Rolston's revelation, utterly unexpected, came to me with the suddenness of a blow over the heart. For a few seconds I was incapable of consecutive thought, though I don't think my face showed anything of it.
The lad was watching me anxiously and I had to do something with him at once. Fortunately, I thought of the obvious thing.
"Leave me now, Mr. Rolston," I said. "Go to the room down the passage marked 'Mr. Williams' on the door, and ask him to put you into a room by yourself. Then please, as quickly as possible, write me out a newspaper 'story' setting out fully all the facts you have told me. Remember that you've got to interest the public in the very first paragraph in what is undoubtedly a most sensational piece of news."
"How many words, sir?" he asked me—I liked that, it was professional.
"A thousand. And when you've done that bring it straight in to me."
He was out of the room in a minute and I sat down to think.
In the first place I didn't doubt his story for a moment, there was something transparently honest about the boy, and, unless I was very much mistaken, there was great ability in him also. When there was time for it I expected I should hear a breathless story of his adventures in the search of this stuff. He had hinted that his life had been in danger.... I began to think—hard. Assuming that was true, that Morse had been seized with this extraordinary whim, how did I stand in the matter? At a first view it appeared that I was rather badly snookered. Morse, always assuming young Rolston was correct, had spent a huge fortune in keeping his secret. Moreover, the Government was in it with him. It would hardly be the way to recommend myself to Juanita's father—whose good opinion I desired to gain more than that of any other person in the world, save one—by giving his cherished secret to the world in order to increase the prestige and circulation of theEvening Special.
If I did publish it, it was odds on that I never saw Juanita again. One thing occurred to me with relief—it wasn't a case in which Ihadto publish, in the public interest. By suppressing news I was not failing my duty as an editor, only losing a big scoop, though that was hard enough. What was to be done? As I asked myself that question I confess that for a brief moment—thank Heaven it did not last long—it occurred to me that I was now in a position to put considerable pressure upon the millionaire. I could hold out inducements....
Fortunately, I crushed all such ugly thoughts without much effort, and then the real solution came. When I had questioned Rolston a little more and was bedrock certain that he was right, I would see Morse at once and tell him all I had learnt without reserve. I would present the thing to him as one in which I claimed no personal interest, and my attitude would be that I felt he ought to be warned. I would engage to publish nothing without his wish, but he must look to it—if he wished to preserve his secret—that other people were not upon the same track. That could do me no harm whatever. It was the straight thing to do, and at the same time it would certainly help me with him. I thought, and think still, that this was a fair advantage to take. It is only a fool who throws away a legitimate weapon in love or war.
I rang up the Ritz Hotel and asked for Mr. Morse. There was some little delay at the Hotel Bureau, and then I was switched on to the telephone of the private apartments.
"Who's that?" asked a cold, characterless voice.
"Sir Thomas Kirby of theEvening Specialspeaking. Who are you?"
"Secretary to Mr. Morse"—now the voice was a little warmer.
"Is Mr. Morse at home?"
"I can see that he gets a message very shortly, Sir Thomas, if the matter is of importance."
"It is of very considerable importance or I shouldn't have troubled to ring Mr. Morse up, especially as I shall be meeting him in a day or two at a social engagement."
"Wait a moment, please."
I knew by this that I had struck lucky and that Morse was in the hotel, and within a minute I heard his calm, resonant voice in my ear.
"Good afternoon, Kirby. My secretary says you wanted to speak to me."
"Thank you, I am most anxious to have a conversation."
"Well, shall we hold the wire?"
"I daren't discuss my business over the wire, Mr. Morse."
There was a short silence and then:
"Please forgive me, but you know how busy I am. Could you give me the least indication of what you wish to talk to me about?"
I had an inspiration.
"Towers," I said in a low voice.
A quiet "Ah!" came to me over the wire, and then:
"I think I understand, Sir Thomas, you wish—?"
"To tell you something that I feel sure you ought to know, in your own interests."
"Pass,Friend!" was the reply, followed by a little chuckle in which I thought—I might have been mistaken—I detected a note of relief.
"When shall we meet?" I asked.
"Look here, Kirby," was the reply, "can you come here at eleven to-night? I'll give orders that you are to be taken up to my rooms at once. I can't guarantee that I shall be in at the moment. I also have something of considerable importance on hand, but if you will wait—I'm afraid I'm asking a great deal—I'll be certain to be with you sooner or later. My daughter may be at home and, if she is, no doubt she'll give you a cup of coffee or something while you wait. Do you think you can manage this?"
"I shall be delighted," I answered, trying to control my voice, and I hardly heard the quiet "Good-by" that concluded our conversation.
Well, I had done better for myself than I had hoped, and, so vain are all of us, I felt a kind of satisfaction in having "played the game" and at the same time won the trick. I did not reflect till afterwards that if Morse had been some one else and not the father of Juanita, I should not have hesitated for a moment to fill theSpecialwith scare headlines.
I sat down again in my chair, ordered a cup of tea, drank it with splendid visions of atête-à-têtewith Juanita that very night, and was leaning back in my chair lost in a rosy dream when the door opened and the odd little man with the red hair appeared at my side, holding two or three sheets of typewritten copy.
"The story, sir," he said.
I took it from him mechanically, it would never be published now, in all probability, but it would at least serve to show Morse how much I knew. I began to read.
At the end of the first paragraph I knew that the stuff was going to be all right. At the end of the second and third I sat up in my chair and abandoned my easy attitude. When I had read the whole of the thousand words I knew that I had discovered one of the best journalistic brains of the day! The boy could not only ferret out news, but he couldwrite! Every word fell with the right ring and chimed. He was terse, but vivid as an Alpine sunset. He made one powerful word do the work of ten. He suggested atmosphere by a semicolon, and there were fewer adjectives in his stuff than one would have believed possible. There were not four other men in Fleet Street who could have done as well. And beyond this, beyond my pleasure at the discovery of a genius, the article had a peculiar effect upon me. I felt that somehow or other the matter was not going to die with my interview to-night at the Ritz Hotel. The room in which I sat widened. There was a glimpse of far horizons....
I folded the copy carefully and placed it in my breast pocket.
"Mr. Rolston," I said, "I engage you from this moment as a member of my regular staff. Your salary to begin with will be ten pounds a week, and of course your expenses that you may incur in the course of your work. Do you accept these terms?"
Poor Bill Rolston! I mustn't give away the man who afterwards became my most faithful friend and most daring companion in hours of frightful peril, and a series of incredible adventures. Still, if hedidburst into tears that's nothing against him, for I didn't realize till sometime afterwards that he was half starved and at the very end of his tether.
He pulled himself together in a moment or two, took a cup of tea and let me cross-question him. What he told me in the next half-hour I cannot set down here. It will appear in its proper place, but it is enough to say that in the whole of my experience I never listened to a more mysterious and more enthralling recital.
