingily furnished room, sitting on a molting, plush sofa I saw the curious little man to whom I had so taken months ago. He was shabby almost to beggary. His face was pale and worn, which gave him an aspect of being much older than I had imagined him. But his irrepressible ears stood out as of yore and his eyes were not dimmed.

"Hallo," I said, "glad to see you, Mr. Rolston, though you've neglected us at the office for a long time. Your arrears of salary have been mounting up."

His hand was trembling as I gripped it.

"Oh, Sir Thomas," he said, "do you really mean that I am still on the staff?"

"Of course you are, my dear boy."

I turned to Mr. Sliddim.

"Now I wonder," I said, "if I might have a little quiet conversation with Mr. Rolston."

"By all means," he replied. "I'll wait in the courtyard."

"I shouldn't do that, Mr. Sliddim. Why not take a tour round?"

I led him out of the room into the passage which served for hall, pressed a couple of pounds into his hand and had the satisfaction of seeing him leap away down the stairs like an antelope.

"That's all right," said Rolston. "Now he'll go and get blotto, it's the poor devil's failing. Still, he'll be happy."

I sat down, passed my cigarette case to Rolston, and waited for him to begin.

He sort of came to attention.

"I was rung up, Sir Thomas, at your flat – at least your valet was – and told to come to the office of the Evening Special at once."

"I know, go on."

"I dressed as quickly as I could, ran down the stairs and jumped into the waiting cab. The door banged and we started off. The engines must have been running, for we went away like a flash. There was some one else sitting there. A hand clapped over my mouth and an arm round my body. I couldn't move or speak. Then the thumb of the hand did something to the big nerves behind my ear. It's an Oriental trick and I had just realized it when something wet and sweet was pressed over my mouth and nose, and I lost all consciousness.

"When I woke up I found myself in a fair-sized room, lit by a skylight high up in the roof. There was a bed, a table, a chair, and various other conveniences, and I hadn't the slightest idea where I could be. My head ached and I felt bruised all over, so I drank a glass of water, crawled back into the bed and slept. When I woke again there was an affable Chink sitting by my side, who spoke quite good English.

"'You will,' he said, 'be kept here for some time in durance, yess. It's an unfortunate necessity, yess.'

"I heard on all sides familiar noises. I knew in a moment what had happened. I had been brought back to the works at the base of the three towers."

"All this fits in very well with what I now know, Rolston. I'll tell you everything in a minute, but I want to hear your story first."

"Very good, Sir Thomas. For over three months I've been kept a prisoner at Richmond. I wasn't badly treated. I had anything I liked to eat and drink, any books to read – tobacco, a bath – everything but newspapers, which were rigidly denied me. I wasn't kept entirely to my prison room. I was allowed to go out and take exercise within the domain surrounded by the great thirty-foot wall, though I was never let to roam about as I wished. There was always a big Chinese coolie with a leaded cane attending me, a man that only spoke a few words of English.

"Now, Sir Thomas, please remember this. From first to last none of my jailers knew that I understood Chinese. And none of them knew or suspected that I had been among the workmen before, in order to get materials for the scoop with which I came to you."

I saw the value of that at once.

"Good for you, Rolston; now please continue."

"Well, Sir Thomas, I kept my eyes and ears very wide open and I learnt a lot. Things were being prepared with a feverish activity of which the people outside had not the slightest idea. I found that round the base of the towers, in the miniature park inclosed by the high wall, there were already magnificent vegetable gardens in active being. There were huge conservatories which must have been set up when the towers were only a few hundred feet high, now full of the rarest flowers and shrubs. In my walks, I saw a miniature poultry farm, conducted on the most up-to-date methods; there was a dairy, with four or five cows – already this part of the huge inclosure was assuming a rural aspect. It must have been planned and started nearly two years ago."

"You asked questions, I suppose?"

"Any amount, as innocently as I possibly could. I got very little out of my captors in reply. Your Chinaman is the most secretive person in the world. But, I heard them talking among themselves; and I was amazed at the calculated organization which had been going on without cessation from the beginning.

"It all fitted in exactly with what I told you at the Special office. It was as though Mr. Morse was planning a little private world of his own, which would be independent of everything outside."

