THE CITY IN THE CLOUDS

BY C. RANGER GULL

Author of "The Air Pirate"

NEW YORK
HARCOURT, BRACE AND COMPANY

COPYRIGHT, 1922, BY
HARCOURT, BRACE AND COMPANY, INC.

PRINTED IN THE U. S. A. BY
THE QUINN & BODEN COMPANY
RAHWAY. N. J.

TO
SIR GRIFFITH BOYNTON, Bt.

My Dear Boynton,

We have had some strange adventures together, though not as strange and exciting as the ones treated of in this story. At any rate, accept it as a souvenir of those gay days before the War, which now seem an age away. Recall a Christmas dinner in the Villa Sanglier by the Belgian Sea, a certain moonlit midnight in the Grand' Place of an ancient, famous city, and above all, the stir and ardors of the Masked Ball at Vieux Bruges.—Haec olim meminisse juvabit!

Yours,
C. R. G.

NOTE
By Sir Thomas Kirby, Bt.

The details of this prologue to the astounding occurrences which it is my privilege to chronicle, were supplied to me when my work was just completed.

It forms the starting point of the story, which travels straight onwards.

CONTENTS

[PROLOGUE]
[CHAPTER ONE]
[CHAPTER TWO]
[CHAPTER THREE]
[CHAPTER FOUR]
[CHAPTER FIVE]
[CHAPTER SIX]
[CHAPTER SEVEN]
[CHAPTER EIGHT]
[CHAPTER NINE]
[CHAPTER TEN]
[CHAPTER ELEVEN]
[CHAPTER TWELVE]
[CHAPTER THIRTEEN]
[CHAPTER FOURTEEN]
[CHAPTER FIFTEEN]
[ENVOI]

THE CITY IN THE CLOUDS

PROLOGUE

Under a gay awning of red and white which covered a portion of the famous roof-garden of the Palacete Mendoza at Rio, reclined Gideon Mendoza Morse, the richest man in Brazil, and—it was said—the third richest man in the world.

He lay in a silken hammock, smoking those little Brazilian cigarettes which are made of fragrant black tobacco and wrapped in maize leaf.

It was afternoon, the hour of the siesta. From where he lay the millionaire could look down upon his marvelous gardens, which surrounded the white palace he had built for himself, peerless in the whole of South America.

The trunks of great trees were draped with lianas bearing brilliantly-colored flowers of every hue. There were lawns edged with myrtle, mimosa, covered with the golden rain of their blossoms, immense palms, lazily waving their fans in the breeze of the afternoon, and set in the lawns were marble pools of clear water from the center of which fountains sprang. There was a continual murmur of insects and flashes of rainbow-colored light as the tiny, brilliant humming birds whirred among the flowers. Great butterflies of blue, silver, and vermilion, butterflies as large as bats, flapped languidly over the ivory ferns, and the air was spicy and scented with vanilla.

Beyond the gardens was the Bay of Rio de Janeiro, the most beautiful bay in all the world, dominated by the great sugar-loaf mountain, the Pão de Azucar, and studded with green islands.

Gideon Morse took a pair of high-powered field-glasses from a table by his side and focused them upon the harbor.

A large white yacht, lying off Governador, swam into the circle, a five-thousand-ton boat driven by turbines and oil fuel, the fastest and largest private yacht in existence.

Gideon Morse gave a little quiet, patient sigh, as if of relief.

He was a man of sixty odd, with a thick thatch of white hair which came down upon his wrinkled forehead in a peak. His face was tanned to the color of an old saddle, his nose beaked like a hawk, and his mouth was a mere lipless cut which might have been made by a knife. A strong jaw completed an impression of abnormal quiet, and long enduring strength. Indeed the whole face was a mask of immobility. Beneath heavy black brows were eyes as dark as night, clear, but without expression. No one looking at them could ever tell what were the thoughts behind. For the rest, he was a man of medium height, thick-set, wiry, and agile.

A brief sketch of Gideon Mendoza Morse's career must be given here. His mother was a Spanish lady of good family, resident in Brazil; his father an American gentleman of Old Virginia, who had settled there after the war between North and South. Morse was born a native of Brazil. His parents left him a moderate fortune which he proceeded to expand with extraordinary rapidity and success. When the last Emperor, Dom Pedro II., was deposed in 1889, Gideon Mendoza Morse was indeed a rich man, and a prominent politician.

He took a great part in establishing the Republic, though in his earlier years he had leaned towards the Monarchy, and he shared in the immense prosperity which followed the change.

His was not a paper fortune. The fluctuations of stocks and shares could hardly influence it. He owned immense coffee plantations in Para, and was practically the monopolist of the sugar regions of Maranhao, but his greatest revenues came from his immense holdings in gold, manganese, and diamond mines. He had married a Spanish lady early in his career and was now a widower with one daughter.

She came up upon the roof-garden now, a tall slip of a girl with an immense quantity of lustrous, dead-black hair, and a voice as clear as an evening bell.

"Father," she said in English—she had been at school at Eastbourne, and had no trace of Spanish accent—"what is the exact hour that we sail?"

Morse slipped out of the hammock and took her arm in his.

"At ten to-night, Juanita," he replied, patting her hand. "Are you glad, then?"

"Glad! I cannot tell you how much."

"To leave all this"—he waved his hand at what was probably the most perfect prospect earth has to offer—"to leave all this for the fogs and gloom of London?"

"I don't mind the fogs, which, by the way, are tremendously exaggerated. Of course I love Rio, father, but I long to be in London, the heart of the world, where all the nicest people are and where a girl has freedom such as she never has here."

"Freedom!" he said. "Ah!"—and was about to continue when a native Indian servant in a uniform of white linen with gold shoulder knots, advanced towards them with a salver upon which were two calling cards.

Morse took the cards. A slight gleam came into his eyes and passed, leaving his face as impassive as before.

"You must run away, darling," he said to Juanita. "I have to see some gentlemen. Are all your preparations made?"

"Everything. All the luggage has gone down to the harbor except just a couple of hand-bags which my maid has."

"Very well then, we will have an early meal and leave at dusk."

The girl flitted away. Morse gave some directions to the servant, and, shortly after, the rattle of a lift was heard from a little cupola in one corner of the roof.

Two men stepped out and came among the palms and flowers to the millionaire.

One was a thin, dried-up, elderly man with a white mustache—the Marquis da Silva; his companion, powerful, black-bearded and yellow-faced, obviously with a touch of the half-caste in him—Don Zorilla y Toro.

"Pray be seated," said Morse, with a low bow, though he did not offer to shake hands with either of them. "May I ask to what I owe the pleasure of this visit?"

"It is very simple, señor," said the marquis, "and you must have expected a visit sooner or later."

The old man, speaking in the pure Spanish of Castille, trembled a little as he sat at a round table of red lima-wood encrusted with mother-of-pearl.

"We are, in short," said the burly Zorilla, "ambassadors."

They were now all seated round the table, under the shade of a palm whose great fans clicked against each other in the evening breeze which began to blow from the cool heights of the sugar-loaf mountain. The face of Gideon Morse was inscrutable as ever. It might have been a mask of leather; but the old Spanish nobleman was obviously ill at ease, and the bulging eyes of the well-dressed half-caste, with his diamond cuff links and ring, spoke of suppressed and furious passion.

In a moment tragedy had come into this paradise.

"Yes, we are ambassadors," echoed the marquis with a certain eagerness.

"A grand and full-sounding word," said Gideon Morse. "I may be permitted to ask—from whom?"

Quick as lightning Don Zorilla held out his hand over the table, opened it, and closed it again. There was a little glint of light from his palm as he did so.

Morse leant back in his chair and smiled. Then he lit one of his pungent cigarettes.

"So! Are you playing with those toys still, gentlemen?"

The marquis flushed. "Mendoza," he said, "this is idle trifling. You must know very well—"

"I know nothing, I want to know nothing."

The marquis said two words in a low voice, and then the heads of the three men drew very close together. For two or three minutes there was a whispering like the rustle of the dry grasses of the Brazilian campos, and then Morse drew back his chair with a harsh noise.

"Enough!" he said. "You are madmen, dreamers! You come to me after all these years, to ask me to be a party in destroying the peace and prosperity our great country enjoys and has enjoyed for more than thirty years. You ask me, twice President of the Republic which I helped to make—"

Zorilla lifted his hand and the great Brazilian diamonds in his rings shot out baleful fires.

"Enough, señor," he said in a thick voice. "That is your unalterable decision?"

Morse laughed contemptuously. "While Azucar stands," he said, "I stand where I am, and nothing will change me."

"You stand where you are, Mendoza," said the marquis with a new gravity and dignity in his voice, "but I assure you it will not be for long. You have two years to run, that's true. But at the end of them be sure, oh, be very sure, that the end will come, and swiftly."

Morse rose.

"I will endeavor to put the remaining two years to good use," he said, with grim and almost contemptuous mockery.

"Do so, señor," said Zorilla, "but remember that in our forests the traveler may press onward for days and weeks, and all the time in the tree-tops, the silent jaguar is following, following, waiting—"

"I have traveled a good deal in our forests in my youth, Don Zorilla. I have even slain many jaguars."

The three men looked at each other steadily and long, then the two visitors bowed and turned to go. But, just as they were moving off towards the lift dome, Zorilla turned back and held out a card to Don Mendoza. It was an ordinary visiting card with a name engraved upon it.

Morse took it, looked at the name, and then stood still and frozen in his tracks.

He did not move until the whirr of the bell and the clang of the gate told him the roof-garden was his own again.

Then he staggered to the table like a drunken man, sank into a chair and bowed his head upon the gleaming pearl and crimson.

CHAPTER ONE

When my father died and left me his large fortune I also inherited that very successful London newspaper, the Evening Special. I decided to edit it myself.

To be six-and-twenty, to live at high pressure, to go everywhere, see everything, know everybody, and above all to have Power, this is success in life. I would not have changed my position in London for the Premiership.

On the evening of Lady Brentford's dance, I dined alone in my Piccadilly flat. There was nothing much doing in the way of politics and I had been playing golf at Sandown the whole of the day. I hadn't seen the paper until now, when Preston brought it in—the last edition—and I opened it over my coffee.

There were, and are, few things that I love better than the Evening Special. I claim for it that it is the most up-to-date evening newspaper in England, bright and readable from the word "go," and singularly accurate in all its information.

There was a long time yet before I need dress, and I sat by the balcony, with the mellow noises of Piccadilly on an early summer's evening pouring into the room, and read the rag through.

On one of the last pages, where the society gossip and women's chat appear, I saw something that interested me. Old Miss Easey, who writes the society news, was one of my most valued contributors. With her hooked nose, her beady black eyes and marvelous coffee-colored wig, she went everywhere by right of birth, for she was connected with half the peerage. Her news was accurate and real. She faked nothing, because she got all her stuff from the inside, and this was known all over London. She was well worth the thousand a year I paid her, and the daily column signed "Vera" was an accepted fact in the life of London society.

To-day the old girl had let herself go. It seemed—of course there had been paragraphs in the papers for some days—that the great Brazilian millionaire, Gideon Mendoza Morse, had exploded in society like a bomb. He had taken a whole floor of the Ritz Hotel, and it was rumored that he was going to buy an empty palace in Park Lane and astonish town. Every one was saying that he had wealth beyond the dreams of avarice—which is, of course, awful rot when you come to think of it, because there are no bounds whatever to avarice.

"Vera" was not expatiating upon the Brazil Nut's wealth, but upon his only daughter. It was put in a veiled way, and that with well-bred reticence for which we paid Miss Easey a thousand a year—no cheap gush, thank you, in the Evening Special—that Miss Morse was a young girl of such superlative loveliness that there was not a débutante to come within a mile of her. I gathered, also, that the young lady's first very public appearance was to be made to-night at the house of the Marchioness of Brentford in Belgrave Square.

The news certainly gave an additional interest to the prospect of the evening, and I wondered what the girl was really like.

I had motored up from Sandown and sat down to dinner as I was. Perhaps I was rather tired, but as I sat by the window and dusk came over the Green Park while all the lights of Piccadilly were lit, I sank into a sort of doze, assisted by the deep, organ-like hum of the everlasting traffic.

Yes, I must really have fallen asleep, for I was certainly in the middle of some wild and alluring adventure, when I woke with a start to find all the lights in my dining-room turned on, Preston standing by the door, and Pat Moore shaking me violently by the shoulder.

"Confound you, don't do that!" I shouted, jumping up—Pat Moore was six feet two in height, and the heaviest man in the Irish Guards. "Hallo, what are you doing here?"

"It's myself that has looked in for a drink," he said. "I thought we'd go to the ball together."

I was a little more awake by this time and saw that Pat was in full evening kit, and very grand he looked. He was supposed to be the handsomest man in London, on the large swaggering side, and certainly, whether in uniform or mufti, he was a very splendid figure. Nevertheless, he had no more idea of side than a spaniel dog, and he was just about as kind and faithful as the sportsman's friend. He possessed a certain downright honesty and common sense that endeared him to every one, though his own mother would hardly have called him clever. At an earlier period of our lives he had caned me a good deal at Eton, and it was difficult to get out of his dear, stupid old head that he had not some vague rights over me in that direction still.

