The City in the Clouds Part 28

"One, sir, was undoubtedly Midwinter. My very sharp-witted informant describes the other man as a swarthy person of just over middle height and apparently of great personal strength. He was bearded, sallow-faced, and had somewhat the appearance of a half-caste."

"Zorilla y Toro, as I expected," said Morse. "Zorilla the Bull, as he is known in half the Republics of South America."

"No doubt," I remarked, "a formidable pair of ruffians, but remember that I saw you deal with one of them at any rate, that night at the Ritz Hotel. The way he legged it out of the drawing-room wouldn't have inspired me with any particular fear of him."

Morse struck the table with his hand.

"I wish I'd sent a bullet through his heart instead of playing fancy fireworks round him. But I feared London and your colossal law and order. It's perfectly true, he didn't influence me in the least on that night. He came to sell his employers, to sell the Hermandad for a hundred thousand pounds."

"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 gla.s.s 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 superst.i.tious 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 c.o.c.kney 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 b.u.t.ton 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 antic.i.p.ation 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 circ.u.mvent."

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 pa.s.sing 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 gla.s.s chamber on the roof, where an old Chinese gentleman with tortoise-sh.e.l.l 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 pa.s.sed. 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 gla.s.ses 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-a.n.a.lysis 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.