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 glasses, 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 assistant, 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 principal 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 bass: "Mogridge, I call that good. That's damned 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 passed 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—principally of pork served in great gobbets with quantities 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 assure 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 Yün-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 clientèle?"
"I am quite certain of it. First of all I don't suppose I shall get the best class—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 Yün-Nan!"
"That's another point," he said quickly. "You wouldn't guess why I'm supposed to come from Yün-Nan, where I actually did spend some years of my childhood?"
"Not in the least."
"It's the principal 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 assure you. That will be the very strictest rule that I shall make, but I shall supply opium to the customers, in varying quantities, 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 shallnotbe 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!"
"In two days," he said, "the 'Golden Swan' will house two cases of the best 'red bricks' obtainable on the market anywhere, for it's as much by the superior quality of what I shall supply, as well as the fact of being able to supply it, that I depend. Of course, you'll get nearly all the money back."
"Confound it, no, that's going too far. We'll send all the abominable profits to the Richmond Hospital anonymously."
We talked until the fire was out and the gray wintry dawn began to steal in through the dirty windows of the bar beyond, and when all our plans were laid with meticulous care I went to bed but not to sleep, assailed by a thousand doubts and fears.
... In a week or two the upstairs room began to be frequented by silent-footed yellow men, who came and went unobtrusively. Whenever any of them chanced to meet me I was greeted with a profound obeisance which was rather disconcerting at first, but my conversation was limited to a mere greeting or farewell. Most of these men spoke pigeon English, but I had little or nothing to say to them of set purpose. It had been arranged between Rolston and myself that I was to be represented as a good-natured fool, who mattered very little in any way.
For his part, the pretended Ah Sing was up and down the stairs a dozen times every evening. He was never once suspected, his influence and importance in the lives of these aliens grew every day. But it was a long business, a long and weary business, in which at first hardly any progress towards our aim could be discerned.
"It's no use being discouraged, Sir Thomas," Rolston would say, "we're getting on famously."
"And the opium?"—somehow I wasn't very keen on discussing that aspect of the question.
"I'm employing it most judiciously, selling it in very small quantities, and of course not a grain is ever smoked or consumed in any way upon these premises. That's thoroughly understood by every one, and you need not have the slightest doubt but that the secret will be rigidly kept. At present the men frequenting the house are nearly all of the upper coolie class. That is to say, they are the gardeners, stokers of the power house, sweepers, and so forth. But, quite recently a better class of man has made his appearance. There's a young, semi-Europeanized electrician who has been once or twice. Moreover, I have gained a great point. I have become acquainted with Kwang-su, the keeper of the inclosure gate."
"That's certainly something," I replied, recalling the figure of the gigantic Chinaman in question, which was familiar to most of the residents beneath the wall. "He's a ferocious-looking brute."
"At one time he was headsman of Yangtsun, and they say a most finished expert with the sword," Rolston remarked with a grin. "All I know about him is that he'd sell his soul for the black smoke, and regards me as a most valuable addition to the neighborhood. In a fortnight or so, I am pretty certain I shall be able to pass in and out of the grounds pretty much as I like, and then a great move in our game will have been accomplished. As an undoubted Chinaman and as a confidential purveyer of opium, I shall soon have complete freedom below the towers."
"But what about the great prizefighter, Mulligan?"
"He has nothing to do with the park, as they call all the grounds around the towers. Now that the building is finished his functions are up in the air, and I gather that he lives on the third stage, just beneath the City itself, as a sort of watch-dog. The Asiatics are entirely managed by their own leaders, appointed by Morse himself."
It was as Bill predicted. In a very short space of time he was away from the "Golden Swan" as much as he was in it, and every day he gathered more and more information about the tower and its mistress—information which was carefully noted down in the silence of the night, so that no detail should be forgotten.
Of course the fact that my hotel had become a haunt of the yellow men neither escaped the notice of the neighbors, nor of the police. The former were easily dealt with, and especially my patrons. Mr. Mogridge, having invented "Ting-A-Ling-A-Ling," was disposed to look upon the "Chinks" with genial patronage, and his self-importance was gratified by the low bows with which they always greeted him as they passed to their club-room above. The lead of Mr. Mogridge was followed by others in the saloon bar, and Sliddim tactfully kept everything running smoothly. As for the police, they paid me one visit or two, were shown everything and were perfectly satisfied that the house was being conducted with propriety—as indeed it was.
The yellow men neither gambled nor got drunk, that was perfectly obvious. There was never a suspicion of opium from first to last, nor was there a single instance of a brawl or a fight. Indeed the local police-inspector, an excellent fellow with whom I had many a talk, expressed himself as being both surprised and delighted at the way in which I had the aliens in hand.
Nearly two months had gone by, and I was curbing the raging fires of impatience and longing as well as I could when two incidents occurred which greatly precipitated action.
Rolston came to me one day in a state of great excitement.
At last, he said, he was beginning to become acquainted with some of the actual officials of the towers—at last, quite separate from those who worked below. They were interested, or beginning to be so, and he urged me at once to open a smaller, inner room as a select meeting-place for such of them as he could inveigle to the "Golden Swan."
We did so at once, hanging the walls with a drapery of black worked with golden dragons, which I bought in Regent Street, a Chinese lantern of copper hanging from the ceiling, and around the wall we placed low couches. Here, in twos and threes, but in slowly increasing numbers, a different type of Oriental began to assemble, Ah Sing attending to all their wants, ingratiating himself in every possible way, and keeping his extremely useful ears wide open—very wide open indeed.
It was now that tiny fragments of personal gossip—more precious to me than rubies—began to filter through. I had established no communication with the City in the Clouds as yet, but I seemed to hear the distant murmur of voices through the void.
One evening about eight o'clock I felt cramped and unutterably bored. I felt that nothing could help me but a long walk and so, with a word to the Honest Fool, Sliddim and Rolston, I took my hat and stick and started out.
It was a brilliant moonlight night, calm, still, and with a white frost upon the ground, as I descended the terrace and made my way down to the side of the river. Here and there I passed a few courting couples; the hum of distant London and the rumbling of trains was like the ground swell of a sea, but peace brooded over everything. The trees made black shadows like Chinese ink upon silver, and, in the full moonlight it was bright enough to read.