I think that from that moment I realized that my fate was to be in some way linked with the three towers on Richmond Hill, and the sense of excitement which had been with me all the afternoon, grew till it was almost unbearable.
"Now, first of all," I said, when he had told me everything, "you are not to breathe a word of this to any human soul without my permission. While you have been absent I have already been taking steps, the nature of which I shall not tell you at present. Meanwhile, lock up everything in your heart."
I had a flash of foresight, well justified in the event.
"I may want you at any moment," I told him, "and therefore, with your permission, I'm going to put you up at my flat in Piccadilly, where you will be well looked after and have everything you want. I'll telephone through to my man, Preston, giving him full instructions, and you had better take a taxi and get there at once. Preston will send a messenger to your lodgings to bring up any clothes and so forth you may require."
He blushed rosy red, and I wondered why, for his story had been told to me in a crisp, man-of-the-world manner that made him seem far older than he was.
Then he shrugged his shoulders, put his hand in his trousers pocket and pulled out—one penny.
"All I have in the world," he said, with a rueful smile.
I scribbled an order on the cashier and told him to cash it in the office below, and, with a look of almost doglike fidelity and gratitude, the little fellow moved towards the door.
Just at that moment it opened and Julia Dewsbury came in.
Rolston's jaw dropped and his eyes almost started out of his head in amazement, and I saw a look come into my secretary's eyes that I should have been glad to inspire in the eyes of one woman.
"There, there," I said, "be off with you, both of you. Miss Dewsbury, take Mr. Rolston, now a permanent member of the staff, into your own room and tell him something about the ways of the office."
For half an hour I walked up and down the editorial sanctum arranging my thoughts, getting everything clear cut, and when that was done I telephoned to Arthur Winstanley, asking him, if he had nothing particular on, to dine with me.
His reply was that he would be delighted, as he had nothing to do till eleven o'clock, but that I must dine with him. "I have discovered a delightful little restaurant," he said, "which isn't fashionable yet, though it soon will be. Don't dress; and meet me at the Club at half-past seven."
My dinner with Arthur can be related very shortly, for, while it has distinct bearing upon the story, it was only remarkable for one incident, though, Heaven knows, that was important enough.
I met him at our Club in Saint James' and we walked together towards Soho.
"You are going to dine," said Arthur, "at 'L'Escargot d'Or'—The Golden Snail. It's a new departure in Soho restaurants, and only a few of us know of it yet. Soon all the world will be going there, for the cooking is magnificent."
"That's always the way with these Soho restaurants, they begin wonderfully, are most beautifully select in their patrons, and then the rush comes and everything is spoiled."
"I know, the same will happen here no doubt, though lower Bohemia will never penetrate because the prices are going to be kept up; and this place will always equal one of the first-class restaurants in town. Well, how goes it?"
I knew what he meant and as we walked I told him, as in duty bound, all there was to tell of the progress of my suit.
"Met her once," I said, "had about two minutes' talk. There's just a chance, I am not certain, that I may meet her to-night, and not in a crowd—in which case you may be sure I shall make the very most of my opportunities. If this doesn't come off, I don't see any other chance of really getting to know her until September, at Sir Walter Stileman's, and I have to thank you for that invitation, Arthur."
He sighed.
"It's a difficult house to get into," he said, "unless you are one of the pukka shooting set, but I told old Sir Walter that, though you weren't much good in October and that pheasants weren't in your line, you were A1 at driven 'birds.'"
"But I can't hit a driven partridge to save my life, unless by a fluke!"
"I know, Tom, I don't say that you'll be liked at all, but you won the toss and by our bond we're bound to do all we can to give you your opportunity. I need hardly say that my greatest hope in life is that she'll have nothing whatever to say to you. And now let's change that subject—it's confounded thin ice however you look at it—and enjoy our little selves. I have been on the 'phone with Anatole, and we are going todineto-night, my son, reallydine!"
The Golden Snail in a Soho side street presented no great front to the world. There was a sign over a door, a dingy passage to be traversed, until one came to another door, opened it and found oneself in a long, lofty room shaped like a capital L. The long arm was the one at which you entered, the other went round a rectangle. The place was very simply decorated in black and white. Tables ran along each side, and the only difference between it and a dozen other such places in the foreign quarter of London was that the seats against the wall were not of red plush but of dark green morocco leather. It was fairly full, of a mixed company, but long-haired and impecunious Bohemia was conspicuously absent.
A table had been reserved for us at the other end opposite the door, so that sitting there we could see in both directions.
We started with little tiny oysters from Belon in Brittany—I don't suppose there was another restaurant in London at that moment that was serving them. The soup was asparagus cream soup of superlative excellence, and then came a young guinea-fowl stuffed with mushrooms, which was perfection itself.
"How on earth do you find these places, Arthur?" I asked.
"Well," he answered, "ever since I left Oxford I've been going about London and Paris gathering information of all sorts. I've lived among the queerest set of people in Europe. My father thinks I'm a waster, but he doesn't know. My mother, angel that she is, understands me perfectly. She knows that I've only postponed going into politics until I have had more experience than the ordinary young man in my position gets. I absolutely refused to be shoved into the House directly I had come down with my degree, the Union, and all those sort of blushing honors thick upon me. In a year or two you will see, Tom, and meanwhile here's the Moulin à Vent."
Anatole poured out that delightful but little known burgundy for us himself, and it was a wine for the gods.
"A little interval," said Arthur, "in which a cigarette is clearly indicated, and then we are to have some slices of bear ham, stewed in champagne, which Iratherthink will please you."
We sat and smoked, looking up the long room, when the swing doors at the end opened and a man and a girl entered. They came down towards us, obviously approaching a table reserved for them in the short arm of the restaurant, and I noticed the man at once.
For one thing he was in full evening dress, whereas the only other diners who were in evening kit at all wore dinner jackets and black ties. He was a tall man of about fifty with wavy, gray hair. His face was clean shaved, and a little full. I thought I had never seen a handsomer man, or one who moved with a grace and ease which were so perfectly unconscious. The girl beside him was a pretty enough young creature with a powdered face and reddened lips—nothing about her in the least out of the ordinary. When he came opposite our table, his face lighted up suddenly. He smiled at Arthur, and opened his mouth as if to speak.
Arthur looked him straight in the face with a calm and stony stare—I never saw a more cruel or explicit cut.
The man smiled again without the least bravado or embarrassment, gave an almost imperceptible bow and passed on towards his table without any one but ourselves having noticed what occurred. The whole affair was a question of some five or six seconds.
He sat down with his back to us.
"Who is he?" I asked of Arthur.
He hesitated for a moment and then he gave a little shudder of disgust. I thought, also, that I saw a shade come upon his face.
"No one you are ever likely to meet in life, Tom," he replied, "unless you go to see him tried for murder at the Old Bailey some day. He is a fellow called Mark Antony Midwinter."
"A most distinguished looking man."
