by Guy Thorne
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Morse and I sat at supper in a room which differed in no way from theordinary study of a country gentleman. Except for the very slightestsuggestion rather than sensation of vibration, which my host explainedwas the drag of the City on the three great towers which perpetuallyoscillated out of the perpendicular, and so insured the safety of thevast elastic structure, there was nothing to indicate that we were twothousand two hundred feet up in the air.
Our meal was of the simplest, and during it I told Morse, withoutreservation, all that I had heard from Arthur Winstanley.
"He has the outline very correctly. I'll fill it in later. How long hasLord Arthur been in London?"
"About five days, I believe."
"Time for many preparations to be made if they're going to strikequickly," he said, more to himself than to me, drumming his fingers onthe tablecloth.
Then he looked up.
"And these two men who were seen to-day in the bar of your publichouse?"
"One, sir, was undoubtedly Midwinter. My very sharp-witted informantdescribes the other man as a swarthy person of just over middle heightand apparently of great personal strength. He was bearded, sallow-faced,and had somewhat the appearance of a half-caste."
"Zorilla y Toro, as I expected," said Morse. "Zorilla the Bull, as he isknown in half the Republics of South America."
"No doubt," I remarked, "a formidable pair of ruffians, but rememberthat I saw you deal with one of them at any rate, that night at the RitzHotel. The way he legged it out of the drawing-room wouldn't haveinspired me with any particular fear of him."
Morse struck the table with his hand.
"I wish I'd sent a bullet through his heart instead of playing fancyfireworks round him. But I feared London and your colossal law andorder. It's perfectly true, he didn't influence me in the least on thatnight. He came to sell his employers, to sell the Hermandad for ahundred thousand pounds."
"It would have been cheaper than this." I waved my hand to indicate theexpensive crow's-nest of my future father-in-law.
Morse laughed.
"It wouldn't have made the least difference," he said. "The man couldn'thurt me at the time because he had to obey the orders of the villainousSociety at his back. The old Marquis da Silva, who is simply a tool intheir hands, insisted that I was not to be even interfered with in anyway until the two years of grace from my first warning were up. Thoughtheir object was to get hold of half my fortune, and Midwinter's torevenge himself personally upon me, the Society and he didn't dare doanything until the moment struck. There were too many political issuesstill involved.
"That's why I made Mr. Mark Antony Midwinter dance out of the Ritz Hotelon that night."
"It's what Arthur Winstanley said."
"That young man will go far. Now, Kirby, I think you understandeverything, and you've got to throw in your lot with Juanita and me, fora time at any rate, and never say you didn't know what you were upagainst."
I took a glass of claret and lit a cigarette.
"I understand the _facts_, as you say, but I don't understand you.Allowing for all your natural and deep anxiety about Juanita, I simplyfail to understand why you regard this Midwinter and his companion orcompanions with such apprehension. Surely you could have the man lockedup to-morrow, knowing what you know about him."
Morse sighed, with a sort of gentle patience.
"A few more facts," he said; "and do reflect that it's most improbablethat a man of my intelligence and resources should act as he has donewithout being sure of what he was doing. In the first place, I've hadMidwinter watched by the most famous detectives in America, watched foryears. None of these people have ever been able quite to bowl him out--asimile from your English game of cricket. But three of the most trustedand acute agents have lost their lives during these investigations, andlost them in a singularly unpleasant manner."
He sighed again, this time wearily, and I saw that his face was old andwithout interest or hope.
"What on earth is the use," he went on, "of telling you all I know aboutthis man? Sir"--his voice began to rise, and a light came into the darkdepths of his eyes--"Sir, if I saw his corpse before me now, I wouldn'tbelieve him dead or his power for evil ended until I had hacked his headfrom his shoulders with my own hand! You cannot, I say you simply cannotrealize or understand the fiendish ingenuity, persistence, and icycruelty of this being, for I will not insult our common humanity bycalling it a man. If Juanita ever gets into his hands--"
His mouth, his whole face, was working, I thought he was going to have afit, and truth to tell, something icy began to congeal around my ownheart.
"Calm yourself, sir," I said, as authoritatively as I could. "Juanita isdoubly safe now that I am here, and as for Midwinter, he'll neverapproach us here. It's beyond the wit of mortal man, and, meanwhile,I'll see that he's apprehended and removed from all power of doing harm.I am only a young man, Mr. Morse, but I'm rather a power in the land.You see I have an important newspaper at my back, and as for you, whohave already made the Government feed out of your hand in the matter ofthese towers, you should have gone to the Home Secretary in the firstinstance. At any rate, we'll go together, and believe me, we shall belistened to."