When I had walked a mile or so, resisting a certain temptation as well as I could, I stopped and turned at last.
There, a mile away behind me, yet seeming as if it was within a stone's throw, was the huge erection on the hill. Every detail of the lower parts was clear and distinct as an architectural drawing, the intricate lattice-work of enormous cantilevers and girders seemed etched on the inside of a great opal bowl. I can give you no adequate description of the immensity, the awe-inspiring, almost terror-inducing sense of magnitude and majesty. I have stood beside the Pyramids at night, I have crossed the Piazza of Saint Peter's at Rome under the rays of the Italian moon, and I have drunk coffee at the base of the Eiffel Tower in Paris, but not one of these experiences approached what I felt now as I surveyed, in an ecstasy of mingled emotions, this monstrous thing that brooded over London.
The eye traveled up, onward and forever up until at length, not hidden by clouds now but a faint blur of white, blue, gold, and tiny twinkling lights, hung in the empyrean the far-off City of Desire.
Could she hear the call of my heart? God knows it seemed loud and strong enough to me! Might she not be, even at this moment, a lovelier Juliet, leaning over some gilded gallery and wondering where I was?
"Was ever a woman so high above her lover before?" I said, and laughed, but my laughter was sadness, and my longing, pain unbearable.
... There was a slight bend in the tow-path where I stood, caused by some out-jutting trees, and from just below I suddenly heard a burst of loud and brutal laughter, followed by a shrill cry. It recalled me from dreamland at once and I hurried round the projection to come upon a strange scene. Two flash young bullies with spotted handkerchiefs around their throats and ash sticks in their hands were menacing a third person whose back was to the river. They were sawing the air with their sticks just in front of a thin, tall figure dressed in what seemed to be a sort of long, buttoned black cassock descending to the feet, and wearing a skull cap of black alpaca. Beneath the skull cap was a thin, ascetic face, ghastly yellow in the moonlight.
... One of the brutes lunged at the man I now saw to be a Chinese of some consequence, lunged at him with a brutal laugh and filthy oath. The Chinaman threw up his lean arms, cried out again in a thin, shrill scream, stepped backwards, missed his footing and went souse into the river. In a second the current caught him and began to whirl him away over towards the Twickenham side. It was obvious that he could not swim a stroke. There was a clatter of hob-nailed boots and bully number one was legging it down the path like a hare. I had just time to give bully number two a straight left on the nap which sent him down like a sack of flour, before I got my coat off and dived in.
Wow! but it was icy cold. For a moment the shock seemed to stop my heart, and then it came right again and I struck out heartily. It didn't take long to catch up with the gentleman in the cassock, who had come up for the second time and apparently resigned himself to the worst. I got hold of him, turned on my back and prepared for stern measures if he should attempt to grip me.
He didn't. He was the easiest johnny to rescue possible, and in another five minutes I'd got him safely to the bank and scrambled up.
There was nobody about, worse luck, and I started to pump the water out of him as well as I could, and after a few minutes had the satisfaction of seeing his face turn from blue-gray to something like its normal yellow under the somewhat ghastly light of the moon. His teeth began to chatter as I jerked him to his feet and furiously rubbed him up and down.
I tried to recall what I knew of pigeon English.
"Bad man throw you in river. You velly lucky, man come by save you, Johnny."
I had the shock of my life.
"I am indeed fortunate," came in a thin, reed-like voice, "I am indeed fortunate in having found so brave a preserver. Honorable sir, from this moment my life is yours."
"Why, you speak perfect English," I said in amazement.
"I have been resident in this country for some time, sir," he replied, "as a student at King's College, until I undertook my present work."
"Well," I said, "we'd better not stand here exchanging polite remarks much longer. There is such a thing as pneumonia, which you would do well to avoid. If you're strong enough, we'll hurry up to the terrace and find my house, where we'll get you dry and warm. I'm the landlord of the 'Golden Swan' Hotel."
He was a polite fellow, this. He bowed profoundly, and then, as the water dripped from his black and meager form, he said something rather extraordinary.
"I should never have thought it."
I cursed myself. The excitement had made me return to the manner of Piccadilly, and this shrewd observer had seen it in a moment. I said no more, but took him by the arm and yanked him along for one of the fastest miles he had ever done in his life.
I took him to the side door of my pub. Fortunately Ah Sing was descending the stairs to replenish an empty decanter with whisky—my yellow gentlemen used to like it in their tea! I explained what had happened in a few words and my shivering derelict was hurried upstairs to my own bedroom. I don't know what Rolston did to him, though I heard Sliddim—now quite the house cat—directed to run down into the kitchen and confer with Mrs. Abbs.
For my part, I sat in the room behind the bar, listening to the Honest Fool talking with my patrons, and shed my clothes before a blazing fire. A little hot rum, a change, and a dressing-gown, and I was myself again, and smoking a pipe I fell into a sort of dream.
It was a pleasant dream. I suppose the shock of the swim, the race up the terrace to the "Swan," the rum and milk which followed had a soporific, soothing effect. I wasn't exactly asleep, I was pleasantly drowsed, and I had a sort of feeling that something was going to happen. Just about closing time Rolston glided in—I never saw a European before or since who could so perfectly imitate the ghost walk of the yellow men.
I looked to see that the door to the bar was shut.
"Well, how's our friend?" I asked.
"He's had a big shock, Sir Thomas, but he's all right now. I've rubbed him all over with oil, fed him up with beef-tea and brandy and found him dry clothes."
"He's from the towers, of course?"
As I said this, I saw Bill Rolston's face, beneath its yellow dye, was blazing with excitement.
"Sir Thomas," he said in a whisper, "this is Pu-Yi himself, Mr. Morse's Chinese secretary, a man utterly different from the others we have seen here yet. He's of the Mandarin class, the buttons on his robe are of red coral. In this house, at this moment, we have one of the masters of the Secret City."
I gave a long, low whistle, which—I remember it so well—exactly coincided with the raucous shout of the Honest Fool—"Time, gentlemen, please!"
A thought struck me.
"The other Chinese in the large and small rooms, do they know this man is here?"