"Yes, and I should say he stands out from even his own associates in a preëminence of evil. Tom," he went on, with unusual gravity, "deep down in the soul of every man there's some foul primal thing, some troglodyte that, by the mercy of God, never awakes in most of us. But when it does in some, and dominates them, then a man becomes a fiend, lost, hopeless, irremediable. That man Midwinter is such an one. You could not find his like in Europe. He walks among his fellows with a panther in his soul; and the high imagination, the artistic power in him makes him doubly dangerous. I could tell you details of his career which would make your blood run cold—if it were worth while. It isn't.
"But I perceive our bear's flesh stewed in Sillery is approaching. Let's forget this intrusion."
Well, we dined after the fashion of Sybaris, went to the Club for an hour and smoked, and then Arthur returned to his chambers in Jermyn Street to dress. I went back to mine, found from Preston that little Mr. Rolston was safely in bed and fast asleep, changed into a dinner jacket and walked the few yards to the Ritz Hotel, my heart beating high with hope.
I was shown up at once to the floor inhabited by the millionaire, and knew, therefore, that I was expected. The man who conducted me knocked at a door, opened it, and I entered. I found myself in a comfortable room with writing tables and desks, telephone and a typewriter. A young man of two or three and twenty was seated at one of the tables smoking a cigarette.
He jumped up at once.
"Oh, Sir Thomas," he said, "Mr. Morse has not yet returned, and I think it quite likely he may be some little time. But the Señora Balmaceda and Miss Morse are in the drawing-room and perhaps you would like to—"
"I shall be delighted," I said, cutting him short, but who on earth was Señora Balmaceda? The chaperone, I supposed, confound it!
The obliging young man led me through two or three very gorgeously furnished rooms and at last into a large apartment brilliantly lit from the roof, and with flowers everywhere. At one end was a little alcove.
"I have brought Sir Thomas, Señora," he said, looking about the room, but there was no one remotely resembling a Señora there. Nevertheless, directly he spoke, some one stepped out of the conservatory from behind a tropical shrub in a green tub, and came towards us.
It was Juanita, and she was alone. The secretary withdrew and I advanced to meet her.
"How do you do, Sir Thomas," she said in her beautiful, bell-like voice. "Father said you might be coming and I'm afraid he won't be in just yet. And it's so tiresome, poor Auntie has gone to bed with a bad headache."
"I'm very sorry, Miss Morse," I answered as we shook hands, "I must do what I can to take her place," and then I looked at her perfectly straight.
Yes, I dared to look into those marvelous limpid eyes and I know she saw the hunger in mine, for she took her hand away a little hurriedly.
"What a charming room! Is that a little conservatory over there? It must look out over the Green Park?"
"Yes, it does," she replied almost in a whisper.
"Then do let's sit there, Miss Morse."
Was I acting in a play or what on earth gave me this sense of confidence and strength? Heaven only knows, but I never faltered from the first moment that I entered the room. Oh, the gods were with me that night!
We went to the alcove without a further word, and she sat down upon a couch. I have described her once, at Lady Brentford's ball, but at this moment I am not going to attempt to describe her at all.
For half a minute we said nothing and then I took her hand and pressed it to my lips.
"Juanita," I said, "there are mysterious currents and forces in this world stronger than we are ourselves. This is the third time that I've seen you, but no power on earth can prevent me from telling you—"
She was looking at me with parted lips and eyes suffused with an angelic tenderness and modesty. My voice broke in my throat with unutterable joy. I was certain that she loved me.
And then, just as I was about to say the sealing words—remember, I had invoked the gods—there was the sound of a door opening sharply.
I stiffened and rose to my feet. From where we sat we could survey the whole, rich room. Through the open door—I must say there were several doors in the room—came a tall man,walking backwards.
He was in full evening dress with a camellia in his button-hole.
He stepped back lightly with cat-like steps, his arms a little curved, his fingers all extended.
I saw his face. It was convulsed with the satanic fury of an old Japanese mask. Line for line, it was just like that, and it was also the face of the bland and smiling man I had seen two hours before at the restaurant of The Golden Snail.
I felt something warm and trembling at my side. Juanita was clinging to me and I put my arm around her waist. Through the open door there now came another figure.
A quiet, resonant voice cut into the tense, horrible silence.
"Quick, Mark Antony Midwinter—that's your door, quick—quick!"
The big man paused for an instant and a hissing spitting noise came from his mouth.
There was a sharp crack and a great mirror on the wall shivered in pieces. There was another, and then the big man turned and literally bounded over the soft carpet, flung himself through the door and disappeared.
Gideon Mendoza Morse advanced into the drawing-room, smiling to himself and looking down at a little steel-blue automatic in his hand.
Then Juanita and I came out of the alcove, hand in hand, and he saw us.
Gideon Morse still had the little steel-blue automatic pistol in his hand. He was actually smiling and humming a little tune when he turned and saw Juanita and myself coming out of the alcove.
In a flash his hand dropped the pistol into the pocket of his dinner jacket and his face changed.
"Santa Maria!" he said in Spanish, and then, "Juanita, Sir Thomas Kirby!"
"You remember you gave me an appointment to-night, Mr. Morse," I stammered.
"Of course, of course, then—"
He said no more, for with a little gasp Juanita sank into a heap upon the floor. We had loosened hands directly the millionaire turned towards us and I was too late to catch her.
Morse was at her side in an instant.
"The bell," he said curtly, and I ran to the side of the room and pressed the button hard and long.
Wow! but these money emperors of the world are well served! In a second, so it seemed, the room was full of people. The young secretary, a couple of maids, a dark foreign-looking man in a morning coat and a black tie whom I took to be the valet, and finally a gigantic fellow in tweeds with a battered face as big as a ham and arms which reached almost to his knees.
The maids were at the girl's side in a moment, applying restoratives. Morse rose, just as another door opened and in sailed a stout elderly lady in a black evening dress with a mantilla of black lace over her abundant and ivory white hair. Morse said something to her in Spanish and I wished I had been Arthur Winstanley to understand it. Then I felt my arm taken and Morse drew me away.
"It is nothing serious," he said, "just a little shock," and as he said it he made a slight gesture with his head.
It was enough. The secretary, the valet, and the huge, vulgar-looking man in tweeds faded away in an instant, though not before I had seen the latter spot the broken mirror, and a ferocious glint come into his eyes. Nor did he look surprised.
Juanita began to come to herself and she was tenderly carried away by the women. Morse accompanied them and spoke in a rapid whisper to the distinguished old lady, who, I knew, must be the Señora Balmaceda.
The two of us were left alone, and for my part I sank down in an adjacent chair quite exhausted in mind, if not in body, by the happenings of the last ten minutes. Up to the present—I will say nothing of the future—I had never lived so fast or so much in such a short space of time; and you've got to get accustomed to that sort of thing really to enjoy it!
"I'm afraid your visit has been somewhat exciting," said my host, in his musical, level voice. His eyes were as dark and inscrutable as ever, but nevertheless, I saw that the man was badly moved. He took a slim, gold cigarette case from his waistcoat pocket and his hand trembled. Moreover, under the tan of his skin he was as white as a ghost—there was a curious gray effect.