"I thank you, my dear boy," he replied with an effort, "but there issuch a thing as Fate, and Fate has whispered in my ear. I am notnaturally a superstitious man, but during a life spent in strange placesamong strange people I have learnt to be very wary of a materialinterpretation of life. But this I will say, whatever I feel aboutmyself, however my precautions might fail, I believe that my deardaughter will win to safety in the end, that the power of evil will beovercome, and that you will be her savior."
I could have sworn, as he shook hands and bade me good-night, there wasa tear in the great man's eye, and I wondered how long it was since anyone had seen that in this master of millions and of men.
A picturesque young Chinaman, a valet in flowing Oriental robes, whospoke English with the most appalling cockney accent you ever heard inyour life, conducted me to a charming bedroom, provided me witheverything necessary, and in five minutes I fell into a deep, dreamlesssleep.
A really full day, wasn't it?
* * * * *
When I woke up the next morning my room was flooded with sunshine from adome in the ceiling.
Seated upon my bed, and balancing a cup of tea, was Master Bill Rolston.His hair was restored to its natural red, his nose normal, and his highcheek-bones were gone. On each side of his chubby face his transparentears stood out at right angles, and his button of a mouth was wreathedin a genial smile.
"Good old Pu-Yi came for me about two o'clock this morning, Sir Thomas,and told me all that had happened. I say, sir, _what_ a man to have onthe staff of the _Evening Special_! _What_ an intellect!"--I seemed tohave heard that phrase before. "Why, we'd have him dictating to CabinetMinisters within a year!"
I lay idly watching this brilliant and faithful boy; journalist once, Ireflected, journalist forever. There's no getting it out of the blood,and here, if I'm not mistaken, when many of us have faded away fromFleet Street forever, will be the biggest of us all.
I was surprised to find that Bill was distinctly on the side of GideonMorse in his anticipation of evil. We argued it out while I was dressingand I insisted that the City was impregnable.
"To all ordinary appearance, to all ordinary efforts, yes. But I shallnever change my belief that there's nothing that human wit can inventthat human wit cannot circumvent."
After breakfast, which I took alone, the servant led me to a great whitehouse standing among conservatories, which I learned was almost an exactreproduction of the Palacete Mendoza, the residence of Gideon Morse atRio. And there, in her own charming sitting-room, fragrant with flowersand stamped in a hundred ways with her personality, Juanita was waiting.She was radiant. Happiness lay about her like sunbeams. I never saw anyone more changed than she was from the girl I had met the night before.
/> "Come, dearest," she said, "and I'll show you some of our wonders. Icould not show you all of them in one day. Oh, Tom, isn't it allsplendid, couldn't you sing and shout for joy!"
I helped her into a fur coat--for it was bitter cold outside, though thewind of the night before had dropped--and was provided with one myselfas we left the house. Standing in the patio was a little two-seatedautomobile, a tiny toy of a thing run from electric storage batteries,which made no noise louder than the humming of a wasp. We got into thisand Juanita was like a child as she pulled the starting lever and werolled away.
I have said I woke to find my bedroom full of sunlight, but, as weglided down an arcade of conservatories, upon each side of the road, sothat the illusion of passing among a palm grove was almost complete, Inoticed that dark and angry clouds were gathering not far above ourheads, and it was through one single aperture that the sunlight poured.The effect of this, when we ran through the tunneled archway and cameout into a great square, was curious. A third of the buildings whichtowered up on every side were bathed in glory, the rest, gray, sullen,and throwing shadows of sable upon the lawns, gravel sweeps, and parquetflooring. We investigated a dozen marvels of which I shall not speakhere. The whole experience was a dream of luxury so wonderful, and sofantastic also, that my readers must wait for William Rolston's book,now nearing completion. It was impossible to believe that we wereactually walking, motoring, more than two thousand feet above London ina little world of our own which bore no relation whatever to ordinaryhuman life.
This was especially borne in upon me with overwhelming force when we hadascended the steps of a tower and came out into a glass chamber on theroof, where an old Chinese gentleman with tortoise-shell spectaclesshowed us the great telescope which Morse had installed. Following theshifting path of sunlight, I got a dim glimpse of the English Channelover a far-flung champaign of fertile woods and downs, studded here andthere with toy towns the size of threepenny-pieces. Once, but only for amoment, I made out the great towers of Canterbury Cathedral, but the sunshifted and the vision passed. London itself, brought immediately to ourfeet, was an astonishing sight, but as every one has seen thephotographs taken from aeroplanes I will not dilate upon it, though itdiffered in many ways from these.