"No, Sir Thomas; I am more than glad to say I got him up to your own room when both doors were closed."
"What's he doing now?"
"He's having a little sleep. I promised to call him in an hour or so, when he wishes to pay you his respects."
He listened for a moment.
"The others are going downstairs," he said. "I must be there to see them out, and I have one or two little transactions—"
He felt in a villainous side pocket and I knew as well as possible what it contained, and what would be handed to one or two of the moon-faced gentlemen as they slipped out of the side door on their way home.
Bill came back in some twenty minutes.
"Now," he said, "I'm going upstairs to wake Pu-Yi and bring him down to you. You must remember, Sir Thomas, that I am only a dirty little servant. I am as far beneath a man like Pu-Yi as Sir Thomas Kirby is above Stanley Whistlecraft, so I cannot be present at your interview. My idea was that I should creep into the bar—Stanley will have had his supper and gone to bed—and lie down on the floor with my ear to the bottom of the door, then I can hear everything."
"That's a good idea," I said, for I was beginning to realize what an enormous lot might depend upon this interview. Then I thought of something else.
"Look here, Bill, you must remember this too. I fished the blighter out of the Thames and no doubt he will be thankful in his overdone, Oriental fashion. But to him, a man of the class you say he is, I shall be nothing but a vulgar publican, and I don't see quite what's going to come out ofthat!"
He had slipped the gutta-percha pads out of his cheeks—an operation to which I had grown quite accustomed—and I could see his face as it really was.
"That's occurred to me also," he replied, "but somehow or other I'm sure the fates are on our side to-night."
He arose, turned away for a moment, there was a click and a gasp, and he was the little impassive Oriental again. He glided up to me, put his yellow hand with the long, polished finger nails upon my shoulder, and said in my ear:
"Sir Thomas, he must see Her every day!"
He vanished from the room almost as he spoke, and left me with blood on fire.
I was to see some one who might have spoken with Juanita that very day! and I sat almost trembling with impatience, though issuing a dozen warnings to myself to betray nothing, to keep every sense alert, so that I might turn the interview to my own advantage.
At last there was a knock on the door, Bill opened it and the slim figure of the man I had rescued glided in. They had dried his clothes, he even wore his little skull cap which had apparently stuck to his head while he was in the water, and I had the opportunity of seeing him in the light for the first time.
Instead of the flat, Tartar nose, I saw one boldly aquiline, with large, narrow nostrils. His eyes were almond shaped but lustrous and full of fire. About the lips, which had no trace of sensuality but were beautifully cut, there was a kind of serene pathos—I find it difficult to describe in any other way. The whole face was noble in contour and in expression, though the general impression it gave was one of unutterable sadness. Dress him how you might, meet him where you would, there was no possibility of mistaking Pu-Yi for anything but a gentleman of high degree.
The door closed and I rose from my seat and held out my hand.
"Well," I said, "this is a bit of orlright, sir, and I'm glad to see you so well recovered. To-morrow morning we'll have the law on them dirty rascals that assaulted you."
I put on the accent thickly—flashed my diamond ring at him, in short—for this might well be a game of touch and go, and I had a deep secret to preserve.
He put his long, thin hand in mine, gripped it, and then suddenly turned it over so that the backs of my fingers were uppermost.
It was an odd thing to do and I wondered what it meant.
"Oh, landlord of the Swan of Gold," he piped, in his curious, flute-like voice, sorting out his words as he went on, "I owe you my unworthy life, which is nothing in itself and which I don't value, save only for a certain opportunity which remains to it, and is a private matter. But I owe my life to your courage and strength and flowering kindness, and I come to put myself in your hands."
Really he was making a damn lot of fuss about nothing!
"Look here," I said, "that's all right. You would have done as much for me. Now let's sit down and have a peg and a chat. I can put you up for the rest of the night, you know, and I shall be awfully glad to do it."
He looked as if he was going to make more speeches, but I cut him short.
"As for putting your life in my hands," I said, "we don't talk like that in England."
He sat down and a faint smile came upon his tired lips.
"And do the public-house keepers in England have hands such as yours are?" he said gently. "Sir, your hands are white, they are also shaped in a certain way, and your nails are not even in mourning for your profession!"
I cursed myself savagely as he mocked me. Bill had pointed out over and over again that I oughtn't to use a nail brush too frequently—it wasn't in the part—but I always forgot it.
To hide my confusion I moved a little table towards him on which was a box of excellent cigarettes. Unfortunately, also on the table was a little pocket edition of Shakespeare with which I used to solace the drab hours.
He picked it up, opened it plump at "Romeo and Juliet"—the play which, for reasons known to you, I most affected at the time—and looked up at me with gentle eyes.
"'Two households, both alike in dignity, in fair Verona,'" he said.
My brain was working like a mill. I could not make the fellow out. What did he know, what did he suspect? Well, the best thing was to ask him outright.
"You mean?"
He became distressed at once.
"You speak harshly to me, O my preserver. I meant but that I knew at once that you are not born in the position in which I see you. Perhaps you will give me your kind leave to explain. In my native country I am of high hereditary rank, though I am poor enough and occupy a somewhat menial position here. My honorable name, honorable sir, is Pu-Yi, which will convey nothing to you. During the rebellion of twenty years ago in China, my ancestral house was destroyed and as a child I was rescued and sent to Europe. For many years the peasants of my Province scraped their little earnings together, and a sum sufficient to support me in my studies was sent to me in Paris. I speak the French, Spanish and English languages. I am a Bachelor of Science of the London University, and my one hope and aim in life is, and has been, to acquire sufficient money to return to the tombs of my ancestors on the banks of the Yang-tse-kiang, there to live a quiet life, much resembling that of an English country squire, until I also fade away into the unknown, and become part of the Absolute."
There was something perfectly charming about him. Since he spotted I wasn't a second edition of the Honest Fool, since he had somehow or other divined that I was an educated man, I felt drawn to him. You must remember that for months now the only person I had had to talk to was Bill Rolston. And all the time, he was so occupied in our tortuous campaign that we only met late at night to report progress.
For a moment I quite forgot what this new friend might mean to me, and opened out to him without a thought of further advantage.