"Now, Tom," he said, pouring himself out a mighty drink—for his head was cast-steel, "you go and make yourself look pretty and then come back here, 'cos I have something to tell you."

I went obediently away, bathed, shaved, was assisted by Preston into evening clothes and returned to the dining-room about a quarter to ten.

"What have you got to tell me, Pat?"

He thought for a moment. I believe that he always had to summon his words out of some cupboard in his brain—"Tom, I've seen the most beautiful girl in the world."

"Then leg it, Pat, hare away from temptation, or she'll have you!"—Pat had ten thousand a year and had been a dead mark for all sorts of schemes for the last two years.

"Don't be a silly ass, Tom, you don't know what you're talking about. This is serious."

"I don't know who you're talking about."

He was heaving himself out of his chair to explain, when the door opened and Preston announced "Lord Arthur Winstanley."

"Hallo, what brings you here?" I said.

"Thought I'd come in for a drink. Saw you were going to mother's to-night, Tom, thought we might as well be going together. Hallo, Pat. You coming along too?"

"Thought of doin' so," said Captain Moore.

Arthur threw himself into a chair—slim, clean shaved, with curly black hair and dark blue eyes, his clean-cut, clever face alive with youth and vitality.

"Tom," he said to me, "to-night you are going to see the most beautiful girl in the world."

"Hallo!" Pat shouted, "you've seen her too?"

"Seen her? Of course I have. Mother's giving the dance for her to-night."

Then I understood.

"Oh, Miss Morse?" I said.

"Jooaneeta!" said Pat in his rich, Irish voice.

"Generally pronounced 'Whanita' soft—like tropic moonlight, my old geranium," said Arthur.

"Sure, your pronunciation won't do at all, at all."

Pat twirled the end of his huge mustache, then he heaved a cushion. "You and your talk!" he said.

"Well, I've not seen her," I remarked, "but I'm quite willing to take the word of two experts. Isn't it about time we went?"

Winstanley produced a platinum watch no thicker than a half-crown from the pocket of his white waistcoat.

"Well, perhaps it might be," he said. "We can take up strategic positions, and get there before the crush. Although I don't live at home, I've got a snug little couple of rooms they keep for me, and mother will see that—"

He smiled to himself.

"Now look here," I said, "fair does! You are already half-way up the course with the fair Brazilian, but do let your pals have a chance. I suppose all the world will be round her, but do see that Pat and I have a small look in."

"Of course I will. We've done too much hunting together, we three. I tell you, Tom, you will be bowled clean over at the very sight of her. There never was such a girl since Cleopatra was a flapper. Now, send old Preston for a taxi and we'll get to cover side."

It was about half-past ten as we entered the hospitable portals of Brentford House in Belgrave Square. There was a tremendous crush; I never remember seeing so many people at Lady Brentford's, for, though everybody went to her parties, they were never overcrowded, owing to the immense size of the famous old London House.

Pat Moore and I kept close to Arthur, who, as a son of the house, knew his way a great deal better than we did, and we soon found ourselves at the top of the staircase and close to the alcove where Lady Brentford and her daughter, Lady Joan Winstanley, were standing, while I saw the bald head of the marquis, who was as innocent of hair as a new laid egg, shining in the background.

Dear Lady Brentford greeted Pat—who had formed a sort of battering-ram for us on the staircase—with marked kindness. It was thought that she saw in him a prospective husband for Arthur's sister. After greeting his mother and asking a question, Arthur went off at once and my turn came.

"My dear Sir Thomas, I am so glad to see you. Are you like all the other young men in London to-night?"

"I sincerely hope not," I told her, though I knew very well what she meant.

We were old friends, and she was not deceived for a moment. "I understand you perfectly, you wicked boy."

"Well then, Lady Brentford"—I lowered my voice—"has she come?"

Her eyes gleamed.

"Not yet, but I am expecting her every moment. Now, I am going to be kind to you. You wait here, just a little behind me, and I'll introduce you at once."

I hope I looked as grateful as I felt, for I confess my curiosity was greatly aroused, and besides it would be such a score over Pat and Arthur. There's something in power after all! Had I been merely Tom Kirby whose father had received a baronetcy for, say, soap, Lady Brentford would not have been nearly as nice, even though Arthur and I had been bosom friends at Oxford. But you see I was the Evening Special and that meant much, especially in a political house like this.

I waited, and talked a little with Lord Brentford, that sterling, old-fashioned member of more Cabinets than one would care to count. He said "hum," and then "ha," and then "hum" again, which was the extent of his conversation on every occasion except that of a specially good dinner, when he added "ho."

And then, I suppose it was about eleven o'clock, there was a stir and a movement all down the grand staircase. Except that the band in the ballroom did not burst into the strains of the National Anthem, it was exactly like the arrival of royalty. Coming up the staircase was a thick-set man of medium height with white hair, a brown face, and good features, but of such immobility that they might have been carved in sandstone. By his side, very simply dressed, and wearing no ornament but one rope of great pearls, came Juanita Morse.

If I live for a thousand years I shall never forget that first vision of her. I have seen all the beauties of London, Paris and Rome, danced with many of them, spoken at least to the majority, but never before or since have I seen such luminous and compelling loveliness. It is almost impossible for me to describe her, a presumption indeed, when so many abler pens than mine have hymned her praises. The poets of two Continents have lain their garlands of song at her little feet. She has been the theme of innumerable articles in the Press, the heroine of a dozen novels. And yet I must give some impression of her, I suppose. She was slender and tall, though not too tall. Her hair, which must have fallen to her feet and enveloped her like a cloud of night, was dead black. But it was not the coarse, lifeless black of so many women of the Latin race. It was as fine as spun silk, gleaming, vital and full of electricity—a live thing of itself, so it seemed to me. Her father's eyes were unpolished jet, but hers were of a deep blue-black, large, lustrous, and of unfathomable depth. They were never the same for two moments together and the light within them was forever new. But what's the good of a catalogue—after all, it expresses very little. There was not a feature of her face, not a line of her form that was not perfect, and her smile was the last real enchantment left in the modern world....

In two minutes, I, I—Tom Kirby, was walking towards the ballroom with her hand upon my arm. How all the women stared, nodded and whispered! how all the men hated me! I caught sight of Pat and Arthur, and, lo! their faces were as those who lie in wait, who grin like dogs and run about the city—as I told them some hours afterwards.

Thank heavens that all the vulgar modern dances were not only perishing of their own inanity at that time, but had never been allowed in Brentford House. The best band in town had begun a delightful waltz, and we slipped into it together as if passing through curtains into dreamland.

I don't remember that we said very much to each other—certainly I was not going to ask her how she liked London and so forth. She did not seem the sort of girl to appreciate the farthing change of talk.

But, somehow or other, we conversed with our eyes. I was as certain of this as of the fact that I was dancing with her, and, long after, in a situation and moment of the most deadly peril, she confessed it to me.

Towards the end of the dance, when the flutes and violins glided into the last movement, I said this—"Miss Morse, I know that I am doing the most dreadful thing. All London wants to dance with you to-night, and I have had the great privilege of being the very first. But could you, do you think you possibly could, give me just one more dance later on in the evening?"

"Of course I will, Sir Thomas," she said, and her voice was as clear as an evening bell. "I think you dance beautifully."

We circled round the room for the last time and then I resigned her to Lady Brentford, who was looking after the girl, with an eloquent look of thanks. Immediately she became swallowed up by a regiment of black coats, and I saw her no more for a time.

I am extremely fond of dancing, but I sought out no other damsel now, but went to a buffet and drank a long glass of iced hock-cup—as if that was going to quench the fever within! Then I found my way to a lonely spot in one of the conservatories and sat thinking hard. I will say nothing as to the nature of my reverie—it may very easily be guessed. But from time to time I concentrated all my powers in living over again the divine moments of that dance. I was finally, irrevocably, passionately in love. It seems the maddest thing to say for a hard-headed, level-minded man of the world such as I was. I suppose I had known her for just about quarter of an hour, and yet I knew that there would never be any other woman for me and that when my days were at an end her name would be the only one upon my lips.

A little later on in the evening, before my second and final dance with his daughter, I had the opportunity of a talk with Mr. Morse himself. I say at once, and I am not letting myself be colored by what happened afterwards and the intimate relations into which I was thrown with him, I say at once that I found him charming. There was an immense force and power about him, but this was not obtruded upon one, as I have known it to be in the case of other extremely wealthy and successful men, both English and American. This super-millionaire had all the graces of speech and courtesy of manner of the Spanish great gentleman. And curiously enough, he took to me. I was quite certain of that. Whether he wanted to use me in any way—and nine-tenths of the people I met generally did—I could not have said. At any rate I determined that if he did I was very much at his disposal.

We watched Miss Morse dancing with old Pat, who, for all his sixteen stone, was as light as a cat on his feet.

"Do you know who that is dancing with Juanita?" Morse asked simply.

"Oh, yes. Captain Moore, Patrick Moore, of the Irish Guards. He is one of my most intimate friends and one of the best fellows in the world."

Then Morse said a curious thing, which I could not fathom just then. He said it half to me and half to himself in a curiously, thoughtful way.

"—A fine fellow to have with one in an emergency."

Well, of course, I didn't like to tell him that dear old Pat, while he had common sense enough to come indoors while it rained, had no mind—in the real sense of that word—whatever. It did not occur to me for a moment that Gideon Morse might have been speaking simply of Pat's physical qualities.

Pat's face was marvelous to look upon. It was one great, glowing mass of happiness. He did not take the least trouble to disguise his ecstasy, and if ever a man showed he was in paradise, Pat Moore did then. It was different when Juanita danced with Arthur. His handsome, clever face was not in repose for a moment. It was sharpened by eagerness, and he talked incessantly, provoking answering smiles and flashes from the girl's wonderful eyes. My heart sank. I knew how Arthur Winstanley could talk when he chose—as all England was to learn two or three years later when he entered the House of Commons.

"And that man?"—the low, resonant voice of Mr. Morse was again in my ears, for I had been neglecting my duties to all the girls I knew, most dreadfully, and remained with him for the space of three dances.

"Oh, that's another friend of mine, Lord Arthur Winstanley. He is a son of the house, the second son. Charles, the heir, is with his regiment in India."

Mr. Morse thanked me and soon afterwards two very great people indeed came up, and I melted away. I went to my seat in the conservatory again. I did not care how rude it was, how I was betraying Lady Brentford's hospitality—being known as a dancing man and expected to dance—but I was determined not to touch any other girl that night until Juanita Morse and I had danced again together.

It came and passed. Afterwards I slipped downstairs, got my hat and overcoat and left the house, without, I think, being observed by any one.

The night air was fresh and sweet and I determined to walk before I reached home, for my mind was in a whirl of sensation. I turned into the great, dark cañon of Victoria Street, which was almost empty, and heard my footsteps echoing up the cliff-like sides of the houses. I caught a glimpse of the moon silvering the Campanile of Westminster Cathedral, and when I reached the Abbey, it and the Houses of Parliament were washed in soft and brilliant light. And yet, somehow, I could not think. I could not survey, with my usual cool detachment, the situation which had suddenly risen in my life. I remember that the predominant feeling was a wish that I had never gone to Lady Brentford's, that I had never seen or spoken to Juanita Morse. What was the use after all? She was as much above my hopes as a Princess of the Royal House, and yet I knew that without her I should never be really happy again.

It was in a sort of desperation that I hurried up Parliament Street and through Trafalgar Square, feeling that I was a fool and mad, wanting to hide my shame in my own quiet rooms, where at any rate I should be alone.

I opened the door with my Yale key and ran lightly up the stairs to the flat on the first floor which I occupied. As I went into the lounge hall and took off my overcoat, Preston, whom I had not told to wait up for me, came from the passage leading to the servants' quarters carrying a tray.

"I shan't want any supper, thank you, Preston," I said in surprise.

"Thank you, sir, very good sir," he replied, "but his lordship and Captain Moore are here and have just asked for something."

My first emotion was one of unutterable surprise, and then I scowled and felt inclined to swear. What on earth were those two doing here at this time of night, just when I would have given almost anything to be left alone?

I hesitated for a moment and then walked into the smoking-room.

Pat was seated in a lounge chair smoking a cigar. Arthur was pacing up and down the carpet. Neither of them appeared to have been talking, and, as I came in, they looked at me curiously, and I saw that their faces in some subtle way were changed.

They were my best friends, for years we had been accustomed to treat each other's quarters and possessions as if they were our own, and yet now I felt as if they were intruding strangers, though I tried hard to be genial.

"Hallo," I said in a voice that cracked upon the word, "didn't expect to see you again. Anything special?"

Preston was putting his tray of sandwiches and deviled biscuits on the table, so we could not say much, but directly he had left the room old Pat got up from his chair. He held out his hand, pointing at me with a trembling finger. His face was purple.

"You, you danced twice with her," he said.

So that was it! I grew ice-cold in a moment.