Perhaps the most pleasing sight of all was that of Richmond Park, wherethe winter Fair had just begun. We could see the roundabouts, theswings, and so forth, with great clearness, and even, as the windfreshened, catch a faint buzzing noise from the steam organs. Then acaptive balloon rose up, I suppose a thousand feet, and some quarter ofa mile away. With powerful field glasses we could see the big basketcrammed with adventurous trippers, till she was hauled down again tomake another ascent and add a few more pounds to the profits of herproprietors.
I was quite tired when we went back to the house to lunch.
During the meal, which was long and elaborate, Morse showed a side ofhis nature I had never before seen. He was not jovial or in highspirits--distinctly not that--but he was strangely tender and human. Irealized the immense love he had for Juanita, and wondered how he couldever bear to see her love me. But he was kindness itself--like a father,to the interloper who had stormed his fortress, and I always like tothink of him as he was on that afternoon, full of anecdotes about hisyouth, of Juanita's mother, of the old days in Brazil. It was my formalwhole-hearted reception into his life. Henceforth I was to be--he saidit once in well and delicately-chosen words--a son to him, who had neverhad a son.
In the afternoon I went back to my own quarters, which consisted of avilla at the end of the Palace gardens, where I was lodged with Rolston,and attended by various well-trained Chinamen. I had rarely seen a moredelightful bachelor dwelling. I took a cup of tea with Bill about fouro'clock. It was now quite dark, and the bitter wind was rising again,but heavy curtains of tussore silk were pulled over the windows, a fireof yew logs burned in the open hearth, and softly shaded electric lightsall combined to produce the coziest and most homelike effect it ispossible to imagine.
It was then that a man came in to say that Mr. Pu-Yi begged the honor ofan audience.
Bill vanished, and my thin, ascetic friend glided in, and at myinvitation sank into a chair by the fire. I don't think, in the wholecourse of my life, I could recall a conversation which touched,interested, and excited my admiration more than this, and I have metevery one "from Emperor to Clown." He apologized profoundly for hisseeming treachery. With a wealth of lucid self-analysis and the powerof presenting a clear statement which I have seldom heard equaled, heshowed how he was torn between his new-born debtorship to me, hisloyalty to Morse, for whom he professed a profound esteem, and--here hehinted with extraordinary _finesse_--his mute adoration for Juanita.
"It was, Sir Thomas, touch and go, of course. I was in the position of asurgeon who has to risk everything upon one heroic stroke of the knife.I did so, and behold, all the conflicting elements are reconciled. Thepieces of the puzzle have come together."
"My friend," I said, "betray me twenty million times if you can bring mesuch happiness as you have brought. Besides, it wasn't a betrayal, itwas a great brain leading a smaller one to its appointed goal."
We talked a little more, he drank tea, he smoked, and, to my growingdiscomfort, I found in him the same note of pessimism and apprehensionthat Morse could not conceal, and Rolston himself had partiallyrevealed.
"But I _won't_ believe that any harm can come to Miss Morse," I said,almost angrily.
The thin lips smiled.
"That I never said, Sir Thomas. There are no indications of that. Youand your lady are in peril, but you will win through."
"Confound it, man, your liver must be out of order. It seems to me thatcaptivity in this magnificent bird-cage has the same effect on everyone. I shall get Morse to come and hunt with me in the Shires. I've gota nice little box in Gloucestershire, close to Chipping Norton, and byJove, Pu-Yi, I'll mount you and give you a run with the Heythrope. Youtalk as if you actually knew something. As if you had information of acalamity."
"I hear it in the wind," he said strangely, and his voice was like awithered leaf blown before the wind. Then he left me.
I dined with Juanita and her father. Bill was asked too, and he kept mygirl, and sometimes even Mr. Morse, in fits of laughter with stories ofhis short but erratic career, and especially a racy account of hisillicit opium-selling down below.
"You see, sir," he said, "you brought it on yourself, by kidnaping me inthe first instance. I had to get my own back."
Morse's face clouded over for a moment.
"It was a disgraceful thing to do," he said. "I quite admit it, but hadthe necessity arisen I'd have kidnaped George Robey or the Prince ofWales," and from that moment always I seemed to see that a faint butperceptible shadow was creeping over his spirits.