I was a fool, no doubt. Afterwards, talking it all over with Pat Moore and Arthur Winstanley, I saw that I ran a great risk. Anyhow, I reciprocated Pu-Yi's confidence as well as I could.
"I'm awfully glad we've met, even under such unfortunate circumstances. You are quite right. I come of a different class from what the ordinary frequenter of this hotel might suppose, but since you have discovered it I beg you to keep it entirely to yourself. I also have had my misfortunes. Perhaps I also am longing for some ultimate happiness or triumph."
Out of the box he took a cigarette, and his long, delicate fingers played with it.
"Brother," he said, "I understand, and I say again, now that I can say it in a new voice, my life is yours."
Then I began on my own account.
"Tell me," I said, "of yourself. Many of your fellow-countrymen come here—the lower orders—and they're all employed by the millionaire, Gideon Morse, who seems to prefer the men of China to any other. You also, Pu-Yi, are connected with this colossal mystery?"
He didn't answer for a moment, but looked down at the glowing end of his cigarette.
"Yes," he replied, with some constraint, "I am in the service of the honorable Mr. Gideon Mendoza Morse. I am, in fact, his private secretary and through me his instructions are conveyed to the various heads of departments."
"You are fortunate. I suppose that before long you will be able to fulfill your ambitions and retire to China?"
With a quick glance at me he admitted that this was so.
"And yet," I said thoughtfully, "it must be a very trying service, despite that you live in Wonderland, in a City of Enchantment."
Again I caught a swift regard and he leant forward in his chair.
"Why do you say that?" he asked.
I hazarded a bold shot.
"Simply because the man is mad," I said.
His bright eyes narrowed to glittering slits.
"You quote gossip of the newspapers," he replied.
"Do I? I happen to know more than the newspapers do."
He rose to his feet, took two steps towards me, and looked down with a twitching face.
"Whoareyou?" he said, and his whole frail frame trembled.
I caught him firmly by the arm and stared into his face—God knows what my own was like.
"I am the one who has been waiting, the one who is waiting, to help—the one who has come to save," I said, and my voice was not my own—it was as if the words were put into my mouth by an outside power.
He wrenched his arm away, gave a little cry, strode to the mantelpiece and bent his head upon his arms. His whole body was shaken with convulsive sobs.
I stood in the middle of the room watching him, hardly daring to breathe, feeling that my heart was swelling until it occupied the whole of my body.
At length he looked up.
"Then I shall be of some use to Her after all," he said. "This is too much honor. The Lily of White Jade—"
He staggered back, his face working terribly, and fell in a huddled heap upon the floor. I was just opening my mouth to call for Rolston when there came a thunderous knocking upon the side door of the house.
I ran into the dimly lit passage and as I did so Rolston flitted out of the bar door and stood beside me.
"I have heard everything," he whispered, "but what, what is this?"
He pointed to the door, and as he did so there was again the thunder of the knocker and the whirr of the electric bell.
Hardly knowing what I did I shot back the bolts at top and bottom, turned the heavy key in its lock and opened the door.
Outside in the moonlight a figure was standing, a man in a heavy fur coat, carrying a suitcase in his left hand.
"What the devil—" I was beginning, when he pushed past me and came into the hall.
Then I saw, with a leap of all my pulses, that it was Lord Arthur Winstanley.
It was four o'clock in the morning. A bitter wind had risen and was wailing around the "Golden Swan," interspersed with heavy storms of hail which rattled on roof and windows. Outside the tempest shrieked and was accompanied by a vast, humming, harp-like noise as it flung itself against the lattice-work of the towers and vibrated over Richmond like a chorus of giant Æolian harps. Arthur and I sat in the shabby sitting-room, which had been the theater of so much emotion that night, and stared at each other with troubled faces.
There was a little pattering noise, and Bill Rolston came in, closing the door carefully behind him.
"He wants you to go up to him, Sir Thomas. You told me to use my own discretion. Since we carried him up and I gave him the bromides, I haven't left his bedside. I talked to him in his own language, but he wouldn't say a word until I threw off every disguise and told him who I really was and who you were also."
"But, Rolston, you may have spoiled everything!"
He shook his head.
"You don't know what I know. Now that he's aware you are of his own rank, and that I am your lieutenant, his life is absolutely your forfeit. If you were to tell him to commit suicide he would do it at once as the most natural thing in the world, to preserve his honor. He is your man from this moment, Sir Thomas, just as I am."
"Then I'll go up. Arthur, you don't mind?"
"Mind! I thought I brought a bomb-shell into your house to-night, and so I have too, but to find all this going on simply robs me of speech. Meanwhile, if you will introduce me to this Asiatic gentleman who speaks such excellent English, and whom, from repute I guess to be Mr. William Rolston, I daresay we can amuse ourselves during the remainder of this astonishing night. And," he continued, "if there is such a thing as a ham upon the premises, some thick slices grilled upon this excellent fire, and some cool ale in a pewter—"
I left them to it and went upstairs to my chamber. It was lit with two or three candles in silver holders—I had made the place quite habitable by now—and lying on my bed, covered with an eiderdown, his eyes feverish, his face flushed, lay the Mandarin.
His eyes opened and he smiled. It was the first time I had seen the delicate, melancholy lips light up in a real smile.
"What's that for?" I said, as I sat down by the bedside.
"You are so big, and strong, Prince," he replied, "and large and confident; and your disguise fell from you as you came in and I saw you as you were."
I knelt beside the bed and my breath came thick and fast.
"For God's sake don't play with me," I said, "not that you are doing that. You have met Her—Miss Morse I mean, my Juanita?"
"Prince, she has deigned to give me her confidence in some degree. I do my work in the wonderful library that Mr. Morse has built. It's a great hall, full of the rarest volumes; and there are long windows from which one can look down upon London and gaze beyond the City to where the wrinkled sea beats around the coast. And, day by day, in her loneliness, the Fairest of Maidens has come to this high place and taken a book of poems, sat in the embrasure, and stared down at the world below."
He raised a thin hand and held it upright. It was so transparent that the light of a candle behind turned it to blood red.
"Let my presumptuous desires be forever silent," he chanted. "'East is east and west is west,' and I erred gravely. But, worship is worship, and worship is sacrifice."