"I won't pretend to misunderstand to what you refer," I said, "but what the devil is that to you?"

"Pat, don't be a fool!" Arthur whipped out, though the look he gave me, which he tried to disguise, was not a friendly one.

"Fool is hardly the word," I said. "Kindly explain yourself, Moore, and forget that you are my guest if you like—I don't mind."

The huge man trembled. Then he turned away with a sort of snarl, snatched his handkerchief from his cuff and mopped his face.

I sat down and lit a cigarette.

"Can you explain this, Arthur?" I asked.

He sat down too, and began to tap with his shoe upon the carpet.

"Oh, I don't know," he said sullenly. "You were the only man in the room, Kirby, to whom she gave more than one dance."

"That's as may be. I suppose you don't propose to expostulate with the lady herself? And, by the way, I always thought that it wasn't exactly form to discuss these things in the way you appear to have been doing."

That got Arthur on the mark. His face grew very white and he sat perfectly still.

Then Pat heaved himself round.

"She's not for you, at any rate," he said. "They will marry her to a duke or one of the Princes."

Suddenly the humor of all this struck me forcibly and I lay back in my chair and burst into a peal of laughter.

"That's quite likely," I said, "though I don't think, what I have seen of Mr. Morse, that he is likely to have ambitions that way, and I am quite certain that Miss Morse will marry the man she wants to marry and no one else, whether he is a thoroughbred or hairy at the heels. I think all this talk on your part—remember you began it, Pat—is perfectly disgraceful, to say nothing of its utter childishness. As for your saying that a young lady whom I have met for the first time to-night and danced with twice, is not for me, it's a damnable piece of impertinence that you should dare to insinuate that I look upon her in the way you suggest."

I jumped up from my seat and knew that I was dominating them all right.

"Supposing what you say is true, I admit that my chance isn't worth two penn'orth o' cold gin, though it's every bit as good, and probably better, than yours, all things considered. You are certainly a fine figure of a man."

I was furious, mad, keen to provoke him to an outburst. The calculated insult was patent enough.

I thought he was about to go for me, and I stood ready, when "What about me?" came in a dry crackling voice from Arthur.

"Oh, I should put you and me about level," I said, "with the courtesy title as a little extra weight. It is a pity you should be the second son."

"Damn you, Kirby!" he burst out, blazing with anger.

I lifted up my hand and looked at both of them.

"I came in here," I said, "to my own house and find my two best friends, that I thought, waiting for me. A few hours ago I should have thought such a scene as this utterly impossible. I will ask you both to remember that it has not been provoked by me in any way, and that directly I came in you turned on me in the most atrocious and ill-bred way. Of your idea of the value of friendship I say nothing at all—it is obvious I must say nothing about that. Now you have forced the pace I will say this. To marry that young lady—I don't like to speak her name even—is about as difficult as to dive in a cork jacket or keep a smelt in a net. But I mean to try. I mean to use every ounce of weight I've got. I shall almost certainly fail, but now you know."

"Since you have said that," Pat broke in, "handicaps be damned! I'm a starter for the same stakes, and it's hell for leather I'll ride, and it's meself that says it, Tom."

Arthur Winstanley spoke last.

"I'm a fellow of a good many ambitions," he said quietly, "though I've never bothered you chaps with them. Now they are all consolidated into one."

Then we all stood and looked at each other, the cards on the table, and in the faces of the other two at least there was uneasiness and shame.

Just at that moment a funny thing happened. Preston had brought in an ice pail full of bottles of soda water. The heat of the night, or something, caused one of the corks to break its confining wire and go off with a startling report, while a fountain of foam drenched the sandwiches.

"Me kingdom for a drink!" said Pat. "Oh, the sweet, blessed, gurgling sound!" and striding to the table he mixed a gargantuan peg.

Arthur and I met behind Pat's back and he held out his hand to me, biting his lower lip.

"We've behaved abominably, old soul," he said.

The big guardsman turned round and raised his glass on high.

"Here's to the sweetest and most lovely lady in the world, bedad!" he shouted, accentuating his Irish brogue. "May the best man win her, fair fight, and no favors, and may the Queen of Heaven and all the saints watch over the little darlint and guide her choice aright!"

So all our midnight madness passed like a fleeting cloud. An extraordinary accession of high spirits came to us as we pledged the dark-haired maiden from Brazil. And it was Pat, dear old Pat, who welded us together in a league of chivalry against which nothing was ever to prevail.

"Tom," he said, "Arthur—we are all like brothers, we always have been. Let there be no change in that, now or ever. I have something to propose."

"Go on, Pat," said Arthur.

"Sure then, since we all love the same lady, that ought to bind us more together than anything else has ever done. But since we cannot all marry her, let us agree, in the first place, that no outsider ever shall."

"Hurrah!" said Arthur—I could see that he was fearfully excited—throwing his glass into the fireplace with a crash.

"I am with you, Pat!" I cried. "It's to be one of us three, and we are in league against all the other men in London. And now the question is—"

"Hear my plan. This very night we'll draw lots as to which of us shall have the first chance. The man who wins shall have the entire support of the other two in every possible way. If she accepts him, then the fates have spoken. If she doesn't, then the next man in the draw shall have his chance, and the rejected suitor and the poor third man shall help him to the utmost of their ability. Is that clear?"

He stopped and looked down at us from his great height with a smiling and anxious face.

Dear old Pat, I shall always love to think that the proposal came from him, straight, clean and true, as he always was.

"So be it," Arthur echoed solemnly. "The league shall begin this very night. Do either of you chaps know any Spanish, by the way?"

We shook our heads.

"Well, I do," he continued, "and we'll form ourselves into a Santa Hermandad—'The Holy Brotherhood'—it was the name of an old Spanish Society of chivalry ever so many years ago."

"Santa Hermandad!" Pat shouted, "and now to shake hands on it. I think we'll not be needing to take an oath."

Our three hands were clasped together in an instant and we knew that, come what might, each would be true to that bond.

"And now," I said, "to draw lots as to who shall be the first to try his chance. How shall we settle it?"

"There's no fairer way," said Arthur, "than the throw of a die. Have you any poker dice, Tom?"

"Yes, I have a couple of sets somewhere."

"Very well then, we'll take a single one and the first man that throws Queen is the winner."

I found the dice and the leather cup and dropped a single one into it. Poker dice, for the benefit of the uninitiate, have the Queen on one side in blue, like the Queen in a pack of cards, the King in red and the Knave in black. On two other faces, the nine and the ten.

"Who will throw first?" said Pat.

"You throw," I said.

There was a rattle, and nine fell upon the table. I nodded to Arthur, who picked up the little ivory square, waved the cup in the air, and threw—an ace.

My turn came. I threw an ace also, and Arthur and I looked at Pat with sinking hearts.

He threw a King. I don't want another five minutes like that again. We threw and threw and threw and never once did the Queen turn up. At last Arthur said:

"Look here, you fellows, I can't stand this much longer, it's playing the devil with my nerves. Let's have one more throw and if Her Majesty doesn't turn up, let's decide it by values. Ace, highest, King, Queen and so on. Tom, your turn."

I took up the box, rattled the cube within it for a long time and then dropped it flat upon the table.

I had thrown Queen.

CHAPTER TWO

About a fortnight after the memorable scene in my flat when the league came into being, I was sitting in my editorial room at the offices of the Evening Special.

I had met Juanita once at a large dinner party and exchanged half a dozen words with her—that was all. My head was full of plans, I was trying to map out a social campaign that would give me the opportunity I longed for, but as yet everything was tentative and incomplete. The exciting business of journalism, the keeping of one's thumb upon the public pulse, the directing of public thought into this or that channel, was most welcome at a time like this, and I threw myself into it with avidity.

I had just returned from lunch, and the first editions of the paper were successfully afloat, when Williams, my acting editor, and Miss Dewsbury, my private secretary, came into my room.

"Things are very quiet indeed," said Williams.

"But the circulation is all right?"

"Never better. Still, I am thinking of our reputation, Sir Thomas."

I knew what he meant. We had never allowed the Evening Special—highly successful as it was—to go on in a jog-trot fashion. We had a tremendous reputation for great "stunts," genuine, exclusive pieces of news, and now for weeks nothing particular had come our way.

"That's all very well, Williams, but we cannot make bricks without straw, and if everything is as stagnant as a duck pond, that's not our fault."

Miss Dewsbury broke in. She was a little woman of thirty with a large head, fair hair drawn tightly from a rather prominent brow, and wore tortoise-shell spectacles. She looked as if her clothes had been flung at her and had stuck, but for all that Julia Dewsbury was the best private secretary in London, true as steel, with an inordinate capacity for work and an immense love for the paper. I think she liked me a little too, and she was well worth the four hundred a year I paid her.

"I," said Miss Dewsbury, "live at Richmond."

Both Williams and I cocked our ears. Julia never wasted words, but she liked to tell her story her own way, and it was best to let her do so.

"Ah!" said Williams appreciatively.

"And I believe," she went on, "that one of the biggest newspaper stories, ever, is going to come from Richmond. It is something that will go round the world, if I am not very much mistaken, and we've got to have it first, Sir Thomas."

Williams gave a low whistle, and I strained at the leash, so to speak.

"I refer," Miss Dewsbury went on, "to the great wireless erections on Richmond Hill."

For a moment I felt disappointed. I didn't see how interest could be revived in that matter and I said so.

"Nearly a year ago," I remarked, "every paper in England was booming with it. We did our share, I'm sure. No one could have protested more vigorously, and it was the Special that got all those questions asked in Parliament. But surely, Miss Dewsbury, it's dead as mutton now. It's an accepted fact and the public have got used to it."

"There's nothing," said Williams, "more impossible than to reanimate a dead bit of news. It's been tried over and over again and it's never been a real success."

Miss Dewsbury smiled, the smile that means "When you poor dear, silly men have done talking, then you shall hear something." I saw that smile and took courage again.

"Suppose," said Miss Dewsbury, "that we just look up the facts as a preliminary to what I have to say."

She went to a side table on which was a dial with little ivory tablets, each bearing a name—Sub-editor's room, Composing room, Mr. Williams, Library, etc., and she pulled a little handle over the last disk, immediately speaking into a telephone receiver above.

"Facts relating to great wireless installment on Richmond Hill."

A bell whirred and she came back to the table where we were sitting. In twenty seconds—so perfect was our organization at the Special office—a youth entered with a portfolio containing a number of Press cuttings, photographs, etc.

Miss Dewsbury opened it.

"A year ago," she said, "the real estate market was greatly interested to learn that Flight, Jones & Rutley, the well-known agents, had secured several acres of property on the top of Richmond Hill. The buyer's name was not discovered, but an enormously wealthy syndicate was suggested. At that time, opportunely chosen, many leases had fallen in. Others that had some time still to run were bought at a greatly enhanced value, while several portions of freehold property were also purchased at ten times their worth. Houses immediately began to be demolished, immense compensation was paid to those who hung out and refused to quit the newly purchased area. Pressure, it is hinted, of a somewhat unwarrantable kind, was also applied. The sum involved was enormous, but every claim was cheerfully settled, with the result that this area of several acres was entirely denuded of buildings and surrounded by a high wall, in an incredibly short space of time."

"The most beautiful view in England spoiled forever!" said Williams with a sigh.

Miss Dewsbury turned over a few leaves.

"Of course you will both remember the agitation that went on, the opposition of the local and County Councils, the rage of Societies for preserving the ancient monuments and historic places of interest, etc., etc. The newspapers, including ours, took up the matter vigorously. Then, with a curious unanimity, all opposition began to die away. It is quite certain that huge sums were spent in buying over the objectors, though no actual proof was ever discovered. The matter was altogether too delicate a thing and was far too skillfully worked.

"Then the unknown purchaser began to build the three great towers now approaching completion. An army of workmen was gathered together in a new industrial city between Brentford and Hounslow. Fleets of ships bearing steel girders and so forth arrived from America, together with a hundred highly trained engineers, all of them Americans. It was given out that the most powerful wireless station in the whole world was to be constructed. Again much opposition, appeals to the Government, questions to the Board of Trade and so forth. I remember that very much the same sort of thing happened in Paris, when the Eiffel Tower was first constructed. England's agitation was opposed by the scientific bodies of the day, and there were other forces behind which brought pressure to bear on the Government. That also is certain, though nothing has actually transpired as yet in this regard. Now we've three monstrous towers, each of nearly two thousand feet in height—twice the height of the Eiffel—dominating London. Every day almost we, who live in Richmond and the surrounding towns, see these monsters shooting up higher into the air. Often half of them is veiled by clouds. The most tremendous engineering feat in the history of the world is nearly accomplished."

Now all this was quite familiar to me and in common with many Londoners I had begun to take a sort of lazy pride in the gaunt lattice-work of steel which seemed climbing to heaven itself. All the same I saw no great journalistic opportunity and I said so.

