The City in the Clouds Part 29

"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 John Went to bed with his breeches on."

I think that when Juanita said good-night to us all--and to me privately in the pa.s.sage--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 G.o.d'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."

"h.e.l.lish, 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, pa.s.sed 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 gla.s.s 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 ma.s.s 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 ma.s.s.

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.