I could hardly speak, my voice was hoarse, his words had given me such a picture of Juanita up there in the clouds.
"Prince—"
"I am not a Prince, I only have a very ordinary title. If you know England, you understand what a baronet is."
"I know England. Prince, your Princess is waiting for you and sighing out her heart that you have not come to her."
I leapt to my feet and swore a great oath that made the attic room ring.
"You mean?" I shouted.
"Prince, the Lily of all the lilies, the Rose of all the roses, alone, distraught, another Ophelia—no, say rather Juliet with her nurse—has honored me with the story of her love. She never told me whom she longed for, but I knew that it was some one down in the world."
I staggered out a question.
"It is my humble adoration for her which has sharpened all my wits," he answered. "It seemed an accident—though the gods designed it without doubt—that made you save my life to-night, but now I know you are the lover of the Lily. And I am the servant—the happy messenger—of you both."
"You can take a letter from me to her?"
"Indeed, yes."
"My friend, tell me, tell me all about her. Is she happy?—no, I know she cannot be that—but—"
He lifted himself up in the bed, and there was something priest-like in his attitude as he folded his thin hands upon his breast and spoke.
"Two thousand feet above London there is a Palace of all delights. Immeasurable wealth, the genius of great artists have been combined to make a City of Enchantment. And in every garden with its plashing fountains, in its halls of pictures and delights, upon its aerial towers, down its gilded galleries, lurking at the banquet, mingling with the music, great shapes of terror squeak and gibber like the ghosts Shakespeare speaks of in ancient Rome."
"Morse?"
"There is a noble intellect overdone and dissolved in terror. In all other respects sane as you or I, my savior and benefactor, Gideon Morse is a maniac whose one sole idea is to preserve himself and his daughter from some horror, some vengeance which surely cannot threaten him."
Twice, thrice I strode the attic.
Then at last I stopped.
"Will you help me now, Pu-Yi, will you take a letter from me, will you help me to meet Her, and soon?"
He bowed his head for answer, and then, as he looked up again his face was suffused with a sort of bright eagerness that touched me to the heart.
"I am yours," he said.
"Then quickly, and soon, Pu-Yi, for you are only half informed. Gideon Morse may be driven mad by fear, no doubt he is. But it isnotan imaginary fear. It is a thing so sinister, so real and terrible, that I cannot tell you of it now. I am too exhausted by the events of this night. I will say only this, that within the last hour a faithful friend of mine has returned from the other side of the world and brings me ominous news."
I believe that Pu-Yi, whose movements were, of course, not restricted like those of the lower officials, returned to the towers in the early morning. As for me, I caught a workmen's train from Richmond station, slunk in an early taxi to Piccadilly with Arthur Winstanley, and slipped into lavender-clean sheets and silence till past noon, when Captain Patrick Moore arrived to an early lunch. Dressed again in proper clothes, with dear old Preston fussing about me with tears in his eyes, I felt a thousand times more confident than before. Old Pat had to be informed of everything, and as a preliminary I told him my whole story, from the starting-point of the "Golden Swan."
"And now," I said, "here's Arthur, who has traveled thousands of miles and who has come back with information that fits in absolutely with everything else. He gave me an epitome last night, under strange and fantastic circumstances. Now then, Arthur, let's have it all clearly, and then we shall know where we are."
Arthur, whose face was white and strained, began at once.
"I went straight to Rio," he said, "and of course I took care that I was accredited to our Legation. As a matter of fact the Minister to the Brazilian Government is my cousin. The news about the towers was all over Brazil. Everybody there knows Gideon Mendoza Morse. He's been by a long way the most picturesque figure in South America during the last twenty years. He has been President of the Republic. Of course, I had the freshest news. My mother had given a party to introduce Juanita to London society. I had danced with her. I had talked to her father—I was the young English society man who brought authentic news. I told all I knew, and a good bit more, and I sucked in information like a vacuum-cleaner. I learnt a tremendous lot as to the sources of Morse's enormous wealth. I was glad to find that there were no allegations against him of any trust methods, any financial tricks. He had got rich like one of the old patriarchs, simply by shrewdness and long accumulation and rising values. But I had to go a good deal farther back than this, I had to dive into obscure politics of South America, and then—it was almost like a punch on the jaw—I stumbled against the Santa Hermandad."
Pat Moore and I cried out simultaneously.
"What on earth do you mean?"
"Our League?"
"It's sheer coincidence," he answered. "I hope it's not a bad omen. During the time when the last Emperor of Brazil, Pedro II, was reigning, it was seen by all his supporters, both in Brazil and in Spain, that his power was waning and a crash was sure to come. In order to preserve the Principle of the Monarchy, a powerful Secret Society was started, under the name of the Holy Brotherhood or Santa Hermandad. Gideon Morse, then a young and very influential man, became a member of this Society. But, after the Emperor was deposed, and a Republic declared, Morse threw in his lot with the new régime. I have gathered that he did so out of pure patriotism; he realized that a Republic was the best thing for his country, and had no personal ax to grind whatever. He prospered exceedingly. As you know he has, in his time, been President of the Republica dos Estados Unidos de Brazil, and has contributed more to the success of the country than any other man living."
"Fascinatin' study, history," said Captain Moore, "for those that like it. Personally, I am no bookworm; cut the cackle, Arthur, old bean, and come to the 'osses."
"Peace, fool!" said Arthur, "if you can't understand what I say, Tom will explain to you later, though I'll be as short as I jolly-well can."
He turned to me.
"When this Secret Society failed, Tom—the Hermandad, I mean—it wasn't dissolved. It was agreed by the Inner Circle that it was only suspended. But as the years went by, nearly all the prominent members died, and the Republic became an assured thing. But a few years ago the Society was revived, not with any real hope of putting an Emperor on the throne again but as a means to terrorism and blackmail. All the most lawless elements of Spanish South America became affiliated into a new and sinister confederation. You've heard of the power of the Camorra in Italy—well, the Hermandad in Brazil is like that at the present time. It has ramifications everywhere, the police are becoming powerless to cope with it, and a secret reign of terror goes on at this hour.