I laughed.
"I confess to having been a little startled. Your secretary brought me in here and I was talking to Miss Morse in the conservatory when—" I hesitated for a moment.
He saved me the trouble of going on.
"I guess," he said, "you and I had better have a little drink now," and he went to the wall.
I don't pretend to know how the service was managed—I suppose there was a sergeant-major somewhere in the background who drilled the host of personal and hotel attendances who ministered to the wants of Gideon Morse. At any rate, this time no one entered but one of the hotel footmen, and he brought the usual tray of cut-glass bottles, etc.
Morse mixed us both a brandy and soda and I noticed two things. First, his hand was steady again; secondly, the brandy was not decanted but came out of a bottle, on which was the fleur-de-lys of ancient, royal France, blown into the glass.
There was a twinkle in his eye when he saw I had spotted that.
"Yes," he said, "there are only three dozen bottles left, even in the Ritz. They were found in a bricked-up cellar of the Tuileries," and he tossed off his glass with relish.
So did I—Cleopatra's pearls were not so expensive.
"Now look here, Sir Thomas," Morse said, sitting down by me and drawing up his chair, "you've seen something to-night of a very unfortunate nature. You've seen it quite by accident. If news of it got about, if it were even whispered through a certain section of London, then the very gravest harm might result, not only to me but to many other persons also."
"My dear sir, I have seen nothing. I have heard nothing. You may place implicit reliance upon that," and I held out my hand to him, which he took in a firm grip.
"Thank you, Sir Thomas," he replied simply. "It was a question," he hesitated for the fraction of a second, and I knew he was lying, "it was a question of impudent blackmail. I had expected something of the sort and was prepared. You saw how the cowardly hound ran away."
"Quite so, Mr. Morse. Of course a man in your position must be subject to these things occasionally."
"Ah, you see that," he said briskly, and I knew he was relieved. "You are a man of the world, and you see that. Well, I am thankful for your promise of silence. I am the more annoyed, though, that Juanita should have been present at a scene which, though really burlesque, must have seemed to her one of violence."
I had my own opinion about the burlesque nature of the incident, but I made haste to reassure him.
"Of course," I said, "it must have been distressing for any lady, but it was the suddenness that upset her, and I'm sure Miss Morse's nerves are far too good for it to have any permanent effect."
"Yes," he answered, and in his voice there was a caress, "I can explain it all to Juanita, and the memory of this evening will soon go from her."
Again I had my own private opinion, which I forbore to state. Personally, I had very little doubt but that Juanita would remember this evening as long as the darling lived! It would not be my fault if she didn't! But I saw that this was no moment to tell him that I loved her. Perhaps, if we had been granted five minutes more in the conservatory and I had said all I meant, and heard from her all I hoped, I should have spoken then. As it was I could not, though in my own mind I was certain she cared for me.
We were silent for a few moments, and then Morse seemed to recall himself from private thought.
"I had nearly forgotten!" he said. "You specially wanted to see me to-night, Sir Thomas, and you've very kindly waited in order to do so."
Then I remembered the errand upon which I had come, and pulled myself together mentally. I liked Morse. He was of tremendous importance to me, and yet at the same time it behooved me to be wary. Already I was certain that he was playing a game with me in the matter of Mark Antony Midwinter, whose name I kept rigidly to myself. I must play my cards carefully.
Please understand me, I don't for a moment mean that I felt he was my enemy, or inimical to me in any way. Far from it. I knew that he liked me and wouldn't do me a bad turn if he could help it. At the same time I was perfectly sure that if necessary he would use me like a pawn in a mysterious game that I couldn't fathom, and I didn't mean to be used like a pawn if I could help it. My hope and ambition was to serve him, but I wanted a little reserve of power also, for reasons I need not indicate.
"Yes," I said, "I telephoned you."
"And you mentioned a certain word which rather puzzled me."
"I did. 'Towers' was the word."
"I believe we are going to meet at The Towers at Cerne in Norfolk," said Mr. Morse. "Sir Walter Stileman told me that you were to be of the shooting party in September."
At that I laughed frankly, really he was a little underestimating me. He grinned and understood in a second.
"Tell me, Sir Thomas, exactly what youdomean," he said.
"Well, you know I am a newspaper proprietor and editor."
"Of the best written and most alive journal in London!"
I bowed, and produced from an inside pocket Master Bill Rolston's astonishing piece of copy.
"An unknown journalist who was introduced to me to-day," I said, "brought a piece of news which would be of absorbing interest to the country if it were published and if it were true. Perhaps you would like to read this."
I handed him the typewritten copy and prepared to watch his face as he read it, but he was too clever for that. He took it and perused it, walking up and down the room, and I began to realize some of the qualities which had made this man one of the powers of the world.
More especially so when he came and sat down again, his face wreathed in smiles, though I could have sworn fury lurked in the depths of his black eyes.
"Well, now," he said, "this is interesting, very interesting indeed. I am going to be quite frank with you, Sir Thomas. There's an amount of truth in this manuscript that would cause me colossal worry if it were published at present. Another thing it would do would be to quite upset a financial operation of considerable magnitude. Personally, I should lose at the very least a couple of million sterling, though that wouldn't make any appreciable difference to my fortune, but a lot of other people would be ruined and for no possible benefit to any one in the world except yourself and theEvening Special."
"Thank you," I said, "that's just why I came. Of course nothing shall be published, though I'm quite in the dark as to the nature of the whole thing."
"I call that generous, generous beyond belief, Sir Thomas, for I know that it is the life of a newspaper to get hold of exclusive news. I would offer you a large sum not to publish this story did I not know that you would indignantly refuse it. I am a student of men, my young friend, if I may be allowed to call you so, and even if you were a poor man instead of being a rich one as ordinary wealth goes, I should never make such a proposition."
I glowed inwardly as he said it. It was a downright compliment, coming from him under the circumstances, at which any one would have been warmed to the heart. For here was a great man, a Napoleon of his day, one who, if he chose, could upset dynasties and plunge nations into war. Yet, as I knew quite well, Gideon Mendoza Morse wasn't a member of the great financial groups who control and sway politics. In a sense he was that rare thing, a pastoral millionaire. He owned vast tracts of country populated by lowing steers for the food of the world. In the remote mountains of Brazil brown Indians toiled to wrest precious metals and jewels from the earth for his advantage. But from the feverish plotting of international finance I knew him to stand aloof.
"I very much appreciate your remarks," was what I told him, "and you may rest assured that nothing shall transpire."
"Thanks. But all the generosity mustn't be on your side. You shall have your scoop, Sir Thomas, if you will wait a little while."
"I am entirely at your service."