"Let us consider a little," continued the imperturbable Julia. "These towers are not Government owned. They are the property of some private syndicate. The secret has been kept with extraordinary success. All the Marconi shareholders of the City, all the big financial corporations, even foreign Governments, have been trying to get at the root of the matter. Each and all have utterly failed. Yet our own Government knows, and sooner or later a pronouncement will have to be made. If we could anticipate this, then the interest of the public would rise to fever heat again, and we should have a scoop of the first magnitude."

I saw that immediately, and so did Williams, but as it was obvious Miss Dewsbury hadn't quite finished we just nodded and let her go on.

"Now I have reason for thinking," she said, "and I am not speaking lightly, Sir Thomas, that there's something behind this affair of a totally unexpected and startling nature. Some day, no doubt, the towers will be used for scientific purposes, but there's a deep mystery surrounding everything, and one very different from what we might suppose. I think we can penetrate it."

"Splendid!" I cried, for I knew very well that Julia Dewsbury would not say as much as she had unless there was certainty behind her words. "And how do you propose to start work?"

As I was looking at her she flushed, and I nearly fell off my chair. It had never occurred to me that Miss Dewsbury could blush, in fact, that she was human at all, I am afraid, and I wondered what on earth was the matter.

"May I make a little personal explanation, Sir Thomas?" she said. "I live in a quiet street at the foot of Richmond Hill, where I occupy a large and comfortable bed-sitting room in 'Balmoral,' Number 102, Acacia Road. The house is kept by an excellent woman, who only takes in one other lodger. You pay me a very handsome salary, Sir Thomas, and I might be expected to live in a more commodious way—a flat in Kensington or something like that. But I have other claims upon me. There are two young sisters and a brother to be educated, and I am their sole support. That's why I live in a small lodging house at Richmond, which, again, is the reason that I have recently come into contact with some one who may be of inestimable value to the paper."

She blushed again, upon my soul she did, and I heard Williams gasp in astonishment. I kicked him, under the table.

"The other bed-sitting room at 'Balmoral' has recently been occupied by a young man, perhaps I should rather say a youth, Mr. William Rolston. He seemed very lonely and quite poor, and on discussing him with Mrs. O'Hagan, my landlady, she informed me that she more than suspected that he had at times to economize grievously in the matter of food. I myself used to hear the click of a typewriter across the passage, sometimes continuing till late at night, and from the frequency with which bulky envelopes arrived for him by post, it was easy to deduce that he was an unsuccessful author or journalist. This naturally excited my interest. Mrs. O'Hagan has no idea that I am connected with the Evening Special, she thinks I am typist in a city firm of hardware merchants. And when I made my acquaintance with Mr. Rolston, as I did some time ago owing to his back number Remington going wrong, I told him nothing but that I myself was a typist and stenographer. I was enabled to put his machine right and we became friends. Am I boring you, Sir Thomas, and Mr. Williams?" she said suddenly, with a quick look at both of us.

"On the contrary," I replied, "you are paying us a great compliment, Miss Dewsbury, in allowing us to know something of your own private affairs in order that you may explain how you propose to do the paper a signal service."

I can swear that the little woman's eyes grew bright behind her tortoise-shell spectacles and she went on with renewed confidence of manner.

"I have been associated with journalism for eight years now," she said. "During that time innumerable journalists have passed before me. In my own way I have studied them all, and I believe I can detect the real journalist almost as well as Mr. Williams can."

"A good deal better, I should think," said the acting editor, "considering the people I have trusted and the mistakes I have sometimes made."

"At any rate, I can say, with my whole heart, that Bill—I mean Mr. Rolston—though he is only twenty-one and has never had a chance in his life yet, has the makings in him of the most successful journalist of the day. He will rise to the very top of the tree. But as we all know, though great merit will come to the surface in time, chance is a great element in retarding or accelerating the process. I think that Mr. Rolston's chance has come now."

"You mean?" I asked.

"That this boy, utterly unknown, with hardly a left foot in Fleet Street as yet, has had the acumen to see, right to his hand, one of the greatest journalistic sensations of modern times. I refer to the three towers on Richmond Hill. We have been for evening strolls together and the boy has poured out his whole heart to me—as he might to a mother or any older woman"—and here poor Julia blushed again, and I thought I saw her lips quiver for a moment.

"The day before yesterday he said to me: 'Miss Dewsbury, of course you don't understand anything about journalism, but I'm on the track of the very biggest thing you could possibly imagine. I have been lying low and saying nothing. I'm hot on the scent.' He hinted at what it was, without giving me very many details, though these were quite sufficient to show me that he was making no idle boast. Then he said: 'But what use is it? If I went with what I've got already to any of the papers, I might or might not get to see some unimaginative news-editor who'd squash me into a cocked hat in five minutes. That's the worst of being absolutely unknown and without any pull. If only I could get to see a real editor of one of the big papers, a man who would give me a patient hearing, a man with imagination, I would engage to convince him in ten minutes and my fortune would be made.'"

She stopped, leant back in her chair and looked at me inquiringly.

"Good heavens!" I cried. "Have him up at once. I am quite certain that you could never have been deceived, Miss Dewsbury. You have not been with me for four years without my knowing how valuable your intuition is. Send him to me at once."

Miss Dewsbury gave a dry, gratified chuckle.

"I may have stretched things a little far in having too much confidence in my position here," she said, "but I was determined to gamble on it, and I've won. This morning, before I left for the office, I gave Mrs. O'Hagan a little note for Bill—he has an unfortunate habit of lying in bed in the morning. The note told him that by an odd coincidence, I thought I might put him in the way of writing an article for the Evening Special and that he was to be in the café at the corner by three o'clock, precisely."

She looked at her wrist-watch.

"It's five minutes to now. I will send for him at once."

"Rolston, did you say the name was, Miss Dewsbury?" said Williams.

"Yes,—Rolston. But the messenger can't mistake him. He's about five feet two high, very slim, with an innocent, baby face, and very dark red hair. Oh, and his ears stick out at the sides of his head almost at right angles. Please say nothing about my part in the matter, as yet at any rate," Miss Dewsbury asked as she went away, and some minutes afterwards a page boy ushered in one of the most curious little figures I have ever seen.

Mr. Rolston was short, slim and well proportioned. He looked active as a monkey and tough as whipcord. He was rather shabbily dressed in an old blue suit. His face was childish only in contour and complexion, and for the rest he could have sat as a model for Puck to any painter. There was something impish and merry in his rather slanting eyes, and his button of a mouth was capable of some very surprising contortions. His round-shaped ears, like the ears of a mouse, stood out on each side of his head and completed the elfish, sprite-like impression.

"Sit down, Mr. Rolston," I said, pointing to a chair on the other side of the table.

The little man bowed very low and slid into the chair. I had an odd impression that he would shortly produce a nut and begin to crack it with his teeth. I could see that he was in a whirl of amazement and at the same time horribly nervous, and I tried to put him at his ease.

"I understand," I said, "that you are a journalist, Mr. Rolston."

"Yes, Sir Thomas," he replied, in a cultivated voice, though with a curious guttural note in it, and I marked that he knew my name.

"I also understand—never mind how—that for some time past you have been wishing to see the editor of a large London daily, to penetrate right to the fountain head, so to speak. Well, here you are, I am the editor of the Evening Special. What have you to propose to me?"

I passed a box of cigarettes over the table towards him, but he shook his head.

"It's about the three great towers now approaching completion at Richmond."

"You have some special information?"

"Some very startling information, indeed, Sir Thomas. An idea came to me some months ago. I thought it worth while testing, and it's proved trumps."

"If you have anything in the nature of a scoop, Mr. Rolston, I need hardly say that it will be very well worth your while. If, when I have heard what you have to say, I cannot use your information, I will give you my personal word that all you tell me shall be kept an entire secret."

"That's good enough for any one," he answered with a sudden grin. "Well, sir, these towers will eventually lapse to the British Government as a gift from the private individual who has erected them, but they will remain his property and be used for his own purposes until his death. And these purposes are not wireless telegraphy, or even scientific in any shape or form. Indeed, wireless telegraphy is expressly forbidden."

Well, at that I sat upright in my chair. Here was news indeed—if it were true.

"That's big stuff," I replied at once, "if you can substantiate it."

"I think you will believe me when I have finished," he replied quietly. "I have risked my life more than once to get at the facts. My father, Sir Thomas, was a missionary in China. I was brought up to speak the Chinese language as well as English. I am one of the very few Europeans who do so fluently. Moreover, I kept it up till I was sixteen and came to England, and I have never forgotten it. You have heard, I suppose, that there's a gang of Chinese coolies at work on the towers, and some of the Trade Unions have been making themselves nasty about it, and the American labor?"

"Yes, there was some agitation."

"In addition to these coolies, there are many Chinese officials of a much higher class, people who will remain when the towers are finished, as they will be in an incredibly short space of time, for the work is being carried on both by day and night. Speed, speed, speed! is the order, and nothing in the world is allowed to stand in the way of it."

"You interest me very much. Please continue."

"Speaking Chinese as I do, being perfectly familiar with Chinese dress and customs, it has not been difficult for me to disguise myself—blacken my hair, assume a yellow complexion and so forth.

"By this means I have penetrated to the very heart of the workings at night, and," he blushed faintly, "I have listened to conversations of an extraordinary character, lying on the roof of a certain office building for hours. Details you shall have, and in plenty, but here is the sum of my discoveries. There is no syndicate. There never was. The work, upon which millions have been spent, has been, from the very first, designed and originated by one individual, with the specialized help of the most famous engineers of America."

"And his motive?" I asked, and I don't mind saying that I was almost trembling with excitement.

"The dream of a genius, or the whim of a madman," Rolston answered in a grave voice. "The world will call it one or the other without a doubt. At any rate it's the product of a colossal imagination. For myself, I am dead certain that there's some deeper and stranger motive beneath it all, but that can rest for the present. Sir Thomas, between those three great towers, two thousand feet up in the air, will very shortly come into being a fantastic pleasure city like a dream of the Arabian Nights! It will be unique in the history of the world, and already the preparations are so far advanced that it will be completed with extraordinary rapidity."

"A pleasure city!" I gasped. "A Pleasure City in the Clouds!"

"On two stages right up at the very summit, suspended by a system of cantilevers of the most intricate modern construction and of toughened steel. I understand that a triangle measuring in all four acres will support a marvelous series of palaces, a Lhassa of the air!"

"Why Lhassa, Mr. Rolston?"

"Because," he replied, "it's to be a Forbidden City, which no one will be allowed to penetrate or see. It is a marvelous conception only possible to enormous wealth and the vision of a superman."

I left my chair and began pacing up and down the room as the freakish grandeur of the conception burst fully upon me. Towering over London, dwarfing Saint Paul's to a child's toy, a City in the Clouds!

I stopped suddenly, wheeled round and shouted: "But who, Mr. Rolston, is the madman, genius or superman who has imagined this and actually carried it out in sober twentieth-century England?"

"That's the greatest secret of all," he said, looking round the room as if frightened.

Then he slid from his chair and was at my side in a moment.

"It's a Mr. Gideon Mendoza Morse from Brazil," he whispered.

CHAPTER THREE

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 the Evening 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 I had to 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 the Evening Special speaking. 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 the Special with scare headlines.

I sat down again in my chair, ordered a cup of tea, drank it with splendid visions of a tête-à-tête with 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 could write! 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 he did burst 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 to dine to-night, my son, really dine!"

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 I rather think 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.

CHAPTER FOUR

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 you do mean," 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 the Evening 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. I am, 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 the Evening 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.

CHAPTER FIVE

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. I had seen 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 desired tête-à-tête never 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 the Times first, 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 the Evening 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 the Special leaves 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, you are a 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 have ever seen. You people who crawl about on earth never do see what we see. 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 the Evening 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.

CHAPTER SIX

I must now, in the progress of the story, give a brief account of what I may call "The week of rumor," which immediately preceded my disappearance and plunge into the unknown.

I spent a miserable and agitated evening at Cerne Hall, and went early to my room. Arthur and Pat joined me there an hour later and for some time we talked over what the telegram from Morse might mean, until they retired to their own rooms and I was left alone.

I did not sleep a wink—indeed, I made no effort to go to bed, though I took off my clothes and wrapped myself in a dressing-gown. The suspense was almost unbearable, and, failing further news, I determined, at any cost to the shooting plans of my host, to get myself recalled to London by telegram. I felt sure that the whole of my life's happiness was at stake.

The next morning at nine o'clock, just as I was preparing to go down to breakfast, a long wire was brought to me. It was in our own office cipher, which I was trained to read without the key, and it was signed by Julia Dewsbury. The gist of the message was that there were strange rumors all over Fleet Street about the great towers at Richmond. An enormous sensation was gathering like a thunder cloud in the world of news and would shortly burst. Would I come to London at the earliest possible moment?

How I got out of Cerne Hall I hardly remember, but I did, to the blank astonishment of my host; drove to the nearest station, caught a train which got me to Norwich in half an hour and engaged the swiftest car in the city to run me up to London at top speed. Just after lunch I burst into the office of the Evening Special.

Williams and Miss Dewsbury were expecting me.

"It's big stuff," said the acting editor excitedly, "and we ought to be in it first, considering that we've more definite information than I expect any other paper possesses as yet, though it won't be the case for very long."