"These people have made a dead shot for Gideon Morse. He has defied them for a long time, but their power has grown and grown. I understand that two years ago the Hermandad fished out of obscurity an old Spanish nobleman, the Marquis da Silva, who was one of the original, chivalrous monarchists. He was about the only surviving member of the old Fraternity, and they got him to produce its constitutions. He came upon the scene some two years ago and Morse was given just that time to fall in with the plans of the modern Society, or be assassinated together with his daughter."
He stopped, and it was dear old Pat Moore who shouted with comprehension.
"Why, now," he bellowed, "sure and I see it all. That's why he built the Tower of Babel and went to live on the top, and drag his daughter with him—so that these Sinn Feiners should not get at 'm."
"Yes, Pat, you've seen through it at a glance," said Arthur, with a private grin to me.
Pat was tremendously bucked up at the thought that he had solved a problem which had been puzzling both of us.
"All the same," he said, "the place is too well guarded for any Spanish murderer to get up. Besides, Tom here is makin' all his arrangements and he'll have Miss Juanita out of it in no time."
"The circumstances," Arthur went on calmly, "are perfectly well known to a few people at the head of the Government in Brazil. I had a long and intimate conversation with Don Francisco Torromé, Minister of Police to the Republic. He told me that the Hermandad is intensely revengeful, wicked, and unscrupulous. Moreover, it's rich; and money wouldn't be allowed to stand in the way of getting at Morse. What is lacking is energy. These people make the most complete and fiendish plans, they dream the most fantastic and devilish dreams, and then they say 'Manana'—which means, 'It will do very well to-morrow'—and go to sleep in the sun."
"Then after all, Morse is in no danger!" I cried, immensely relieved. "You said the danger was real, but you spoke figuratively."
"Sorry, old chap, not a bit of it. There's some one on the track with energy enough to pull the lid off the infernal regions if necessary. In short, the Hermandad have engaged the services of an international scoundrel of the highest intellectual powers, a man without remorse, an artist in crime—I should say, and most Chiefs of Police in the kingdoms of the world would agree with me—the most dangerous ruffian at large. You've seen him, Tom, I pointed him out to you at a little Soho restaurant where we dined once together. His name is Mark Antony Midwinter, andhe traveled from Brazil, together with a friend, by the same boat that I did."
"Then he must be in London now!" said Pat Moore, with the air of announcing another great discovery.
"But look here!" I cried. "I told you, before you sailed for South America, I told you what I saw at the Ritz Hotel that night. It was the very same man, Mark Antony Midwinter, as you call him, running like a hare from old Morse, who was shooting fireworks round him with a smile on his face.That'snot the man you think he is. He may be a devil, but that night he was a devil of a funk."
"Wait a bit, my son," said Arthur. "I have thought about that incident rather carefully. Remember that Morse was given a certain time in which to come in line and join the Hermandad. From what I have heard of the punctilious, senile Marquis da Silva, he wouldn't have allowed the campaign against Morse to be started a moment before the time of immunity was up. Might not Midwinter at that time, quite ignorant that the towers were being built as a refuge for Morse, have tried to go behind his own employers and offer to betray them, and to drop the whole business for a million or so? From what I know of the man's career I should think it extremely probable."
I whistled. Arthur seemed to have penetrated to the center of that night's mystery. There was nothing more likely. I could imagine the whole scene, the panther man laying his cards on the table and offering to save Morse and Juanita from certain death—Morse, already half maddened by what hung over him, chuckling in the knowledge that he had built an impregnable refuge, dismissing the scoundrel with utter firmness and contempt.
"I believe you've hit it, Arthur," I said. "It fits in like the last bit of a jig-saw puzzle."
"I'm pretty sure myself, but even now you don't know all. Quite early in his life, when Midwinter—he's the last of the Staffordshire Midwinters, an ancient and famous family—was expelled from Harrow, he went out to South America. Morse was at that time in the wilds of Goyaz, where he was developing his mines. There was a futile attempt to kidnap the child, Juanita, who was then about two years old, and Midwinter was in it. The young gentleman, I understand, was caught. Morse was then, as doubtless he is now, a man of a grim and terrible humor. He took young Midwinter and treated him with every possible contemptuous indignity. They say his head was shaved; he was birched like a schoolboy by Morse's peons; he was branded, tarred and feathered, and turned contemptuously adrift. The fellow came back to Europe, married a celebrated actress in Paris, who is now dead, and has been, as I say, one of the most successful uncaught members of the higher criminal circles that ever was. He made an attempt at the Ritz, swallowing his hatred. It failed. His employers in Brazil know nothing of it. He is here in London—as Pat so wonderfully discovered—supplied with unlimited money, burning with a hatred of which a decent man can have no conception, and confronted with his last chance in the world."
As he said this, Arthur got up, bit his lip savagely and left the room.
It was about two-thirty in the afternoon.
Though he closed the door after him, I heard voices in the corridor, and the door reopened an inch or two as if some one was holding it before coming in.
"You are not well, my lord?"
"Oh, I'm all right, Preston; just feeling a little faint, that's all. Sorry to nearly have barged into you; I'll go and lie down for half an hour."
The door opened and Preston came in with a telegram.
I opened it immediately and felt three or four flimsy sheets of Government paper in my hand.
The telegram was in the special cipher of theEvening Special, and was from Rolston.
"The tower top is connected with Richmond telephone exchange by private wire. I have been rung up and in long conversation with Pu-Yi. Early in the evening you will receive a letter from certain lady. Owing to certain complication of circumstances your attempt at storming the tower and seeing lady must be carried out to-night. Our friend is making all possible arrangements to this end and urgently begs you to be prepared. He implicitly urges me to warn you the attempt is not without grave danger. Please return to 'Swan' at once. There is much to be arranged, and at lunch time two strange-looking customers were in the bar whose appearance I didn't like at all. Also Sliddim thinks he recognized one of them as an exceedingly dangerous person."
For to-night! At last the patient months of waiting were over and it had all narrowed down to this. To-night I should win or lose all that made life worth living; and the fast taxi that took me back to Richmond within twenty minutes of receiving the telegram, carried a man singing.
The wind was getting up on Richmond Hill and masses of cloud were scudding from the South and obscuring the light of the moon, when at about half-past nine a small, well-appointed motor coupé drew up in front of the great gate at the tower inclosure.