"Very well then," he said, and his manner grew extraordinarily cordial, "let's put a period to it! I hope that, from to-day, I and my daughter are going to see a great deal of you—a great deal more of you than hitherto. You know how we are"—he gave a little annoyed laugh—"run after in London; and what a success Juanita has had over here. What I hope to do is to form a little inner circle of friends, and you must be one of them—if you will?"
How my luck held! I thought. Here, offered freely and with open hands, was the only thing I wanted. I am glad to think that I found a moment in which to be sorry for Arthur and dear old Pat Moore.
"It's awfully good of you," I stammered.
He made a little impatient gesture with his hand.
"Please don't talk nonsense," he said. "And now about the towers on Richmond Hill. I have told you that I cannot explain fully until September. I will tell you, though, that your clever little journalist—what, by the way, did you say his name was?"
"Rolston."
"Of course—has ferreted out much that I wished to conceal, but he isn't entirely upon the right track. Iam, Kirby, at the bottom of the whole thing, and I have spent goodness knows how much to keep that quiet."
He lit another cigarette, leant back in his chair and laughed like a boy.
"I've bribed, and bribed, and bribed, I've managed to put pressure, actually to put pressure upon the British Government. I've employed an untold number of agents, in short I've exercised the whole of my intellect, and the pressure of almost unlimited capital to keep my name out of it. And now, you tell me, some little journalist has found out one thing at least that I was determined to conceal until September next! The plans of men and mice gang oft agley, Kirby! This little man of yours must be a sort of genius. I hope there are no more people like him prowling about Richmond Hill."
I was quite certain that there was not another Bill Rolston anywhere, and I amused Morse immensely by detailing the circumstances of the little, red-haired man's arrival in Fleet Street. I never realized till now how human and genial the great man could be, for he even expanded sufficiently to offer to toss me a thousand pounds to nothing for the services of Julia Dewsbury!
I saw my way with Juanita becoming smoother and smoother every moment.
It was growing late, nearly one o'clock, when Morse insisted on having some bisque soup brought in.
"I think we both want something really sustaining," he said. "Do you begin and I'll just run up and see my sister-in-law, Señora Balmaceda, and find out if Juanita is all right."
He left the room, and, happy that all had gone so well, I sipped the incomparable white essence, and gave myself up to dreams of the future.
I was to see her often. In September, at Sir Walter Stileman's, Morse was to take me into his fullest confidence. That could only mean one thing. Within a little less than three months he would give his consent to my marriage with his daughter. Another opportunity like this of to-night, and Juanita and I would be betrothed. It would be delightful to keep our secret until the shooting began. I would follow her through the events of the season, watch her mood, hear her extolled on every side, knowing all the time she was mine. A vision came to me of Cowes week, the gardens of the R. Y. Squadron, Juanita on board of my own yacht "Moonlight."
I think I must have fallen asleep when I started into consciousness to find myself staring into the great broken mirror over the mantelpiece and to find that Mr. Morse had returned and was smiling down upon me.
"She's all right, thank heavens," he said, "and has been asleep for a long time. And now, as you seem sleepy too, I'll bid you good-night, with a thousand thanks for your consideration."
It was nearly two o'clock I noticed when I stepped out into the cool air of Piccadilly and walked the few yards to my flat. I must have been asleep for quite a long time, and dear old Morse had forborne to waken me.
I peculiarly remember my sense of well-being and happiness during that short walk. I was in a glow of satisfaction. Everything had turned out even better than I had expected. What did the scoop for the paper matter after all? Nothing, in comparison with the more or less intimate relations in which I now stood with Gideon Morse. I was to see Juanita constantly. She was almost mine already, and fortune had been marvelously on my side. Of course there would be obstacles, there was no doubt of that. I was no real match for her. But the obstacles in the future were as nothing to those that had been already surmounted. I began to smile with conceit at the diplomatic way in which I had dealt with the great financier; not for a single moment, as I put my key into the latch, did I dream that I had been played with the utmost skill, tied myself irrevocably to silence, and that horrible trouble and grim peril even now walked unseen by my side.
When I got into the smoking-room I found things just as usual. I had hardly lit a last cigarette when the door opened and Preston entered.
"Good heavens!" I said, "I never told you to wait up for me, Preston. There was not the slightest need. You ought to have been in bed hours ago."
"So I was, Sir Thomas," he said looking at me in a surprised sort of way, and I noticed for the first time that he was wearing a gray flannel dressing-gown and slippers.
"What do you mean?"
"Until the telephone message came, Sir Thomas."
"What telephone message?"
"Why, yours, Sir Thomas."
"I never telephoned. When do you mean?"
"Not very long ago, Sir Thomas," he said, "I didn't take particular notice of the time, somewhere between one o'clock and now."
I was on the alert at once, though I could not have particularly said why.
"Are you quite sure that it was I who 'phoned?"
"But, yes," he answered, "it was your voice, Sir Thomas. You said you were speaking from the office."
"From theEvening Special? I've not been there since late afternoon. And when have I ever been there so late? There's never more than one person there all night long until six in the morning. It's not a morning paper as you know."
Preston seemed more than ever bewildered as I flung this at him.
"All I can say is, Sir Thomas," he said, "that I heard your voice distinctly and you said you were at the office."
"What did I say exactly?"
"About the young gentleman, Sir Thomas, the young gentleman who has come to stay for a time. Your instructions were that he should be wakened and told to come to Fleet Street without the least delay. You also said a taxicab would be waiting for him, by the time he was dressed, to drive him down."
"And he went?"
"Certainly, Sir Thomas, he was in his clothes quicker than I ever see a gentleman dress before, had a glass of milk and a biscuit, and the cab was just coming as I went down with him and opened the front door."
I rushed out of the room, down the corridor and into that which had been placed at Rolston's disposal. It was as Preston said, the lad was gone. The bed was tumbled as he had left it, but a portmanteau full of clothes, some hair brushes and a tooth brush on the wash-stand remained. Clearly Rolston believed he was obeying orders.
Preston had followed me out of the smoking-room and stood at the door, a picture of uneasy wonder. Let me say at once that Preston had been with me for six years, and was under-butler at my father's house for I don't know how many more. He is the most faithful and devoted creature on earth and, what is more, as sharp as a needle. He, at any rate, had no hand in this business.
"There's something extraordinarily queer about this," I said. "I assure you that I have never been near the telephone during the whole night. I dined with Lord Arthur in Soho and the rest of the evening I have been spending at the Ritz Hotel with Mr. Gideon Morse. You've been tricked, Preston."
"I'm extremely sorry, Sir Thomas," he was beginning when I cut him short.
"It's not in the least your fault, but are you certain the voice was mine?"
He frowned with the effort at recollection.
"Well, Sir Thomas," he said, "if you hadn't told me what you have, I believe I could almost have sworn to it. Of course, voices are altered on the telephone, to some extent, but it's extraordinary how they do, in the main, keep their individual character."
He spoke the truth. I, who was using the telephone all day, entirely agreed with him.
"Well, Preston, it was a skillful imitation and not my voice at all."