We had a little music, in a charming room built for the purpose. Juanitaplayed upon the guitar and sang little Spanish love songs. Bill"obliged" with a ditty which he said was a favorite of the reveredCharles Lamb, which seemed to consist entirely of the following lines:
"Diddle-diddle-dumpling, my son John Went to bed with his breeches on."
I think that when Juanita said good-night to us all--and to me privatelyin the passage--she went to bed quite happy and cheerful.
About half-past ten Bill slipped off and I remained to smoke a finalcigar with Morse.
"I'm low, Thomas," he said, "I'm very low to-night."
I made him take a little whisky and potash--a thing he rarely did.
"It's the unnatural life, sir, that you've condemned yourself torecently. You come out of this and hunt with me in Gloucestershire andI'll protect you as well as you're protected here, and you'll get asright as rain."
"You're very kind," he replied, "but--take care of her, Kirby, for God'ssake, take care of her. She'll have no one else in the world but you ifthey get me or Pu-Yi."
I was about to expostulate again when the door opened and Boss Mulliganslouched in.
"Been all rou
nd the City, governor, with the usual patrol. Everythingquiet, nothing unusual anywhere. All the servants have given in theirtallies and are safe in their quarters."
Morse looked at me.
"That's our system, Tom," he said. "At a certain hour all the servantsgo to the lower stage, except those that may be urgently wanted. Forinstance, there's a fellow in your house to valet you to-night. Juanitahas her little Spanish maid, and I think Pu-Yi keeps some one. Otherwisewe are all to ourselves up here. All the lift doors are locked on thesecond stage and so is the central staircase. Mulligan here is on guardall night in the room where you saw him."
"An' watchin' ye from the ind of me eye, Sorr Thomas," said the genialruffian, "av ye'll belave ut."
"You're a good actor, Mulligan," I said--it seemed about the only thingI could say.
"Sure, an' I am that," he said, "I am that, sorr, but I'm a bether doer.An' av ye'd reely bin staling in--"
His immense fist clenched itself and he shook it in my direction.
"Mulligan, go back to the guard-room," said Morse, "you're drunk."
The giant's face changed from ferocity into pained surprise.
"But av course, sorr," he said, "it's me usual time, as your honor mustknow. But begob, I'm efficient!"
The mingled grin and glare on his countenance when Mr. Mulligan wentaway left no doubt in my mind about that.
A few minutes afterwards, certainly not drunk, and I hope efficient, Ileft the Palacete Mendoza, and walked through the gardens to the villa.Morse himself barred the door after me.
It was bitter, aching cold and the wind was razor-keen. Gaunt wreaths ofmist were all around like a legion of ghosts, and I realized that theclouds were descending upon us, and soon I should not be able to see ayard before me, though the electric lamps that never went out all night,over the whole City, glowed with a dim blueness here and there throughthe fog.
However, I found the villa all right, and my Chinese boy waiting in thehall. He took my coat, saw that the fires in the sitting-room and theadjoining bedroom were made up, and then I told him he might be off tohis quarters on the second stage, for which he seemed extremelythankful.
I don't suppose he had been gone more than a minute when the door of mysitting-room opened and Rolston came in quickly. He was wearing adressing-gown and pyjamas and his hair was all rough like one recentlyaroused from sleep.
"What on earth's the matter?" I said.
"I undressed," he said, "in my bedroom, which is just above yours as youknow, and fell asleep in my chair with all the lights on. I woke only ashort time ago, and before switching off the lamps I went to the windowto see what sort of a night it was."
"Hellish, if you want to know."
"The light streamed out upon a great curtain of mist, almost like theprojector lamp upon a screen of a kinema. Sir Thomas, as I stood there Icould swear that something big, black and oblong sank down from thatdarkness above, passed through my zone of light and disappeared in theblackness below."
"What on earth do you mean, what sort of a thing?"
He hesitated for a moment and then he said:
"Almost like a group of statuary, though I only saw it for a mereinstant."
He had obviously been half dreaming when he went to the window, hiseyes, even now, were heavy with sleep.
"Simply and solely a trick of the wind upon the mist, and your ownfigure interposing between the light and the window, and throwing amomentary shade on the swaying white curtain outside. The mist's asthick as linen and it changes every moment. You go to bed properly, andsleep the sleep of the just."
He didn't attempt to argue, but looked a little ashamed of himself forobtruding for such a trivial reason. Ten minutes afterwards I was alsoin bed and fast asleep.