"And about the towers themselves?"

"It will take me hours to tell you. In one quarter of the inclosure there are great dynamo sheds – an electric installation inferior to nothing else of its kind in the world. The great lifts which rise and fall in the towers are electric. Heating, lighting, artificial daylight for the conservatories – all are electric.

"Where I was kept," he went on, "was nearly a quarter of a mile from the engineering section, but I knew that it hummed with extraordinary activity night and day. I discovered that structural buildings of light steel were pouring in from America, that an army of decorators and painters was at work; vans of priceless Oriental furniture and hangings were arriving from all parts of the world, rare flowers and shrubs also. Sir Thomas, it was as though the Universe was being searched for wonders – all to be concentrated here.

"This went on and on till I lost count of the days and lived in a sort of dream, kindly treated enough, allowed to see many secret things, and always with a sense that because this was so, I should never again emerge into the real world."

"I can understand that, Rolston. Every word you say interests me extremely."

"I'll come to the present, Sir Thomas. You can ask me any details that you like afterwards. A few days ago everything was speeded up to extraordinary pitch. Then, late one night, there was a great to-do, and in the morning I learned that Mr. Morse and his family had arrived, and that they were up at the top. I have found out since that this was the fourteenth of September."

"The fourteenth!" I cried.

"Yes, Sir Thomas, the fourteenth. The next day, it was late in the afternoon and the sun was setting, two Chinamen came into my room, tied a handkerchief over my eyes and led me out. I was put into one of the little electric railways – open cars which run all over the inclosure – and taken to the base of the towers.

"I don't know which tower it was, but I was led into a lift and a long, slow ascent began. I knew that I was in one of the big carrying lifts that take a long time to do the third of a mile up to the City, not one of the quick-running elevators which leap upwards from stage to stage for passengers and arrive at the top in a comparatively short space of time.

"When the lift stopped they took off the handkerchief and I found myself in a great whitewashed barn of a place which was obviously a storeroom. There were bales of stuff, huge boxes and barrels on every side.

"The men who had brought me up were just rough Chinese workmen from Hong Kong, but a door opened and a Chink of quite another sort came in and took me by the arm.

"You see, Sir Thomas," he explained, "to the ordinary Englishman one Chinaman is just like another, but my experience in the East enables me to distinguish at once.

"The newcomer was of a very superior class, and he led me out of the storeroom, across a swaying bridge of latticed steel to a little rotunda. As we passed along, I had a glimpse of the whole of London, far, far below. The Thames was like a piece of glittering string. Everything else were simply patches of gray, green, and brown.

"We went into the cupola and a tiny lift shot us up like a bullet until it stopped with a clank and I knew that I was now upon the highest platform of all.

"But I could see nothing, for we simply turned down a long corridor lighted by electricity and softly carpeted, which might have been the corridor of one of the great hotels far down below in town.

"My conductor, who wore pince-nez and a suit of dark blue alpaca and who had a charming smile, stopped at a door, rapped, and pushed me in.

"I found myself in a room of considerable size. It was a library. The walls were covered with shelves of old oak, in which there were innumerable books. A Turkey carpet, two or three writing-tables – and Mr. Gideon Morse, whom I had never spoken to, but had seen driving in Hyde Park, sat there smoking a cigar.

"I might have been in the library of a country house, except for two things. There were no windows to this large and gracious room. It was lit from above, like a billiard-room – domed skylights in the roof. But the light that came down was not a light like anything I had ever seen. It lit up every detail of the magnificent and stately place, but it was new – 'the light that never was on earth or sea.' It was just that that made me realize where I was – two thousand three hundred feet up in the air, alone with Gideon Morse, who had snatched me out of life three months before."

"I know Mr. Morse, Rolston. What impression did he make on you?"

"For a moment he stunned me, Sir Thomas. I knew I was in the presence of a superman. All that I had heard about him, all the legends that surrounded his name, the fact of this stupendous sky city in which I was – the ease with which he had stretched out his hand and made me a prisoner, all combined to produce awe and fear."

"Yes, go on."

"I saw two other things – I think I did. One was that the man's sanity is trembling in the balance. The other that if ever a human being lives and moves and has his being in deadly temporal fear, Gideon Mendoza Morse is that man."