"If you will excuse me, Sir Thomas," he replied, "your voice is a very distinctive one. It's not very easily mistaken by any one who has heard your voice once or twice."
"That only makes the thing the more mysterious."
"The more easy, I should say, Sir Thomas. It must be far less difficult to imitate an outstanding voice with marked peculiarities than an ordinary one."
He was right there, it hadn't occurred to me before.
"But who in the office would dare to imitate my voice?"
"That, of course, I could not say, Sir Thomas, but we've only the word of the unknown person who rang me up that he was speaking from the office. For all we know he might have been in the next flat."
That again was a point and I noted it.
"I'm not going to waste any time," I said. "I'll go down to the office at once and see if I can find out anything."
He helped me on with my coat and within five minutes of my entering I was again in Piccadilly.
Already the long ribbon of road was beginning to be faintly tinged with gray. The dawn was not yet, but night was flitting away before his coming. Save for an occasional policeman and the rumble of heavy carts piled with sweet-smelling vegetables and flowers for Covent Garden, the great street was empty. I passed the Ritz Hotel with a tender thought of one who lay sleeping there, and hurried eastwards. I had nearly got to the Circus when a taxi swung out of the Haymarket and I hailed the man. He was tired and sleepy, had been waiting for hours at some club or other, but I persuaded him, with much gold, to take me, and we buzzed away toward the street of ink.
Here was activity enough. The later editions of the morning papers were being vomited out of holes in the earth by hundreds of thousands. Windows were lighted up everywhere as I turned down a side street leading to the river and came to my own offices.
I unlocked the door with my pass key and almost immediately I was confronted by Johns, the night-watchman, who flashed his torch in my face and inquired my business. I was pleased to see the man alert and at his post and asked who was in the building.
"Only Mr. Benson, Sir Thomas; it's his week for night duty."
I went up and very considerably surprised, not to say alarmed, young Mr. Benson, who had the photograph of a lady propped up on a desk before him and was obviously inditing an amorous epistle.
I put him through the most searching possible cross-examination, until I was quite sure that he had never telephoned to my flat. I knew him for a truthful, conscientious fellow, without a glimpse of humor or the slightest histrionic talent. Johns, called from below, was equally emphatic. Certainly no taxi had arrived here during the last three hours, nor had William Rolston come near the office.
I returned to Piccadilly, utterly baffled and without a single ray of light in my mind.
On the morning of the fourteenth of September I met Captain Pat Moore and Lord Arthur Winstanley at Liverpool Street station. We were all three of us asked to Cerne as guests of that fine old sportsman, Sir Walter Stileman. A special carriage was reserved for us and our servants filled it with luncheon baskets and gun cases.
It was almost exactly three months since my eventful night at the Ritz with Gideon Morse, and the disappearance of little William Rolston.
What had passed since that time I can set out fully in a very few words. First of all the position in which I stood with regard to Juanita. It was somewhat extraordinary, satisfactory, and yet unsatisfactory, utterly tantalizing. Morse had kept his promise. Ihadseen a great deal of his daughter. At Henley, at Cowes—on board the millionaire's wonderful yacht or on my own, in the sacred gardens of the R. Y. S., where we met and met again. Yet these meetings were always in public. Juanita was surrounded by men wherever she went. She was the reigning beauty of her year. Her minutest doings were chronicled in the Society papers with a wealth of detail that was astounding. I used to read the stuff, including that of my own Miss Easey, with a sort of impotent rage. Some of it was true, a lot of it was lies and surmise, but to me it was all distasteful. Juanita lived in the full glare of the public eye, and a royal princess could hardly have been more unapproachable. Of course I used stratagems innumerable, and more than once she went half-way to meet me, but the long desiredtête-à-têtenever came to pass. It was not only because of the troop of admirers that crowded round her, of which I was only one, but there was an extraordinary adroitness, "a hidden hand" at work somewhere, to keep us apart. I was quite certain of this, yet I could not prove it, though even if I had it would have been of little use. Old Señora Balmaceda, who overwhelmed me with kindness and attention, was simply wonderful in her watch over Juanita.
As for Gideon Morse, he would talk to me by the hour—and his talk was well worth listening to—but somehow or other he was always in the way when I wanted to be alone with his daughter. Of course I sometimes thought I was exaggerating, and that I was so hard hit that I saw things in a jaundiced or prejudiced light. Yet certainly Juanita was often alone for a short time with other men than I, notably with the young and good-looking Duke of Perth, whom I hated as cordially as I knew how.
Then, in August, I had a nasty knock. The Morses went off to Scotland for the grouse shooting as guests of the Duke, and I wasn't asked, or ever in the way of being asked if it comes to that, to join the "small and select house-party" that the papers were so full of. I had to content myself with pictures on the front page of the Illustrated Weeklies depicting Juanita in a tweed skirt and a tam o' shanter, side by side with Perth, wearing a fatuous smile and a gun. I had one crumb of consolation only and that was, when saying good-by to Juanita, I felt something small and hard in the palm of her hand. It was a little tightly folded piece of paper and on it was one word, "Cerne."
That of course helped a great deal. It was obvious what she meant. When we met at Sir Walter Stileman's, then at last my opportunity would come.
And now about the little journalist and his extraordinary disappearance. I made every possible inquiry, engaging the most skilled agents and sparing no money in the quest, but I found out nothing—absolutely nothing. The red-headed lad with the prominent ears had vanished into thin air, had flashed into my life for a moment and then gone out of it with the completeness of an extinguished candle. He had been, he was no more. Poor Miss Dewsbury, on whom the disappearance had a marked effect, discussed the matter with me a dozen times. We broached theory after theory only to reject them, and at last we ceased to talk about the matter at all. I remember her words on the last time we talked of it. They were prophetic, though I did not know it then.
"All I can say is, Sir Thomas, that voices, not my own, whisper constantly in my ear that the shadow of the three giant towers upon Richmond Hill lies across your path."
Poor thing, she was almost hysterical in those times, and I paid little heed to her words. As for the scoop, no other paper had even hinted at Rolston's revelation. I had faithfully kept my word to Morse, not forgetting that he had promised to explain everything—in September.
As the train swung out of Liverpool Street and Pat and Arthur were ragging each other as to who should have theTimesfirst, I experienced a sense of mental relief. Only a few hours now and the great question of my life would be settled, once and for all. No more doubts, no more uncertainties.
During the last three months, Arthur and Pat had left me very much to myself. They had behaved with the most perfect tact and kindness, Arthur, as I have said, having obtained for me the invitation to Cerne. Now, after we had traveled for a couple of hours and the luncheon baskets had been opened, old Pat lit a cigar and looked across at me. His big, brown face was grave, and he played with his mustache as if in some embarrassment.
He and Arthur glanced at each other, and I understood what was in their minds.
"Look here, you fellows," I said, "about the sacred Brotherhood—what is it in Spanish?"
"Santa Hermandad," said Arthur.