I sat down with hardly a word, and nodded to Miss Dewsbury. Her training was wonderful. She had everything ready in order to acquaint me with the facts in the shortest possible space of time.

She spoke into the telephone and Miss Easey—"Vera" of our "Society Gossip"—came in.

"I have found out, Sir Thomas," she said, "that Mr. Gideon Morse has canceled all social engagements whatever for himself and his daughter. Miss Dewsbury tells me that it's not necessary now to say what these were. I will, however, tell you that they extended until the New Year and were of the utmost social importance."

"Canceled, Miss Easey?"

"Definitely and finally canceled, both by letter to the various hosts and hostesses concerned, and by an intimation which is already sent to all the London dailies, for publication to-morrow. The notice came up to my room this morning from our own advertising office, for inclusion in 'Society Notes'—as you know such intimations are printed as news and paid for at a guinea a line."

"Any reason given, Miss Easey?"

"None whatever in the notices, which are brief almost to curtness. However, I have been able to see one of the private letters which has been received by my friends, Lord and Lady William Gatehouse, of Banks. It is courteously worded, and explains that Mr. and Miss Morse are definitely retiring from social life. It's signed by his secretary."

The invaluable Julia nodded to Miss Easey. She pursed up her prim old mouth, wished me good-morning and rustled away.

"That's that!" said Julia, "now about the towers."

"Yes, about the towers," I said, and my voice was very hoarse.

"As my poor friend, Mr. Rolston, discovered," she said bravely, "these monstrous blots upon London are certainly not for the purposes of wireless telegraphy. There are half the journalists in London at Richmond at the present moment, including two of our own reporters, and it is said that on the immense platforms between the towers, a series of extraordinary and luxurious buildings has been erected. It is widely believed that Gideon Morse is out of his mind, and has retired to a sort of unassailable, luxurious hermitage in the sky."

There was a knock at the door and a sub-editor came in with a long white strip just torn from the tape machine. I took it and read that the "Central News Agencies" announces "crowds at base of towers surrounded by a thirty-foot wall. Callers at principal gate are politely received by Boss Mulligan, formerly well-known boxer, United States, now in the service of Gideon M. Morse. Inquirers told that no statement can be issued for publication. Later. Rumor in neighborhood says that towers are entirely staffed by special Chinese servants, large company of which arrived at Liverpool on Thursday last. Growing certainty that towers are private enterprise of one man, Morse, the Brazilian multi-millionaire."

A telephone bell on my table rang. I took it up.

"Is that Sir Thomas? Charles Danvers speaking"—it was the voice of our dapper young Parliamentary correspondent, the nephew of a prominent under-secretary, and as smart as they make them.

"Yes, where are you?"

"House of Commons. Mr. Bloxhame, Member for Budmouth, is asking a question in the House this afternoon about the Richmond Tower sensation. The Secretary to the Board of Trade will reply. There's great interest in the lobby. Special edition clearly indicated. Question will come on about four."

I sent every one away and thought for a quarter of an hour. Of course all this absolved me of my promise to Morse. He had played with me, fooled me absolutely and I had been like a babe in his astute hands. Well, there was no time to think of my own private grievances. My immediate duty was to make as good a show that afternoon and the next day as any other paper. My hope was to beat all my rivals out of the field.

After all, there were nothing but rumors and surmise up to the present. The news situation might change in a couple of hours, but at the present moment I felt certain that I knew more about the affair than any other man in Fleet Street. I set my teeth and resolved to let old Morse have it in the neck.

Within an hour or so we had an "Extra Edition" on the streets, and during that hour I drew on my own private knowledge and dictated to Miss Dewsbury, and a couple of other stenographers. Poppy Boynton's experience was a godsend. I remembered her own vivid words of the night before, and I printed them in the form of an interview which must have satisfied even that delightful girl's hunger for advertisement. Incidentally, I sent a man from the Corps of Commissionaires down to Cerne in a fast motor-car, with notes for two hundred and fifty in an envelope, and instructions to stop in Regent Street on his way and buy the finest box of chocolates that London could produce—I remember the bill came in a few days afterwards, and if you'll believe me, it was for seventeen pounds ten!

At four o'clock, while the question was being asked in the House of Commons, and all the other evening papers were waiting the result for their special editions, my "Extra Special" was rushing all over London—the "Extra Special" containing the "First Authentic Description of the City in the Clouds."

"You really are wonderful, Sir Thomas," said Miss Dewsbury, removing her tortoise-shell spectacles and touching her eyes with a somewhat dingy handkerchief, "but where, oh, where is William Rolston?"

"My dear girl," I replied, "from what I've seen of William Rolston, I'm quite certain that he's alive and kicking. Not only that, but we shall hear from him again very shortly."

"You really think so, Sir Thomas?"—the eyes, hitherto concealed by the spectacles, were really rather fascinating eyes after all.

"I don't think so, I know it. Look here, Miss Dewsbury"—for some reason I couldn't resist the temptation of a confidence—"this thing, this stunt hits me privately a great deal harder than you can have any idea of. You said that the shadow of the towers was across my path, and you were more right than you knew. Enough said. I think we've whacked Fleet Street this afternoon. Well and good. There's a lot behind this momentary sensation, which I shall never leave go of until it's straightened out. This is between you and me, not for office consumption, but," I put my hand upon her thin arm, "if I can help in any way, you shall have your Bill Rolston."

She turned her head away and walked to the window. Then she said an astonishing thing.

"If only I could help you to your Juanita!"

"WHAT!" I shouted, "what on earth—"

A page came in with a telegram.

"Addressed to you, Sir Thomas," he said, "marked personal."

I tore it open, it was from Pat Moore.

"Extraordinary youth followed us out shooting, and came up at lunch asking for you. Boy of about sixteen. Mysterious cove with the assurance of Mephistopheles. Some question of fifty pounds was to get from you on delivering letter. Gave him your address and he departed for London."

I couldn't make head or tail of Pat's wire, and I put it down on the table for future consideration, when Williams hurried in with a pad of paper.

"Danvers just 'phoned through," he said, "and I've sent the message downstairs for the stop press."

I began to read.

"Bloxhame interrogated Secretary to the Board of Trade, who replied it was perfectly true that the towers were built to the order of Gideon Morse and were his property. Morse has entered into an agreement with the Government engaging not to use the towers for wireless telegraphy or for any other purpose than a strictly private one, which appears to be that he intends to live on the platforms on the top. At his death the whole property will pass into possession of the Government, to be used for wireless purposes, or for the principal aeroplane station between England and the Continent. Aeroplanes, when the existing buildings are removed, will be able to alight from the platforms in numbers. Expenditure from first to last, Board of Trade estimates at seven millions. Feeling of House at such a magnificent gift to the Nation, which is bound to fall in within twenty years or so, friendly and satisfactory. In answer to a question from Commander Crosman, M.P. for Rodwell, President Board of Aerial Control announces that strict orders have been issued that aeroplanes are not to circle round the towers or in any way annoy present proprietor. The House is greatly amused and interested at this romantic news."

Williams departed to issue another "Extra Special," and I was once more left alone. Obviously the secret was out, it was startling enough in all conscience, and, as I thought, merely the whim of a madman. And yet there were aspects of it which were inexplicable. There could be no doubt whatever that Gideon Morse had flouted English society, which had treated him with extreme kindness, in a way that it would never forget. That surely was not the action of a sane man. If he had wanted to build for himself a lordly "pleasure house" to which he might retire upon occasions, a sane man would have arranged things very differently. Certainly, and this was not without some bitter satisfaction to me, he had ruined his daughter's chances of a brilliant marriage—for a long time at any rate. I saw that secrecy had been necessary, though it had been carried to an extreme degree; but why had he fooled me under the guise of friendship? Surely he could have trusted my word.

I was furious as I thought of the way I had been done. I was furious also, and worse than furious, alarmed, when I thought of Juanita. Had she been in the plot the whole time? Did she like being spirited away from all that could make a young girl's life bright and happy? What was at the bottom of it all?

The only thing to do was to try and keep ahead, or level, with my rival contemporaries in the matter of news, and privately to wait on events, and think the matter out definitely. For the next few days, weeks perhaps, some of the acutest brains in England would be puzzled over this problem, and if there was really anything more in it than the freak of a colossal egotist, who thus, with a superb gesture, signified his scorn of the world, then some light might come.

Suddenly I felt ill, and collapsed. I gave a few instructions, left the office and went home to Piccadilly, and to bed.

It was about eight o'clock when Preston woke me. I had had a bath and changed, and was wondering exactly what I should do for the rest of the evening, when Preston came in and said that there was a boy who wished to see me. He would neither give his name nor his business, but seemed respectable.

I remembered Pat's mysterious telegram, which till now I had quite forgotten, and with a certain quickening of the pulses I ordered the boy to be shown up.

He came into the room with a scrape and a bow, a nice-looking lad of sixteen, decently dressed in black.

"Who are you and what do you want?" I said.

He seemed a little nervous and his eyes were bright.

"Are you Sir Thomas Kirby?"

"Yes, what is it? By the way, haven't you been all the way to Norfolk to find me?"

"Yes, sir, it's my day off, but unfortunately I found you had left, sir, so I came on here as fast as I could. A gentleman at Cerne Hall gave me your address."

"And how did you know I was at Cerne Hall?"

"It's on the envelope, sir."

"The envelope?"

"Yes, sir, the one I was to deliver to you personally, and on no account to let it get into the hands of any one else, even one of your servants, sir, and"—he breathed a little fast—"and the lady said that you would certainly give me fifty pounds, sir, if I did exactly as she ordered, and never breathed a word to a single soul."

In an instant I understood. The blood grew hot and raced into my veins as I held out my hand, trembling with impatience, while the youth performed a somewhat complicated operation of half undressing, eventually producing a brown paper packet intricately tied with string, from some inner recesses of his wardrobe.

"Who are you?" I asked while he was unbuttoning.

"James Smith, sir, one of the pages at the Ritz Hotel."

I tore off the wrappers imposed upon the letter by this cautious youth. There was a letter addressed to me in a fine Italian hand which I knew from having seen it in one word only—"Cerne."

Fortunately, I had plenty of money in the flat and there was no need to give the excellent James Smith a check.

He gasped with joy as he tucked away the crackling bits of paper.

"And remember, not ever a word to any one, Smith."

"On my honor, sir," he said, saluting.

"And what will you do with it, Smith?"

"Please, sir, I hope to pelmanize myself into an hotel manager," he said, and I let him go at that. I only hope that he will succeed.

I opened the letter. It ran as follows:

"Farewell. I don't suppose we shall ever meet again. I am forced to retire from the world—from love—from you.

"I cannot explain, but fear walks with me night and day. Oh, my love! if you could only save me, you would, I know, but it is impossible and so farewell. Were I not sure that we shall not see each other more I could not write as I have done and signed myself here,

"Your,
"Juanita."

I put the letter carefully into the breast-pocket of my coat, and then, for the first time in my life, I fainted dead away.

Preston found me a few minutes later, got me right somehow, ascertained that I had not eaten for many hours, scolded me like a father, and poured turtle soup into me till I was alive again, alive and changed from the man I had been a few hours ago.

The next day I satisfied myself that all was going well in the office, and simply roamed about London. Already I think the dim purpose which afterwards came to such extraordinary fruit was being born in my mind. I wanted to be alone, taken quite out of my usual surroundings, and I achieved this with considerable success. I rode in tube trains and heard every one discussing Gideon Morse, and what was already known as the "City in the Clouds." The papers announced that thousands of people were encamped in Richmond Park gazing upwards, and seeing nothing because of a cloud veil that hung around the top of the towers. It seemed the proprietors of telescopes on tripods were doing a roaring trade at threepence a look, but the gate in the grim, prison-like walls surrounding the grounds at the foot of the tower, was never once opened all day long.

I began to realize that probably nothing new, nothing reliable that is, would transpire at present. The sensation would go its usual way. There would be songs and allusions in all the revues to-night. Punch would have a cartoon, suggesting the City in the Clouds as a place of banishment for its particular bugbear of the moment. Gossip papers would be full of beautiful, untrue stories of a romantic nature about the girl I loved, her name would be the subject of a million jokes by a million vulgar people. Then, little by little, the excitement would die away.

All this, as a trained journalist I foresaw easily enough, but knowing what I knew—what probably I alone of all the teeming millions in London knew—I was forming a resolve, which hourly grew stronger, that I would never rest until I knew the worst.

I found myself in Kensington. There was a motor-omnibus starting for Whitechapel Road. I climbed on the top.

"I sye," piped a little ragamuffin office boy to his friend, "why does Jewanniter live in the clouds, Willum?"

"Arsk me another."

"'Cos she's a celebrated 'airess—see?"

"What I say," said a meager-looking man with a bristling mustache which unsuccessfully concealed his slack and feeble mouth, "is simply this. If Mr. Morse chooses to live in a certain way of life and 'as the money to carry it out, why not let him alone? Freedom for every individual is a 'progative of English life, and I expect Morse is fair furious with what they're saying about him, for I have it on the best authority that a copy of every edition of the Evening Special goes up to him in the tower lifts as soon as it is issued."