The small closed-in car was painted dead black, the man who drove it was in livery, and a professional-looking person in a fur coat stepped out and pressed the electric button of a small door in the wall by the side of the huge main gates. In his hand he had a little black bag.
In a moment the door opened a few inches and a large, saffron-colored, intelligent face could be seen in the aperture.
"The doctor!" said the gentleman from the coupé. The door opened at once to admit him.
He turned and spoke to the chauffeur.
"As I cannot tell you how long I shall be, Williams," he said, "you had better go back to the surgery and wait there. I have no doubt I can telephone when I require you."
The man touched his cap and drove off, and the doctor found himself in a vaulted passage, to the right of which was a brightly lit room. Standing in the passage and bowing was a gigantic Chinaman, Kwang-su, the keeper of the gate, in a quilted black robe lined with fur. The man bowed low, and a second Chinaman came out of the room, a thin ascetic-looking person.
"Ah, Dr. Thomas!" he said, "we've been expecting you. I am secretary to Mr. Morse. Perhaps you will come this way."
He led the doctor down the passage, unlocked a further door and the two men emerged into the grounds, proceeding down a wide, graveled road, bordered by strips of lawn and lit at intervals with electric standards. In the distance there were ranges of lit buildings with figures flitting backwards and forwards before the orange oblongs of doors and windows. In another quarter rose the lighted dome of the great Power House from which the low hum of dynamos and the steady throb of engines could be faintly heard in pauses of the gale. It was exactly like standing at night in the center of some great exhibition grounds, save that straight ahead, overshadowing everything and covering an immense area of ground, were the bases of the three great towers, a nightmare of fantastic steel tracery such as no man's eye had beheld before in the history of the world.
"So far, so good," said Pu-Yi with a sigh of relief. "That was excellently managed, the motor-car was quite in keeping. Your wonderful little friend who speaks my language so well is already in the compound with some of the men. He will await here to take any orders that may be necessary."
I was trembling with excitement and could hardly reply.
Here I was at last, passed into the Forbidden City with the greatest ease.
"We will walk slowly towards tower number three, which is the one we shall ascend," said my companion, "and I will explain the situation to you. On the tower top I have supreme authority, except for one man, and that's the Irish-American, Boss Mulligan. This worthy is much addicted to the use of hot and rebellious liquors, and is generally more or less intoxicated about this time, though he is more alert and ferocious than when sober. To-night I have taken the opportunity to put a little something in his bottle, a little something from China, which will not be detected, and which will by now have sent him into a profound, drugged slumber. I then telephoned all down the tower to the lift men on the various stages, and also to Kwang there, that a doctor was to be expected and that I would come down to meet him and conduct him to Mr. Morse."
"Excellent!" I said, "and now—?"
"Now we are going straight up to the very top. Every one will see us but no one will think anything strange. Moreover, and this is a fact in our favor, when Mulligan awakes no one will be able to tell him of the incident even if they suspected anything, for few, if any, of the tower men speak more than a few rudimentary words of English, and I am the intermediary between them and their master. This was specially arranged by Mr. Morse so that none of them could get into communication with Europeans. The fact is greatly in our favor."
I pressed my hand to a pocket over my heart, where lay a little note which had been mysteriously conveyed to me early in the evening—a little agitated note bidding me come at all costs—and passed on in silence until we came under the gloomy shadows of the mighty girders and columns which sprang up from an expanse of smooth concrete which seemed to stretch as far as eye could reach.
We changed our lift at each stage; and I could have wished that it was day or the night was finer, for the experience is wonderful when one undergoes it for the first time.
"We shall ascend by one of the small rapid lifts built for four or five persons only, and not the large and more cumbrous machines. Even so, you must remember, Doctor"—he chuckled as he called me that—"we have nearly half a mile to go."
On and on we went, amid this lifeless forest of steel with its smooth concrete and shining electric-lamps, until at last we approached a small, illuminated pavilion, where two silent celestials awaited us. We stepped into the lift, the door was closed, a bell rang and we began to move upwards. I sat down on a plush-covered seat and didn't attempt to look out of the frosted windows on either side until at length, after what seemed an interminable time, we stopped with a little jerk. Pu-Yi opened the door and led me down on to a platform.
"We are now," he said, "on the first stage—just fifty feet higher than the golden cross on the top of Saint Paul's. If you will come up this slant—see! here's the next lift."
I followed him along a steel platform for some twenty or thirty yards, the wind whistling all around. On looking to the right I saw nothing but a black void, at the bottom of which, far, far below, was the yellow glow of Richmond town. On looking to the left I stopped for a moment and stared, unable to believe my eyes. As I live, there was an immense lake there, surrounded by rushes that sang and swished in the wind, with a boat-house, and a little landing-stage!
Then, with a clang of wings and a chorus of shrill quacks, a gaggle of wild duck got up and sped away into the dark.
"Yes," said Pu-Yi, "that's the lake. There are many variety of water fowl fed there, who make it their home. On a quiet afternoon, walking round the margin, or in a canoe, one can feel ten thousand miles away from London. But that's nothing to what you will see if circumstances permit."
I have but a dim recollection of the second stage, which was only a stage in the particular tower we were mounting, and did not extend between the three as the lower and two upper ones did, forming the immense plateaus of which the lake was one and the City in the clouds itself another.
It was when we had slowed down, and even in the dark lift, that I began to have a curious sensation of an immense immeasurable height, and Pu-Yi gave me a warning look as who would say, "Now, get ready, the adventure really begins."
We stopped, the door slid back and immediately we were in a blaze of light. We were no longer out of doors. The lift had come up through the floor of a large room. It was divided into two portions by polished steel bars extending from ceiling to floor. A cat could not have squeezed through. On our side, the lift side, the floor was covered with matting but there was no furniture at all. Beyond the bars were a Turkey carpet, several armchairs, a mahogany table with bottles, siphons, newspapers, and a large, automatic pistol. An electric fire burned cheerily in one corner and at right angles to it was a couch. Upon this couch, purple-faced and snoring like a bull, lay Mulligan, huge, relaxed, helpless.
"Good heavens!" I whispered. "Gideon Morse is safe enough here."