"Well, you've kept your oath splendidly. I cannot thank you enough. I have had the running all to myself—as far as you two are concerned, for twelve weeks."
"Yes, twelve weeks," Pat replied, with a sigh. "We've kept out of the way, old fellow, and I tell you it's been hard!"
Arthur nodded in corroboration, and somehow or other I felt myself a cur. Since boyhood we three had been like brothers, and it was a hard fate indeed that led us to center all our hopes upon something that could belong to one alone.
Despite what must have been their burning eagerness to know how things stood, both of them were far too delicate-minded and well-bred to ask a question. I knew it was up to me to satisfy them.
"Without going into details," I said, "I'll tell you just how it is, how I think it is, for I may be quite wrong, and presuming upon what doesn't exist."
I thought for a moment, and chose my words carefully. It was extremely difficult to say what I had to say.
"It comes to about this," I got out at last. "I've every reason to believe that she likes me. There's nothing decisive, but I've been given some hope. I very nearly put it to the test three months ago, but was interrupted and never had the chance again. At Cerne I'm going to try, finally. By hook or crook, in forty-eight hours, I'll have some news for you. And if I get the sack, then let the next man go in and win if he can, and I'll join the third in doing everything that lies in my power to help him."
"I am next," said Pat Moore, "not that I've the deuce of a chance. But I think you've spoken like a damn good sort, Tom, and we thank you. Arthur and I will do our best to keep every one else off the grass while you go in and try your luck. Faith! I'll make love to the duenna with the white hair meself and keep her out of the way, and Arthur here will consult with Morse upon the expediency of investing his large capital, which he hasn't got, in a Brazil-nut farm. Anyhow, Perth, who has been the safety bet with all the tipsters, won't be there. He's such a rotten shot that Sir Walter wouldn't dream of asking him. The bag has got to be kept up. For three years now, only Sandringham has beat it and a duffer at a drive would send the average down appallingly."
"What about me?" I asked, with a sinking of the heart.
"God forgive me," said Arthur, "I've lied about you to Sir Walter like the secretary of a building society to a maiden lady with two thousand pounds. He was astonished that he had never heard of your shooting—of course, he knows all the shots of the day, and I had to tell him a fairy story about your late lamented father who was a Puritan and would never let his son join country house-parties because they played cards after dinner."
I smiled, on the wrong side of my mouth. My dear old governor had been anything but a Puritan: I feared the scandal which would inevitably ensue when I went out for the first big drive.
"That's all right, Tom," said Arthur, "you'll simply have to sprain your ankle, or I'll give you a good hack in the shin privately if you like. Sir Walter has only to send a wire to get a first-class gun down. There are at least a dozen men I know who would almost commit parricide for the chance."
After that, by general consent, the subject of the league was dropped. We all knew where we were, and for the rest of the journey we talked of ordinary things.
It was a bright afternoon in early autumn when we stopped at the little local station and got into a waiting motor-car, while our servants collected our things and followed in the baggage lorry. For myself, I felt in the highest spirits as we buzzed along the three miles to Cerne Hall. There was a pleasant nip in the air; the vast landscape was yellow gold, as acre after acre of stubble stretched towards the horizon. Gray church towers embowered in trees broke the vast monotony, and I surrendered myself to a happy dream of Juanita, while Arthur and Pat talked shooting and marked covies that rose on either side as we whirred by.
When we arrived at Cerne Hall it was not yet tea-time, and everybody was out. The butler showed us to our rooms, all close together in the south wing of the fine old house, and I smoked a cigarette while Preston was unpacking.
"Everybody arrived yet, Preston?" I asked.
"Not yet, Sir Thomas, so I understand. I and Captain Moore's man and his lordship's was havin' a cherry brandy in the housekeeper's room just now, and the bulk of the house-party will be arriving by the later train, between tea and dinner, Sir Thomas."
"And Mr. Morse?"
"Only just before dinner, Sir Thomas; he always travels in a special train."
I saw by Preston's face that he considered this a snobbish and ostentatious thing to do, and, in the case of an ordinary multi-millionaire, I should certainly have agreed with him. But I recalled facts that had come to my notice about the famous Brazilian, and I wondered. There was the astounding scene at the Ritz, for instance, and more than that. I had not been following up Juanita for three months, in town, at Henley, and at Cowes, without noticing that Mr. Gideon Morse seemed to have an unobtrusive but quite singular entourage.
More than once, for example, I had caught sight of a certain great hulking man in tweeds, a professional Irish-American bruiser, if ever there was one.
Tea was in the hall of the great house. I was introduced to Sir Walter, a delightful man, with a hooked nose, a tiny mustache, the remains of gray hair, and a charming smile. Lady Stileman also made me most welcome. Her hair was gray, but her figure was slight and upright as a girl's, and many girls in the County must have envied her dainty prettiness, and the charm of her lazy, musical voice.
Circumstances paired me off with a vivacious young lady whose face I seemed to know, whose surname I could not catch, but whom every one called "Poppy."
"I say," she said, after her third cup of tea and fourth egg sandwich, "you're theEvening Special, aren't you?"
I admitted it.
"Well," she said, "I do think you might give me a show now and then. Considering the press I generally get, I've never been quite able to understand why theSpecialleaves me out of it."
I thought she must be an actress—and yet she hadn't quite that manner. At any rate I said:
"I'm awfully sorry, but you see I'm only editor, and I've nothing really to do with the dramatic criticism. However, please say the word, and I'll ginger up my man at once."
"Dramatic criticism!" she said, her eyes wide with surprise. "Sir Thomas, can it really be that you don't know who I am?"
It was a little embarrassing.
"Do you know, I know your face awfully well," I said, "though I'm quite sure we've never met before or I should have remembered, and when Lady Stileman introduced us just now all I caught was Poppy."
She sighed—I should put her between nineteen and twenty in age—"Well, for a London editor, youarea fossil, though you don't look more than about six-and-twenty. Why, Poppy Boynton!"
Then, in a flash, I knew. This was the Hon. Poppy Boynton, Lord Portesham's daughter, the flying girl, the leading lady aviator, who had looped the loop over Mont Blanc and done all sorts of mad, extraordinary things.
"Of course, I know you, Miss Boynton! Only, I never expected to meet you here. What a chance for an editor! Do tell me all your adventures."
"Will you give me a column interview on the front page if I do?"
"Of course I will. I'll write it myself."
"And a large photograph?"
"Half the back page if you like."
"You're a dear," she said in a business-like voice. "On second thoughts, I'll write the interview myself and give it you before we leave here. And, meanwhile, I'll tell you an extraordinary flight of mine only yesterday."
I was in for it and there was no way out. Still, she was extremely pretty and a celebrity in her way, so I settled myself to listen.
"What did you do yesterday morning?" I asked. "Did you loop the loop over Saint Paul's or something?"