Words, words, words! everywhere, silly, irresponsible chatter which I heeded as little as a thrush heeds a shower of rain.

Steadily, swiftly, certainly, my purpose grew.

I got down in the Whitechapel Road, that wide and unlovely thoroughfare, and, feeling hungry, went into a dingy little restaurant partitioned off in boxes. The tablecloth was of stained oil skin, the guests the seediest type of minor clerks, but I do remember that for ninepence I had a little beefsteak and kidney pudding to myself which was as good as anything I have ever eaten. As I went out I saw my neighbor of the omnibus who had spoken so eloquently of freedom, walking by with a little black bag, as in an aimless way I hailed a taxicab from the rank opposite a London hospital and told the man to drive slowly westwards.

He did so, and when we came to the Embankment a gleam of afternoon sunshine began to enlighten what had been a leaden day. Thinking a brisk walk from Black Friars to Westminster would help my thoughts, I dismissed the cab and started.

It was with an odd little thrill and flutter of the heart that far away westwards, to the left of the Houses of Parliament, I saw three ghostly lines, no thicker than lamp posts, it seemed, springing upwards from nothingness. At Cleopatra's Needle, I felt the want of a cigarette and stopped to light one.

At the moment there were few people on the pavement, though the unceasing traffic in the road roared by as usual. I lit the cigarette, put my case back in my pocket, and was about to continue my stroll when I heard some one padding up behind me with obvious purpose.

I half turned, and there again I saw the man with the weak mouth and the big mustache.

It flashed upon me, for the first time, that I was being followed, had been followed probably during the whole of my wanderings.

As I said, there was nobody immediately about, so I turned to rabbit-face and challenged him.

"You're following me, my man, why? Out with it or I'll give you in charge."

"Yer can't," he said. "This is a free country, freedom is my 'progative as well as yerself, Sir Thomas Kirby. I've done nothing to annoy yer, have I?"

I shrugged my shoulders.

"But you have been following me."

His manner changed at once.

"Ever since you left Piccadilly, Sir Thomas, waiting my opportunity. I'm a private inquiry agent by profession, though this job of shadowing you has nothing to do with the office that employs me. I have a young friend in my house who's turned up sudden and mysterious, a young friend I lost sight of many weeks ago. He says you'll come to him at once if I could only get you alone and be certain that no one saw me speak to you. His instructions were to follow you about until such an opportunity as this arose, and all the time I was to be certain that no one else was following you. I have ascertained that all right."

He put his head close to mine and I felt his hot breath upon my cheek.

"It's Mr. William Rolston, Sir Thomas," he said. "I'm not in his confidence, though I have long admired his abilities and predicted a great future for him. He's come to me in distress and I am doing what I can to 'elp 'im—this being a day when they've no job for me at the office."

"Good Lord! why didn't you speak to me this morning, if you've been following me all day?"

He shook his head.

"Wouldn't have done. Mr. Rolston's instructions was different and he has his reasons, though I'm not in his confidence. I've done it out of admiration for his talents, and no doubt some day he'll be in a position to pay me for my work."

"Pay you, you idiot!" I could have taken him by the throat and shaken the fool. "Mr. Rolston knows very well that he can command any money he chooses. He's a member of my staff."

We were now walking along together towards Westminster.

"That's as may be," said my seedy friend, "but 'e 'adn't a brass farthing this morning, and come to that, Sir Thomas, if you'd got into another blinking taxi, you'd have snookered me!"

"Where do you live?" I asked impatiently.

"Not far from where you 'ad your lunch, Sir Thomas. 15, Imperial Mansions, Royal Road, Stepney."

"It's a magnificent address," I said, as I held out my stick for a cab.

"It's a block o' workmen's buildings, reely," he replied gloomily, "and in the thick of the Chinese quarter, which makes it none too savory. But an Englishman's house is his castle and he has the 'progative to call it what he likes."

Back east we went again and in half an hour I was mounting interminable stone steps to a door nearly at the top of "Imperial Mansions," which my guide, who during our drive had introduced himself to me as Mr. Herbert Sliddim, announced as his home. In a dingily furnished room, sitting on a molting, plush sofa I saw the curious little man to whom I had so taken months ago. He was shabby almost to beggary. His face was pale and worn, which gave him an aspect of being much older than I had imagined him. But his irrepressible ears stood out as of yore and his eyes were not dimmed.

"Hallo," I said, "glad to see you, Mr. Rolston, though you've neglected us at the office for a long time. Your arrears of salary have been mounting up."

His hand was trembling as I gripped it.

"Oh, Sir Thomas," he said, "do you really mean that I am still on the staff?"

"Of course you are, my dear boy."

I turned to Mr. Sliddim.

"Now I wonder," I said, "if I might have a little quiet conversation with Mr. Rolston."

"By all means," he replied. "I'll wait in the courtyard."

"I shouldn't do that, Mr. Sliddim. Why not take a tour round?"

I led him out of the room into the passage which served for hall, pressed a couple of pounds into his hand and had the satisfaction of seeing him leap away down the stairs like an antelope.

"That's all right," said Rolston. "Now he'll go and get blotto, it's the poor devil's failing. Still, he'll be happy."

I sat down, passed my cigarette case to Rolston, and waited for him to begin.

He sort of came to attention.

"I was rung up, Sir Thomas, at your flat—at least your valet was—and told to come to the office of the Evening Special at once."

"I know, go on."

"I dressed as quickly as I could, ran down the stairs and jumped into the waiting cab. The door banged and we started off. The engines must have been running, for we went away like a flash. There was some one else sitting there. A hand clapped over my mouth and an arm round my body. I couldn't move or speak. Then the thumb of the hand did something to the big nerves behind my ear. It's an Oriental trick and I had just realized it when something wet and sweet was pressed over my mouth and nose, and I lost all consciousness.

"When I woke up I found myself in a fair-sized room, lit by a skylight high up in the roof. There was a bed, a table, a chair, and various other conveniences, and I hadn't the slightest idea where I could be. My head ached and I felt bruised all over, so I drank a glass of water, crawled back into the bed and slept. When I woke again there was an affable Chink sitting by my side, who spoke quite good English.

"'You will,' he said, 'be kept here for some time in durance, yess. It's an unfortunate necessity, yess.'

"I heard on all sides familiar noises. I knew in a moment what had happened. I had been brought back to the works at the base of the three towers."

"All this fits in very well with what I now know, Rolston. I'll tell you everything in a minute, but I want to hear your story first."

"Very good, Sir Thomas. For over three months I've been kept a prisoner at Richmond. I wasn't badly treated. I had anything I liked to eat and drink, any books to read—tobacco, a bath—everything but newspapers, which were rigidly denied me. I wasn't kept entirely to my prison room. I was allowed to go out and take exercise within the domain surrounded by the great thirty-foot wall, though I was never let to roam about as I wished. There was always a big Chinese coolie with a leaded cane attending me, a man that only spoke a few words of English.

"Now, Sir Thomas, please remember this. From first to last none of my jailers knew that I understood Chinese. And none of them knew or suspected that I had been among the workmen before, in order to get materials for the scoop with which I came to you."

I saw the value of that at once.

"Good for you, Rolston; now please continue."

"Well, Sir Thomas, I kept my eyes and ears very wide open and I learnt a lot. Things were being prepared with a feverish activity of which the people outside had not the slightest idea. I found that round the base of the towers, in the miniature park inclosed by the high wall, there were already magnificent vegetable gardens in active being. There were huge conservatories which must have been set up when the towers were only a few hundred feet high, now full of the rarest flowers and shrubs. In my walks, I saw a miniature poultry farm, conducted on the most up-to-date methods; there was a dairy, with four or five cows—already this part of the huge inclosure was assuming a rural aspect. It must have been planned and started nearly two years ago."

"You asked questions, I suppose?"

"Any amount, as innocently as I possibly could. I got very little out of my captors in reply. Your Chinaman is the most secretive person in the world. But, I heard them talking among themselves; and I was amazed at the calculated organization which had been going on without cessation from the beginning.

"It all fitted in exactly with what I told you at the Special office. It was as though Mr. Morse was planning a little private world of his own, which would be independent of everything outside."

"And about the towers themselves?"

"It will take me hours to tell you. In one quarter of the inclosure there are great dynamo sheds—an electric installation inferior to nothing else of its kind in the world. The great lifts which rise and fall in the towers are electric. Heating, lighting, artificial daylight for the conservatories—all are electric.

"Where I was kept," he went on, "was nearly a quarter of a mile from the engineering section, but I knew that it hummed with extraordinary activity night and day. I discovered that structural buildings of light steel were pouring in from America, that an army of decorators and painters was at work; vans of priceless Oriental furniture and hangings were arriving from all parts of the world, rare flowers and shrubs also. Sir Thomas, it was as though the Universe was being searched for wonders—all to be concentrated here.

"This went on and on till I lost count of the days and lived in a sort of dream, kindly treated enough, allowed to see many secret things, and always with a sense that because this was so, I should never again emerge into the real world."

"I can understand that, Rolston. Every word you say interests me extremely."

"I'll come to the present, Sir Thomas. You can ask me any details that you like afterwards. A few days ago everything was speeded up to extraordinary pitch. Then, late one night, there was a great to-do, and in the morning I learned that Mr. Morse and his family had arrived, and that they were up at the top. I have found out since that this was the fourteenth of September."

"The fourteenth!" I cried.

"Yes, Sir Thomas, the fourteenth. The next day, it was late in the afternoon and the sun was setting, two Chinamen came into my room, tied a handkerchief over my eyes and led me out. I was put into one of the little electric railways—open cars which run all over the inclosure—and taken to the base of the towers.

"I don't know which tower it was, but I was led into a lift and a long, slow ascent began. I knew that I was in one of the big carrying lifts that take a long time to do the third of a mile up to the City, not one of the quick-running elevators which leap upwards from stage to stage for passengers and arrive at the top in a comparatively short space of time.

"When the lift stopped they took off the handkerchief and I found myself in a great whitewashed barn of a place which was obviously a storeroom. There were bales of stuff, huge boxes and barrels on every side.

"The men who had brought me up were just rough Chinese workmen from Hong Kong, but a door opened and a Chink of quite another sort came in and took me by the arm.

"You see, Sir Thomas," he explained, "to the ordinary Englishman one Chinaman is just like another, but my experience in the East enables me to distinguish at once.

"The newcomer was of a very superior class, and he led me out of the storeroom, across a swaying bridge of latticed steel to a little rotunda. As we passed along, I had a glimpse of the whole of London, far, far below. The Thames was like a piece of glittering string. Everything else were simply patches of gray, green, and brown.

"We went into the cupola and a tiny lift shot us up like a bullet until it stopped with a clank and I knew that I was now upon the highest platform of all.

"But I could see nothing, for we simply turned down a long corridor lighted by electricity and softly carpeted, which might have been the corridor of one of the great hotels far down below in town.

"My conductor, who wore pince-nez and a suit of dark blue alpaca and who had a charming smile, stopped at a door, rapped, and pushed me in.

"I found myself in a room of considerable size. It was a library. The walls were covered with shelves of old oak, in which there were innumerable books. A Turkey carpet, two or three writing-tables—and Mr. Gideon Morse, whom I had never spoken to, but had seen driving in Hyde Park, sat there smoking a cigar.

"I might have been in the library of a country house, except for two things. There were no windows to this large and gracious room. It was lit from above, like a billiard-room—domed skylights in the roof. But the light that came down was not a light like anything I had ever seen. It lit up every detail of the magnificent and stately place, but it was new—'the light that never was on earth or sea.' It was just that that made me realize where I was—two thousand three hundred feet up in the air, alone with Gideon Morse, who had snatched me out of life three months before."

"I know Mr. Morse, Rolston. What impression did he make on you?"

"For a moment he stunned me, Sir Thomas. I knew I was in the presence of a superman. All that I had heard about him, all the legends that surrounded his name, the fact of this stupendous sky city in which I was—the ease with which he had stretched out his hand and made me a prisoner, all combined to produce awe and fear."

"Yes, go on."

"I saw two other things—I think I did. One was that the man's sanity is trembling in the balance. The other that if ever a human being lives and moves and has his being in deadly temporal fear, Gideon Mendoza Morse is that man."

The words rang out in that East-end room with prophetic force. It was as though a brilliant light was snapped on to illumine a dark chamber in my soul.

"What did he say to you, Rolston?"

"He was suavity and kindness itself. He said that he immensely regretted the necessity for secluding me so long. 'But of course I shall make it up to you. You're a young man, Mr. Rolston, only just commencing your career. A little capital would doubtless assist that career, in which I may say I have every belief. Shall we say that you leave Richmond this afternoon with a solatium of five hundred pounds?'

"'A thousand would suit me better,' I said.

"He shrugged his shoulders, and suddenly smiled at me.

"'Very well,' he said, 'let it be a thousand pounds.'

"'Of course without prejudice, Mr. Morse.'

