The City in the Clouds Part 20

There the vision checked. I could see a blur of low buildings, a web of latticed galleries, and I knew that I was looking only up at the very _first stage_ of the City in the Clouds, which must be lying bare to the moon some sixteen hundred feet above.

I could see no more. The first stage barred all further vision, though that in itself seemed terrible in its height and majesty. So I closed my eyes and imagined only those supreme heights where she must be sleeping.

"Good-night, Juanita," I murmured, and then, as I descended into my room the words of the Psalmist came to me and I said, "Oh, that I had the wings of a dove!"

CHAPTER EIGHT

On the afternoon of the next day the potman summoned me from my private room with the information that there was a young fellow from the Mile End Road to see me.

"Chinese?" I asked.

"Yes, sir."

"Then it must be the lad come in answer to the telegram I sent to my friend this morning. Show him in."

In a few moments the applicant for the situation entered. He wore his oily black hair fairly short, like most of the Chinamen employed at the towers, and had no pigtail; he was dressed in European clothes. His high cheek bones, with little slits of eyes above them, the stolid yellow face and fine tapering fingers were typically Oriental as he glided in, and his European clothes seemed to accentuate that air of Eastern mystery that even the commonest Chinaman carries about with him. He looked about five or six and twenty and wore a thick gold ring in each ear which had had the effect of dragging them away from the head.

I examined him carefully as to his qualities and he answered in better English than most Chinamen attain to, though with the guttural, clicking accent of his kind.

"Take him and let him wash up a few of the gla.s.ses, Stanley, and ask him a few questions if you like, and if you are satisfied with him I'll engage him."

In a quarter of an hour the Honest Fool returned to express himself pleased with the young Asiatic's performances, and there and then I engaged him, Stanley showing him the room in which he was to sleep. It was quite late that night before I could be alone with the new a.s.sistant, who, by the way, served in the saloon bar during the evening and was spoken of with commendation by Mr. Carter, fish and green grocer; Mr. Mogridge, our princ.i.p.al newsagent and tobacconist, and Mr.

Abrahams, dealer in anything, whose shop was labeled--really with great propriety--"Antiques."

These gentlemen were my most constant patrons and their word had weight, and it was endorsed by Mr. Sliddim, who slipped in about nine and in the position of a friend of the landlord, had been received into our best circle. It was Mr. Mogridge, a wit, who, just before closing time, christened Ah Sing, the name of the new potman, "Ting-A-Ling-A-Ling,"

the name which he retained to the end of the chapter. I could hear my clients laughing for the twentieth time as they went home and Mr.

Carter's rich ba.s.s: "Mogridge, I call that good. That's d.a.m.ned good, Mogridge. _Ting-A-Ling-A-Ling!_ Ha, ha, ha, ha!"

Ah Sing glided into my private room just as the upper portion of the house began to tremble with the snores of the Honest Fool. He put his fingers into his mouth and withdrew two pads of composition such as dentists use, with a sigh of relief. Immediately the high cheek bones and the narrowness of the eyes disappeared, though even then Bill Rolston would have pa.s.sed for a Chinaman at a glance, though when he removed the quills from his nose and it ceased to be flat and distended, the likeness was less apparent.

"It's wonderful, Rolston," I said, shaking him warmly by the hand. "It would deceive any one. Well, here we are and now we can begin."

The lad was all fire and enthusiasm. He did me no end of good, for the sordid environment, the appalling meals--princ.i.p.ally of pork served in great gobbets with quant.i.ties of onions--which Mrs. Abbs provided for the H.F., herself and me, and above all the overpowering, incredible structure at hand which seemed, in its strength and majesty, to laugh at the ant-like activities of such an one as I, were beginning to depress and to tinge my hours with the quality of a fantastic dream.

But Rolston changed all that and we talked far on into the night, planning, plotting, and arranging all the details of our campaign.

"To-morrow," he said, "I'll paint the board to go over the side door, in black and gilt Chinese lettering. As soon as it's done, we will make one or two alterations to the upstairs room, buy a gas urn with constant hot water and some special tea which I know where to get. When that's done, I'll start the game by going down to the 'Rising Sun' and meeting the Chinese there."

"You are quite certain that you won't be discovered?"