The words rang out in that East-end room with prophetic force. It was as though a brilliant light was snapped on to illumine a dark chamber in my soul.

"What did he say to you, Rolston?"

"He was suavity and kindness itself. He said that he immensely regretted the necessity for secluding me so long. 'But of course I shall make it up to you. You're a young man, Mr. Rolston, only just commencing your career. A little capital would doubtless assist that career, in which I may say I have every belief. Shall we say that you leave Richmond this afternoon with a solatium of five hundred pounds?'

"'A thousand would suit me better,' I said.

"He shrugged his shoulders, and suddenly smiled at me.

"'Very well,' he said, 'let it be a thousand pounds.'

"'Of course without prejudice, Mr. Morse.'

"'Please explain yourself.'

"'You've kidnaped me. You've also committed an offense against the law of England – a criminal offense for which you will have to suffer. Perhaps you don't realize that if you built your house miles further up, if you managed to nearly reach the moon, British justice would reach you at last.'

"He shook his head sadly.

"'To that point of view, I hardly agree, Mr. Rolston. I am quite unable to purchase British justice, but I can put such obstacles in its way that could – '

"He suddenly stopped there, lit a little brown cigarette, came up and patted me on the shoulder.

"'Child,' he said, 'you are clever, you are original, I like you. But have a sense of proportion, and remember that you have no choice in this matter. I will give you the money you want on condition that you go away and bring no action whatever against me. If not – '

"'If not, sir?'

"'Well, you will have to stay here, that's all. You won't be badly treated. You can be librarian if you like, but you will never see the outside world again.'

"'May I have a few hours to consider, sir?'

"'A month if you like,' he said, pressing a bell upon his table.

"The same bland young Chinaman led me out of the library and down to the storeroom in the lift. I was blindfolded, and descended to the ground.

"There I met a man whom I had seen two or three times during the last three days, a great seven-foot American with arms like a gorilla, a thing called 'Boss Mulligan,' whom I had gathered from the conversation of my Chinese friends, had now arrived to take charge of the whole city – a sort of head policeman and guard.

"'Sonny,' he said, 'I've had a 'phone down from the top in regard to you. Now don't you be a short sport. You've been made a good offer. You grip it and be like fat in lavender. My advice to you is to wind a smile round your neck and depart with the dollars. I can see you're full of pep and now you've got fortune before you. See that pavilion over there?'

"He pointed to where a little gaudily painted house nestled under one of the great feet of the first tower.

"'That's my mansion. You wander about for an hour or so and come there and say you agree to the boss's terms – we'll take your word for it. Upon the word "Yes," I'll hand you out at the gate and you can go to Paris for a trip.'

"'I'll think it over,' I said.

"'Do so, and don't be a life-everlasting, twenty-four-hours-a-day, dyed-in-the-wool damn fool.'

"It was getting dusk. I was in a new part of the inclosed park. He let me go without any watchful Chinese attendant at my heels, and I strolled off with my head bent down as if deep in thought.

"I'd got an hour, and I think I made the best use of it. I hurried along under the shadow of the towers, past shrubberies, artificial lakes, summer-houses and little inclosed rose-gardens until I was far away from Mr. Mulligan. Here and there I passed a patient Chinese gardener or some hurrying member of Morse's little army. But nobody stopped me or interfered with me. For the first time since my captivity I was perfectly free.

"To cut a long story short, Sir Thomas, I came to a rectangle in the great encircling wall, which at that point was thirty feet high. The parapet at the top was obviously being repaired, for there was a ladder right up, pails of mortar, bricklayers' tools, and a coil of rope for binding scaffolding. I nipped up the ladder, carrying the rope after me, fixed it at the top, slid down easily enough, and in a quarter of an hour was in Richmond station. I didn't dare to go back to my old rooms because I was sure there would be a secret hue and cry after me. I thought of my old friend, Mr. Sliddim, traveled to Whitechapel with my last pence, and here I am."

"Still a member of my staff?"

"If you please, Sir Thomas."

"Ready for anything?"

"Anything and everything."

"Then come with me to Piccadilly – if they look for you there again we shall be prepared."