"'Please explain yourself.'

"'You've kidnaped me. You've also committed an offense against the law of England—a criminal offense for which you will have to suffer. Perhaps you don't realize that if you built your house miles further up, if you managed to nearly reach the moon, British justice would reach you at last.'

"He shook his head sadly.

"'To that point of view, I hardly agree, Mr. Rolston. I am quite unable to purchase British justice, but I can put such obstacles in its way that could—'

"He suddenly stopped there, lit a little brown cigarette, came up and patted me on the shoulder.

"'Child,' he said, 'you are clever, you are original, I like you. But have a sense of proportion, and remember that you have no choice in this matter. I will give you the money you want on condition that you go away and bring no action whatever against me. If not—'

"'If not, sir?'

"'Well, you will have to stay here, that's all. You won't be badly treated. You can be librarian if you like, but you will never see the outside world again.'

"'May I have a few hours to consider, sir?'

"'A month if you like,' he said, pressing a bell upon his table.

"The same bland young Chinaman led me out of the library and down to the storeroom in the lift. I was blindfolded, and descended to the ground.

"There I met a man whom I had seen two or three times during the last three days, a great seven-foot American with arms like a gorilla, a thing called 'Boss Mulligan,' whom I had gathered from the conversation of my Chinese friends, had now arrived to take charge of the whole city—a sort of head policeman and guard.

"'Sonny,' he said, 'I've had a 'phone down from the top in regard to you. Now don't you be a short sport. You've been made a good offer. You grip it and be like fat in lavender. My advice to you is to wind a smile round your neck and depart with the dollars. I can see you're full of pep and now you've got fortune before you. See that pavilion over there?'

"He pointed to where a little gaudily painted house nestled under one of the great feet of the first tower.

"'That's my mansion. You wander about for an hour or so and come there and say you agree to the boss's terms—we'll take your word for it. Upon the word "Yes," I'll hand you out at the gate and you can go to Paris for a trip.'

"'I'll think it over,' I said.

"'Do so, and don't be a life-everlasting, twenty-four-hours-a-day, dyed-in-the-wool damn fool.'

"It was getting dusk. I was in a new part of the inclosed park. He let me go without any watchful Chinese attendant at my heels, and I strolled off with my head bent down as if deep in thought.

"I'd got an hour, and I think I made the best use of it. I hurried along under the shadow of the towers, past shrubberies, artificial lakes, summer-houses and little inclosed rose-gardens until I was far away from Mr. Mulligan. Here and there I passed a patient Chinese gardener or some hurrying member of Morse's little army. But nobody stopped me or interfered with me. For the first time since my captivity I was perfectly free.

"To cut a long story short, Sir Thomas, I came to a rectangle in the great encircling wall, which at that point was thirty feet high. The parapet at the top was obviously being repaired, for there was a ladder right up, pails of mortar, bricklayers' tools, and a coil of rope for binding scaffolding. I nipped up the ladder, carrying the rope after me, fixed it at the top, slid down easily enough, and in a quarter of an hour was in Richmond station. I didn't dare to go back to my old rooms because I was sure there would be a secret hue and cry after me. I thought of my old friend, Mr. Sliddim, traveled to Whitechapel with my last pence, and here I am."

"Still a member of my staff?"

"If you please, Sir Thomas."

"Ready for anything?"

"Anything and everything."

"Then come with me to Piccadilly—if they look for you there again we shall be prepared."

CHAPTER SEVEN

I have to tell of a brief interlude before I got to work in earnest.

The very day after the rediscovery of Rolston I fell ill. The strain had been too much, a severe nervous attack was the result, and my vet. ordered me to the quietest watering-place in Brittany that I could find. I protested, but in vain. The big man told me what would happen if I didn't go, so I went, faute-de-mieux, and took Rolston with me.

I acquainted Arthur Winstanley and Pat Moore of my movements by letter, and I engaged the seedy Mr. Sliddim to abide permanently in Richmond and to forward me a full report of all he observed, and of all rumors, connected with the City in the Clouds. When I had subscribed to a press-cutting agency to send me everything that appeared in print relating to Gideon Morse and his fantastic home, I felt I had done everything possible until I should be restored to health.

Of my month in Pont Aven I shall say nothing save that I lived on fine Breton fare, walked ten miles a day, left Rolston—who proved the most interesting and stimulating companion a man could have—to answer all my letters, and went to bed at nine o'clock at night.

Heartache, fear for Juanita, occasional fits of fury at my own inaction and impotence? Yes, all these were with me at times. But I crushed them down, forced myself to think as little as possible of her, in order that when once restored to health and full command of my nerves, I might begin the campaign I had planned. You must picture me therefore, one afternoon at the end of October, arriving from Paris by the five o'clock train, dispatching Rolston to Piccadilly with the luggage, and driving myself to Captain Moore's quarters at Knightsbridge Barracks.

I had summoned a meeting of our league, which we had so fancifully named "Santa Hermandad"—a fact that was to have future consequences which none of us ever dreamed of—by telegram from Paris.

Pat and Arthur were awaiting me in the former's comfortable sitting-room. A warm fire burned on the hearth as we sat down to tea and anchovy toast.

I had been in more or less frequent communication with both of them during my sick leave, and when we began to discuss the situation we dispensed with preliminaries.

It was Pat who, so to speak, took the chair, leaning against an old Welsh sideboard of oak, crowded with polo and shooting cups, shields for swordsmanship and other trophies.

"Now, you two," he said, "we know certain facts, and we have arrived at certain conclusions.

"First of all, as to the facts. Miss Morse is as good as engaged to Tom here. Arthur and I are 'also ran.' Fact number one. Fact number two, she has been suddenly and forcibly taken away from the world, and is in great distress of mind. That so, brother leaguers?"

We murmured assent.

"Now for our deductions. Morse, divil take him! has some deadly important reason for this fantastic, spectacular show of his. The public see it as the fancy of a chap who's so much money he don't know what to do with it, a fellow that's exhausted all sensation and is now trying for a new one. Let 'em think so! But we know—here in this room—a long sight more than the general public knows. Tom and that young fly-by-night, with the red hair and the stained-glass-window ears, he's been cartin' about with him, have got behind the scenes."

Pat's face hardened.

"We alone are certain that the man Morse, for all his equanimity and the mask he has presented to London during the season, has been living under the influence of some dirty, cowardly fear or other!"

Arthur interrupted.

"Fear, if you like, Pat, but I don't think it is probably dirty, or even cowardly. You forget Miss Morse."

"Perhaps you're right. At any rate, if Gideon Morse is really menaced by some great danger, what cleverer trick could he have played? To let the world suppose that it's his whim and fancy to live like a rook at the top of an elm tree, when all the time he's providing against the possibility of annihilation, that's a stroke of genius."

"Good for you, Pat," said Arthur with a wink to me, "you're on the track of it."

"Indeed, and I think I am," said the big guardsman simply, "and here's the cunning of it, the supreme sense of self-preservation. If that man Morse is in fear of his life, and in fear for his daughter's too, he couldn't have invented a more perfect security than he has done. From all we know, from all Tom has told us, no one can get at them now but an archangel!"

Then Arthur spoke.

"For my part," he said, "as I'm vowed to the service, I'm going straight to Brazil and I'm going to find out everything I can about the past life of Gideon Morse. I speak Spanish as you know. I think I'm fairly diplomatic, and in a little more than a couple of months I'll return with big news, if I'm not very much mistaken. And there's always the cable too. We are pledged to Tom, but beyond that we're united together to save the little lady from evil or from harm. To-morrow I sail for Rio."

"And I," I said, "have already made my plans. To-morrow I disappear absolutely from ordinary life. Only two people in London will know where I am, and what I am doing—Preston, my servant in Piccadilly, and one other whom I shall appoint at the offices of my paper. While Arthur is gathering information which will be of the greatest use, I must be working on the spot. I imagine there isn't much time to lose."

"And what'll I do?" asked Pat Moore.

"You, Pat, will stay here, lead your ordinary life, and hold yourself ready for anything and everything when I call upon you. And as far as I can see," I concluded, "there will be a very pressing necessity for your help before much more water has flowed under Richmond Bridge."

There was an end of talking; we were all in deadly earnest. We grasped hands, arranged a system of communication, and then I and Arthur went down the stone steps, across the parade ground, and said good-by at Hyde Park corner.

"You—?" he said.

"You will see in the papers that Sir Thomas Kirby is gone for a voyage round the world."

"And as a matter of fact?"

"I think I won't give you any details, old man. My plan is a very odd one indeed. You wouldn't quite understand, and you'd think it extraordinary—as indeed it is."

"It can't be more fantastic than the whole bitter business," he said, and his voice was full of pain.

I saw, for the first time, that he had grown older in the last few months. The boyishness in him which had been one of his charms, was passing away definitely and forever. He was hard hit, as we all were, and I reproached myself for my egotism. After all, if there was any hope at all, I was the most fortunate. Arthur and staunch old Pat Moore were giving up their time, their energies, to bring about a conclusion from which I alone should benefit.

We were crossing the Green Park as this was borne in upon me. It was a dull, gray afternoon, rapidly deadening into evening. There seemed no color anywhere. But when I thought of the faithful, uncomplaining, even joyous adherence to our oath, when I understood for the first time how these two friends of mine were laboring without hope of reward, then I saw, as in a vision, the wonder and sacredness of unselfish love.

"Arthur," I said, as we were about to part at Hyde Park corner, "God forgive me, but I believe your love for her is greater than mine."

"Don't say that, Tom. When we threw the dice, if the Queen had come to me you would be doing what I am doing now, or what Pat is ready to do."

Well, of course, that was true, but when we gripped hands and turned our backs upon each other, I walked slowly towards my flat with a hanging head.

For one brief moment I had caught a glimpse of that love which Dante speaks of—that love "which moves earth and all the stars"—and in the presence of so high a thing I was bowed and humbled.

Let me also be worthy of such company, was my prayer.

At ten o'clock the next morning I stood in my bedroom with Preston in attendance. Preston's face, usually a well-bred mask which showed nothing of his feelings, was gravely distressed.

"Shall I do, Preston?" I asked.

"Yes, Sir Thomas, you'll do," he said regretfully, "but I must say, Sir Thomas, that—"

"Shut up, Preston, you've said quite enough. Am I the real thing or not?"

"Certainly not, Sir Thomas," he said with spirit. "How could you be the real thing? But I'm bound to say you look it."

"You mean that your experience of a small but prosperous suburban public-house, visited principally by small tradespeople, leads you to suppose that I might pass very well for the landlord of such a place?"

"I am afraid it does, Sir Thomas," he replied with a gulp, as I surveyed myself once more in the long mirror of my wardrobe door.

I was about six feet high in my boots, fair, with a ruddy countenance and somewhat fleshy face—not gross I believe, but generally built upon a generous scale.

That morning I had shaved off my mustache, had my hair arranged in a new way—that is to say, with an oily curl draping over the forehead—and I had very carefully penciled some minute crimson veins upon my nose. I ought to say that I have done a good deal of amateur acting in my time and am more or less familiar with the contents of the make-up box.

[Note.—My master, Sir Thomas Kirby, has long been known as one of the handsomest gentlemen in society. He has a full face certainly, but entirely suited to his build and physical development. Of course, when he shaved off a mustache that was a model of such adornments, it did alter his appearance considerably.—Henry Preston.]

Instead of the high collar of use and wont, I wore a low one, permanently attached to what I believe is known as a "dicky"—that is to say, a false shirt front which reaches but little lower than the opening of the waistcoat. My tie was a made-up four-in-hand of crimson satin—not too new, my suit of very serviceable check with large side-pockets, purchased second-hand, together with other oddments, from a shop in Covent Garden. I also wore a large and massive gold watch-chain, and a diamond ring upon the little finger of my right hand.

That was all, yet I swear not one of my friends would have known me, and what was more important still, I was typical without having overdone it. No one in London, meeting me in the street, would have turned to look twice at me. You could not say I was really disguised—in the true meaning of the word—and yet I was certainly entirely transformed, and with my cropped hair, except for the "quiff" in front, I looked as blatant and genial a bounder as ever served a pint of "sixes."

Preston had left the room for a moment and now came back to say that Mr. W. W. Power had arrived.

W. W. Power was the youngest partner in a celebrated firm of solicitors, Power, Davids and Power—a firm that has acted for my father and myself for more years than I can remember.

Under his somewhat effeminate exterior and a languid manner, young Power is one of the sharpest and cleverest fellows I know, and, what's more, one that can keep his mouth shut under any circumstances.

I went into the dining-room, hoping to make him start. Not a bit of it. He merely put up his eyeglass and said laconically: "You'll do, Sir Thomas"—not more than two years ago he had been an under-graduate at Cambridge!

"You think so, Power?"

He nodded and looked at his watch.

"All right then, we'll be off," I said, and Preston called a taxi, on which were piled a large brass-bound trunk and a shabby portmanteau—also recent purchases, and with the name H. Thomas painted boldly upon them. Preston's Christian name by the way is Henry and I had borrowed it for the occasion.