"Loop the loop!" she replied, with great contempt. "That's an infantile stunt of the dark ages. No, I went for my usual morning fly before breakfast and saw a marvel, and got cursed by a djinn out of the Arabian Nights."
This sounded fairly promising for a start, but as she went on I jerked like a fish in a basket.
"You know the great wireless towers on Richmond Hill?"
"Of course. The highest erection in the world, isn't it, more than twice the height of the Eiffel Tower? You can see the things from all parts of London."
"On a clear day," she nodded, "the rest of the time the top is quite hidden by clouds. Now it struck me I'd go and have a look at them close to. Our place, Norman Court, is only about fifteen miles farther up the Thames. I started off in my little gnat-machine and rose to about fifteen hundred feet at once, when I got into a bank of fleecy wet cloud, fortunately not more than a hundred yards or so thick. It was keeping all the sun from London about seven-thirty yesterday morning. When I came out above, of course I wasn't sure of my direction, but as I turned the machine a point or so I saw, standing up straight out of the cloud at not more than six miles away, the tops of the towers. I headed straight for them."
She lit a cigarette and I noticed her face changed a little. There was an introspective look in the eyes, a look of memory.
"As I drew near, Sir Thomas, I saw what I think is the most marvelous sight I haveeverseen. You people who crawl about on earth never do see whatwesee. I have flown over Mont Blanc and seen the dawn upon the Matterhorn and Monte Rosa from that height, and I thought that was the most heavenly thing ever seen by mortal eye. But yesterday morning I beat that impression—yes!—right on the outskirts of London and only a few hours ago! Down from below nobody can really see much of the towers. You haven't seen much, for instance, have you?"
"Only that they're now all linked together at the top by the most intricate series of girders, on the suspension principle, I suppose. There are a lot of sheds and things on this artificial space, or at least it looks like it."
"Sheds and things! Sir Thomas, I thought I saw the New Jerusalem floating on the clouds! The morning sun poured down upon a vast, hanging space of which you can have no conception, and rising up on every side from snowy-white ramparts were towers and cupolas with gilded roofs which blazed like gold. There were fantastic halls pierced with Oriental windows, walls which glowed like jacinth and amethyst, and parapets of pearl.
"It was a city, a City in the Clouds, a place of enchantment floating high, high up above the smoke and the din of London—serene, majestic, and utterly lovely. I tell you"—here her voice dropped—"the vision caught at my heart, and a great lump came into my throat. I'm pretty hard-bitten, too! As I went past one side of the immense triangle—which must occupy several acres—on which the city is built, I saw an inner courtyard with what seemed like green lawns. I could swear there were trees planted there and that a great fountain was playing like a stream of liquid diamonds.
"I was so startled, and almost frightened, that I ripped away for several miles till, descending a little through the cloud-bank, I found I was right over Tower Bridge.
"But I swore I'd see that majestic city again, and I spiraled up and turned.
"There it was, many miles away now, a mere speck upon the billowing snow of the cloud-bank, and as I raced towards it once more it grew and grew into all its former loveliness. I adjusted my engines and went as slow as I possibly could—perhaps you know that our modern aeroplanes, with the new helicopter central screw, can glide at not much more than fifteen miles an hour, for a short distance that is. Well, that's what I did, and once more the place burst upon me in all its wonder. It's the marvel of marvels, Sir Thomas; I haven't got words even to hint at it. I could see details more clearly now, and I floated by among the ramparts on one side, not a pistol shot away. And then, upon the top of a little flat tower there appeared the most extraordinary figure.
"It was a gigantic yellow-faced man in a long robe and wide sleeves, and he threw his hands above his head and cursed me. Of course the noise of the engine drowned all he said, but his face was simply fiendish. I just caught one flash of it, and I never want to see anything like it again."
I sat spellbound in my chair while she told me this and again the sense that I was being borne along, whither I knew not, by some irresistible current of fate, possessed me to the exclusion of all else.
"Why, you look quite tired and gray, Sir Thomas," said Miss Boynton. "I do hope I haven't bored you."
"Bored me! I was away up in the air with you, looking upon that enchanted city. But why, what do you make of it, have you told any one?"
"Only father and my sister, who said that it must have been an illusion of the mist, a refraction of the air at high altitudes that transformed the wireless instrument sheds to fairyland."
She shrugged her shoulders and smiled.
"As if I didn't know all about that!" she said. "Why, it wasn't much more than two thousand feet up—a mere hop."
I had to think very rapidly at this juncture. The news took one's breath away. To begin with, one thing seemed perfectly clear. Gideon Morse had purposely told me as little as he possibly could. Yet, upon reflection, I found that he had told me no lies. He had admitted that he was at the bottom of this colossal enterprise—was it some Earl's Court of the air, the last word in amusement catering? It might well be so, though somehow or other the thought annoyed me. Moreover, the capital outlay must have been so vast that such a scheme could never pay interest upon it. Then I recollected that in a few hours more I should have my promised talk with Morse and he would explain everything as he had promised. There was still a chance of a big scoop for theEvening Special.
"Look here, Miss Boynton," I said, "if you keep what you have seen a secret for the next two days, and then let me publish an account of it, my paper would gladly pay two hundred and fifty pounds for the story."
Her eyes opened wide, like those of a child who has been promised a very big box of chocolates indeed.
"Can do," she said, holding out a pretty little hand which flying had in no way roughened or distorted. I took it, and so the bargain was made.
Soon afterwards more guests began to arrive, and the great hall was full of laughing, chattering figures, among whom were several people that I knew. However, I was in no mood for society or small talk and I retired to my own room and sat dreaming before a comfortable fire until Preston came in and told me it was time to dress.
I was ashamed to ask him if the Morses had arrived, but I went downstairs into a large yellow drawing-room half full of people, and looked round eagerly.
Lady Stileman was standing by one of the fireplaces talking to Miss Boynton, and I went up to them. Apparently it was a wonderful year for "birds," as partridges, and partridges alone, are called in Norfolk. They had hatched out much later than usual, hence the waiting until the middle of September, but covies were abnormally large and the young birds already strong upon the wing. Fortunately Lady Stileman did all the talking; I smiled, looked oracular and said "Quite so" at intervals. My eye was on the drawing-room door which led out into the hall. Once, twice, it opened, but only to admit strangers to me. The third time, when I made sure I should see her for whom I sought, no one came in but a footman in the dark green livery of the house. He carried a salver, and on it was the orange-colored envelope of a telegram.
With a word of excuse Lady Stileman opened it. She nodded to the man to go and then turned to me and Poppy Boynton.
"Such a disappointment," she said. "Mr. Morse and his wonderfully pretty daughter were to have been here, as I think you know. Now he wires to say that business of the utmost importance prevents either him or his daughter coming. Fortunately," the good lady concluded, "he doesn't shoot, so that won't throw the guns out. Walter would be furious if that happened."
Arthur and Pat Moore came into the room at that moment, and Arthur told me, an hour or so afterwards, that I looked as if I had seen a ghost, and that my face was white as paper.