"In ten seconds," Pu-Yi whispered, "by pressing that bell button, Mulligan could have the room full of armed guards, and as you see, this steel fence is impassable without the key. There are only three keys, of which I have one."
He produced it as he spoke, inserting it in a gleaming, complicated lock, slid back a portion of the steel-work, and we stepped into the guard-room.
"We are now," said my guide, "on the platform immediately under that on which the City rests, and about a hundred feet below it. This platform is entirely occupied by this guard-room, a range of store and dwelling houses, the elaborate electric installation, power for which is supplied from below, Turkish baths, a swimming bath, and so forth. Please follow me."
With a glance of repulsion at the drugged giant on the couch I went after Pu-Yi, through a door on the opposite side of the room, and down a long corridor with windows on one side and arched recesses on the other. At the end of this we came out again into the open air, that is to say that we were shielded by walls and buildings, walking as it were in a sleeping town upon streets paved with wood blocks, while instead of the vault of heaven above, about the height of a tallish church tower were the great beams and girders which supported the City itself, and from which, at regular intervals, hung arc lamps which threw a blue and stilly radiance upon the streets and roofs of the buildings.
It was colossal, amazing, this great colony in the sky. Now and then we heard voices, the rattle of dice thrown upon a board, and the wailing music of Chinese violins. Two or three times silent figures passed us with a low bow, and without a glimmer of curiosity in their impassive faces, until at length we came to a long row of lift doors, with an inscription above each one, and in the center, dividing them into sections, a large, vaulted stairway mounting upwards till it was lost to sight. It was lined with white tiles like a subway in some great railway terminus.
Pu-Yi unlocked the door of a small lift. We got into it, it rushed up for a few seconds and then we came out of a small white kiosk upon a scene so wonderful, so enchanted that I forgot all else for a second, caught hold of my conductor's thin arm and gave a cry of admiration and wonder. A mass of clouds had just raced before the moon, leaving it free to shed its light until another should envelop it.
The pure radiance, unspoiled by smoke, mist, or the miasma which hangs above the roofs of earthly cities, poured down in floods of light upon a vast quadrangle of buildings, white as snow and with roofs that seemed of gold.
I had the impression of immensity, though magnified a dozen times, that the great quadrangle of Christ Church, Oxford, or the court of Trinity, Cambridge, give to one who sees them for the first time. But that impression was only fleeting. These buildings seemed to obey no architectural law. They were tossed up like foam in the upper air, marvelous, fantastic, beautiful beyond words.
We hurried along by the side of a great green lawn which might have been a century growing, past bronze dragons supporting fountain basins, down an arcade, where the broad leaves of palms clicked together and there was a scent of roses, until we hurried through a little postern door and up some steps and came out in what Pu-Yi whispered was the library.
Wonder upon wonders! My brain reeled as we stepped out of the door in the wall into a great Gothic room with groined roof of stone, an oriel window at one end, and thousands upon thousands of books in the embayed shelves of ancient oak. It was exactly like the library of some great college or castle; one expected to see learned men in gowns and hoods moving slowly from shelf to shelf, or writing at this or that table.
"But, but," I stammered, "this might have been here for seven hundred years!" and indeed there was all the deep scholastic charm and dignity of one of the great libraries of the past.
For answer he turned to me, and I saw that his thin hand clutched at his heart.
"It's all illusion," he whispered, "all cunning and wonderful illusion. The walls of this place are not of ancient stone. They are plates of toughened steel. The old oak was made yesterday at great expense. 'Tis all a picture in a dream."
I saw that he was powerfully affected for a moment, but for just that moment I did not understand why.
"But the books!" I cried, looking round me in amazement—"surely the books—?"
"Ah, yes," he sighed, "they are the collection of Mr. Gideon Morse, which is second to very few in the world. They were all brought over from Rio nearly two years ago. We cannot compete with the British Museum, or some of the great American collectors in certain ways, but there are treasures here—"
We had by now walked half-way up the great hall. He stopped, went to part of the wall covered with books, withdrew one, turned a little handle which its absence revealed, and a whole section of the shelves swung outwards.
"In here, please," said Pu-Yi, "this is a little room where I sometimes do secretarial work. At any rate it is hidden, and you will be quite safe here while I go to the Señorita and tell her that you await her."
The door clicked. I sat down on a low couch and waited.
The experiences of the night had been so strange, the intense longing of months seemed now so near fruition, that every artery in my body pulsed and drummed, and it was only by a tremendous effort of will that I sat down and forced myself to think.
Here I was, at her own invitation, to rescue my love. As my mind began to work I saw that I must be guided in my course of action by what she told me. Juanita obviously thought that her father's aberration was a form of madness without foundation. She did not know what I had discovered. If she did she might realize that her father was possibly not so mad as she imagined. For myself, after this space of time, I can say that I was very seriously disturbed by Arthur Winstanley's revelations in regard to the unspeakable Midwinter and the news that he was now in England. Perhaps you will remember that in Bill Rolston's telegram to me he hinted at some suspicious strangers having been seen in the private bar of the "Golden Swan." One of them, I had ascertained, answered to the description of Midwinter in every detail, and the two men were seen by Sliddim to drive away through Richmond Park in a large, private car.
Certainly I must tell Juanita something of this and help her to warn her father, perhaps....
And then I remembered the elaborate precautions of my ascent, the literal impossibility of any stranger or strangers ever getting to where I was, and I breathed again.
The place—one couldn't call it a room—in which I sat, was simply a little sexagonal nook or retreat, masked from the great library by its great door of books. Three of the panels which went from the floor to the vaulted ceiling were of dead black silk. The other three were of Chinese embroidery, stiff, with raised gold, and gems, which I realized must be from the choicest examples of their kind in the world. Still, I wasn't interested in dragons of tarnished gold, with opal eyes, ivory teeth, and scales of lapislazuli. I was getting restive when the black panel, which was the back of the entrance door, swung towards me, and I saw Juanita.
She was dressed in black, a sort of tea-gown I suppose you'd call it, though round her shoulders and falling on each side of her slim form was a cloak of heavy sable.
In her blue-black hair—oh, my dear, how true you were then to the fashions of the south, and how true you are to-day—there was a glowing, crimson rose.