I got into the cab with a curious sensation that some one might be looking on and discover me. Power seated himself by my side with no indication of thought at all, and we rolled away westward.

"Nothing remains," he said, "but to complete the documents of sale. Everything is ready, and I have the money in notes in my pocket. The solicitor of the retiring proprietor will be in attendance, and the whole thing won't take more than twenty minutes. Newby, the present man, will then step out and leave you in undisturbed possession."

"Very good, Power, and thank you for your negotiations. Seven thousand pounds seems a lot of money for a little hole like that."

"It isn't really. You see the place is freehold and the house is free also. It's not under the dominion of any brewer, and when your purpose in being there is over, I'll guarantee to sell it again for the same money, probably a few hundreds more. As an investment it's sound enough."

He relapsed into silence and we rattled through Hammersmith on our way to Richmond. I was curious about this imperturbable young man, whom I knew rather well.

"Aren't you curious, Power," I said, "to know why I'm doing this extraordinary, unprecedented thing? I can trust you absolutely I know, but haven't you asked yourself what the deuce I'm up to?"

He favored me with a pale smile.

"My dear Sir Thomas," he replied, "if you only knew what extraordinary things society people do do, if you knew a tenth of what a solicitor in my sort of practice knows, you wouldn't think there was anything particularly strange in your little freak."

Confound the cub! I could have punched him in the jaw. I knew his assurance was all pose. Still it was admirable in its way and I burst into hearty laughter.

I had the satisfaction of seeing Master Power's cheeks faintly tinged with pink!

On the slope of the hill, at what one might describe as the back of the high wall which inclosed the grounds at the foot of the three towers—that is to say, it was exactly opposite the great central entrance, and I suppose nearly quarter of a mile from it if one drew a straight line from one to the other—was a crowded huddle of mean streets. It was not in any sense a slum—nothing so picturesque—small, drab, shabby, and respectable. In the center of this area was a fair-sized, but old-fashioned, public-house, known as the "Golden Swan." This was our destination, and in a few minutes more we had climbed the hill and the taxi stood at rest before a side door.

Opening it we entered, Power leading the way, and as we approached some stairs I caught a glimpse of a little plush-furnished bar to the left, where I could have sworn I saw the melancholy Sliddim in company with a pewter pot.

We waited for a moment or two in a long upstairs room. The walls were covered with beasts, birds, and fishes, in glass cases, all of which looked as if they ought to be decently buried. Upon one wall was an immense engraving framed in boxwood of the execution of Mary, Queen of Scots, and upon a huge mahogany sideboard which looked as if it had been built to resist a cavalry charge, was a tray with hospitable bottles.

Then the door opened and a dapper little man with side whiskers, the vendor's solicitor, came in, accompanied by Mr. Newby, the retiring landlord himself.

Mr. Newby, dressed I was glad to notice, very much as myself, only the diamond ring upon his finger was rather larger, was a short, fat man of benevolent aspect, and I should say suffering from dropsy. We shook hands heartily.

"Thirty years have I been landlord here," wheezed Mr. Newby, "and now it's time the 'ouse was in younger 'ands. Your respectability 'as been vouched for, Mr. Thomas—I wouldn't sell to no low blackguard for twice the money—and all I can say is, young feller, for you are a young feller to me, you know—I 'ope you'll be as 'appy and prosperous in the 'Golden Swan' as Emanuel Newby 'ave been."

I thought it was best to be a little awkward and bashful, so I said very little while the lawyers fussed about with title deeds, and at last the eventful moment came when one does that conjuring trick in which the gentlemen of the law take such infantile delight. "Put your finger here, yes, on this red seal and say...."

When it was all done and Mr. Newby had stowed away seven thousand pounds in bank-notes in a receptacle over his heart, we drank to the occasion in some remarkably good champagne and then, with a sigh, the ex-proprietor announced his intention of being off.

"My luggage has preceded me," he said, "and I have nothing to do now but retire, as I 'ave long planned, to the city of my birth."

"And where may that be, Mr. Newby?" I asked politely.

"The University City of Oxford," he replied, "which, if you've not known intimate as I 'ave, you can never begin to understand. There's an atmosphere there, Mr. Thomas, but Lord, you won't be interested!" and he wheezed superior.

The situation was not without humor.

When he had gone, together with his solicitor, Power rang the bell.

"As you wish me to manage everything for you," he said, "I have done so. Your entire ignorance of the liquor trade will be compensated by the knowledge and devotion of the assistant I have procured for you, after many inquiries. His name is Whistlecraft, and he is an Honest Fool. He won't rob you, though he'll probably diminish your profits greatly by his stupidity—but as I understand, profit from the sale of drinks isn't your object. He will obey orders implicitly, without even trying to understand their reason, and in short you couldn't have a better man for your purpose."

When Whistlecraft appeared I perfectly agreed with Power. He was a powerful fellow in shirt sleeves, aged about thirty-five, with arms that could have felled an ox. Had he shaved within the last three days he would have been clean shaved, and his hair was polished to a mirror-like surface with suet—I caught him doing it one day. I never saw such calm on any human face. It was the tranquillity of an entire absence of intellect, a rich and perfect stupidity which nothing could penetrate, nothing disturb. His eyes were dull as unclean pewter, without life or speculation, and I knew at once that if I told him to go down into the cellar, wait there till a hyena entered, strangle it, skin it, and bring the pelt upstairs to me, he would depart upon his errand without a word!

Power went away with the most conventional of handshakes—we might have been parting in Pall Mall—and I was left alone, monarch of all I surveyed.

"What's the staff beside you, Whistlecraft?" I asked.

"Mrs. Abbs, sir, cooks and sweeps up, sleeps out. Peter, the odd-job boy, washes bottles and such, and that's all."

"Then at closing time, you and I are left alone in the house?"

"Yes, sir."

There was a loud and impatient knocking from somewhere below.

"I'd better go and serve, sir, hadn't I?" said Whistlecraft—I found later his name was Stanley—and I let him go at that.

I spent the next hour going over the premises from cellar to roof and making many mental notes, for I had come here with a definite purpose, and plans already made.

It was an extraordinary situation to be in. I sat in a little private room behind the bar and every now and again Stanley's idiot countenance appeared, and I had to go behind the counter and be introduced to this or that regular frequenter. I asked every one to have a drink, for the good of the house, and trust I made a fair impression. They all seemed quiet, respectable people enough, who knew each other well.

In the evening I was greatly helped by Sliddim, who was now a seasoned habitué of the "Golden Swan," and whom from the moment of my arrival slipped into the position of Master of the Ceremonies, which saved me a great deal of trouble.

It will be remembered that all the time that I was in Brittany, Sliddim had been employed in my interests at Richmond. Bill Rolston vouched absolutely for the man's fidelity: had told me I could safely trust him in any way. Accordingly, there was perhaps a little misgiving, I had released him from his employment at the third-class detective agency where he worked, and took him permanently into my service. I may say at once, though he took no prominent part in the great events which followed until the very end, he was of considerable use to me and kept my secrets perfectly.

At closing time that night, Mrs. Abbs, the cook, having spread a hot supper in the private room behind the bar and left, I called the potman in from his washing-up of glass and bade him share the meal.

"Now I tell you what, Stanley," I said, when we had filled our pipes, "in the tower inclosure there's a whole colony of Chinks, isn't there?"

"Yes, sir; gardeners, stokers for the engines and such like. They say as there isn't a white man among 'em, except only the boss, and he's an Irishman."

"They don't always live inside that wall?" I jerked my head towards a window which looked out into my back yard, not a hundred feet away from the towering precipice of brick which overshadowed the "Golden Swan," and the surrounding houses.

"Oh, not by no means. They comes out when their work's done in the evenings, though they goes back to sleep and has to be in by a certain time. They do say," and here something happened to Stanley's face which I afterwards grew to recognize as a smile, "they do say as some of the girls downtown are takin' up with 'em, seein' as they dress well, and spend a lot of money."

"I suppose they have somewhere where they go?"

"It's mostly the 'Rising Sun' down by the station, I am told. The boss there was a sailor and understands their ways. He's given them a room to themselves."

I was perfectly aware of all this, but I had a special motive for the present conversation.

"Now, it's come into my mind," I said, "that there's a lot of custom going downtown that ought by rights to come to the 'Golden Swan,' seeing that we are close at the gates, so to speak, and I mean to do what I can to get hold of it. A Chink's money is as good as anybody else's, Stanley, that's my way of looking at it."

He chewed the cud of that idea for a minute or two and then it dawned in the pudding of his mind.

"Why, yes," he said, in the voice of one who had made a great discovery.

"Now, there's that room upstairs," I went on, "I shall never use it. If we could get some of these Chinks to drop in there of a night it would be good business."

"There's just one thing against it," said Stanley, "if you'll pardon my speaking of it, sir. I'm willing to do everything in reason, and I'm not afraid of work. But I don't see as 'ow I can attend to both the saloon and the four-ale bars if I'm to be going upstairs slinging drinks to the Chinks."

"Of course you can't and I wasn't going to suggest it. We must get an extra help—if we can get the Chinks to use the house. We might have a barmaid."

He shook his head.

"It wouldn't work, sir; you'd have to get a new one every week. A young woman can't resist a Chink and they'd marry off like—"

Stanley was unable to think of a simile so he buried his face in his pewter pot.

Really things were going very well for me.

"I believe you are right. Supposing I could get a young fellow who was one of themselves and could speak their lingo. There are lots to be picked up about the docks. I mean some quiet young Chink, who would attend to his fellow-countrymen in the evening, and relieve you of a lot of the washing-up and things of that sort during the day?"

Mr. Stanley Whistlecraft was not so stupid as to miss the advantages of such a proposal as this.

"You've 'it on the very plan, sir," he said, "and especial if he could wash up them thin glasses which the gentlemen in the saloon bar like to 'ave, it would be a great saving. I never could 'andle them things properly. You put your fingers on 'em and they crack worse than eggs. Pewters, I can polish with any man alive, pot mugs seldom break, as likewise them thick reputed half-pints which will break a man's 'ed open, as I've proved. But these Chinks are as 'andy as any girl, and I think, sir, you've got 'old of an idea."

"I'll see about it in the morning. I've got a pal that has a nice little house in the Mile End Road, and I believe he could send me just the lad I want. Well, now you can go to bed, Stanley. Everything locked up?"

"Yes, sir."

"Then I'll put out the lights."

He bade me a gruff good-night and lurched heavily away. I heard him ascending the stairs to his room at the back of the house and then I was left alone.

The first thing I did was to turn down the sleeves of my shirt and put on my coat. It isn't etiquette to sup in your coat, I had gathered from Mr. Whistlecraft's custom when he accepted my invitation.

Then I unlocked a drawer in which was a box of cigars such as the "Golden Swan" had never known, and stretching out my legs, stared into the fire.

I was doing the wildest, maddest thing, but so far all had gone well. I was, as it were, a solitary swimmer in deep and dangerous waters, on the threshold of experiences which I knew instinctively would transcend all those of ordinary life. I was perfectly certain, something in my inmost soul told me, that I was about to step into unknown perils, and to contend with bizarre and sinister forces of which I had no means of measuring the power or extent.

I don't mind admitting that on that first night in the "Golden Swan," fate weighed heavily on me and I thought I heard the muffled laughter of malignant things.

However, I was in for it now. I finished my cigar, went into the bar and selected a certain bottle of whisky—the excellent Stanley had warned me that this was the landlord's bottle and of a much more reputable quality than that served to the landlord's guests. After a very moderate "nightcap" I put on carpet slippers and went up to my room, which I had chosen at the very top of the house. It was a large attic, just under the roof, and in a few days I proposed to make it more habitable with some new furniture and decoration. Meanwhile, I had chosen it because, in one corner, some wooden steps went up to a trap-door which opened on to the roof, where there was a flat space of some three yards square among the chimneys. Just before going up to bed I turned up the collar of my dressing-gown, ascended the ladder, pushed open the trap-door and stepped out on to the leads.

It was a still, moonlight night. Looking over the roofs of the houses I could see the Thames winding like a silver ribbon far down below, a scene of utter tranquillity and peace.

Then I wheeled round to be confronted with the great black wall which rose several yards above me, within a pistol shot of distance.

But my eye traveled up beyond that and was caught in a colossal network of steel, so bold, towering and gigantic in its nearness that it almost made me reel. I stared up among the dark shadows and moonlit spaces till my eye reached an altitude which I knew to be about the height of the Golden Ball on the top of Saint Paul's Cathedral.

There the vision checked. I could see a blur of low buildings, a web of latticed galleries, and I knew that I was looking only up at the very first stage of the City in the Clouds, which must be lying bare to the moon some sixteen hundred feet above.

I could see no more. The first stage barred all further vision, though that in itself seemed terrible in its height and majesty. So I closed my eyes and imagined only those supreme heights where she must be sleeping.

"Good-night, Juanita," I murmured, and then, as I descended into my room the words of the Psalmist came to me and I said, "Oh, that I had the wings of a dove!"

CHAPTER EIGHT

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 shall not be 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?"