"I think it's in the last degree improbable. Certainly no one could find me out owing to my speech. That I can a.s.sure you, Sir Thomas, and it's nearly all the battle. So very, very few Europeans ever attain to good colloquial Chinese that there would never be a doubt in any one but I was what I seemed to be. I not only know the language, but I know how these people think and most of their customs. As far as disguise goes, I think it's good enough to deceive any one. When I was a prisoner within the inclosure, the Chinese who saw me were for the most part coolies and laborers, engaged upon the works. All these have now gone away forever and there's only the regular, selected staff. Some of these of course must have seen me as I was, but I don't think they will penetrate my get-up. You see the whole shape of the face is altered to begin with, and the coloring of hair and face has been done so well as to defy detection. I certainly was afraid about my ears," and he grinned ruefully, "but I saw the way out by having them pierced and these rings put in. Most of the natives from the Province of Yun-Nan, where I come from, wear these rings. The ones I have on at the present moment are made of lead, and gilded. They have pulled my ears right out of their ordinary shape."

"Good Lord!" I cried, astounded at the length to which he had gone.

"You're torturing yourself for me."

"Not a bit of it, Sir Thomas," he replied. "I--I rather like it!"

"And you think you will be able to get us a Chinese clientele?"

"I am quite certain of it. First of all I don't suppose I shall get the best cla.s.s--I mean the upper and more confidential servants who ascend the tower itself--for I understand there's a very rigid system of grades. But little by little they will come also. It will take us weeks, maybe months, but it will be done."

"If it takes me half a lifetime I'll go through with it," I said savagely.

"My sentiments, also," he replied, lighting a cigarette. "By the way, I hope you're not incommoded in any way by my--er--odor!"

"Good Heaven! What do you mean?"

"The Chinaman smells quite different to the European, though not necessarily unpleasantly. It's taken me quite a lot of trouble to attain the essential perfume!"

He grinned impishly as he said it, and there certainly was a sort of stale, camphory smell, now he mentioned it.

"You're a great artist, Rolston, and I don't know what I should do without you, oh, Mandarin from Yun-Nan!"

"That's another point," he said quickly. "You wouldn't guess why I'm supposed to come from Yun-Nan, where I actually did spend some years of my childhood?"

"Not in the least."

"It's the princ.i.p.al opium producing Province in China," he replied, with a quick look at me. "Now, Sir Thomas, I've let the cat out of the bag.

You see how I propose to attract the Chinese here, and get into their confidence."

A light flashed in upon me, and I took a long breath.

"But it would never do," I said. "If we were to start an opium den in that room upstairs, we should have the police in in a fortnight, and then the game would be up entirely."

He smiled superior.

"There will never be a single pipe of opium smoked in the 'Golden Swan,'" he said. "Of that I can a.s.sure you. That will be the very strictest rule that I shall make, but I shall supply opium to the customers, in varying quant.i.ties, and at intervals, according to the need of each individual case. It is almost impossible to bribe a Chinaman with money--the better sort, that is, the picked and chosen men who will be around Mr. Morse himself. But opium is quite another thing, and besides they won't know they're being bribed. I sat hours and hours working this thing out and I'm confident it's the only way."

When he said that I realized that he spoke the truth, but I confess that the idea startled and alarmed me.

"We shall be breaking the law, Rolston. We shall be risking heavy fines and certain imprisonment if we're found out."

"To that I would say two things, Sir Thomas. First of all, that no fine matters; and secondly, that I shouldn't in the least mind doing six months if necessary. This great game is worth more than that. But secondly, and you may really put your mind at ease, we shall _not_ be found out. I have worked the thing out to a hair's breadth and my system is so complete that discovery is utterly impossible."

"I oughtn't to let you risk it, though of course I shall share equally if anything happens."

He disregarded this entirely.

"But the stuff," I said, "the opium itself, how will you get that?"

"I have made my plans here also. I shall have to pay a price so enormous that I'm afraid it will stagger you, Sir Thomas, but it's the only way in which I can get hold of the right stuff. For what it is intrinsically worth, about sixty pounds sterling, your east-end dealer will pay four-hundred pounds, and make a big profit on it. I shall have to pay nearly a thousand and I shall want double that money--two thousand pounds."

He stared at me in anxiety.

"My dear Rolston," I said, "cheer up. My income is over twenty thousand a year, and in normal times I don't spend a third of it. Buy all the filth you want, and Heaven send that it does the trick!"